A leader in the burgeoning Patriot Party said the movement needs support from the public and would welcome backing from former President Donald Trump.
Trump has reportedly floated starting a third party revolving around the idea of patriots, or dedicated Americans. The Patriot Party already exists, though its efforts are in the early stages.
“We’ve just been moving collectively as a group online for the last several months to talk about what this movement even looks like, what it would look like to have a valid third party and viable candidate that have conservative constitutional values,” William Johnson, chair of the Idaho Patriot Party political action committee (PAC), told The Epoch Times.
There is no national Patriot Party. Johnson is working with Patriot Party PACs in other states to build a movement that could eventually become a national party, like the Republican National Committee. In order to be recognized by the Federal Election Commission, a party has to have a certain number of people who have run and won under their banner. That’s the stage the party is at now.
Johnson and others are working on finding candidates to run for various offices, including in mayoral races and for city council positions. The movement is backing David Richter in the New Jersey gubernatorial race and Mindy Robinson in a bid for a House seat representing Nevada.
Robinson told The Epoch Times via email that starting the Patriot Party PAC in Nevada was “in response to what I realized was a crooked, incompetent, gutless GOP.”
“It’s a return to the Constitution and the restoration [of] the personal freedom and rights of ALL Americans. The establishment is never going to push for term limits, pay cuts, or less power for themselves... but the people will,” she said, adding that she hopes to see “honest conservatives” hold offices at the city, state, and federal levels “to reclaim a government that has forsaken its people.”
“All of us that are working on this would welcome any support from former GOP or former Dems, quite honestly, because I think that both parties have gone extreme left and extreme right,” Johnson said.
While no Patriot Party organizers have been in touch with Trump or his team, “we'd be foolish not to welcome support from people that have gone and won campaigns and served this nation well,” he added.
Johnson, Robinson, and others involved in the movement are planning on attending the Conservative Political Action Conference 2021 to try to network with prominent conservatives, in part to identify candidates that can run. Police officers, nurses, and firemen are among those Johnson would like to see run.
“We’ve had way too many decades of career politicians and not enough statesmen that have come out of the people that are just regular people,” he said. A patriot, he added, is “someone who’s willing to stand up for the values of their country.”
