The Nebraska Freedom Coalition (NFC) brought the third year of their annual Freedom Fest event to Nebraska’s third district over the weekend, hosting a slate of speakers and musical performances at the Valley County Fairgrounds in Ord, Neb. Previous Freedom Fest events had been closer to the Omaha metro area in Springfield and in Ashland, but apparent interest in the third district brought this year’s event out west. The event drew over 200 guests, many making a three-hour trip from Omaha to attend.
The Nebraska Freedom Coalition has been at the forefront of a current civil war within the Nebraska Republican Party, with battle lines drawn between urban establishment politicians like Pete Ricketts and rural Nebraskans feeling shut out of the political process. During the raucous state convention in 2022, one person was quoted by the NFC as saying, “The old farmers are here to fight.” It was at this state convention where delegates Matt Innis and Fanchon Blythe were refused entry. Both Innis and Blythe appeared at this year’s Freedom Fest.
This year’s keynote speaker was Dr. James Lindsay, an American author and cultural critic known for participating in the “grievance studies affair,” with Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose. “We embarrassed the academy and published a bunch of fake academic articles that showed that the peer review systems are a lie,” Lindsay said.
Lindsay’s talk focused on cultural Marxism in China and how it is being implemented in a similar war in the United States, using race and sexual identity as a proxy for economic classes. “It’s really hard to change your skin color, which they make you feel bad about relentlessly. They drill it into you about your history,” Lindsay said. “But it’s not that hard to become an ally … and if you say that you are ‘radically queer,’ nobody can question you. And you are in the rainbow guard, that’s just like Mao’s Red guard that he Unleashed as a youth Rebellion against China in order to get his power.”
Other speakers included Kelly John Walker, who hosts a podcast with Nick Nittoli called Freedom Talk. He spoke about his struggles running a coffee shop during Covid and some of the political persecution that came in its aftermath. Also appearing was Kevin Posobiec, the brother of Jack Posobiec who appeared at an NFC event in 2022. The evening closed with musical performances by rap artist DVS 7.0 and local country band, The James Lee Band.
