A few weeks ago, I joined my fellow No Labels national leaders to announce our formal request that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate what we believe to be a coordinated, unlawful effort to intimidate No Labels and deny us the chance to offer our ballot line to a potential Unity ticket in the 2024 presidential election, giving the American people additional choices they so clearly want.
We did so knowing full well that some may question the validity of our claims. Yet if there were still any doubts that a concerted, organized conspiracy to undermine No Labels was taking place, yesterday in a Delaware courtroom those doubts were laid decisively to rest.
As reported by The Washington Post’sMichael Scherer – who previously covered our DOJ complaint – it was made clear that No Labels has faced a deliberate attack designed to mislead the public and damage our reputation. Led by Arizona political operative Charles Siler, a coordinated effort among other individuals and organizations was executed to implement a sophisticated campaign against No Labels by taking over the NoLabels.com domain and purchasing Google search ads to falsely associate our movement with former President Donald Trump and other far right-wing causes.
This effort included creating a mirror website that mimicked No Labels' official site in design but was populated with images of politicians and content completely contrary to No Labels' values and mission.
The evidence of their disgusting actions was undeniable. One presentation these political operatives assembled, which you can view in full here, gleefully described how the website would mimic ours while including “overt christo-nationalist dog whistles (eg. NL now has ballot access in 14 states with support in 88 counties).” See the explanation for the sick and twisted meaning of these coded numbers at the Anti-Defamation League’s website.
Elsewhere, they described a page where “we can really put the most f***** up SCOTUS decisions from the 1950's and earlier and herald them as a time of bipartisanship and unity, and talk about how great a future we could have with nominees picked by the shitbags at NL.”
In the face of such overwhelming and despicable evidence, it’s no surprise the court upheld the injunction keeping the sham No Labels website offline. This was a big victory for the American people. We will continue to pursue legal action against these malicious actors, who may have committed trademark infringement and cybersquatting violations.
Critics of No Labels have falsely claimed that we are acting as a de facto national political party. That is not true. But we do take exception to the extremists' actions and voter repressive tactics by both some Republicans and Democrats.
On one side, a guest speaker at the Republicans’ annual CPAC conference told attendees “Welcome to the end of democracy. We're here to overthrow it completely.”
On the other side, there is a concerted effort by Democratic insiders to quash any competition for Joe Biden. These self-anointed “defenders of democracy” have been scheming to deny ballot access and to block any alternative to a 2020 rematch. The same people claiming to care about Russian disinformation are taking a page straight from the playbook of Vladimir Putin by claiming we were a Nazi group. How shameful. Antisemitism and racism should have no place in America.
If the D.C. insiders pulling these stunts remain confused as to why Americans have so little faith in our democracy, they may want to look directly in the mirror.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
No Labels National Co-Chair
