DISCLAIMER: The other businesses included in the newspaper with Ryan J. Murdough’s book ad burning have NO AFFILIATION with Murdough or the New England White Network Griffin’s Auto in Caribou, Maine is NOT where the book burning will be taking place, as Caribou is in Aroostook County, and the book burning will be in Androscoggin County.
I strongly urge every advertiser and business that sells/distributes the Fort Fairfield Journal to cut ties with them if they don’t want to be associated with Nazi sympathizers.
I wrote an article about the Fort Fairfield Journal running a book burning advertisement that is being hosted by a known neo-Nazi named Ryan J. Murdough, and it’s gained some traction online. A rightfully concerned citizen reached out discussing their disturbance with the fact that the journal is promoting Murdough and his heinous views. The editor and publisher of the journal, David Deschesne, decided to respond. [archive].
He starts it off with this:
While I do not agree with book burning because it will never bring your adversary over to your side, and do not consider myself a ‘neo-Nazi’ because there are too many pieces of that ideology I don’t agree with, I do support free speech. I ran his ad because I support free speech and, as far as I know, nothing he is promoting is illegal. That’s what free speech looks like; even if we don’t always agree with it. If I did not run his ad, then I would be a hypocrite.
Even though Nazism and fascism at large are ideologies that are predicated upon lies, falsehoods, and violence, I understand that the first amendment protects the rights of people who are in favor of these ideas. I recognize that Nazis have free speech that is protected by the first amendment, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to promote a book burning. Protecting speech that you don’t agree with is not the same as promoting it. In Deschesne’s case, he’s going out of his way to promote fascism.
He goes on to talk about how if he turned Murdough’s advertisement away, then it would be the same as engaging in a book burning. “It would be prohibiting information to be accessible to the general public for their consideration,” Deschesne writes. “There’s not a lot of philosophical distance between burning a book and denying an ad to be published in a local newspaper.”
He explains how Murdough will be burning pro-LGBTQ books, and complains about how much of a “personal misfortune” it is to deal with transgender people.
…historically the worst people I’ve had the personal misfortune to deal with are the transgender crowd who I’ve experienced to be very loud, disrespectful and hateful bullies toward anyone who disagrees with them. They fail to understand that’s no way to successfully bring people over to their side.
He ends the paragraph by talking about the “mob” on Facebook who isn’t treating him so well, but defends their right to do so.
I will not allow a mob of vociferous bullies to dissuade me from defending another person’s freedom of speech — even if it’s speech I don’t agree with — for to do so will allow those bullies to be in control and after studying other societies like that in history, I can think of nothing more heinous and horrific than that.
He describes this mob to be “vociferous bullies,” and says that he won’t let them “dissuade [him] from defending another person’s freedom of speech,” or in this case, promoting Nazism.
David Deschesne is promoting these bullies, and Ryan J. Murdough is a notorious one, who threatened Mohammed Albehadli, a Maine DEI coordinator resulting in his resignation and him leaving the state since he feared for him and his family’s safety. Because of Murdough’s harassment, he received a no-trespass notice and was barred from stepping foot on South Portland school property for a year.
This is the email that he sent.
And here are the papers that he got served.
When Murdough was harassing Charlotte DiLorenzo, the Democratic member of New Hampshire’s 10th district, he told her that “blacks should be governing blacks and Whites should be governing Whites. Blacks and Whites weren’t meant to coexist in the same nation and it’s getting more and more ridiculous to ignore this any longer,” which he also said in a post on his Gab profile doxxing her.
If Desechesne cared about bullies being in power, then he wouldn’t be promoting a neo-Nazi bully and his book burnings.
Murdough made a post on Twitter calling the Fort Fairfield Journal “the most pro-White newspaper.” The last part of Deschesne’s response talks about how his newspaper is “pro-people,” and says that he’s “color-blind” when it comes to skin color, which he says separates him from Nazi ideology.
He says that he doesn’t support Nazi groups (which Murdough has created several, to varying levels of success), but defends their right to free speech. And if Deschesne really judged people by behavior and merit, then he wouldn’t be promoting groups, people, and ideas that do the exact opposite.
After I wrote the article about Murdough’s book burning, I received a little bit of backlash from Murdough himself.
On Murdough’s Twitter account, he has a link to my article in a pinned post, calling me an enemy for opposing Nazism. And if there’s one thing that I know, if Nazis hate you, you’re doing something right.
He made the same post on Gab, tagging all of his Nazi friends. One of the commenters notes that I called him “prolific,” which I think would be giving him too much credit. From now on, I’ll use “cowardly.” And another commenter, of course, praises Hitler.
Murdough also made a post on Gab that links to a Reddit post about his book burning, complaining about how “Anti-White degenerates in Maine are pressuring businesses into dropping their ads” because of his Nazi activity. Murdough claims that he’s in favor of free speech, but wants to “destroy everything that is anti-White.”
Over these past few years, white supremacy has been clawing itself back into the spotlight of American politics, but Mainers won’t stand for it. Nazis like Ryan J. Murdough aren’t just unwelcome here, but they are quite literally a threat to the citizens of Maine, and ought to be treated like one. Ryan Murdough isn’t allowed to step foot on South Portland school property because he’s a threat, that should tell you everything you need to know, and he even says that the only thing that’s stopping him from rounding up Black people is law enforcement.
And people like David Deschesne who promote Nazis deserve to be called out as well and should be fully held accountable. Promoting views like this isn’t a matter of having a “controversial opinion;” Deschesne makes it seem like he had to promote Murdough’s book burning, but he really didn’t have to.
This was not a mistake of Deschesne’s part, this was a deliberate embrace of hatred. It shows the world that he’s okay with Nazism, and he’ll go so far as running ads for them.
Fascism isn’t an ideology that should be tolerated, it’s one that ought to be destroyed. These are not conservatives that I disagree with, but still have respect for at the end of the day. These are hateful bigots with destructive ideas that earn not an ounce of respect from anyone who considers themselves a half-decent person.
There’s absolutely no place for hate in Maine. And if they think that they can run around and spread their Hitler particles all over New England without any resistance, they are severely mistaken.