Allen West, the chair of the Texas Republican party who branded the party with a QAnon-sounding slogan, announced his resignation suddenly on Friday.
“Lt. Col. Allen West will take this opportunity to prayerfully reflect on a new chapter in his already distinguished career,” read a release from the party. “We know that wherever he goes next, he will continue to be a bulwark against progressive socialism and a champion for the principles of Texas and our American Republic.”
He will remain at the helm of the party until July 11th when a new chair will be chosen, the release added.
West took over the chairmanship about a year ago, after making his political name in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tea Party politics and inflammatory comments including calling former President Barack Obama a “low-level Socialist agitator” and accusing vast swaths of the Democratic party of being communists.
He approached the chairmanship in a similar way, giving the party a new motto using QAnon lingo — “we are the storm” — though he denied the connection. In QAnon verbiage, the storm is a last judgment-like event when Democrats and other celebrities will be exposed and punished for their supposed crimes as former President Donald Trump comes raring back into power.
West also winked at the “Texit” movement popular among his party’s hard right after President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, saying after the Supreme Court shot down an attempt to overturn the election results that “perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”
Most recently, West attended and spoke at the “For God & Country Patriots Roundup” in Dallas over the weekend, a conference star-studded with QAnon celebrities and other prominent MAGA-verse characters. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn made the most headlines from the event, after telling an audience member that a Myanmar-like coup “should happen” in the United States.
West told Newsmax that he didn’t endorse the comment, quickly pivoting to blame “the progressive, socialist left” for twisting Flynn’s words and ignoring the real coup: Democratic lawmakers in Texas executing a strategic walkout to kill a restrictive voting law package last weekend.
