ExtremismLedger
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Scott Presler

Overview

Scott Presler is a conservative political activist. ExtremismLedger documents him on the basis of his own public statements and organizing conduct during the "Stop the Steal" campaign following the 2020 presidential election -- a campaign built around the false claim that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump and organized activity aimed at preventing certification of its result (Editorial Policy §0, criterion 1's "election-denial activity organized around subverting a certified result"). This entry also documents, as background activity rather than as the basis for inclusion, his 2017 organizing role with ACT for America and reported past use of QAnon-associated hashtags. Ordinary conservative political activity -- including his current, separate voter-registration work -- is not treated as a basis for inclusion (Editorial Policy §0.1, §0 exclusions).

"Stop the Steal" organizing, November 2020 -- January 2021

Beginning shortly after the November 2020 election, Presler organized and led a series of "Stop the Steal"-branded demonstrations promoting the unsubstantiated claim that the election had been stolen. On November 5-7, 2020, he organized and led a multi-day demonstration on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, where he called for an "audit" of the state's results and attendees, including Presler, repeated a false claim of vote-count fraud in Michigan traced to a data-entry error in a small county. He subsequently participated in a pro-Trump demonstration in Washington, D.C. on November 14, 2020, and spoke at a "Stop the Steal" rally at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta on November 21, 2020 -- one day after Georgia had certified Joe Biden's win in the state.

In sworn testimony to the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, Stop the Steal's lead organizer, Ali Alexander, stated that the "influencers" who "made up" the Stop the Steal Coalition included Presler, alongside S. Brandon Straka, Michael Coudrey, C.J. Pearson, Alexander Bruesewitz, and Rose Tennent, describing them as large social-media accounts that amplified one another. Alexander separately testified that on November 4, 2020, he was on a call with Presler and Bruesewitz in which he offered to help them set up fundraising infrastructure for the emerging effort.

In his own posts on X (then Twitter) in early January 2021, Presler announced plans to travel to Georgia and then to Washington, D.C., writing that he would "join you on January 6th in DC at the Capitol" and telling congressional Republicans to "object or we will reject you" -- a direct call for Congress to reject the certified Electoral College count.

January 6, 2021

Presler attended the rally that preceded the Capitol attack and was present on or near the Capitol grounds that day. He posted video from the crowd and, in his own words on X, characterized the day as "the largest civil rights protest in American history." No evidence identified in the sources reviewed for this entry establishes that Presler entered the Capitol building itself, and this entry does not assert that he did.

ACT for America and the 2017 "March Against Sharia" (background)

In 2017, Presler served as an organizer for the anti-Muslim advocacy group ACT for America and was identified by ABC News and the Southern Poverty Law Center as the lead organizer of the nationwide "March Against Sharia" rallies held in dozens of U.S. cities on June 10, 2017. Presler told ABC News the rallies were intended to highlight specific acts he described as having been committed in the name of Sharia law, not to target Muslims broadly. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that the rallies drew participation from white nationalists and neo-Nazis, and that a planned Batesville, Arkansas event was being organized by self-described neo-Nazi Billy Roper; ACT for America stated it canceled that event and issued a public disclaimer once it learned of Roper's involvement. This entry documents Presler's own organizing role in the 2017 marches as background; it does not attribute Roper's or other participants' ideology to Presler, whose own public statements about the marches were framed around opposition to specific violent acts, not white nationalism.

Reported QAnon-related hashtag use

According to a 2021 analysis by Media Matters for America, independently reported by the Post-Star of Glens Falls, N.Y., Presler used the hashtags "QAnon" and "WWG1WGA" in dozens of his own Instagram posts in 2018 and 2019.

Current activity (non-qualifying)

Since January 2023, Presler has led Early Vote Action, which describes itself as organizing to register and mobilize Republican voters and encourage early voting, including 2024 outreach in Pennsylvania. This current work is ordinary partisan electoral organizing and is documented here only as background; it is not, on its own or in combination with his other current advocacy, a basis for this entry.

Sources