By Gio DiFazio

Google Jackman. Up until a couple weeks ago, if you were to do this, your search results would turn up the 49-year-old actor famous for starring in the 2017 blockbuster “Logan.”
Today, if you were to do the same thing, the top result would be a small town in Maine. Tom Kawczynski has brought a media frenzy upon the small town of about 850 residents within the past week or so. The connection snapped into my head, but it’s not his fault his name sounds nearly identical to the Unabomber’s.

After being hired to manage the town, which is located 20 minutes away from the Canadian border, a duo of Maine journalists connected Kawczynski to a group he founded, whose stated purpose is to “Defend the people and culture of New England.” That group is called New Albion, and has hateful views of minority members of the Maine community.

The Bangor Daily News conducted an interview with the ex-town manager himself. Kawczynski: “We are pro-white without being anti-other groups in terms of their racial identity. But we oppose the idea of bringing people in from the outside that come from different cultures.”

Not only will the town of Jackman face the burden of being the butt of many jokes for eternity, but taxpayers will help cut a $30,000 check to Kawczynski so that he does not take legal action against the town. Maybe this will end up helping Kawczynski’s cause more than it hurts it? Imagine, a white-supremacist group, funded with taxpayer money.

Not to mention, his dreams won’t die. The hateful and nasty perception of minorities living in Maine and America is something that his family will carry on.

Traveling outside of Portland, it’s easy to see the lack of diversity found within the whitest state in the Union. The small towns in Maine have an uphill battle in becoming more progressive, understanding communities, and events like this set us back to the stone age.

How did Kawczynski slip through the cracks in the hiring process? Can the officials that hired him be excused for such a mistake? Kawczynski, posting under his real name, has been promoting his horrible ideology on the website Gab since long before he was hired.

Gab is a sort of right-wing Twitter clone. Wikipedia defines it as “an Austin, Texas-based social networking service created as an alternative to social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. It allows its users to read and write messages of up to 300 characters, called ‘gabs’ … Gab describes its mission as putting ‘people and free speech first’ but has been criticised as a social-media platform exclusively for the alt-right and white nationalists.” One can call it a right-wing echo chamber, another can call it a place for white supremacists to freely exchange thoughts. But there is one thing true about the site. The mere presence of a public official maintaining a page on such a website should raise serious red flags.

Just last week, Kawczynski wrote on his Gab page, “I want to thank everyone supporting me as I take on the entire media establishment to defend freedom of speech, demand legal equality and white civil rights, and the right to make judgments about what values we want to support.”

Some of his posts are unintentionally humorous, like, “I have a very good black friend who called me today to talk about the situation. …” Dave Chappelle brought us Clayton Bigsby, the blind African-American white supremacist. Is that who Tom Kawczynski is referring to?

All kidding aside, Tom Kawczynski, you suck. It doesn’t matter where you go. Just leave. There are surely communities that welcome you and your views. Move to Leith, North Dakota. Start a tiki-torch community. Have a tiki-torch party. Just go away.