Idahoans Rejected Mark Fitzpatrick’s Straight White Pride Festival
The Old State Saloon’s “Hetero Awesomeness Festival" flopped—and exposed how fake followers and fringe political organizations are misleading Idahoans.
Mark Fitzpatrick, the owner of the Old State Saloon in Eagle, Idaho, is no stranger to culture war marketing stunts. A former California police officer turned real estate agent and bar owner, Fitzpatrick has built a reputation around performative outrage packaged as patriotism. His events include “Beer for Breeders,” anti-vaccine Christian singles nights, and constitutional Bible study at the bar. But in June, Fitzpatrick escalated his campaign of provocation with what he called the “Heterosexual Awesomeness Festival.” Promoted as a celebration of traditional family values, the event functioned as a thinly veiled “Straight White Pride” rally—one that Fitzpatrick hoped would attract national attention, boost revenue at his bar, and solidify his standing in Idaho’s far-right political machine.
The event was heavily promoted on X (formerly Twitter) for months by fringe influencers and far-right online personalities. But despite the online hype, Idahoans quietly rejected the entire spectacle. Only a few dozen people showed up. The event featured militia-style attendees carrying rifles around children playing on bounce houses. At one point, a performer singing a pro-LGBTQ+ song was kicked off stage by Fitzpatrick himself.
During the festival, Fitzpatrick was broadcasting live on The Backlash podcast, hosted by Dave Reilly—a white supremacist with a long history of racist and antisemitic rhetoric. During the live broadcast, Reilly praised Boise for not having “any blacks,” an overtly racist statement suggesting that Black people make cities undesirable. Fitzpatrick sat beside him, and his grin grew wider as Reilly dropped that racist comment. He did not cut the feed, object, or distance himself during the event.
Reilly’s audience—openly antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ+, and steeped in white grievance politics—is the audience Fitzpatrick welcomes at his Old State Saloon.
Only after vendors started disavowing Reilly over his racism did Fitzpatrick attempt to distance himself from Reilly’s remark. He knows what Reilly is, and only when he got called out for it, did he make a disingenuous effort to distance himself.
The most disappointing part of the festival wasn’t the spectacle itself, but the people who chose to align with it. Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon, the Idaho Freedom Foundation (which had a booth at the event), and multiple IFF-aligned legislators all supported or promoted the festival. Some have regularly appeared at Old State Saloon events.
This is the same pattern seen with Ammon Bundy, an out-of-state agitator who came to Idaho to build a platform by sowing division and lies. The Idaho Freedom Foundation embraced Bundy when it suited them and dropped him when the lawsuits came. Fitzpatrick is following the same trajectory, and the IFF machine is once again complicit.
The failure of the “Straight White Pride” event is proof that X (Twitter) view engagement numbers do not reflect real-world support. Fitzpatrick and his allies banked on the amplification of X influencers to fill the park. But X is not real life. It is inflated by bots, anti-American foreign actors, and echo chambers that create the illusion of momentum.
Legislators who buy into this illusion are chasing ghosts. View counts do not equate to real people and the Old State Saloon’s failed festival just proved it.
Idahoans were smart enough to reject Mark Fitzpatrick’s hate-fueled grift by refusing to show up. Now it’s time to reject the straight white pride politicians who align themselves with these influencers, amplify their messages, and pretend to represent the people of Idaho. They don’t. They represent self-serving organizations like the IFF and their own ambition, hoping that you’ll ignore their bad behavior and re-elect them next year.
Read the follow-up deep dive article on this story here:
About the Author
Gregory Graf is the creator of Political Potatoes and a lifelong conservative Republican. His articles often criticize the hypocrisy committed by far-right grifters who’ve taken control of the Idaho GOP.
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Disclaimer
The following is intended to convey an opinion on newsworthy events of public concern regarding public figures and/or public officials in exercising their official duties. No implications or inferences—beyond those explicitly stated in the preceding— are intended to be conveyed or endorsed by the Author. Wherever available, hyperlinks have been provided to allow readers to directly access any underlying assertions of fact upon which this opinion is based.
Damn great Substack article Greg! “Everyone is Welcome Here”, but let’s have folks leave their bigotry behind…
Good. No time for hate