The Oregon GOP shares vibes with that wasted guy at the party shouting “WHICH ONE OF YOU COWARDS SHIT MY PANTS” while punching himself in the nuts repeatedly.
Which is, of course, to say that the Oregon GOP recently held their annual convention in Welches, Oregon…and it devolved into physical violence. Shocked face! But only after different factions of the party - a vanilla panoply of right-wing extremism and various strains of the MAGA cult - spent hours antagonizing each other.
I guess you could say it was a great time!
I asked ChatGPT to create a visual based on social media descriptions of the Oregon GOP 2025 Convention. Yes, the green shirt guy has one red sleeve. But how do we know this isn’t how things went down at the Oregon GOP Convention? Maybe we’ll never know - after all, what happens at the Mt. Hood Best Western, STAYS at the Mt. Hood Best Western.
What we know about this convention is largely based on social media posts of extremely thirsty Oregon MAGA influencers. That means there are deeply divergent descriptions of what happened. I certainly wasn’t there. I’m guessing you probably weren’t. And there’s been zero media coverage of this event.
With that caveat, let’s take a peek at the active dumpster fire that is the Oregon GOP.
The Setting: Welches, Oregon, September 2025
The Oregon Republican Party’s 2025 State Platform and State Central Committee (SCC) meetings were held September 25–27, 2025, at the Mt. Hood Oregon Resort in Welches, Oregon.
I’ve never been, but it sounds lovely. Oh wait…it’s just a Best Western. Nevermind.
The event included the usual party business, caucus meetings, and a Saturday night fundraising banquet. At the banquet, an incident occurred that has since set off a swirl of rumors, factional bickering, and a slew of social media reaction.
The official Oregon GOP party line is that there was a “brief altercation” that did not amount to much. But, then again, this is the same cabal that considers the January 6th insurrection a gathering of peaceful tourists looking for a bathroom.
The story being told online among grassroots activists and Oregon MAGA devotees is much different. By some descriptions, this “brief altercation” was a brawl between competing Republican factions that drew in police and may have involved an assault on a county party chair.
The Oregon GOP tells its own members to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears.
On September 30, 2025, the Oregon Republican Party’s officers issued a formal statement on the incident. In their description, the altercation was real, but brief, and police were called only to review what happened:
“Oregon GOP condemns violence after brief altercation near state convention; police found no cause for charges, banquet continued, party reaffirms commitment to civility.”
The statement downplayed the severity of what happened and insisted that the event continued without further issue. So police were involved, but appeared to have not made arrests or issued any citations.
On social platforms—especially X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook—the narrative is far more dramatic. (I’m not linking out to these assholes because driving any traffic or engagement their way increases their ability to appear in people’s social media feeds and various algorithms. If you don’t believe what you see below, please search on your own. That’s the best way I’ve figured out to handle these situations without benefitting these cunts.)
Ben Edtl (@benedtl), a longtime activist and alleged serial douchebag, posted: “BREAKING: Chaos ensued today at the Oregon GOP Platform Convention in Welches, OR. Multnomah County Chair, Joe Whitcomb, assaulted on the convention floor!”
In a follow-up, Edtl identified an alleged aggressor: “Meet Jeremy Roberts, the Linn County Delegate who tried to strangle Multnomah County Chair, Joe Whitcomb, at the platform convention.”
Edtl also framed the fight in terms of factional warfare: “The ORP has cancer… infighting is over one single issue: Are we populist MAGA or are we establishment…”
These posts were quickly echoed by others on X. Users like @stanleydharris, @BDexin, @MelissaJeanSays, and others copy-pasted the same “BREAKING: Chaos ensued…” language, amplifying the claim that Whitcomb had been assaulted.
On Facebook, the identical “BREAKING” phrasing appeared in multiple groups, including Brookings Oregon Uncensored. One widely shared post appeared identical to Edtl’s Twitter rantings: “BREAKING: Chaos ensued today at the Oregon GOP Platform Convention in Welches, OR. Multnomah County Chair, Joe Whitcomb, assaulted on the convention floor!”
This same framing spread across several county-level GOP and conservative Facebook circles.
Some posts go further, suggesting there is video evidence of the altercation:
A post by NOW Oregon’s Bay Area claimed that a local activist “was spotted in the viral video” from the Welches convention .
A Threads mirror of the same claim repeated that there was a viral clip, but neither post included the actual footage .
An Instagram reel tagged coastaloregoncoos carried the caption: “Chaos at Oregon Republican Party 2025 State Convention & State Central…” with the Welches location marked. It’s unclear if the reel shows the altercation or just atmosphere from the weekend.
As of now, no video of the scuffle itself has surfaced publicly. The only attributable reference to a video is in the ORP’s official statement, which says authorities reviewed hotel surveillance footage and found no cause for charges .
Law Enforcement Silence
The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office, which has jurisdiction over Welches, has issued no press release or social media post about the incident. That doesn’t mean deputies weren’t called. It could mean the agency has not seen fit to publicize the response.
This leaves a gap: the GOP acknowledges police involvement, but the absence of an official law enforcement account leaves the details entirely up to competing partisan narratives.
Why This Matters
The infighting at the Oregon Republican convention may sound minor, but it’s emblematic of the fractures ripping through the Oregon GOP. Posts on X frame the fight as MAGA populists vs. establishment Republicans, which reflects some of the same fascist tug-of-war playing out nationally within the GOP. Oregon Republicans, already suffering decades of political decline in statewide races, now finds its internal battles literally spilling into physical confrontations.
These are the people pleading with us to give them a chance to run Oregon? Hard no.
For county GOP organizations, the incident also raises uncomfortable questions: if county party chairs are getting into physical altercations with delegates at state conventions, what does that say about the health of the party infrastructure heading into 2026?
**If anyone gives a shit, I do use AI-powered tools to produce this newsletter. Mostly ChatGPT. It helps in compiling and analyzing data; researching dense background material; and keeping my thoughts and ideas organized and well-structured. Also to create custom images, although I try to use Canva when I can. Guys, these tools save so much time and are probably the only way I can find the time to write. I understand that many folks have many issues with AI, so I thought I should be transparent about my use.