The original Friends of Abe club dissolved last year because of fractures caused by Donald Trump’s run for president – and now an upstart rival is on the scene

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Hollywood conservatives used to cherish the Friends of Abe as a secretive club where they could meet and vent rightwing views safe from liberal backlash.

It boasted Clint Eastwood, Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer as members, and hosted top Republicans, including Donald Trump, at events in Los Angeles.

Secretive group of Hollywood conservatives suddenly dissolves Read more

Last year it announced its dissolution amid fractures caused in part by Trump’s run for the White House.

Now there are two rival Friends of Abe clubs. One is accused of being a usurper and the other is allegedly wilting, fuelling confusion and recrimination.

Jeremy Boreing, executive director of the original Friends of Abe, told the Guardian that a disgruntled former member, David Cole, had tricked other members by hijacking the name and mimicking events.

“It’s just a way of trying to break something because you can’t have it – impersonating something so you can lay claim to whatever affinity people had for it. He’s pretending to be something he’s not. The shame of it is that people who attend these events think they’re at an FoA event. It’s hardly a breakaway group.”

But Cole said his upstart version was a response to neglect of the original club, a sanctuary for film industry conservatives which officially dissolved last year only to continue in a less active form.

“I’m being very careful with how I present the new group,” Cole said via email. “We are not ‘the’ FOA. We are a new iteration composed of new and former members. We are a spinoff, born from necessity. If Boreing hadn’t dropped the ball, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

The dispute appears linked in part to internal conservative divisions over Trump – one of the challenges facing the so-called “resistance to the resistance” in deep-blue California.

Gary Sinise formed the Friends of Abe, named after Abraham Lincoln, in 2005. To avoid potential reprisals from a liberal-dominated industry, members swore secrecy by adopting a line from the film Fight Club: the first rule of the Friends of Abe is you do not talk about the Friends of Abe.

It grew to about 2,000 members. Luminaries included Andrew Breitbart, Steve Bannon, Jerry Bruckheimer and Patricia Heaton, who played Debra Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond. Its existence leaked out as it hosted Antonin Scalia, Dick Cheney, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh and others at venues around Los Angeles.

Trump’s candidacy ignited a “civil war in slow-mo” among members. Boreing, a film producer who inherited the reins from Sinise, was a self-proclaimed sceptic while most members eventually supported the future president.

In April 2016 he announced he would “wind down” the organisation, “effective immediately”, saying Hollywood’s conservatives no longer needed the shield of secrecy.

However the club’s sense of “fellowship” endured, said Boreing. “We’re not as active as we once were, but we still host the occasional social event.” Differing views over Trump caused “strains” but not “rifts”, he said.

One member, speaking anonymously, alleged Boreing was letting the organisation wither on the vine partly because he could not stomach its Trumpian tilt. Boreing denied that, saying all members and views were welcome.

Cole is a controversial figure with a history of deception. A Holocaust revisionist, for a time he reinvented himself as David Stein, a conservative gadfly, and ran a group called Republican Party Animals. The FoA expelled him in 2013 when he was outed as Cole. He has since become a columnist for the libertarian-tinged Taki’s Magazine.

He said he he helped disaffected members set up the new “iteration” earlier this year, including a Facebook page declaring: “We’re back!”. “I was surrounded by Abes who were pissed at Boreing’s inaction. They asked me to start doing events again.”

Many members appear unaware of the upstart version. It is starting small and has held two events in a west LA bar, Cole said.

“We meet together and have a beer,” said Jack Marino, a film-maker who attended them. Edwin Oslan, 33, who works in computers, said 30 to 50 people attended last month’s gathering. “We bitched about how, in California, if you say you voted for Trump people look at you like the antichrist.” He said he came from a punk background. “I’m the rock and roller of the bunch.”