local level takeover

sorta disambig but also umbrella

school board, local election officials, local elected officials in general?bannon started?

see election poll worker

see xian

see parent rights

===

no lnx

alternet-

New lessons for progressives — from the far right

Thom Hartmann December 24, 2024

Recently, I mentioned that I’d be sharing more specifics on how to reform the Democratic Party and seize control of our country back from the racist, misogynist MAGAs. This is the first article along those lines.

Progressives shouldn’t just be fighting the GOP: we should be learning from them.

No, we shouldn’t be learning from their bizarro economics; we shouldn't be discovering their selfish morality, misogyny, or racism; or selling ourselves out to the world’s richest man.

But there is a vital lesson progressives must learn, which is how the far right took control of the Republican Party over a decade ago and forced the entire Conservative establishment to lurch so far to the Right that they’ve even dumped people like Liz Cheney and George W. Bush.

If progressives hope to have any shot at influencing today’s Democratic Party and kicking out the corporate sellout Democrats and replacing them with real-deal progressives, then we need to get to work right now to do exactly what the Tea Party did a decade and a half ago to take power.

And it starts in our own backyards.

Let me introduce you to the now-defunct Concord Project, a right-wing organization that, a decade ago, was in charge of helping the Tea Party take over the GOP.

The Concord Project expanded their get out the vote strategy beyond just traditional phone banking, canvassing, and putting up “vote Republican” signs. Instead, they decided to infiltrate local politics by encouraging Tea Partiers and conservatives more generally to become “Precinct Committee Members.”

Here’s their pitch in their own words from one of their Obama-era YouTube training videos:

“What’s the most powerful political office in the world? It is not the President of the United States. It’s Precinct Committeeman.”

So why is a Precinct Committeeman (or person) so important?

“First, because precinct committeemen and only precinct committeemen get to elect the leaders of the political parties, if you want to elect the leadership of one of the two major political parties in this country, then you have to become a precinct committeeman.”

As in the oldest and most basic governing reality in a republic: political power flows up from the bottom.

It starts with Precinct Committeemen and women — people who are either appointed or win local elections with very few votes at stake, in some cases only 10 or 20 votes — to gain positions that pretty much anyone can hold but which wield enormous power.

It’s Precinct Committee Persons who elect district, county, and state party officials and delegates, who choose primary nominees that then go on to hold elected office, and who help draft a party's platform.

They’re also generally the first people who elected officials meet with when they come back into the district. And those officials listen carefully to what Precinct Committee persons have to say.

So, the Concord folks told their people, if far right Tea Partiers moved in and took over Precinct Committee seats then they’d also be able to nominate a slew of Tea Partiers to hold higher offices within the Republican Party and for primaries.

And those Tea Party Republican Party primary candidates would then be winnowed down in the primary to one Tea Party Republican to run against the Democrat in the general election. This way, Tea Partiers would end up dominating the GOP.

That was their pitch: take over the party from the inside, from the bottom up. And it worked.

Control the primaries — as the Precinct Committee Members do — and you control the ultimate candidate, the election, and ultimately the nation, as we’ve seen repeatedly since the Tea Party era.

This is from a video they posted in January of 2010, with the same Concord Project Representative encouraging people in the Tea Party to do exactly what I just described:

“This video is for all the people out there in the Tea Party movement, the 9/12ers, just good decent people who are really fearful of what’s going on in the country and want to do something to fix things and they’re not sure what to do. Well, I’ve got a solution for you. The best way to ensure that conservatives win that all-important primary election is to become a real ball player in the ball game of politics. And that ball game is called party politics.

“And this is a secret, they don’t want the party establishments, any incumbents don’t want you to know about this and that’s why I’m telling you about it. Only precinct committeemen get to vote for, to elect party leaders. Only precinct committeemen can vote to endorse candidates.”

Again, that was in 2010, 11 months before the elections.

In 2008, half of the Republican Party’s Precinct Committeemen positions around the country were vacant.

But by 2011, motivated by the efforts of people like the Concord Project, the Tea Party (which has now mostly morphed into MAGA) had swept in to fill the gaps: They’d filled up the Republican Party.

And we saw the results of the Precinct Committee takeover first in 2012 and most recently last month: the GOP is now being driven largely from the bottom up by activists who’ve taken over the party and are also running for school boards and other local offices.

In 2012, after this campaign to get movement conservatives into the GOP, Tea Party candidates got onto nearly every ballot around the country and picked up 87 new seats in the US House of Representatives and 9 new seats in the Senate.

And even though the Tea Party didn’t then control a majority within the GOP in Congress like MAGA does now, they did control the Republican Party’s platform because they had control of the Precinct Committees.

Progressives need to do the same thing, only within the Democratic Party.

The rules about how to become a Precinct Committee Person vary from state to state, so step one is to show up at your local Democratic Party, sign up, and find out who the players are and what the rules are.

Even the names of these positions vary, as former Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper notes on his excellent Substack newsletter Pepperspectives:

“In Cincinnati, we call them ‘precinct executives.’ Elsewhere, they are called ‘committeemen’ or ‘committeewomen.’ In other places, ‘ward chairs.’ Whatever they’re called, they are the basic unit of each city or county party structure in the country.”

If we’ve learned one thing over the last few years, it’s that the Democratic Party shifted to the corporate “center” with Clinton and Obama and its establishment has been highly resistant to adopting real progressive change or elevating genuine progressives (like AOC) to senior/leadership positions.

And as we see right now in Biden’s and Harris’ apparent inability to call out Trump and his parade of horribles, this unwillingness to stand up and fight is leading to an endless stream of Republican victories and the dismantling of programs that progressives fought so hard for over the entire last century.

We have been too often losing these fights, and to win them takes more than union protests in Wisconsin, a women’s march in DC, or voting, although those are all important.

But to really take power, like the Tea Party did in one short year, it will take an infiltration of the Democratic Party itself through claiming Precinct Committee positions, as well as simply showing up regularly at the meetings.

If this year, starting now, we execute the same strategy the Tea Party did when the billionaires funding it first set out to take over the GOP, then we can move the Democratic Party back to its progressive roots and finally see the progressive reforms — and election victories — that we’ve been fighting for.

We have 23 months before the next national elections and your mission is to show up at your local Democratic Party headquarters and begin the infiltration.

Good luck and get started!

NEXT UP: How to turn power over to billionaires who will leave you behind

===

Analysis reveals Trump loyalists have 'infiltrated' election boards in key states

Edward Carver Common Dreams an 9 24

===

an 8 24

a variety of election law experts, from Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias to UCLA law professor Rick L. Hasen, have been warning that if Donald Trump loses the 2024 presidential election to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he is certain to fight the election results.

In an article published on August 26, Business Insider's Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert details the post-election fight that Democratic and GOP lawyers are gearing up for.

"This year's election is shaping up to be decided in court, rather than the ballot box, legal experts told Business Insider, and both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are preparing for a nasty legal battle to duke it out," Tangalakis-Lippert explains. "Republican groups, both formally and informally aligned with Trump, are preparing to challenge the outcome of the election in multiple battleground states."

Tangalakis-Lippert describes the actions that that MAGA Republicans have been taking in key swing states like Georgia and Arizona.

"The Guardian reported that Trump allies in Georgia have adopted new rules for the state's election board, allowing members to potentially delay certification of the election over undefined inquiries into ballot discrepancies," the Business Insider reporter notes. "In Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada, the GOP has pushed for voter rolls to be purged despite established federal limits on doing so in the months before the election, per The Washington Post."

Tangalakis-Lippert adds, "Republicans in Nevada also filed a suit to prevent mail-in ballots from being counted if they're received after Election Day, though the legal rationale behind the suit has been dismissed repeatedly by courts in the past, the outlet noted."

Syracuse University law professor David Driesen warns that post-election battles could be especially intense in swing states.

Driesen told Business Insider, "You now have, in the swing states of Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, about 70 election deniers and commissions that are supposed to count the electoral votes, and already there have been about 20 cases where officials in recent elections have refused or delayed certification of results. So what Trump is going to do is claim some kind of fraud and then try to get the officials who believe him to delay or prevent certification on election results…. Or, at least, in a lot of litigation chaos, it could end up putting things in the House of Representatives or to the Supreme Court — which is in Trump's pocket."

Driesen added, "I think (that) the strategy is to try to prevent certification of Harris victories in the swing states where there are substantial numbers of election-law deniers. And sometimes, they may also try to have state legislatures certify alternative slates of electors, using the inability to certify as an approach."

READ MORE:[Former Trump officials consider loyalist Kash Patel especially 'dangerous': report

*Read Business Insider's full report at this link (subscription required).

===

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[sign masksharm kids]

an1123

moms for Liberty (M4L), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated extremist group that promotes book bans in schools and opposes LGBTQ visibility in education, suffered stinging losses in school board races across the country Tuesday night.

The Daily Beast reported that the group either directly endorsed or promoted school board candidates in six states — Alaska, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia — yet lost a bulk of those races with the exception of two in Alaska. M4L had a slate of candidates win elections in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 2021, but the extreme nature of the group prompted most candidates seeking reelection to ask M4L to not explicitly endorse them. Still, the five Republicans running for the Central Bucks School District that M4L "recommended" voters cast ballots for were swept by Democrats, according to the Beast.

Elsewhere in Bucks County, Republicans running for five open seats in the Pennridge School District — who backed an agenda dubbed "Project Pennridge" that would have required students use bathrooms and play for sports teams associated with their biological sex — were also swept by five Democrats.

M4L-backed school board candidates also lost big in Loudoun County, Virginia, which is a populous suburb in the Northern part of the state. The beast reported that M4L candidates Michael Rivera, Chris Hodges, and Joe Smith all lost, while Deana Griffiths won by just 185 votes. Liberals now hold six of nine seats after Tuesday night's election.

In Iowa, nine M4L candidates lost their bids for school board seats in five different school districts, including Teri Patrick, who is Moms for Liberty's Polk County chapter president. In 2021, Patrick co-signed a letter seeking to criminally charge the district for making two books about LGBTQ issues available in schools. The letter accused the district of "disseminating pornography to our children."

The Beast further reported that M4L suffered major setbacks in Minnesota, with all four candidates backed by the group losing board of education races in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district. Voters instead reelected three incumbents and one newcomer, with none of the M4L conservatives capturing a double-digit vote share. Meanwhile, voters in North Carolina's Mooresville Graded School District rejected M4L-backed candidate Theresa Knight.

M4L's only electoral success Tuesday night came in Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) School District, where unofficial results show incumbents Kathy McCollum and Ole Larson in front of their opponents.

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11 23

'Like nothing I’ve ever seen': How education is fueling Pennsylvania’s 'most high-stakes election' yet** - Alternet.org

Education experts are lauding Pennsylvania's upcoming school board elections as the most critical the state has seen in years, Politico reports.

"This campaign is like nothing I've ever seen," ex-Republican and Central Bucks incumbent board member Karen Smith told the news outlet. "I have 50 volunteers who are doing everything from door knocking, to making phone calls, to making signs. The amount of money that’s being spent on this race, the amount of volunteerism is like nothing we've ever seen here before. But then the negativity, the vitriol, the intensity, and the lying is like nothing I’ve ever seen or could have imagined."

Politico reports:

*A venture capitalist put up hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend conservative control of his hometown Philadelphia-area board and support other school campaigns. A Republican political committee is supporting candidates in Cumberland County, a red-leaning area west of Harrisburg where Democrats made gains during recent gubernatorial and presidential elections.

*Local chapters of Moms for Liberty, a national group that's grown into the biggest name in Republican school politics, and the conservative 1776 Project PAC have endorsed candidates in counties throughout the state.

Additionally, the report notes "A recent Brookings Institution analysis concluded Pennsylvania was one of Moms for Liberty’s biggest strongholds outside of Florida and New York, following the group's raucous summertime rally with GOP presidential candidates in Philadelphia."

Nonpartisan group Education Voters of Pennsylvania Executive Director Susan Spicka told Politico, "For children in Pennsylvania, this is the most high-stakes election of their entire lives. Because once you get five people on a school board who are going to operate as a bloc, they can do pretty much anything they want."

However, a local GOP operative told Politico they worry that "some board candidates are running their races in an overly partisan way."

Former Moms for Liberty Pennsylvania state coordinator Lois Kaneshiki said she doesn't think the school board campaigns "should be run like a state house or a state senate campaign."

She added, "If you run them too partisan, you're going to lose. You've got to run them differently, and the left understands this. They are very good at it, and I would say we are not."

Still, Stephen Mass, the GOP school board candidate running again Smith told Politico, "The bad part is we get riled up a little bit too much. I don't know why it's gotten that vicious. The good part is people are paying attention. They should be. It's unfortunate that it's come with a lot of real negativity and divisiveness."

Progressive Change Campaign Committee director of candidate services Hannah Riddle told the news outlet, "We'll learn a lot from Pennsylvania. We'll learn a lot not just on what to expect in school board races next year, but what to expect up and down the ticket as well."

*Politico's full report is available at this link.

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ref

:...{School board elections are set to occur across the country on Tuesday. But few of these once-quiet contests have become as vicious, sophisticated, expensive and injected with dueling endorsements from political committees and national organizations quite like campaigns in the Keystone State.}:

A venture capitalist put up hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend conservative control of his hometown Philadelphia-area board and support other school campaigns. A Republican political committee is supporting candidates in Cumberland County, a red-leaning area west of Harrisburg where Democrats made gains during recent gubernatorial and presidential elections.

Local chapters of Moms for Liberty, a national group that’s grown into the biggest name in Republican school politics, and the conservative 1776 Project PAC have endorsed candidates in counties throughout the state. Progressive organizations, teacher unions and groups linked to federal Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are fighting back through races in State College and big-city suburbs.

All that action has turned low-level school board campaigns in a swing state President Joe Biden and his Republican challenger likely need to win next year into a laboratory for the vitality of education-drenched politics.

“For children in Pennsylvania, this is the most high-stakes election of their entire lives,” said Susan Spicka, the executive director of the Education Voters of Pennsylvania nonpartisan group. “Because once you get five people on a school board who are going to operate as a bloc, they can do pretty much anything they want.”

Conservatives galvanized by Covid-shuttered schools have made book restrictions and LGBTQ student expression into a live wire in this election. A recent Brookings Institution analysis concluded Pennsylvania was one of Moms for Liberty’s biggest strongholds outside of Florida and New York, following the group’s raucous summertime rally with GOP presidential candidates in Philadelphia.

There are problems beyond culture wars, too: This year, a state judge underscored a long-running crisis by declaring Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional.

Now the resources needed to compete in these school board races look a lot like bigger-profile campaigns.

“You need mailers, you need signs, you need training for poll workers, you need Facebook ads, you need websites built — it’s all of that stuff,” said Paul Martino, a venture capitalist who formed a political committee to bankroll school board candidates dedicated to school reopening in 2021.

“2021 was the year it all got changed, and this is the world we’re now in,” said Martino, who this year has used his committees to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in board races throughout the state, but mostly a conservative slate running in a Bucks County district where his wife is also a candidate. “My guess is that we’re going to see a turnout of 45 percent, in an off-year election. Like, nobody sees that.”

Some operatives say Pennsylvania’s school board elections are also testing a new kind of “upballot” momentum, where motivated voters first look to local boards before directing their attention to critical municipal, judiciary and legislative seats higher on the ballot.

“We’ll learn a lot from Pennsylvania,” said Hannah Riddle, the director of candidate services for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is backing local candidates throughout the state, plus Ohio and Virginia, on the Nov. 7 ballot. “We’ll learn a lot not just on what to expect in school board races next year, but what to expect up and down the ticket as well.”

This dynamic is playing out in Virginia’s Loudoun County, where pandemic-era fights over critical race theory and transgender students upended the once-mundane politics of school governance near Washington D.C. Voters are now in line to reshape that school board with help from competing Democratic and Republican party endorsements.

In Ohio, the 1776 Project PAC has endorsed 16 candidates running for office in suburban communities near Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus while supporting conservatives in Kansas and Virginia. Moms for Liberty chapters are also endorsing in Iowa, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere on Nov. 7.

Roughly 30,000 board seats are estimated to be up for election in 2023, including races earlier this year that saw mixed results for conservative candidates in Wisconsin, Illinois and other states.

Yet board elections from the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs to smaller central Pennsylvania communities will further test the potency of conservative school politics ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Look to Bucks County, one of the swingiest counties in one of America’s swingiest states, for ample examples.

Conservative board members won a 6-3 majority in the Central Bucks School District outside Philadelphia in 2021. Passionate fights over library book restrictions, curriculum and student gender identity have not seemed to stop at the state’s third-largest school system since.

Following searing public debates, the Central Bucks board in July 2022 adopted a library book policy that limited the presence of “sexualized content” and allowed any district resident to formally challenge library materials “on the basis of appropriateness.”

Board members also began revising prohibitions on school-based political organizing that fall in a way that now bars district employees from showing flags, banners, posters, signs, stickers or similar materials that advocate “any partisan, political, or social policy issue” on school property or during district activities. That includes a classroom ban on Pride flags.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania pressed Biden administration authorities last October to investigate the school district’s “hostile environment” and “overtly discriminatory actions” against LGBTQ students. The Education Department’s civil rights division soon launched an investigation, and the ACLU this year filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a Central Bucks teacher who was allegedly disciplined for providing information to the department.

Now Pride flags and book disputes are key flashpoints in the Central Bucks race.

The Stop Bucks Extremism committee led by Republican operative Bob Salera has sent thousands of fliers to voters that reprinted explicit images from titles pulled from school shelves and described a “Neighbors United” slate of five liberal school board candidates as “fighting to keep these books in our middle school and high school libraries.”

Martino told POLITICO he gave Salera’s organization “a seed check” at its launch, in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars he contributed to his own committees this year. That includes Bucks Families For Leadership, which supports five conservative “Central Bucks Forward” candidates.

Bucks Families For Leadership has in turn directed tens of thousands of dollars in spending to consulting and canvassing work from Republican operatives, campaign filings reviewed by POLITICO show, including Axiom Strategies and the Breakwall Group founded by former National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Chris Pack.

Pennsylvania’s largest state teachers union has meanwhile given nearly $30,000 to the Neighbors United slate, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer tally that concluded the Central Bucks race has garnered more than $600,000 in political spending through Oct. 23 — with Democrats scraping together the largest share.

“This campaign is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Karen Smith, an incumbent Central Bucks board member and former Republican now running with the Neighbors United slate.

“I have 50 volunteers who are doing everything from door knocking, to making phone calls, to making signs,” she said in an interview. “The amount of money that’s being spent on this race, the amount of volunteerism is like nothing we’ve ever seen here before. But then the negativity, the vitriol, the intensity, and the lying is like nothing I’ve ever seen or could have imagined.”

Stephen Mass, Smith’s Republican opponent, likened the election’s scrutiny and competition to a “double-edged sword.”

“The bad part is we get riled up a little bit too much,” Mass told POLITICO. “I don’t know why it’s gotten that vicious. The good part is people are paying attention. They should be. It’s unfortunate that it’s come with a lot of real negativity and divisiveness.”

Similar issues have torn at other districts in Bucks County, where more than a dozen districts have Nov. 7 elections scheduled. But at least one local Republican operative worries some board candidates are running their races in an overly partisan way.

“Some people who don’t know what they’re doing and taking advice from longtime political operatives — not only are they not necessarily getting the best advice, but they’re spending a hell of a lot of money potentially for it,” said Lois Kaneshiki, a Republican consultant who founded the Take Back Our Schools PAC, once served as Moms For Liberty’s state coordinator in Pennsylvania,

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rww tag

JUNE 17, 2022 1:53 PM

Jeffrey Clark Tried to Help Trump Overturn the Election. Now Team Trump Has His Back.

NOVEMBER 5, 2021 1:43 PM

Russ Vought—Trump’s Critical Race Theory Guy—Says Virginia Win Proves Political Power of Culture-War Fights

OCTOBER 20, 2021 1:08 PM

The Dishonest and Harmful Right-Wing Attack on American School Boards

AUGUST 6, 2021 2:00 PM

The Right-Wing Political Machine Is Out to Take Over School Boards by Fanning Fears of Critical Race Theory

JULY 23, 2021 12:17 PM

Religious Right Pushes Effort To Whitewash History and Restrict Teaching About Systemic Racism

howto ~

https://www.alternet.org/leave-no-seats-uncontested-communities/

rww 5 23

Kingdom In Politics Is Training Right-Wing Christians to Run for Office for the Purpose of ‘Bringing Heaven to Earth’

Kyle MantylaBy Kyle Mantyla | May 25, 2023

Wednesday night’s World Prayer Network livestream was dedicated entirely to encouraging right-wing Christians to see serving in government as a “mission field” in order to ensure that God’s will shall “be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

An outgrowth of a prayer movement that began in the wake of the 2020 presidential election when religious-right activists began to gather together several times a week to pray for God to intervene and overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss, the World Prayer Network has since transformed into a bi-weekly livestream.

While WPN founders, right-wing activists Jim Garlow and Mario Bramnick, often use the program as a conduit for the promotion of wild conspiracy theories, Wednesday night’s program featuring a conservative Christian political strategist named Aamon Ross who runs a political consulting business called Kingdom In Politics, the purpose of which is to “prepare and inspire believers to take an active role in politics.”

Ross revealed that he got involved in politics in 2016 after literally hearing the voice of God instruct him to do, prompting him to team up with his good friend Kevin Stitt to run Stitt’s successful campaign for governor in Oklahoma.

“I was in the business world for 20 years,” Ross said. “On a half mission/half business trip to China back in 2016, [I] was walking along the Great Wall and heard the voice of God—literally—and it scared me to death. He said, ‘Aamon, you think too small. You don’t think generationally,’ I came back to the states, meeting with one of my really good friends and shared that. He said, ‘What do you think it means?’ I said, ‘For some reason, I feel like God wants you and me to put godly leaders in positions of authority in the political sphere.’ He said, ‘Don’t tell anybody, but I’m thinking God’s calling me to run for governor.’ So I ended up leaving the business world and ran his campaign for governor with zero political experience. … He won the general election, so he’s actually now in his second term as governor of Oklahoma, doing an incredible job bringing Kingdom ideals there.”

Ross’s reference to putting “godly leaders in positions of authority in the political sphere” seems to be a reference to Seven Mountains dominionism, which Garlow and Bramnick promote, and that movement’s intention to put right-wing Christians in authority over every “mountain” or “sphere” of cultural influence in society, including government.

Stitt is a Christian nationalist who last year dedicated “every square inch” of Oklahoma to Jesus.

Ross then revealed that it is the goal of his organization to recruit “1,000 churches to commit to run one person for school board” and to “raise up 100,000 believers to run for office over the next 10 years.”

Ross declared that it is imperative that conservative Christians begin to see serving in government at all levels as a “mission field,” which means penetrating an area of society for the purpose of spreading Christianity and implementing its teaching.

“They are trying to cancel Jesus,” Ross declared. “We want to be leaders, and we want to set the tone and set the country on a path to kingdom [principles]. The Lord’s Prayer, right? Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. How does that happen if we’re not the ones bringing Heaven to Earth? … What if the world of politics is the next big mission field? What if we viewed this as we’re sending missionaries into city council, we’re sending missionaries into the state House or Senate, we’re sending them to Congress. If we started viewing the world of politics like the next big mission field, I think we could make a dramatic difference in just a couple of short years.”

lISA BOOTHE (GUEST CO-HOST): You know Reverend, you referenced a lot of the things going on in the country. It feels like there's a battle between good vs. evil, a spiritual battle that is brewing in America, especially when you look at some of the things children are being subjected to these days. Talk a little bit about that.

FRANKLIN GRAHAM (PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE BILLY GRAHAM EVANGELIST ASSOCIATION): Well, we have no question, our country is deteriorating morally and spiritually, and we see just how far our country has slid when you see what's happening, especially to our children and these whole issues of confusion that our teachers and our politicians are allowing to be taught concerning gender and so -- parents need to be parents. Parents need to stand up. Parents need to be involved in the school boards, and parents need to get involved and run for school boards. We need Christian men and women running especially for school boards all across this country. Let's take our school boards back and let's get control of our education in this country and it can be done if Christian men and women would get out there and run and win these elections.

rww 3 23

rick Scarborough—a self-described “Christocrat,” strident anti-LGBTQ activist, and longtime critic of public education—has his sights set on taking over public education in Texas this year. He intends to do so by taking over school boards and fearmongering about public school students “being groomed by homosexuals and the trans perverts [and] recruited into their evil lifestyles.”

Last week, Scarborough revealed another aspect of his strategy. about his intention to take over school boards at an event organized by the Texas Tea Party Republican Women, Scarborough admitted that he is trying to “take over America” for Jesus and is working to “expunge this entire state of every immoral book in the library.”

Scarborough began his remarks by recounting how, earlier in his career, he had been portrayed in the media a right-wing theocrat intent on forcing his far-right Christian views on the nation. That was an accurate assessment, Scarborough now admits.

“They went after me as trying to take over the town, trying to take over America,” Scarborough said. “And, in all honesty, I was, but I couldn’t say that. I mean, why not take it over for Jesus?”

“Sixty-eight percent of the teachers in Texas, by poll … now believe that the LGBTQ agenda should be taught and embraced,” Scarborough complained later in his speech. “We’re grooming our children for pedophiles. That’s what’s happening. Now, let me tell you what I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing—and by God’s grace, if I can raise the budget and get people behind me: In four years, I want to expunge this entire state of every immoral book in the library. Call me a Nazi, call me a book-burner, I’ve been called worse." [vid]

scarborough has plenty of company. Right-wing politicians and political groups are restricting the freedom to learn by demanding the removal of books they don’t like—often those featuring Black or LGBTQ characters—from schools and public libraries. In Texas, the author of the state’s anti-abortion bill is drafting local ordinances that would allow citizens to sue librarians over “immoral content.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/21/michigan-christian-nationalists-00083251

no lnx many

2024 | ROAD TRIP

What It Looks Like When the Far Right Takes Control of Local Government

Just don’t call them Christian Nationalists.

Top left: cross with Presidential Pin. Bottom: Bergman walking in the snow. Top Right: Ottawa County sign.

In a Western Michigan county, far-right Republicans overthrew a county board run by more traditionalist members of the GOP. What's unfolding is a test of what happens when hard-liners take charge. | Photos by David Siders

By DAVID SIDERS

02/21/2023 04:30 AM EST

The battle to redefine America's political parties is underway — far from Washington. David Siders reports from the road.

WEST OLIVE, Mich. — The agenda for the Ottawa County governing board’s most recent meeting here last week listed, among other issues, a roof repair and resurfacing contract, a budget calendar that needed setting and, from IT, a request to hire one more employee.

They were terrestrial concerns. But over the course of a meeting that ran more than four hours, public speaker after speaker in three-minute increments were debating something else entirely, something far more spiritual — to what extent their government should, or should not, pursue Judeo-Christian values.

As snow dusted the streets outside the county building in this conservative, deeply religious swath of western Michigan, lots of people spoke in favor. They warned of the “tyranny” of mask mandates, the “sexualization of our children” and the “unhinged caterwauling fascists” of the left. One woman thanked the commissioners “for trying to bring our freedom back,” while a man read to them from Isaiah: “Be not dismayed, for I am your God … I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Entrance to the Board of Commissioners meeting in Ottawa County, Mich.

Members of an upstart group called “Ottawa Impact” control the majority of the Board of Commissioners in Ottawa County, Mich. They signed a contract pledging to “recognize our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage and celebrate America as an exceptional nation blessed by God.”

It’s been going like this in Ottawa County since last month, after an upstart band of far-right Republicans unseated seven more traditionalist Republican incumbents, seizing a majority on the 11-member board. The hardliners, members of a group called “Ottawa Impact,” had signed a “Contract with Ottawa” promising to “respect the values and faith of the people of Ottawa County” and to “secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and future generations.” They’d pledged to “recognize our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage and celebrate America as an exceptional nation blessed by God.” At candidate forums inside a Baptist church not far from the county offices here, they’d talked about their faith.

Locator map of West Olive, Michigan

Roger Bergman, the sole incumbent Republican commissioner the group failed to oust, had attended one of those forums last year, and as he sat in the audience, he grew concerned. But even Bergman, who at 76 has decades in local politics, wasn’t sure what it would all mean when it came time for a new, far-right majority to actually govern.

Crowd/meeting shots: Meetings of the board have drawn overflow crowds hours of public comment from supporters and critics.

Meetings of the board have drawn overflow crowds hours of public comment from supporters and critics.

That is, until they took office last month, and havoc broke out.

In their first meeting, the new board members adopted a series of measures that changed things in Ottawa County. They fired the county administrator and replaced him with John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official, Christian missionary, failed congressional candidate and election denier who once suggested women should not have the right to vote. They ran out their corporate counsel. They closed the county’s office of diversity, equity and inclusion. They picked for their new public health officer — pending state approval — a safety manager at an HVAC service company who, during the Covid pandemic, suggested ivermectin and neti-pots instead of social distancing and masks. And they rewrote the county motto.

One of the first things the new, far-right Board of Commissioners did when it took office was change the county motto from “Where You Belong” to “Where Freedom Rings.”

No longer was Ottawa County “Where You Belong,” but, rather, “Where Freedom Rings.”

“Oh, my God,” Bergman said when we met last week, after a commission meeting where a young man in a hoodie, Caden Hembrough, thanked the board majority for standing against “forces of darkness.”

Bergman said, “It’s becoming more and more evident that these people are Christian nationalists.”

Bergman sitting with hand clasps

After a board meeting where one man thanked the board majority for standing against “forces of darkness,” among other comments, Bergman said, “It’s becoming more and more evident that these people are Christian nationalists.”

Nationally, the most Trumpian, right wing of the Republican Party had been a disaster for the GOP in November, with hardliners losing in competitive states like Pennsylvania and Arizona and underperforming in House races elsewhere. Those candidates’ inability to attract moderate Republicans and independents was a big reason the midterms defied expectations, resulting in a less-than-red-wave year. In Michigan, a swing state, it was the same story. Democrats not only held onto the governorship but flipped the state Legislature, gaining full control of state government for the first time in 40 years.

But if the GOP paid a price elsewhere for its rightward drift, it didn’t here, in a county that Donald Trump carried by more than 20 percentage points in 2020. In this predominately white county of about 300,000 people, the entire election last year was functionally over after the primary. What remained was an object lesson in what happens when the far-right runs the enterprise.

It’s still government. But its meetings can look a lot more like a cross between MAGA rally warm-up acts and a Christian revival.

On the day I visited last week, Ken Schwallier, an apple grower, went to the microphone to thank the new board for “reversing” what he called “a long trend in our country falling away from our constitutional past.”

Left: Caden Hembrough Right: Ken Schwallier

Left: Caden Hembrough thanked the board majority for standing against “forces of darkness.” Right: Ken Schwallier, an apple grower, thanked the new board for “reversing” what he called “a long trend in our country falling away from our Constitutional past.”

“We’re part of something new,” he told the commissioners. “It’s a grassroots effort that I’m glad to see here. We don’t see it very many places, but I hope it starts here and grows across the country.”

Bergman sat through the meeting, his gaze fixed on the lectern and his left hand on his chin. He considers himself plenty Christian. A former mayor of the county seat, Grand Haven, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, he’d helped to start a church himself. On his biography on the county website, he’d counted his own blessings from God.

This, he said, was different.

I asked him how, exactly. Earlier this month, the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution had estimated, based on a recent survey, that more than half of Republicans nationally either sympathized with or adhered to views of Christian nationalism, a worldview shaped by the fusion of Christian messaging and American identity. It wasn’t exactly hiding in the corners of American public life.

When the words came to Bergman the next day, he texted me: “The phrase I was looking for yesterday,” he said, “was ‘They have chosen to weaponize Christianity.’”

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Lighthouse Baptist Church in Holland, Mich.

Members of Ottawa Impact spoke last year at candidate forums at Lighthouse Baptist Church in Holland, Mich. Joe Moss, the chair of the board, said, "There is a mighty force at our back, and everything that we do, we are doing for the glory of God.”

For anyone who’s endured a county government meeting or flipped past one on public access TV, it may not strike you as the likeliest place for a spiritual crusade.

It wasn’t in Ottawa County, either, before Covid. When I met with Doug Tjapkes, a former newsperson who once owned a local radio station, at the church where he plays the organ every Sunday, he told me that for years he’d tried to hook his listeners on county government, and “no matter what I said or did or editorialized, I couldn’t get much interest.”

Doug Tjapkes, a former newsperson who once owned a radio station in the area, plays the organ at his church every Sunday. He drew a comparison between the board takeover and a lengthy strike at an industrial plant in Grand Haven in the 1960s.

But public health mandates related to the pandemic infuriated a group of parents who complained — and litigated, unsuccessfully — about “government overreach” in schools. They formed Ottawa Impact, recruiting a slate of candidates to run against the commission’s Republican incumbents. And they broadened their concerns from public health to a wholesale overhaul of how the county was being run. At one forum last year, at the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Holland, Sylvia Rhodea, a co-founder of Ottawa Impact and, now, vice chair of the county commission, described the election as one that “will decide whether we are going to save America, and that starts local.” America, she said, is a place of opportunity “built on the Constitution, Christianity and capitalism.” The office of diversity, equity and inclusion, she said, was promoting “woke ideology.”

Joe Moss, the group’s other co-founder and, now, chair of the commission, said, “There is a mighty force at our back, and everything that we do, we are doing for the glory of God.”

That’s not Christian nationalism, John DeBlaay, a member of the local Republican Party’s executive board, told me following the board meeting last week It’s just “everyday family people” who “value our faith, our family and our freedom.”

John DeBlaay, a member of the local Republican Party’s executive board, said it’s not Christian nationalism, but “everyday family people” who “value our faith, our family and our freedom.”

Still, he said, “For the first time in my life, I could honestly tell you it is like a good versus evil fight that’s going on in the world right now.”

The fallout has seemingly come from everywhere. In an email to the board, the county’s outgoing attorney warned that firings of multiple senior county officials would jeopardize the county’s bond rating, saying, “stable counties don’t fire their corporation counsel and administrator.” The county’s top health official, Adeline Hambley, is suing members of the board. And in a letter to the county last week, Dana Nessel, the state’s Democratic attorney general, said she had reviewed dozens of complaints about the board’s behavior at its first meeting, in January, in part related to whether board members had made personnel decisions before being seated, and behind closed doors. Though the state had not determined the board violated open meeting laws, she said, “the alleged conduct of certain commissioners is the antithesis of transparency and good governance.”

In The Holland Sentinel, it’s been headline after headline, like “Christian nationalism is gripping the nation – has it arrived in Ottawa County?” or “Ottawa County’s prospective health officer has no experience. Here’s why that could be a problem.”

And then there are the hourslong public comment sessions at the board’s regular meetings. There are supporters, and there are critics — people who call the board members “fascist,” or “troglodytic.”

“Right now, I’m looking at the face of a theocracy,” one man said to them last week. Karen Obits, a Democrat who said she has supported traditionalist Republicans in the past, told me she was struggling as a Christian to understand an approach to government that she said smacked of “Christo-fascism.”

Left: Karen Obits Right: Ottawa County Congressional map

Left: Karen Obits, a Democrat who said she has supported traditionalist Republicans in the past, said she was struggling as a Christian to understand an approach to government that she said smacks of “Christo-fascism.” Right: Donald Trump carried Ottawa County by more than 20 percentage points in 2020.

Later that night, over pizza in Grand Haven, I asked Field Reichardt, a longtime observer of politics in the county, what he thought was going on.

“This is a microcosm of what is happening nationally — the changes that are threatening American democracy,” said Reichardt, a Grand Haven businessperson who worked on the presidential campaigns of George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller, Pete McCloskey, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, a family friend. “This Christian nationalist movement truly frightens me.”

Field Reichardt

“This is a microcosm of what is happening nationally — the changes that are threatening American democracy,” said Field Reichardt, who worked on multiple presidential campaigns.

Reichardt, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a centrist Republican in 2010 before leaving the GOP and becoming an independent last year, said, “They think they are doing God’s work, and they truly believe it. They are beyond right-wing. They are Proud Boys-ian. Clearly, that’s what they are, when they refer to diversity, equity and inclusion as being ‘divisive.’”

We were sitting not far from Tjapkes, who was at the bar with his grandson. He’d been thinking about how big a story this was, and earlier had drawn a comparison to a lengthy strike at an industrial plant in Grand Haven in the 1960s.

But, he told me, “This is deeper.”

“There’s a spiritual dimension here that’s really concerning to me, because every time I hear all this stuff, I think my Lord’s taking a kick in the teeth again,” Tjapkes said. “This isn’t Christianity. I don’t know what this stuff is, but it isn’t the Christianity I know.”

He said, “I think it’s deeper than just political.”

Cross with flags

Conservatives across the country have been making runs at school boards.

The ascendance of the far-right in Ottawa County is not an isolated case. It happened in Shasta County, Calif., a red enclave in an otherwise blue state. Conservatives across the country have been making runs at school boards.

The problem for hard-liners is that, in general elections in more moderate districts and states, their brand of Republicanism has difficulty traveling.

On the morning after the meeting last week, I met with Steve Redmond, the president of the Ottawa County Patriots, over breakfast not far from the county board’s offices.

His group, which began as part of the tea party movement, had organized the forums at the church where Ottawa Impact candidates spoke last year. His group’s banner hung from the lectern.

Steve Redmond, president of the Ottawa County Patriots, said board members aren’t “trying to create a totalitarian Christian county. I think they’re simply trying to create good governance.”

The Ottawa Impact movement, said Redmond, who is 75 and has been involved in Republican politics for decades, was a “natural response” to Covid restrictions. It was a “parental rights movement,” he said, not a Christian nationalism.

“Most of them are conservative. They vote Republican. Many of them supported Donald Trump. Most of them are practicing Christians, and their faith is very important to them,” Redmond said of the Ottawa Impact board members. “Yes, in their meetings, they bring up scripture and other things. That’s kind of who they are. But I don’t think they’re trying to create a totalitarian Christian county. I think they’re simply trying to create good governance.”

Churches dot the landscape in Ottawa County, Mich

Churches dot the landscape in Ottawa County, Mich., where religion and politics are at the heart of controversy surrounding the county’s governing board.

The one Ottawa Impact-backed board member who agreed to speak with me, Jacob Bonnema, told me the same thing.

“I believe that this new board wants to promote family values and freedom for everyone in Ottawa County,” he said. “It is being mistaken and misreported to be only for some, rather than for everyone, and I resent that accusation.”

Bonnema told me he believed conservative government “is exportable.” However, he told me, “It needs to be done correctly.” He worried “proper processes” weren’t followed at the board’s first meeting, which he missed — an opinion that has put him at odds with some of Ottawa Impact’s most fervent supporters.

Redmond, meantime, had more of a political concern.

Top: Board of Commissioners in Ottawa County, Mich. Bottom Left: former Board of Commissioners in Ottawa County, Mich. Bottom Right: Carved seal of the county of Ottawa

Board of Commissioners in Ottawa County, Mich. For the conservative movement, Redmond said, Ottawa Impact’s takeover of the county board “could end up being counterproductive" if the board cannot cool things down.

For the conservative movement, he said, Ottawa Impact’s takeover of the county board “could end up being counterproductive if they don’t find a way to govern well, dot the I’s, cross the T’s, follow the protocols and resolve some of the current critiques.”

He called it all “very resolvable.” But there is a risk, he said, if the board cannot cool things down.

“They risk having so much of a pushback that some of them would get primaried in two years,” Redmond said. “And even worse, if they didn’t get primaried, it will set the stage for the Democrats to come in and take over, and that would be a real disaster.”

Ottawa County is so heavily Republican that’s probably a long way off. But the county is one of the state’s fastest-growing, and change isn’t inconceivable.

Paul Hillegonds, a former Republican speaker of the Michigan state House from Holland, told me that “when you look at the statewide election results, it’s clear there are a lot of disaffected Republicans, and more Republicans voting independently, and I think we’ll see more of that in Ottawa County, I’m guessing, if the party continues to move in the direction it’s going.”

And every indication is that the party is going to. In Lansing over the weekend, the state Republican Party selected Kristina Karamo, an election denier who lost her race for secretary of state last year, as the party’s new chair. And in Ottawa County, Republicans supportive of Ottawa Impact are already privately discussing primarying members the group backed last year but who have since questioned some of their actions, including Bonnema.

This came up during the board meeting last week, after Walter Davis, a retired college professor who had promised to speak at every commission meeting for two years as a form of protest, told the board he had to break that promise on the advice of his doctor. He couldn’t afford to get his blood pressure up.

Walter Davis, who had promised to speak at every commission meeting for two years as a form of protest, told the board he had to break that promise on the advice of his doctor. He couldn’t afford to get his blood pressure up.

“It turns out being around you is injurious to my health,” he said.

During a break in the meeting, in the lobby, I watched Bonnema approach Davis and put his hand on his arm.

“I’m sorry we won’t be hearing from you,” he told him. “I find you interesting, even if we disagree.”

It was an unusual, if basic, moment of collegiality in an otherwise disagreeable room, and I mentioned it to the man I was speaking with, a resident supportive of the new board. He wasn’t offended by Bonnema’s gesture of goodwill, but he wondered how long he would be around, anyway.

Corn for sale sign with tree and snow.

The problem for hard-liners is that, in general elections in more moderate districts and states, their brand of Republicanism has difficulty traveling.

The far-right had taken over the board once. There was a good chance it could reshape it if its elected officials fell out of line.

As Bonnema walked back into the board room, the man standing beside me said, “He’ll be primaried.”

rww 1 23

on a livestream one night in early November, a man donated $10 to Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist who would in a few short weeks dine with Donald Trump.

This particular $10 donation entitled the donor, who identified himself as Alex Roncelli, to post a message in the superchat so that his message would play during Fuentes’ show. “nick i wanted to say thanks… i ran for GOP chair and won. in the reddest of red counties in michigan i won. i promise progress. thanks for your inspiration, thanks for everything.”

Fuentes was utterly dumbfounded. “Dude!” Fuentes said after the message played. He looked up at the ceiling and paused. “I’m just not going to make a big deal of that.”

Why a local GOP official would publicly out himself as a follower of Fuentes was apparently beyond Fuentes’ grasp. Fuentes leads the America First youth movement, a white nationalist, Christian nationalist movement of mostly young white men who refer to themselves as “groypers.” Fuentes has promised to build an army of groypers to infiltrate Capitol Hill and the Trump administration and encouraged his followers to embed themselves within their local GOP infrastructure. Fuentes’ promotion of this strategy, like choosing a rhetorical theme from Trump’s campaign for his movement’s name, reflects his stated goal of infiltrating the broader conservative movement and dragging it further to the far right.

Right Wing Watch was able to identify a 28-year-old Alex Roncelli living in deep red St. Clair County, Michigan, and active in local GOP politics.

In 2018, Roncelli won an election to represent Bruce Township’s 4th precinct as a delegate for the GOP county convention. In 2020, he ran to become Macomb County clerk and lost. According to the Macomb Daily, he also aided the Macomb County Republican youth outreach program in the 2016 and 2018 elections. And just last year, he ran to represent Kimball Township in St. Clair County as a delegate to the county convention and won; it is scheduled to meet in Kimball, Michigan, today, Jan. 26.

Right Wing Watch reached out to Roncelli by email and phone. He did not respond to questions about this donation to Fuentes, the jurisdiction of the GOP chair position he claimed to have won, or allegations that he had stalked and harassed a woman.

Right Wing Watch also reached out to the local St. Clair County Republican Party and county clerk’s office. Both the former county chair and clerk’s office clarified that Roncelli was just a precinct delegate and not the county chair. A message to the current St. Clair County GOP chair went unanswered.

A follower of white nationalist Nick Fuentes named Alex Roncelli sent Fuentes a superchat last night so that he could brag about becoming a GOP chairman in Michigan and Fuentes was utterly dumbfounded that Roncelli would be foolish enough to publicly out himself as a groyper. pic.twitter.com/IhaMf8fneh

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) November 4, 2022

Online, Roncelli appears to flaunt his America First connection. A Twitter user claiming to be Alex Roncelli features a photo of Roncelli, a bio that reads, “America First,” and locates himself in Michigan. The account, which was created in 2015, has tweeted about Nick Fuentes multiple times in the past year, including this past November with an image of Trump, Ye, and Fuentes dining together shortly after news broke of their dinner. After Right Wing Watch tweeted a clip of Fuentes receiving the $10 donation in November and Twitter users began tagging Roncelli’s account in the replies, the account handle appears to have been changed from @asroncelli to @JebrahBush. The account follows a number of accounts of figures in the America First movement; his own followers include self-proclaimed groypers. Meanwhile, a Facebook page belonging to Alex Roncelli states that he’s a precinct delegate and features an image of Pepe the Frog—the unofficial mascot of the America First groypers.

Precinct delegates, who are elected in the August primary election and serve two-year terms, act as the worker bees of the party infrastructure. In 2021, Donald Trump’s former White House adviser Steve Bannon popularized the “precinct strategy,” explaining on his “War Room” podcast, “We’re going to take this back village by village … precinct by precinct.” Today, a site called Michigan Precinct First launched by Arizona Tea Party activist Daniel Schultz—whom Bannon has given an audience—urges “America First” Republicans to become precinct delegates. Precinct delegates, like Roncelli, the site says, “have the power to elect party leadership, nominate major state office candidates, and increase voter turnout.”

“It is ultra-important that America First Precinct Delegatesattend, participate in and vote at conventions…this is our opportunity to replace ‘do-nothing’ incumbents with America First patriots!” the site states.

Two men (second from left and far right) pose for a photo at the St. Clair County Convention wearing white nationalist America First gear. (Source: Facebook)

It appears this plan is also being utilized by those in Nick Fuentes’ America First movement. Roncelli was busy at the latest St. Clair County Convention held last month—and it appears there’s at least a few other groypers who have found their way into the St. Clair County Republican Party. The county GOP Facebook page includes photos of two other attendees wearing Fuentes’ America First gear.

Fuentes’ America First movement stepped into the limelight with its participation in the so-called “Stop the Steal” campaign—which spread disinformation about the 2020 election in an effort to keep former President Donald Trump in the White House—and at least five men associated with America First stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. At “Stop the Steal” rallies, Fuentes called “for Groypers to embed themselves in local GOP infrastructure and run candidates in state and federal primary elections in 2022,” according to Ben Lorber at Political Research Associates. It was time to “destroy the GOP” and “replace it from the inside with people who are America First,” Fuentes said.

Roncelli also participated in the so-called “Stop the Steal” campaign. Ahead of Jan. 6, Roncelli traveled to Washington, D.C., and provided a video to Detroit Free Press of him and his companions on the bus ride chanting “Stop the steal!” On Jan. 6, Roncelli and his friends were among the Trump fanatics breaching the U.S. Capitol grounds, though he has said he did not go inside the Capitol. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, he described the day as a “Revolution” and claimed that the violence was a set-up—a claim many on the far-right have made to try to shift blame toward “antifa,” the FBI, or anyone other than Trump supporters.

Roncelli (second from left) poses for a photo in front of the U.S. Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection. (Source: Facebook)

In trying to track down Roncelli, Right Wing Watch discovered a stalking allegation and other misogynist and racist behavior.

During his campaign for county clerk, a woman claimed that Roncelli had stalked her. Right Wing Watch spoke to the woman, 24-year-old Sarah Menig, who said Roncelli had also threatened to send revenge porn to her family members and boyfriend and called her racist names. She provided screenshots, with Roncelli’s phone number visible, to Right Wing Watch. Read Sarah’s story [here.]

This type of behavior is a regular feature of the America First movement, whose followers are known for their racism and frequently use the N-word in online chats, just as Roncelli did in his texts to Menig. And while Nick Fuentes might be best known for his racist and antisemitic white nationalism, he has also made misogyny a cornerstone of the America First movement, welcoming to the movement incels, men accused of sexual assault, and men who have promoted rape.

The election of a groyper to become a local GOP official reveals the larger goal of the far-right: to infiltrate the Republican Party at the local level—even in worker-bee positions—to ultimately put themselves in positions of power and move the party further to the extreme right.

Tags: Alex Roncelli Nick Fuentes Stephen K. Bannon precinct strategy white nationalism Americ

an 12 22

Conservative activists in Florida are hoping to fill local county leadership seats in the upcoming election, Naples Daily News reports.

Fueled by long-time allies of former President Donald Trump, including Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn, the move is a direct reflection ofTrump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Ultra conservatives, many of whom identify as "America First" candidates, are committed to electing officials who, like Trump, rail against voter fraud.

One of them is Cathi Chamberlain, a former campaign manager for a conservative Florida House candidate who lost in November. Chamberlain is running to replace Adam Ross as Pinellas County GOP chair. According to Naples Daily New, "Chamberlain emphasized 'the stolen election in 2020' when she announced her campaign at a Pinellas GOP meeting last month" and believes Ross has “not [been] aggressive enough in investigating claims of voter fraud,

Many conservative candidates who supported Trump’s claims of voter fraud did not win in the midterm elections. But in Florida, Ron DeSantis won an easy reelection as governor, and several candidates endorsed by "MAGA Grocery King of Southwest Florida" _{Alfie Oakes}_ won leadership roles in the Collier County GOP.

Republicans who stand up to Trump's accusations of voter fraud continue to be criticized by ultra-conservatives in the state. The activist group Defend Florida, which is supported by Flynn, has set it sights on current Manatee County GOP Chair Steve Vernon, whom the activists refer to as a _{RINO }_(Republican in Name only).

“I’m the ex-president of the tea party, yet they’re calling me a RINO and I’m thinking, 'What world are you in?"Vernon said. "I’m no more RINO than the man on the moon. That’s how bad it is."

“I am conservative," he continued. "However, they want to take it to the stratosphere.”

Vernon blames former Trump advisor Steve Bannon for the type of pressure he and Ross are receiving.

Amid the far-right Trumpist claims, _{Ross asserts}_ the local party is committed to election integrity, and that their “professional leadership” has been successful in the past.

:{Daniel J. Schultz

Attorney and founder, Precinct Strategy}:

Schultz was an early proponent of the idea that Republican-controlled legislatures could overturn election results—later promoted as the “independent state legislature doctrine.” In some interpretations, Republican-controlled state legislatures could nullify the popular vote and send their own electors to put Trump in office. The key to his strategy? Purging from the Republican Party inconveniently ethical officials like Brad Raffensperger, starting at the precinct level.

“We can take over the party if we invade it,” Schultz told Steve Bannon on his podcast in February 2021. Over the following months, there was a surge in candidates for precinct chairman positions across the country.

Schultz has pointed to the strategy’s success in Arizona as a model. ProPublica reported that in one Maricopa district, the precinct roster grew by 63 percent in less than six months. Schultz’s website asks: “Can we get 3/10 of 1% of the 74 M Trump America Firsters to Become Republican Precinct Committeemen? To TAKE OVER The Republican Party? To Save the Republic?”

He points out that precinct committeemen are the ones who elect the state party leaders and are the only ones who can vote to endorse primary candidates; in some states, they are the only ones who can nominate candidates to fill vacancies in state legislatures. The logic is that full slates of pro-Trump precinct chairs could guarantee pro-Trump candidates on the Republican state-level ballots in 2022, who could be activated to enact the independent state legislature doctrine in 2024—subject to judicial review[maybe not, see scotus]. Donald Trump approves. On February 27, 2022, he issued a statement endorsing Schultz’s project.

Anne Nelson @anelsona

Anne Nelson is the author of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right}:. She has taught at Columbia University for over 20 years and is currently a research scholar at Columbia’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.

Read More: Magazine, May 2022, Politics, The Soapbox, Feature, Democracy, January 6, Republican Party, Donald Trump, Right Wing Extremism

last update after 1870 disasters?

an 6 22

Pennsylvania state legislator Russ Diamond had a problem. Joe Biden carried the commonwealth by 80,000 votes, thereby securing its 20 electors. According to a newly released trove of emails, Diamond and fellow Republican state legislators wanted instead to send electors dedicated to Donald Trump. They just needed the right excuse.

If that sounds outrageous, that’s because it is.

At first, it seemed allegations of electoral fraud might do the trick. Trump and his lawyers blanketed the airwaves with outlandish claims about fraud at the polls. But when the Trump legal team made their case to the Pennsylvania legislature, their efforts struck Diamond as unconvincing and frankly incompetent. If there was no fraud, how could they justify overriding the will of the voters?

Luckily for Diamond, an obscure conservative law professor had recently said in testimony that state legislatures didn’t need evidence of fraud to disregard the will of the people. It was enough, Professor John Eastman said, that the legislature objected to the rules under which the election was conducted. [SCOTT PERRY NOW?] After watching Eastman’s testimony, Diamond decided Eastman was just the man to help him write a resolution purporting to nullify the will of his state’s voters.

“Honestly, the Trump legal team was not exactly stellar at PA's hearing, failed to provide the affidavits of their witnesses, and made a glaring error by purporting that more ballots had been returned than mailed out,” Diamond admitted in an email to Eastman. “It is for this reason that I latched onto your comments that actual fraud is irrelevant when the election itself is unlawful.”

Diamond sent Eastman a draft resolution predicated on Eastman’s crackpot theory that the US Constitution gives state legislatures the unchecked power to disenfranchise their own voters after the fact if legislators don’t like the results of an election.

Eastman praised Diamond’s efforts but urged his protegé to go still further and actually name Trump electors in the resolution, as opposed to simply announcing their intent to do so.

“One big question, though. Do you want to only go half way, and require another resolution to actually choose a slate of electors? Or should you do it all in one resolution?,” Eastman wrote. “I don't know the dynamic of your Legislature, so can't answer that. But my intuition is that it would be better to do what you need to do in one fell swoop.”

The Pennsylvania Secretary of State and the courts had made some tweaks to facilitate voting during the pandemic. Republicans challenged these changes in court and lost. But Eastman promised that these changes could give the Pennsylvania legislature the excuse it needed to throw out the election, even without any evidence of fraud.

Eastman argued that it would be more politically palatable if the legislature could claim that the new rules cost Trump the election and they as legislators were simply righting that wrong by nullifying the election and replacing Biden’s electors with Trump’s.

Knowing that the mail-in vote favored Biden, Eastman suggested that the legislature pass a resolution arbitrarily declaring a certain percentage of perfectly legal mail-in ballots to be illegal based on a convoluted formula Eastman made up.

That way, Eastman said, the legislature could claim Trump won. “That would help provide some cover,” he asserted. (In fact, Trump would still have lost under Eastman’s metric, but that’s beside the point.)

Ultimately, Pennsylvania state legislators did not pass a resolution openly nullifying the results of their state’s election and naming alternative electors. Instead, at the urging of Trump’s legal team, Pennsylvania Republicans secretly named a slate of pseudo-electors, as did Republicans in six other states that Biden won.

The threat of an Eastman gambit has not passed.

If anything, it has gotten worse.

Republicans who take Eastman’s arguments seriously are gaining ground in state legislatures andkey election administration posts.

The GOP may retake the House and Senate this year, which could put GOP legislators in charge of certifying the next presidential election.

A bolder state legislature could still attempt the Eastman gambit in 2024. A GOP-controlled Congress might agree to count the illegitimate electors chosen by politicians, instead of those chosen by the people.

That is why Congress must reform the Electoral Count Actto specify that if there are two slates of electors claiming to represent a state, Congress must only count electors courts have affirmed as legitimate.

https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/after-convincing-its-viewers-voter-fraud-rampant-oan-now-urging-them

https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/school-board/

evang but parents ~

// civil war, const sheriffs?

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/throw-your-mayor-in-jail-john-guandolo-is-training-right-wing-citizens-how-to-take-over-their-towns/

how MAGA Republicans are 'purging' Democrats from local election boards in a ruthless power grab: report

Alex Henderson

January 31, 2022

The voter suppression bills that Republicans have been pushing in state legislatures all over the U.S. are dangerous not only because of the ways in which they make voting more difficult, but also, because they see...

https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/qanon-influencers-are-urging-followers-get-involved-locally-and-school

many lnx vod

QAnon influencers are urging followers to get involved locally and with school boards

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM DANIL CUFFE, KAYLA GOGARTY & CLARA MARTINY

PUBLISHED 01/26/22

This past summer, a woman named Anna Desenze -- an anti-masker who has expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory -- spoke at a school board meeting in Broward County, Florida. While railing against a school mask mandate, she falsely claimed that “there’s so much science out there that proves that the masks are more harmful than anything else” and that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine can effectively treat the coronavirus. She later made similar claims at another school board meeting in October.

In July, the hosts of the MatrixxxGrooove Show, a show dedicated to QAnon, noted that Desenze was a listener of the show and claimed that they had encouraged her to take action. She’s “actually thanking us for her getting out there,” a co-host of the show said. They also posted and hyped the clips of her school board rants on Telegram.

intheMatrixxx Desenze post2

Similarly, in September, a group of anti-mask protesters disrupted a closed meeting of a California school board, forced it to adjourn, and then voted themselves in as new members without any legal basis. One of the protesters, a man named Derek Greco, was named president of the new (illegitimate) school board.

Days before that meeting, Greco had posted a video on Facebook featuring QAnon show host Scott McKay claiming that he had been texting with Greco and that Greco had invoked a post from “Q,” the central figure of the conspiracy theory, while speaking before a city council meeting. Greco -- who has also posted a video about “the Great Awakening,” a QAnon-connected phrase -- wrote that he had met McKay in June and that he had “forever changed my view on how to address these issues in our local governments.”

McKay in turn posted praise for Greco’s school board takeover, writing, “This is where the war is being fought today.” And on his show, McKay claimed that Greco credited the QAnon show host for his actions at the school board meeting. McKay added that Greco “showed you how it works,” in that “you go after these milquetoast pussies and cowards, the dumbest people in America, on these school boards.” McKay declared, “It’s training ground for the city councils. It’s training ground for the town councils. It’s training ground for these city commissioners.”

CitationFrom a stream of Patriot Streetfighter uploaded on Rumble on September 13, 2021

In November, McKay posted an “update” from Greco about “taking over the school board,” claiming the government had “weaponized law enforcement against parent’s asking questions” and asking for help contacting other QAnon influencers.

Desenze and Greco’s actions appear to be part of an effort among QAnon influencers to get supporters more involved with local office elections and school boards. Michael Flynn, a QAnon-supporting former national security adviser for then-President Donald Trump, seems to have played a major role in spurring the movement, which appears to have already shown signs of impact.

In May, Flynn urged followers in a Telegram post to “get involved,” “take responsibility for your school committees or boards,” and “run for local, state and/or federal office.” He also added that “local action = national impact” (the MatrixxxGrooove Show used a similar phrase when it posted about Desenze at the school board meeting). Over the coming months, Flynn continued to make the case for people to take “local action” for a “national impact.”

Flynn May post

Soon after Flynn’s call in May, attorney Sidney Powell also urged supporters to get involved locally. (Powell advised Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and also has extensive QAnon ties.) During a QAnon conference in May, Powell told attendees that “there are no military tribunals that are going to solve this problem for us” and “it’s going to take every one of us rolling up their sleeves.” She also specifically called for people to target school boards as part of this local effort.

And in July, Lin Wood, another QAnon-supporting attorneyinvolved with Trump’s election efforts and who unsuccessfully ran for chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, called for followers to “live local and take local action” and to “assemble and protest local school boards mandating masks or worse for our children.”

A number of QAnon influencers have since called for local action, such as telling people to go “to your school board meetings and demand they remove mask mandates and critical race theory.”

In August, “QAnon John,” the influencer who organized the May conference that Powell (and Flynn) attended, wrote that Flynn’s call was “VERY important.” An administrator for QAnon John’s group The Patriot Voice urged others to “get loud and in the face of school boards, city councils, county commissioners, [and] state reps.”

Zak Paine, a QAnon show host who participated in part of the January 6 insurrection, urged his listeners to “please consider running for school board,” adding, “Start going to the meetings and once you’re at the meetings, then you can start learning how they do their business and then you can go ahead and run for school board yourself.”

CitationFrom the October 28, 2021, edition of RedPill78

Jim Watkins -- the QAnon-supporting owner of 8kun, the site where Q posted -- argued that Q’s plan was “no more” and agreed with Flynn to “take action locally” instead. A major QAnon forum also added a banner featuring text from Flynn’s May post.

In October, amajor QAnon Telegram channel even posted a link to an article on how to join a school board, calling it “food for thought” because “this nation ain’t gonna save itself.”

QAnon school board link post

The influencers’ calls may be showing signs of impact, with some QAnon supporters claiming they’ve taken action in response. Some wrote that they were “running for school board” or were “in charge of my kids school board now.” Others wrote that they were helping to get “citizens involved on every level...city/county government, election boards, school boards, etc.,” or that they were “going to keep going every month” to school board meetings to attack mandates, noting that sometimes they were one of the few people there. “GhostEzra,” a neo-Nazi QAnon influencer, encouraged followers to run for office; in response, several said that they were “thinking about running for school board” or other offices like city council, including one follower who appeared to be a poll worker who was called as a “witness” by the Arizona state legislature following the 2020 presidential election to push voter fraud claims.

In response to a link shared in a QAnon channel about how to run for school board, users wrote that they “needed this” and asked for “a guide on how to become part of your city council and how to be appointed or elected to your county’s election board” as well. One follower of a QAnon influencer also bragged that she had joined her town council in West Virginia after encouragement from the influencer, sharing a video of herself being sworn in.

QAnon supporter school board post6

Some QAnon shows have also highlighted what they claim are signs of impact. The MatrixxxGrooove Show highlighted a video of a QAnon-supporting follower of the show making false claims about vaccines at a board of supervisors meeting in California and saying that “nothing can stop the awakening of humanity.” The man wrote that he credited the show’s hosts and Michael Flynn “for giving me the courage to do this,” with the hosts on the show urging Flynn to share the video and claiming that they had sent it to his brother. (Flynn did share the video as well, repeating his “national impact” slogan.)

CitationFrom the November 17, 2021, edition of the MatrixxxGrooove Show

Another QAnon show, SGT Report, has also featured an interview with an Ohio man who “read [his] school board the riot act, the legal riot act,” over mask mandates, and the man credited the show for his action. The host said the incident was part of “a great awakening,” and the man invoked Flynn’s “national impact” line for inspiring his strategy.

Video file

CitationFrom a stream of SGT Report uploaded on Rumble on November 17, 2021

There have also been multiple reported instances of school board members and candidates supporting QAnon in Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (While responding to a question about her QAnon posts, the Michigan school board member falsely claimed, “There’s no such thing as QAnon.” She was echoing Q’s call from late 2020 urging followers to stop using the term “QAnon” and to instead deny its existence.) A Rhode Island woman who invoked the QAnon slogan -- “where we go one, we go all,” or “wwg1wga” for short -- formed an anti-critical race theory group to target her school committee and wrote that she planned to “run for school committee.”

Other people who have expressed support for QAnon have also been elected around the country or tried to run for office, such as Tracy “Beanz” Diaz, one of the first people to popularize QAnon, being elected to a position in the Horry County, South Carolina, Republican Party, and QAnon supporter Gene Ho unsuccessfully running for mayor of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The QAnon community’s focus on school boards was also noted at QAnon John’s follow-up QAnon conference in Las Vegas in October. While discussing how attendees could get more involved, the conference’s emcee said, “What's happening in the school boards is magic.” The National Education Association, a labor union, also warned in June about QAnon school board candidates as an increasing issue nationally.

Citation From the "Patriot Double Down" QAnon conference in Las Vegas on October 23, 2021

In addition to the “local action equals national impact” plan, the QAnon community has also embraced a plan called the “precinct strategy” to sign up as Republican precinct committee members -- who are involved with election activities -- which multiple QAnon supporters have also since done. Others on the far-right have also focused on local positions as a strategy for consolidating power and gaining influence in recent months.