schultz, dan precinct

<div>=</div><div>=<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/165984/10-people-destroying-democracy">https://newrepublic.com/article/165984/10-people-destroying-democracy</a>Anne Nelson/April 18, 202210 People You’ve Never Heard of Who Are Destroying Democracy
They’re sowing disruption and disinformation, and they have their eyes on 2024.
Democracy in Peril

    [Will the Democrats Fight to Save Democracy?
    10 People You’ve Never Heard of Who Are Destroying Democracy
    The Six States That Could Determine Whether Republicans Steal the 2024 Election
    View All ]

In

recent years, America’s democracy has faced countless challenges. Some

seemed to materialize out of thin air, but many have been the fruit of

secretive networks such as the 40-year-old Council for National Policy.

Here are 10 individuals who have sown the seeds of disruption and

disinformation—and who are setting their sights on the 2024 presidential

election.

Larry Arnn
President, Hillsdale College

For

decades, Michigan-based Hillsdale has served as an academic partner for

the religious right. The college has had a close relationship to the

Council for National Policy, the secretive Christian right umbrella

organization that directs so much right-wing activism, through Arnn and

his predecessor, George Roche III (who left in a cloud of scandal).

Hillsdale’s major donors have constituted a who’s who of the radical

right, including the Koch network and leading figures from the CNP. Arnn

has expanded Hillsdale’s role as a platform for the CNP’s network of

megadonors, fundamentalist activists, and media outlets, providing their

policy prescriptions with a thin veneer of academic respectability. The

college enrolls around 1,500 students, but its leaves an outsize

footprint in political messaging. Its highly politicized publication

Imprimis is sent to more than six million recipients. Hillsdale operates

the Kirby Center in Washington, D.C., where it has groomed young

conservatives at the Capitol Hill Staff Training School, run by the

Leadership Institute (see Morton Blackwell, below). Hillsdale is also

playing a role in the current disruption of public education, which has

been used for political leverage in Virginia and beyond. In 2020, Donald

Trump appointed Arnn chair of the 1776 Commission, to promote a

“patriotic” rebuttal to the 1619 Project’s racially inclusive approach

to U.S. history. Hillsdale has led an ongoing campaign to politicize

public schools, promoting anti–critical race theory campaigns and

assisting in the launch of “affiliate” charter schools in 11 states.

Joe Seales
CEO, Right Side Broadcasting Network

RSBN

serves as the equivalent of a Trump-specific C-SPAN that has carried

nearly every Trump speech, rally, and town hall since July 2015, as well

as full coverage of the pro-Trump Conservative Political Action

Conference (CPAC). It also broadcasts a show called The Right View, with

Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump. On January 6, it livestreamed Trump’s

speech inciting the march on the Capitol, and it gave live coverage to

the Florida “Freedom Rally to Show Support for President Trump and

January 6th Political Prisoners” a year later. In July 2021, RSBN was

temporarily suspended by YouTube, but the network looked to its own app

and the new pro-Trump platform Rumble to continue to carry Trump’s

rallies. The radical right has been assiduously constructing a parallel

media system in recent decades. RSBN, Rumble, and Trump’s new Truth

Social platform complement other media initiatives, ranging from

traditional fundamentalist broadcasters like American Family Radio to

social sites like Gettr and Parler, in the ongoing construction of an

alternate political reality for millions of followers. In March 2022,

after the height of the Ottawa truckers’ protests, RSBN promoted a

truckers’ convoy roundtable hosted by Representatives Matt Gaetz and

Marjorie Taylor Greene, and it has offered ongoing amplification of

Trump’s false election fraud claims. We can be sure that whatever Trump

fabricates for future news cycles, RSBN will be repeating it.
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Neil Patel
Co-founder and publisher of The Daily Caller

The

Caller website was launched in 2010 by Patel and Tucker Carlson, his

college roommate, with a $3 million investment from Patel’s fellow CNP

member Foster Friess. (Carlson served as editor in chief until 2016 and

left the publication in 2019, when Patel bought him out.) The site

claims more than 20 million monthly readers, and the Daily Caller News

Foundation licenses its content free of charge to almost 300 outlets.

Patel has used the site as a platform for voices of the radical right,

including Jason Kessler, the white supremacist who organized the

Charlottesville rally, as well as climate denial and disinformation,

such as a falsified “nude” photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The site

favors members of the CNP, including Supreme Court spouse Ginni Thomas

(a Caller “special correspondent”) and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk.

The Daily Caller has recently launched a Facebook video platform called

American Voices, with three million followers, that partners with media

platforms of the religious right. It also boosts Carlson’s Fox News

broadcasts. The Caller’s YouTube channel features additional Carlson

content, comedy and sports programming, as well as regular attacks on

Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci, and CNN. It has given ample space to Trump’s

false claims of election fraud, and positive coverage of voter

suppression legislation.

Jenny Beth Martin
Co-founder and CEO, Tea Party Patriots

Martin

launched the Tea Party Patriots in March 2009 in collaboration with Amy

Kremer and Mark Meckler, with funding from FreedomWorks, a “grassroots

service center” founded with Koch backing. The Tea Party Patriots spent

the Obama administration organizing various “spontaneous”

anti-government, anti-tax rallies. Martin, Meckler, and Kremer also

joined the CNP; by 2020, Martin had risen to the executive committee and

Meckler to the status of Gold Circle member. Martin’s Tea Party

Patriots became the meeting ground for the secular Koch brothers and the

Christian nationalist CNP. She became the go-to woman for organizing

campaigns, including political canvassing and public protests. Martin

was a key point person for the CNP in Trump’s reelection campaign. In

April 2020, she organized “100 Business Executives” in support of Trump,

along with fellow CNP members Adam Brandon of FreedomWorks and Lisa

Nelson of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Trump

acknowledged Martin by name in his speech before the CNP on the eve of

the 2020 GOP convention. On November 4, 2020, Martin announced that her

organization was going to hold “Protect the Vote” rallies in swing

states. On December 30, she tweeted that she would be speaking at the

January 6 Stop the Steal rally: “We must demand Congress to challenge

the Electoral College votes and fight for President Trump!” (Martin was

present at the rally, but didn’t end up speaking.) Most recently, Martin

has spoken out in support of the Canadian truckers’ protest. “We are

all truckers now,” she told The Hill in February.

Simone Gold
Founder, America’s Frontline Doctors

Gold

was an emergency physician in Los Angeles who was tapped by the CNP

leadership to serve as a point person for a massive Covid disinformation

campaign. The plan was advanced on a conference call in May 2020, while

the pandemic was first raging, and after Trump held his increasingly

erratic press conferences that included CNP president William Walton and

Trump aide Mercedes Schlapp. The goal was to use physicians to persuade

the public that the economy could be opened up in time to benefit the

Trump campaign. Gold began a series of appearances on media platforms

run by CNP members, disparaging the idea that Covid was a “huge medical

crisis,” pushing the false hydroxychloroquine “cure,” and attacking

Anthony Fauci. On

July 27, 2020, Jenny Beth Martin introduced Gold and a dozen colleagues

standing before the U.S. Supreme Court building, repeating a litany of

falsehoods about the virus. Their

statements, livestreamed by Breitbart News, quickly went viral, and the

video was enthusiastically retweeted by Donald Trump. On January

6, Gold joined the mob that breached the Capitol. She was recorded in

the Rotunda denouncing the Covid vaccine as “an experimental biological

agent deceptively named a vaccine.” She was charged with violent entry

and disorderly conduct (she pleaded guilty in March and will be

sentenced in June). Over

2021, she appeared in a series of “Health and Freedom Conferences”

across the country, sharing the bill with Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell,

and Mike Lindell. In 2020, she set up a profitable online prescription

service for bogus Covid “cures.”

Morton Blackwell
Founder and president, the Leadership Institute

Blackwell,

Paul Weyrich, and Richard Viguerie were young Goldwater activists when

they joined forces in the 1960s. Together, they helped to create a

constellation of conservative groups, including the CNP umbrella

organization and its partner CPAC. Blackwell took on the task of

training future generations of right-wing political candidates and

activists. His Leadership Institute, launched in 1979, claims that it

has trained more than 200,000 people over its history, many of them in

county- and state-level sessions in battleground districts. The courses

include fundraising, speechwriting, social media, and candidate

development. Graduates of the institute include Mike Pence,

Representative Jim Jordan, and Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe.

The institute’s training is ongoing, especially in contested states. In

2021, the GOP, noting that it needed to net only five congressional

districts to take the House, targeted 47 districts, five of them in

Texas. That year, the Leadership Institute blanketed Texas, scheduling

around 40 training workshops between March and November 2021—many months

before the midterm elections. The national Democrats, in contrast, have

tended to enter the state campaign arenas a few months or even weeks

before the elections, offering minimal training on the ground, limited

digital campaign tools, and poorly coordinated data. The institute’s

menu of courses reflects the right’s current initiatives, including

School Board Campaign Training and a School Board Activist Workshop.

Cleta Mitchell
Attorney

Mitchell

is a longtime member of the CNP board of governors. More recently, she

appeared on panels at 2020 CNP meetings speaking on “Election Integrity:

Securing the Ballot Box” and “Election Integrity: Action Steps.”

Mitchell also serves on the board of directors of the Bradley

Foundation, run by fellow CNP board member Richard Graber. Following

Biden’s victory, Mitchell tweeted that the Georgia recount was “A

FAKE!!!” She traveled to Georgia as a volunteer legal adviser for

Trump’s campaign and helped to file a December 2020 lawsuit challenging

the returns. According to The Washington Post’s Robert O’Harrow Jr., “On

December 30, Mitchell wrote to [then–White House chief of staff] Mark

Meadows and offered to send some 1,800 pages of documents purporting to

support claims of election fraud.” On January 2, Mitchell took part in

Trump’s infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger,

of whom Trump famously demanded, “I just want to find 11,780 votes.” The

call was leaked, and when Mitchell’s role was disclosed, she was

obliged to resign from her position at the Foley & Lardner law firm.

But Mitchell continues her work through her strategy sessions at the

CNP, her board membership at the Bradley Foundation, her Apple podcast

Who’s Counting?, and her November 2021 appointment to the Board of

Advisors of the federal Election Assistance Commission, which certifies

voting systems—including voting machines—and advises local officials on

compliance with federal regulations.

Richard Graber
CEO, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

This

Milwaukee foundation has assets of some $900 million. Graber is a

member of the board of governors of the CNP, while CNP election

strategist Cleta Mitchell is one of the foundation’s 11 board members.

The Koch network and the DeVos family philanthropies may have received

more attention, but the Bradley Foundation’s strategic, longtime focus

on state-level politics has allowed it to make a major impact, using its

home state of Wisconsin as a laboratory. In 2012 to 2013, the

foundation spent more than $8 million on a network of groups promoting a

right-to-work law also supported by then-Wisconsin Governor Scott

Walker (a fellow CNP board member) and attacking Wisconsin trade unions.

The resulting right-to-work law crippled the unions and contributed to

Wisconsin’s shift from a Democratic to a swing state. In 2021, the

Bradley Foundation earmarked $600,000 for the American Legislative

Exchange Council’s voter management campaign software and other

activities, bringing its ALEC contributions to $5.4 million over the

previous decade. In 2020 and 2021, the foundation gave $200,000 to the

Claremont Institute. Claremont has played a critical role in the radical

right’s promotion of false claims of fraud and the efforts to rewrite

voting laws in advance of the 2024 elections; John Eastman, who drafted

the infamous six-point memo used by Trump to challenge the Electoral

College on January 6, is a Claremont senior fellow. The foundation also

contributed $300,000 to the Public Interest Legal Foundation (chaired by

Cleta Mitchell) and $175,000 to the Heritage Foundation’s election law

initiative, both of which promoted Trump’s false claims of fraud.

Lisa Nelson
CEO, American Legislative Exchange Council

Nelson

came to ALEC in 2014 after previous stints on Newt Gingrich’s staff and

at GOPAC, the Republican state and local political training

organization. ALEC was co-founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, also a

co-founder of the CNP. ALEC convenes corporate sponsors and Republican

state legislators to “collaborate” on model bills—including legislation

to oppose environmental regulation and gun control. In April 2020, The

Washington Post reported that Nelson, Jenny Beth Martin, and Adam

Brandon were leading an effort to organize a group of businesspeople to

help Trump “jump-start” the economy in the depths of the Covid epidemic.

Nelson continued her efforts over 2020 and doubled down after the

Biden’s victory. From December 2 to 4, 2020, ALEC hosted a secret

“process working group” for Republican state legislators, election

commissioners, and attorneys to develop strategies on election oversight

and redistricting. In July 2021, ALEC hosted and financed an “academy”

under the rubric of the “Honest Elections Project” in conjunction with

its annual meeting, with panels featuring Cleta Mitchell and other CNP

strategists. Nelson offered a preview of their project to rewrite

election laws at the CNP’s May 2021 meeting: “We’ve been targeting our

efforts on those states that have had issues—Pennsylvania, Michigan,

Arizona, Florida to a certain degree.” Currently, Republicans control 30

state legislatures, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan,

Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. If successfully implemented, the

independent state legislature initiative could determine the outcome of

the 2024 elections, regardless of the popular vote.

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

=</div><div>=
</div><div>1021 digby</div><div>
</div><div>One of the more<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-republicans-election-challenges/2020/11/09/49e2c238-22c4-11eb-952e-0c475972cfc0_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_2" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"> memorable quotes</a> from the 2020 post-election period was the one in which a Republican insider blithely told a reporter for the Washington Post that there was no harm in letting Trump cry himself out:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.531px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);">"What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change," the official <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-republicans-election-challenges/2020/11/09/49e2c238-22c4-11eb-952e-0c475972cfc0_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">said</a>. "He went golfing this weekend. It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He's tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he'll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he'll leave."
</blockquote>We all know how that turned out, don't we?Today, the congressional Jan. 6 commission continues to subpoena witnesses and demand documents from various players in the post-election saga, and the press keeps reporting new information on exactly what went down during that bizarre period weekly. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/09/22/mike-pences-6-point-plan-to-steal-the-election-leave-roadmap-for-future-authoritarians/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Last month</a>, the new book from Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9781982182915" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Peril</a>," revealed the existence of a full-blown coup plot based upon a legal theory advanced by conservative <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/10/04/america-is-amusing-itself-to--and-the-media-still-cant-face-the-truth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">constitutional lawyer John Eastman</a>, formerly of Chapman College and a founder of the Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank. They actually memorialized what they planned to do in writing.The idea was to have Mike Pence refuse to acknowledge the electoral votes of certain states whose legislatures might be persuaded to send an alternate slate of electors and then declare Trump the winner based upon the remaining electoral votes. It was a cockamamie scheme, but the concept of Republican state legislatures declaring that the vote was rigged and sending an alternate slate to declare Trump the winner did not come from nowhere. <a href="https://digbysblog.net/2020/11/20/trumps-plans-b-and-c-are-crazy-but-will-they-work/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">I wrote this in November 2020</a>, just a couple of weeks after the election:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.531px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);">Having lost over and over again in court, Trump and his team have switched to their Plan B, which, as longtime Democratic strategist Chris Marshall <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/11/19/are-you-sure-trumps-plan-to-steal-the-election-has-failed-you-shouldnt-be/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spelled out in detail in Salon on Thursday</a>, is to delay the certification of the vote in certain states and try to get Republican legislatures to assign electors to vote for Donald Trump instead of the actual winner, Joe Biden. This is based on the theory that if they can create enough chaos around the election results, Republican loyalists will rise to the occasion and "save democracy" from the Democrats, who are allegedly stealing the election.
</blockquote>Trump's behavior with all these phony "audits," <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/09/24/texas-launches-2020-audit-demanded-by--as-arizona-probe-gives-biden-a-bigger-win/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">even in places like Texas</a> where he won, is explained as an extension of that plan. They are attempting to create so much distrust in the electoral process that in the case of a semi-close election, the default "solution" will be for the (Republican) state legislatures to take over the process and decide the winner. Lest you think the courts would automatically reject such a clearly unconstitutional move, don't count on it. As the New Yorker's <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/the-big-money-behind-the-big-lie" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Jane Mayer</a> noted:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.531px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Few people noticed at the time, but in … Bush v. Gore, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, along with <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/antonin-scalia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Antonin Scalia</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tag/clarence-thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Clarence Thomas</a>, hinted at a radical reading of the Constitution that, two decades later, undergirds many of the court challenges on behalf of Trump. In a concurring opinion, the Justices argued that state legislatures have the plenary power to run elections and can even pass laws giving themselves the right to appoint electors.

Today, the so-called Independent Legislature Doctrine has informed Trump and the right's attempts to use Republican-dominated state legislatures to overrule the popular will. Nathaniel Persily, an election-law expert at Stanford, told me, "It's giving intellectual respectability to an otherwise insane, anti-democratic argument."

</blockquote>That's the legal argument. The implementation will require provocateurs to help foment the chaos and distrust on the ground. Enter Trump's former campaign chairman (and pardoned accused felon) Steve Bannon. You may recall that Bannon was <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/steve-bannon-capitol-riot-biden-b1925068.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">heavily involved</a> in the Jan. 6 planning, urging Trump to "kill the Biden presidency in its crib" and promising listeners of his wildly popular podcast the night before that "all hell will break loose tomorrow. It's them against us. Who can impose their will on the other side?"<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/heeding-steve-bannons-call-election-deniers-organize-to-seize-control-of-the-gop-and-reshape-americas-elections" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">ProPublica did extensive reporting</a> last month showing that since then Bannon has been pushing a "precinct strategy," whereby MAGA followers take over the Republican apparatus at the precinct level, which in many states means they have influence over how elections are run, including the choice of poll workers and members of election boards. When Bannon announced this strategy, it "rocketed across far-right media" and suddenly people who had never before been involved in politics were volunteering all over the country, in blue states as well as red states, cities and suburbs and rural areas alike.This strategy is the brainchild of Arizona activist Daniel J. Schultz, who has been pushing it for several years:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.531px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);">In December, Schultz appeared on Bannon's podcast to argue that Republican-controlled state legislatures should nullify the election results and throw their state's Electoral College votes to Trump. If lawmakers failed to do that, Bannon asked, would it be the end of the Republican Party? Not if Trump supporters took over the party by seizing precinct posts, Schultz answered.
</blockquote>Schultz is now a huge right-wing celebrity, has been on Bannon's show at least eight times and holds weekly Zoom calls with activists around the country. Last July he told his audience, "Make sure everybody's got a baseball bat. I'm serious about this. Make sure you've got people who are armed."Bannon isn't confining himself to trying to destroy the democratic electoral system. NBC News' Jonathan Allen <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/bannon-fires-shock-troops-next-gop-white-house-n1280591" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">reported</a> that he's also planning an assault on the government once he gets Trump back in the White House, as a continuation of his <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/27/how-trumps-chaotic-incompetence-and-the-deconstruction-of-the-deep-state-got-us-here/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">"deconstruction of the administrative state."</a> To that end, Bannon held a meeting last week with "scores of former Trump political appointees" at the Capitol Hill Club and gave them their marching orders for the hypothetical day when Trump returns to power.He was invited by a new group called the Association of Republican Presidential Appointees, which has the goal of having non-confirmable executive branch appointees ready on Day 1 to go in and take over. In practice, that means they would immediately set about systematically dismantling everything put in place under a Democratic president and deregulating everything in sight. Bannon aptly calls them his "shock troops."Now maybe all this is just the lunatic fringe acting out and nothing will come of it. Bannon has been flogging this kind of anti-democratic strategy for a long time. But considering how radical the GOP establishment itself has become, it seems foolhardy to make that assumption. Inviting Bannon to address this ambitious new Republican group sends a clear signal that his previously outlandish ideas and strategies have become mainstream conservative thinking.=</div>