A New Report Shows a Takeover of Local GOPs by Its Most Radical Elements. And That’s Frightening.
We have likely only seen the beginning of the worst of the radical right’s presence on the national stage.
Exhausted by the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Madison Cawthorns, and Lauren Boeberts now in Congress? Unfortunately, this could be just the beginning.
A new and exhaustive report by AP shines a stark light on how hard-core Trump loyalists and QAnon conspiracy theorists have taken control of local GOP apparatuses, auguring a rise in the number of radical candidates likely to seek election in 2022. The power of the extremists is so extensive and widespread that any who defy their basic tenets, which include the Big Lie that the election was stolen and an unwavering fealty to Donald Trump, will face a nearly impossible uphill fight in many deeply red districts. For House seats that are expected to be gerrymandered even more severely by the GOP in key states, this will nearly inevitably lead to a rise in radical GOP representation nationally.
The AP report is as thorough as it is alarming. Its team reviewed social media accounts of nearly 1,000 federal, state, and local elected and appointed GOP officials nationwide then followed up with interviews.
Some of these officials admit they participated in the rally and insurrection riot on January 6 themselves, though they claim they were only there peacefully. For example, the Republican Women’s Federation of Michigan vice president Londa Gatt, who is also a Bikers for Trump coordinator, had helped organize busloads of Trump supporters to join her in Washington on January 6. She claims she climbed the scaffolding outside the Capitol building that day only “to take a picture of the whole view.” And, she stated, she gladly told FBI agents that she did nothing wrong then left the scene right away as things turned violent. Gatt frequently posts QAnon hashtags and repeats debunked conspiracies from that group.
Some local officials communicated with national GOP leaders on the day prior to the riot. On January 5, Idaho RNC delegate Doyle Beck posted a photo of himself on Facebook with Donald Trump Jr., commenting “TRUMP 2020, Stop the Steal.” Beck claims he went to a meeting at Trump International Hotel that night with Trump Jr., Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, Trump adviser Peter Navarro and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, then attended the rally the next day. (AP confirmed that Trump Jr. and Tuberville attended the gathering. Navarro denied attending, and Giuliani said he couldn’t remember and would need to check his diary.)
Most disturbing were marked increases in the calls among these officials for violence. Two days after he joined the Capitol attack, Republican Assembly President Jorge Riley of Sacramento, California posted on Facebook: “I won’t say I stood by. Come take my life. I’m right here.” Then he posted his home address, according to court documents, followed by “You all will die.” And just last week, Idaho’s Kootenai County Republican Central Committee Chairman Brent Regan posted on Facebook: “People who DON’T own a gun should register and pay a fee. Per the Idaho Constitution Article 14 Section 1, all able bodied males between the ages of 18 and 45 are part of the militia and should arm themselves ... That is the LAW.” That posting followed Regan’s boosting of a Parler post on his feed: “SIDNEY POWELL’S “KRAKEN” IS DOD CYBER WARFARE PROGRAM! WE ARE AT WAR! – THE MARSHALL REPORT.”
Because their extreme rhetoric is amplified by social media algorithms that favor highly engaged posts, particularly on Facebook, these officials maintain outsized followings and were able to grow their numbers of supporters quickly—meaning more donations and even more amplification of their conspiracies and misinformation. Further, because the lie about a “stolen” election is coming from people with actual authority, it gains greater credibility and a stronger foothold. As a result, currently two-thirds of Republican voters continue to believe that the election was stolen or fraudulent. GOP national leaders continue to reiterate this false claim on national fora such as the Sunday talk shows. They are keenly and cynically aware of the power the lie has over their constituents, even while the leaders themselves know it to be untrue.
This local takeover of the GOP by its most radicalized elements is unfolding while law enforcement closes in on co-conspirators of the January 6th insurrection, some of whom might be sitting in the halls of Congress. Only yesterday, a truck bearing a decal of the radical “Three Percenters,” which was parked in a restricted area very close to the Capitol building on January 6, has been traced to the husband of Congressmember Mary Miller, according to a report by The Daily Beast. The presence of the vehicle that day on Capitol grounds had been the subject of widespread speculation and interest because of the violent nature of the right-wing group, which is based on the false belief that the American Revolution was carried out by just three percent of Americans. (Rep. Mary Miller became infamous for favorably quoting Hitler in her speech the day before the riot, and now her possible ties to the Three Percenters must be investigated.)
In addition, the U.S. Attorney's office is currently reviewing security footage from Capitol tours to determine whether any Congressmembers may have assisted the rioters by providing reconnaissance in advance of the attack, according to the Communications Director of Rep. Tim Ryan. This follows calls for investigations by several Democrats who had publicly accused their fellow GOP Congressmembers of giving unauthorized tours to the public in days leading up to the insurrection.
There are some painful similarities between what is happening now and what happened nearly 150 years ago in the Reconstruction South, where the KKK rose up to defy both its loss during the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves. Only a concerted federal effort, led by a newly established Department of Justice, was able to quash the power of the organization and arrest enough of its leadership and membership to cripple it, at least for a time. With Merrick Garland assuming the helm at Justice and pledging to fight domestic terrorism with the full might of the Department—once more against a backdrop of a resentful and radicalized segment of our population—Garland is no doubt cognizant of the historic parallels.
We should keep in mind the second lesson of that era, too. In the election of 1876, with the South still seeking to assert itself after Reconstruction, elections marked by fraud and violence in three Southern states led to dual slates of electors being sent from them to Congress. Chaos ensued. As part of an electoral compromise that finally put Rutherford Hayes atop the popular vote winner Samuel J. Tilden, Rutherford agreed to remove all federal troops from the South, leading to an era of terror and racial repression of African Americans in the Jim Crow South that lasted for generations— and which continues today in large measure through concerted and aggressive voter suppression by GOP-controlled state legislatures.
This is extremely disturbing on every level.
Scary indeed. Just watched The Soul of America doc with historian Jon Meacham, who wrote the book of the same name. It spoke about parallels to the past that you mentioned. Does it ever end?