Speaker 1: All Zone media.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to it could happen here, a podcast about
Speaker 2: it happening here, and that it that is on everyone's
Speaker 2: minds right now. This will be dropping two or three
Speaker 2: days before the twenty twenty four election, possibly two or
Speaker 2: three days before everyone's life changes substantially. We have no
Speaker 2: way of knowing. I'm not optimistic or pessimistic. I have
Speaker 2: no idea what's going to happen. But one thing that
Speaker 2: everyone ought to be aware of, whether or not Trump wins,
Speaker 2: is kind of, to put it bluntly, the man has shooters.
Speaker 2: And some of those shooters are literal shooters in that
Speaker 2: they are local sheriff's departments, people who call themselves constitutional sheriffs.
Speaker 2: This is an organization that's really got off the ground
Speaker 2: in twenty twelve, and for more than a decade has
Speaker 2: been making inroads with elected Republican leaders, with Republican influencers,
Speaker 2: with groups like the Oath Keepers, and these are guys who,
Speaker 2: in brief belief, the sheriff is the only is You
Speaker 2: can kind of get two versions of this, but generally
Speaker 2: either the sheriff is the only legitimate law enforcement authority
Speaker 2: in the country, or the sheriff is the highest legitimate
Speaker 2: law enforcement heard. I've heard it both ways in the country,
Speaker 2: and kind of the reason for this basically is a
Speaker 2: lot of people in rural areas that are more conservative
Speaker 2: do not want to have to listen to or follow
Speaker 2: the laws made by people in cities. And more to
Speaker 2: the point, they believe that the country has been taken
Speaker 2: off of a good track by dangerous liberal communist types,
Speaker 2: and you know, they want the ability to use force
Speaker 2: against you know, migrants, against the undocumented, against people they
Speaker 2: see as criminals, against left wing protesters, and this is
Speaker 2: kind of a way for them to argue that they
Speaker 2: have a right to do it without any restrictions. Now,
Speaker 2: the whole story is much deeper than that, and to
Speaker 2: talk about what I think is one of the most
Speaker 2: important subjects to be discussing right now, because you know,
Speaker 2: people laugh a lot about life, the gravy seals or
Speaker 2: whatever like, you know, all these different kind of out
Speaker 2: of shape militia dudes, the kind of silly fumbling that
Speaker 2: we saw a lot at January sixth, you know, which
Speaker 2: I think is a mistake, just because January sixth was
Speaker 2: still quite dangerous. But when we're talking about these guys,
Speaker 2: these are not just like random yeho's. These are people
Speaker 2: who have the force of law behind them. They're armed,
Speaker 2: they're organized, and they're quite dangerous. And to talk about
Speaker 2: how dangerous they are and where they came from, I
Speaker 2: want to bring on a wonderful journalist, investigative reporter and
Speaker 2: PRA research director Chloe Cooper, who has co executive produced
Speaker 2: a podcast on the Constitutional Sheriff's movement called The Insurgents,
Speaker 2: which is a co production of Political Research Associates and
Speaker 2: Quintero Productions. Chloe, I think I got that all right? Right?
Speaker 3: That was awesome?
Speaker 2: Yes, y, thank you, thank you. Yeah, So let's talk
Speaker 2: about this. Where do these guys? I gave a little
Speaker 2: brief overview, but like where do these guys come from?
Speaker 2: And you know, what do we see from them and
Speaker 2: the lead up to this election? Like what are they?
Speaker 2: What are they going to do? Do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I loved the overview that you just gave.
Speaker 4: I think that was such a great way.
Speaker 3: To approach this all.
Speaker 4: So, the leader of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers
Speaker 4: Association is this guy named former Sheriff Mac And he
Speaker 4: was a sheriff in Arizona. But one little important detail
Speaker 4: to note is that he actually kind of got his
Speaker 4: bearings before that in Nevada, and he was courted by
Speaker 4: someone who was basically in very close company with the
Speaker 4: John Birch Society.
Speaker 2: Always comes back to them, I know.
Speaker 4: He actually becomes a sheriff partially because of some of
Speaker 4: the ideas that come out of the John Birch Society
Speaker 4: and some of this kind of like emerging trend that
Speaker 4: in some cases is actually like skeptical of the federal government,
Speaker 4: skeptical of state governments. Yeah, and then they start to
Speaker 4: build out with sheriffs in different parts of the country.
Speaker 4: At times, I would say the network has really ebbed
Speaker 4: and flowed. But a couple of things that have been
Speaker 4: important to note, like throughout the six years of researching
Speaker 4: this network of sheriffs, that I think is really important,
Speaker 4: especially in advance of the elections. One is that sheriffs
Speaker 4: who are aligned with this have really embraced this idea
Speaker 4: that you can deputize anybody. Yeah, so in some cases
Speaker 4: you have oath keepers and other militias going to the
Speaker 4: sheriff to say, hey, you want to deputize me, But
Speaker 4: in other cases we've actually followed sheriffs who are going
Speaker 4: into churches and saying, we're deputizing all of you.
Speaker 3: Great sheriffs in Virginia when.
Speaker 4: The state passed a law that was like a law
Speaker 4: for some gun restrictions, saying don't worry, people were actually
Speaker 4: going to deputize you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that way you can have whatever gun you want
Speaker 2: and carry it anywhere. Yes, yeah, and all.
Speaker 4: So what we started to see is that during the
Speaker 4: former Trump administration, he was really actually courting sheriffs around
Speaker 4: the country, and I think he started to see networks
Speaker 4: like CSPOA as like part of his ground troops. And
Speaker 4: so I think that there is a potential danger in
Speaker 4: sheriffs that are part of this formal network called the
Speaker 4: CSPOA or other sheriffs, because there are hundreds more that
Speaker 4: just have like aligned with their way of thinking about things,
Speaker 4: just playing this role of deputizing more people and creating
Speaker 4: this kind of idea of like a super citizen or
Speaker 4: people who are kind of aligned with a far right
Speaker 4: way of seeing the world and then getting deputies to
Speaker 4: be part of the kind of ground troops for that.
Speaker 4: So that's like one thing, and then in addition to that,
Speaker 4: there is also CSPOA itself teamed up with this group
Speaker 4: called True the Vote, which has mostly since been discredited,
Speaker 4: but it's been one of the loudest groups in the
Speaker 4: country that has been spreading this idea that the twenty
Speaker 4: twenty election was stolen and has been actually working with
Speaker 4: county sheriffs to try to investigate voter fraud at the
Speaker 4: local level, but in some cases also working with sheriffs
Speaker 4: to align with vigilante groups on the border, for example,
Speaker 4: to intimidate people from actually voting. And so there's kind of,
Speaker 4: i would say, like a multi pronged series of potential
Speaker 4: risks and dangers that could play out, particularly from this
Speaker 4: network in the coming weeks. One other quick thing I'll
Speaker 4: note is that one of the very latest things that
Speaker 4: we saw, and this actually came out of a close
Speaker 4: kind of colleague in the movement, Devin Burkhardt, who works
Speaker 4: at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights,
Speaker 4: is that he came across a plan that the Constitutional
Speaker 4: Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association put out in Florida, and
Speaker 4: the plan is to essentially resurrect kind of sovereign citizens
Speaker 4: groups in Florida, militia's citizen militias in collaboration with sheriffs
Speaker 4: to do kind of old school style like intimidation of
Speaker 4: election clerks of people involved in the election process, and
Speaker 4: they plan to try to hold tribunals if, for example,
Speaker 4: the certification of election goes in the direction they disagree with.
Speaker 4: And now, as a hardcore leftist, you may find like,
Speaker 4: what do you actually think about voting and whether that
Speaker 4: actually changes things and all of that, And I'm like,
Speaker 4: I've had those, you know, thought bubbles in my brain
Speaker 4: for a long time also, But I think what we have,
Speaker 4: what I've started to see is that the constitutional sheriffs
Speaker 4: to me represent, and also the groups of people who
Speaker 4: have aligned with them are actual not just white nationalists,
Speaker 4: but people who are neo Confederates. And I think of
Speaker 4: it more of like a neo confederacy, and that what
Speaker 4: we could see is something like sheriffs actually coming in
Speaker 4: confrontation with potentially even police and mayor and governors and
Speaker 4: them representing a different kind of politic, a different type
Speaker 4: of way of seeing society. And one person also talked
Speaker 4: about how the constitutional what are they really referring to?
Speaker 4: Are they referring to?
Speaker 3: You know, what is it? The organic constitution?
Speaker 4: Essentially before slavery was abolished, before women had the right
Speaker 4: to vote, before the you know, Native Americans had the
Speaker 4: right to vote. And so if that's the case, that
Speaker 4: that is actually the kind of constitution that they are
Speaker 4: upholding and representing, then they are actually been quite successful
Speaker 4: in building out different alliances around the country within a
Speaker 4: somewhat prominent law enforcement institution that has very little accountability.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I so this is where I kind of
Speaker 2: wind up in conflict with both liberals and a lot
Speaker 2: of leftists. Is I think that the leftists who say
Speaker 2: like there's no point in voting are wrong for the
Speaker 2: same reason like I think people who say there's no
Speaker 2: reason for civilians to be armed. I don't happen to
Speaker 2: agree with that, and I don't happen to agree with
Speaker 2: it because I think if somebody who wants to kill
Speaker 2: you has a weapon and you have the ability to
Speaker 2: either match that weapon or take it from them, then
Speaker 2: that's probably what you should do for the sake of
Speaker 2: your own survival. And handing over complete control of the state,
Speaker 2: the military, and the police apparatus to the far right
Speaker 2: is handing them the most powerful weapon anyone has ever made.
Speaker 2: And I just don't think that's wise.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: At the same token, the thing that kind of liberals
Speaker 2: will bring up a lot, which is that like, just vote,
Speaker 2: just get out and vote. Well, we've been doing that
Speaker 2: and Democrats have overwhelmingly outperformed conservatives in elections this century,
Speaker 2: and it hasn't been enough. And it hasn't been enough
Speaker 2: in part because these people don't care about the law.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a moment in your podcast where I like,
Speaker 2: you have an expert on who's kind of talking about
Speaker 2: the sheriff deputizing you know, seventy people or whatever in
Speaker 2: the small town and being like, well, he's not actually
Speaker 2: allowed to do that, Like, you know, the actual letter
Speaker 2: of the law does not give him the right to
Speaker 2: be doing this. He's misinterpreting the constitution. But the reality
Speaker 2: of the situation is that, like, he's allowed to do
Speaker 2: whatever he can get enough people with guns to back
Speaker 2: him in doing And that's honestly, the root of all
Speaker 2: politics is how much force can you bring to bear,
Speaker 2: you know, in order to support the reality you want
Speaker 2: to support, right, Like, that is how it all works.
Speaker 2: And the bet the right is making with all of
Speaker 2: these different anti democratic strategies they're trying is that no
Speaker 2: matter what they do, and no matter how far against
Speaker 2: the Constitution, against the rule of law they take things,
Speaker 2: they will have the force to support their version of reality.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, I don't know how we thread
Speaker 2: this needle. Right. The easiest thing is like, well, maybe
Speaker 2: if Kamala has a really resounding victory, there just won't
Speaker 2: be much for them to fight on, right, and they'll
Speaker 2: kind of back down. But even if she wins in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, which I think is the better of
Speaker 2: the options that we've got, these people aren't going away.
Speaker 2: And in fact, I think you are going to see
Speaker 2: challenges at local levels. I think it's not impossible that
Speaker 2: we wind up with like an anti pope style situation
Speaker 2: with the presidency, whereas like Trump holds his own inauguration
Speaker 2: and a bunch of state and local leaders say like, no,
Speaker 2: we're not recognizing the Harris administration. Donald Trump is our president. Like,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of weird shit that could wind up
Speaker 2: as the result of this, And I just don't see
Speaker 2: us getting out of this purely through electoral methods. And
Speaker 2: I don't know what. I don't know how else we
Speaker 2: handle it, right, Because you also get into this situation
Speaker 2: of like, Okay, well we're going to send in the
Speaker 2: police to crack down on these sheriffs that are breaking
Speaker 2: the law. Well, what if the police don't want to
Speaker 2: do it. What if the police are more supportive of
Speaker 2: these sheriffs departments than they are of you know, they're
Speaker 2: elected leaders in the state or at the federal level.
Speaker 2: You know, what if the f b I as has
Speaker 2: happened in the past, What if the Feds are unwilling
Speaker 2: to go up against a bunch of arm heavily armed
Speaker 2: quote unquote patriots, you know, like we saw in you know,
Speaker 2: some of the Bundy shit from about a decade ago, right, Like,
Speaker 2: what if what if the people who are supposed to
Speaker 2: handle this for the citizenry in a situation that abides
Speaker 2: by the law abrogate their responsibility because they're scared you
Speaker 2: know who backs us up? Then?
Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, you just put a lot out there.
Speaker 4: Sorry, Like I wanted to respond about a minute.
Speaker 3: Oh one more.
Speaker 2: I apologist. That was my that was my bed.
Speaker 4: That was so great, I think Okay, a couple a
Speaker 4: couple of thoughts. One is that I think that far
Speaker 4: right movements are very much mobilizing within the government right now,
Speaker 4: and or you could say maybe fascism is trying to
Speaker 4: mobilize within the government. Absolutely, and so I think you
Speaker 4: have I think we have to grapple with that really seriously.
Speaker 4: And so like in terms of anti fascist strategies, I
Speaker 4: don't know what is what could that actually look like
Speaker 4: right now, but you have to grapple with the reality
Speaker 4: that many far right movements have made serious, serious headway
Speaker 4: into not just former president, but into state legislators, into
Speaker 4: the judicial system, into sheriff's departments, and so we are
Speaker 4: seeing a major fissure right now. So I don't know
Speaker 4: how to respond completely to some of the questions around
Speaker 4: around electoral politics, but I think those are really important
Speaker 4: questions that you're posing. And then just to go pivot
Speaker 4: back to my wheelhouse, which is the right and the
Speaker 4: far right and some of their strategies. One of the
Speaker 4: things that you touched on is something that a number
Speaker 4: of different far right strategies have been practicing over the years,
Speaker 4: and it is about this idea of both nullification or interposition.
Speaker 3: Is what they call it.
Speaker 4: So these constitutional sheriffs, one of the tactics that they
Speaker 4: have used over the years is to get sheriffs around
Speaker 4: the country to not enforce state laws, right, and so
Speaker 4: you had a whole wave of sheriffs around the country
Speaker 4: supporting sanctuaries for the Second Amendment. Second Amendment sanctuaries. Okay,
Speaker 4: so they said in their own county, we're not going
Speaker 4: to enforce gun restriction laws. And again, think about that, however,
Speaker 4: you will all good, but they're saying we're not going
Speaker 4: to afford us at the county level.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Then you had all these shriffs around the country being like,
Speaker 4: we're not going to enforce lockdown ers, we're not going
Speaker 4: to enforce mask mandates.
Speaker 3: What are they practicing. They're practicing the muscle of exactly
Speaker 3: what you just talked.
Speaker 2: About, right, right, Yeah, I think that's a great way
Speaker 2: to look at it too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, independent of what's happening at the federal government, independent
Speaker 4: of who wins right now, there is like a confederated
Speaker 4: situation happening in the country, and these sheriffs and also
Speaker 4: others have been very much in those So it's not
Speaker 4: just kind of the militias that will back these sheriffs
Speaker 4: that are interested in that type of strategy. There's the
Speaker 4: whole like all these different movements that come out of
Speaker 4: the Christian reconstructionists all talk about interposition, so the idea
Speaker 4: of getting sheriffs other elected officials within the local magistrate
Speaker 4: to prop up and kind of protect your politics, regardless
Speaker 4: of the state or federal And so now we have
Speaker 4: this interesting moment where you've had in recent history, you know,
Speaker 4: a former president that actually aligned with some of those politics,
Speaker 4: and then you have a bunch of state legislators that
Speaker 4: align and so I think understanding some of the strategies
Speaker 4: that's important. It's important to understand that you may have
Speaker 4: sheriffs that are backing this, and they may not always
Speaker 4: align with the police, and they may not always align
Speaker 4: with the governor, and so it's going to be a
Speaker 4: little different than what we may often think of as
Speaker 4: like systemic white supremacy, where all the state and law
Speaker 4: enforcement are lock and step together. I think looking at
Speaker 4: the Civil War, as you've done so many different times,
Speaker 4: is actually really important, Like how does this reflect patterns
Speaker 4: that are more similar actually to you know, the Confederacy
Speaker 4: against the North or those or you know, these types
Speaker 4: of other moments in US history.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna throw to ads and then I'll come back. So, yeah, everybody,
Speaker 2: here's here's some maths. We're back. I wanted to ask,
Speaker 2: are there cases you can think of of like some
Speaker 2: of these guys, these constitutional sheriffs who have been voted
Speaker 2: out and like forced out of office and had kind
Speaker 2: of these some of these like policies that they've been
Speaker 2: pushing reverse, Like do we have do we have any
Speaker 2: kind of case studies of times sheriffs went, you know,
Speaker 2: hard into this ideology and actually lost power as a
Speaker 2: result of it.
Speaker 4: So actually in episode four it touches on it briefly,
Speaker 4: but it's a really interesting and kind of rather both
Speaker 4: in some ways inspiring but also disturbing.
Speaker 3: Case study to some degree.
Speaker 4: There was a sheriff in North Carolina, Sheriff Jim Pendergraph
Speaker 4: of Mecklenburg County, and he was really inspired by the
Speaker 4: former sheriff Joe Orpio in Arizona. And he is one
Speaker 4: of the people who really champions this program called two
Speaker 4: eighty seven G which allows sheriffs to basically deputize their
Speaker 4: office as ice federal ice agents and work with ICE.
Speaker 4: So he pilots that in Mecklenburg County and then as
Speaker 4: basically picked up by ICE and kind of helps try
Speaker 4: to spread it all throughout the South. Something pretty historic
Speaker 4: and incredible happened in some ways in twenty eighteen, where
Speaker 4: you had black organizers, immigrant rights organizers pushed for this
Speaker 4: whole campaign to oust him and a number of other
Speaker 4: close by kind of real white supremacist sheriffs in North Carolina,
Speaker 4: and they were successful, and there was a sheriff that
Speaker 4: ran and a number of black sheriffs were elected in
Speaker 4: the state, and some of the sheriffs ran on not
Speaker 4: complying with ice and knock up and ending this program
Speaker 4: called the twenty seven g Agreement, and seemed like this
Speaker 4: historic moment, this historic win in the immediate aftermath of that,
Speaker 4: as opposed to in moments where you have sheriff saying
Speaker 4: we're not going to enforce the lockdown order and essentially,
Speaker 4: besides some reporters reporting on it, nothing happens. Instead, what
Speaker 4: happened is that within a few months of this sheriff
Speaker 4: ending the twenty seven g Agreement, the federal government comes
Speaker 4: in and issues pretty massive ice raids through the county
Speaker 4: and actually ends up locking up over one hundred different people,
Speaker 4: many of whom got deported.
Speaker 3: Pretty soon after that, you had a.
Speaker 4: Number of other sheriffs in the state, including this one
Speaker 4: constitutional sheriff who also had aligned with another large anti
Speaker 4: immigrant network called the Federation for American Immigration Reform, essentially
Speaker 4: organizing in the state for the state to push back
Speaker 4: and push an entire state wide mandate that all sheriffs
Speaker 4: comply with ICE. So that's not really an uplifting story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually not quite.
Speaker 4: I think what it demonstrates, in a tough way, is
Speaker 4: more about this kind of like when sheriffs claim all
Speaker 4: of this autonomy at the local level, which they seem
Speaker 4: to actually in many cases be able to practice kind
Speaker 4: of quite well, you know, when they say they want
Speaker 4: to enforce the state wide gutten restrictions or mask mandates. Again,
Speaker 4: from what I understand, and I've been in touch with
Speaker 4: some of the like leading constitutional lawyers who are trying
Speaker 4: to look into it further.
Speaker 3: Yeah, almost nothing happens. But then if you have let's say,
Speaker 3: a sheriff.
Speaker 4: In this case, you know, not ending an agreement with ICE,
Speaker 4: there's a pretty serious and significant backlash. There has also
Speaker 4: though been you know, there was an amazing campaign to
Speaker 4: eventually get sheriff, your former sheriff, your or PYO out
Speaker 4: that took like a ton of organizing by immigrant rights
Speaker 4: organizers in Arizona, and that was pretty incredible and sustained,
Speaker 4: and there's been a lot of good stuff.
Speaker 3: Written about it.
Speaker 4: So it's not it's not not the case that people
Speaker 4: have built campaigns and have been able to unseat their sheriff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that's that's good to know,
Speaker 2: because like, I much prefer the like slow disassembling of
Speaker 2: this in a world in which they don't just get
Speaker 2: full power and start, you know, going after people with
Speaker 2: the wrong signs on their front yards, than any other
Speaker 2: option here. It just it seems like it's one of
Speaker 2: those situations where the deck is very much stacked in
Speaker 2: their favor, right in part because of how long I
Speaker 2: think this problem has been ignored, Like it's really just
Speaker 2: now I'm so glad that y'all's podcast is out because
Speaker 2: I still don't think there's nearly enough attention on like
Speaker 2: what these sheriffs are doing, because this really is it's
Speaker 2: so fundamentally anti democratic in a way that is also
Speaker 2: has a great deal of legitimacy in the eyes and
Speaker 2: ears of at least a lot of the people living
Speaker 2: in these areas, right, Like, this is not just some Yahoo,
Speaker 2: declaring himself, you know, a militia. It's not like the
Speaker 2: State of Jefferson movement saying like We're totally going to
Speaker 2: secede from California. These are guys with real power. So
Speaker 2: I guess kind of where I'd like to close by
Speaker 2: is asking do you see a shift in rhetoric from
Speaker 2: these people from like twenty twenty to twenty twenty four, like,
Speaker 2: because I feel like right now the rhetoric is much
Speaker 2: more like aggressively anti like the enemy within, whereas you know,
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty it was much more focused on gun
Speaker 2: rights and going after migrants. But I think you would
Speaker 2: have a better better sense of that than I do.
Speaker 4: So one thing is that immediately following twenty twenty, there
Speaker 4: was some effort on the part of CSPOA to start
Speaker 4: to slightly distance themselves from the Oath Keepers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, CSPO the Oathkeepers.
Speaker 4: I mean the former Sheriff mac that was the founder
Speaker 4: of the CSPOA was on the board of the Oath Keepers,
Speaker 4: and Stuart Rhodes, who's been charged with seditious conspiracy for
Speaker 4: his role planning J six, has been working closely with
Speaker 4: CSPOA for the entire time that CSPOA for the most
Speaker 4: part has been around, so they were working really, really
Speaker 4: really closely together. So there was a little bit of
Speaker 4: a shift after j six where CSPOA tried to distance
Speaker 4: themselves from the oath Keepers. But I would say that
Speaker 4: the other thing that you touched on is also true.
Speaker 4: As opposed to focusing so much on kind of nullification
Speaker 4: of any sort of creating you know, Second Amendment sanctuaries
Speaker 4: or those types of things, they've really leaned hard into
Speaker 4: investigating election fraud and kind of stop this deal style rhetoric.
Speaker 2: Oh right, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 4: And they've really leaned hard, in a very frightening way
Speaker 4: into more who are like really harsh and horrible anti
Speaker 4: immigrant rhetoric. And so, you know, back literally at their
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four spring CSPOA convening, they're talking about the
Speaker 4: great Replacement theory. They're talking about doing every single thing
Speaker 4: in their powers to make sure that there is not
Speaker 4: election fraud. They're talking about, you know, making sure that
Speaker 4: I don't want to use the terms here, but that
Speaker 4: undocument people don't vote in the elections and those types
Speaker 4: of things. And then what was really frightening in this
Speaker 4: plan that I spoke about briefly in Florida that the
Speaker 4: state director of CSPOA released is that they are actually
Speaker 4: embracing more far right views overtly in that plan than
Speaker 4: they have in any other time actually since they were formed.
Speaker 4: So they're explicitly quoting. For any of your nerds out
Speaker 4: here that follow this stuff, this guy Matthew Truhella, and
Speaker 4: he openly advocated for political violence and was one of
Speaker 4: the people who actually justified violence against abortion providers in
Speaker 4: the nineteen nineties. They quote him numerous times when talking
Speaker 4: about setting up citizen militias to actually essentially target election
Speaker 4: clerks in the event that they are not happy with
Speaker 4: how the elections turn out. Yeah, so there is a shift,
Speaker 4: I would say, in like, in multiple directions that some
Speaker 4: of which are very very much just in line with
Speaker 4: Trump and the Trump campaign to some degree, and some
Speaker 4: of which are already kind of, you know, plans for
Speaker 4: a different type of insurgence at the local level, and
Speaker 4: the event that things don't go in their.
Speaker 2: Direction, yeah, I'm going to throw us to ads once more,
Speaker 2: and then we will come back and kind of close
Speaker 2: ourselves out. So everybody have an ad and we're back.
Speaker 2: So quote, Yeah, just kind of in closing, what are
Speaker 2: you kind of keeping your ear to the ground on
Speaker 2: as we near election day? Like, what are kind of
Speaker 2: your do you have any particular sort of red lines
Speaker 2: that you're keeping an eye out for from these people.
Speaker 4: I am looking closely at Florida and whether some of
Speaker 4: the plans that they've actually laid out in Florida might happen.
Speaker 4: I'm also keeping a close ear to battleground states where
Speaker 4: it seems like a number of these militias are kind
Speaker 4: of activated aligned with some sheriff's departments, and I want
Speaker 4: to particularly see if there's any type of cases that
Speaker 4: kind of show up in terms of either voter intimidation
Speaker 4: or those types of things. And it's just been dawning
Speaker 4: on me more and more that a number of the
Speaker 4: people who are in the CSPA network are actually in
Speaker 4: battleground states, and I just wonder to what degree that's
Speaker 4: a coincidence or not. I think I'm just trying to
Speaker 4: kind of get a sense of how also some of
Speaker 4: the framing from these sheriffs continue to shift and whether
Speaker 4: they actually become activated, whether they're polsees or citizen militias
Speaker 4: that become kind of mobilized as they did to some
Speaker 4: degree in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I will be keeping an eye on too.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you so much for coming on. Thank
Speaker 2: you for putting together this podcast series. Everyone listened to
Speaker 2: The Insurgents Sheriffs co produced by Political Researches, Soviets, Political
Speaker 2: Research Associates and Quintero Productions. Again, that's The Insurgents Sheriffs.
Speaker 2: You can find it wherever podcasts are found. Thank you
Speaker 2: for coming on. Everybody check this out and hopefully we
Speaker 2: will have a drop of the podcast and the Bastards
Speaker 2: feed so people can listen in on that too. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Chloe, Thank you so much for having me,
Speaker 2: and thank you listeners.
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