Constitutional Sheriffs, Militias, and Other Local Fascist Initiatives

Constitutional Sheriff Militias, and Other Local Fascist Initiatives

Refuse Fascism Episode 198

Sun, Apr 21, 2024 1:00PM • 1:12:47

Devin Burkhardt 00:00

What so called constitutional sheriffs do is borrow from white supremacist teachings that the Posse Comitatus used based on 15th century constructions of law enforcement that the sheriff is the highest authority in the land, and therefore it gives them the power to both nullify laws that they don’t like and to stand in the way of other law enforcement agencies or jurisdictions from enforcing laws that they don’t like.

Carolyn Gallaher 00:30

This is what a militia is. It’s not under civilian control. It’s under the military’s control. It is just a group of people who have formed a private army and they’re under no birth control but their own.

CJ Spencer 00:40

They are proposing an amendment that would give states the power to revoke any action of Congress, the president, or administrative agencies, whether that be repealing a statute, decree, order, regulation, rule, opinion, decision by a majority of state legislatures.

Sam Goldman 01:18

Welcome to Episode 198 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. Thanks to everyone who rates and reviews the show like Emma Hopewell, who wrote a review on Apple podcast titling the review A must listen, giving us five stars Thank you, and writing: “More people need to tune in.

So many women and men have been sounding the alarm on rising events in this country and others for almost a decade. We’re sleepwalking into a rude awakening as a nation.” Help reach more people during a year when refusing Fascism is needed more than ever after you listen to today’s show, be sure to share it with others. Click the share button in your app to send this episode to a friend or let the world know why you listen by rating and reviewing on Apple podcasts or your listening platform of choice.

Today we’re sharing three interviews discussing election subversion, constitutional sheriffs, real life, Roy Tillman’s militias seeking formal recognition in Virginia counties, the convention of the state’s movement and much more with Devin Burkhardt, Carolyn Gallagher and CJ Spencer in that order. But first, we have to talk about just a few things from this past week. This week was jury selection and Trump’s first criminal trial but possibly the only one that will take place prior to the election. If you wanted to hear about Trump farting and falling asleep in court and saying he was praying this just isn’t the show for you. Yes, the first ever trial of a former U.S. president is news and we will bring up relevant updates in the Trump trials, but it’s got to be said that this case, in particular, offering hush money payments before the 2016 election, falsifying business documents with an intention to violate election laws, does not address the fascist menace.

While it might be entertaining to watch Trump be insulted, unable to respond, this mechanism cannot and will not address the reasons we so badly want to see Trump locked up and this whole fascist movement beaten back. The fascist stacked Supreme Court, the main legislating body in America’s fading Weimar era, this week allowed Idaho to enforce its ban on gender affirming care for transgender minors, while lawsuits proceed. This greatly harms and endangers the life of our young people in Idaho and their families while presenting an avenue for other states to follow suit. The Supreme Court announced this past Monday that it will not here McKesson v. Doe, thus enabling a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Lastly, in a shock to nobody who hasn’t been living under a rock for seven years, the Supreme Court indicated their willingness during oral arguments to make it harder to prosecute those involved in the January 6th insurrection. Yikes for sure, but just when do we stop being surprised by a Trump stacked fascist majority doing the fascism, and start challenging the institutions enabling its assent. See the show notes for a helpful break down from Ian Millheiser on those developments.

Over the course of the past six months U.S.-backed Israel has wrought unprecedented devastation down on the people of the Gaza Strip, with nearly 35,000 murdered, an entire population being endlessly displaced and systematically starved. We are seeing in real time, how people respond to a live stream genocide being committed by their government. This past week was as much a lesson in resistance as it was in repression. A massive wave of repression of pro Palestinian actions, speech, existence, has been washing over the United States in particular over the campuses.

Students have been suspended and doxed, protests banned, campus speakers have been disinvited, professors have lost their positions, pro-Palestinian and Jewish peace organizations have been canceled, university presidents have been fired for the perception of equivocation for not cracking down hard and fast enough. And now, that wave is crashing down. This past week, the University of Southern California canceled the commencement speech by the graduating class valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, a Muslim woman whose minor is in resisting genocide. And now, they’ve cancelled all outside speakers for fear that they will speak up for Asna and the people of Palestine. Hundreds of students and others marched on USC and protests demanding the University let her speak.

Meanwhile, on the east coast, we’ve seen draconian crackdown by university administration and extraordinary courage from students resisting genocide. Columbia University President Dr. Shafik was called before a House panel in D.C. designed to crush pro Palestinian and anti genocide activism on elite campuses — the same forum which effectively ended the tenure of her peers at UPenn and Harvard. As the hearing began, students were building an encampment against the genocide and against their University’s role in that genocide. Dr. Shafik, the university president bowed at the feet of the Committee, led by MAGA fanatics with the full endorsement and involvement of their official opposition in the Democratic Party.

The next day, Columbia University’s President unleashed the full force of the NYPD to brutalize the students engaging in nonviolent protest, arresting one 108 Columbia and Barnard students, suspending many students, leaving a number of them homeless. It was the largest mass arrests of peaceful protests on Columbia’s campus since 1968. These students, modeling much needed determination, did not cower and scatter, but have stood strong, refused to back down, have called upon and we’re joined by more and more people continuing days and nights of continuous protest.

When leaders were arrested, more students became leaders, many New Yorkers came to Columbia to defend the encampment including students at other colleges such as CUNY [City University of New York] solidarity, actions across the country at campuses have taken place, and similar encampments have since sprouted up at Yale, UNC [University of North Carolina], possibly Vanderbilt and elsewhere. Up till now, the bulk of the university administration’s power has been their students fear; fear of academic consequences for missing class, fear of losing job opportunities, fear of losing a degree, which many have gone into life crippling debt to obtain.

But amidst this crackdown, something has begun to shift. Maryam Barnard student who is currently suspended, tweeted: “I’ve never seen anything like this happen before at Columbia. There is no fear left among students. Organizers were arrested in mass and when I got out of jail, I was told students occupied another lawn on their own. Hundreds are willing to risk arrest. I am so filled with hope.” She was quoted by The Nation saying about her suspension: “Being suspended for Palestine is an honor. The more they try to silence us, the louder we will get.” Catherine, a first year Master’s student in international affairs told The Nation: “If they want to arrest me this time, I’ll be right back out here tomorrow. They can try to repress us, but we’re not going to stop fighting for Palestinian Liberation.”

Students are prioritizing justice over their personal ambitions, and when that happens, the fear melts away, along with so much of the power of the school administration in the state. And that can become contagious, something we are seeing with the response to this repression, with more and more people joining at Columbia, including alumni who were present at the protest that resulted in mass arrest in 1968, and that it’s spreading to other campuses and communities. So we are cheering for this righteous defiance and outpouring, to this growing in size and determination. Now isn’t a time to stand aside, to take heart, but don’t stop there. Stand with the students. Join in and start thinking and talking about what it’s really going to take to end this genocide.

Right now, the movie Civil War is the number one movie for its second weekend at the box office. In a country that hasn’t been as divided as it is now, since before the Civil War, the real prospect is something keeping many awake at night. If you saw it, if you feel overwhelmed or disgusted after watching it — whether you thought it was a powerful wake up call, or a profound miss; stirring portrayal of war or cinematic elevation of both-side-isms, defanging any meaningful critique of the fascist movement gunning for civil war — connect with people who want to digest this all together next Sunday, April 28 at 5pm Eastern time.

We’re chatting about Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. It’s a terrifying and timely work detailing the slow, and then not, ascent of modern day fascism. You don’t have to finish reading it to join. We’ll dive into the way it holds up the mirror to what we confront in real life, lessons we’re carrying with us after reading, and debate the political character of the fascist project presented in the book. Maybe talk comparisons to Civil War, the movie, and much more. So, if you want to join us — which I hope you do — head over to our Patreon page and register for the zoom. Not a patron yet? You can fix that today by signing up at Patreon.com/RefuseFascism. With that, here is my interview with Devin.

David Gilbert, a previous guest, in a recent piece for Wired reported:, “As the presidential election approaches and conspiracies about the integrity of the electoral system ramp up, election deniers and conspiracy theorists have coalesced around a narrative they plan to push ahead of November: Blame the immigrants. And not only that, election deniers are now advocating for a far right sheriffs group, called the constitutional sheriffs, to recruit an army of like minded citizens to patrol polling stations and stop the expected “flood” of “illegal immigrant voters.”

To discuss this week’s constitutional sheriffs… should we call it conference?… and what we need to know about white supremacist efforts directed at election subversion, I am joined by Devin Burkhardt. Devin is executive director at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, co-author of Breaching the Mainstream. Welcome, Devin. Thanks for chatting with me today.

Devin Burkhardt 12:55

Oh, my goodness, Sam, thanks for having me.

Sam Goldman 12:56

You have been covering, this past week, thank goodness somebody was doing it, the Vegas conference?, event? — I don’t know what to call it — hosted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association [CSPOA]. I guess let’s start off with what exactly are constitutional sheriffs? What is this organization? And who does it involve?

Devin Burkhardt 13:20

That’s a great question. For starters, if you opened up a copy of one of those pocket constitutions they like to hand out, you’ll notice that the word ‘sheriffs’ is not in there. So there’s no such thing actually as a “constitutional sheriff” and in fact, all sheriffs are required to enforce the law. But what so called “constitutional sheriffs” do is borrow from old school white supremacist teachings that the Posse Comitatus used during the 1970s and 1980s that taught them that based on 15th century constructions of law enforcement that the sheriff is the highest authority in the land, and therefore it gives them the power to both nullify laws that they don’t like and interpose or to stand in the way of other law enforcement agencies or jurisdictions from enforcing laws that they don’t like.

The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association itself is the leading group promoting this kind of ideas. They were created back in 2012 by militia figure Richard Mack, who has a long history in kind of promoting pro-paramilitary stances, in addition to being a CSPOA founder, he was one of the board members of the Oathkeepers, the other group designed to really recruit law enforcement and active duty military personnel into the ranks of the far right. So, at the end of day CSPOA is that leading group trying to recruit Look sheriff’s into this far right cause to help intervene for the far right in areas of controversy.

Sam Goldman 15:08

What have been some of those areas of controversy that they’ve intervened on?

Devin Burkhardt 15:14

The CSPOA has had sheriffs intervene in everything from land use issues and public lands to elections. One of the CSPOA board members, for instance, is a Michigan Sheriff by the name of Dar Leaf, who was an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving the 2020 election, in which he was involved in actually tampering with voting machines. It’s part of that larger effort from CSPOA to intervene in elections or to dissuade people from participating in elections. There was a case several years ago of a CSPOA person who was actually featured on the cover of one of the CSPOA founder Richard Mack’s books. She was running an operation in her state in Texas in her County, where she was actually intimidating voters at the polls.

We have other cases where you have sheriffs engaging in things like a pay to play deal, where he was taking bribes for handing out badges to folks in his community, allegedly. There’s another case ongoing or you have a Sheriff who was involved in a situation where he was illegally engaged in shipping guns off to a friend’s gun store called the machine guns nest. In addition to that kind of intervention, there’s a lot of corruption that’s going on inside the CSPOA or ranks as well. And yet, despite that, they’ve been able to worm their way into various sheriff’s departments all around the country.

Sam Goldman 16:51

Where are some of the places where they have impact?

Devin Burkhardt 16:54

They’ve got impact from Florida all the way up here to Washington State, and parts in between. They are very active as an organization at trying to recruit sheriffs. They’ll hold gatherings somewhat similar to the one they did in Las Vegas, although with not as high profile guests, and try to indoctrinate sheriffs into this idea of interposition and nullification and get them to be “constitutional sheriffs.” In the past couple of years, they’ve held events in places like Minnesota, and Illinois and Florida, and Washington and Nevada. So they are active around the country.

They are opportunistic in terms of looking for anywhere that they can get their claws in and try to recruit sheriffs. They’re all also opportunistic in terms of looking for issues in which they can get involved to try to find those sheriffs. If there’s a fight around gun rights like there was recently in New Mexico, or it’s a fight around land use, like you know, the Bunkerville standoff with Ammon Bundy, or if it’s things around COVID and COVID denial, they’ve certainly gained a massive boon throughout the pandemic in terms of fighting mask mandates and vaccine requirements. In fact, Sheriff Richard Mack, the founder of the CSPOA, in recent years, was making $20,000 a month salary as a board member for the leading kind of COVID denial group, America’s Frontline Doctors, a group which really helped promote the idea that vaccines were harmful and that the way to fight the pandemic was to take Ivermectin are Hydroxychloroquine.

So there’s a whole other side of it, I think that often gets left out, and that really, for groups like CSPOA, the pandemic was a massive boon in terms of both their reach and also their stature. The sheriffs became a clear bulwark they thought that they could use to intervene in any of these kind of local conflicts. And in fact, in some places, they tried to use county sheriffs to go after local police departments to prevent them from doing things like enforcing stay at home mandates or mask mandates, things like that.

Sam Goldman 19:15

We’ve talked about some of who the players are and where they’re impacting. I wanted to turn our conversation to just this past week, when they had their Vegas event where I think Bannon was supposed to speak and then didn’t, Michael Flynn was still there as a headliner. There have been pieces that have talked about tiny attendance and things like that, but what stood out to you in terms of what was significant from this conference, or what was surprising to you, just what are your reflections after watching it?

Devin Burkhardt 19:52

There are a couple of things that really caught my attention. The first was that similar to the Stop the Steal efforts that led up to what eventually became the January 6th insurrection. In this case, you had kind of a new, nascent network of QAnon conspiracists, election deniers, anti-vaxxers, paramilitary and militia types, and others, all coming together under one umbrella to have a larger message that was focused on creating a roadmap for potentially what could be an insurrection 2.0. I thought additionally that the narrative that they were using, casting this as an issue where there were going to be millions of “Illegal immigrants” that were “Military aged males” that were coming over to be an insurrectionary force and a fifth column to take over once Trump loses the election, I think was also a wake up call and really brought together all these different elements.

So you could have someone like Wayne Allyn Root on stage, talking about the great replacement at the same time that you could have somebody like Patrick Byrne up there calling for the necessity of creating militia cells, hooking them up with Green Berets, and connecting them to local constitutional sheriffs. They were really, in essence in that formative stage, of building out those connections, that singular narrative, and building out kind of a common frame for heading forward into 2024, which is a lot sooner than it happened either in 2022, or 2020. So I think that’s certainly something to keep an eye on.

Then, lastly, I think the other thing that really caught my eye was the number of political candidates who were in attendance. I think our last count is we’re over 20, I think it’s 22 now, that identified themselves during the event and stood up and wanted to be recognized. For an event like that, which had a relatively small attendance. I think to have them there and have that many speaking out is a sign that there’s a really large terrain, moving ahead and looking forward both in the electoral front as well as what could happen afterwards.

Sam Goldman 22:24

Thank you for lifting those things up for us. I struggle with sometimes this sense of what do we pay attention to that then amplifies something that shouldn’t be amplified, or makes it seem bigger, because you’re paying attention to it. I feel like there’s been reporting that they are moving out, instead of moving towards the mainstream, they’re moving back towards the fringes, because what’s being looked at is only the people in attendance. And I think that there’s something that you’ve pointed to in terms of whose attention they are garnering, in terms of people that hold political power, that I think actually speaks louder than the number of people you have in attendance. I was wondering what your thoughts on that situation were?

Devin Burkhardt 23:15

I think that’s absolutely the case. I think in this situation, you also have it significantly amplified by the fact that it was aired on a number of different far right, social media sites; Frank Speech and Rumble ran those things, and they were viewed by many times over the number of attendees. And already we’re seeing the fruits of that bearing out, where now we’re seeing posters on places like Telegram and Gab, regurgitating the CSPOA message and talking about the necessity of recruiting your local sheriff to prepare for the coming conflict. While they may have peaked in terms of their ability to reach the mainstream, they’re out of phase right now.

What they’re doing is building out a network and a preparatory phase for those troops, which they have on their side, preparing for that. That’s not going to potentially take the same massive number of people to create the kind of chaos that could make things really difficult after the November election. It just takes one Sheriff walking in and commandeering a voting machine or set of ballots, or one sheriff in one county you messing up accounts to throw things into chaos and to create the kind of situation that could be situation not unlike the insurrection but in local county elections bureaus, in local precincts in places where they don’t have the same kind of eyes upon them. And that could have lots of potential dramatic ripple effects down ballot as we try to move forward with the democratic process.

Sam Goldman 24:57

That makes a lot of sense. In your press advisory about the event in Vegas, part of it you had written that they’re “plotting a roadmap for coordinated election interference and insurrection.” I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how you see them making an impact already now, even before the election?

Devin Burkhardt 25:24

I think about the CSPOA event in Las Vegas as kind of a coming together of a bunch of already established networks and their representatives: Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy — while, he is often quite comical in his presentation, he’s built out a network of election deniers and monkey ranchers who are preparing for taking on the voting machines and creating havoc around the procedural elements of the election. He’s got one network.

Michael Flynn has established his reputation in QAnon circles, and he has a high standing in there and people listen to him, and he’s now on his movie tour, and building out his own little network. Patrick Byrne similarly has that kind of influence and that kind of status. Whereas folks like CSPOA have their feet firmly planted in the kind of far right pro-paramilitary wing, and have those connections to groups like the Oathkeepers and, like militia, Three Percenter and other similar types of organizations. And when you have all of those folks working in lockstep, kind of sharing a similar narrative and developing connections and ties, that creates a potential roadmap for where things could be heading.

Now that they have that common narrative around undocumented immigrants as being this fifth column that’s going to come in and steal the election — either through what they think is screwing up the census totals, which already would have happened last time the census was counted, and actually has helped Republican districts overall more than it has Democratic ones. But also, it has that more, just horrific, unabashed white nationalist, great replacement stuff that, literally, Wayne Allyn Root, stood on that stage and talked about.

I think also, at the same time, you have them giving a platform to someone like Alex Newman, John Birch Society and Epoch Times essayist, who got up there and was inciting the gospel, essentially, according to Matt Trewhella, an anti-abortion arsonist who’s written a book on the so called Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates, which is this bogus constitutional justification for nullification and interposition — It’s a biblical version like that, so they’re trying to bring in that Christian nationalist side into this mix as well. I think that given somebody like Trewhella’s role inside the kind of militant anti abortion underground, to see him getting a shout out at this event and actually having Newman encourage people to go hand out his book to local legislators was a sign that we’ve moved into a different period than I think we were before.

Sam Goldman 28:27

A very dangerous one. You gave this scenario about potential interference with, like ballot boxes or actions that a particular constitutional Sheriff may take in their county and the effects that it could spread to other places in the country. I was wondering, in a similar way in regards to the rights of our immigrant siblings or those who are perceived to be immigrants, SB4, and Arizona’s version, do you see similar mobilizations around demonizing or organized terror against immigrants?

I recall Trump was flanked by constitutional sheriffs at one of these border events and they were like holding like this golden braid. I’m not exactly sure what all of that was about, but it was like the blood of the border, which brings in a bunch of different things including Christian nationalism, with that whole language. The previous efforts for those caravans never took off, and I think that most of us have felt like: Oh, that period might be over. But then listening to you talk about the language and the almost marching orders, if this is who we’re focusing on, makes me wonder about what the implications of this will be.

Devin Burkhardt 29:47

You have every reason to be worried about the situation. I think that all signs indicate that the kind of Great Replacement, or Great Replacement lite, kind of rhetoric is going to be a core part of the 2024 election campaign, and the demonizing of immigrants in a variety of fronts, is going to be front and center in this campaign. Unlike before, where there were at least some firewalls, trying to hold back some of that stuff, given its success, both in terms of galvanizing folks on the right and Trump’s propensity for moving into that in the most extreme and vile ways, and people quickly rushing into that, it’s a sign that I think we’re gonna see a lot more of that in the coming months. And it’s gonna require all of us to, you know, stand up and make sure we push back on that, inside and out of the electoral arena.

Sam Goldman 30:43

I was wondering what your thoughts were on how this constitutional sheriffs organization, how that intersects with other voter intimidation, voter subversion efforts that you’ve been monitoring?

Devin Burkhardt 30:59

They’re really closely intertwined with a bunch of other efforts. The CSPOA really got into the voter intimidation game back in 2022, when, also in Las Vegas, they held a gathering with the Tea Party voter suppression group True the Vote — the group most popular for the heavily debunked video 2000 Mules. Since then, CSPOA has been working with groups like True the Vote, to do things like have armed paramilitary folks standing outside of ballot drop boxes, or doing things like what Mike Lindell is doing now, developing drones to fly over polling sites to intercept cell phone traffic and kind of monitor cell phone and Wi Fi traffic, to more of those grassroots efforts to do things like ballot box patrols, and as well as the more sophisticated efforts to remove people from the voting rolls with their purges, to making sure that more folks are kicked off rolls, to developing an army of folks, like a number of groups on the far right are doing to be poll watchers to intimidate people at the polls, in a more civil rights era kind of move than we I think we’ve seen in a while at the polls.

All of those things are happening. There’s that legislative fight around making it harder to vote, there’s a number of efforts to try to get people out to further make it harder when people do show up at the polls, whether or not they’re going to be able to actually cast a ballot, and then there’s that preparation for what they’re planning to do after the polls close if something doesn’t go their way.

Sam Goldman 32:45

What do you see their role being if things do go their way?

Devin Burkhardt 32:48

If things do go their way, it puts groups like the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in a position to be enforcers of the kind of MAGA mentality on the ground. They’ll have the kind of carte blanche that groups like the Proud Boys did during the first Trump term. They’ll be able to be the ones controlling the streets, and at least playing a part in those far right efforts to control the streets to maintain the kind of order that an administration like a second Trump administration would want to see. And now that you have Trump out there, specifically talking about day one, a militarized effort to deport millions of asylum seekers and undocumented folks, including the rounding up and putting folks in detention camps, they could be some of the folks helping to engage in those efforts to help in that kind of horrific process.

Sam Goldman 33:47

For those who are listening to this and want to take action, are there specific resources that you want to direct people to, from the Institute, or actions that you are advocating right now that you want to let people know about?

Devin Burkhardt 34:04

One big thing is there’s so much going on that we could use help with. If anyone’s interested in learning how to do grassroots research to pay attention to this stuff in your local community or nationally, please hit us up. We regularly run through courses and get volunteers involved in doing this. We’re a small staff, we’re doing our best to keep our heads above water, and really, we rely on people out there letting us know about what’s going on and to help us pay attention to so we can then lift that up to other folks who are also trying to do it, because I think, again, we often lose sight of the forest for the trees and by paying too much attention to big players and big figures, we often lose sight of that area.

For those of us anti-fascists, there are groups you know, like Right Wing Watch and folks like that, who really pay attention to kind of what used to be the mainstream right; Heritage on over to Fox News and that kind of world. Anti-fascists often paid attention to the more hardcore. I grew up in a period where there were white power skinheads coming over, either tried to recruit or beat up my friends. That was the focus, I think, and has remained often a focus of that kind of hard edge, white nationalist end of the world.

Then there’s that interstitial, that area in between the two that I think often gets overlooked. That’s an area where these ideas that emerge on the far end and get pipelined into the mainstream that are really important to pay attention to. The reason we find out about those areas where it’s happening in local communities is because people let us know. We definitely want to make sure that if you’re involved, we want to make sure we can help in any way we can — give you the tools, so you can start investigating that kind of stuff in your own community.

Sam Goldman 35:45

Thank you for that, and thank you for coming on, Devin, and sharing your expertise, your research, your perspective, your insight, and of course, your time with us. We’re gonna link to the Institute’s website and social media. Is there any other place that you want to direct people to go to either learn more, or connect with you?

Devin Burkhardt 36:07

Find us on our website, where we’ve got a ton of different stuff that I think will be useful to folks, as well, as follow us on social media, where we try to be engaged and posting regularly and helping folks, also sharing with folks things that we’re we’re learning about, so it’s probably the most rapid way we’re getting folks engaged.

Sam Goldman 36:26

Thanks again. Thanks for your work.

Devin Burkhardt 36:28

No, thank you. Thank you for the podcast. It’s great.

Sam Goldman 36:31

Next, we’re talking county capture and the role of militias and county governments in Central and South Virginia with Carolyn Gallagher, a professor at American University. She has written about right wing paramilitaries in the U.S. and Northern Ireland. Her research on militias in Virginia was published in the Public Eye magazine, Fall 2023/Winter 2024 issue. Welcome, Carolyn. Thanks for joining me.

Carolyn Gallaher 36:58

Thanks for having me.

Sam Goldman 37:00

I’m so glad that you could come on to talk with me today. You have researched three counties in Virginia whose boards of supervisors considered resolutions to formally recognize militias. Can you tell us a little bit more about this county capture? And how that is playing out in some Virginia counties?

Carolyn Gallaher 37:22

We look at four actually, but there were more than four that we found as we were putting the research together, but some of them, we could only find evidence that something had been discussed in a press report, but there was nothing on the boards of supervisors minutes of meetings, so we couldn’t really track it. We looked at four counties: Bedford, Campbell, Franklin and Halifax. These are basically in southern central Virginia, or in Southside, as some people would call it.

The way to think about these resolutions is through the timing — the timing was very important on when this happened. In 2019, the General Assembly, which is Virginia’s state houses, the two houses, had an election that was historic, because it was the first time in 25 years that the Democrats had control of both houses in the General Assembly. This sent off shockwaves in the political establishment, but it also sent off shockwaves on the far right in Virginia.

The first thing that happened after the 2019 election was a number of counties and municipalities, the great majority of which actually passed Second Amendment sanctuary city resolutions. That happened, literally, in about a month and a half between the election in November and January of 2020, because the election was in 2019. Then, in 2020, early January, Virginia General Assembly has this thing called Lobby Day — a reporter once called it amateur arm twisting — you can actually go to the Capitol and you can go and see your general assembly rep, or another one, if there’s a bill that you’re interested in, and you can like lobby them on what you think about it. So Virginia citizens defense league, which is a gun rights group which is generally regarded as further to the right than the NRA, helped organize this.

They didn’t organize the Lobby Day, but they organized a second amendment rally at Lobby Day. So, in 2020, tons of militias from across the country showed up in Richmond on lobby day, to the extent that then governor Governor Northam had to put up a perimeter around the Capitol, and you could only get inside the perimeter by going through metal detectors and other things, because there were so many people walking around the streets of Richmond with assault rifles.

Then, shortly thereafter, a number of counties’ boards of supervisors considered resolutions to formally recognize militias. This all happened really in like a four month period. VCDL [Virginia Citizens Defense League] has not said they were involved in the militia resolutions. But it looks like there was coordination Given the timing of all of this. And so it happened in a very quick timeframe. And it was in response to the Democratic Party winning the General Assembly.

Sam Goldman 39:54

What impact have these efforts made? Have they been successful in terms of formally recognizing militias?

Carolyn Gallaher 40:02

At one level, it’s very performative. If you actually look at the resolutions, they’re kind of a gobbledygook soup, if you will, of “whereas…”, and then there’s, you know, citations to the U.S. Constitution through individual amendments in the Bill of Rights. There are references to the U.S. and the state constitution, to the flag of Virginia; just kind of all this legalese statutes and stuff. It doesn’t say a whole lot, except: We think we have the right to be a militia, and the county is recognizing us, or the county is actually saying we’re recognizing the militias.

One more way, you can kind of look at it and laugh, because it doesn’t give them any authority, in a sense of saying: You’re gonna now take over Homeland Security, for example. But what it does do, which is really disturbing, is it’s basically saying that a county is looking at a non-state armed group — and this is what a militia is, it’s not under civilian control. It’s not under the military’s control, it is just a group of people who have formed a private army, and they’re under no one’s control, but their own — and a county government is saying, we support you, we recognize you. That, to me, is really disturbing, because if you go almost anywhere else in the world, and talk to people that have had non-state armed groups active in their territory, it tends to get worse, not better.

Thinking about Colombia, you had the FARC and the other defenses, the AUC; Northern Ireland, you had the IRA, the UVF, Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defense Association, also the Loyalists Volunteer Force; we can look in U.S. history, right, and look at the history of the Klan and Citizen Defense Council. When you have these armed groups that are under nobody’s control, they’re really hard to rein in, and I always want to remind people, they are not elected; they have not gone through any tests of democracy that would say: These people have a right to, in some form, or fashion represent us. Even with judges and sheriffs, these are elected positions.

The militias have not been elected. They’re saying they’re working on behalf of the citizens of these counties, but who’s to say that? Did the citizens actually pick them? Was there a referendum? Was there an ability to weigh in at all? The answer is no. As a culture in the U.S., we’ve normalized these groups. We give them a pass that we don’t give other groups in the U.S. that are armed, and we also certainly give them a pass that most other countries do not give to non-state armed groups.

But the thing that that’s also striking about this sort of the politics behind this, and the way you go about doing this is you present yourself as non threatening: We’re not here to be a militia, we’re here to like help you when you need your militia. And it’s like: Well, but we have other groups to do that, and they have been certified if they are Fire and Rescue, or they’re ambulance people. Nothing’s stopping you from doing all that work if your neighbor’s house burns down after the fact or a bad wind storm blows a tree down, but why do we need you to do this? It’s the soft politics. We’re trying to present ourselves as non threatening, but there are reasons to be worried about that.

Sam Goldman 43:11

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the intersection of militias and democracy erosion in the United States. In your piece that we’ve been referencing, you had written: “As we discovered, these resolutions are part of a larger far right plan to take control of county governments and put them on war footing; as guerrillas, when Democrats are in control, and as Pro state paramilitaries win, MAGA Republicans are in charge.” I was just hoping you could elaborate on that as part of understanding what this landscape is and what this landscape could become.

Carolyn Gallaher 43:44

I think what this is evidence of is its partisan politics becoming armed. That’s what’s dangerous about this. This whole thing got set in motion because the Democrats won the General Assembly. It wasn’t because the Democrats were saying, we’re gonna go in and arrest men and throw them in prison or blah, blah, blah, it was a democratic election, and it did not go for their side, and the response to that was to arm up. Then you have to sort of step back and go: Well, what are you arming up for? What is it that you fear?

I think this is literally the weaponization of partisan politics. That’s not democratic. One of the things that differentiates a fully democratic system and a non democratic or partially democratic or democratically eroded system is that threats and intimidation and bullying or even the threat of a threat, that kind of presence of a threat, makes democracy weaker. I think another thing that’s really interesting here, again, is the timing and the fact that this happened in 2019. So the question I have really is, these groups form and they’ve been a little quiet lately, but the specter of a Trump Biden rematch cannot be taken off the table here as a big concern.

If they’re worried about Democrats retaining power at the federal level, they could be on war footing They could be ready to act. Go back to January 6. If you go and think about that day, and most of us watched it on TV. The Oathkeepers and the Proud Boys got into the Capitol. And then it sort of looked like they were not sure what to do. And they actually came back out later. They did some stupid things, obviously, and bad things. But they seemed to be sort of waiting for orders. A lot of the stuff that came out in the trials of these guys, I think they wanted Donald Trump to call the Insurrection Act. And if he called the Insurrection Act, he could deputize them. He never did that, and thank goodness, he didn’t.

But that’s kind of what they were doing like they were being prepared if they were deputized. I think that’s a real worry. If we have election violence in the 2024 election, and it’s unclear who has power. And so I think, again, that’s hard to do on the fly. It’s a lot easier to do if you’ve got armed groups kind of in waiting. And I will also say that when Bob Good, who is a Congressperson in Virginia, when he won his last primary, the Campbell County militia was flanking him on the stage where he accepted the win. Good is a kind of a fire thrower in Congress. What kind of message are you sending there?

It’s not traditional Virginia politics, or I think most states that when you accept a primary win, that you bring a militia on the stage with you. What kind of message are you sending about democracy? Democratic erosion doesn’t come with one fell swoop, it’s all these little things that get us ready, and primed to expect that this is normal, and to see it as normal, and not to really be like, This is crazy. Why in the world would a sitting Congressperson, by the way, get on a stage with the militia?

Sam Goldman 46:40

Exactly. I think the way that you were talking about it as a process of preparation, and a process of normalization, so that people: Oh, this is politics, as usual; when it’s like nothing even approaching what politics has been — how this country has been cohered for hundreds of years. But I think that there is already in the past few years been that steady undermining of elections and the electoral process, where people are becoming more and more accepting of ways in which election subversion is part of our culture. That’s incredibly dangerous, but now it is not a widespread feeling.

I think that people do accept that there may not be a peaceful transfer of power. The militias, in my opinion, seem to have shifted their mission and methods, and I felt like that was evident in your piece. I’ve talked to other experts who have talked about their significance ebbs and flows over time, and that there’s a general feeling that the power that they’ve had is less significant now. I just wanted to get your thoughts on what that shift has been in what you’ve been looking at.

Carolyn Gallaher 48:09

I think there are some things that kind of remain consistent. If we go back to like the 1980s, or the 70s, if you look at some of the sovereign citizen stuff, which is similar, but they’re not the same as the militia, there are some things that are saying they tend to be very suspicious of government, loaded with conspiracy theories. They have made overtures to county governments in the past, so that part’s not new. There’s a whole history in the 70s and 80s of these kind of self styled militias, especially in the intermountain west, to claim like federal powers do not trump local power here.

So that part is not new, but I think what is new is that they have started to like the idea of federal power, so long as it’s in their hands. We think about Waco and Ruby Ridge, they were virulently anti-government virulently anti- the Bureau of Land Management, the FBI, the ATF; the alphabet soup of all the police agencies at the federal level. They were very suspicious of the federal government. They were very suspicious of the federal use of force against citizens.

One of the things I noticed before the 2020 election with Stuart Rhodes, he was in Portland at some point, I forget which agency it was, but he offered to help them police the Antifa protests, which would have been really unheard of; like you actually want to work with the federal powers? So it’s become anti-government no matter who’s in power at the federal [level], they don’t really like the federal government, to anti-democratic government and federal level. That’s really meaningful because that changes your targeting. If you think about Timothy McVeigh, he blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Many reports suggest that he targeted that building because there was an FBI office in there and he was angry at the FBI because of Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Stuart Rhodes and the Oathkeepers and the Proud Boys — who are not exactly a militia, but they made common cause there — attacked the Capitol, but they attacked the Capitol in a very particular way that was going to certify a democratic election. So what this means is, they’re kind of on the footing of: I’ll be a guerrilla movement when Democrats are in power, and I’ll be a paramilitary force, i.e. working with the state, when Republicans are in power. I sort of chart some of this back to 2016, in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover that Amon Bundy’s militia did.

The weird thing about that was the Bundys didn’t live in Oregon, they lived in Idaho and their father lived in Nevada. Most of the people that took over the reserve were not from Oregon, they actually had come to that county around a very personal dispute that one farmer had had with Bureau of Land Management. They held meetings, and they tried to get locals to support and come and take the land over, and the locals didn’t want to do it. Even the militias didn’t want to do it, they thought it was a stupid idea. So it really kind of fell apart. But I think a lot of other people were like: This is an old playbook, fighting the federal government.

The new playbook is taking over the federal government, or working with a part of the federal government that is run by people that we like. Social media was not big, obviously, in the 90s, or in the early 2000s, but when Trump was elected, lots of different groups in the far right, were a little suspicious of him, but they were like: Oh, we can work with this guy. That, to me, was kind of new. Again, it wasn’t just militias, it was David Duke came out and said things, they were all like: Okay, he may be is a useful idiot, but he’s our useful idiot, we like that. That, for militia ideology, which is: the federal government is bad; is a big shift. And so the big question is: What will they do during the heated part of the election season if Trump asks militias to do what he asked the Proud Boys to do, which is to stand back and stand by? There’s a lot of groups, and we don’t know what’s going to happen to them between now and then, but the fact that they’re just there is troubling.

Sam Goldman 52:06

Let’s talk a little bit more about that. In Virginia itself. Do you see these implications?

Carolyn Gallaher 52:11

I think a lot of it is twofold. One, that they’re kind of waiting to see what happens, and they’re waiting for Trump to make some calls. But in the meantime, they’re getting organized and are getting involved in all these local events. There’s another militia, I think it’s near Poquoson, which is near the bay, I think northwest of, of Williamsburg, and a militia there showed up at a school board presentation, I think it was a presentation about sex ed in public schools. When they do sex ed, they let the parents know in advance: This is what we’re talking about, you can opt out; and a new member of the school board who wasn’t in the militia, but she apparently is sort of on the far right, and she alerted the militia that this was happening.

Again, this was a planned curriculum that had been voted on, and was just that presentation to the parents. The militia showed up at the school board. Of course, if you’re a teacher that’s terrifying; you go into the school and you’re talking about the curriculum you’ve all agreed on, this is what you’re going to do, and then a group that calls itself a militia behind closed doors, shows up, most people recognize they are a militia, even though they don’t have the weapons with them, it’s like: We’re watching you. That’s the threatening, the bullying, and intimidation. You think: Okay, well, there’s this group intimidating people and threatening people, whoa, what happens if the election goes to Biden? What are they gonna do?

We’re playing this double game, I think, which is: On the one hand, we are just an emergency preparedness, militia, and on the other hand, has the State of Virginia asked you to be an emergency preparedness militia? I do not believe so. Even though Youngkin is a Republican, I do not think the current governor has reached out and issued a clarion call to militias to form emergency preparedness units. I don’t even have any evidence that the counties in question here have done that. So it’s really a veneer of what another goal is, which they have not stated. But certainly we should be worried what that goal is, given the context of the role of militias in January 6th.

Sam Goldman 54:05

There’s also been reporting of the presence of militias by ballot drops. As we look ahead to the presidential election and the different scenarios that could play out, how do you see militias potentially being involved or reacting? Not just during the election itself, not only after. What should we be vigilant about?

Carolyn Gallaher 54:26

I think one thing we want to look at in any place, and again, you may not have a militia, but people with weapons showing up near polling stations. If they’re outside the boundaries of that particular… each polling station has its boundaries. If you’re outside of that, many places will allow you to open carry. But if you’re tripping up at a polling station on election day, that’s a form of a intimidation. I think we need to look carefully if they’re spreading disinformation in advance of the election. Like, what are they saying on social media about the election and also, what they’re saying after that? Are they trying to see the well with incorrect information.

It’s important on both the pre- and the post-election, because if it’s post-election, they’re setting the ground maybe for doing something bad. Pre-election, they’re trying to get people to be suspicious of the process. I also think we really need to look at the degree to which sheriffs are working with these groups. The problem is, of course, that the few states have really shown a willingness to deal with constitutional sheriffs. There’s certainly pros and cons to doing that. You could sort of poke the bear in an unproductive way, but at the same time, these sheriffs are breaking the law, and they’re getting away with it.

So how active and loud are they? Then, of course, campaign rallies, are they showing up armed? Are they standing outside of these campaign rallies or whatever with weapons. Being there with a gun is a problem. Any places coming out of democracy, where we have election watchers, like the Carter Center goes all over the world to observe elections, when people show up and intimidate people at an election event, or at the ballot box, or at polling stations, that’s not considered fully democratic. Then, again, specifically threats against people that are working in elections.

In Virginia, in Lynchburg, their registrar is in a battle with the city of Lynchburg just to keep her job. She was fired and she said: No, you can’t fire me, you haven’t followed the procedure. This person has been doing this for a while, has not stirred controversy, no one thinks that she’s cooking the books, but they’re going after her, and you have to wonder why they’re going after her if there’s no job problems; she has not done anything illegal. They’re playing the double game, trying to get people that are doing their job legally out of the way, but they’re saying they’re doing that for “election integrity,” but they have no evidence there’s been any election integrity issues.

Sam Goldman 56:50

Doing it to get somebody in that position who is gonna do what they want.

Carolyn Gallaher 56:56

Lynchburg is interesting, because it’s really a purple place now, in Virginia. There, you’re like: Okay, if the election is close, we have our person in that office.

Sam Goldman 57:05

I want to thank you so much, Carolyn, for coming on and talking with me sharing your expertise, your perspective, your insights. We’re gonna link to your article. Is there any place else you want to direct people if they want to connect with you or read more from you?

Carolyn Gallaher 57:27

They can go to Political Research Associates, where I wrote this article for the public eye. I have an author page there. I’ve written a number of articles there. Some of them are specific to militia activity in the run up to the election. One of the things that we looked at, the militias were trying to become a pro state paramilitary. So there’s, stuff about the Religious Right. This is where I write most of my stuff on the far right, for Political Research Associates. You can follow me on Twitter, and I will certainly repost whatever you put there of my stuff as well.

Sam Goldman 57:57

Wonderful, thank you so much.

Carolyn Gallaher 57:59

I want to give a shout out to my colleague. She and I did this together. She did not want to be here today, and I’m not going to say her name to draw attention, that was a legitimate concern for her, you know, it takes a village.

Sam Goldman 58:11

Closing out today’s show, here is my interview with CJ Spencer on the insidious convention of the state’s movement. It’s always great to welcome on listeners as guests. So today, I am joined by CJ Spencer, who recently published a comprehensive piece over at Ms. Magazine about the constitutional convention. Basically, it’s a mechanism that some on the right are hoping to use to obliterate constitutionally protected rights. CJ is an educator and freelance writer based in the Pacific Northwest who has worked in political advocacy pushing for the expansion of voting rights. They write about the far right and national politics, and has been tracking this movement for about three years. So welcome, CJ, thanks for coming on.

CJ Spencer 59:04

Thank you for having me.

Sam Goldman 59:06

Here’s where I want to start. And if you want to take it in a different direction. Please go ahead. Before we delve into all it is that they want to do, what is the Constitutional Convention that they’re going for? At this time, there hasn’t been a constitutional amendment passed in over 30 years. My understanding is that calls for a constitutional convention have generally become the stomping ground for individuals that we would consider beyond the margins. But, amongst powerful people in the American fascist movement, including prominent Governors and legislators, there’s a new concerted effort that’s gaining steam to convene a constitutional convention to transform the American government into what I guess we could put as a streamlined weapon, entirely dedicated to brutally enforcing the fascist agenda. Can you tell us more? Like: What is this? And what do they want to use it to do?

CJ Spencer 1:00:10

The Constitutional Convention Movement goes right back to article five of the Constitution, which states that the Congress whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to the Constitution, or on the application of legislature’s of two thirds of several states shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which in either case shall be valid for all intents purposes, part of this constitution, when ratified by the legislature of three fourths of several states, or by convention, and three fourths thereof as one of the mode, or of the other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress.

So it’s kind of going right back to the Constitution in which there is a mechanism or a lever that a few states can be part of the amendment making process that really is trying to rein in on the federal government. In particular, what we see right now happening is that there are these far right groups and networks that are trying to rein in on the federal government spending, trying to restrict the powers and jurisdiction of the federal government, as well as trying to limit the terms of office for congressional members, but even their federal employees. They see this avenue as a way to potentially kind of dismantle unions that are within the federal government as well.

The organization I speak about in my article is primarily the Convention of States action. Convention of States Action is probably the fastest growing Article Five movement. They started in 2014 with Georgia being the first state and have since been able to gather 18 other states. In 2022, they gathered four alone. Those four states were Wisconsin, Nebraska, South Carolina, and West Virginia. The Convention of States action (COSA) is being kind of led by Mark Meckler, who was also the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots from 2009/2010 era.

Also, another very key figure in this movement is Michael Farris. This may not be familiar for folks, because Michael Farris is also part of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is that right wing organization that has history of being part of the conservative homeschool movement, but was also behind the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, as well as the 303 Creative decision regarding the website designer not wanting to design a website for same sex couples.

So this is a very organized network, and then more recently, thinking about how speaker Mike Johnson — he also endorses this movement — when he was a lawmaker in Louisiana back in 2016, not only did he vote for the resolution, but he also spoke on the floor, and the base of it and supporting of it. So it’s very much becoming more mainstream than it was, probably, pre 2022. Back in September, before he became speaker, he was a chairman of the subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, where he oversaw the hearing discussing Article Five and the state’s ability to propose amendments of the constitution. So, with his ability to set the agenda and the house and determine which bills will see the House floor, he has immense amount of power, and the ability to call a convention.

Sam Goldman 1:00:56

Really helpful break down. I also appreciated you bringing in who’s behind this. It gives us some indicators of what they’re going for and what’s at stake. I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about what these proposed amendments are and what’s at stake with this possibility.

CJ Spencer 1:03:34

The Convention of States action has actually held to mock conventions.

Sam Goldman 1:03:37

It looks like one just happened in Louisiana.

CJ Spencer 1:03:40

I think they’re trying to call their own state constitution convention, but the Convention of States has held its own two privately organized conventions. The first one was in 2016, right before the 2016 election, and the last one was actually in just August of last year. And at this mock convention, they proposed six amendments, and I found like three of them to be the most dangerous to our rights. The first one being Supreme Court and state standing. This one set the number of justices on the Supreme Court to nine, but it would also ensure that states have a mediate standing to challenge any type of congressional legislation, any type of administrative or like executive branch, administrative decision as well.

So it’s really trying to allow the states to kind of bring back states rights where they can be like: This is infringing on our state, so we are going to sue you in court. Also thinking about during the COVID pandemic, if this had been passed, then or was part of our amendments then, this would allow for states to you know, block the COVID pandemic response. This, also, if it were passed today, would allow for states to kind of roll back on the Safer Community Act which tightened gun laws nationwide in 2022, thinking about the aftermath of Buffalo and Uvalde.

Also thinking about just how this really puts a limit to what the federal government can do in terms of trying to protect people and states that are potentially or currently being faced with attacks, thinking about LGBTQ and reproductive rights, all of that. Another one is also dealing with the federal budget and government spending, because thinking about the federal budget in terms of social programs, it’s historically known that Republicans often target social programs that they do not want government to be spending.

One of the proposed amendments would propose an amendment that would require for any extra funding in the government to immediately go to paying off its debts, whereas that budget could absolutely be used for investing in our communities, especially in programs like SNAP and Medicaid, which millions of people rely on to make ends meet and to feed their families. Another proposed amendment is dealing with the federal regulation and agencies commerce, thinking about the FDA, for example, and how they regulate what we consume.

They are attempting to enact a commerce clause that is completely outside of the scope of the federal government, in which states will be able to determine what can be bought, sold, and transported and the state, kind of making sure the government has no ability or power to determine what people in that state can consume or receive or buy; thinking about the abortion pill thinking about also like prep that many people use to help themselves. If a state can determine that: Oh, we actually don’t want to allow this medication, we actually don’t want allow this product into our borders, that’s really going to affect what people in that state are dealing with and what they may have to face even more struggles and obstacles and burdens to receive the care that they need, which is a very dangerous game when we’re thinking about what’s already been happening since the overturning of Roe and the amount of forced pregnancies people are having to take on.

Another one deals with state revoking power, in which they are proposing an amendment that would give states the power to revoke any action of Congress, the President or administrative agencies, whether that be repealing a statue, decree, order regulation, rule, opinion, decision, or any other by a majority of state legislatures. Currently, Republicans do control a majority of state legislatures, so this is also very concerning, because they’re very explicit that they are not going to grandfather any current law in, so that means any current law right now is immediately up to be repealed if they decide. So it’s really showing us where they wanna go and where they’re willing to take this. More people should be aware about and should be concerned about what it will pose to our rights.

Sam Goldman 1:07:47

How do you see this fitting into what we know about the larger fascist agenda articulated in documents like project 2025?

CJ Spencer 1:07:59

Yeah, that’s a very good question. Actually, last year, the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, endorsed the Convention of States action. So the Heritage Foundation is behind Project 2025. I honestly see them using the convention as a tool to enshrine what they want to do into the Constitution. Also, thinking about former President Donald Trump, he could definitely try to use his power to get an amendment that would give him a lot more power and authority if he wanted to.

It’s also very important to remember, the folks behind this movement are also those same folks who are behind the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and thinking about also January 6th. For example, Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Chip Roy, Sean Hannity, John Eastman, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and part of his legal case to try to overturn the 2020 election, endorsed and as part of this movement. In fact, John Eastman attended the Convention of States action 2016 Mock Convention, so he’s very versed in this movement. They absolutely want to gut any type of freedoms people have in terms of making sure that they can consolidate power and really decide what freedoms we are allowed to have and how we’re even allowed to exist in this country.

Sam Goldman 1:09:22

Really helpful information on a topic that most people know nothing about. I want to thank you, CJ, for coming on and sharing your research with us your analysis with us and of course your time. If people want to learn more about this topic and your writing, we’re gonna put a link in the show notes to your Ms. Magazine piece. Should we direct them to your Substack? Where can people go to learn more?

CJ Spencer 1:09:55

I am on X or formerly known as Twitter, @byCJSpence, and then, also, my Substack is Radio Free Nation. So yeah, you can definitely follow along as I continue to follow this movement as they gear up for the 2024 elections.

Sam Goldman 1:10:10

Thanks so much.

Sam Goldman 1:10:11

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