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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFinalist for sheriff of Idaho's largest county blames Jews for communism in his job interview
One of the clearest priorities for public officials that has emerged from the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection is the dire need to root far-right extremists out of the ranks of the nations law enforcement agenciesunderscored by an FBI intelligence report warning that white supremacists are targeting such agencies for infiltration. More than anything, effectively confronting far-right terrorism and violence will require ensuring that law enforcement is not subverted by officers who sympathize with their frequently unhinged ideologies.
But in Boise, Idaho, local county commissioners considered appointing as sheriff a man named Steve Traubel, who is an ardent supporter of the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), an organization that preaches that sheriffs are the supreme law of the land, accountable to no one. During his job interview this week as one of three finalists for the sheriffs position, Traubel repeated the antisemitic theory that Jews led the Bolshevik Revolution and are to blame for creating the Soviet Union, as well as for the subsequent violence.
However, although Traubel had significant backing from GOP officials, the county commission on Friday chose someone else.
Traubel, a onetime Sheriffs Office investigator who worked in the Ada County Prosecutors Office until 2019, and the other two candidatesMatt Clifford, a lieutenant in the Sheriffs Office, and Mike Chilton, a Marine Corps veteran and onetime Sheriffs Office employeewere interviewed Wednesday by the Ada County Commission. The three finalists were chosen by the Ada County Republican Central Committee to replace former Sheriff Steve Bartlett, who resigned suddenly in May, less than a year after winning reelection.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/2/2038127/-Finalist-for-sheriff-of-Idaho-s-largest-county-blames-Jews-for-Communism-in-his-job-interview
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)You will see it used as justification for the Holocaust in the more outre parts of the inter-tubes --- revenge for the Soviet Union's atrocities.
TheBlackAdder
(28,182 posts).
Perhaps that Nazi is confusing Totalitarian Communism with Ayn Rand's destruction of American Values.
.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,853 posts)... partly because Karl Marx and other Jewish intellectuals had earlier shared those economic ideas.
The fact that the Jews couldn't force anyone to implement the ideas was somehow ignored!
The Aryan race nonsense didn't help those millions of victims of Nazism either.
Right-wing propagandists in this country have been trying for decades to incite similar fear and hatred toward liberals and intellectuals, in general.
lame54
(35,281 posts)yonder
(9,663 posts)most populous County, not it's largest. Not by a long shot.
Thankfully, Ada Co. remains purplish though the same can't be be said for it's County Commissioners - who fortunately did the right thing here.
jmowreader
(50,552 posts)It is a little over 8000 square miles. Population is about 16,000.
For context, Delaware, Rhode Island, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam are all smaller than this one county.
bahboo
(16,336 posts)all you need to know.....
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)leftyladyfrommo
(18,868 posts)He is currently banned from the capitol and I think he was in court for other craziness this week
Southern Utah is really Mormon country. The Bundys are some weird kind of Mormon.
jmowreader
(50,552 posts)Specifically, he was in court to answer to what got him banned from the Capitol in the first place.
brooklynite
(94,489 posts)Hekate
(90,628 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,295 posts)Commissioner Kendra Kenyon, of District 3, questioned Traubel about posts he has written about the number of Black men who rape white women; his support for the constitutional sheriff movement; and comments that he wears a mask with hoax written on it when traveling on airplanes, that Islam is the culture of death and that single mothers are not an economically viable unit.
...
Later, she asked Traubel about the source of a sentence in his book that at least 50% of rape allegations are false.
In response to Kenyons questions, Traubel said that when his comments are suspended in the air without the context of the chapters and paragraphs that surround them, it paints an unfair picture of me.
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article252485233.html
Somehow I doubt that reading more of his book or posts would do anything to lessen the stupidity and hatred he expresses.
Solly Mack
(90,762 posts)NNadir
(33,512 posts)...It's terrible to think he might be taken seriously, but I do think it possible after the "Presidency" of an incurious dullard racist.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)in 2020, a continuation of an ongoing trend to the "redoubt" states. The male half of a couple of very old friends is a competitive marksman who'd love to trade off his extremely modest (think once a working class starter) $1+M urban "rancher" near Santa Monica for an Idaho estate, a small but real ranch, but the female half took one look at the far-right flight they'd be joining and put her foot down. They're both conservative, but not THAT kind.
Sympthsical
(9,067 posts)I've sat through many interviews, but that's a new one on me.
Mad_Machine76
(24,402 posts)Very puzzled about that myself.
I guess its good that it came up at all so at least they could make an informed choice about not picking him but yeah
Mosby
(16,297 posts)Jews are blamed for Communism and Capitalism.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)Iggo
(47,547 posts)Interesting.
Hekate
(90,628 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I'm so confused.
How much do you want to bet that he couldn't define Bolshevism or Communism if his life depended on it?
DFW
(54,330 posts)They're against Jews and Communists, but couldn't tell you the first thing about Judaism or Communism (or freedom, for that matter, but that is standard with people like that).
PlanetBev
(4,104 posts)Crab grass, halitosis, banana peels on the sidewalk, space lasers. You name it, we did it.
Jedi Guy
(3,185 posts)No doubt those dastardly Jews hit me with some kind of headache ray while I was sleeping.
Demovictory9
(32,445 posts)DemocraticPatriot
(4,341 posts)Just ship your potatos out, and shut the fuck up.