Claremont Institute's descent into Trumpian extremism illustrated in law enforcement strategy

[Nevilledog]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/19/2059159/-Claremont-Institute-s-descent-into-Trumpian-extremism-embodied-in-law-enforcement-strategy


And in the months since the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection that plan engendered, Claremont and its fellows have doubled down on their antidemocratic agenda: claiming Donald Trump won the election and that the insurrectionists were simply patriotic citizens defending the Republic, while proposing a proto-fascist approach to political discourse reliant on Proud Boys-style street thugs and “real American” patriots. Its most recent initiative, however, is even more insidious: recruiting the support of law enforcement officers throughout the nation into a far-right scheme to spread their extremism on the local level, in the manner of the Oath Keepers and other patriot groups.

The program, called the “Sheriffs Fellowship,” directly recruits elected county law officers to become part of “a countervailing network of uncorrupted law enforcement officials” in the face of last year’s civil unrest, COVID-19 restrictions, and “the electoral disaster of 2020.” It’s fundamentally the same idea as the patriot movement’s Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association and the Oath Keepers: seizing far-right control locally by radicalizing American police officers with their extremist ideology. Claremont’s version essentially gives a pseudo-academic veneer to a longstanding far-right recruitment strategy.

Claremont’s vision for the program is to create a cadre of sheriffs “not beholden to bureaucratic masters, and whose geographic boundaries, jurisdictional latitude, and—most important—direct connection and responsibility to citizens, places them on the frontlines of the defense of civilization.”

In its fundraising letter announcing the program, Claremont explained that “our new Sheriffs Fellows will put their knowledge and relationships to ingenious and cost-effective use to help restore the rule of law and America’s founding principles,” which it then described:

The current revolution against the American regime, involving as it does both crime and political malfeasance, requires a coordinated response from patriotic law enforcement officers.

Those whose "chain of dependency" is directly to the people of their region—officers not beholden to the centralized (and often corrupt) bureaucracies of federal or state governments, nor the vicissitudes of easily pressured city officials.

Sheriffs are appropriate for this response. Since their beginnings as "shire-reeves" ("county watchmen&quot centuries ago in England, sheriffs have been intimately connected with, and answerable to, the people of their "shires" and therefore the first layer of protection, and last line of defense, for the people's rights.

Our project will equip sheriffs with strategic knowledge and end their isolation. Their efforts will be supported, enhanced, and multiplied through a reliable like-minded network of fellow sheriffs and others with complementary areas of expertise and potency.

*snip*

[Demovictory9]

1. kick. i posted, a few weeks ago, about a stupid sheriff involved in this.