Throughout the country, Americans determined to correct the 2020 election fraud and prevent it from happening again are flocking in great numbers to their local Republican executive committees, drastically reshaping the dynamics of party power — a prospect that has the political establishment worried.
At ProPublica, a recent article features the headline: “Heeding Steve Bannon’s Call, Election Deniers Organize to Seize Control of the GOP — and Reshape America’s Elections.”
The use of the term “Election Deniers” is clearly intended to give the impression that those who speak out about fraud are mere conspiracy theorists, rather than concerned citizens who recognize the abundant evidence of malfeasance in the last election.
The ProPublica article notes that the significant rise in interest in joining local Republican parties as precinct committeemen and committeewomen is, in part, due to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who has encouraged the audience of his “War Room” program to do so.
Following the certification of the election for Biden, Bannon told listeners that the strategy for taking back the Republican Party, and thereby taking back the country, is going “precinct by precinct.”
Precinct committee people are the most basic level of involvement in the party. Every voter lives in a precinct. The role of a precinct committeeman or committeewoman is to recruit more Republicans and turn out the vote in that precinct, as well as to be the face of the party in that precinct. In some states, they play a role in choosing poll workers, and in others they help pick the members of boards that oversee elections.
In Wisconsin, the county clerks who run elections are required to hire the nominees of parties as poll workers. The parties once forewent the opportunity to suggest names, but now Republican chairs are moving to use those powers.
In Pennsylvania, election judges/inspectors are party-affiliated elected positions, meaning that controlling the local GOP gives Trump supporters the opportunity to directly influence the running of elections.
After contacting GOP leaders in 65 key counties, ProPublica found that 41 reported an unusual increase in signups since Bannon began pushing those who tune in to join their local Republican parties. In the counties that saw growth, the growth in membership totals 8,500 new precinct officers.
The movement has been propelled, in part, by Dan Schultz, who has called the tactic of taking over local Republican parties “The Precinct Strategy.” Schultz has regularly been a regular guest on Bannon’s show, appearing before and after prestigious guests such as Mike Lindell and Michael Flynn.
The strategy has borne quick fruit in some areas, allowing die-hard Trump supporters to oust establishment Republican leaders.
Jesse Law, who ran the Trump campaign’s Election Day operations in Nevada, set out to take over the Republican Party of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. His strategy involved bringing in droves of new precinct committeemen.
According to ProPublica:
In Law’s case, many of those newcomers came through the Proud Boys, the all-male gang affiliated with more than two dozen people charged in the Capitol riot. The Las Vegas chapter boasted about signing up 500 new party members (not all of them belonging to the Proud Boys) to ensure their takeover of the county party. After briefly advancing their own slate of candidates to lead the Clark GOP, the Proud Boys threw their support to Law. They also helped lead a state party censure of Nevada’s Republican secretary of state, who rejected the Trump campaign’s baseless claims of fraudulent ballots.
Law eventually won out, though supporters of the establishment chairman sued and a judge preliminarily sided with them, temporarily blocking Law’s “fraudulent, rogue election.”
In the Wolverine State, pro-Trump Republicans have made significant gains in taking over the party at the county level:
In Michigan, activists who identify with a larger movement working against Republicans willing to accept Trump’s loss have captured the party leadership in about a dozen counties. They’re directly challenging state party leaders, who are trying to harness the grassroots energy without indulging demands to keep fighting over the last election.
Some of the takeovers happened before the rise of the precinct strategy. But the activists are now organizing under the banner “Precinct First” and holding regular events, complete with notaries, to sign people up to run for precinct delegate positions.
“We are reclaiming our party,” Debra Ell, one of the organizers, told ProPublica. “We’re building an ‘America First’ army.”
The America First army may be fighting an uphill battle, but the ground-up approach presents a unique opportunity for everyday Americans to capture the halls of power previously reserved for political insiders.
