I feel sorry for the normal people down there…
A decidedly dangerous normalization of lunacy took the form of a name on a sign-up sheet for poll watchers at a meeting of the Sarasota County Republicans late last week.
Flynn is nationally known as a retired general who has championed the Big Lie about the 2020 election, at one point urging military action to overturn it. He is also known for having been convicted of lying to the FBI while he was briefly President Trump’s national security advisor and for having subsequently received a presidential pardon. He has ascribed to various ”deep state” conspiracy theories.
On Thursday evening, Flynn was one of several dozen new members of the local Republican executive committee elected by voice vote at the Morgan Family Community Center in Northport, Florida.
As if that were not scary enough, they also elected James Hoel, a local leader of the Proud Boys.
Hoel and fellow Proud Boy Nicholas Radovich were active in the Aug. 23 Sarasota County School Board election that saw a longstanding 3-2 liberal majority become a 4-1 conspiracy minority. Radovich showed up at the victory party in a Proud Boys hat and T-shirt and flashed a white power sign during a group picture. The one re-elected incumbent conservative, Bridget Ziegler, subsequently denounced the Proud Boys as a “menace.”
Ziegler was present at the election of the new Republican executive committee members, but neither she nor anybody else was heard to voice an objection to a supposed menace being among them.
“It was not discussed at all,” local Republican activist Conni Brunni told The Daily Beast after the meeting. “They were all sworn in.”
Brunni described the atmosphere at the meeting as “so awesome.”
“The energy in that room was completely electric,” she said.
The county GOP leadership apparently did not want to risk a furor such as the one that followed the white power sign flashed in the giddy group photo at last month’s school board victory party.
“They wouldn’t let us take a picture,” Brunni reported.
But several people at the meeting posed for photos with Flynn that were subsequently posted on the Facebook page for Sarasota Watchdogs, which is associated with Hoel and the Proud Boys.
“Congratulations to all the new Sarasota Republican Executive Club members!” the Sarasota Watchdog page said. “This is local action at its best! For the first time in a long time, families are involved and excited! Please message us for an application to get involved at the October meeting! Fighting for our freedoms in Florida…we will hold the line! Prayers and love to each of the 50 plus new members.”
I’d certainly feel comfortable voting in a place that’s being “watched” by Proud Boys. I mean, why not? They’re just patriotic … terrorists. It’s fine. This is all fine.