Someone was bound to catch on
Lauren Windsor of The Undercurrent for years has visited public events to question Republicans about controversial stances they and/or their party have taken. Since the MAGA movement emerged, she’s turned “a hidden camera, a Tennessee drawl and a knack for disarming her targets with words of sympathetic conservatism into a loaded political weapon,” the New York Times reported last October:
Posing as a true believer — in Mr. Trump or a stolen 2020 election — Ms. Windsor approaches Republican leaders at party gatherings and tries to coax them into revealing things that they might wish to keep in the G.O.P. family.
Responding to her “sweet, young thing” persona, Republicans “mansplain” public policy positions and their beliefs. Often, with embarrassing frankness. The clips end up on the internet.
Someone was bound to catch on. Last night in Wisconsin, a Republican staffer “made” her:
LIVE THREAD: I’ve been caught in the act at an election denier dinner in Appleton, Wisconsin! 1/
One of the staffers here recognized me and I could see them huddling. They didn’t approach- so I tried not to be paranoid. 2/
But they just had the emcee — Regular Joe — name check me during his opening speech 🫠 3/
I’m still here recording their speeches— they invited me up on stage! I’m minding my p’s and q’s listening to Michael Gableman— the guy who got fired by Robin Vos for spending over $1 million in Wisconsin’s bs election audit — and Gableman addressed me too 4/
He’s saying that Mark Zuckerberg stole the election for Biden and railing against ballot drop boxes. Crying fraud, says that no one has challenged his report 5/
I just raised my hand to ask Gableman a question and they invited me on stage… why he didn’t produce documents from his investigation to the WI judge who held him in contempt… 6/
Gableman wanted me to leave stage, but I insisted on taking a seat since they invited me… 7/
Hands shaking, trying to suppress his rage, Gableman mocked me and evaded the question. He cut our convo short dismissing my inquiries bc I didn’t read his George Soros-Zuckerberg election denying conspiracy report. 8/
WI Assembly Elections Chair Janel Brandtjen was just on calling on all the election deniers in the room to get involved to protect “election integrity”… you should be terrified 9/
Election denier gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels decries “banana republics” and promises WI will lead on “election integrity.” He also promises to transform education in the state through universal school choice. 10/
I left after Michels, but they blocked me from talking to him. I went outside, a couple of attendees yelled at me asking why I came to stir up shit. I replied that did not- that they had in fact called me out and invited me onstage and I merely accepted the invite to engage. 11/
The fellow yelling at me calmed down then and we had a lovely debate, where we actually found common ground about Big Corporate $$ govt corruption. I invited Rocky to drinks if he’s ever in DC. And now I’m driving home.
🇺🇸✊ #democracy /end
While Windsor’s work may bear a superficial resemblance to the that of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, she reaches targets at public events without costumes or phony resumes.
“In some ways, Ms. Windsor’s stings echo those of perhaps the leading practitioner of stunts meant to deceive Republicans, the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who targeted figures including Mr. Pence and Rudolph W. Giuliani for his 2020 movie “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” the Times suggests.
The Undercurrent is sponsored by American Family Voices, a small nonprofit founded in 2000 by my friend Mike Lux “to take on projects that needed doing, but that more traditional DC groups weren’t able or willing to take on.” Inside the Beltway, pretty much anything edgy fits into that category.
Windsor is nothing if not edgy.
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