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A few updates to this thread from last week about what's going with the Oregon GOP.
Two Twitter acquaintances(@pbriggsiam) who live in suburban Portland recently attended a meeting of their county's GOP with the hopes to find some sort of common ground. What they encountered was a party that had gone down the John Birch Society rabbit hole. 
@pbriggsiam The point they raise at the end is an important one to keep in mind. There is a gap between what party activists (like they encountered at that meeting) think and what rank-and-file GOP voters think.
@pbriggsiam There is much evidence that most of the energy within local and state-level GOP organizations (especially in states like Oregon where they form a distinct electoral minority) is coming from the far right--the "sovereign citizen" right, the "2nd Amendment remedies" right, etc.
@pbriggsiam That said, when I strolled past the pro-GOP protest in Salem on Sunday what I saw was a standard-issue conservative protest, the sort I've seen on a regular basis for decades--an almost entirely white crowd of mostly middle-aged folks, some who had brought their kids with them.
@pbriggsiam I saw no guns, I saw a few fairly "out there" signs that deployed some of the tropes of far right online discourse, but it was really not all that different from a 2010 Tea Party rally I observed or earlier anti-gay rights rallies. It did not feel like a major historical break.
@pbriggsiam As many have pointed out, the tactic of walking out to deny a quorum that the Oregon's 11 GOP senators deployed has long been a procedural tool deployed by minority parties throughout the country, both D and R.
@pbriggsiam But what's new is the eagerness of GOP elected leaders to work openly and eagerly with groups like the III%ers and sovereign citizen movement who openly avow using violence against agents of the state.
This podcast has a good discussion of what's happening in Oregon, and the clips of Dem leaders give a sense of how tense the situation is and how concerned they are for their own safety due to the rhetoric deployed by their GOP colleagues. opb.org/news/article/o…
To my mind, the big question moving forward is the relationship between the vestigial GOP "normie" voters (for lack of a better word) who are mostly in it for the old-school lower taxes, less regulation, etc...and the far right activists trying to push the party further right.
One of those activists is J*ey G*bson of P*triot Pr*ayer. He's based in Vancouver, WA, but is influential with right wing activists in Oregon as well. He presents himself as a "free speech" activist who cares about cultural values. He's all about love. pbs.org/video/patriot-…
As you'll see in that video, the message of love quickly morphs into a message of violent "self-defense." Here's a critical take on Patriot Prayer that depicts it as basically a right wing fight club that goes around looking to provoke violence. truthout.org/articles/how-p…
Considering that his close associates and supporters wear T-shirts like this that celebrate fascist dictator Pinochet and his practice of killing his leftist opponents by pushing them out of helicopters, we might question how central "love" is to the group's ideology.
The letters RWDS on the sleeve stand for "Right Wing Death Squads." The rhetorical ploy, of course, is to say that all of this violence is merely defensive. "They" started it, and all this group wants to do is say their piece in peace.
The $64,000 question, to my mind, is how do those "normie" voters respond to a GOP that is associating itself every more explicitly with groups like Gibs*n's? I could easily see low information "moderate" voters buying the line that this is a "peaceful free speech" group.
Here's an event held last month in Salem. Several of the people on this poster either attended the pro-GOP protest this weekend or sent their regrets. The person listed beside Joey Gibson (who ended up not speaking at this May event) is a spokesperson for the Senate GOP Whip.
To some extent what that person is doing is just standard issue, sharp-elbowed politics. Here's a fairly neutral story about them from a local paper. pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/4200…
Their work on behalf of the GOP on social media, however, echoes the sorts of talking points G*bson uses that equate democrats with Antifa, democrats with Communists.
The speeches at that May event can be found here. Most have about 50 views. While it's clear that there's a cohort of conservative activists working to shift the GOP rightward, it's not clear just how influential or powerful they are. Yet.
youtube.com/channel/UCtFv7…
youtube.com/channel/UCtFv7…
I'm a historian, not a politician or a reporter. I have no idea what the recent actions of the Oregon GOP portend for the future of Oregon or national politics. Much of what's been going on seems pretty in line with past GOP practice. Pretty extreme & dysfunctional, but not new.
The GOP has long been reluctant to police its right flank. As that right flank gets ever more extreme and comfortable with talking about the use of armed force (see Malheur), the connections between the institutional GOP and such fringe groups should raise some alarm bells.
G*bson did not attend this weekend's protests in Salem (which drew around 2-300 people). But two of his political associates did show up, flashing the puckish white power symbol (which they of course claim is just an "ok" symbol).
What is the relationship between activists like this and the Oregon GOP more broadly? Like all parties, the GOP is a complex coalition comprised of many different sorts of folks.
Are the right fringes just a passing fad in the party, or are they the future of the party? Only time will tell. At this point, I've seen little evidence that any leaders within the party are calling for a move toward the more electorally-viable center.
unroll @threadreaderapp
@threadreaderapp There are a host of great journalists/writers covering Oregon and Northwest politics more generally. Follow them for updates. @jason_a_w @jjmacnab @DavidNeiwert @AaronMesh @itsmikebivins @katemshepherd @alex_zee @Jeffmapes @dirquez & others who I'm sure I've overlooked.
@threadreaderapp @jason_a_w @jjmacnab @DavidNeiwert @AaronMesh @itsmikebivins @katemshepherd @alex_zee @Jeffmapes @dirquez Latest update. It appears that the Democratic Senate leader may have capitulated to the GOP walkout. Or maybe there really weren't enough votes. Regardless, score a point for obstructionism and threats of violence. Yay democracy!
