From The Washington Examiner comes the story of a Democrass who may be humble and nice and even pro-life, yet NEVER fails to vote LEFT-FASCIST:
In small town Iowa, a humble model for Democratic politicians
WEST POINT, Iowa — It takes less than five minutes of visiting with Ron Fedler to understand that family, public service, and community are the true treasures in his life.
"They are what mean the most to me — and, of course, my love and respect for country," he says, sitting in his living room in this Lee County town, home to 966 people and the state's largest sweet-corn festival.
In a state where corn is the driving commodity, having the largest festival is a pretty big deal.
It takes not much longer to understand that Ron Fedler should be a true treasure for the Democratic Party. His living room walls are a kaleidoscope of family photos. Large and small frames are filled with children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, all dotting the walls of the modest red-brick home he built himself. To the left of his easy chair is a framed black-and-white print of his parents and 11 of his 12 siblings: "My older brother had already left for Vietnam and missed the family photo."
Across the room from his overstuffed lazy chair, an 11-by-14 framed color photo of former President John F. Kennedy sits atop a coffee table; it's a copy of the iconic 1961 official photograph by Fabian Bachrach, showing Kennedy seated at his desk in the White House — frozen in that innocent moment at the start of "Camelot." A moment of promise — before the Bay of Pigs, before the Cuban missile crisis, before his assassination.
"He is my hero; he will always be my hero," Fedler says, smiling broadly.
Dumbass. Of course, compared to what has followed him, JFK appears to be freakin' Plato.
Fedler is not one of those Democrats who fled his party in this last election to vote for President Trump; he thinks the commander-in-chief is off-putting, without promise, erratic. Yet, despite his misgivings, he understands, at least partially, why fellow Lee County Democrats voted for him.
"This goes beyond frustration and anger; it really does," he explains. "Experts fundamentally misread the voters' motives who went from happily supporting former President Barack Obama to equally happily supporting Trump on election night. They liked Obama, but many of his policies hurt them and their communities, and they wanted someone who they felt listened to them."
Trump, he says, filled that void.
What concerns Fedler is that political reporters and his party still don't recognize that "Trump's support here is very strong." In 2012, Lee County cast 9,428 votes for Obama and 6,787 for Republican Mitt Romney. Four years later the numbers nearly reversed, with 8,762 votes going to Trump and 6,195 to Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump carried every voting precinct in Lee, a county long dominated by Democratic registration, activism and elected officials and by unions.
In 2016 you had people who normally voted Democratic but stopped believing in the more-progressive policies of Washington Democrats — which are very different than Lee County Democrats — and went the other way.
Ron Fedler is not one of those Democrats who fled his party in this last election to vote for President Trump; he thinks the commander in chief is off-putting, without promise, erratic. Yet, despite his misgivings, he understands, at least partially, why fellow Lee County Democrats voted for him. (Photo by Frank Craig for the Washington Examiner)
Fedler is the perfect example of what a Lee County Democrat represents: The West Point native was born, raised and graduated from high school here; drafted at age 19, he served as a radio Teletype operator with a secret crypto clearance.
His clearances were so top-secret that he never told his wife where he was stationed, what he did or what his orders were: "That information goes to the grave with me. I made a pledge to my country not to divulge that information, and I will forever honor that."
The military brass were so impressed with the young Fedler that they offered him a prestigious appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., he says, and a life as a career Army officer. But Fedler wanted to return to West Point, Iowa, so he respectfully declined.
His commanders "thought I was crazy, but all I wanted to do was go home, be with my family in my hometown. It is the best place in this country to live, the greatest hometown in the world, you know," he says, eyes twinkling.
Not only did Fedler never leave, but he also became an integral part of his community. He also became an integral and respected steward of the local Democratic Party.
After attending the local community college, he worked as a mason for four years and then for an energy company, saving all of his money until he could afford to buy Dugan's Corner Convenience Store and eventually build a new one, which he ran for 30 years. After selling the store, he worked as a correctional officer at the Iowa State Penitentiary.
But that is only part of his story: Fedler ran for and won a seat on the City Council, then served three terms as West Point's mayor — two consecutively, then once again several years later.
When he retired, he decided to run for the Iowa statehouse as a Democrat, a race he lost. He ran again, lost again.
Today he is in his second term as a county supervisor. In all of his roles in government, he has had a history of compromise, consensus-building, attracting jobs and accomplishing projects; he is tireless, well-liked and, more importantly, respected.
When he discusses the opening of the Iowa Fertilizer Company plant last month in Lee County, there's no "I" mentioned, no grandstanding over one of the largest private-sector construction projects in the state's history and the first world-class greenfield nitrogen fertilizer facility built in the United States in more than 25 years.
Of the elections he lost, he sounds sensible; of the ones he won, he sounds humble: "What I do is not for me. It's for the community — we don't want our people to fade away; we don't want our communities to fade away. That's why I serve."
In short, Fedler is the perfect example of what the Democratic Party's leadership should covet — of how the party's candidates should model themselves.
This is not because Republicans are perfect; it's just that they are in power and still ascending, and Democrats up and down the ballot are divided, struggling and still in search of a unified message.
The folks at the top of the party aren't exactly role models for how to reach out to those Middle America voters who fled the party in droves during the past eight years. You do not lose 1,100 down-ballot offices — state legislative seats, U.S. House and Senate seats, governor's seats — in that time because you are connecting with working-class voters.
In reality, the party has lost those voters not only politically but culturally.
According to Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ron Fedler has no place in the Democratic Party. Is that because he's white, or male, or older than 60? Thankfully not — but it is because Fedler is pro-life.
In April, Perez drew a line in the sand for Democrats supporting any candidates who oppose abortion rights. This is not the only reason that Democrats have lost public offices, but it is a large part of their problem: It is a position that is elitist, tone deaf, and shuts out a great amount of support that should naturally come their way.
The problem with Perez is that he is too ambitious; he allows his personal motivations to get in the way of his real job — raising money (his efforts have been awful) and building infrastructure (a weak effort, so far).
And, then, there is Hillary Clinton.
As one Democratic strategist said to me in an anguished email, "Won't she please go away?" This is from someone who supported her.
Last week, in yet another speech, Clinton vaguely admitted to some mistakes on her part in losing the election but spent the bulk of her time talking and talking and talking about the sly attempts to move support away from her and the party's alleged failure to raise money, provide campaign logistics, or back her in any meaningful manner.
Democrats have history on their side in the midterm elections of 2018: About 90 percent of the time, a president's party loses congressional seats in the midterms. The times that hasn't happened occurred during crises — Reconstruction, the Great Depression, after the Sept. 11 attacks.
What Democrats don't have on their sides are the right people in the limelight: Clinton needs to stop blaming everyone else, Perez should be more tolerant of different viewpoints, and the party needs to adopt a simple bread-and-butter jobs message.
Go on a field trip to West Point, Iowa, and learn from the Ron Fedlers of the party. He is not on Twitter, he is not that snarky, he works hard, and he compromises and gets things done.
And when he loses? He takes the blame.
From the Times of the City of Our Lady of the Angels comes the story of a Repansycan who no doubt sees himself as a stalwart foe of some totalitarian forces that threaten his freedom while also inexplicably supporting other totalitarian forces that threaten his freedom: (He is also probably humble, nice, pro-life, et cetera.)
Meet the Trump backer leading the resistance to the resistance
The crowd in the Inglewood High School auditorium had lost its patience with the loud white man in the sweat-stained Make America Great Again hat.
Arthur Christopher Schaper sat among a mostly African American crowd at Rep. Maxine Waters’ town hall meeting last month, calling the Los Angeles Democrat “the crazy black lady” and heckling her for his Facebook Live audience. People begged him to stop talking over “Auntie Maxine.” He said he was being discriminated against.
“God bless Donald Trump!” he shouted.
“Shut up, Arthur, you Nazi!” someone retorted.
As the police escorted him out with the crowd cheering, Schaper held up his phone, video rolling.
The next day, he blogged about it, saying Trump supporters in California were “behind enemy lines.” His ejection was quickly chronicled as heroic by the far-right website InfoWars and by Sarah Palin on her Facebook page.
California is the symbolic home of the resistance to Trump, a blue state where politicians are fighting his moves on issues like immigration, climate change and healthcare, and where thousands have taken to the streets in protest.
Schaper is part of the resistance to the resistance, a Californian who delights in upending city council meetings in so-called sanctuary cities and shouting down Democratic politicians.
Schaper is so abrasive that the local Republican Party has disavowed him. But he is indicative of the growing extremism of debate in the Trump era, when the president’s supporters and detractors in California have waged violent, vitriolic protests in Berkeley, Huntington Beach and elsewhere.
“People are afraid to put Trump bumper stickers on their car,” Schaper said. “I’m going, ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ We’re going to fight right back. We’re going to defend our right to stand with our president, to stand for our values.”
Who is Arthur Christopher Schaper?
Schaper, a 36-year-old unemployed Torrance resident and blogger, usually shows up at public meetings in his red Make America Great Again cap, wearing a Trump flag as a cape. He records his escapades on cellphone video, narrating in real time as he trolls in real life.
Schaper's style — which includes showing up to Waters' office with a sign reading, "Maxine Waters Go to Hell" — caused the Republican Party of Los Angeles County to pull the charter from the Beach Cities Republicans club of which he is president.
Schaper is involved with numerous right-wing groups, including MassResistance, an anti-LGBTQ organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group. He said financial support from MassResistance helps fund his activism.
To the SPLC, everybody to the right of Che Guevara is a hater, so that counts as editorializing.
He and roughly a dozen supporters and anti-illegal immigration activists have become a particularly unwelcome presence at city council meetings in places with large Latino immigrant populations such as Cudahy, El Monte and Huntington Park.
In recent weeks, they have shouted down a Riverside speech by state Senate leader Kevin de León (screaming “Anchor baby!”) and a Redondo Beach town hall by Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu.
They temporarily stopped an immigration town hall led by Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) on May 30, interrupting his speech. Schaper got in Correa’s face, recording video as he screamed about “illegal aliens.” Three people — including a man who hit a Trump supporter over the head with a flagpole bearing an anti-fascism banner — were detained or arrested.
More fake anti-fascists, no doubt.
In March, they cut short an Ontario meeting led by California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, then gathered at a Coco’s Bakery afterward, vowing over dinner to “take California back.” The fracas was gleefully covered by Breitbart.
“Trump’s election has energized people on a side of the spectrum that has been relatively quiet in California in recent years,” said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.
Although anti-immigration hardliners feel as if they have a friend in the White House and are more in line with Republican views nationally, in California they are more of a throwback to an earlier era, he said.
Schaper and his allies often plot their next moves at chain restaurants like Sizzler, Coco's, Denny's and McDonald's. In an interview at a Sizzler in Torrance — during which he propped up his cellphone on a bottle of steak sauce to videorecord a Times reporter — Schaper said his provocations are payback for the raucous town halls Republican lawmakers have faced since Trump took office.
“Being nice doesn’t work,” he said.
The day before the election, Trump tweeted a link to a column from the conservative website Townhall.com headlined, “What I Like About Trump … and Why You Need to Vote for Him.”
It was written by Schaper, whose voice swells with pride when he mentions the tweet.
“Because of his lead on attacking and diminishing establishment media, it’s encouraged more of us to come out,” Schaper said of Trump. “The media narrative isn’t going to be dominant. We get to be the media now.”
Schaper was raised in the South Bay in a “churchgoing, Bible-believing, evangelical” family, he said. He doesn’t currently attend a church, saying “compromising liberalism” is causing churches to shy away from the Bible.
He worked for several years as a substitute teacher but said students mocked him and threw things at him. After he was laid off in 2012, Schaper, who complains of “welfare for illegals,” collected unemployment and got financial help from his father before going to work at a Vons grocery store.
Schaper is currently unemployed and uninsured, and was exempt from paying a fine for failing to sign up for coverage because his income was so low, he said. Yet, at Waters’ town hall he shouted about the Affordable Care Act: “I can afford my own healthcare! I don’t want to live off Mommy!"
Trump wasn’t his first choice for president, Schaper said. But he was swayed by the way Trump spoke about illegal immigration. He believes all people in the U.S. illegally, including those brought as young children, should be deported.
In May, Schaper went to an El Monte City Council meeting with fellow members of the Claremont-based anti-illegal immigration group We the People Rising, led by Robin Hvidston, who was previously associated with the Minuteman Project that led vigilante border patrols.
A few weeks earlier, they disrupted an immigrants’ “know your rights” forum in El Monte. Schaper — who said he contacted U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to report the event — was escorted out by police.
At the council meeting, Schaper and his group complained about illegal immigration.
“They hate brown people!” someone shouted.
“Racists, go home!” others hollered.
Chanell Temple, a black Trump supporter who said she lost a bookkeeping job because she couldn’t speak Spanish, said during public comments that immigrants in the country illegally are “riding off the backs of blacks,” usurping their hard-fought civil rights movement.
Schaper held a sign asking El Monte Mayor Andre Quintero: “Who do you work for?? Americans or illegals!!!”
“Verguenza!” Schaper shouted in Spanish, pointing at Quintero. Shame on you!
As the group filed out, someone yelled, “You’re the KKK!” Another person hissed, “vendida!” (sellout) at Trump supporter Loretta Sanchez, from Hesperia.
El Monte resident Veronica Tomas stood near the door, taking video as Temple walked toward her.
“Get that phone out of my face,” Temple said, walking into her. Tomas shrieked and dropped her phone. Police held the women apart as Schaper and the others rushed to the parking lot, whispering their next meeting place that night: a Denny’s in Temple City.
Quintero said the group is a familiar, if annoying, presence. As he was recently reading an article about them disrupting de León’s town hall, the mayor saw a photo of Schaper and another man sitting next to him, making a face.
"There was a picture of a guy sticking his tongue out, and it was like, ‘Hey, I know that guy!’ “ Quintero said, laughing.
A few weeks later, Schaper and crew went to the City Council meeting in Cudahy, a so-called sanctuary city, holding signs with messages like “ICE Hotline Call Now!” They were greeted by a sign that read: “Deport all white supremacists back to Europe!”
After the meeting abruptly ended because there were not enough council members to form a quorum, the scene devolved into screaming between the Trump supporters and dozens of livid protesters, some holding a Mexican flag.
Sheriff’s deputies pleaded with Schaper, by name, to walk away and escorted him to his car as a sheriff’s helicopter flew overhead.
On a warm May evening, the Beach Cities Republicans club gathered at the Sizzler in Torrance, members filling their plates from the salad and taco bar.
And they wonder why these dumbasses hate the AmeriKKKaLast media!
Oops! I mean that's quite a telling point there, you staunch defender of only your own First Amendment rights.
Schaper was elected to a second term as the group’s president in the fall — which caused the L.A. County GOP to revoke its charter. Schaper says the party turned on him because he takes his cues from Trump and is willing to confront.
“They want to have a full social calendar, have a bunch of nice titles, eat, burp, and that’s it,” he said. “It’s almost like the Republicans have all but given up.”
In a statement, the county GOP cited Schaper’s “inappropriate activities” — disrupting meetings, intimidating elected officials and citizens — as a major reason for pulling the charter.
“Complaints about his activities from elected officials and everyday citizens reflect badly on the Republican Party,” the party said.
At the Sizzler, Beach Cities member Claude Todoroff, of Torrance, lamented the rift between the club and the party.
“We should be kicking Democratic ass, not our own!” he said.
One of Schaper’s guests was Joseph Turner, whose group American Children First unsuccessfully tried to ban children who came to the U.S. illegally from some Inland Empire public schools and to force the American-born children of parents here illegally to pay tuition.
“Us Southern Californians wear our anti-illegal immigration activism like a badge of courage,” Turner said. “We know ... we are the toughest and most effective activists in the nation.”
Schaper shed his abrasive persona as he led the meeting. When people spoke, he asked the crowd to please be respectful and quiet or leave.
TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.
