Trump's Dangerous and Hateful Rhetoric Trickles Down to Every Level

MAGA have infested every level of our government and are wrecking communities.

Courtesy of Facebook

They are like a fifth column. Not-so-bright, religiously-confused, Foxified Americans who most likely spent more time in high school worrying about school spirit than they did pay attention to sophomore year civics have infected every level of our government — at the most local of levels — and they are turning once peaceful communities into “cultural” war zones.

Meet 43-year-old Rachel Atwood. She was featured in a Washington Post article on Sunday. Running for County Commissioner in Ottawa County, Michigan, Atwood is one of the organizers of a group of MAGidiots called “Ottawa Impact.” Atwood is, to the core, all that is wrong with this political moment in our country, and as I learned when I checked out her Facebook ramblings supported by a lot of very lost, sad, Trump-is-God fellow Foxified white folks.

Atwood, 43, got involved in county politics because she believed that mask requirements were hurting her autistic son at a critical moment in his development. The mandates were over, but Atwood thought that the threats to her children’s well-being from the government and pro-LGBTQ+ liberals remained as real as ever.

“What makes me a little different in this race is that my experience is much more geared toward the current culture war,” she told a local television station (After Two Years of Far-Right Rule).

Masks. LGBTQ. Culture war. Need I say much more for you to get the picture of what kind of person we are dealing with here? I am sure Ms. Atwood is a good mom — I have no reason to assume otherwise. She felt that the masks were causing harm to her child, who has autism. As a parent, I accept her desire to protect her child. Sadly, though, all those niceties stop there. 

Like a typical faux-religious Christo-fascist who lives by the words of Trump and not Jesus, Atwood and her friends on Facebook are waging war against all that used to unite our nation. In their world, everything is a target. Vladimir Putin is a hero, and everything that Democrats on the national level are doing, not in their county but thousands of miles away, is a reason to take up arms and wage war to “save America.”

Impact Ottawa has impacted the county; thosesuffering are the young and the economically struggling. But this is the Trump-Christian thing to do, right?

Atwood also said she had encountered constituents who told her they were exhausted by the infighting in the county. On their first day in office, the Ottawa Impact commissioners had fired the county’s administrator, canned its lawyer of 40 years, closed its diversity office and dumped its motto “Where you Belong” in favor of “Where Freedom Rings.”

More change — which Ottawa Impact opponents called chaos — followed. The new commissioners forced the county’s longtime sex educator, who had developed successful programs to lower teen pregnancy and curb the spread of sexually transmitted infections, into an administrative job. When their efforts to remove the county’s public health director were blocked by the courts, they cut the health department’s budget, eliminating a program that helped feed 22,000 low-income residents each year (After Two Years of Far-Right Rule).

A link shared in the Post article took us to Atwood’s Facebook page. I clicked on it and was shocked by the hate and anger of so many of these “patriots and Christians.” Atwood, who eventually lost the primary for commissioner, blamed her loss on the “crowding and surging” of Democrats in Michigan who “yet again worked to steal an election.” She was supported by dozens of her white, middle-aged Christian friends with all kinds of warnings of “if they do it again in November, heads are going to roll” Christian love, and “this is the only way the communists can win elections. They steal!” Atwood liked all of the comments.

Today, that link has been closed as it seems that too many people who find her and her sad ilk offensive went to her page and commented.

The Ottawa Impact insurgency at the local level is something communities all over the country deal with. There has never been anything like this Tea-Party-turned-MAGA war against civility and our nation’s traditions. Atwood and her group have been so atrocious and radical that Trumpists wanting peace for their community are joining forces with liberals to oust the more radical and “dummy” elements from local government.

The primary’s unusually high stakes made for unusual alliances. An older man in a red “Make America Great Again” hat sat with friends at an election night pizza party for Mark Northrup, a small-town mayor challenging Moss in the Republican primary. A few feet away, Jacqui Poehlman, one of Northrup’s volunteers, hunched over a computer with a “Bans off our bodies” sticker on it.

Northrup, 66, described himself as a “pro-life” Republican who planned to support Trump, his party’s candidate for the presidency. Poehlman, 43, described herself as “very liberal.” But they shared views on the value of well-funded public schools, the need for more affordable housing and the necessity of preventing Ottawa Impact from retaining its majority on the board. Both fervently believed that scorched-earth political warfare, which had become the standard at the national level, was causing irreparable harm when injected into their otherwise peaceful and prosperous community.

“Trump is his guy in the fight,” Poehlman said of Northrup. “But we’re not voting for Trump at the county level (After Two Years of Far-Right Rule).”

Atwood and the Ottawa Impact loons were ousted. They lost the majority on the board, and many in the county are celebrating. Right-wing radicals held the citizens of the community “culturally” hostage, but it will come to an end soon.

Atwood, like the leader of the fascist movement Joe Moss, learned nothing from the sweeping defeat.

“My Republican election was taken from me by Democrats” and wealthy donors, Atwood said. “Not every best candidate wins. That’s just how it is.”

They are too radical to accept that people don’t want their fascist policies and too dumb to admit defeat. This is the face of MAGA, Trump. This is the face we must remember when asking against whom I am fighting to save our country. It’s not just Trump, but it is the Rachel Atwoods of America.

If Ottawa County showed us anything, it should be this: radicalism can be defeated because we are not that!