The Town That QAnon Nearly Swallowed

February 7, 2022 2:54 PM

Right-wing demagogues tried to take over a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s how concerned citizens stopped them.
posted by ShooBoo (28 comments total)

For some reason the detail about the herbal remedies sales pitch really got to me.. The article describes so much that is so wrong in the situation, and the courage of the health officer is remarkable.. I've witnessed extremely dysfunctional municipal politics but the thought of getting a product endorsement recording when I try to call an elected representative is just gross.
posted by elkevelvet at 3:21 PM on February 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

An encouraging story and a discouraging one at the same time. It is so easy for a small group of ill-intentioned cranks to take over a government, and it takes so much organizing to fight back.
posted by Peach at 3:29 PM on February 7, 2022 [31 favorites]

While this is indeed a heart-warming story, I wonder how many similar town and how many hundreds or thousands of local government elections have been quietly hijacked and nobody noticed?
posted by dg at 3:55 PM on February 7, 2022 [27 favorites]

Somewhat related, Wild Wild Country, a very well produced documentary about the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh taking over the town of Antelope, Oregon in the early 1980s. There's a lot of details in it about the specifics of small town politics and how one organized group can control them.
posted by Nelson at 4:01 PM on February 7, 2022 [27 favorites]

thanks Nelson.. yes, the limited docu-series "Wild Wild Country" was highly watchable

it wasn't easy to sympathize with some of the townspeople of Antelope, but it was easy to see that everyone's reality had been abruptly upturned.. as a "small-towner" I imagine I'd bristle if all that I knew was overwhelmed by waves of newcomers.. wow, the cognitive dissonance of that statement, coming from an ancestor of settlers to N. America, I dunno man
posted by elkevelvet at 4:07 PM on February 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

While this is indeed a heart-warming story, I wonder how many similar town and how many hundreds or thousands of local government elections have been quietly hijacked and nobody noticed?

Or not so quietly...
posted by mykescipark at 4:34 PM on February 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

There is also New Hampshire, which had to put up with an invasion of libertarians that gutted all civic services. (Covered in great detail in A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, previously on MetaFilter.)

It ends up poorly for everyone, especially the bears.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 4:34 PM on February 7, 2022 [23 favorites]

My MIL lives in Sequim and was involved in the effort to oust these nutjobs. Back when it first surfaced that the mayor had fallen down the Q-hole she had no idea what that was or why it might be a problem. When she learned what it was all about she was Not Having It, "I'm retired and have nothing better to do than take this asshole out." I never want to be on the wrong side of my MIL.
posted by calamari kid at 5:40 PM on February 7, 2022 [156 favorites]

This is a story about Showing Up. That means volunteering, campaigning, phone-calling, e-mailing, postcard-writing, and voting. When people stopped showing up, the cranks took over. This has been writ large on the national stage, but it’s so vital at the local level. Your mayors, aldermen, councilmen, commissioners, school board member et al have a much much bigger direct influence on your day-to-day life than the folks in DC. Great story, thanks for posting.
posted by dbmcd at 5:42 PM on February 7, 2022 [69 favorites]

The ousted mayor, his firebrand politics having been firmly rejected by the electorate, was replaced by Tom Ferrell, a somewhat conservative but non-QAnon-supporting longtime member of the council, who had been nominated by both Downer and Rathbun. Janisse was elected as his deputy.

For the SGGL-backed candidates now in the majority, it represents a new beginning, a chance to restore competent, get-things-done local government.

What the fucking fuck? When you have a 4-2 majority as "progressives" and you hand executive power to the conservative white guy.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:13 PM on February 7, 2022 [7 favorites]

What the fucking fuck? When you have a 4-2 majority as "progressives" and you hand executive power to the conservative white guy.

I suspect the mayor doesn't actually wield full executive authority on most city councils - this sounds more like a power-share than a mistake.
posted by Paladin1138 at 7:28 PM on February 7, 2022 [10 favorites]

Yeah mayors who are appointed out of the city council body don't have a ton of power. The city manager (like the one who was ousted for permitting the drug treatment center) actually has much more day-to-day control of what happens in the city.
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:42 PM on February 7, 2022 [10 favorites]

What a great story. Thanks for posting it.
posted by brainwane at 9:32 PM on February 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I understand that this is a good story for a lot of sane Americans, but it just is so frustrating and worrying in other parts of the world. While we have our own concerning conservatives, it is just so upsetting to see harmful, dangerous people in charge, even if they sometimes get defeated.

I’m the kind of person who turns up to stuff, and I build lots of bridges with sane, and comparatively sensible conservative people, because I can work with financial conservatives who are respectful, sensible and interested in outcomes. I can’t work with wing nuts who are driving across Canada to blockade against public health measures, or their local equivalents.
posted by bystander at 11:46 PM on February 7, 2022 [12 favorites]

When you have a 4-2 majority as "progressives" and you hand executive power to the conservative white guy.

Given that it's not exactly clear how much power the "mayor" of a city council system like theirs actually has, I think the more charitable reading is that they either felt his experience was necessary for day-to-day operations, or it was some sort of power sharing arrangement. Or maybe nobody else wanted to quit their day job; it's pretty much impossible to say from this distance.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:07 AM on February 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's probably a similar dynamic to the Hungarian opposition being helmed by a non-Orbánist Catholic conservative; it defuses claims that the movement is a leftist attack on Traditional Values and peels off people that the enemy could otherwise count on.
posted by acb at 2:49 AM on February 8, 2022 [12 favorites]

That’s where Sampson boat co. was restoring tally-ho. Gives another perspective on what they/ he were going through.
posted by rudster at 4:05 AM on February 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

What the fucking fuck? When you have a 4-2 majority as "progressives" and you hand executive power to the conservative white guy.

I would assume it’s similar to the candidate (Janisse) they mentioned who is right-leaning but committed to the idea of the government working. Local electability matters: if you don’t have a candidate who can win, go with the non-fascist every time — especially because his presence on the ballot gives an option to everyone right-leaning who isn’t a committed member of the QAnon wing of the GOP. With this many fascists on the ballot, you don’t want any potential allies staying home.
posted by adamsc at 4:47 AM on February 8, 2022 [6 favorites]

“Folks who don’t believe in government—populists, people who don’t have faith in the institutions of governance—shouldn’t be in charge of the government. One of the things that happened in Sequim is that people were not engaged enough to see how important it was to find candidates for city council. Now they understand the importance.”

From the article and quoted for truth. Thank you so much for the post!
posted by Bella Donna at 4:49 AM on February 8, 2022 [17 favorites]

Thanks for posting! A very similar story is happening in my small city in Virginia. The upcoming election in November will be critical. I hope we're doing enough.
posted by ruddlehead at 5:24 AM on February 8, 2022 [11 favorites]

Watch your upcoming school board races - there will be a lot of Q nuts trying to take those over.
posted by azpenguin at 6:09 AM on February 8, 2022 [26 favorites]

This article is not only just a beacon of hope but a blueprint for how change is achieved and civility restored. Even when folks disagree politically, it is possible to come together and create positive change. Thank you so much for sharing, ShooBoo.
posted by widdershins at 7:16 AM on February 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

When people stopped showing up, the cranks took over.

in the middle of a pandemic, the cranks are the only ones who are dumb enough to show up to anything. and then everyone else avoids political events even more because now they're all antimasker/antivaxxer rallies regardless of the actual issue.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:22 AM on February 8, 2022 [20 favorites]

"I'm retired and have nothing better to do than take this asshole out."

Where would we be without capable retired women? In my community, these are the people who overwhelmingly contribute to making things better.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:52 AM on February 8, 2022 [22 favorites]

Jesus, this is scary. Scientology successfully took over Clearwater, FL - the only difference there is that Scientologists are more competent at the business aspect of culting than Qs (who are arguably better at engendering true belief without having to resort to literal torture 🙄). It's not as if hostile takeovers of cities is exactly unprecedented. There is a clear guidebook to follow for anyone who cares to look around and learn from the trailblazers.
posted by MiraK at 8:02 AM on February 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

When people stopped showing up, the cranks took over.

Among my many hobbies: because I was one of the first people to buy a Zoom account at the beginning of the pandemic, when a forum series on local town development and finance issues went virtual, I ended up as the host of it.

So where I'd previously been the guy who listened to some of the city council meetings, showed up at a few forum planning sessions, and brought my sound gear to the library when we did in-person meetups, I ended up as the host and face. And I get dragged further and further in.

And here's the thing: We need involved people who aren't, as my older rich white guy City Council member friend observed, more involved people who aren't older rich white guys. But when we're asking people to choose between, say, their kid's soccer game and attending a City Council meeting, I hope they choose to support their kid.

So what we end up with is largely either retired people who believe in the town they had 20 years ago, or cranks who have nothing better to do than to fuck shit up. Luckily, my town elects largely the former, and of those former quite a few of them are able to see past two decades ago, even if their electorate largely can't. But anybody who listens to public comment knows that our other alternative with lots of free time to give to civic issues is, if not overtly QAnon people, those who have suspicions that the vaccine has receivers that can be influenced by 5G. Or something.

Which also means that the former group has to additionally have the patience to manage the expectations of the latter group.

All of which drives people like me (I've held an appointed position on a town committee for a few years) running for the hills, or, if we're really really really committed to this geography over our career paths, finding alternative ways to guide the future directions of the town. But until I hit my 40s, I was way happier to move for the sake of my job than to commit to really making a particular place my home. And even now, I fucking wonder some times.

And let's face it, the best bet for changing the direction of a city is influencing the direction of city staff hiring, the City Manager and the Director of Public Works, and how exciting is that process to your average citizen? They just want their potholes filled and their lives minimally disrupted, not to hear about how they're gonna have to alter their lifestyles to respond to climate change and funding issues.

So, yeah, I don't have a solution, but the problem is that in a world where the adults of a family are working their own jobs, trying to enrich the lives of their children as much as they can, and maybe cook some healthy meals, sitting through hours of city council meetings, starting with 45 minutes of ceremony and crankdom, in order to make public comment on the 30 seconds of agenda that they actually care about, is simply never going to be a thing.

We need different models of public engagement, and we need replacements for churches and other civic organizations to drive those, and... to some extent I'm part of the problem, because I know that there are other driven motivated small groups out there who've managed to coalesce thirty or forty core people who want to make something happen, but we all have our own pet projects and issues which we coalesce around.

And unless there's some huge existential threat, anyone with the skills to join those groups together into some sort of guiding force will quickly graduate to higher level politics than just a small town.
posted by straw at 9:26 AM on February 8, 2022 [25 favorites]

in a world where the adults of a family are working their own jobs, trying to enrich the lives of their children as much as they can, and maybe cook some healthy meals, sitting through hours of city council meetings, starting with 45 minutes of ceremony and crankdom, in order to make public comment on the 30 seconds of agenda that they actually care about, is simply never going to be a thing.

That seems like a fundamental part of democracy, though. Maybe there's some productive tinkering that we can do around the edges—keep the cranks from making the meetings so unpleasant that it drives away everyone else, put more stuff online so people can attend remotely, require agendas and time/place announcements to be published well in advance, don't have critical meetings at 10PM on school nights, etc.—but if people aren't interested in governance enough to show up to meetings and participate in the process? There's no good workaround for that.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:27 PM on February 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Our city has been experiencing similar problems. I shared this article with some friends. It’s really the whole county. It’s so damn easy for bad actors to take over a few small towns, a county even. Anyone noticing all those damn ‘Constitutional Sherrifs ‘?
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:58 PM on February 8, 2022 [2 favorites]