"Constitutional" Sheriffs, County Supremacy Movement

[thoughtful]

I didn't see a thread for this, so decided to start one. I was vaguely aware that there was an issue with this, but didn't realize, until I watched the video below, how organized and deranged it is.

Sheriffs in some counties have convinced themselves that their power exceeds that of the federal government. They think they have the power to ban the FBI from investigating crimes in their counties, and have aligned themselves with election denial, anti-vax, banning books, and other right-wing nonsense.

Per the SPLC:

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The origins of constitutional sheriff ideology are in the two concepts of the county supremacy movement: the county and not the state or federal governments should control all land within its borders, and the county sheriff should be the ultimate law enforcement authority in the U.S. These ideas were pioneered by Christian identity minister William Potter Gale in the 1970’s and described as “Posse Comitatus.”

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/constitutional-sheriffs

 

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[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

The idea that county level should be in charge of anything like that is disturbing. It wasn't that long ago 2 people were running for sheriff in my area and one went and shot the other in his driveway.  People have just straight up lost their minds and now all my study of history makes so much sense. Like how could a whole country of every day people be on the side of nazi's, how did xyz society just collapse, how did the it get to the point during plague times that they boarded up houses and burned them with sick people inside, the inquisition, the protestant vs catholic things in various countries that got very very very nasty indeed....how did all these things happen so suddenly and then domino ? And now I'm sitting going - ah....people are fucking psycho and apparently there's only a tiny thread of "humanity" holding us all together. I've heard that but could never really wrap my mind around it until I watched all my family and many people around me just go nuts in the past few years. trump/covid/vaccines/conspiracy BS in general. a little bit more niche - but parents/schools have gone nuts too. I work in a field adjacent to schools and the weird conspiracies I hear about "The Schools!" are just wild. I, who have actually worked in The Schools!, can say to the person - um that's not actually what happens....get rolled eyes because obviously I'm now One of THEM! and can't be trusted. People are just straight up openly saying the public school system is some sort of indoctrination system and it's absolutely wild. Which then allows people to say whatever they like to teachers because teachers are the enemies and.....bam bam bam the dominoes fall. and I'm just "Huh....so history....makes sense now"

[Ozlsn]

Having law enforcement organised at a local level gives some people the opportunity to inflate themselves in ways that are frequently disturbing. This though is a combination of utterly bizarre and slightly hilarious - they tried to ban the FBI from investigating in their tinpot dictatorship?! For real??

Seriously, it feels like this is a good time to start looking at how things are organised and whether a model developed in the 18th/19th century is still the most fit for purpose.

[thoughtful]

22 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Having law enforcement organised at a local level gives some people the opportunity to inflate themselves in ways that are frequently disturbing. This though is a combination of utterly bizarre and slightly hilarious - they tried to ban the FBI from investigating in their tinpot dictatorship?! For real??

In some ways this doesn't surprise me at all - right-wing fascists be fascist-ing, after all. And I'd seen the trope of the over-controlling local sheriff being wary of the FBI, or envious and territorial when a federal agency or big-city cop was called in, in fiction. I figured that screenwriters got it from somewhere.

But the idea that they are getting organized, and have a philosophy, thinking that they have the Constitution backing them up, is as ridiculous as it is frightening.

It doesn't seem to be too prevalent yet, but I'd love to see it nipped in the bud, as one fictional deputy sheriff used to say:
 

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