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There have been a couple of big stories in the last week about local MAGA officeholders taking matters into their own hands—the law, their oaths of office, human decency, etc. be damned.
First up is Portage County, OH, Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski, whose sewer of a Facebook page makes clear that he is as MAGA as it gets. The Haitians-eating-cats-and-dogs bit may make Donald Trump and J.D. Vance look racist and/or crazy to outsiders, but the MAGA faithful are eating it up. Consistent with that, Zuchowski created a Facebook post (now deleted) in which he invited people to submit the addresses of people with Kamala Harris signs in their yards. He promised to send Haitian immigrants (whom he calls "locusts") to live at those houses, as the immigrants' so-called "new families" have, apparently by virtue of their yard signs, "supported their arrival."
Zuchowski and his supporters insist that he was exercising his First Amendment right to engage in political speech. The folks who oversee Ohio law enforcement had a rather different opinion, interpreting his posting as a sign that he's open to abusing the powers of his office, and that he most certainly can't be counted upon to treat all voters equally and fairly, regardless of their political persuasion. So, he and his department have now been barred from providing election security of any sort for the balance of this election cycle.
And then there is Doug Diny, who is also as MAGA as it gets, and who was recently elected mayor of Wausau, WI, on a Trumpy platform. In particular, Diny is a big "stop the steal" guy, and one of his core "issues" (if you can call it that) was that drop boxes for ballots are a fraud being perpetrated on the American people. Wausau (population 38,399) only has one drop box, and this weekend, Diny decided to deliver on his commitment. He got a hand truck and, bringing a photographer along to make sure his heroism was well-documented, personally removed the drop box from in front of Wausau City Hall to his office (where, of course, it is not accessible to the public).
Wisconsin law does not require drop boxes, and many communities (all of them very red) have chosen not to have them. The Wausau box was placed on the orders of city clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde, consistent with guidance from the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, which places responsibility for drop box decisions in the hands of... city clerks. Diny claims that the Wisconsin Elections Commission has no authority over, you know, elections, and that the decision can only be made by the city council. Council President Lisa Rasmussen says that is news to her, and that, as far as she is concerned, the decision belongs to the city clerk. Diny says that even if that is so (and he doesn't agree that it is), the drop box is not secure, and so also had to be removed on that basis.
Whatever is going to happen, this story is not over. Bernarde referred the matter to the city's district attorney, Theresa Wetzsteon, who has launched an investigation, with backing from the Wisconsin Department of Justice. We tend to suspect that drop box isn't going to remain in the Mayor's office for much longer.
At least for now, then, the MAGA folks who think they are above the law are learning that no, they are not. What will happen when there is far less time to straighten issues out and, very probably, more MAGA types doing whatever they want to do? That's the real question. (Z)