Right-wing extremists are running in local elections

The Underpants Gnome strategy of posting constantly, waiting for some kind of conveniently vague miracle to happen, and promptly proclaiming ultimate victory hasn’t worked out so well for pro-Trump election conspiracy theorists or QAnon believers who saw Trump lose the 2020 elections and fail to have the results thrown out. So they’re trying out new strategies.

A recent report by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab emphasized that in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots, some far-right groups have refocused on seeking grassroots support in the GOP and building their power upwards—such as by trying to assume control of state and local offices with the power to intervene in future elections and running for school boards. Recall elections against school board officials skyrocketed cross-country and a wave of board members quit throughout 2021 as anti-vaxxers and far-right conspiracy theorists capitalized on widespread anger over school closures.

Many of these efforts intersect with the pedophilia-obsessed QAnon movement, which began attempting to rebrand itself as a legitimate anti-sex trafficking group called “Save the Children” in late 2020. QAnon supporters have been involved in several efforts to undermine election results in local races, such as the hoax Arizona “audit,” and the group’s ranks have been particularly represented in the efforts to take over local offices. QAnon is inextricably tied to Christian extremism, and a prior generation of evangelicals successfully used similar strategies to reshape U.S. politics.

“The precinct strategy, even before it had that name, is a longstanding tactic of gaining influence in politics,” Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, told Gizmodo. “Proponents of it often correctly assume that obtaining local political positions between a political party and its voters is both easy to do and ripe for asserting influence. The evangelical right was particularly good at doing this for a while.”

“The modern version of this concept is both targeting precinct offices in the Republican Party and local offices like school boards with similar strategies, and leaders in the movement are encouraging those who are successful to use those obtained positions to degrade basic functions of government, like public schooling and election holding,” Holt added.