Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Republicans Embraced Extremism Long Before Trump" video.

  1. I'm Australian a few years back we found Christian fundamentalists doing what we call "branch stacking." It happens in all forms of politics and we've had it on the left as well and it ruined a number of our labor unions. Its when you move people into an area so that you can out vote the local committee and then control nominations. Its incredibly insidious because the voting public doesn't realise that the person on the ballot got there by cheating. What we found a couple of years ago were Christian fundamentalists doing it in local right wing areas. Not much was thought as our laws can deal with it because branch stacking is illegal in Australia. WHAT freaked people out was the American Right Wing Christian training video that was uncovered. As far as I know its never been identified as to who produced it or when. We know its American because of the accents and things described like Sheriffs elections and District Attorney elections (we don't have those). We estimate it was made in the 80s because it was in video not film format but its low quality by todays standards. What it described was how to take over at the very lowest political level. Things like DAs, Sherriffs, School Councils,.....etc. The aim was to eventually have a base from which they could control NOMINATIONS for state positions and then eventually federal positions. Basically its about taking over America from the ground up instead of the top down. On the expose I saw that had it they asked and American political commentator about how the Republican Party missed this bottom up take over. And the answer was the top of the GOP never cared so long as the fundamentalists kept it local and left Federal politics alone. Sorry I can't give specific details it was about 10-12 years ago that we uncovered it. It was around the time Sarah Palin was forced onto John McCain's ticket.
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