California’s crowded gubernatorial primary debate got testy Tuesday night when the other candidates called out far-right candidate Chad Bianco for his ties to the Oath Keepers, an extremist militia that helped spur the Jan. 6 insurrection.
California’s primary system selects the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, to run in the general election, which is why the debate stage featured candidates from both parties.
Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is an election denier who has promoted voter suppression tactics and falsehoods about election fraud. He also has ties to the so-called constitutional sheriffs movement, a group of right-wing sheriffs who claim their authority supersedes that of the Supreme Court and the president. As Reveal News reported back in 2022, that movement itself has ties to the Oath Keepers, the organization Bianco joined for a brief period in 2014.
Bianco tried to downplay his membership after it was reported in 2021, telling LAist that he didn’t remember joining while at the same time defending the group, saying they “certainly don’t promote violence and government overthrow. They stand for protecting the Constitution.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the group “one of the largest far-right antigovernment groups in the U.S. today,” noting some of its members’ involvement in extremist activities, including the pre-insurrection rally at the Rotunda in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 and the deadly “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Several members of the Oath Keepers, including its leader Stewart Rhodes, were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles before and during the assault on the Capitol — convictions that Trump commuted after he returned to office. The Justice Department is currently moving to vacate the charges entirely.
It was Democratic candidate and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who made things a bit awkward for Bianco by bringing up the issue of his membership.
“You know, you’re an Oath Keeper,” Villaraigosa said, to which Bianco responded that he’s “very proud of it.”
Bianco later told the moderator he’s no longer a member, but he nonetheless encouraged people to “read the mission statement” while portraying some of his fellow panelists as out of touch for opposing the group.
Because of course extremist groups always flaunt their extremism right there in their public-facing mission statements. I would suggest instead it’s best to judge such groups by their behavior, not just the “About Us” section of their own website.
Far be it from me to advise the sheriff on his own campaign, but in a state as liberal as California, it is probably not helpful to his political aspirations to tout his ties to a militia that waged a violent assault on American democracy. At least, not if those aspirations are to win.
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