So I wrote a joke diary, or so I thought, last summer about finding this note in Donald Trump’s bathroom. Har har. I’m not laughing these days. At the time I could never imagine, in a gazillion years, saying “President-Elect Donald J. Trump.” Even shitier, names I thought were goofball appointments are actually being considered. A couple have a local connection.
Finally defeated Sheriff Joe Arpaio keeps surfacing for Homeland Security or some other post, and not in a snarky way. Seriously. It doesn’t seem to matter that he was convicted of racial profiling, or that he was just found guilty of civil contempt of court, or that another criminal trial that could send his butt to jail starts soon, or that he’s a racist, divisive shithole. In a normal administration any one of those striking character qualities would disqualify the candidate. But we’re not in that universe anymore.
Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed SB 1070 in 2010 to secure her election, would probably love a ticket to TrumpLand. She was an early supporter and frequent surrogate after Trump secured the nomination. And she poked her scraggly, boney finger in President Obama’s face. Take that, mother! In case you don’t know Jan, here’s her signature moment:
Yes, we has did!
Sheriff Joe Arpaio was another early Trumpeter, a fellow Birther in Arms. The millionaire developer in NYC and the bigot with a badge in Maricopa County, Arizona, were two of the most recognizable birther assholes in the country. They both “investigated” the president’s birth, building their reputations on that racist, exploitable lie. Trump told us his people in Hawaii were finding amazing shit and we won’t believe how mind-boggling it is. Then we never heard what this amazing shit was.
Arpaio got involved because a gaggle of old white tea party nitwits in Surprise, a growing suburb west of Phoenix, encouraged the sheriff to look into President Obama’s birth certificate. It’s the height of tea party town hall bullshit after Obama’s 2008 victory, and the frothing followers of Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones in Surprise wanted Sheriff Arpaio to look into the birth certificate, because even after the president released his long form, these numbnuts still said it was fake. Hell, even Trump believes Obama was born in the United States. Not so Sheriff Joe, he’s still on the case, protecting residents of Maricopa County from something.
Last week the crazy coot finally lost his 7th bid for sheriff of Maricopa County. Here’s some perspective: Joe Arpaio first won the sheriff’s seat in 1992 after he beat fellow Republican Tom Agnos in the primary. Tom and his wife Shirley were very visible in the community—he as sheriff, she as the force behind Arizona Town Hall, a think tanky get-together at the Grand Canyon. When Arpaio entered the race he attacked Sheriff Agnos for losing a $4 million lawsuit after botching a murder investigation at a Buddhist temple. That did happen. (Sadly, Tom later shot himself.)
But here’s that perspective I was talking about: Tom Agnos’s lawsuit cost taxpayers $4 million. Joe Arpaio’s first big payout, for killing a guy in his custody, was $8.25 million. He was just getting started. During his nearly quarter-century tenure Joe Arpaio has cost the county at least $142 million in court settlements, for illegal and unethical behavior—like arresting journalists, judges and public officials, who didn’t do anything except disagree with Arpaio, not to mention torturing and murdering people in his jails and goose-stepping deputies through Latino neighborhoods and businesses to round up “suspicious” characters, i.e. brown people. Illegal? Yes. Expensive? Double yes.
The Arpaio cost climbs to about $250 million when you add in his misuse of public funds, like illegally appropriating about $80 million to buy war toys for his immigration task force, which continued its assault on Latinos long after a federal judge ordered Arpaio to knock it the fuck off.
And for this he needs tanks: to surround teenage Mexican burger flippers at some fast-food joint (yes, that happens). The sheriff and his big, camouflaged vehicle are usually part of the Veteran’s Day Parade in Phoenix. Arpaio, who spent his military years behind a desk in France but who, he says, really wanted to go kill commies in Korea, rides in a howitzer or tank or something, like the one he and Steven Seagal used to break up a cockfight in South Phoenix, except they drove the friggin’ tank into a guy’s house, knocking parts down and killing a little puppy, and no cocks fighting were found. The house owner sued. Get in line.
When Trump appeared in Arizona during the campaign, Arpaio and Brewer often spoke. Given Trump’s ugly comments about Mexican rapists after descending the elevator, he’s a polarizing figure in a state that was brown a helluva lot earlier than it was white, and which is about a third Hispanic and growing. Hillary didn’t lose by much in Arizona last week, bigots like Arpaio and Paul Babeu were sent packing, and a minimum-wage increase was overwhelmingly approved. The state is on the cusp of purple. Protests occurred at every Trump rally, especially the big circle-jerk in Fountain Hills, a wealthy suburb north of Phoenix, where Joe Arpaio happens to live. Protestors shut down the main road into Fountain Hills.
Think about that trio—Trump, Arpaio, Brewer—designing immigration policy, joined by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who Trump just appointed to his team. Kobach is well known here in Arizona as the co-author of the “papers please” law, along with Sen. Russell Pearce.
Then President of the Senate, Pearce was eventually recalled, even in his very conservative Mesa district, because he was so outrageously bigoted even fellow Mormons couldn’t abide the stink. Russell Pearce was truly out there, a really fundamentalist LDS who worshipped Cleon Skousen. The anti-commie, Bircher, authoritarian Mormon bigot gave Pearce the justification for SB 1070: white evangelical men matter most. Skousen wrote and preached that bullshit and Pearce and Kobach used it to write a hateful piece of legislative garbage (most of which has been gutted by the courts).
So, certifiable racist peckerhead Kris Kobach has a seat in the Oval Office. He could soon be joined by a criminal racist sheriff and a bulb so dim the only thing she knows is hate. Along with their boss: a bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic, lying con man and predator. Billy Bush, who I didn’t know a thing about until the bus video, was fired from his NBC morning show for being a lewd, crude shithead, but his partner on the bus gets to be president.
And invite racist slugs to help make policy.