Read on Twitter
Small Thread, history repeating: I read this over at NPR about Ammon Bundy/Idaho and opposition to state efforts to curtail the spread of COVID-19. The piece mentioned hard right GOP state lawmaker Heather Scott in Idaho:
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/832961674/in-idaho-far-right-republicans-defy-coronavirus-health-restrictions 1/
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/832961674/in-idaho-far-right-republicans-defy-coronavirus-health-restrictions 1/
Scott has demonstrated neo-Confederate beliefs (she flew a Confederate flag during her election campaign).
https://sandpointreader.com/rep-heather-scott-features-in-wa-house-investigation-into-matt-sheas-domestic-terrorism/ 2/ (photo from Daily Kos)
https://sandpointreader.com/rep-heather-scott-features-in-wa-house-investigation-into-matt-sheas-domestic-terrorism/ 2/ (photo from Daily Kos)
She has also cut wires in the Idaho statehouse because she believed them to be listening devices (see link in 2) and she conflated white nationalism with just being white and supporting the Constitution:
https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/idaho-lawmaker-heather-scott-defends-white-nationalists-via-facebook/article_35854f17-86e4-5064-90c5-28ce92c0e6f2.html 3/
https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/idaho-lawmaker-heather-scott-defends-white-nationalists-via-facebook/article_35854f17-86e4-5064-90c5-28ce92c0e6f2.html 3/
I bring this up because Scott reminds me of another ID lawmaker who made similar waves and statements in the 90s during that era of the militia movement and hard right activity. 4/
That lawmaker is the late Helen Chenoweth-Hage, ID congresswoman (she preferred to be addressed as "congressman"), who first took office in 1994. She was the first Republican woman to represent Idaho in that capacity. 5/ (photo from NYT)
Chenoweth-Hage was known for her ties to and support of militia networks, but also for her Sagebrush Rebellion-ish stances regarding property rights and anti-federal government views. 6/
She favored the Old Confederacy and, like Scott, promoted antigovernment conspiracy theories, like claiming that Fish and Wildlife was using helicopters in the state (at the time, F&W had none in Idaho) -- the ol' "black helicopter" theory. /7
She also claimed that white men are an "endangered species" and claimed that Indigenous tribes had special hunting and fishing privileges that "a white person" could not enjoy. /8
Find the info for 6-8 here: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/15/us/politics-a-new-populist-idaho-freshman-embodies-gop-s-hope-and-fear-in-96.html
Find the info for 6-8 here: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/15/us/politics-a-new-populist-idaho-freshman-embodies-gop-s-hope-and-fear-in-96.html
I bring this up because for a lot of us who do historical work, we see a lot of the past in current political and social contexts. And these echoes go back hundreds of years, to the founding of this country. /9
None of what we're seeing is brand new. It is, however, repackaged and injected with steroids, thanks in part to technology and also to the continued festering violence and toxicity engendered in the racist and misogynist infrastructure of this country. /10
And this is why history and good historical research is important. I was thinking about this as I read that NPR piece that I linked to in 1.
Seems to me history is a map, and as historians, we have a responsibility to share it. /11 and end
Seems to me history is a map, and as historians, we have a responsibility to share it. /11 and end
