Leftists Give Trump the Sheriff Joe Arpaio Treatment
At the turn of the century, Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio was known nationally as “America’s toughest sheriff.”
In a time when law and order mattered, Arpaio was wildly popular in Arizona and throughout the country. He held the office of Maricopa County Sheriff from 1993 to 2017, winning five elections, several by overwhelming margins. Like President Trump, Joe Arpaio was an America First public servant. He arrived at a time when America was sick of the violent crime that plagued big cities, including Phoenix.
Around the same time Arpaio won his first election, the 1994 crime bill was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton. The legislation included the infamous “three strikes and you’re out” provision that put repeat felony offenders in prison for life. Recognizing the mood of the country was growing increasingly intolerant of rampant crime, Arpaio took a new approach to criminals and incarceration.
He actually punished them… Imagine that.
Arpaio is quoted in the LA Times as saying, “I’ve got a method to my madness of publicity: I want to send a message to the bad guys. I want them to know that it is so bad in my jail that they won’t want to commit crimes here.”
To that end, Arpaio adopted a variety of measures that were supported by everyone except the hard left, including:
- Mobilizing a volunteer posse that included people from all walks of life. At its height, the posse was 2,200 members strong and featured marquee names like Steven Seagal, Lou Ferrigno, and Peter Lupus.
- Serving the inmates Nutraloaf and other food rescue items. Each inmate was limited to meals twice daily.
- Playing classical music, opera, Frank Sinatra hits, patriotic music, and educational programming five days a week, four hours each day, on an in-house broadcasting station.
- Setting up a “Tent City” as an extension of the Maricopa County Jail.
- Re-instituting chain gangs.
- Providing zebra striped prison uniforms and pink underwear for male prisoners.
Woke Comes after Arpaio
Ultimately, several events converged to bring down Joe Arpaio. Fed up with the federal government’s unwillingness to apprehend and deport illegal aliens, in 2005, Arpaio began sweeping neighborhoods where high concentrations of day laborers loitered. A series of raids were conducted that targeted employers who hired unauthorized immigrants, and an immigrant smuggling squad was organized to stop suspicious vehicles and check drivers and passengers for proper documentation.
Around the same time, the woke movement began to take root in America, as hard-core California leftists, looking to escape the third world stench-hole they created in their own state, migrated from California to Arizona in droves.
In 2007, a Mexican national, Jesus Ortega Melendres, filed a lawsuit against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) after he was stopped by an officer and detained until his immigration status was determined. Melendres was represented by the ACLU and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which needed a straw man to achieve their real objective, which was to destroy the reputation and political ambitions of Joe Arpaio.
And it worked.
Over the next nine years, an avalanche of lawsuits followed, and the federal government got involved through the Department of Justice, suing Arpaio repeatedly over discrimination and racial profiling accusations. In all, the MSCO under Arpaio defended more than 6,000 federal lawsuits at a cost of over $100 million to taxpayers.
Ultimately, voters were exhausted and became disillusioned with Arpaio, and he lost the 2016 race for Sheriff. The following year, Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt of court for demonstrating “flagrant disregard” in refusing to discontinue his immigration roundups while in office. In August 2017, as he awaited sentencing, Arpaio was pardoned by President Trump.
In the following years, America’s formerly celebrated “toughest sheriff” ran for office several times, including a U.S. Senate race, another effort to regain the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office, and finally, Mayor of Fountain Hills. However, the lawsuits had done their damage. Arpaio’s brand was forever tainted, and he never held public office again.
Woke “Arpaios” Donald Trump
No matter how unethical and dishonest, Woke never passes on the opportunity to further their authoritarian aims, so it’s no surprise they made the lawsuit blitzkrieg tactic a cornerstone of their election strategy. The list of Trump allies sued into submission is lengthy, and includes Howard Kleinhendler, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Alina Habb, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. All of these high-profile Trump allies were hounded by prosecutors and charged with mostly process or tax-related crimes. Through all of these unwarranted prosecutions, the left’s message was clear: Stand in our way, and you will be ruined.
Naturally, Trump was always destined to endure the most aggressive efforts to destroy him through litigation, but the left has run into significant roadblocks. Despite his portrayal in the media as a dirty, dishonest immoral charlatan, Trump has been surprisingly impervious to criminal charges, primarily because he hasn’t engaged in criminal conduct, and he has the money to defend himself.
Yet, that hasn’t stopped woke zealots. They know how powerful a criminal indictment can be in ruining political aspirations, so they remain intent on giving Trump the full Arpaio treatment. At the time of this writing, there are three criminal investigations running concurrently against Trump, all of which have no merit. Yet, to the left, the validity of the charges is inconsequential. They want a series of mug shots they can spread through the media and run in campaign ads. If they can somehow subvert the law to get a conviction, all the better.
To that extent, the case against Trump in Georgia, where he told Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger in January 2021 to “find 11,780 votes,” stands the best chance of ending in an indictment. Mind you, it’s not because Trump actually did anything wrong, but rather, because the prosecutor can hopefully twist the meaning of Trump’s words just enough to charge the president with election fraud, racketeering or giving false statements.
It is no coincidence that Trump is currently battling 20 major lawsuits and investigations. Woke watched how the sheer weight of the litigation bogged down Arpaio and ultimately fatigued his constituency into submission. This is the new weaponized justice system, and it should be terrifying for anyone considering entering politics and opposing the leftist monolithic machine.
Regardless of the outcome of the three sham criminal investigations, we must not let woke idealogues choose our candidates for us. It is a line in the sand, and we must not allow it to be crossed. If Trump is indeed indicted, it will be time for every patriot to mobilize, contribute, work and support Donald J. Trump for president in 2024.
The future of our country depends on it.
