In 2013, Maine’s Tea Party Governor, Paul LePage, met and spent as many as 16 hours with the Sovereign Citizens, a group designated by the FBI as a terrorist organization. Topics of discussion during the meeting included high treason and the hanging of Democrats.
Jack McCarthy, a radio show host in Maine who has ties to the organization and attended one of the meetings, discussed some of the content from those meetings.
“[W]e also discussed … that as far as I know, the penalty for high treason hasn’t changed in a hundred years. I didn’t say it, but the governor said it — I never opened my mouth and said the word — the governor looked at us and looked at his buddy and said, ‘They’re talking about hanging them.’”
It should be little surprise to rational readers that the Tea Party Governor entertained such meetings and fraternized with such despicable ideas. The Tea Party has been, and is, a party known for violence and zero-sum thinking. For the Tea Party, the ends always justify the means, and any injuries caused en route to their goals are just collateral damage.
LePage is just another among the the calamity of craziness in the Tea Party. He is known for being temperamental and extreme.
According to a new book “As Maine Went,” LePage decided to meet with the Sovereign Citizens against the advice of his staff.
“It’s interesting looking through these Freedom of Access documents and seeing his staff trying to convince him not to meet with and believe these people,” author Mike Tipping says. “I mean, it’s just very strange, disappointing and a little scary all around.”
The rhetoric of these terrorist organizations is attractive to the Tea Party. Unfortunately for the doomed party, it isn’t attractive to the rest of the nation.
