Penny Swan defected from the rightwing group that captured the local Republican party – and she won’t be voting for Trump
Penny Swan, a political activist and citizen journalist, at the Hillsdale county courthouse in Hillsdale, Michigan.for the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021, Penny Swan, a local Republican party activist and an outspoken Trump supporter, stayed home. But not for lack of enthusiasm: Swan wanted to join the throngs fighting to stop the certification of the 2020 election, but has a heart condition and worried about her ability to keep up.That was then.
As the operator of a popular local politics page online and a longtime political activist, Swan has not only evolved as a voter. She has also documented, and at times participated in the unravelling of her county’s conservative movement – which, like the state Republican party, has gone to war with itself over far-right politics.
The Hillsdale group – since dubbed the America First Republicans – aimed to change the local party “from neo-conservatism, your old establishment, George Bush-type crowd, to more of a modern day conservative group”, said Jon Smith, who helped form the caucus in late 2019. The idea, Smith said, was to turn the local GOP from what he viewed as a sleepy and bureaucratic organization into a mobilized one.
“When our treasurer quit, was the deputy treasurer and we were behind on filing reports,” said Smith. “That kind of pressure, Penny couldn’t handle it.”Swan has a different story. She says she raised concerns about the organization’s handling of finances, which the executives were unable, or unwilling, to address. In a 7 April 2022 email to former chairman Wiseley, Swan resigned.
Swan’s split from the America First group, she says, was like leaving a “cult”. After she left and began criticizing the group online, her relationships with former friends in the group grew bitter. Swan says she even faced harassment and threats over her new political alignment. defended the librarian and the books. A meme circulated online, shared by her former friends, calling Swan a pedophile.
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