How to take back your Republican Party in 42 easy steps

(Just kidding, it’s only 11)

In this article, I will specifically identify how we “broke the machine” in Lee County (Fort Myers) FL, but it should mainly work anywhere. In our case, this was a 2-year plan, so now is the time to start planning and implementing it. Early on, it was just me and Dr. Joseph Sansone, having each other’s backs, seconding each other’s motions. Joe is a brilliant strategist, and I identified him in the room the first time he raised a point of order. It was a minor point, but I remember thinking... “He and I are going to get along just fine”. I highly recommend subscribing to his substack, “Mind Matters, and Everything Else”. His experience in the Buchanan Presidential race of 2000 is evident in his strategies.

1.    “New Members”. Start growing an army sooner, rather than later, and don’t be too obvious about that. Once they realize that you are packing the room, they are going to do the same for balance.

Purchase the Super-Voter rolls from your SoE. In Lee, that was $10 for any query. Not all voter’s emails will be in the records, but that’s what you want for now. You may need two queries to get the emails. Create an email campaign using Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, or the like. Create an email along the lines of “Are you tired of the democrats always winning, while it seems the Republicans get steam-rolled. Then we need you to join the REC”. Explain the REC, but briefly. Most voters will never have heard of it. Many of us had never heard of it… until we did.

Don’t let them make up rules about membership, or create “Interviews” to slow down the flow. Memorize CMC Art. III, Sect. 3, regarding requirements for filling vacancies. 

We actually didn’t purchase the SoE list in Lee County, because neither Joe nor I were running for board positions. We did mention it to those who were. But, we did contact every solid conservative and get many of them to join the REC.

2.    “Know your governing documents”. In the following pecking order… state statutes, RPOF Constitution, RPOF Rules of Procedure, County Model Constitution (CMC), which is mainly the RPOF Constitution, with the parts of it pertaining to the State Exec Board stripped out. In fact, when reading the RPOF Constitution, make sure the paragraph is specifically referring to county REC, not State Exec Board. Lastly, is Robert’s Rules of Order (RONR), currently 12th Edition. This fills in whatever the above docs haven’t already dictated.

3.    “Resolutions”. Once you have at least a few fellow warriors, you are ready to start pushing some resolutions. The key word in resolution is “solution”. You will need to submit your resolutions to the board 14 days in advance. They will likely ignore it, or prepare an amendment to make it feckless. They make a lot of money off of fecklessness. With all of the issues we face, coming up with a resolution to urge the legislature and governor to act should be easy. Election Integrity, WEF/WHO, Kick out the feds (87,000 armed IRS agents, MaraLago raid, etc.), CRT, LGBT, etc. If you would like copies of the actual resolutions we put up, contact me. They will be more powerful coming from multiple RECs across the state.

If they don’t respond to your submission, assume it’s approved, but also assume it isn’t. Outwardly act as if you assume that they approved it, since they didn’t notify you otherwise. But inwardly assume they plan on not approving it, and print out enough copies, and hand them out to everyone, as they enter the room. They may try to tell you that you can’t hand out materials. You have a right to communicate with your fellow members, and to exercise free speech. They tried that with Joe once. Once. I can’t even remember if he even said a single word, or just stared her down and laughed.

The point of the resolution is to polarize the room in your favor. We actually put forth a resolution calling forced lockdowns, mask mandates, and coerced jabs as violations of the Nuremberg Code, which forced the entire board to come out against it. Assist the entire establishment in exposing themselves to the largely pro-Trump, pro-DeSantis, Constitutional conservative voters, and REC members. We used resolutions to divide the room on issues, while they focused instead on personalities. They had to choose between voting against their interests and breaking promises to controlled-opposition donors, or voting with us (and the majority of the members) to keep up appearances. Ultimately, their love of money will win out, and they will show themselves.

4.    “Positioning”. On the day of the meeting, arrive early and position yourself strategically. Sit apart, but not too far apart. You need to second each other's motions, but you don’t want to sit in a block. It is important to have more than just two people making every motion. If you, or others, are new to Robert’s Rules and the dynamics of fast motions, practice as a group. Hold mock meetings. Quiz each other on the rules. Muscle memory.

5.    “Know thine enemy”. They have a template that they adhere to. Identify it, and set out to disrupt it. Put them on the defensive, without being unprofessional. Remain calm, monotone, and unemotional, but extremely confident in your knowledge of the rules. They are not at home on defense, and they will try to make you look like the problem, not the solution. Hopefully, they don’t know the rules well, simply because they aren’t used to being challenged, so they are out of practice.

You will learn their MO quickly enough as to what rules they will break to run you over. Study the rules, so you’re more on top of it than they are. If you don’t already have division in the room, members typically will give deference to the chair, assuming they are the “authority”. One common theme with the establishment is they live by personality conflict in a caste society, pitting half the room against the other half. They set up their fiefdoms, and most of their minions beg to be their serfs. They want to be standing next to the important celebrity when the camera goes “click”.

6.    “Assertion”. You will likely need to make Points of Order, or at least Points of Inquiry to assert yourself. Both are privileged motions, which means the chair/speaker can be interrupted, and there is no discretion to not recognize you unless your Points are frivolous. Keep it relevant and necessary to attain your goals. PoO typically means they are doing something out of order. They are breaking a rule, or they have ignored a timely submitted motion. The chair must rule on your Point. If not, ask, “Are you ruling on my point?”, and if he says he rules against it, move to overrule the chair’s decision. This requires a second. Have someone always ready to second. Overruling the chair only requires a simple majority. If you don’t already have that level of support, stop. Go back to #1. 

Live the following mantra “I don’t praise or condemn individuals and personalities, I praise or condemn behavior and actions”. That’s more than just a catchy phrase, it’s a tool you will need to use against them. Most REC members are probably like you, tired of feckless, reckless RINOs. They want action, not controlled opposition. They will gravitate toward the person who is offering solutions. RINOs are allergic to solutions. Their MO is to offer just enough pushback against democrats to get that donation and your vote in the next election. Their mantra is… “If you want me to protect you from the big bad democrat, donate to my reelection campaign”. They’re afraid that if they solved the problem, you might not need them.

7.    “Run on a unified front”. Put together a slate of candidates that run on a combined platform, instead of independently running for the 4 board positions.

We separated the election from the Christmas Party, which is when they normally held the elections. This allowed for single-focus, tough talk that is hard to do at Christ's Birthday Party, which usually has limited space so they control how many can attend. That same motion also called for a nomination process to begin at the November meeting, so members had plenty of time to meet with candidates.

This effort required a lot of team work and greatly benefited by the fact that most of our conspirators did not want to be on the board.

8.    “The Red Book”. We printed out hundreds of copies of the relevant state statutes, RPOF Constitution, Rules of Procedure, CMC, and an RONR motion cheat sheet. Hole punched, and bound in a red plastic 3-ring binder called “The Red Book”, and we handed it out to every member at the November meeting. Including the bios of the 4 candidates, and the platform they were running on, added to The Red Book, as page 1.

You can find those docs here: https://leerepublican.com/links-interest/docs/

Feel free to share them with anyone.

9.    “Celebrity Endorsements”. We got Alfie Oakes, who was both the SCM for the county south of us, and a local celebrity for championing the America-First agenda, Anthony Sabatini, and Gen. Flynn to all endorse our slate. They all came to a campaign kickoff party, in person. It was a huge event.

10.    “Co-opt fence-riders”. They likely have supporters who would not support all of their bad behavior. Use that. Identify those people, and expose their behavior. Cause splinters in their armor.

11.    “Reach your members”. If your county is anything like Lee, and I bet it is, they likely won’t let you communicate with other members, unless it goes through them. We forced their hand, regarding the election process, supplying us with the membership list and contact info, and forced them to report the membership list to the SoE (something they failed to do for 16 months).

This is a condensed version. There were many variables that we came across. You will likely see similarities, as well as differences, in your county. Adapt. And, feel free to reach out, if you hit a snag along the way.

Also, I highly recommend you check out Precinct Strategy. We are all grateful for all your hard work on this issue.