The Most Authentic Republican in America

A GOP county chairman tried to push back on the stolen election narrative. He had a difficult time persuading Trump supporters.

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The following is an excerpt from The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It by Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague which will be published by Atlantic Monthly Press on January 4. The book records the story of what happened in the six swing states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—between November 3 and January 6 through the eyes of participants on both sides, those who believed there was widespread voter fraud and those who, after investigating and finding no evidence of it, defended the election results. It is based on original interviews conducted by the authors and the team of researchers and reporters who worked on the book, as well as public records, court testimony, and open legislative hearings.

Matthew Teague (left) and Mark Bowden (right). (Photographs by Akasha Rabut and Pascal Perich.).

In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, a small city that wraps around the lower edge of Lake Winnebago, Rohn Bishop hosted a celebration on Election Night at Republican Party headquarters.

Inside a big, low, square building just two blocks south of the lakefront, about 60 people watched as Fox News reported the election results. The windowless, fluorescent-lit room was decked with Trump banners, small American flags, and movable wall panels studded with campaign buttons. The mood was festive. All the local Republican candidates were winning, and so was Trump at first. Then when Fox called Arizona for Biden, a chorus of boos went up, and Bishop could see trouble ahead; he knew the Arizona result suggested danger for the president everywhere. Mail ballots, which would take longer to count, were going to swing heavily to Biden—Trump had helped ensure it.

Bishop wasn’t happy about it. Few had invested more in Trump’s reelection or cared more. 

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  1. David B.

    Ummm... Mequon is southEAST of Fond du Lac. You're welcome. :-)

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    BradThor

    So much to relate to in this story. Thank you for posting it.

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    JDW

    While I was never a Trump supporter, in a lot of other ways this is my story. I have always been known as Mr. Republican by my friends and family. I am very conservative. I have worked the polls in both Cleveland, OH and Ashland, KY. I never believed for a second an organization as corrupt and incompetent as the Democrat party could have stolen it. In fact, I don't think the full powers of the FBI, CIA, and DEA could pull it off. The controls and safety measures are just too strong.

    So if the Democrats really did steal the election, then why don't they destabilize the Chinese government and install a democratic regime? That would be far easier. Surely the party that nominated Joe Biden are not the elite political ninjas that the republicans seem to imply.

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    1. Kevin Brady

      See, that's my thing - A lot of politicians and political operatives are so incompetent, they couldn't even manage a parking lot. So how exactly did they pull off the electoral crime of the century, across multiple states, with no one noticing, and leaving no evidence trail? I mean, give me a break.

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    2. Mwupton

      This reason is my firewall against most conspiracies. If it only takes a few people, sure, it might happen. If it takes hundreds of county election officials (including Republicans!) to tip the scales without leaving a hard trail of evidence, or slip up in a conversation, it is equine excrement.

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    Mkapnick

    The Dems are annoying as hell. But the R's are dangerous right now as evidenced by this:

    Then another colleague joined in—on Respalje’s side. This was a man who had never evinced an interest in politics, but suddenly he was asking whether the state legislature could overturn Biden’s win, or whether the state’s representatives to the Electoral College might ignore the popular vote, which he had seen reported, and simply cast their ballots for Trump.

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    rlritt

    This reminds me of Ed McBroom, MI state senator who was tasked with recounting and investigating the Presidential election. He did an exhaustive investigation and concluded that Trump lost and Biden won. He was attacked by his fellow Republican law makers and completely vilified. He was shocked because he said these friends knew him his whole life and now called him a liar and a cheat. So sad.

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    1. LucyTrice

      The fact that people (who gripe about fake news) credit distant sources over people they have known their whole lives is, to me, one of the most troubling elements of the past 4 years.

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    2. Mary Stine

      this has been happening to my hubby with his longtime small town friends, all of whom take great glee in calling him a traitor on Facebook.

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    Bada Bing

    Bishop for President.

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  7. Richard Fulmer

    “He had contradicted the Oracle. It didn’t matter that he made sense. Heresy was heresy.”

    Back in 2016, Trump bragged: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters.” For the last five years that brag appeared to be no more than the simple truth.

    Recently, though, fans who would have turned a blind eye to murder excoriated him for recommending that they get vaccinated. Apparently, even “the Oracle” can speak heresy.

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      Mike B

      Trump supporters turning on him when he speaks pro-vax heresy reminds me of a gruesome story line in Game of Thrones, which I admit to having binge watched recently - purely in the spirit of inquiry, of course. Like reading Playboy for the articles. But I digress. There's a character who trains a pack of hounds (spoiler alert) to hunt down and tear apart whoever he sets them on. Eventually he is locked in the kennel with the dogs, which have been starved for days. The last we see of him, he is vainly trying to command the dogs to get down before he is torn limb from limb.

      (The same story line is also seen in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches".)

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        rlritt

        Yes, I remember reading that from the book. I couldn't watch because it was just too creepy.

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      2. Richard Fulmer

        Trump being “devoured” by the monster he created is one “narrative” I could get behind.

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          Theirn Scott

          I would prefer the devouring be in one bite versus death by a thousand bites.

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      rlritt

      Gone are days when Republicans could call themselves the moral majority.

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      1. Richard Fulmer

        There are now a lot of *churches* that can no longer credibly claim to be moral.

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      Michael Darwin

      In part Trump’s power was telling people what they want to hear. True enough for most pols, but he did it for folks usually ignored. “Get vaccinated” isn’t something they want to hear. Had he beat that drum early it might have worked, but now they have fought too much and been mocked too much on the issue to back down for Donnie from Queens

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      1. James B

        Had Trump beaten “the vaccine is our gift to preserve our way of life” drum loud and proud from the moment the upcoming vaccines were announced, had he been honest from the beginning on what we were going to face, had he been on the mask/distancing train from the get go, not only would hundreds of thousands more be alive now….. he would still be president. He would have easily won even with his character baggage. The GOP would likely control all three seats of power now. We know for certain the Senate would be in GOP hands had he just conceded the obvious that he lost the election fair and square.

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        1. Richard Fulmer

          Yes! There is no mystery as to whom is to blame for Trump’s 2020 loss. Trump muffed the responses to COVID and to the BLM riots. He convinced Republican voters not to use mail-in ballots. He badly blew his first debate with Biden. Trump was Trump’s own worst enemy. But neither he nor his minions can admit that, so they’ve got to cast about in all directions looking for someone else to pin the blame on.

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      2. Richard Fulmer

        It’s hard for us to admit that we were wrong - especially when we were wrong at the top of our voices.

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        1. GregS

          It takes a great deal of self confidence and self esteem to be able to admit you're wrong... otherwise the psychic injury of the admission is unbearable.

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            Bill Nelson

            “It takes a great deal of self confidence and self esteem to be able to admit you're wrong...
            No it doesn’t, most of us are taught this from childhood.

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            rlritt

            I'm sorry, I disagree. If you are an adult and have the facts and you have integrity you admit when you are proven wrong.

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        2. Kevin Brady

          You have many all-time great posts on here, but that last phrase is spot-on. I'm often the most wrong at my most worked-up and 'shout-y", and it's that much more embarrassing.

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          1. Richard Fulmer

            Wow, thanks!

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    Bennet

    This tale is depressing, alarming and reassuring all at the same time. Depressing, that it seems this gentleman would definitely vote for Trump again after all this. Alarming, at the people around him and their inability to observe reality. But, reassuring, that he was willing to stand on some sort of principle and there are obviously people around him that silently understand what happened. When will this silent, sane group speak up?

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    Paul Hoover

    Picture captions! Yay!

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    1. Jill B

      Yes! I noticed that also!

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    Pat Riot

    "And as far as Bishop was concerned, Trump had hurt himself badly by discouraging people from voting by mail."

    Think about that for a second. This Republican devotee was mad that his president was telling all Americans a vicious lie about out election system, but his concern was not that the lie would demolish our country's democratic foundations, but rather it would (gasp) **make Trump lose**.

    All Trump did with "Stop the Steal" is run the same ball down the same field Republicans have been playing on another 30 yards. That people like Mr. Bishop weren't quite ready for the implications of their own lies is just a temporary situation.



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    1. Richard Fulmer

      Bishop’s reaction to Trump’s “victory speech” claim that the election was stolen was also in the article:
      “This election stolen? It wasn’t just false; it was dangerous. Bishop thought, This could get ugly.”

      You see only that which feeds your narrative and filter out the rest. Think about that for a second.

      Then you imply that Bishop lied. Lied about what? He’s the guy in the story telling people the truth that the election wasn’t stolen. And, by the way, getting attacked for his efforts.

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        Pat Riot

        Bishop lied lies about voter fraud as all Republicans did for years. Then Trump lied another lie that was just a logical extension of the old ones. But Bishop couldn't go that far (for now). But his value system made clear by that initial reaction to Trump's lies about mail-in voting made it clear that his brain mostly revolves around winning elections. Clearly he snapped out of it, but this shows how dangerous this can be, and how we cannot expect there to be many more Bishops in the future.

        You see only what defends the Republicans and filter out the rest. Think about that for a second.



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          Bill B

          Sounds like you're the one doing the filtering here Pat.

          Your hostility to all things Republican is leading you towards judgments that aren't fair or supportable. Whether Bishop may or may not have contributed to the voter fraud narrative at some point he obviously saw the light and deserves some praise for sticking to his defense of the electoral process in 2020 despite tremendous pressure.

          It's hard to get support if no one is pure enough for you.

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            Pat Riot

            Your hostility to anything that criticizes Republicans is leading you toward judgments that aren't fair or supportable. See, personal attacks don't lead anywhere or persuade anybody. It's just gibberish. Focus on the subject, not the commenter.

            The enemy of our Constitution right now is the Republican party. The Democrats didn't commit--and then defend--an insurrection against our country, the Republicans did. Insofar was we continue to overlook this "boo boo" and go back to partisan politics as usual then we put our country further down the road to the end of our Constitution.

            It's great the Bishop stopped short of letting Trump override our system of government, but it's just going to happen again and again until Trump or his heir succeeds as long as Republicans are dependent on the fiction of voter fraud.

            Understand that the *primary* policy push for 2021 for Republicans was voter suppression, all based on *both* their old lies and the new ones.

            For me, the *whole problem* is pretending it's 1997 and politics is Clinton and Bush in the USA. We're in a national crisis right now and one party is absolutely, positively bent on ending our democracy.


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        2. Richard Fulmer

          The article explicitly states that Bishop did not “lie lies about voter fraud”:
          “He defended the voting system in Wisconsin, which he had witnessed up close for years. As a young man, he’d tended to believe stories of widespread voter fraud, but his familiarity with the process had taught him that it would actually be very hard to fix an election. Instances of fraud were rare, almost always insignificant, and committed by both sides.”

          And that further gives the lie to your claim that “all Republicans” lie about voter fraud. Kevin Williamson has written pieces in NRO stating the fact that, while voter fraud exists, it’s not a significant factor in presidential elections. How many times has Jonah Goldberg made that point? Hell, Trump’s own AG acknowledged that fraud did not sway the 2020 election.

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            Pat Riot

            So he spent every day of his life working for the party that proliferated lies about voter fraud for two decades, but... he didn't lie those lies himself. Okay, I supposed that's... theoretically possible? But it seems pretty unlikely. Chances are he was a mainstream Republican who lied the standard lies about non-existent voter fraud.

            The Republican party is what the Republican say it is, and those who support it, support its lies. Sure, they may deem those lies to be a necessary trade-off based on their desired policy goals, but it doesn't mean the lies don't exist.




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