Posse Comitatus, Made Respectable

Claremont's Efforts to Co-opt Law Enforcement

I’ve come to two strong, but I feel unavoidable, conclusions about the Claremont Institute, the California-based right-wing think tank that supplies Trumpism with its intellectual cadre: One, that they are attempting the creation of a distinctly American form of fascism that studiously avoids references to European forebears, and two, they have become essentially a seditious conspiracy against the American people.

I don’t use this rhetoric lightly; I realize it can sound a bit extreme, even fevered and crankish, but everything else reads like hedging or euphemism. Claremont has played an instigating and integral part in all of the most authoritarian and menacing elements of the Trump era: from the wild proposals to end birthright citizenship and abrogate the 14th Amendment, to the creation and dissemination of “Stop the Steal Propaganda,” to persistent outreach and legitimation of the extreme-right fringe, and then to providing the spurious legal architecture of the January 6 putsch attempt. But one of the Institute’s most concerning initiatives yet is their “Sheriff’s Fellowship,” a direct effort to bind law enforcement to their ideological program. Founded in 2021, the Sheriff’s Fellowship purpose is described in quite partisan but still mostly benign-sounding language on the Institute’s website as a high-minded course in political theory and history for the local police:

Founded in 2021, the Claremont Institute Sheriffs Fellowship offers training of unparalleled depth and excellence in American political thought and institutions, from the country’s top constitutional experts and political theorists. Fourteen sheriff applicants will be selected for their character, aptitude, accomplishments, zeal, and community reputation to gather for five days to study and discuss the political-philosophical, institutional, and historical arc leading from the American Founding to today’s militant progressivism and multiculturalism, with particular emphasis on the role of law enforcement in maintaining liberty. Discussions will be based on readings from primary sources including John Locke, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, key court decisions, and the writings and speeches of great statesmen.

But in a fundraising document recently surfaced by Sherilynn Ifill, the true intentions of the Fellowship are made clearer:

The program is an unabashed effort to create a network of “uncorrupted” ideologically-reliable police outside the normal channels of the justice system. Of particularly note is the mention of the “electoral disaster of 2020.” Clearly, this organization is envisioned as a preventative measure for the repeat of “a stolen election.”

If you’re at all familiar with the history of the American far right, this rhetorical elevation of the stature of the county sheriff will ring a bell. It’s an old stratagem developed by the Christian Identity preacher William Potter Gale, who founded the “Posse Comitatus” movement in the 1970s. (Christian Identity is a variant of fundamentalist Protestantism that fuses race science with biblical exegesis, and holds Aryans to be the true Israelites of the Bible while the Jews are the seed of Satan.) Posse Comitatus, which means “power of the county” in Latin, held that the county sheriff is the highest legal authority a citizen had to answer to. With its association with Old West vigilanteism rather than jack-booted brownshirts, Posse Comitatus served as a nexus where the most extreme elements of the Nazi right could fuse with a broader culture of survivalist, anti-tax protestors and gun's rights activists. The movement’s literature is full of nonsensical interpretations of Magna Carta and English common law and the contention that the old English office of sheriff still legally exists in America. Posse Comitatus was the precursor of the Militia and Sovereign Citizens movement, and many of its adherents went on to engage in terrorism and vigilanteism, either under its own auspices or in other extreme right groups.

Claremont has adopted this rhetoric to connect itself to the currently-existing Constitutional Sherriff’s Movement, which boasts hundreds of actual county sheriffs as its members. In doing this, they are seeking to accomplish two apparent goals of their organization: the extension of a network into far right subcultures and the development of alternate, extra-legal power structures—and now, even armed ones. I am always a bit unsure exactly how seriously to take Claremont’s schemes and ideas, but combined with the Claremont belief that the country is in a virtual state of civil war, this probably shouldn’t be taken too lightly.

(Correction: I misattributed the original publication of the Claremont Sherriff’s Fellowship fundraising letter. Credit should go to Christian Vanderbrouk of The Bulwark.)