BOSTON As towns on the Cape gear up for a spring of municipal elections, with seats on the ballot ranging from school committee to town moderator, several local political activists say some of these races while nonpartisan on paper have become framed in part by national politics.
Organizers on both sides of the political spectrum agreed the region’s politics can be divisive, though they disagreed on who was responsible.
Still, this new focus on local contests could help bolster civic engagement, they said, regardless of which candidates ultimately get elected.
“I do think it’s coming right down to this level now,” Paula Miller, a Brewster resident and member of United Cape Patriots, said of the partisanship. “I think the intensity is really being brought to bear.”
Petition Seeks to Have MassGOP Censure Baker [OPINION]
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is facing a possible censure by his party for supporting the recent impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump.
United Cape Patriots founder and Brewster Town Republican Committee Vice-Chair Adam Lange is promoting an online petition asking the Massachusetts Republican Party to vote to censure Baker when it meets next Wednesday. Lange said Baker declared his support for the second Trump impeachment on January 13, 2021, a week after calling on Trump to resign.
Lange said on my Tuesday program that United Cape Patriots is not attempting to form a third political party but seeks to keep Trump supporters in Massachusetts engaged. Lange told me the national Republican Party needs a change of leadership if the party is to survive.
FALMOUTH Until they disbanded after Joe Biden was elected president, Move to Remove spent every Saturday morning for the past 3½ years on the village green, advocating for the removal from office of President Donald Trump.
Occasionally, they shared the green with Trump supporters from United Cape Patriots. The two groups would stand about 50 yards apart, Paul Rifkin, co-founder of Move to Remove, said. Over the years, Rifkin said he developed a relationship of sorts with United Cape Patriots founder Adam Lange.
The conciliatory tone between the two groups changed this year when Lange arrived at rallies in a huge military transport vehicle with a replica .50-caliber machine gun on the roof of the cab and a replica assault weapon mounted on the dashboard in the cabin.
The fight for the heart of the Massachusetts GOP is in full swing on Cape Cod.
On Jan. 2, Cape and Islands Republican Committee members gathered in a parking lot at Patriot Square in South Dennis and voted to elect Will Crocker as the district’s new state Republican committeeman. Crocker ran to fill a vacancy left by Francis Manzelli, who died on Nov. 19.
He defeated opponent Adam Lange, the founder of United Cape Patriots who is known to ride around in a military-style truck adorned with Trump flags and mounted with a fake machine gun.
The vote was 97 to 16.
But Crocker s election was not ratified at the statewide caucus the next day because Republican State Committee Chairman Jim Lyons, who is closely aligned with President Donald Trump, deemed the caucus vote illegitimate. Crocker backers say the tactic was a power grab.
BOURNE “Stop the Steal,” a cry which has become popular in right-wing corners of the internet, spilled out onto the Bourne Rotary Wednesday morning, as about 50 people loyal to President Donald Trump continued to complain about the election results that have already weathered 60 legal challenges and come out in favor of President-elect Joe Biden.
A few hours later, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to halt the counting on the Electoral College votes and overturn the results of the presidential election.
The U.S. has spent two and a half centuries defending democracy, U.S. Rep. Bill Keating tweeted from Washington, D.C., Wednesday afternoon, and when we see mobs storming parliaments to overturn the will of the people, we speak out against them on a bipartisan basis.