When Facebook subsequently shut down Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine, Soldano launched Stand Up Michigan as its, journalist Jacob Wheeler notes that Stand Up Michigan’s activism helped foster the atmosphere of extreme anti-government resentment in which the kidnapping plot was hatched.
The group has also aligned itself with other far-right communities, including the “constitutional sheriffs”, which argues that local sheriffs represent the highest form of authority provided for in the U.S. Constitution, and that almost all other forms of local, state and federal government are therefore invalid. In one June 2021 meeting, Clark argued that the Declaration of Independence provides for abolishing the government when it becomes tyrannical.
In a recording of one meeting this March, Clark spoke about the group’s growing clout among Michigan Republicans, particularly through the current petition campaigns: “We will be getting the word out,” read the email, “along with our friends at Stand Up Michigan and other important groups, to join us in gathering citizens from every county to come, sign petitions.”
“There is an overlap of leadership between these different efforts, and now we’re seeing very clear connections between them all,” Wang continued. “Regardless of whether they started off as grassroots or with some kind of extremist energy behind them, they’ve all been endorsed, and sometimes funded outright, by establishment Republicans.”
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