Unmasking the Deception of Proposition 1 Opponents
The desperate need to stop the Open Primary Initiative exposes the propaganda machine behind these efforts.
Can you believe everything published in the Idaho Dispatch? Let’s take a look.
Idaho State Senator Tammy Nichols (R-Middleton) recently created a video that was published in the Idaho Dispatch. In it, an Open Primaries Initiative volunteer asks Nichols if she’s heard of Prop 1, and she replies, “Just a tiny; I’ve heard something about it...” In the video, she and Ada County Commissioner Ryan Davidson approached volunteers at the Western Idaho Fair Proposition 1 booth. While secretly filming, they pretended to know nothing about the voter initiative and asked questions to get a sound bite to help in their fight against Proposition 1.
Nichols, who recently won the District 10 senate primary election and is a leading member of the newly reformed Idaho Freedom Caucus, should have heard more than a “little bit” about Proposition 1. In fact, there is an article on her legislative Substack titled “Unmasking Deception in the Open Primary Ranked Choice Ballot Scheme.”
Had she been honest about her lack of knowledge and asked good-faith questions in the video, why would she have that post on her blog?
Occam’s Razor suggests that she was the one being deceptive.
It appears that Sen. Tammy Nichols, her good friend, and Ada County Commissioner Ryan Davidson filmed a video of themselves confronting two well-meaning Proposition 1 volunteers at the Western Idaho Fair so that they could use it to pretend that they are uncovering something sinister.
Why not be upfront and say, "Hi, I’m Senator Tammy Nichols, and I have a few questions for you. Would you mind if I filmed this?" That seems like something an honest and reasonable person would do.
Should we continue to waste our tax dollars on those who film amateur Project Veritas-style videos? Nichols and Davidson are elected public employees, and secretly recording volunteers for anti-voter imitative propaganda is not part of the job we pay them to perform.
Why would Sen. Nichols use Idaho Dispatch to distribute this secret video?
Nichols and the founder of Idaho Dispatch have a long history of working together. Greg Pruett worked hard in 2018 to help Tammy Nichols, Chad Christensen, and a few others get elected through media published across his network of gun rights-themed social media pages and websites.
Pruett has also run or helped run:
The Idaho Second Amendment Alliance
Wisconsin Firearms Coalition
Washington Gun Rights
Utah Firearms Coalition
NW Gun News
2ADailyNews
Keep Idaho Free
Title of Liberty Enterprises
2A Defense Enterprises
Greg Pruett for Idaho
The Freedom Bros Podcast
Constitution Party of Idaho
He may also be involved in the Secure Idaho Elections astroturfing groups that have been given resources to fight Proposition 1. If you are keeping track, that’s a lot of organizations for one person to run.
I have questions about how Pruett got his hands on this video. He claimed that Idaho Dispatch “obtained” the video, but in my experience, Pruett and Nichols are as ‘thick as thieves’ when it comes to political grifting.
You see, Pruett and Nichols go way back. Over the years, she often posed in Pruett’s Second Amendment Alliance t-shirts and hats. She assisted him in signing up members with a monthly fee so you could get access to poorly made gun memes. The membership fees also provided financial support for him to spend time at the capital to bully legislators on bills supported by the Idaho Freedom Foundation.
Most of the memes published on his I2AA Facebook page were the same ones published across a dozen other fake gun rights Facebook pages run by his pals, the Dorr Brothers.
Their epic Facebook astroturfing scheme was so egregious that two reporters won a Pulitzer Prize exposing them and Pruett’s political grift.
Ambushing people with secret recordings appears to be common practice amongst Nichols and her far-right gang. While it’s not illegal, it’s certainly not honest.
A History of Dishonest Recordings
Pruett and his friends have staged secret recording ambushes on unsuspecting victims many times before. A few years back, Pruett filmed himself trying to get into the fair in Twin Falls. He confronted the temporary fair worker working the entry gate and asked if he could come into the fair while open carrying his firearm.
The fair worker, who was not an expert in gun laws, saw Pruett’s holstered gun and the way he was behaving and maybe felt like there were more than a few red flags. He told Pruett that he did not think that was allowed.
Pruett got exactly the answer he wanted, cried about being a victim for days on social media, and demanded a response from the local sheriff.
A few weeks later, his good buddy, disgraced former legislator Chad Christensen, tried to pull a similar stunt. Christensen attempted to confront the teenage temporary worker while wearing the biggest hand cannon in his arsenal and was shown the sign that said weapons were prohibited unless allowed by state law. This sign was correct, and Christensen’s ego would not allow him to be outsmarted by some kid with a sign.
He demanded to speak with a manager.
Like any Karen, he met with the manager and did the “don’t you know who I am” schtick. Unfortunately for him, the “manager” he met with was an attorney with a better knowledge of the law than Christensen had.
Pruett’s other good friend and key Idaho Freedom Foundation network member, Scott Herndon, pulled a similar stunt in Sandpoint, Idaho.
Herndon brought a gun to the music festival, knowing it was not allowed, and was politely shown the door. In an epic act of SLAPP legal action, Pruett and Herndon had already schemed to use this incident to file a lawsuit. After wasting a ridiculous amount of time and money, they lost their bogus lawsuit in district court and the state supreme court because they are hypocrites who don’t really understand Idaho gun laws.
In late October 2020, Greg Pruett and his friend Chad Christensen collaborated to obtain a secret recording of me speaking with Chad’s employer; a call he helped set up and record. Pruett received the recording from Christensen and deceptively edited two minutes of a 45-minute conversation to publish articles accusing me of trying to get Christensen fired from his job, a claim his boss denied in an email she wrote to her insurance colleagues. Christensen admittedly shared this recording with Bryan Smith, Dustin Hurst, Tammy Nichols, and Greg Pruett. The articles with the false claims were used by many in this group to try to “destroy me.” This was done as a retaliation for my talking to reporters of the award-winning national podcast that exposed Pruett’s political grift.
When their plan to cancel me failed, Christensen filed a meritless lawsuit and was shut down in summary judgment because they set up the whole situation as a brazen scheme to destroy my career and reputation. Depositions later proved that Pruett lied in the articles he published and that he admitted he was removed from many of those out-of-state gun groups he claimed to help run.
Pruett and his friends within the Idaho Freedom Foundation political machine have shown that they do not operate in good faith and are willing to lie to achieve their goals, including stopping voter initiatives like Proposition 1.
The Desperate Fight Against Proposition 1
There is no daylight between these political grifters, desperate to stop Proposition 1. They are terrified of re-opening the primary election and adding a ranked-choice voting system that rewards candidates who focus on educating voters and refrain from using nasty campaign tactics.
Why? Because lying, misinformation, and confrontational politics turn off most voters, and in a closed primary election system, voter suppression is the only way they can win. That is why only 24% of Republicans showed up to vote in the last primary election, which has been consistent year over year as the far-right honed their suppression tactics.
And with that low turnout, they were able to narrowly defeat some of the non-far right Republican incumbents through their usual out-of-state deployed door-to-door paid propagandists who would lie to anyone who’d listen.
For example, Nichols barely had to lift a finger in her campaign because she likely knew Ron Paul’s Young Americans for Liberty, a pro-marijuana legalization group, would deploy to have her back, and one of the freedom bros might be the point man for them.
As for the looming Proposition 1 lawsuit mentioned in Pruett’s propaganda website…
Well, the Idaho Freedom Foundation political machine supports Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, and some might even call him their state-funded legal protector who’ll sacrifice whatever shred of reputation he has left, filing bogus lawsuits to try and sink Proposition 1 on their behalf. Like Pruett, he was scolded by the State Supreme Court for not understanding the law and lost badly, so he re-filed the case in a lower court where he is likely to be rewarded with another embarrassing loss. Their schemes are so predictable.
Idaho Dispatch is just one of many tools used by the far-right to try and gaslight voters into believing there is a larger movement against this important voter initiative.
They want you to believe it’s confusing, and their low opinion of voter’s ability to understand basic voting methods is downright insulting. Perhaps it's time to tune out the noise this political machine makes and understand why suppressing your vote is necessary for them to install legislators who will represent the interests of their donors above your needs.
About the Author
Gregory Graf is the creator of Political Potatoes and a lifelong Conservative Republican whose articles often criticize the hypocrisy committed by far-right grifters who’ve taken control of the GOP. Graf is the CEO of Snake River Strategies, a communications and political consulting firm based in Eagle, Idaho.
Disclaimer
The following is intended to convey an opinion on newsworthy events of public concern regarding public figures and/or public officials in the exercise of their official duties. No implications or inferences—beyond those explicitly stated in the preceding—are intended to be conveyed or endorsed by the Author. Wherever available, hyperlinks have been provided to allow readers to directly access any underlying assertions of fact upon which this opinion is based.
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