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This episode explores a disturbing incident in Northern Idaho where activist Teresa Borrenpohl was forcibly removed from a town hall meeting by unidentified men, believed to be part of a private security team, raising concerns about the erosion of democratic norms and the rise of extralegal militias. Brad speaks with activists Tamara Sines-Kermelis and Megan Kunz to discuss the political climate in Northern Idaho, the implications of such actions, and the importance of public accountability and civic engagement in combating authoritarian tendencies. They share their personal experiences and emphasize the need for vigilance and bravery in the face of growing extremism.
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I think what we've got right now is a situation where these folks are trying to filibuster and shut this whole program out.
This is a, excuse me, Sheriff Norris.
This gentleman is assaulting you.
This man is assaulting me.
This man is assaulting me.
Is this your deputy?
Is this your deputy?
Who are these guys now?
Show your back.
Who wants to know?
You're the fucker.
Who operates and who...
Many of you have already seen the video.
A couple of men in black shirts approach the woman.
She's already been warned by an older gentleman, and now they approach.
She asks, who are you?
Show me your ID. Who do you represent?
Instead of telling her, they drag her out of the auditorium as onlookers.
Watch by.
This happened in northern Idaho this past week, and for many, it was an alarming escalation of the kind of extra-military and extra-law enforcement activity that we are likely to see under the Trump administration.
Today, I speak with two activists who were present at that event and who know the person, Teresa Borenpol, who was pulled out of the auditorium.
We discuss how this fits into a political climate that has been developed in Northern Idaho over the last decade.
The ways it reflects a militant Republican Party that believes it has absolute control over both private and public spaces.
We talk about the reactions the event has garnered and the ways it has mobilized a group of local activists in Northern Idaho as well as across the country.
I'm Brad Onishi, and this is Straight White American Jesus. and this is Straight White American Jesus.
Do we have black shirts in the United States of America?
Are we supposed to enforce public norms without the rule of law, without the authority of law enforcement?
What is to come in Trump's second term with the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the 3%ers standing by and waiting for his signal?
There's a sense in America today that extra military violence, that militias, those acting outside of the law, have a renewed sense of their importance and authority in American public culture.
That they feel emboldened by Trump and his backing of their actions, not to mention his pardoning of 1,500 rioters from J6.
The video of Teresa Borenpol being pulled out of a high school auditorium in northern Idaho was shocking.
It quickly went viral, and millions of people across the country were startled to see unidentified men using violence and force to expel dissenters and those opposing One
must have the ability to speak freely, without punishment.
And to hold their leaders to account.
If one cannot do that, there is no representation of the people, and the will of the citizenry cannot be done.
Today I speak with Megan Coons and Tamara Sainz-Vermelis.
I met both of them a couple of months ago, and I can tell you that they are folks who often stir up good trouble.
Despite being in the large minority in northern Idaho, they are always standing up for women's rights.
The representation and protection of queer folks and democratic norms in their region and in their school districts.
We discuss what happened at the event and why it is a warning to all of us about protecting free speech and the rule of law.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
As I just said, we are here today to talk about A video and a set of events that many of you are aware of that happened this past week in Northern Idaho, basically black shirts dragging a woman out of a town hall meeting.
And in order to do that, here to talk with two folks who I've had the pleasure of meeting in person and getting to know and talk to in the past and now have a chance to welcome to the show, and that is Tamara Saenz-Germalis and Megan Coons.
Thanks to both of you for being here.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, thanks, Bradley, for having us.
We got to meet a couple of months ago.
I was up in Spokane at a meeting with y'all, and we talked about your region, Northern Idaho, and kind of some of the political climate that's up there.
We want to get to all of that as it pertains to what happened with Dr. Borenpol.
And the town hall meeting and her being dragged out by these unidentified private security black shirts.
Before we do that, tell us a little bit about yourselves.
I know just from the brief interactions I've had with y'all that you cause a lot of good trouble.
So would you mind telling us about some of the good trouble that you caused?
Do you want to start, Tamara?
Sure.
My name is Tamara, and I am a native Idahoan.
I've lived here almost my whole life.
I have a small chunk of time where I lived on the East Coast.
I'm a big-time reader, so a lot of the library stuff has been really important to me lately.
We have some extremists that have been elected to our local library board, and they're trying to lock books up and, you know, just major censorship stuff.
I've made some good trouble at the library board meetings, and I've also attended NIC. Our community college, North Idaho College, has faced accreditation issues because of extremists that were elected to that board.
So yeah, I'm just trying to save my community from the takeover that's been happening for the last few years.
Yeah, and I'll just jump right in, unless, Bradley, you wanted to respond to Tamara.
Okay.
So yeah, I have lived here in North Idaho for 10 years.
I'm originally from North Dakota.
So I would say kind of a similar demographic to what's here in Northern Idaho.
In terms of good trouble, that's one of my favorite words.
John Lewis is definitely a hero of mine.
And so when I hear good trouble and get in the way, that's what I think of him right away.
Some of that good trouble that I've been into, I'm a social worker.
By trade, I've been a social worker for almost 20 years, and so that's part of my professional identity, as well as just personal identity with advocacy, but involved a lot with some of the things that Tamara's doing with the library boards.
I've also been involved with our Pride in the Park, so supporting our queer friends and neighbors, and then also with North Idaho College.
On top of that, we've done more kind of Good Trouble advocacy events around Different things that are happening in our community.
Two years ago, we had Marjorie Taylor Greene in town for our Republican Party Lincoln Day dinner.
And so we held a kind of rally in front of the Coeur d'Alene Resort where the event was happening.
And we dressed like clowns and we had big elephants.
And we said, you know, when you invite...
The clowns, we get the circus, and so just kind of bringing awareness to what's happening in our community, while also using our voice to lift up those who don't have one here, are scared to have one here.
This brings us to what happened the other night, and I wonder if we could just briefly sort of go over the details.
I think a lot of folks have seen the video.
I think a lot of folks listening to this show know.
That I've tried to highlight as best as I could for people around the country that Northern Idaho is kind of a laboratory for some of the most right-wing policies and ideas when it comes to politics and our public culture.
So would you mind telling us, Tamara, like both of you were in attendance, both of you were there.
Where was this event held and what was it for?
So it was held at Coeur d'Alene High School.
In the auditorium there, which I believe seats around 400 people, it was advertised as a town hall for our state representatives from our districts up here.
So like district, I don't know, two, three, four, and five, I believe, which is like Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls, Hayden, like just the little local communities up here.
And yeah, it was advertised as a town hall.
But it was sponsored, I guess you could say, by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.
All of our legislators in Kootenai County are Republican, so I believe that's why they sponsored the event.
However, the school district has confirmed that they gave the space knowing it was going to be an event for the public and for the public to have civic discourse and engagement with their representatives.
There's a kind of important distinction here that we'll come back to, but Megan, you know, there's this kind of like cat and mouse game about this was a town hall for people who live in these districts to presumably discuss important political matters with their state representatives.
and yet, because it was sponsored by the Republican National—the Central Committee— There's also, oh, no, no, no, this was just for Republicans to do Republican things, and it wasn't necessarily meant to be open to the public, etc.
I mean, am I right with some of that kind of cat and mouse?
How is that being played out in the local kind of ether?
Yeah, so I think the only people that are saying it was a private event is the chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee and his followers.
The other people in the community, Tamara spoke about the Coeur d'Alene School District.
So the Republican Party had to sign a contract, like a facility use agreement, to utilize the school.
And part of the rules of utilizing our schools for events are they have to be open to the public.
So that's pretty explicit in the contract that it has to be open to the public.
They've verbalized that as well since then, that they would not have given I think that leads us to what happened in terms of Dr. Borenpol voicing her dissent to certain things being said from the stage, trying to speak, not necessarily being recognized to speak.
Both of you were there, so I think a lot of folks have read accounts.
They may have seen reporting on this, but...
I'll just open up to both of you, you know, what did you see?
What was it like in the room when this happened?
And, you know, were you shocked?
Were you overcome a surprise?
You know, what kind of tone or sense was, you know, among everybody present and so on?
So Tamara, what did it look like from your vantage point?
Well, first off, just walking in that room was very uncomfortable, I have to say that.
I had planned on getting picked up and going with a group of friends, and I ended up driving myself because I had to be available to leave to get my daughter.
But anyway, it was an uncomfortable space to walk into.
There was a lot of angry...
Oh, middle-aged men, I guess you could say, that are just, yeah, they're not very friendly to us.
And they sort of know our faces just from us showing up at other meetings or, you know, events in town.
So it was a little intimidating to walk in the room.
When Teresa was asked to leave by Sheriff Norris at first, there had already been so many outbursts from...
All over the audience.
I mean, I think there was a lot of educators in the room that are not happy about this school voucher bill.
There was a lot of people that were not happy about them trying to repeal Medicaid expansion.
So there were a lot of others in the room that shared opposing viewpoints that were also sporadically, you know, shouting out things or, you know, I was holding up a sign and things like that.
I feel like a lot of the media and the KCRCC had tried to say, look, she had disrupted this many times, like she had been disruptive.
But really, there was disruption throughout the entire audience, both good and bad.
There were people cheering and clapping and applauding and yelling out, you know, positive things, too.
But yeah, it was almost an hour into it when they approached Teresa and asked her to leave.
And they had actually already pointed to Megan and I and asked us to leave prior to that as well.
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In the video, Sheriff Norris approaches and then there's these three or two or three men behind him.
You know, Megan, were you caught off guard that here are these unidentified guys without badges, without noticeable, you know, kind of identification as police officers or anyone else starting to physically drag someone out?
What did it look like from your point of view?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thanks for asking that.
I think before I answer that question, I want to say what was when I showed up to the meeting as well.
I showed up alone, Tamara and the other folks there, and I had on a sweatshirt that said, destroy American fascism.
Thanks, Tom Morello.
For making such amazing clothing.
And so that's kind of one of my favorite messaging shirts to wear to these kinds of events.
And when I walked into the auditorium, there was a man standing there who I've seen before.
And he looks at me up and down and says, you're the fascist.
And I thought...
That's kind of weird that you're getting defensive about this.
Like, shouldn't everybody be, like, against American fascism?
Like, what a weird, weird thing.
So that was, like, my first introduction to walking into the building was being accosted by some man.
So then back to your question, Bradley, about, like, from my vantage point, I was sitting next to Tamara opposite, like, Teresa.
So farther down about five or six seats from Teresa.
When the Blackshirts, we'll call them the Blackshirts, because they definitely weren't security.
When the Blackshirts showed up, I knew that they were acting as security because they had their headsets in, but still it was like, who are these people?
In the video, you can hear myself and many other people yelling, who are you?
Who are you?
And we did that for a while.
I participated in the questioning of, like, who are you?
And then I eventually did leave my seat.
And so I don't want to go too far into that, Bradley, if that's something you want to talk more about.
But I did leave my seat to approach Teresa.
And I also, looking back on my video, I was shouting to Sheriff Norris, This is a public high school and this is a town hall.
I think when he was telling us to leave, I just kept saying, this is a public high school and this is a town hall.
I think one of the things, I mean, you know, watching the video is shocking.
And I think one of the things that I've thought about in recent days is it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, that each of us is going to be presented with a kind of, you know, Situation like this, where we have to figure out what to do, how to act, you know, the video shows one gentleman being accosted by Sheriff Norris being told, do you want to be arrested?
You know, what would you say in terms of the atmosphere and how there was a sense that this could escalate very quickly in terms of maybe people being armed, maybe people being ready to turn this into something that was even more violent, you know?
As you're faced with that very quick decision about how you're going to react, what are you feeling in the room, you know, as everything's happening?
I mean, I think we talked about in the very beginning that we saw someone caring.
We had talked about that right when we first sat down, that we had saw someone that was caring.
And they were not supposed to be because it was at a public high school.
They weren't supposed to be caring.
So, yeah, it was really scary to...
I mean, I'm sure you've seen the comments of people asking, why didn't people get up?
Why didn't people help?
Why didn't people do anything?
Well, first off, I mean, there were people that tried to step in and intervene, and they were violently zip-tied and thrown out as well.
I think the recording with the cell phone actually was really important, even though people are like, oh, look, they're all just recording with their phones.
I don't know if we would have been believed had we not had all the footage that we have of everything that happened.
Yeah, I think I had the same reaction, Bradley, especially initially after it all happened.
I was like, why this room is full of men and why weren't any men standing up and doing something for Teresa?
I had a lot of feelings about that.
And I had to sit back and kind of process and think about...
How this was a traumatic experience for everybody that was there, whether you were directly involved or you were just watching.
And so when people experience trauma, they go into flight, fight, freeze, fawn.
Like you don't know what you're going to do or how you're going to react.
And I think a lot of folks in that room were froze.
Well, the helpers were froze.
The non-helpers were not frozen because they were cheering and very excited to see all of this violence happening.
It also seems to be a moment when, and this is not always the case, but it does seem to be a moment when Teresa is taken out.
It's forceful.
It's blatant.
There's no kind of arguing with it.
These guys look...
Like Blackshirts, they do not have anything saying, I'm a police officer, I am, you know, a deputy, I am a sheriff, none of that.
And it just seems like a really clear-cut case of, like, this is an American citizen being dragged out of an American public high school where she is trying to interact with her elected representatives, and because she doesn't share this opinion, they have dragged her out.
The response and the result has been, and please add in details here that I'm not aware of or that are happening quickly, but, you know, there's been a license revoked for the security company.
The men who have done this have been publicly outed, and the GoFundMe for Dr. Bornpol for Teresa has raised a couple of hundred thousand dollars, if I'm not mistaken.
And there's also just a sense of, like, momentum here about...
The danger of extra-military, vigilante, militia, blackshirt, whoever's becoming a kind of menace in our public square.
So, you know, I guess what I'm gesturing towards here is anybody can question, like, reactions in the moment.
one of the things that's happened here is the spectacle of egregious violence and overreach has led to backlash and momentum for those of us who believe in the rule of law and that this kind of thing is just not okay in this country.
So, you know, does it feel like that on the ground or am I completely off base and watching from afar and sort of surmising something that perhaps isn't real? - No, I think that's an accurate assessment Bradley.
We've been hearing from Many Republicans unhappy with what happened.
And that's kind of nice to see in our community that is so extremely divided.
So yes, I think that the majority of folks, I believe, stand with Dr. Borenpol.
I do also believe that there is a large contingency of people in this community, especially women, who have been socialized to submission in terms of having views.
And there's a lot of, oh, well, she spoke up.
She got what she deserved.
She shouldn't have been disrespectful.
She shouldn't have been rude.
Oh, you know, that's what happens.
And that's really problematic for me because I think about how, like, she spoke up so she deserves to, like, be assaulted by strange men.
Seems very bizarre to me.
But I would say...
No, I was just going to say, yeah, there have been those kind of comments like, well, she was so rude and she was so disrespectful and, you know, it was embarrassing, her behavior.
And so, yeah, those kind of comments were...
They're really hard to hear.
And especially us being right there and seeing the violence that she endured, you know, for not speaking out any more than anyone else in that room.
One of the things that you raised, Megan, in a previous conversation was just this distinction that I mentioned earlier between the public and the private.
And I'm wondering if you could comment on that just in terms of...
I've talked for a long time, as somebody from Southern California, about the dozens and dozens of people I've known who've moved to Idaho, seeing it as a place that is a kind of moldable landscape for a kind of white Christian state.
How does the public-private distinction play into the attempt by extremists in Northern Idaho to create a kind of Christian white ethnostate?
Yeah, it really seems like those with those Christian nationalist viewpoints and beliefs are trying to really bring their perspectives into the public space.
And by that, I mean around ordinances, legislation.
I think about Tamara mentioned briefly about our library.
And our current library board for our county is four out of five are some sort of Christian nationalists, either evangelical or actually we have a large group of Catholic, like extreme Catholic folks up here, which I didn't really know was a thing, but it's a thing.
And so they are putting out policies that support their beliefs around whiteness, patriarchy, basically othering anybody that's different than basically othering anybody that's different than them.
And creating an environment where people can't access information or other viewpoints because it's being removed or inaccessible.
And that's wholly problematic in and of itself.
It seems like there's a move to say that the public resources are available to the people we consider...
Worthy of them.
So they're private to us, this in-group, and then this out-group, whether that means you are not a Christian, whether you are queer, whether you are somehow other than we approve of, means those public services are just not available to you.
They're not for you.
you, whether that's sitting in a high school auditorium trying to talk to your representative, whether that's going to the library to access certain services or books or what may be, or whether that is other public services that are meant to be for everyone in the community.
It seems like, as you said, there's a desire to make what is public private to an in-group and exclude it for everyone else.
Is that what's happening in libraries?
Are there other places that's happening in Northern Idaho public life?
Yeah, I thought when you were talking about that, I was just thinking...
So we have a city bus system that is subsidized primarily by the federal government, but also the county and the cities kick in some money for this public transportation system, and it's free to the people who want to utilize it.
One of our county commissioners has been attempting to limit access, or essentially he doesn't want the county to fund because he doesn't think it's necessary.
He also believes that if we fund our public transportation, that it's going to expand into Washington State.
And the folks up here hate Washington State, and they think it's going to go to Spokane, and then people in Spokane are going to come to Coeur d'Alene, and they're going to cause problems and commit crimes.
And so that's just another example of that people utilize that to get to doctor's appointments, get to work.
And because you don't have the means to a vehicle of your own, our county commissioners think that I guess you don't get to go anywhere then.
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