The Unchecked Power Of Sheriffs

Fresh Air

NPR

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4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Investigative journalist Jessica Pishko says that a growing group of "constitutional sheriffs" have become a flashpoint in the current politics of toxic masculinity, guns, white supremacy, and rural resentment. "Constitutional sheriffs would argue that there is no one who can tell them what to do," Pishko says. "Not the president, not the Supreme Court, not the governor, not the legislature. Sometimes constitutional sheriffs will call themselves something like a king." Her book is The Highest Law in the Land.

Also, Maureen Corrigan reviews Creation Lake, by Rachel Kushner.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Foundation.
0:04.0	If you're a U.S. Citizen living abroad, the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Turnout Project's online form
0:10.2	will walk you through requesting your ballot in just five minutes.
0:13.5	Visit International Voter.com.
0:16.0	This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley.
0:19.0	In the new series Fargo on FX,
0:22.0	John Ham plays a constitutional sheriff
0:25.1	who believes he has supreme power
0:27.2	over shepherding God's land,
0:29.4	a defender of the American gospel who is above the law.
0:33.0	What you need to know is that I am the law of the land.
0:38.0	Elected by the residents of this county to interpret and enforce the Constitution given unto us by
0:44.0	Almighty God. Fargo, Roy Tillman, is a dramatic interpretation of a
0:49.2	constitutional sheriff, but in a new book, investigative journalist Jessica Pischo delves into the real life movement.
0:56.0	Sheriff's overall are nearly impossible to remove from office.
1:00.0	They run county jails, arrest people, and enforce evictions and immigration laws.
1:05.0	They've led protests against the federal mask and vaccine mandates,
1:09.0	and are embraced by far-right militia groups,
1:12.0	white nationalists and presidential candidate Donald Trump, who
1:15.4	sees them as allies in his plans for mass deportation and border policing.
1:21.0	Jessica Pischko's new book is called The Highest Law in the Land,
1:24.8	how the unchecked power of sheriffs threatens democracy.
	...

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