A few weeks ago I received two letters in the mail. They were addressed to me by name and sent to my address on Washington Island, WI. One was from former Vice President of the U.S., Mike Pence. The other was from Edwin Meese, former Attorney General in the Ronald Reagan Administration who is now a 93-year old fixture at the Heritage Foundation. Both communiqués were form letters. Pence’s letter began “Dear Faithful Citizen…Your record stands out as a bible-believing Christian…As a Christian who takes your walk with Christ seriously, your voice is needed within our country’s system of self government.” The letter from Meese started “Dear Fellow Conservative,…America haters have infested our justice system with rotten district attorneys and judges who apply one set of rules for folks who’ll vote for them and another for the preachers and parents who disagree with them.” I wondered why I would get such letters.
The town of Washington Island is also an Island in Lake Michigan—the farthest you can go in Northeast, Wisconsin before you hit the waters of upper Michigan. The Island is a 30-minute Ferry ride from mainland Wisconsin. In the Summer it is overrun with day-trip tourists and populated with a fair number of snowbirds who leave the Island in the winter for points South. The year-round population is about 750, plus a huge population of deer who freely walk in the roads all winter long. In the Presidential election in 2024, 630 people voted. Harris won by 42 votes.
The Island is a rural community. On a drive through the town center, which takes one about two minutes, you will see a school and community center, a bank, a hardware store, a grocery store, the electric coop and four bars. Turning right just past the grocery store, at the top of a small hill is Trinity Lutheran Church whose congregation is largely liberal Democrats. If, instead of turning right you go straight up another small hill, you will spot Bethel Evangelical Christian Church, which was built in 1865 to accommodate a fluid congregation of sailors and merchants who came and left from a nearby dock. Today the church serves Island residents. Many, if not most of this congregation identify with the Christian political right.
Since I am neither liberal nor conservative and not a Christian or a church goer of any sort, I was a bit surprised and amused to get these letters. Both churches send all permanent residents their newsletters. There is no mention of partisan politics. They both open with a biblical discussion of our daily personal problems and behaviors. Then there is church news – mostly times of bible study groups, church dinners and the like. Then there is community news—who died, who was born, who was married; the score of the last Islanders baseball game in the summer, the number of deer harvested in the fall and the results of the ice fishing derby in the winter. But apparently Bethel also shares their mailing list with Meese and Pence. Both letters were seeking funding for an organization, founded by Pence, called Advancing American Freedom. There is no mention in the letters of Trump or the Republican Party. Advancing American Freedom apparently represents a segment of the far right that have their own agenda.
Pence emphasizes “cultural” issues He asks “how important to you is it to “stop abortion; protect parents rights, oppose transgender ideology, support Israel.” In the case of Israel, Pence seems to be hoping that war in the Middle East will speed up the onslaught of Armageddon and the rapture.
In the meantime, Pence is concerned with political developments 2-4 years from now: “If faithful Christians can’t organize and mobilize on our own, the Marxist, anti-freedom worldview will regain and strengthen its grip on our society. The rights of Christians to follow the teachings of our faith will be trampled. Government bureaucrats will seize even more power to shutter church doors, impose anti-Christian mandates on businesses, and single out Christian schools for exclusion from school choice programs. They will get closer and closer to the day when they can force all churches to perform same-sex “marriages” and force all Christian schools to accept the “trans agenda” as orthodoxy. And worst of all, the abortion “rights” crowd will prevail, resulting in death sentences for millions of innocent babies.”
Edwin Meese is more secular. His letter focuses on the courts, claiming that “radicals on the Left undermine the very rule of law that I spent my entire life protecting.” Meese is worried that the Left is on the attack and laying the groundwork to “pack the Supreme Court.”
While this seems ludicrous given what is happening in Washington, I think Pence and Meese represent a bloc on the far right that doesn’t care much for the Trumpsters. After all, they wanted to lynch Pence four years ago. The letters I received represent a serious effort to expand their far right bloc that will be free of the follies that the next two years of Trump might bring. And they hope to have influence not only on midterm elections but on the next Presidential elections and on ongoing struggles around abortion, deportation, Israel and more.
Meanwhile, life goes on here on Washington Island. It is deep winter. The tourists, and the Green Bay Packers are gone. The bars are flourishing and the churches are packed on Sundays. Half of the people who received the Pence/Meese letters probably tossed them in the trash while the other half likely gave Advancing American Freedom a small donation. And despite Trump’s victory, many of these Island residents continue to be worried about immigrants, abortion, transgender people in our bathrooms and look forward to the return of Packer football and the coming rapture.