"Someone needed to do something, and I realized that person was me."
"Someone needed to do something, and I realized that person was me."
Roger Lomshek began by successfully organizing his community to push back against COVID overreach in local schools. Then he decided to keep going.
You can listen to my interview with Roger above, or you download it at this link
A perennial topic on this substack has been distributing lessons in political activism and organizing to normal people who feel they need to do something, but don’t quite know where -or how- to begin. This has largely been done so far by selecting notable examples throughout history for closer examination, then figuring out the various dos and don’ts that apply in each case. This can be somewhat tricky because doing this often involves reviewing primary and secondary sources and inferring the relevant principles that apply, which is different from talking to the people that were involved and hearing -in their own words- why they did what they did, and their thoughts and the relevant factors that went into the decisionmaking process.
That’s why I’m so excited to share today’s interview, which involves a long-time follower and his experiences putting many of the concepts shared here into action. Roger Lomshek is a Kansas-based parent and founder of SEK Freedom, who found himself during the pandemic faced with an overbearing local government that insisted on pushing wildly unpopular COVID policies in schools. In the span of 18 months Roger not only helped his community successfully push back against these policies, but also helped replace several local elected officials and flip a purple county red in the 2022 midterms. Roger’s story covers many relevant topics we discussed in detail in the podcast above, including (but not limited to):
Recruiting, vetting, and managing members in your local activist group;
Picking targets and coordinating for online and IRL pressure campaigns;
Transitioning to activism in real life and organizing successful protests;
Taking over your local political party, and leveraging this local success to springboard into building influence at the district and state level.
His story, told in his own words, is incredibly inspiring and worth a listen. Roger was also kind enough to write a short guide with some basic principles based on his experience, which I’ve included below:
How to build your local action group:
Step 1 - Pick a cause you are passionate about.
Step 2 - Spend the time to be very well versed in that subject.
Step 3 - Connect with like minded individuals.
Step 4 - Set up a secure communications method. I used Signal because it prevents social media, cell providers or email companies from interfering with our communications. Friends of mine that took over another county set up a gmail account for their comms. It lasted 3 weeks before google killed it for spreading misinformation.
Step 5 - Use your communications method to build a consensus and figure out a first target that is achievable and effective in winning. Maybe that's a city commission or school board or county commission seat, or even just a specific policy change. Regardless, make sure the objective meets the SMART principle:
Specific: Is it simple and well-defined?
Measurable: what are the metrics for determining you are making progress, and how do you determine you have succeeded?
Achievable: Is this something that has been done successfully by anyone, and are all the potential obstacles accounted for?
Realistic: does your group have the desire, skills, and resources to overcome the problems identified?
Time-bound: do you have a concrete timeline for accomplishing the goal, or is there a specific window within which is must be achieved?
Step 6 - Prevent nut jobs from creating "forum slide" by fixating on something unachievable or constantly voicing defeatist attitude.
Step 7 - Make sure you're 100% legal. The local democrats have twice tried to get me in legal trouble with the state agency that oversees PAC's but I was way ahead of them and they got nothing.
Step 8 - Expect to burn a lot of your own time and possibly money before people get fully on board.
Step 9 - Align with existing structures if you can. My group was able to join with/take over the county Republican party as were a half-dozen more across the state using identical tactics. For school boards I would suggest Moms for Liberty, The 1776 Project, No Left Turn in Education as three good ones.
Step 10 - If you're not going to be a candidate start finding candidates in your group. Make sure your candidates are really in line with your politics.
Step 11 - Get your candidates training by a qualified independent group. You can use party training if it exists (unlikely) but have to make sure your candidates don't just become party robots.
Step 12 - Develop a plan to help your candidates win. That's acting as a PAC so you have to register with your state's regulatory agency and possibly with the feds. I'm not a lawyer so make sure you get it done right by either reading the law or having a smart lawyer in your group.
Step 13 - Get your candidates and other volunteers to go door knocking every spare minute they have. That is the single most effective method of securing votes. Saturday & Sunday from 1-6 PM are your best times. If you purchase or rent a political canvassing app you can mark which houses have been visited and can go back and hit missed houses later.
Step 14 - Have a daylight visible tablet with cell data connection set up to instant register people to vote you speak to. They can request a ballot by mail right while they sign up on your tablet right there. Makes it much easier to secure a vote if you help them sign up to vote.
Taking over your political party:
Step 1 - Your county is divided into numerous precincts. Mine has 56. Each precinct (in my state) has a man and a woman as committee member. Those precinct committee members are the voting members of the county party.
Step 2 - Visit your county clerk and get a list of all precincts in your county, who occupies them and who the county chairman/woman is. Many counties have a lot of unfilled seats.
Step 3 - If your precinct seat is not filled ask your county party chairman to appoint you and attend meetings to learn the lay of the political landscape. If your precinct is filled you can still attend the party meetings. If your precinct is filled decide if the person in that position is deserving of it. It is an elected position.
Step 4 - File in the next election for that precinct position. Contact the county clerk to find out when that is.
Step 5 - While doing this use your precinct list to start filling other seats with like minded people.
Step 6 - You may have control of the party after a single election if you try.
Step 7 - Even as a single person call political candidates you like and offer to serve as the local or area point of contact for coordinating rallies and sign drop offs. If you run the party this will be even easier but campaigns are desperate for people that are even half competent.
Step 8 - Use your newfound power to continue to effect real influence on local politics.
Now I'm running for a state level party position that will have me involved in overseeing my quarter of the state (25 counties). I wonder what effect I can have in a year or two if I'm training the 25 counties in my district to be more aggressive.
I'm also in the process of creating a Signal discussion group for all conservative county party leaders in my state. Soon we'll all be able to collaborate and share methods and ideas. What effect can I have if I get 3/4 of the counties in the state on my side? I bet I can make it a lot better.
Because of my work I'm starting to get involved in helping re-write legislation to reduce the power of government officials. Imagine being in that room helping make those decisions on wording and doing them with the goal of reducing state power!
That's how and what you can do if you try.
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