Our local white-supremacist anti-immigrant, Trump loving county sheriff, Thomas Hodgson, might be a little depressed this week.
He may have been unabashedly a Republican in a heavy Democrat state, which is perfectly okay, but his volunteering his county jail inmates to help build Trump’s Wall; taking every opportunity at the county’s expense to get to the White House to have his picture taken with the former president, usually handing Trump some plaque mainly to be seen doing that; attending the Republican National Convention and gleefully publishing pictures of him hanging out with and hanging off of some Republican luminaries who, like him, were maskless, and then returning to Massachusetts to pose maskless and without having quarantined himself even for a couple of days in self-promoting group photos where no one was wearing a mask even as they stood close together; had dealt with COVID, not according to science, but, again, in a way that screamed his total support of how Trump was screwing things up; using the multi-generational and multi-century immigration population in Bristol County’s three big, former manufacturing powerhouse cities to scare the surrounding small town majority White population into supporting Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and the totally xenophobic reasons for them; signing a contract with ICE pretending that gave him more power and the opportunity to play real policeman; turning in his church to Steven Miller in the White House accusing his pastor of protecting undocumented immigrants without talking to him for needed clarification telling Miller he would use his “undercover unit” to spy on other churches and county establishments and report any who might be pro-immigrant; then volunteering to be the chair of the Trump re-election campaign in Massachusetts with his appointment being only Honorary Chair and pose in quite a few pro-Trump gatherings with people standing in close together, maskless crowds, was self-servingly obnoxious at best.
He got upset that he could not supervise polls on election day pretending that making him do his real job without playing Junior G-Man was an assault on local law enforcement of which he is not a member.
It seems that starting with Trump’s election in 2016 he really wanted to be noticed and, perhaps, this would lead to a position in Washington.
Now after all his hard work, he failed to Bring Massachusetts to Trump, except in those areas where he could rely on the Fox News crowd and those who already harbored anti-immigrant attitudes.
But it was not enough.
What he has left are two simple choices.
He can run for sheriff and face a county population that continues to learn more about his activities and may come to see how someone in a position of authority answerable more to the moneyed and politically connected upper class while ignoring the people who elected him to do a particular job even as he wants to do it as if he were John Wayne, and, if he wins, retire in his mid-seventies, or he can retire now to his villa in the Azores and do so with some shred of dignity.
But he has to realize that with Trump out of office and the Brown and Black youth of the county working in tandem with their allies, the crowd to whom he plays and from whom he receives cover so he can play his tough, Western sheriff games may not be enough to sustain him.
He cannot be very happy right now, as his investment in all things Trumpian did not pay off.
Whatever chance he may have had with Trump must also have been erased not just by Trump’s loss, but. even if he had won. for not delivering Massachusetts.
All he really has are turkeys, diamonds, and the Azores. Things many locals are familiar with and whose missing details are getting uncovered.
Whatever chance he may have had with Trump must also have been erased not just by Trump’s loss, but even if he had won for not deliver Massachusetts.