The New Hampshire House of Representativesis internationally famous for its contingent of deranged loons and conspiracytheorists, and none of them is less hinged than Alfred P. Baldasaro, who hasbeen elected torepresent District5 in Rockingham County (including Auburn andLondonderry) seven times. You can get a fair overview of the Auburn andLondonderry electorate from the documentaryWrong Turn.

 

As a conspiracy theorist, Baldasarohas for instance warnedhis colleagues that theUnited Nationssustainability initiative known asAgenda 21is being used to ban fishing in New Hampshire. Tapping into the relativelywidespread (it has long been one of theJohn Birch Society’smain schticks) and utterly ridiculous wingnut Agenda 21 conspiracy theory,Baldasaro elaborated: “If you take a look at other areas, what’s going onaround the country under Agenda 21, this isn’t get – ... the nose is already under the tent.”The agenda is non-binding for the countries that have ratified it; the US hasnot ratified it and it is not law in the US, and it would not have bannedfishing if it were. The New Hampshire House nevertheless voted for an Agenda 21ban in 2012.

 

In 2012 Baldasaro alsojoined a complaintfiled bybirtherqueenOrly Taitzto keep then-president Obama off the ballot for the 2012 presidential primary.One might wonder whether Baldasaro was a birther himself, but joining an effortto keep candidates for a democratic election off ballot for reasons you know tobe false isn’t much less looney. (He probablydoes think it's true, though.) In addition to Baldasaro, the effort wasjoined by eight other New Hampshire GOP lawmakers (coveredhere).

 

The next year, Baldasaro, with staterepresentativesStella Tremblayand Lars Christiansen, introducedHB 638, whichrequired the state to recognizea mythical 13thAmendment amendment to the Constitution that wasallegedly ratified in 1819 but kept secret by the federal government underpressure from rich bankers. The idea of the 13th Amendment is familiar fromsovereign citizenconspiracy theories andpseudolawpractitioners: the amendment wasdesignedto prevent people with “titles of nobility” from holding public office,and, according to conspiracy theorists that supposedly meansthat lawyers, through the use of the titleesquire, are barred, too, and that all members of Congress– beingapparently technically lawyers, according to these people – are prevented from passing laws. Yes, this is AlBaldasaro.

 

Baldasaro is perhaps best known, however, forhiscall,atthe 2016 Republican National Convention,forHillary Clinton to be “put in the firingline and shot”, for which hegained quitea bit of attentionas well as aSecretService investigation. He laterclaimed thatliberal media had misrepresented him (“The liberal media took what I saidand went against the law andthe Constitutionand ran with it, and they said that I wanted her assassinated, which I neverdid”), and clarified for the record that he didn’t think Hillary Clintonshould beassassinated, but rather that “she should be shot in afiring squad for treason”. He also emphasized that he “said it as aveteran”, whatever that means. He also said that “what you in theliberal media consider rhetoric, I consider freedom of speech.” It isunclear what that has to do with anything, but his fans presumably doesn’t haveparticularly strong skills when it comes relevantly piecing togetherinformation to composereasoning, so it probably served its purpose.

 

Donald Trumpsubsequently praised Baldasaro and named him a New Hampshire co-chair of his 2020reelection campaign. Baldasaro was also advisor to Donald Trump when he was thepresidential nominee 2016, and a mainstay at Trump campaign events as well as co-chairmanof the Trump campaign’s national veterans coalition. At the 2016 convention,Baldasaroalso claimed thatKhizr Khan, the Gold Star father who spoke at the Democratic convention, is a “Muslim Brotherhoodagent” – apparently he got that idea froman incoherent conspiracy ramblepenned by none other than Taliban fascistsWalidandTheodore Shoebat.

 

Before that, Baldasaro led the fightagainst same-sex marriage in New Hampshire. In 2010, he raised some eyebrowswhen he claimed that gay adoptionwas tantamount to child traffickingandthatthe state of New Hampshire was “selling children to homosexuals for $10,000apiece”. During a 2011Republicanprimary presidential debate, the audience booed a gay Marine who had submitteda debate question; when asked about the incident, Baldasaro said that he was “disgusted” by the Marine andthat “I thought the audience, when they booed themarine, I thought it was great.”

 

Baldasaro alsothinks thatbreastfeeding in public is an attack onfamily values.

 

Diagnosis: There is plenty of crazy in thestate legislatures, but Baldasaro has made a good case for himself as belongingto the very elite of evil, deranged clowns. He really is the kind of conspiracyloon you’ll come across on incoherent websites with funny colors and text inALLCAPS. It is no longer surprising that this combination of stupid, angry andevil appeals to such a large portion of the electorate, however.