Recently, I wrote about how political parties can begin to resemble cults, especially when reflecting on our local Josephine County Republican Party. Not long after I posted on the topic, the new social media director of the “new” Josephine County Republican Party did exactly what I was warning about: he removed fifteen people from a Facebook group he created.
These weren’t people causing disruptions or violating rules. They were removed simply because he didn’t like them, meaning they disagreed with him on certain issues.
The group of removed individuals included people from across the political spectrum. They held a variety of viewpoints, and while not everyone agreed with them, they were consistently respectful. That’s the heart of the First Amendment, the freedom to express differing opinions. As long as people remain respectful, I genuinely don’t understand why anyone would remove them from a public political discussion group.
But this behavior goes straight to the heart of the problem: in a cult-like environment, disagreement is not tolerated – it’s punished. Removal becomes the default response. This is one of the clearest warning signs of a cult-like group forming within our community. Unfortunately, this seems to be the face of the new Josephine County Republican Party.
It is not surprising since the “new social media director for the Josephine County Republican Party” previously held strong anti-Trump views but has recently changed his position.. What could possibly go wrong.
Below is the post made by the individual who removed these members, followed by his response when questioned by one of the people affected.
From what I understand, the removed individuals have since been reinstated — likely because of how bad the initial action looked to the community.
Update 11/27/25: I’m not sure how anyone makes sense of this. At first, he told at least one of the people he removed that there was nothing wrong with her posts. Now we’re hearing that he’s apologizing for not removing “toxic people” sooner. How does that add up? One moment the posts are supposedly fine, and the next those same people are being labeled toxic. The one thing clear is – we have censorship taking place. It appears to me that censorship is happening. From what he has said, it seems the posts themselves weren’t the issue, yet people were removed anyway. That inconsistency is concerning.
