In politics, astroturfing refers to the practice of creating the appearance of grassroots support for a particular cause, candidate, or policy, when in reality, the initiative is being orchestrated by larger organizations, corporations, or political entities. These efforts often aim to manipulate public perception by making it seem like ordinary citizens are organically voicing support or opposition. Astroturfing campaigns can involve fake social media accounts, staged protests, or artificially inflated advocacy groups, all intended to sway public opinion or influence decision-makers while hiding the true source of the effort.
As Kamala Harris continues her campaign of not doing interviews to explain her policy views, holding press conferences to explain her flip-flopping on issues, and only doing debates where the moderators will help her, it appears more and more that the entire organization is astroturf.
On Tuesday, the Harris campaign and her media allies touted a “stunning endorsement from group that normally backs Trump.”
Fox News reporter Paul Steinhauser wrote that a nonpartisan police leadership organization that notes that it is the only national law enforcement advocacy group to endorse political candidates is weighing in on the 2024 White House race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
The Police Leaders for Community Safety said Monday that it is endorsing Harris, in an announcement shared first with Fox News.
The recently formed organization – which says it is led by a diverse group of prominent police professionals who have been at the helm of numerous major national law enforcement leadership groups – highlights that its mission is to champion “policies to make communities and the people in them safer, improve and evolve policing, and safeguard the rule of law.”
The group’s backing gives Harris support from a major law enforcement group following the endorsement earlier this month of Trump by the National Fraternal Order of Police, the country’s largest police union.
The problem is that the Police Leaders for Community Safety is not a “major” police group in any way, shape, or form. The group, writes USA Today, “was created in 2024 as a non-partisan 501(c)4, and describes itself as an organization that represents dozens of police officials.”
It’s a group formed by “dozens” of liberal police “officials” and is run by the former chief of police from the University of Wisconsin-Madison police force.
The newspaper noted that “as the group has only been around since June, this marks the first endorsement for Police Leaders for Community Safety, with the group throwing their support for Harris.
The majority of the members in the group’s national advisory board and its board of directors are former law enforcement members. Among them is their chairwoman, Sue Riseling, the former chief of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Police.”
Riseling writes that “prior to her appointment in 1991, she served as the second in command at the State University of New York–Stony Brook Police Department. Chief Riseling began her career at the University of Maryland–College Park as the Manager of Security for Residence Life.” She is so leftwing that she quit using Twitter in 2022 because Elon Musk bought the website and stopped liberals from censoring conservatives.
Harris’ fake endorsement follows the recent backing of Trump by the National Fraternal Order of Police, the country’s oldest law enforcement lobby, which has supported him in the last three presidential elections.
“Public safety and border security will be important issues in the last months of this campaign,” Yoes said. “Our members carefully considered the positions of the candidates on the issues and there was no doubt—zero doubt—as to who they want as our President for the next four years: Donald J. Trump,” the National Fraternal Order of Police President, Patrick Yoes, said in a statement earlier in the month.
