Rodefer’s Campaign Manager in Secret Keep Tuolumne County Safe Facebook Group

As the United States braces itself with bated breath and record setting early-voting for the 2020 presidential election, Tuolumne County’s local Board of Supervisor election has grown more toxic in the final days. Attempts to attack and smear District 1 and District 5 candidates, David Goldemberg and Jaron Brandon, have become increasingly desperate as more dark money flows towards supporting District 5 incumbent, Karl Rodefer, and District 1 write-in candidate, Cody Ritts. Multiple full-page ads have been taken out in the Union Democrats to fear monger a Goldemberg and/or Brandon victory.

One ad boasts the founding of a new political action committee, Constitutional Patriots of Tuolumne County (CTPC-PAC). Information about those involved with the PAC are nowhere to be found, though Alex Maclean with the Union Democrat did note that the PAC, “has received at least $11,000 from three donors since forming the PAC less than a month ago.” Much like the Tuolumne County Republican Central Committee and District 5 supervisor Rodefer’s campaign, CPTC has embraced the antisemitic and Red Scare propaganda found on the infamous Keep Tuolumne County Safe website.

While tens of thousands of dollars go into last ditch efforts to propagandize and influence the election in favor of Rodefer and Ritts, Rodefer’s campaign manager and wife, Jo Rodefer, has been making her own political moves.

Jo Rodefer found it necessary to whine about Jaron Brandon accidentally hitting their mailbox a year ago. The exact details are rather mundane, but it boiled down to Brandon accidentally hitting the Rodefer’s mailbox and agreeing to pay to have it replaced. $1,000 later (or $530 according to Rodefer) the mailbox was replaced and all were made materially whole. While Tuolumne County residents, and the county budget itself, face increasingly desperate financial straits due largely to COVID-19, but also in no small part to policies Rodefer himself championed pre-COVID-19, it’s particularly tone-deaf and privileged to whine about someone spending $1,000 to replace your mailbox. Rodefer ensured to milk her White Woman Tears™ and make repeated mentions that had Brandon hit their mailbox minutes earlier she’d have been “splattered,” a claim no one seemed particularly sympathetic towards or concerned about.

Jo Rodefer in her ivory tower of privilege and sycophants believed this would be a final October surprise for the Brandon campaign, but the response did not go as intended with people responding to her pettiness with mockery of the Columbia Union School District Board of Trustees clerk, and concerns about her attempting to file an insurance claim over damages Brandon paid for out of pocket which would constitute insurance fraud.

While Jo Rodefer wants to encapsulate the public persona of a mild-mannered, respectable, elderly-white woman too ignorant to engage in duplicitous politics, in the background it appears Rodefer is more deeply involved with the infamous Keep Tuolumne County Safe than initially let on.

In my investigative research into the propaganda website I talked with the Rodefers about the website and the fake accounts being used to promote the propaganda. Both Rodefers denied involvement with the website, and both played ignorant of the fake Facebook accounts Phil Young (originally Robert Travis), Edward Gravely (originally Ed Gavin), Bill Evans (now deleted), and Judas Smith (now deleted after my first investigation released).

Despite these claims, Jo Rodefer herself solicited people to read and share the propaganda while maintaining friendships with all the fake accounts involved. Karl Rodefer has credited the anonymous author of Keep Tuolumne County Safe as being the keystone in his understanding of Tuolumne County politics while incorporating the Red Scare propaganda into his campaign. Karl also maintains friendship with at least Edward Gravely, inviting both Gravely and Jo Rodefer to the local hate group, Patriots of Gold Country, a haven for white-nationalist memes.

In continuing my investigation into Keep Tuolumne County Safe propaganda, I stumbled upon an interesting Google Cache. In Google’s own words, “Google takes a snapshot of each web page as a backup in case the current page isn’t available. These pages then become part of Google’s cache. If you click a link that says ‘Cached,’ you’ll see the version of the site that Google stored.”

The caches are temporary, often being expunged after a few weeks or months if the website isn’t receiving heavy traffic or has gone offline, but while they exist they serve as informative little time capsules.

While researching the Constitutional Patriots of Tuolumne County a google result for the Facebook Group, “Tuolumne Patriots” came up in my results. Clicking the link redirects to Facebook’s “Content Unavailable” page, however there happened to be a Google Cache for the Facebook group.

Tuolumne Patriots appears to be the primary location where Keep Tuolumne County Safe propaganda is birthed and spread. The group was created on 29 August, shortly after Keep Tuolumne County Safe became a derailment in Tuolumne County politics.

As of 30 August, the day Google cached the website, the group possessed only two members, Phil Young, who is admin and creator of the group, and, surprise, surprise, none other than Karl Rodefer’s campaign manager and wife, Jo Rodefer.

Phil Young claimed, “We’ll invite more members soon…” but none of my interviewees knew anything about the group.

Phil Young was the only person posting in the group, and all the posts were about Keep Tuolumne County Safe propaganda. Jo Rodefer liked posts in the group showing she is aware of the content being shared.

Once again questions must be asked concerning the honesty and transparency of our elected officials.

• Why is Jo Rodefer constantly lying about her affiliation with the primary fake account promoting Keep Tuolumne County Safe?
• Why is she lying about her affiliation with Keep Tuolumne County Safe? She’s been caught in multiple lies about her involvement with the website, having to both backtrack her claim she never promoted it anyone and now being caught in group dedicated to it.
• Why is she in a group that is the staging ground for antisemitic Red Scare propaganda?
• Are we as a community comfortable with a school district elected official participating in such shady and libelous politics?

I reached out to Jo Rodefer and Phil Young for comment, but have yet to receive responses but will update this article if I do.

It is unclear if the Facebook group still exists or is simply set to hidden, how many members the group now maintains, or the direction the group has since taken. But that is unsurprising considering the great lengths those operating this propaganda network have taken to remain anonymous.

For all faux outrage and whining over Tuolumne County Indivisible having a private Facebook group (any person can request membership) and accusations that the grassroots group lacks transparency, the Rodefers and their sycophants are tied to two anonymous websites, an anonymous PAC, and now a hidden Keep Tuolumne County Safe Facebook group.

Maybe Randy Hanvelt, chairperson of the Tuolumne County Republican Central Committee, should look up the definition of transparency before saying, “We’re not like the other side that talks about transparency but hides behind a secret website… Transparency is not their thing, but we think it’s our because we’re not hiding.” Ironically, after making that statement to Alex Maclean he refused to name those involved with the Constitutional Patriots of Tuolumne County.

This is called projection and gaslighting, and as Tuolumne County residents and just human being trying to thrive, don’t we deserve better from our politicians?