FARGO — It’s post-2016, post-Donald Trump being elected president and we’ve reached the point where
a butterfly center has to close its doors because of threats from right-wing loons
empowered by Trump and his followers.
We’re doing awesome, America.
We write about this in Fargo because the story has a North Dakota connection, including unwavering support from U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer and Rep. Kelly Armstrong for the Dickinson, N.D., company that helped foment the mess now occurring.
We don’t expect any self-reflection or humility from Cramer or Armstrong anytime soon, or ever. They’re getting sucked back down the Trump black hole as they see the former president as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Neither has the spine to stand up to Trump and his merry band of insurrectionists, nor do they necessarily want to.
Anyway, stick with us here. The level of depression and hopelessness you feel about the future of the United States after reading this might take you new places.
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You’ll recall a few years ago an outfit named “We Build the Wall” wanted to build three miles of border wall on private land near the National Butterfly Center on the Rio Grande on the Texas-Mexico border. I wrote it about often in this space because Fisher Industries of Dickinson and its CEO Tommy Fisher were the ones building the wall.
“We Build the Wall” was associated with Trump muscle and former adviser Steve Bannon and its public face was Brian Kolfage, a wounded veteran who was frighteningly aggressive in knocking down critics of the organization or the walls it was trying to build, including the one near the butterfly center.
The butterfly center and its director, Marianne Wright, filed suit in 2019 to stop Fisher’s wall from being built, saying it broke international law and would negatively affect flood mitigation and the environment. After it was constructed, poorly, the center continued to fight Fisher’s wall and wanted it removed.
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Wright’s opposition to the wall led Kolfage to accuse the center, without a shred of truth or evidence, that it was illegally helping immigrants across the border — sometimes killing them — and was involved in child sex trafficking. Kolfage repeatedly posted the false accusations on Twitter. They became a rallying cry for the far right.
“The only butterflies we saw were swarming a decomposing body surrounded by tons of rotting trash left behind by illegals,” Kolfage tweeted in 2019. It was a lie.
Kolfage and “We Build the Wall” fundraised more than $25 million by claiming it would construct Trump’s border wall. Kolfage and his partners were later charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Wright and the butterfly center became a focus of the far right and QAnon-connected groups that peddle in conspiracy theories.
“Wright and colleagues faced in-person threats from members of militia groups like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, as well as threatening phone calls and emails from a man who was revealed to be a Texas police officer,”
.
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Which brings us to today. News broke this week that the National Butterfly Center was closing its doors indefinitely because of ongoing threats from the far right. There will be a QAnon-connected rally in nearby McAllen, Texas, this weekend and there are reports that some of those people might make the trek to the butterfly center to, presumably, watch the waves of illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande nearby (they aren’t) or to witness the child sex trafficking (that doesn’t exist).
Just recently, Wright had a frightening run-in with a MAGA-connected congressional candidate from Virginia and a sidekick who identified herself as Secret Service (she wasn’t). The pair came to the butterfly center and opened a gate to trespass. When Wright and her son asked them to leave, they became confrontational.
Wright filed charges and the affidavit paints an ugly picture. The congressional candidate, of course, claims to be the victim.
The end result is the National Butterfly Center, 100 acres of wildlife habitat in the Rio Grande Valley, is closed indefinitely because of right-wing conspiracy theorists and a group of people who wanted to build three miles of useless border wall to grift money from Trump followers.
And a North Dakota-based company strongly supported by Cramer and Armstrong played a part in it.
We’re doing awesome, America.