As a conspiracy theorist, Baldasaro has for instance warnedhis colleagues that the United Nationssustainability initiative known as Agenda 21is being used to ban fishing in New Hampshire. Tapping into the relatively widespread (it has long been one of the John Birch Society’s main schticks) and utterly ridiculous wingnut Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, Baldasaro elaborated: “If you take a look at other areas, what’s going on around 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 has not ratified it and it is not law in the US, and it would not have banned fishing if it were. The New Hampshire House nevertheless voted for an Agenda 21 ban in 2012.
In 2012 Baldasaro also joined a complaintfiled by birtherqueen Orly 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 effort to keep candidates for a democratic election off ballot for reasons you know to be false isn’t much less looney. (He probably does think it's true, though.) In addition to Baldasaro, the effort was joined by eight other New Hampshire GOP lawmakers (covered here).
The next year, Baldasaro, with state representatives Stella Tremblayand Lars Christiansen, introduced HB 638, whichrequired the state to recognize a mythical 13th Amendment amendment to the Constitution that was allegedly ratified in 1819 but kept secret by the federal government under pressure from rich bankers. The idea of the 13th Amendment is familiar from sovereign citizenconspiracy theories and pseudolawpractitioners: the amendment was designed to prevent people with “titles of nobility” from holding public office, and, according to conspiracy theorists that supposedly means that lawyers, through the use of the title esquire, are barred, too, and that all members of Congress– being apparently technically lawyers, according to these people – are prevented from passing laws. Yes, this is Al Baldasaro.
Baldasaro is perhaps best known, however, for his call, at the 2016 Republican National Convention, for Hillary Clinton to be“put in the firing line and shot”, for which he gained quite a bit of attentionas well as a Secret Service investigation. He later claimed thatliberal media had misrepresented him (“The liberal media took what I said and went against the law and the Constitutionand ran with it, and they said that I wanted her assassinated, which I never did”), and clarified for the record that he didn’t think Hillary Clinton should be assassinated, but rather that “she should be shot in a firing squad for treason”. He also emphasized that he “said it as a veteran”, whatever that means. He also said that “what you in the liberal media consider rhetoric, I consider freedom of speech.” It is unclear what that has to do with anything, but his fans presumably doesn’t have particularly strong skills when it comes relevantly piecing together information to compose reasoning, so it probably served its purpose.
Donald Trumpsubsequently praised Baldasaro and named him a New Hampshire co-chair of his 2020 reelection campaign. Baldasaro was also advisor to Donald Trump when he was the presidential nominee 2016, and a mainstay at Trump campaign events as well as co-chairman of the Trump campaign’s national veterans coalition. At the 2016 convention, Baldasaro also claimed thatKhizr Khan, the Gold Star father who spoke at the Democratic convention, is a “Muslim Brotherhoodagent” – apparently he got that idea from an incoherent conspiracy ramblepenned by none other than Taliban fascists Walidand Theodore Shoebat.
Before that, Baldasaro led the fight against same-sex marriage in New Hampshire. In 2010, he raised some eyebrows when he claimed that gay adoption was tantamount to child traffickingand thatthe state of New Hampshire was “selling children to homosexuals for $10,000 apiece”. During a 2011 Republican primary presidential debate, the audience booed a gay Marine who had submitted a debate question; when asked about the incident, Baldasaro said that he was “disgusted” by the Marine and that “I thought the audience, when they booed the marine, I thought it was great.”
Baldasaro also thinks thatbreastfeeding in public is an attack on family values.
Diagnosis: There is plenty of crazy in the state legislatures, but Baldasaro has made a good case for himself as belonging to the very elite of evil, deranged clowns. He really is the kind of conspiracy loon you’ll come across on incoherent websites with funny colors and text in ALLCAPS. It is no longer surprising that this combination of stupid, angry and evil appeals to such a large portion of the electorate, however.