Former Cochise County, Arizona Elections Director Bob Bartelsmeyer, who quit after just five months on the job in September 2023 spoke with CNN this week about the vicious harassment he faced from angry MAGA cultists during his short tenure and that he has “worries about the nation.”

“2024 is going to be very brutal. Going to be very hostile,” Bartelsmeyer warned after seeing firsthand the bottomless paranoia of the Trump fans in his deep red bailiwick on the Mexican border.

The punchline is that Bartelsmeyer himself is hardcore MAGA and only deleted Facebook posts saying “Trump legally won by a landslide” and other bullshit when he took the job. CNN’s article specifically notes that “he still seems unable to fully shake his doubt about the 2020 election.”

Yet still voters in the county screamed at him during public meetings, with one saying “Mr Bartelsmeyer, if I had the authority, I’d fire you,” just before Bartelsmeyer called it quits. “After hearing that nightmarish thing from Mr Bartelsmeyer – I was appalled by it, actually. To claim that he’s a conservative – you don’t need to claim it, it’s by your actions. And your actions, sir, are not that of a conservative, otherwise you’d be listening to your constituents,” said another.

The “nightmarish thing” was simply a plan to consolidate local precincts into larger voting centers, ones that would conveniently allow residents from anywhere in the county to cast their ballot at whichever center they want. “I believe that if we continue to take these easy choices, and we go down this path of least resistance in the name of convenience, it’s not going to be too long before every vote is by mail. And then it’s not going to be too long til every vote is online. And then it’s going to be not too long until there’s no voting at all,” said another attendee at the meeting.