Distrust leads to a desire for alternatives, and Sarasota County in Florida has become a hub for entrepreneurs catering to that demand. Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social (an alternative to Twitter), is located in Sarasota. Rumble (an alternative to YouTube) has its U.S. headquarters on Longboat Key, another area in Sarasota County. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA (an alternative to the College Republicans), also resides in the county. Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, has a home in southern Sarasota County and has been involved in local politics alongside Mellor.
Sarasota County not only focuses on creating alternative institutions for like-minded individuals but also aims to align existing institutions with the beliefs and concerns of the modern right.
Sarasota County serves as a cradle and testing ground for the MAGA dream.
Mellor leads me into a windowless office space near the Hollow. The lights flicker on, revealing a conference table resembling a military war room. Mellor mentions that "the good stuff" is on the other side of the wall. As we turn the corner, we see a floor-to-ceiling web of strings forming a map. It resembles a mafia org chart seen in TV dramas, with logos and names of nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations connected to dollar amounts. These names are linked to liberal political candidates who ran for office in Sarasota County. On the opposite wall is a lengthy project called "General Flynn's complete timeline," meticulously detailing the retired Army lieutenant general's career and his encounters with the Justice Department and FBI.
After a tumultuous period in Washington, Flynn settled in Sarasota County. Now a MAGA influencer, he records a Rumble show from a studio called "The Hollow 1A," located in the same building as Mellor's We the People clinic. Mellor acts as an informal chief of staff to Flynn, transporting him around town in a Black Escalade referred to as the "GF Mobile." Mellor constructed an elaborate studio set for Flynn, complete with a light-up world map and a curio cabinet displaying a Life magazine commemorating President John F. Kennedy's assassination. I was allowed to observe Flynn as he recorded a podcast on child trafficking but not to speak with him, as he has had negative experiences with the media.
Mellor, originally from Rhode Island, spent time in the Marines before finding success in the concrete business in southern Florida. He became involved in politics during the Trump presidency. While he rejects the label of a right-wing activist, he identifies as a "Second Amendment guy" and carries a SIG Sauer pistol wherever concealed-carry rules permit. He often discusses the world in terms of strength and weakness, believing that once the country is weak enough, it will be taken over.
He encountered Flynn at the Hollow in the spring of 2021, and the two former residents of Rhode Island joined forces to resist being taken over. In Sarasota County, their strategy involved taking a proactive approach. Embracing Flynn's belief that "Local Action = National Impact," they mobilized fellow skeptics of the vaccine to support the election of three like-minded candidates to the local hospital board. Despite being in the minority, these new members successfully pushed for an investigation into the covid practices of Sarasota Memorial Hospital. (The review concluded that the hospital had better survival rates and fewer complications among its covid patients compared to most other hospitals.) Mellor himself generously donated tens of thousands of dollars to a local political action committee that played a key role in securing an anti-mask, anti-critical-race-theory majority on the county school board last year.
One of the major beneficiaries of this effort was Bridget Ziegler, who has been a member of the Sarasota County School Board since 2014. Unlike Mellor, she entered conservative politics through conventional means. Encouraged by her husband, Christian Ziegler, who was then rising within the Florida Republican Party, she decided to run for the school board shortly after the birth of their first daughter. Bridget eventually became the chair of the school board, while Christian assumed the position of chair of the Florida GOP.
Bridget Ziegler was among the first to speak out against "critical race theory" in September 2020, using a catchy tagline that quickly went viral: "Our job is to educate, not indoctrinate." Later that year, she co-founded Moms for Liberty, an organization that transformed the concerns of conservative parents regarding masks, race, and gender into actionable initiatives. She also played a role in drafting Florida's "Parents' Bill of Rights," which served as a precursor to state legislation that now restricts discussions of LGBTQ+ topics in schools based on what is deemed "developmentally appropriate."
While the Zieglers' political work does not explicitly intersect with Mellor and Flynn's, they have found common ground in their battle for control over the ideological framework of local schools.
On the same day I visited the Hollow, I attended an event celebrating Bridget Ziegler's latest venture: a training center where she plans to educate school board members from across the country on how to fight for their causes, much like she does.
Dressed in a tea-length floral dress, with soft blond curls and a serene smile, Bridget stood in front of a modest stucco building on Main Street in Sarasota, holding up a ceremonial ribbon. A gathering of well-connected activists and prominent figures within the GOP had come together to witness the grand opening of the training center. (Approximately two dozen protesters also showed up to voice their opposition.)
Inside, the building had the aesthetic of an apartment decorated by someone who avidly watches both HGTV and Fox News: a color palette of creams, blues, and light wood, adorned with stylized quotes from notable Republicans and a few portraits. Over doughnuts and coffee in a slate-gray kitchen, Republican candidates for local office mingled with young men wearing Sarasota County Young Republican polos.
An older crowd eagerly lined up to take selfies with Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who had become a prominent activist against transgender rights after tying with a transgender woman in an NCAA championship. A group of women wearing navy Moms for Liberty T-shirts posed for a photo with Morton Blackwell, the 83-year-old founder of the Leadership Institute, which was responsible for establishing the training center.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I firmly believe that the left has gone too far," Blackwell declared to a packed room. "They are sowing division among people. They are teaching that America is inherently evil. That is unacceptable. We are here to reverse this trend."
He had selected Bridget as the training center's chief school board training official. "This is just the beginning of the incredible things that will emerge from this space - remarkable leaders who will fight for our children," she proclaimed.
Christian Ziegler stood against the back corner of the room, arms folded, wearing a satisfied smile. "Sarasota," he later shared with me during an interview
Ziegler's plan for the training center involves hosting newly elected school board members from across the country in groups of approximately 40. The three-day crash course will cover topics such as procedure, finance, and open records laws, enabling new board members to access lesson plans and library manifests from their public schools. Attendees will have the opportunity to practice their communication skills through interviews in the facility's podcast room or by appearing on Fox News in the TV studio. Ziegler intends to equip them with the necessary tools for their fight and provide them with "Cups of Courage" mugs.
Ziegler describes her mission as challenging the education industrial complex, which she believes has deviated from providing a core academic education. She acknowledges that this battle is akin to David versus Goliath due to the immense size and influence of the education system.
Meanwhile, just five miles away, conservative activists were making strides in their own institutional takeover. At the New College of Florida, police officers were stationed outside the campus conference center during a Board of Trustees meeting. The heightened security measures were implemented despite no criminal activity taking place.
New College was once known for its liberal-minded higher education environment, offering unique educational experiences and receiving high praise. However, in recent years, the college has faced challenges such as declining enrollment and graduation rates. In response, Governor Ron DeSantis appointed new trustees to reshape the college's culture and align it with conservative values. This mirrors Bridget Ziegler's efforts to transform K-12 schools.
Since the conservative takeover, protests have become a regular occurrence at trustee meetings, leading to the removal of disruptive parents. Richard Corcoran, the interim president appointed by DeSantis, has pledged to ensure that every aspect of New College aligns with its mission, which seems to imply a departure from progressive ideologies. Changes have already been made, including a new core curriculum that emphasizes the Western canon and the replacement of gender-neutral bathroom signs with gendered ones. Additionally, student murals have been painted over in white.
As a result of these changes, numerous students and faculty members have left New College. Some students have transferred to Hampshire College in Massachusetts, which shares similar educational values, while over 40 faculty members have also departed. The incoming student body now consists of a significant number of athletes, mostly male, who will play for the New College Mighty Banyans sports team, characterized by a muscular tree with an intense gaze.
Amy Reid, the board’s faculty representative, averted her gaze from the screen, showing no emotion. Reid has been an instructor of French at New College for almost three decades. Coincidentally, she also served as the director of the program that Rufo was attempting to dismantle.
She had anticipated this and had prepared a counterargument.
"For over 50 years, women's and gender studies have been integral to the liberal arts curriculum," Reid asserted. She declared her unwavering commitment to the program. "Like those who came before us, we will persist," she vowed. To conclude, she shared a quote from Michèle Lalonde, a poet from Quebec's révolution tranquille: "I am not alone."
"This must be documented as the first time this board has launched a significant attack on our academic program," Reid stated as the gavel fell.
"Let it be noted that this, like diversity, equity, and inclusion, is a blatant violation of this college's principles," said Matthew Spalding, one of the recently appointed New College board members and dean of Hillsdale College's Washington, D.C. campus, an evangelical institution. "Therefore, we have done the right thing."
Within days of the board meeting, the college's sole full-time gender studies faculty member resigned. Reid remained steadfast. When contemplating how the new leadership was reshaping New College, she recalled an instance from her childhood characterized by immature authority.
"When I was a child, I had a card game where I created my own rules," Reid recounted. "Every time there was something I didn't like, I would invent a new, special rule so that I could always win."
Amara Solum, a local resident in Sarasota whose daughter graduated from New College in the spring, noticed a change in attitude among those upset by the actions taken against their institution. "Initially, everyone was like, 'We're fighting, we're fighting, we're fighting,'" she said. "Now, many people are saying, 'We're fleeing, we're fleeing, we're fleeing.'"
Just how influential are the staunch conservatives in Sarasota County? Can these activists impose their MAGAmerican ideals on everyone else, whether they like it or not?
The region has been staunchly Republican since the 1950s, partly due to a steady influx of socially conservative Midwesterners seeking their retirement on the Gulf Coast. The 21st century witnessed an even stronger shift to the right: in the 2020 election, Trump won the county by 28,260 votes, only 12 years after Barack Obama lost Sarasota County by a mere 211 votes. Nevertheless, there are also non-MAGA forces at play here. Over 44 percent of the county voted against Trump in the last election, and recent right-wing movements have encountered obstacles.
Flynn and his allies failed to install their preferred candidate as the head of the Sarasota County GOP. In contrast, Bridget Ziegler has recently faced setbacks in her own school board despite its conservative majority. Her proposal to extend a contract to an "ideology-free" K-12 consulting firm was rejected, as was her attempt to reduce funding for social and emotional learning programs. Ziegler perceives this as a consequence of complacency among the activists who helped elect her fellow conservatives. "My local school district exemplifies what happens when we work hard to get everyone elected, only to be abandoned," she expressed.
"They have lost the majority of the population," remarked Carol Lerner, a local liberal activist. "This is largely due to us mobilizing people to attend meetings. We have truly changed the narrative."
Meanwhile, within the conservative enclaves of Sarasota County, a new narrative was beginning to emerge. During my visit, the We the People Health & Wellness Center had not yet opened, but all the preparations were in place. A fresh floral arrangement adorned the waiting room. IV drip saline bags were neatly stacked in a storage room down the hall. Stuffed animals occupied shelves outside the pediatric examination rooms. A tranquil waterfall tain murmured under the soft lighting of the nutraceuticals room. Gauzy curtains had been installed between each reclining chair to ensure privacy for future clients.