Looking into Renee Paplham's influences

https://doorcountydailynews.com/news/737055/kewaunee-s-paplham-announces-assembly-bid states that Renee Paplham “announced her candidacy for the First Assembly District, currently held by Sturgeon Bay Republican Rep. Joel Kitchens”.

The campaign website, https://sites.google.com/paplhamforassembly.com/renee/about-renee, mentions “my husband Brett” and includes a family photo.

It states that Renee married him after college. A newspaper list of Kewaunee High School graduates shows she graduated in 2001 and a genealogical website, https://sites.rootsweb.com/~inbr/Obituaries/ObitWisconsin2008-12.htm, uses her husband’s surname in 2008. They must have married in 2008 or earlier.

Multiple directory websites indicate there is only one Brett Paplham residing in the state. Her husband registered his name as being against a bill in 2015 at a committee hearing in Madison: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2015/related/records/assembly/labor/1180198.pdf.

Renee Paplham’s Pinterest account stays away from political or controversial topics, but Brett Paplham’s account has a considerable number of political pins and remarks. Back when they were married, Pinterest wasn’t even around yet, so all of their activity on Pinterest occurred during their marriage.

Some of Brett Paplham’s pins and remarks relate to his wife’s campaign materials and political postings. Comparing the dates when things were posted, the impression I have is that he influenced her political identity.

I considered the possibility that the Brett Paplham account could instead be from someone else of the same name. Yet circumstances indicate that is not the case. He is the only Brett Paplham living in the state, and the account appears to be from a Wisconsinite. There is also a second Pinterest account with Brett Paplham’s name, but it has a different url and more recent activity. The content also relates to Wisconsin, but has fewer pins and none of it is political.

It seems that Brett Paplham is okay with people knowing about his political pins and remarks, since he registered it in his own name. Renee Paplham’s TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@reneepaplham, and Pinterest account are both likewise registered in her own name, each using the firstnamelastname format for the account url. In contrast, there is an underscore between the first and last names for the Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/renee_paplham

Certain links in this post are archived so that readers can look at content without posting a direct link. I specifically ask that readers of this post not go and post comments on Brett Paplham’s Pinterest. There is no use in trying to antagonize him. This post is a search for insight on Renee Paplham’s influences.

On Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/p/Renee-Paplham-100083305053970/, Renee Paplham stood up for a Satanist tree which in 2023 was placed at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay:

The logo, a raised fist symbol with the colors from an alphabet flag, is in the top left.

Nowhere on Facebook does Renee Paplham defend or excuse political violence. However, this is one of the pins on the Brett Paplham Pinterest page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20240409005455/https://www.pinterest.com/pin/859695016338700102/

zooming in:

The link is for this article: https://web.archive.org/web/20190305104545/https://www.realfarmacy.com/40-tons-of-gmo-crops-torched-in-america-media-blackout/

The article claims

But while other governments in Europe and elsewhere are passing laws to ban GMO crops, and burning entire crops themselves, in America, our government is passing laws protecting Monsanto from legal repercussions, and therefore, it seems, farmers are forced to burn the crops, themselves. This means that where in other countries, citizens are being protected from corporate crimes, in America, citizens are forced to become ‘terrorists’ to survive. That’s how blatantly corrupt our corporate police state has become, I’m afraid.

Would farmers secretly burn their own standing crops? Unlikely. It is even more dubious that American citizens are “forced to become ‘terrorists’ to survive”.

Searching for discussions on social media and forum websites, I found three from when this article came out. All included at least some commentary from people who were skeptical of the claim that the farmers burned their own crops. These commenters thought it was actually other people who were against GMOs which burned the crops.

Why the need to justify violence?

There are also other pins about GMO crops. One is about GMO soy containing formaldehyde and contaminating jars of baby food. A counter-opinion to this: https://www.science20.com/kavin_senapathy/gmos_have_formaldehyde_bizarre_claim_challenged_by_experts-156708

That makes for another dubious pin about GMOs.

Reflecting back on the Facebook post:

Defending the Satanist tree suggests a particular attitude towards religion. There is a considerable focus on religion on the Brett Paplham Pinterest. Some of it, with an #atheist hashtag, is caustic towards the Christian religion. Mostly it is not actually atheistic, but relates to a spiritual-but-not-religious approach including yoga and meditation. Because of the feminine character of some of the pins and also the stereotypical associations with both practices, the impression I get is of a husband sharing his wife’s interests. However, there is nothing currently visible on the Renee Paplham Pinterest or Facebook accounts which suggest that she is interested in yoga or meditation.

Scrolling down, this shows up among the religious pins. Notice the picture of the Dalai Lama on the left.

Zoomed in view of the top of the Dalai Lama post, https://web.archive.org/web/20240409012242/https://www.pinterest.com/pin/859695016339725599/visual-search/?x=16&y=16&w=518&h=387&surfaceType=flashlight :

This caught my eye because it is a conservative-sounding quote from the Dalai Lama. Sometimes people who are surrounded with lefty things feel they need some conservatism in their lives. The Dalai Lama is traditional enough and can end up occupying that void.

In contrast to the lament about smaller families in bigger houses, Renee Paplham's Facebook and other campaign activities so far have promoted abortion.

Could the Brett Paplham Pinterest account shed any light on Renee Paplham's focus on abortion?

His Pinterest includes five pins of Taylor Swift, four where she is wearing a bikini. The remaining one shows only her backside; it is taken at a perspective from near the ground and is aimed at the buttocks. There are also two photos of Swift on the more recent, non-political Pinterest account.

The Pinterest account which includes politics also has two other bikini photos, which depict unnamed women, probably models. Both are from the backside and centered on the buttocks, exhibiting more than what would be socially acceptable to show on a beach in northeast Wisconsin. The text for one of these photos:

If Renee Paplham is actually okay with Brett Paplham pinning the photos for others to see, the political significance is that this suggests she would also oppose Assembly Bill 503. The bill would tighten the indecent exposure law: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/proposals/ab503

At first glance the bikini photos run at odds with Renee Paplham's positioning as a feminist. Wouldn’t likely Paplham voters who are married women find it humiliating if their husbands posted similar things?

In a sense the photos do fit with the emphasis on abortion. Abortion as a means of birth control is a response to the consequences of indiscretion. In this way, legalized abortion facilitates the objectivation of women.

But it isn’t just women’s bodies on the Pinterest page; another pin is an uncensored version of a photo which proports to depict Scott Walker in lingerie and on top of a Nazi flag. Snopes, which reproduced a censored version of the image, stated that it was “probably false”: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/heil-walker/

The text for the photo states:

Another topic to consider is antisemitism. The recent wave of antisemitism is associated with the left, but not all leftists support it. Recently there has been a controversy over antisemitism on the UW-Madison campus: https://www.wpr.org/news/federal-complaint-launched-against-uw-madison-for-failing-to-protect-jewish-students

I am unaware of Renee Paplham speaking or writing publicly about antisemitism one way or the other.

The Brett Paplham Pinterest account has several pins relating to the Rothschild family. https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/Rothschild states:

Louis Farrakhan’s speech, The Conspiracy of the International Bankers, claims the Rothschild banks are members of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which they are not.

The AJC entry also describes the Rothschilds to be an antisemitic trope in other ways.

The Brett Paplham Pinterest account includes a photograph of JFK's corpse, cropped at his shoulders and mid-sternum. It is accompanied by commentary about a struggle over "the power to issue currency, without going through the Rosthchilds": https://web.archive.org/web/20240409020330/https://www.pinterest.com/pin/859695016339006048/

“Rosthchilds” is misspelled. It is “Rothschilds”.

Another post spells the surname correctly: https://web.archive.org/web/20240409022034/https://www.pinterest.com/pin/859695016339000902/

Zoomed in:

Seeing these things raises questions about Renee Paplham’s influences. What should happen next is obvious enough and doesn’t need elaboration.

Political games of gotcha and pounce get played all the time on things trivial and important. What isn’t a game are the unborn babies themselves. But abortion is such a horrible thing that it is easier to look away. Perhaps considering these other things will provide additional opportunities for reflection.

Other posts related to protecting unborn babies:
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/protecting-unborn-babies