Amy Kremer travelled from state-to-state in a big red bus collecting disgruntled Americans. Photo / AP
Amy Kremer travelled from state-to-state in a big red bus collecting disgruntled Americans. Photo / AP
American Amy Kremer describes herself as "your average mum" and a "true southern belle".
In her own words, she simply "loves her country and wants her child to have what she always had".
But the former Delta Airlines flight attendant – now right-wing political activist – is underselling herself.
She is a hard-nosed ally to the most powerful man in America (for another week, at least) and is credited with helping organise the rally that last week turned deadly inside the home of American democracy.
On January 9, Kremer wrote to her 80,000 Twitter followers: "Joe Biden will NEVER be my President."
But the co-founder of the Women for Trump movement has been doing her work offline as much as on social media where her avatar is a stern looking Donald Trump.
"Today, Trump supporters have taken over the … highways, tram railways, airline departure airways, D.C.-bound for the rally to #SaveAmerica!" she wrote on January 6.
Many of them – some who would later storm the US Capitol in a failed attempt at a coup to overturn the free and fair election – were there because of her.
She had, in the months and weeks prior, travelled from state-to-state in a big red bus collecting disgruntled Americans in what one publication compared to the Pied Piper.
"At more than 25 stops – in parking lots and airplane hangers in states including Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee – flight-attendant-turned-political-activist Amy Kremer and other speakers exhorted crowds to join her and others in Washington to fight for Trump and overturn the election," Reuters wrote.
"It is up to you and I to save this Republic," she told people gathered at a park near the White House. "We are not going to back down, are we? Keep up the fight."
The language is straight out of the Trump playbook: Generic, broad statements about resistance that can later be referenced in denial of any actual incitement.
Reuters reports Kremer and others had been gathering "hardcore Trump supporters across the United States … inspired by conspiracy theories and whipped into action by Trump's desperate calls to save democracy".
It noted that among recruits were "radical right-wing groups … including white supremacists and devotees of the QAnon conspiracy theory which casts Trump as a saviour figure and elite Democrats as a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles and cannibals".
Just normal folks. Down to earth, "average" Americans.
Kremer's headline act on the March for Trump bus tour was not a solo show. She was supported financially by the CEO of a pillow company (My Pillow) who, as Reuters notes, is a "former cocaine addict and alcoholic" and sponsored by the Right Side Broadcasting Network.
It was a sophisticated, planned recruitment process that history will link inexorably to the events of January 6.
Amy Kremer, Chairwoman of Women for America First, speaks on January 6 at a rally in Washington. Photo / AP
A day earlier, driving to Washington DC members of the Women for America Bus shared their unbridled excitement at the prospect of what was to come.
"Driving into D.C. right now in the #MarchForTrump bus," they wrote.
"Honestly we have lost count of how many thumbs up we have seen. Tomorrow at the (rally) will be epic!"
What we now know is that months of stirring Trump loyalists with unproven claims about election fraud reached a violent crescendo and that "epic" is not the appropriate word.
Hundreds of hardcore Trump supporters broke into the US Capitol in a plot that included plans to take hostages and livestream the dismantling of a peaceful vote count.
When more than half of the country disputes the election results, it’s no wonder people are angry and feel like they aren’t being heard. https://t.co/3LwdZbnCVz
Five people died and the scenes were condemned universally as a stain on America. But Kremer is attempting to rewrite the narrative of the day.
"It's comical to listen to the media hysterical over the protesters at the US Capitol … when for months, they had no problem with BLM and Antifa destroying and burning down buildings and cities," she wrote.
She shared footage of police at the Capitol Building who were outnumbered and surrendered to the wave of people, claiming they "stood aside and invited them inside".
Then she excused their behaviour because they are "angry", having shared the same Trump lies that angered them in the first place.
"When more than half of the country disputes the election results, it's no wonder people are angry and feel like they aren't being heard," she wrote.
On her website, Kremer claims "political activism (has consumed my) life for the past seven years".
Within seven days, the man she fought so hard to get elected – and fought against the grain to keep in power – will be out of the Oval Office.
