This week on Soft Power Radio, we are in conversation with Jessica Pishko about a reactionary political grouping that has been steadily gaining influence in the US: the Constitutional Sheriffs. Pishko is a lawyer and a writer who recently published a profile on Mark Lamb, Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona. Lamb’s media-savvy, gun-toting, straight-talking persona is emblematic of a novel force in the right-wing world, a kind of hybrid lawman/politician who markets himself as an armed defender of ‘traditional values.’ We talk about what these values might be, the legal and historical roots of sheriffs’ power and influence, and the ideology behind the rhetoric and the gun. You can read more of Pishko’s work at jessicapishko.com