So the local Tea party is having a little shindig next weekend and all the big guns are going to be there. Just look at that line up: it's only a lunatic radio talk show host away from inducing a pulmonary embolisms in every last one of the elderly folks who will spend the afternoon in their lawn chairs. If you're like, you probably looked through the list and and asked yourself, "Who is this Jake Jacobs fellow?" Well, funny you should mention that...
Jacobs is an evangelical zealot who recently a teacher at Winneconne High School before deciding to pursue a life as a professional asshole, by which I mean someone who sells himself as an authority on pretty much everything. Unfortunately, there are all sorts of strange inconsistencies with Jacobs story. Here's how he describes his education:
Concerned about the ACLU & NEA’s attempt to revise America’s Judeo-Christian Foundation Jake earned a Ph.D. in Early American History from North-West University with his Dissertation titled; The Influence of Biblical Ideas on Early American Republicanism and History.OK, but there isn't a "North-West University" in the United States. There's one in South Africa. There's a "Northwest University" in Washington state, but it seems strange that someone would misspell the name of his alma mater. And if you think that's a typo on the part of the web site, think again: it appears on his LinkedIn page too, which one assumes Jacobs had more editorial control over.
More to the point is the little matter of his dissertation: "The Influence of Biblical Ideas on Early American Republicanism and History." I couldn't find a record of it in ProQuest database of Dissertation and Theses. It's possible that I was searching incorrectly or that it's just not listed, so if I'm wrong, do please correct me in the comments. It's also possible that Northwest U. doesn't make it's dissertations available, since I couldn't seem to find any theses available from the school. Some schools do this and it's bullshit. Even for-profit online schools like Northcentral University include their dissertations in various databases.
Jacob's "book" Mobocracy doesn't exactly lend itself to be the kind of serious scholarly work that a PhD would produce. It's really just a long, shrill blog post written by a partisan lunatic. We would know: we write them all the time. Making matter worse are all the strange inconsistencies the make up the marketing of the "book." Here Jacobs ends his description of the book with the cri de coeur "Semper Fi to the Republic!" Yes, that sounds extravagantly melodramatic, but Semper Fi is usually something of shibboleth uttered among veterans of the Marine Corps. There's nothing in Jacobs resume suggesting military service, but he clearly wants his readers to believe as much. The "reviews" of his book feature three dead people, a word of thanks from former governor Jim Doyle completely unrelated to the book and the kind words of a former student. (Before he took his song and dance to Marquette, Ethan Hollenberger was active in the UW-O college Republicans where he won a well-deserved reputation for using public displays of shallow jackassery to advance his causes. Now we know where that came from.)
Jacobs says he teaches at Lakeland College, but there's no record of him in the faculty directory. Then again, the directory is rather open about the fact that it might not include every staff member. There's also the possibility that Jacobs did teach their (or one of their satellite campuses) some time in the past
Then there's the issue of how long he's been teaching. On LinkedIn, he says it's 23 years and just in Winneconne. On MeetUp, he says it's 25 in both Wisconsin and Arizona. This begs the question, well, which one is it?
There's question about why Jacobs is no longer teaching. On his MeetUp page, Jacobs claims to have "been teaching Conservative Values for 25 years in AZ/WI Public Schools," which is a no-no. 23 or 25 years is also an odd time to leave the teaching profession voluntarily. Usually teachers ride out another 5-10 years before retirement, but that's not a word that appears anywhere in Jacobs various CVs, which leads one to believe he just quit.
Jacobs also calls himself a "historian," thought he does seem to have produced any academic works of history to back that claim up. I'm not even talking about peer-reviewed history, I mean any history. What few writing that appear online are all polemic works of opinion. Aside from his idiotic book, Jacobs seems to have authored three articles, only one of which has anything remotely to do with anything historical.
He claims to be the "president of founder" of something called the Politically Incorrect Institute, which doesn't seem to have a web site, a brick and mortar HQ or staff of any kind. In other words, it seems to exist only in Jacobs' mind.
On Mobocracy's Facebook page (at least his "book" has a web page) Jacobs claims to have been "awarded the MOST politically incorrect public school teacher in Wisconsin and America," but doesn't say by whom. He might as well claim to be the world's greatest juggler.
Basically, Jake Jacobs appears to be a fraud. There might be answers that clear these inconsistencies up, but they don't seem to be available online. Not that this will stop him from peddling his tripe in front of tea party circle jerks. Nor will end his frequent appearances on VCY radio, the batshit insane zealot shitshow from Milwaukee. Jacobs seems to be going out of his way
Jacobs will be joined by a whole slew of compatriots with similar creditability problems. There's Kim Simac, the nutcase birther who ran one of the most incompetent campaigns in recent memory for state senate last year. Her acquaintance with the facts is famously tenuous. Then there's Mark Block, who's back running the state chapter of AFP after running Herman Cain's circus into the ground earlier this year. Cain Himself might make a cameo too. There will also be a couple of fringe candidates for U.S. Senate and perennial congressional also-ran Dan Sebring.
It sounds like it's going to be a wonderful time.
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