Grove is a relentless supporter of Trump, and has spent much effort promoting stop the steal-related conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Like other stop the steal promoters, Grove had already on election night decided that there had to be something wrong with the results since they weren’t what Grove would have liked – she tweeted images comparing Trump to Moses and stated that she believed Trump would serve for “the next 4 years” – and then looked for straws and conspiracy theories to back the conclusion up, including, for instance, repeating baseless online rumors that votes were illegally “injected” into Arizona’s tally (she was joined in her efforts by a few other California wingnut representatives, like Tom McClintock, Melissa Melendez and Doug LaMalfa, though most California Republicans have vigorously avoided commenting on the issue). Following January 6, 2021, Grove promoted the conspiracy theory that antifa was responsible for the attack. “Patriots don’t act like this!!!” said Grove, hence “This was Antifa.”
Grove is a self-proclaimed “gun-carrying, tongue-talking, spirit-filled believer” and hasn’t shied away from bringing her religious views to bear on pressing issues. In 2015, she received a bit of attention after linking abortion legislation and the wrath of God to the drought in California. Speaking to a group of anti-abortion activists in Sacramento, Grove showed a copy of the Bible and stated that “Texas was in a long period of drought until Gov. Perry signed the fetal pain bill. It rained that night […] Now God has His hold on California.” When her statement was criticized for being ridiculous, Grove responded that she had been misconstrued, and attempted to clear things up: “Is this drought caused by God? Nobody knows. But biblical history shows a consequence to man’s actions.” In other words, her critics interpreted her precisely and accurately. She had previously tried to blame the drought on the Endangered Species Act, with, predictably, little success. As for abortion, Grove opposed a 2015 bill that could potentially curtail the effectiveness of misinformation from crisis pregnancy centers, likening the bill to Nazi Germany forcing “people [to] wear Jewish stars.”
Throughout her career in the legislature, Grove has consistently sought to represent the views and interests of anti-vaccine activists, usually under the guise of “health freedom”. She has opposed efforts to improve vaccine coverage and has expressed deep support for parents who erroneously believe “from the depths of their soul” that vaccines are dangerous and who should therefore be free to start outbreaks. She is also a climate change denialist who officially opposes efforts to combat climate change because such measures are “unaffordable”; in 2012, however, she invited Lord Monckton to speak to the Legislature, which strongly suggests that her views are based on lunacy rather than hand-wringing apathy masquerading as sense. In 2021, she tried to get the Kern County board of supervisors to block solar energy projects in the county as revenge after state regulators had denied several new fracking permits.
Grove is also on the advisory board for Revive California, a dominionist group affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), and was herself a panelist at NAR’s Harvest International Ministry’s Global Summit 2020.
Diagnosis: Ridiculous moron, but that still hasn’t stopped many people from getting elected, it seems. Sharon Grove has done her worst to make the world a shittier place for a decade and a half, and seems to be on a trajectory to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
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