Trump Blessed Candidates Have Gone Too Far This Time, Hopefully
The party of trump (formerly the Republican Party) may have given itself a fatal shot in the foot in the latest primary victories by the far right crazies and Pollyanna that I am, I think voters are going to realize in November that they really don’t want to return to the dark ages.
I would hope the recent vote in Kansas allowing a woman’s right to choose is a harbinger and the first of many loud and clear statements by an American public that is coming to its senses and screaming out “enough is enough” or in the famous words of the newscaster in Paddy Chaefsky’s 1976 film “Network,” “I’m mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.”
I hope trump doesn’t run in 2024 because I would love to see the field of GOP candidates cannibalize itself as they tear each other into tiny, bloody shreds, each hoping to be crowned the most right wing candidate.
Even if trump is not on the scene in 2024, the movement he led will continue its self-flagellating, suicidal festering. People really have had it with candidates who grab their lifecraft and while sinking to the ocean floor, cling to the claim that trump won the 2020 election. People finally do understand that QAnon conspiracy theories tossed around like candy at a party are not only damaging but dumb enough not to warrant a moment of attention. And most people will conclude, finally, that there is no room for white supremacy cloaked in words of the “replacement theory.”
The Republican trump supported candidates who won recent primaries are a rogue’s gallery of pecans, cashews, peanuts, Macadamia nuts, hazelnuts and any other kind of nut. They have pushed the envelope to the point of bursting and hopefully the sane American voters will soon catapult them all into oblivion.
Arizona is a good place to start so hold your noses.
Mark Finchem, a member of the far right Oath Keepers, won the GOP primary vote for attorney general. A big lie proponent of the first degree, Finchem marched at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest Joe Biden’s victory.
He was a member of the Arizona House of Representatives and in 2016, Finchem introduced legislation to prohibit Arizona from implementing presidential executive orders, directives issued by federal agencies and U.S. Supreme Court rulings. His philosophy was shared by the infamous Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a 2014 armed standoff in Nevada and the 2016 armed protest and occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Finchem was Arizona Coordinator of the Coalition of Western States (COWS), a group formed to support Bundy, who once said, “And I’ve often wondered, are they (African Americans) better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?”
In 2021, Finchem shared on social media a “report” falsely claiming to have uncovered tens of thousands of missing or lost votes, and tens of thousands of votes fraudulently cast, in Maricopa County, Ariz. The report was rejected by county elections officials and political scientists. Finchem then called for the Arizona legislature to appoint presidential electors of its own choosing. That also got nowhere.
Finchem traveled to Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 6, 2021, protest that was followed by an attack on the U.S. Capitol by crazed, trump supporters. Finchem later claimed that leftists had instigated the violence. The FBI reported that antifa groups were not involved in the attack on the Capitol to which, Finchem replied that he did not “trust a word that comes out of the FBI’s mouth.”
In 2013, Finchem argued that Barack Obama was seeking to establish a “totalitarian dictatorship” and described the 2017, white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., as a “deep state psyop” carried out by Democrats.
In the race for Arizona attorney general, voters elected Abraham Hamadeh, who called his opponents and other Republicans “weak-kneed” for supporting certification of the 2020 election. Hamadeh, a Muslim, was endorsed by trump, the same trump who, as president, tried to bar all Muslims from entering the U.S.
A former prosecutor in Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Hamadeh told Breitbart News that he will designate as terrorist organizations the cartels that are responsible for the onngoing “invasion” of undocumented immigrants into the U.S.
Hamadeh said the U.S. is “at war ideologically” and that the “radical left” have forced their beliefs on the American people in a way that affects daily life, citing examples such as critical race theory and issues involving gender.
“The reason why we’re in this mess as a country is not just because of radical left. It’s also because the weak-kneed Republicans have allowed them to take control,” he said.
Hamadeh’s campaign ad shows the candidate in army fatigues, gun drawn, with the warning, “We’re a war: We must stop the radical left from taking over. As your attorney general I will restore law and order.”
He called border security and election integrity the “top issues” of his campaign, as he steadfastly has spouted the unfounded claim that trump lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud.
Kari Lake, who has said she would not have certified Biden’s 10,000-vote victory in Arizona, won the G.O.P. primary for governor. A former television news journalist, Lake has imbibed great quantities of Kool Aid. She has called for imprisoning Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on baseless and unspecified allegations of criminality related to the 2020 election.
Lake shared COVID-19 misinformation on Twitter and Facebook in April 2020 and in August 2021, she led anti-mask rallies, calling on Arizona State University students to violate the university’s mask requirement policy. In November 2021, Lake told a group of Republican retirees that she was taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent COVID-19 infection, despite warnings by numerous studies, that hydroxychloroquine was not effective in treating or curing COVID-19.
During her 2022 gubernatorial campaign, Lake attracted support from right-wing extremists, appearing with a Nazi sympathizer and QAnon-linked activists at campaign events where she accused Biden and Democrats of harboring a “demonic agenda.”
At a campaign event in late August, 2021, Lake posed for a photo and video with far-right personalities Ethan Schmidt-Crockett, the founder of the AntiMaskersClub, who harassed a store specializing in wigs for cancer patients because it required customers to wear masks, and Greyson Arnold, a Nazi sympathizer who has a history of making White nationalist, racist, antisemitic and pro-Nazi statements, including once calling Adolf Hitler “a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand.”
Lake also posed for a photo with Ron Watkins, a MAGA conspiracy theorist who helped spread and amplify the violent far-right QAnon conspiracy across social media. Watkins was a candidate for Congress in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, and finished dead last.
Blake Masters, another candidate blessed by trump, won the U.S. Senate primary in Arizona. Masters coincidentally also believes that Trump won in 2020. As of July 2022, Masters had received $15 million in campaign contributions from his mentor, Peter Thiel, who also was a major backer of J.D. Vance, the GOP candidate in Ohio for U.S. Senate. Masters was chief operating officer of Thiel’s hedge fund, Thiel Capital, and also president of the Thiel Foundation.
Masters has had fringe views as when he decried U.S. entry into World War I and World War II, and approvingly quoted Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering. He also endorsed conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin’s claim that the “Houses of Morgan and Rothschild” were linked to the sinking of the Lusitania. During a Republican primary debate, he said that he supported impeaching Biden.
Masters, Vance and Thiel all have been influenced by Curtis Yarvin, a neoreactionary blogger who writes under the name Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin has alleged that whites have higher IQs than blacks for genetic reasons and he has claimed that some races are more suited to slavery than others. Yarvin also believes that American democracy is a failed experiment which should be replaced by an accountable monarchy, similar to the governance structure of corporations.
Masters said people should read “Industrial Society and Its Future,” the manifesto of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, for its analysis of the negative impact of technology on society. He also opposes American aid to Ukraine and has suggested privatizing Social Security. He is against same sex marriage, though Thiel, is a married gay man. Masters also is a proponent of the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, popular among white nationalists, that claims that Democrats want use immigration laws to replace American white people.
Masters wants to ban teaching “critical race theory” in schools and would defund instruction in “gender ideology.” In April, he tweeted that the then-Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, is a “pedophile apologist.” In November, he tweeted, “When a society celebrates Antifa looters, arsonists, and pedophiles as heroes, while turning brave people like Kyle Rittenhouse into villains, it is a society that is not long for this world.”
In Michigan, trump endorsed John Gibbs for Congress to replace Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach trump over the January 6 attack. Gibbs, who had promoted trump’s lie over widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, defeated Meijer in the primary.
During the campaign, Gibbs scored Meijer for voting to impeach Trump, for voting for LGBT rights, for supporting U.S. humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, and for voting in favor of bipartisan gun safety legislation following a gun massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
A far-right political commentator, software engineer and missionary before entering politics, Gibbs was acting Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Community Planning and Development under trump.
Gibbs has made false, inflammatory and conspiratorial remarks on his Twitter feed, including spreading the conspiracy theory that John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, took part in a “Satanic ritual.”
In early-2016, Gibbs referred to mainstream Republicans as “cucks,” a phrase which means a “weak, effeminate, unmanly, or inadequate man, who is often dominated by their female partner.” The phrase is used by white nationalists to insult mainstream Republicans. Gibbs also attacked Democrats as the party of “Islam, gender-bending, anti-police.”
In the contest for Michigan governor, trump-blessed candidate Tudor Dixon won the GOP primary contest. A former conservative commentator and actress, Dixon will face incumbent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Dixon spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 U.S. elections and she falsely claimed widespread voter fraud and that trump actually won in Michigan.
Candidates for Michigan Attorney General include trump’s choice, Matthew DePerno, a lawyer whose bogus lawsuit over election results, triggered ongoing conspiracy theories over voting machines and trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. DePerno has called for a “forensic audit” of the 2020 presidential election.
Kristina Karamo, the trump-backed, presumptive GOP nominee for secretary of state in Michigan, has called the 2020 election fixed and without facts, claimed that Dominion voting machine software flipped votes to Biden. Karamo has made a number of wild claims, including describing abortion as a “satanic practice” and the suggestion that demonic possession can be sexually transmitted.
In a 2018 video posted on her website, Karamo pushed an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that billionaire Democratic philanthropist George Soros and former President Barack Obama were using Netflix to push pro-abortion views.
In October 2021, Karamo spoke at the “For & Country: Patriot Double Down” event in Las Vegas, Nev., which was organized by John Sabal, a leading figure in the QAnon movement,
Karamo said the January 6 attack at the Capitol was “completely Antifa posing as Trump supporters” and that she opposes teaching evolution in schools, which she described as “government indoctrination camps.”
“Highly respected Kristina Karamo has my Complete and Total Endorsement to run for Secretary of State of the Great State of Michigan! She is strong on Crime, including the massive Crime of Election Fraud,” Trump said in a statement.
In Wisconsin, the GOP candidates for primary next week, include Tim Michels, who has trump’s endorsement; Tim Ramthun and former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch who has been endorsed by former Vice President Mike Pence.
Michels has minimized trump’s alleged involvement in the events leading up to the insurrection attempt on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I haven’t seen any evidence that Donald Trump said, ‘Go to the Capitol now and storm it,’” Michels said. “I don’t think he would have done that. … I don’t think he did anything wrong.”
Michels, a millionaire construction company owner, said he will “look at all the evidence and everything will be on the table and I will make the right decision” regarding possible legislation to decertify the 2020 election results, though many have said it would be legally and constitutionally impossible.