Sunday, January 16, 2022

WHY AREN'T ETHAN SCHMIDT-CROCKETT AND KARI LAKE NATIONAL POSTER CHILDREN FOR GOP EXTREMISM?

Among the people spotted at Donald Trump's rally in Arizona last night was one particularly bad individual:


The one who said that wasn't just trying to offend the libs. He's describing a real incident in his past. As CNN reported in November, "Ethan Schmidt-Crockett, the founder of the AntiMaskersClub, ... harassed a store specializing in wigs for cancer patients this summer because it required customers to wear masks." He videotaped it, too:


And when he's not doing that, he's burning rainbow flags.


And harassing people who are getting vaccinated against COVID.


As noted in the previous tweet, Schmidt-Crockett has expressed support for Kari Lake, a former TV journalist who's running for governor of Arizona as a Republican. She's been endorsed by Donald Trump. She spoke at his rally last night.


Schmidt-Crockett appeared in a video with Lake:


She hasn't rejected his support. This didn't bother her:


Lake is leading by double digits in early Republican primary polling. She's trailing by only 4 among likely voters in a head-to-head matchup against the likely Democratic candidate, Arizona secretary of state Katie Hobbs, whom Lake has vowed to imprison for her role in certifying accurate 2020 election results.

Ethan Schmidt-Crockett isn't a politician or a candidate -- but if a left-leaning non-politician had done even one thing that was as offensive to right-wingers as what Crockett-Schmidt has done is to everyone else, that person would be a household name on the right. There would have been hundreds of Fox News segments about this person. But hardly anyone on our side knows who Schmidt-Crockett is.

And Kari Lake is a politician. She really could be Arizona's next governor. And yet most Americans have never heard of her. It's not clear that she'll become more widely known nationwide even if she wins the nomination.

Why does our side make so little effort to point out what Republicans are really like?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Can't fault the policy arm of the party, but the political arm? Too busy touting the primacy of "kitchen table issues", bobbing and weaving for some dimly defined miniscule advantage in 18 battleground states, and interparty lines of succession. Why, there's just no time left for anything but beanbag.