Tuesday’s nationwide general election — not a midterm election, but important nonetheless — proved that Republicans can count on their base even when they try to overthrow the country.
That’s the message that the election of at 8 least GOP candidates who attended the January 6 riots is sending, anyway. Most of the winners have claimed that they had no hand in the actual storming of the Capitol. But the fact that they were there side by side with the rest of the demonstrators who claimed that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump says quite enough.
These folks didn’t make it into Congress or anything. I don’t see it being an issue for voters, however, when the time comes to elect new members of the House and Senate.
Three of them were elected to state legislatures, which is already alarming. Five of them now hold local positions, which is almost scarier.
Running for local office — or school boards, or church elderships — has become a focus for extremist Republicans who have finally taken a page from the Democratic playbook of starting at the bottom and trying to move up.
And if they can be successful at the local level, there’s nothing necessarily stopping them from climbing the ladder.
Back in February, Huffington Post identified nearly 60 elected officials [1] who attended the January 6 events. Many of them will be running to keep their seats in state legislatures and local offices. But as HuffPo noted in their report, only 2 of the 57 who were identified have actually resigned from their positions, despite calls for nearly all of them to do so.
Three of those who won last night were elected or re-elected to the Virginia House of Delegates: Dave LaRock, John McGuire, and Marie March. LaRock has been noted for his blatant racism, McGuire lied about being at the January 6 rally (there were photos), and March was one of the many who actually called for “Civil War” over the “stolen” 2020 presidential election.
Some candidates who attended the “Stop the Steal” event in January lost their races, of course. They can’t win them all. But the fact that they’re winning any should give us all pause.