GOP candidate’s violent primary ad goes too far
The new campaign ad from Republican Senate candidate Eric Greitens is beyond reprehensible. It’s a test for whether anything is out of bounds in today’s GOP.
Greitens’ spot is a tacit call to violence. In it, the disgraced former Missouri governor cocks a shotgun and says, “We’re going RINO hunting” (RINO, of course, refers to “Republicans in name only”). He then joins a group of men dressed in tactical gear storming a house, weapons ready to fire. Greitens enters the house and tells the viewer to “join the MAGA crew. Get a RINOhunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”
This would be a disgusting, tasteless ad at any moment. Whatever you think of your political opponents, it is never acceptable to implicitly threaten violence against them. But in the current political environment, it’s positively vile.
Political tensions are rising on all sides. The Jan. 6 Capitol riot was at best a terrible protest gone wrong; at worst, it was a serious attempt to undo an election. A man was recently arrested with a gun near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home and said he wanted to kill the justice. Throw in the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, and any reasonable person would see it’s best to cool passions, not inflame them.
But Greitens is no reasonable man. He was forced to resign as governor in 2018 after being accused of having an affair and then blackmailing his mistress with nude photos.
His ex-wife also says he abused her and his children. (Greitens has repeatedly denied both the blackmail allegations and the accusations of abuse.) Rather than step back and rebuild his life, Greitens is doubling down on his political ambitions.
Greitens is someone who recklessly courts controversy rather than stumbles into it with inarticulate expressions. If he is willing to run an ad like this to win a primary, who knows what he’ll do to win the general election.
The question now is what Republicans will do about it.
Responsible Republicans need to be clear and consistent: Anyone but Greitens will do. The Eagle Forum, a venerable conservative women’s group founded by Phyllis Schlafly, has stepped up and called on Greitens to drop out of the race.
But there’s no one higher in the GOP food chain than former President Donald Trump, and it falls to him to exert the leadership befitting his stature. Trump has not yet endorsed anyone in the race, but he doesn’t have to. He should instead show his power by calling on Greitens to step aside or, if Greitens won’t do that, explicitly campaign against him.
A campaign is a better way for Trump to exert his influence. Backing one horse in a race is risky, and Trump has discovered the hard way that his endorsees can lose. If he supports someone running against Greitens, he could find that person beset by scandal, as was the case for Chuck Herbster, whom he endorsed in Nebraska’s gubernatorial primary. Such a loss would only fuel the growing narrative that Trump’s influence is weakening.
Opposing Greitens and otherwise staying neutral, by contrast, means Trump has a strong chance of winning. Greitens leads by a narrow margin in most polls. A recent Emerson College poll also shows Greitens is winning 32 percent of the vote among people who say they are more likely to vote for someone Trump endorses. It follows that if Trump disavows Greitens, those voters would look for someone else. If Greitens loses after Trump took a stand against him, Trump could deservedly claim much of the credit.
Anti-Communist crusader Sen. Joseph McCarthy finally lost his considerable influence when a man shredded him with the phrase, “Have you no sense of decency?” That’s what Republicans from Trump on down need to tell Greitens now.