We’re constantly told that democratic socialists are too “extreme.” But it’s the Republicans who have gun nuts, self-proclaimed exorcists, and other unsavory characters in their ranks.
It’s a funny experience, opening your local newspaper and finding that it condemns your own politics as a threat to the nation. But that’s what happened this Sunday, when the Times-Picayune of New Orleans ran a column by editor Quin Hillyer, breathlessly informing the Crescent City that “leftist Dems are dangerous.” Everyone should be worried about “the radicals and socialists who are making big inroads in the national Democratic Party,” Hillyer insists, including Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (who is not a socialist), Melat Kiros of Colorado, Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, and so on. According to the column, these candidates are “outlandishly beyond the pale” because they seek to “tear down a host of cultural institutions and mores that most Americans see as essential parts of a healthy society.” Like many conservatives, Mr. Hillyer believes he knows best about where “the pale” is and what a “healthy society” consists of: his objections to leftist politicians are many, but include that “they want to defund the police, adopt the financially and arithmetically impossible Green New Deal, provide Medicare for All, defund the Department of Defense (!) and eliminate ‘the entire global system of capital,’ among many other radical (or even crazy) ideas.” Allow the Democratic Socialists of America and their allies to gain power, he warns, and the Democratic Party risks becoming a “den of malevolence and lunacy.”
Such is the mood in the boardrooms of the Louisiana press. But we can find this narrative repeated nationally too, over and over, with an increasingly frantic tone as the Left stacks up electoral wins. In the Atlantic, apparently seeking to retain its title as the worst magazine in America, we are told that “There’s Nothing Democratic About These Socialists” (Jonathan Chait, July 1), that “Democrats Became Great by Fighting the Left” (David Brooks, July 8) and even that “The DSA is a Parasite” (James Kirchick, July 21). In the Bezos-owned Washington Post, we get dark mutterings about how “utopian economic experiments always end in misery.” Democratic strategist James Carville, always more bluster than substance, is now threatening to leave the Democratic party altogether, saying that leftists are “so fucking stupid I don’t know what to say about it.”
This well-paid Greek chorus for the rich and their interests is singing in perfect harmony. The details vary, but the thesis is always the same: socialists are scary. Of course, when you look into any particular point, it usually turns out that the “outlandish” policy idea in question is perfectly reasonable. Take Medicare for All, which even Fox News audiences cheer for when Bernie Sanders pays them a visit, or the idea that the Department of War’s budget should be lowered somewhat from the $1.5 trillion the Trump administration has proposed for 2027. Loudly asserting that something is “crazy” doesn’t make it so. But beyond this, there’s a conspicuous empty space in these arguments. Namely: if you’re so concerned about extreme candidates in elections, why isn’t this level of outrage being directed toward the absolute lunatics in the Republican Party?
For instance, did you know that the GOP in Colorado is running a candidate for governor who claims to have committed manslaughter as a child? Possibly not, because the Atlantic has been too busy hyperventilating about the DSA to run an article, but it’s happening. This month, Colorado Republicans chose Victor Marx, a 61-year-old evangelical Christian with a truly bizarre personal history, as their gubernatorial nominee. Among other unlikely things, Marx claims that his stepfather forced him to conduct Satanic rituals at age 3, which included beheading a cat, and ultimately made him shoot a man in Mississippi at age 7. For their part, the Mississippi homicide police say they have no evidence this happened—but worryingly, Marx won’t say if he’s killed any other people, telling reporters that “I don’t think that’s important.”
Whatever his body count might be, Satanism has become a professional concern with Marx, and he now claims he can perform exorcisms at the drop of a hat, either in person or over the phone. In one appearance on conservative talk radio, he reportedly “offered a demonstration on the show’s co-host Stacey, who Marx quickly determined had 11 demons,” before performing a ritual to “demolish” them. Oh, and at one point he sold an eight-part “Unseen War Course” that he claimed would allow purchasers to combat Satan themselves for just $49. To be clear, this is not a character on South Park we’re talking about, but a real man who has really been nominated to be the governor of Colorado, despite being either dangerously delusional, a scam artist, or both at once.
Or how about Brandon Herrera? He’s the GOP nominee for the House in Texas’ 23rd district, having defeated incumbent Representative Tony Gonzales in his primary. On his campaign website, Herrera describes himself as an “entrepreneur, Second Amendment activist, and social media personality,” but “gun nut, online troll, and far-right extremist” would be more accurate. As the Guardian reports, Herrera made another run for Congress back in 2024, but lost that primary after he “acquired a reputation for making jokes about the Holocaust, autism, and women.” Known online as “the AK Guy,” he runs both an online store where he sells AK-47 rifles and rifle accessories and a YouTube channel where he reviews all kinds of firearms. In some videos, he has taken a disturbingly jaunty attitude toward the Third Reich, as Marc Rod writes for Jewish Insider:
In one video from 2022, he shows off the MP-40, a submachine gun developed in and widely used by Nazi Germany. He refers to it, seemingly jokingly, as “the original ghetto blaster” — apparently alluding to the Nazis’ killing of Jews.
The video, which appears to take a sarcastic tone, includes a montage of Herrera and an associate firing the weapon, goose-stepping and showing off other Nazi weaponry, set to the song “Erika,” which was popularized as a Nazi marching song and which has seen frequent use in modern neo-Nazi and far-right propaganda.
The montage culminates with Herrera’s associate, wearing a camouflage outfit with colors resembling a pattern used by the Waffen SS, beginning a Hitler salute before being stopped by Herrera, seemingly in jest.
Herrera says the video in question was simply “edgy humor” and that he is not a neo-Nazi—although he did once belong to a neo-Confederate group called “Sons of Confederate Veterans” where members would “go out back with black powder rifles[…] and shoot up posters of our favorite Yankees.” What’s clear is that his position on guns is more extreme than even the NRA—which he has criticized as not going far enough to promote gun ownership—and that he categorically dismisses the political opinions of women, using language I really don’t want to repeat. Even in a state that produced Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott, he’s leading the race to the bottom of the barrel.
Here, the double standard between Right and Left is especially apparent. At this point, you could wallpaper a room with all the op-eds that have been written about left-wing streamer Hasan Piker’s edgier utterances—but Piker is not running for office. Herrera is, and he’s said things far worse than a frank discussion of how American foreign policy led to 9/11, for instance. But apart from a handful of articles in the local Texas press and Jewish Insider, there hasn’t been much media pushback. The pundit class simply doesn’t seem to care, in the same way they do when a socialist speaks up.
But Texas isn’t the only state with this kind of problem. In Florida, there’s James Fishback, the Republican candidate for governor who’s doing his best to one-up the already odious Ron DeSantis. Fishback describes himself as a “paleoconservative,” but has become closely associated with the “Groyper” movement of white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes. Like with Fuentes, race-baiting and neo-Nazi rhetoric is his stock in trade; as Caleb Brennan writes for the Baffler, Fishback has “said that [opponent Byron] Donalds, who is black, would ‘turn Florida into a Section 8 ghetto’; promised to ‘make the trains run on time’; and invoked the term goyslop, internet slang for the fast food that our Judeo-Bolshevik overlords are knowingly fattening us with.” Responding to accusations that he would be an “authoritarian,” he responded “Yes, I will, and I’m proud of it. Yes, a lot of people are going to prison.” It doesn’t seem like Fishback will actually become governor of Florida, as he currently polls well behind Donalds—but the fact that he is reportedly “breaking through to young Floridians,” some of whom wear T-shirts that say “American Reich” to his campaign events, is still a worrying sign.
And then there’s our old pal Mike Lindell, better known as the “MyPillow Guy,” who is currently leading the polls in the GOP primary for governor of Wisconsin. By now, Lindell probably needs no introduction; he has spent the past six years as one of America’s foremost election deniers, ranting to anyone who’ll listen about his conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential race was stolen from Donald Trump. For reasons only he understands, he turned up at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in a Scooby-Doo style disguise, shaving off his mustache and donning a fedora, only to promptly lose a political debate to a small child. And of course, he has no political experience or qualifications to govern whatsoever. But Donald Trump rewards sycophancy, and so he has endorsed Lindell, making him all but certain to carry the Republican nomination.
It’s not like this is a new phenomenon, either. In the last few election cycles, there have been plenty more candidates like this. In 2024, there was Mark Robinson, who looked well-positioned to become the next Republican governor of North Carolina until it came out that he’d been calling himself a “black NAZI!” on porn websites. In 2022, there was Dr. Mehmet Oz, Doug Mastriano, and Herschel Walker. In 2017, there was Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore, who was accused of sexual misconduct against teenagers, but got Donald Trump’s endorsement anyway. Again, these people are categorically different from the leftists we’re supposed to find so threatening. The worst thing Darializa Avila Chevalier or Francisca Hong have been accused of is having the wrong opinions about NATO, or Israel, or how much to tax corporations or landlords, or possibly Thanksgiving. Those are perfectly legitimate policy disagreements to have, whereas the candidates on the far Right are genuine public menaces.
The only case that’s remotely comparable on the Left is that of Graham Platner, who said some repulsive things about sexual assault and turned out to have serious rape accusations against him. A lot of people who should have known better bought Platner’s sales pitch—but when the allegations came out, the entire Left immediately dropped him, too. The same can’t be said for the Right, who embrace their candidates’ most disgusting features, not as regrettable flaws, but as selling points. That’s the difference.
But to the media, it’s the Left that poses a threat; it’s the Left that needs to be the subject of endless scolding and fear-mongering; it’s the Left that should be opposed at every turn. You’ll scour the pages of the Atlantic in vain for a thinkpiece on how “dangerous” Victor Marx is, or Brandon Herrera. As far as the pundits are concerned, you can make Holocaust jokes, use the most disgusting language against women, spread election denial, even claim you killed people and battled demons, and it doesn’t rise to the level of an existential threat. The only thing that truly worries them is blasphemy against the Almighty Dollar. And if they’re more concerned with fighting the people pushing for free healthcare and anti-war foreign policy than the guys in “American Reich” T-shirts—well, why should anyone listen?
