Arizona Politicians Fly Their Freak Flags at The Loser’s Florence Rally

I watched an afternoon of the crazy that went down in Arizona on January 15th, 2022, so that you don’t have to. But you will still get to know what utterly crazy shit came out of the mouths of some of the politicians who are running for offices here in Arizona. I think it’s important the general public know what these people are saying to the Hair Farce One cultists during the primaries so that we can roast them with their own words in the general election. This is a long read – so strap in.

This post is mostly just about those Arizona pols who were on stage shilling for Jabba the Gut.

If you really want to atone for something dark and horrible in your past, you can jump on YouTube, or Getttr, or whatever, and watch it all yourself – but I suggest you save yourself the trouble and just check out my observations from the experience of watching the livestream all afternoon.

I won’t be talking about the comments, interviews, or speeches of Mike Lindell, or Texas Attorney General Paxton, or any other of the national cast of nutters, not even those of Scrooge McSchmuck himself. I really don’t care, at this point, what those people are saying; they aren’t running for office in Arizona, and I’m really only interested in those who are in this post.

You will see actual “quotation marks” around some comments below; to the best of my ability, these are actual quotes from the speakers. You also might see ‘scare quotes’ below, too; that’s just me being sarcastic or snarky. Beware the difference.

First, a few general observations.

The ‘pre-game’ coverage I watched was done by Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), which I believe is just a fancy name hung on a YouTube channel devoted to fascist propaganda. RSBN spent several hours just interviewing people attending the rally – and got a few interviews with featured speakers before the rally began – and, boy, did they talk to A LOT of folks.

Estimates for attendance are around 15,000 people. That’s a remarkable show of enthusiasm. But the GOP has proven that a highly energized base does not automatically translate into greater voter turn-out and electoral victories. That’s pretty much the story of the 2020 election: Democrats’ most active base was disappointed in Biden, and Republicans’ most active base was very enthused, but Democrats strongly turned out the entire coalition of their voters, including independents, and Republicans failed to do so – so they lost, especially at the top of the ticket. There was a notable trend in Republican voters failing to vote the top of the ticket, but voting down-ballot; hence, they actually did quite well in Congress and the states. The lesson from these facts that Republicans failed to learn? Sentient Circus Peanut is very popular with the base, not so much with the general electorate. Yet they seem to be doubling down on their bad bet on Jefferson Doofus.

I was a bit surprised by how many folks traveled to Arizona from out of state to attend the rally. If the sample RSBN took by interviewing people waiting was at all representative, I would guess that between a quarter to a third came in from other states. I have to acknowledge that demonstrates something about the fervor and dedication of the Drumpf faction: either they are very committed, or they don’t have anything better to do with their weekend (although who am I to talk? look at how I spent my Saturday afternoon…).

I noted a surprising degree of antipathy among attendees toward Arizona’s Governor Ducey and Attorney General Brnovich, which does not bode well for Brnovich’s Senate candidacy, nor Ducey’s political future in the GOP, whatever he decides to do next (I suspect he’s planning a presidential campaign in ’24, and not a Senate bid in ’22, as some have speculated).

Of course, Mar-a-Lardo has not made any endorsement in the AZ GOP Senate primary yet, and no U.S. Senate candidate spoke at the rally today. I suspect strongly that the Lardfather’s choice will be either Jim Lamon or Blake Masters, whichever candidate is most obsequious in the coming weeks and months. One is a rich guy who built a successful business, (though, actually, that might make the Vanity Manatee uncomfortable with the prospect of being out shown by an actual successful businessman…), and the other is a rich guy’s money butler, so he clearly knows how to take orders from a wanna-be oligarch. I suspect there where they stand on the most important issue – the Big Lie that Tangerine Palpatine actually won the 2020 election – will decide the issue. I think Lamon has the clear edge here as he has made a $2m contribution to Look Ahead America – a disinformation operation devoted to chumming the waters of the Big Lie (see my article about this info-op if you want to know more) – and Lamon launched his media campaign with an ad in which he signed off with a hearty “Let’s Go, Brandon”. The Repoutlicans continue to think this clever because they get to overtly say “Fuck Joe Biden,” and still have it broadcast on television, and say it in front of kids without harming their delicate ears, or something… what stirring rhetoric.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, repeated over and over that Cheeto Mussolini is the ‘real’, ‘true’, ‘actual’, and ‘duly elected’ President. Most referred to the Orange Dick Tater Tot as “my President” or “our President”. To my mind, this is just a further way in which Republicans seek to undermine and de-legitimize any Democratic President. I understand the impulse to deny reality – I certainly didn’t relish calling Comrade Tweety, or Dubya for that matter, “President”, but I respect our constitutional order enough to admit when a man is legally and de facto wielding the powers of the office. I fear where this denial of constitutional facts, like who is inhabiting an elected office, is leading to a very bad place for our country.

I’ve called followers of Twittler a cult in the past – mainly to highlight their unreasonable faith in the man. But the crowd really struck me as more of an old-time religious revival than a normal political event. With the personal testimonies of faith (in Scooby Coup, of course) and the ‘blessings’ that the Floridian Fondler has brought to their lives, these folks sound like they were talking about their personal relationship with Jesus, not with a failed politician. No one really discusses much in the way of actual policy reasons for their support of the Covfefool. It’s all about feelings, projection, grievance, conspiracies, and hatred of the damn libs – although cultural, religious, and ethnic anxiety ‘issues’ certainly are cited for their support Dolt 45: guns, abortion, immigration and The Wall, and ‘corrupting our precious bodily fluids’ with the Fauci Ouchie came up A LOT. Oddly, those are all things that Dingus Con accomplished only in his rhetoric and retconning of his ‘legacy’, not in any policy or law enacted during his actual Presidency. Mix the strong evangelical support, with QAnon-inspired eschatological beliefs, and the ‘second coming’ faith that the Tangelo Tantrum will be miraculously restored to the Presidency, or even become some sort of universal, divine ruler, and I wonder if we aren’t seeing the formation of a genuine new sect of ‘Christianity’ forming in swamps of social media? Is it a surprise to anyone that some deluded Christians might be misled into worshiping an anti-Christ?

I was also struck by the installation at the rally site of the flag that (allegedly) flew at Voldemoron’s speech on January 6th that incited the Capitol insurrection. It was mounted horizontally about 7ft above the ground so that the massive flag (maybe 60 ft by 40 ft?) formed a canopy over an area where people were encouraged to walk beneath it and reach up to touch it. It was being treated like a venerated holy object! Apparently, it will be at all of Girth Vader’s future rallies for the masses to worship. Pretty disturbing: these people are all worshipping a symbol of Clownigula’s attempted coup to overthrow our democracy. It illustrates just how totally down they are for an end to American democracy.

Faith really does seem to be central to this cult of the Slob Father: belief that the election was stolen… somehow; belief that the Traffic Cone of Treason will somehow be re-installed in office; belief that COVID is actually just a big conspiracy against… freedom?; belief that there is a massive conspiracy of elites (i.e. Democrats, and RINOs, I suppose) to rape children and drink their blood… or at least that Democrats are somehow both fascists and Marxist communists, and hate freedom, and want nothing more than to destroy America. The utterly foundationless and evidence-free beliefs of these people are created and sustained by a steady diet of misinformation, disinformation, lies, deceit, and fearmongering that has cemented a bubble of unreality around them which they insist on never leaving. But one thing that history teaches about such a sustained culture of false belief is that eventually, reality intrudes in unexpected and often painful ways.

A horrible example of such a painful intrusion of reality is the story told by one woman in line: she has cancer, but she says the clinic where she needs to go for treatment won’t let her in the building without proof of vaccination – which she refuses to get, of course. Despite the facts that Butternut Berlusconi himself is vaccinated, supports vaccination for COVID, and did just one good thing during his Presidency by adopting Warp Speed to create the vaccines in record time, she still refuses the jab. So, she’s going without treatment for her cancer in the belief that God will save her. She is almost certainly going to die of untreated cancer because she refuses to be vaccinated. Reality may be sending her a final notice that the bill for her false beliefs has come due.

In the “GUEST INSTRUCTION” email (yes, I requested and received one out of curiosity) the instructions included the following: “All guests attending Saturday’s rally are highly encouraged to wear masks and facial coverings during the entry and screening process to the event where 6 feet of social distancing is not available.” [emphasis added] Only during the entry and screening process? So they are protecting the staff, but they didn’t give a fig for the attendees. Result? I saw hardly anyone wearing a mask inside the jam-packed rally. It was likely a super-spreader event, hopefully mitigated by the open air and brisk wind.

Now to the speakers.

The speaker lineup included several prominent state Republicans who are also election conspiracy theorists and promoters of the #BigLie: AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward; AZ Sen. Sonny Borelli, R-Lake Havasu City; AZ Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa,  U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria; U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert; U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar R-Prescott; former Rep. Anthony Kern; Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff; Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley; and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. 

[bctt tweet=”Every single one of these Arizona Republicans who stepped on that rally stage in Florence, AZ, and repeated the #BigLie has thereby proven their disqualification from any public office.” username=”BlogForArizona”]

I will be republishing each of these summaries as its own post in the coming days, for SEO reasons, and to ensure that the statements of each are not overlooked when voters seek information on them.

AZGOP Chairperson Kelly #ChemtrailKelly Ward kicked off the festivities with an introductory rant. The very first thing she said was to repeat the lie that Sulk Hogan won the 2020 Presidential election, making it very clear the real purpose of this rally. Then, immediately after claiming that Arizona’s elections are rigged, and without a trace of cognitive dissonance, she urged everyone to get registered and vote, so that they can defeat the Democratic “cheating algorithm”… whatever that is. She made some derogatory noises about Dominion voting machines, drop boxes, mail-in ballots, etc., and then asserted that the #AZFraudit continues! Woohoo, not over, suckers! Keep sending the AZGOP your donations to support the Fraudit so that they can ‘decertify’ the 2020 election – which isn’t a thing. More about that later. Save America. Make America Great Again Again. yada yada yada.

AZ Senator Sonny Borrelli, the Majority Whip of the AZGOP State Senate caucus, if you can believe that… was up after the convocation ceremonials. First words out of his mouth: “Trump won! Bye!” He indicates he was joking and does some rambling about the stolen election and election fraud. He accuses Katie Hobbs of running black ops propaganda about the election and rants about how she has the temerity to run for Governor after presiding over the 2020 election. At least the crowd didn’t break out in “Lock Her Up” chants… this time. He tries giving President Biden a childish nickname like his hero, Mayor McTreason, would: Body Bag Biden. Didn’t stick. He claims that the AZ Senate is investigating Pima County’s elections and has confirmed ‘ghost votes’ occurred… which aren’t a thing. He boasts that the AZ Senate will be passing voting legislation to “stop the Commie bastards at the ballot”. He calls for more transparency in elections, and making more election records available online, which – fine – I generally would support that, though probably not in whatever form he wants. He wraps up by leading a clever and original chant of “Let’s Go, Brandon”. Whatever possible fine qualities Sonny might have, public speaking isn’t really one of them.

AZ Senator Kelly Townsend, the ‘Ted Cruz of Arizona’, is despised even by members of her own caucus and was up next. She opens by complaining that Borrelli took too much time? Then she gets to the heart of the matter by demanding indictments for “election workers”, because of crimes? She seems not to grasp that Attorney General Brnovich has to actually allege some facts that constitute a crime that he can get a Grand Jury and a judge to find it at all credible using these things called ‘witnesses’ and ‘evidence’ in order to issue any indictments (which is why he has not done so), and then prove them in court beyond a reasonable doubt (which he cannot do solely armed with disinformation and bullshit). Despite the minor impediment of ‘any facts whatsoever’ she “calls on Brnovich” to issue the indictments. Truly unhinged stuff. She spends the rest of her 3 minutes doing her best to instill fear and hate in the crowd and doling out some red meat. She asserts that “They are scheming to harm America”, meaning, presumably, Democrats. Blah, blah, CRT is indoctrinating our children in public schools which she terms “cesspools”. Blah, blah, she wants to close the Mexico border and build the wall, etc, because immigrants and drugs and… whatever. She proposes some nuttery about using the ports on the Pacific coast of Mexico to dock all the container ships stacked up along the Pacific coast, but only if Mexico enters some ‘treaty’ with Arizona? I don’t even being to understand what this is supposed to mean (neither, I suspect, does she…), and apparently she’s never been to any of the coastal towns she names, because calling Puerto Penasco a “port” is beyond generous and the infrastructure, including the roads, are in no way going to fix traffic issues in the port of San Diego, one of the world’s largest actual ports. She’s not even a fully-baked moron, she’s, at best, a par-baked one. Finally, she reminds everyone that public health measures to try to prevent unnecessary death and suffering are “medical tyranny”, and that “they mean to harm us.” Presumably, I guess, doctors and nurses? Whatever. My contempt for this person is actually bigger than this rally.

Next up is Representative Debbie Lesko. She spins a gauzy yarn about an Administration in which the “economy was booming”, the “border was secure”, “our enemies were afraid”, the “unborn were protected”, we had “energy independence”, and parents enjoyed “educational choice”. Oh. She means SCROTUS? Really? Not a single part of that happened under The Loser. The economy collapsed under Eric’s Dad’s watch (mainly due to COVID, admittedly). Only a few miles of the Dang Wall was ever built, and the border was never anything like secure (though it was the scene of many human rights and treaty violations). Our enemies were actually laughing at us – when they were not on the phone scheming with Putin’s Bitch. The unborn were still being aborted. Parents were stuck with their kids at home without much choice in the matter. Even the idea that we were energy independent in any meaningful sense is… complicated, and hasn’t changed under Biden. She tries her own nickname for President Biden – Bare Shelves Biden – forgetting I suppose shortages under the Unwiped Butthole? She complains about Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying we abandoned our allies, forgetting that it was the Danger Yam who initiated and negotiated that whole thing? She slams the Jan 6 Commission as “persecuting us”, claims voting rights legislation is intended to “rig elections again”, vows to hold hearings on Biden, Fauci (big approval line on Fauci) and the origins of COVID, and “DOJ abuse” when the GOP takes back Congress. Well, maybe, but due to redistricting, Lesko very well might not be there to see it. Aww.

Next is the proudly deplorable Representative Andy #BiggsestTraitor Biggs. I am fully expecting his subpoena to the Jan 6 Commission any day now, with indictments soon to follow. Biggs’ big themes were “we demand freedom” and attacking Biden, the Jan 6 Commission (attempted self-preservation in the latter, so that makes perfect sense…), and Democrats in general. Notable highlights included: a claim that Biden is “controlled by China”; that there is a two-tier justice system in America (agree, but our descriptions of who is affected and responsible would be very different), that Democrats are “attacking every freedom in the Bill of Rights” (tell Biden to get these troops out of my guest room, BTW!); “fascistic Biden and his corporate sponsors” (projection, much?); everything is “out of control” (the border, the budget, inflation, etc.); and topped off with attacks and threats against Anthony Fauci (calls his a “destroyer”, leads a “Lock Him Up” chant against him. Finally, he claims that Cheeto will win a “third electoral victory” in ’24 (actually, doesn’t that make him illegible for the office if he’s secretly President right now?). Overall a very crowd-pleasing and fact-free speech.

Representative #EverybodyHatesPaul Gosar was up next. He’s voted “most likely to become an incel spree-killer” by his colleagues, so was I ever surprised that he’s married with three kids (who probably all hate him as much as his siblings do). He proudly reminded everyone that the rally was held in Gosar’s district. Gosar proceeded to call Democrats “Marxist fascists”… which is, objectively, hilarious. Then he started blowing the QAnon dog whistle (actually, maybe too obvious to be a dog whistle, and it’s just a regular whistle?) claiming that a “storm is building” and that the “storm continues to build”, when RSBN abruptly cut off his speech to interview Mike Lindell – which was really disappointing to me, but I guess they have to pay the bills and Lindell is a sponsor. But I’m just not curious enough to go find a video of his speech, because, well… there really is something deeply wrong about Paul Gosar. Apparently, the GOP is now recruiting its leaders from mental wards and long-term care facilities.

Next up was Arizona State Senate candidate and un-indicted future felon, Anthony Kern. Kern actually strikes me as a man to watch: he’s a good orator, willing to run personal legal risks for the cause, speaks fluent Evangelicalese, lies with such ease and regularity that it got him fired as a cop, and strikes me as someone who might actually stab you just to watch you die: he’s quite the basket of snakes. In case you didn’t know, Kern was present in DC on Jan 6, present for the AZFraudit, and one of the fake electors from Arizona for Hair Furor. So Kern will likely be named soon in a federal indictment for conspiracy and attempt to defraud the federal government, so, of course, Kern whined furiously about being investigated for his crimes. He called for “decertification” of the 2020 election… again, whatever that means. He noted that his candidacy is “Trump endorsed” -duh- I would be surprised if he wasn’t, really, given his future rap sheet. He told the crowd that it “doesn’t take a majority to make a revolution like 1776” which is certainly a good fit for the GOP because his party is relegating itself to being a permanent minority with a terrorist network attached (but more like the IRA than the Founding Fathers, IMO). Finally, he claimed God’s mandate for the GOP: “God is on our side because we don’t kill babies!” and they have the “Truth” (must be a brand name, because I haven’t detected much ‘truth’ from the GOP in some time…). Kern certainly fits the profile of an Oathkeeper, and seems like the kind of disgruntled shitbird that would join up for some terrorist plotting, but it is unknown to me whether he is, or ever has been, a member.

Next on the stage was Arizona State Senator Wendy “Oathkeeper” Rogers. There is an adjective that describes Wendy to the T, but is usually reserved for men: creepy. Wendy is a creepy creeping creep: she gives people the willies, which is why she’s been rejected by voters so many times. Voters can usually detect a high-functioning sociopath by that feeling. But, Wendy has proven that even a creepy skin-suit like her can get elected with a tsunami of dark money brought to bear on a rural district state senate race. The news that she has raised an eye-watering $2.5m for her re-elect illustrates just how profitable Republicans are finding telling the #BigLie to be, and how much a full-blown sociopath needs to spend to be elected to the State Senate. She is, of course, endorsed by Sir Dunce-A Lot. She was not subtle at all, starting out with “We know the election was stolen!” – Wendy is unclear on what the verb ‘to know’ means. She made the now – sadly – standard litany of baseless allegations of rigged machines and corrupt voter rolls. She insisted that “Arizona is a red state!” and “is NOT turning purple”. She could start by convincing her own party of that, because the GOP sure did a lot of planning, plotting and arm-twisting to rig redistricting to ensure Arizona would stay a red state – wasted effort, I suppose? She boasted that she was sponsoring “over 50 bills” that will “fix the election problem” – which logically shouldn’t exist since Arizona’s a red state… but, whatever. She wants to get rid of voting machines (good luck counting millions of ballots in a reasonable time-frame without any automation) and make election day a state holiday (which I TOTALLY support, but did not get the reaction from the crowd she expected – I presume they can see how that could backfire on the GOP). But Wendy says that even “fixing elections” can’t “atone for the theft in 2020”, so she says she would be a “YES” vote to “decertify 2020”. It’s almost time to discuss this novel concept of ‘decertifying’ an election… just hold your horses a bit more. She then went full delusional and called for “audits in all 50 states!” and a “door-to-door canvas of all 50 states!”: please deliver on that, Wendy! I would really like to see your party judicially enjoined from voter intimidation for a few years. Once again, that is.

Now for the top of the statewide ticket: candidate for AZ Secretary of State Mark “Oathkeeper” Finchem, wearing his absurd signature cowboy cosplay, took the stage and, at first, cannily and carefully claimed that the “election is proven to be compromised” and other such mealy-mouthed circumlocutions. This sort of hedging and mincing is pretty common for Finchem, who, unlike some the other in coup plotters, is generally somewhat careful in his attempts to preserve deniability that he’s an outright election conspiracist. He usually keeps his batty signals on the down-low with his QAnon and election conspiracist endorsements. But the crowd wasn’t warming to his skirting the central issue of the rally, so he went further than he usually goes in public and unequivocally stated, “Donald Trump won.” So, he did what Der Gropenfuhrer demanded. By doing so, he has disqualified himself from any public office, especially one having anything to do with supervising and certifying our elections. A vote for Finchem is a vote for a coup. There is a pattern of learning and experimentation here that is uncomfortably familiar: coups against democratic governments often start with a violent attempt that is brushed back, only to be followed up with an attempted infiltration of democratic institutions and offices in order to subvert and destroy those institutions from within. Obviously, this is exactly what happened with the Nazis and their failed beer hall putsch, followed by the Nazis learning from that failure and setting their sights on infiltrating elected politics and completing their coup from within those institutions. We are seeing a repeat of that exact and common pattern here. There are many historical examples of this sort of learning sequence, I just use the Nazis example because most people know about it. And because Republicans are becoming increasingly fascistic, of course.

Finchem stated his support for the state legislature to “set aside and irredeemably flawed election” under the powers of the 10th Amendment. So he also wants to ‘decertify’ the 2020 election, presumably just the federal part that gave AZ’s electoral votes to Biden, and a U.S. Senate seat to Mark Kelly. Blue Meanie posted on this issue today for more context. So now it is finally time to examine this idea of a state’s ‘power’ to ‘decertify’ an election. It is, of course, utter nonsense without law, procedure, precedent, or constitutional basis in either the state or the federal constitution. Their ‘theory’ of the case is that the 10th Amendment reserves certain powers to the states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Samuel Johnson famously quipped that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Well, in American political life, the 10th Amendment is the last refuge of the racist and secessionist. Since the Bill of Rights was adopted, politicians seeking to defend state law conflicts with the federal government have claimed to find justification for the position in the ’emanations and penumbras’ of the 10th Amendment: this is but the latest round of racists, radicals, secessionists, and insurrectionists seeking to justify clawing back powers specifically consigned to the federal government, or seeking novel ways to frustrate and circumvent federal power.

Currently, the GOP is claiming that the states are justified by the 10th Amendment to butt into immigration enforcement and border control if they don’t like federal policy, and this theory that state legislatures have ‘plenipotentiary’ powers over their elections and thus could, should they choose, to claw back, or ‘decertify’ a federal election. Neither is remotely justified by the facts, history, or law. This plenipotentiary theory of elections rests on elision alone. The proponents will claim that Article I, section 4 of the federal Constitution states, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof”, and claim that this language, combined with the ‘reservation’ clause of the 10th Amendment, means they have exclusive and total control of how to conduct elections in their state, including the right to set aside a bad election, if they choose, after the fact. However, they conveniently ignore the final clause of Art. I, sect. 4, “but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations”. So, the federal government has the final say over elections should it choose to exercise it, which it has.

This is not really a serious effort to ‘decertify’ anything, of course. It is flummery meant to inflame and motivate their ignorant and rabid base, and a dishonest attempt to further delegitimize Biden’s Presidency. They may pass some nonsense in the Arizona state legislature if they can scrape together enough idiots to go along, and that will be immediately tied up in litigation and found to be unconstitutional tripe, but in the meantime, and ever after, they will claim that Biden’s election was ‘decertified’ and thus he’s not really a President, and people don’t really have to follow any laws or regulations coming from his Administration. It wouldn’t have much weight coming from just one state like Arizona, but if they can pull this grift in enough states, they will claim to have ‘decertified’ enough states that Biden didn’t really get to the 270 electoral votes needed to become President. So, in summary, it is not just nonsense, it is dangerous, traitorous, subversive, and mendacious nonsense. And ALL of these Republicans running for state offices and state legislature who spoke at this rally, and no doubt a lot that didn’t, are saying outright that they will vote for and further this utter fraud. They must face the wrath of voters, media, and the legal community alike. This is likely why Mark Finchem vowed in a pre-rally interview to ask the state legislature to “decertify the AZ State Bar Association” for having the temerity to investigate ethics complaints against Arizona lawyers who participated in some of the utterly baseless lawsuits following the 2020 election: he hopes to intimidate the legal community into not denouncing and disciplining future blatant legal grifting by lawyers seeking to defend or justify the frauds of these coup-plotters, election deniers, and poltroons like Mark Finchem and Hennaed Hitler’s terrorist squad of conspiracists in Arizona.

Finally, the privilege (sp?) of introducing Trumplethinskin himself was given to his endorsed candidate for Arizona Governor, #CoupCoupKari Lake. Kari is a classic charismatic demagogue: she’s got a great charismatic presence, but no qualifications whatsoever beyond a knack for appealing to the unreason and prejudices of a populist rabble, has zero principles, and shows no concern for institutional or constitutional limits on governmental power. She is the horrifying future of the Republican Party on the course Herr Drumpfenfuhrer is plotting. She is the model monster of a modern major mountebank.

She led with a denunciation of a fictional version of Democratic ideas: defund the police, open borders, censorship (referring to private tech companies de-platforming lies, I presume), masking, Critical Race Theory (CRT), and killing babies (not sure if she’s just referring to abortion rights or she’s signaling QAnon adherents with this one…). Of course, those are not Democratic ideas or goals – they are the boogeymen ideas that the GOP uses to scare the crap out of their voters to drive them to the polls. Kari promised that she would be the momma bear that would “rip them to shreds” before she let the evil Democrats “get to our kids” who would never “cower to radical Marxists”. She vowed to resist “racist garbage” like CRT and wouldn’t allow any “anti-American brainwashing” of kids – by dictating what can be taught in our schools, a contradiction if ever there was one, and the excuse of every book-burning reactionary since Savonarola. Oddly, Kari did not raise her harebrained scheme to put body cameras on every teacher – maybe because even her GOP primary opponents pushed back on that trial balloon, but maybe that’s still a goal for her as there are bills to monitor teachers in the classroom running in the state legislature this session, I am told.

Next, she demonstrated her demagoguery, by promising to use state militarily and police to secure the border – and finish the wall -and vowed she would “not ask Biden’s permission to do it.” I probably need not point out that we no longer live under the Articles of Confederation, and matters of immigration, nationalization, border security, and foreign relations are explicitly and exclusively assigned to the Federal Government. But as GOP governors and state officials are widely flouting those constitutional facts to whip their base into a fine froth, it is worth noting, at least. Kari proclaimed she’s for “common sense, not communism”. By this, I gather she means she will not be limited by institutional or legal constraints on her office and will do whatever she wants in office, and will strawman and mischaracterize any opposition, even from Republicans. She declared that “we are being invaded”, which I believe is meant to signal and aligns with her party’s newest defense of taking immigration matters into their own hands under the utterly absurd pretext that our states are under armed attack, and thus justified in availing themselves of ‘self-defense’, much like their newest paragon Kyle Rittenhouse was engaged in ‘self-defense’? I point this out because she laid out exactly this theory claiming the 10th Amendment means that states don’t need permission to “defend our state” and that she would therefore arrogate the power to “arrest and deport” immigrants. Just another example of her utter recklessness and unwillingness to work within the structure of our federalist system.

She further vowed not to comply with any public health measures including any mandates for vaccination (not sure if she means specifically COVID vaccinations ONLY, or ANY and ALL vaccinations) or for non-pharmaceutical interventions like masking, restrictions or closure of public venues, and social distancing. Next, she called Dr. Anthony Fauci a “liar” and was met with the expected “Lock Him Up” chant.

She vowed to “send to prison” anyone involved with certifying the 2020 election which she deemed “fraudulent” and “rotten to the core” and that “everyone knows it”. She vowed she would “close the loopholes that let them cheat”, by which I presume she means ‘get more votes than us’. She finally crowed that she was “30% up in the polls” and would achieve victory over the “uni-party and swamp donors” – which I guess includes her Republican primary opponents. So now even her fellow Republicans are to be painted as socialists, I suppose, since she vows to “keep socialism out” of the state and her opponents are also members of the “uni-party”.

This is for the responsible and traditional conservatives out there, though I suspect that most already feel this way: Kari Lake is not just another far-right candidate of the Republican Party. She’s not just a Trumpy candidate. She’s a different sort of fish altogether: she’s a reckless, clueless, and disastrously unqualified rabble-rouser and demagogue of the first water. She IS Trump. (oh, the fingers, they burn!) As the Narcissist-in-Chief did to our federal government for 4 years, she would make Arizona’s government a war zone, a generator of chaos and uncertainty. She will discredit our state and make life here an unpredictable, chaotic reflection of her id.  If you want this state to be responsibly governed, and not become a theater of the absurd, you cannot select Kari Lake.

[Ed.: Hat tip to the internets in general for all the wonderful sobriquets for The Bigly Loser]