“There is violence in the future, I’ll tell you,” Kinzinger told ABC’s This Week. “And until we start telling people the truth, we can’t expect anything else.” Less than 24 hours later, Eric Grittens, the leading contender for the Republican Senate nomination in Missouri, released a new video depicting RINO hunters (Republicans by name only).
“I’m Eric Greitens, a sea seal, and we’re going hunting at RINO today,” Greytens said as he walked down the sidewalk with a pistol in his hand.
The video goes to a house where Greitens, surrounded by what looks like a tactical unit, waits by the door. “RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by streaks of cowardice,” Greytens said. The appliance breaks down the door and throws something that looks like a smoke grenade. Gretens walks through the door. “Join the MAGA team,” he says. “Get a hunting license from RINO. There is no baggage limit, no marking limit and it doesn’t expire until we save our country. “
Um, what? Like, what the hell?!?
Two observations:
1) Given the highly controversial nature of our political climate – not to mention the recent mass shooting at a school in Uwalde, Texas – is it really wise to post a video showing the house of a political opponent stormed by people with big guns?
2) The inherent message in the Greitens video is that it is perfectly normal for gunmen to storm a private home because the person who lives there disagrees with your views on politics and politics. Sit with this one for a minute.
Remarkably, this is not a video posted by some marginal candidate who has no chance of winning and desperately wants attention. Exactly the opposite. Greytens is considered one of the best candidates in the Missouri Senate GOP before the August 2 primary. Greytens resigned as governor of the state in 2018 after a series of ethical omissions and accusations of sexual misconduct. He pleaded not guilty to any legal offenses and the criminal charges against him were dropped. While Donald Trump has not yet offered any approval in the race, Politico announced earlier this year that the former president loves Graytens. Other candidates vying for the Republican Senate nomination in Missouri include Vicki Harzler and Billy Long and Attorney General Eric Schmidt.
What would prompt Greitens to publish a video that is irresponsible at best and dangerous at worst? Because he believes it will work.
And by “work” I mean two things:
1) This will draw a huge amount of attention – negative or positive – to his campaign. Within three hours of its post on Twitter, the video has already garnered more than 1 million views. Facebook was quick to remove Monday’s video “for violating our policies to ban violence and incitement,” according to Meta spokesman Andy Stone. Twitter labeled the Greitens post, saying it violated the rules of the social media platform, but that “it may be in the public interest to keep the tweet available,” CNN’s Donnie O’Sullivan said.
2) The negative attention that Greytens receives for the video will be used by the candidate as a positive proof for the Republican base that the Democrats and the media are afraid of him and his candidacy. I would be surprised if it took the Greitens team more than 24 hours to turn the negative reaction of the video into a fundraising call.
Which shows how fundamentally broken our political system is. It shouldn’t be a party debate that a video like the one Greytens posted on Monday is beyond pale. But unfortunately that’s exactly what it is.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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