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Opinion: It won’t be long before extremists in the GOP make Trump look tame

Opinion: It won't be long before extremists in the GOP make Trump look tame

Thus far, his endorsements have had mixed results. His biggest victory took place in Ohio, where J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” shed any hopes of reinventing the Republican establishment of yore and went all in with Trumpism. He defeated Josh Mandel in the GOP primary and emerged as a shining example of what team Mar-a-Lago can deliver. In West Virginia, Trump’s pick Rep. Alex Mooney won the primary while in Nebraska, Charles Herbster, his favorite in the gubernatorial race, lost to Jim Pillen.

But now something unexpected is happening in Pennsylvania, where Trump endorsed the television doctor Mehmet Oz. The alliance seemed perfect; two TV stars teaming up to try to win a US Senate seat in one of the most critical swing states. Oz, who had the ability to attract more moderate voters due to name recognition and lack of political baggage, would also have the Trumpian wind behind his back.

But the plan is running into a problem. Kathy Barnette, a hard-right candidate who is one of seven contenders in the state’s Republican Senate primary, is polling right alongside Oz and former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick, despite a much smaller war chest.
Barnette, who has delved into the Trumpian political world view with relish, has made numerous anti-gay and anti-Muslim comments. In 2015, she said it was OK to discriminate against Muslims and compared rejecting Islam to “rejecting Hitler’s or Stalin’s worldviews.” She has also said, “Two men sleeping together, two men holding hands, two men caressing, that is not normal.”
Barnette has won the support of major conservative organizations such as the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group that sees in the Black conservative Republican a bright star for the party. When Barnette lost the race to represent Pennsylvania’s 4th district by 19 percentage points in 2020, she refused to concede, and still hasn’t. She used that loss to stoke baseless claims of voter fraud, gaining enough steam to attract figures on the right…

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