fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Thuggery in Montana

Where did Greg Gianforte think he was -- the Turkish embassy?
shutterstock_638115196

Josh Barro says what needs to be said about Montana congressional candidate Greg Gianforte’s assault on a reporter — or, more specifically, the reaction:

Republicans used to claim to favor the rule of law.

Yet what happened when a Republican candidate for Congress in Montana was accused of body-slamming a reporter and cited for misdemeanor assault?

The conservative commentator Laura Ingraham wanted to know why he went crying to the police.

“Did anyone get his lunch money stolen today and then run to tell the recess monitor?” she tweeted.

Of course, this is what the police are for: They investigate crimes and enforce laws, so we don’t have to get into physical altercations with Republican candidates who really don’t want to discuss the Congressional Budget Office’s score for the Republican healthcare bill.

Calling the police when a man grabs you by the throat and slams you to the floor, as witnesses have described — while you and he are both at work and he is a candidate for Congress — is what an adult does in a civilized society.

Yet, as Kevin Glass notes, “conservatives” in the Trump era tend to think not like adults, but high-school boys, vaunting the sort of ideal of masculinity that might be imagined by a socially maladjusted 15-year-old and tolerating in our political leaders the sort of behavior that a guidance counselor would never accept.

Republicans are a party that now celebrates the bully who steals lunch money because, hey, at least he’s not the nerd who gets his lunch money stolen.

All I’ll add is that I’m starting to seriously wonder whether what we need in politics is a better class of wrestler.

Advertisement

Comments

Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here