One candidate for a Massachusetts school board posted a selfie of himself among the mob of insurrectionists on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Another participant, who is running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, not only boasted about it on Facebook but also predicted a “coming Civil War,” saying she was willing to “fight and die” for both her “family” and “small businesses.” Another Virginia House candidate responded to Black critics of his presence at the insurrection by telling them to focus on “the needs of the colored community.” A city council candidate in Idaho described her experience at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show support for our country.”
On Tuesday, each of these candidates—Republicans all—won, as did four others who participated in the Jan. 6 events. As Christopher Mathias observes at HuffPost, these outcomes at the very least tell us that “one of the country’s major political parties, despite some initial gestures at being horrified by the events of Jan. 6, is almost completely unrepentant over its role in fomenting the historic attack on the Capitol.”
More than that, it demonstrates that the right-wing campaign of baldfaced gaslighting about those events—claiming the mob simply behaved like “tourists,” and that the whole affair was just, in the words of gaslighter-in-chief Tucker Carlson, a political protest that “got out of hand”—seems to have largely succeeded with the voting public.
Before the election, BuzzFeed compiled a list of 13 candidates for various levels of elected public office around the nation who had been present at the Jan. 6 events. A total of eight of them won their elections Tuesday while four were defeated, including Edward Durfee, the Oath Keepers member who was seen communicating with team members who later assaulted the Capitol, and who lost his race for a state assembly seat in New Jersey.
Some of these candidates were at least modestly repentant about the Capitol siege, but most of them simply downplayed the severity of the destruction that occurred and abjured any culpability for having helped inflame it. Charles Ausburger, running for reelection to the Mansfield, Connecticut, town council, blamed the Jan. 6 violence on a “very small group of people” who “had to go and ruin a nice day.” (Ausburger won his race, though he only finished eighth out of nine candidates.)
“Our group was shocked, outraged, and frankly scared, when it became apparent that a group of thugs were using the rally as a pretense to attack the U.S. Capitol,” explained Susan Soloway, who is seeking reelection to a county commission in New Jersey after she had posted a selfie at the Capitol that day. She later decried criticism of her presence at the Capitol as an “attack on all Americans.” (Soloway won handily on Tuesday.)
John McGuire’s selfie from Jan. 6, near the police barricades.
Virginia House candidate John McGuire—who at one time posed for a photo with a paramilitary outfit—claimed that he had just gone home after Stop the Steal and was “shocked and horrified” that people had gone into the Capitol afterward—though in fact photos collected by Sedition Hunters showed him near police barricades as they were being attacked by the mob. (McGuire won his race handily Tuesday.)
Others were relatively unrepentant, and blamed the violence on “antifa” and “paid provocateurs,” like Virginia House Delegate Dave LaRock. When Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall—the first person of color to be elected chair of any county board in Virginia—and District Supervisor Juli Briskman (also known as the cyclist who flipped off Trump’s motorcade) announced plans for a resolution calling for LaRock’s resignation, he responded: “Rather than focusing on the business of Loudoun County and the needs of the colored community, they are wasting their time and taxpayer resources to attack me.” (LaRock won reelection handily on Tuesday.)
Marie March, who penned a manifesto about a ‘coming civil war’ after attending the Jan. 6 events, campaigned for the Virginia House with GOP gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin, who also won Tuesday.
Another Virginia House candidate—Marie March, with whom gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin campaigned—boasted in a campaign ad about her attendance at the Stop the Steal rally. In a since-deleted lengthy Facebook post that read more like a manifesto about a “coming Civil War,” she mused: “Will this coming War be us killing each other in order to reset this country? … I will personally fight and die for family. I will also die for my small businesses, because I have dedicated my life to them.” (March won her race on Tuesday.)
Matthew Lynch’s Jan. 6 selfie.
Then there was Matthew Lynch, a former schoolteacher in Braintree, Massachusetts, who resigned his position after his presence among the rioters was exposed thanks to a selfie he took among the crowd that day. Lynch, who says he was visited twice by the FBI afterwards, ran aggressively for the Braintree school board on a culture war agenda focused on “critical race theory,” and accused the people who shared the picture and FBI information of "slandering [him] as a domestic terrorist." He also called the group a "digital lynch mob" who "decided they would take 'justice' into their own hands." (Lynch also won election on Tuesday.)
As Mathias notes, these are not the only insurrectionists seeking office: A number of local and state officials—57 in all, according to his earlier reporting—will be up for reelection in 2022. These include notorious figures such as Pennsylvania legislator Doug Mastriano, who was seen with the crowd dismantling police barricades but appears unlikely to face any political consequences for his actions.
If all the excuses being trotted out by these candidates sound familiar, they should: They’re the same mendacious rationalizations concocted by the right-wing gaslighting brigade that swung into action immediately after Jan. 6. At this point, it’s hard to tell who is echoing whom. But it doesn’t matter, because their work is done.
On Tuesday, each of these candidates—Republicans all—won, as did four others who participated in the Jan. 6 events. As Christopher Mathias observes at HuffPost, these outcomes at the very least tell us that “one of the country’s major political parties, despite some initial gestures at being horrified by the events of Jan. 6, is almost completely unrepentant over its role in fomenting the historic attack on the Capitol.”
More than that, it demonstrates that the right-wing campaign of baldfaced gaslighting about those events—claiming the mob simply behaved like “tourists,” and that the whole affair was just, in the words of gaslighter-in-chief Tucker Carlson, a political protest that “got out of hand”—seems to have largely succeeded with the voting public.
Before the election, BuzzFeed compiled a list of 13 candidates for various levels of elected public office around the nation who had been present at the Jan. 6 events. A total of eight of them won their elections Tuesday while four were defeated, including Edward Durfee, the Oath Keepers member who was seen communicating with team members who later assaulted the Capitol, and who lost his race for a state assembly seat in New Jersey.
Some of these candidates were at least modestly repentant about the Capitol siege, but most of them simply downplayed the severity of the destruction that occurred and abjured any culpability for having helped inflame it. Charles Ausburger, running for reelection to the Mansfield, Connecticut, town council, blamed the Jan. 6 violence on a “very small group of people” who “had to go and ruin a nice day.” (Ausburger won his race, though he only finished eighth out of nine candidates.)
“Our group was shocked, outraged, and frankly scared, when it became apparent that a group of thugs were using the rally as a pretense to attack the U.S. Capitol,” explained Susan Soloway, who is seeking reelection to a county commission in New Jersey after she had posted a selfie at the Capitol that day. She later decried criticism of her presence at the Capitol as an “attack on all Americans.” (Soloway won handily on Tuesday.)
John McGuire’s selfie from Jan. 6, near the police barricades.
Virginia House candidate John McGuire—who at one time posed for a photo with a paramilitary outfit—claimed that he had just gone home after Stop the Steal and was “shocked and horrified” that people had gone into the Capitol afterward—though in fact photos collected by Sedition Hunters showed him near police barricades as they were being attacked by the mob. (McGuire won his race handily Tuesday.)
Others were relatively unrepentant, and blamed the violence on “antifa” and “paid provocateurs,” like Virginia House Delegate Dave LaRock. When Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall—the first person of color to be elected chair of any county board in Virginia—and District Supervisor Juli Briskman (also known as the cyclist who flipped off Trump’s motorcade) announced plans for a resolution calling for LaRock’s resignation, he responded: “Rather than focusing on the business of Loudoun County and the needs of the colored community, they are wasting their time and taxpayer resources to attack me.” (LaRock won reelection handily on Tuesday.)
Marie March, who penned a manifesto about a ‘coming civil war’ after attending the Jan. 6 events, campaigned for the Virginia House with GOP gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin, who also won Tuesday.
Another Virginia House candidate—Marie March, with whom gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin campaigned—boasted in a campaign ad about her attendance at the Stop the Steal rally. In a since-deleted lengthy Facebook post that read more like a manifesto about a “coming Civil War,” she mused: “Will this coming War be us killing each other in order to reset this country? … I will personally fight and die for family. I will also die for my small businesses, because I have dedicated my life to them.” (March won her race on Tuesday.)
Matthew Lynch’s Jan. 6 selfie.
Then there was Matthew Lynch, a former schoolteacher in Braintree, Massachusetts, who resigned his position after his presence among the rioters was exposed thanks to a selfie he took among the crowd that day. Lynch, who says he was visited twice by the FBI afterwards, ran aggressively for the Braintree school board on a culture war agenda focused on “critical race theory,” and accused the people who shared the picture and FBI information of "slandering [him] as a domestic terrorist." He also called the group a "digital lynch mob" who "decided they would take 'justice' into their own hands." (Lynch also won election on Tuesday.)
As Mathias notes, these are not the only insurrectionists seeking office: A number of local and state officials—57 in all, according to his earlier reporting—will be up for reelection in 2022. These include notorious figures such as Pennsylvania legislator Doug Mastriano, who was seen with the crowd dismantling police barricades but appears unlikely to face any political consequences for his actions.
If all the excuses being trotted out by these candidates sound familiar, they should: They’re the same mendacious rationalizations concocted by the right-wing gaslighting brigade that swung into action immediately after Jan. 6. At this point, it’s hard to tell who is echoing whom. But it doesn’t matter, because their work is done.