Republicans sure have a knack for choosing the worst possible candidates, don’t they? Sketchy, unqualified, criminal, corrupt, clueless, dog-murdery, gropey. Pick any off-putting adjective and it surely applies.
As the lengthy George Santos saga—and the disastrous campaigns of folks like Herschel Walker—taught us, Republicans have been parading a freaky phalanx of jowly nude emperors in front of our astonished eyes and daring us to call them out.
So … call them out we will.
The latest gobsmacking GOP vetting failure involves Royce White, the Minnesota Republican Party’s official endorsee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Amy Klobuchar. White was handpicked by notorious conservative chaos agent/mulch golem Steve Bannon, so red flags should have been flying from the outset. But it’s what The Daily Beast recently uncovered about White’s 2022 House campaign that should really give voters pause.
White’s campaign filings … seem to have gone overlooked for years as the outsider candidate fashioned a second insurgent bid for 2024. Today, White—star athlete, conspiracy theorist, activist, and purveyor of antisemitism—is one of several GOP hopefuls vying for Senate in Minnesota, where this week, the state Republican Party unexpectedly endorsed him in a landslide.
Uh-huh. Of course they did. He had them at “purveyor of antisemitism.” But maybe they should have looked into his background a bit further, because there’s more to see. A lot more, it turns out.
The Daily Beast reviewed White’s 2022 primary campaign reports and found numerous items that boggled legal experts. The unusual expenses include a total of more than $100,000 in mysterious wire transfers and checks reported as paid to the campaign; hefty tabs at spicy nightspots; getaways at posh hotels in at least seven states; thousands of dollars in limousine services; unexplained cash withdrawals; eye-popping purchases from electronics, sporting goods, clothing, and musical instrument retailers; and the DribbleUp smart basketball training app that White himself admitted might be personal use.
The Daily Beast story goes into meticulous detail about the sketchy campaign filings, and the particulars are truly jaw-dropping. On one occasion, White’s campaign spent more than $1,200 in donor funds at the Miami strip club Gold Rush Cabaret. (To be clear, White was running for Congress in Minnesota, not Florida. And few campaign finance experts would categorize lap dances as voter outreach.)
Even more suspiciously, White’s campaign spent the donor money a week after he’d lost the Republican primary. Meanwhile, he apparently spent another $1,060 in campaign money on a limo and car service related to the excursion.
The campaign also reportedly spent tens of thousands on “luxury lodging, car service, airline tickets, meals, and other costs across half a dozen states”—all after White had already lost. Then there were the “$100,000 in outgoing wire transfers and checks with no stated recipient or purpose,” which that have raised eyebrows among several campaign finance experts.
“In nearly a decade of reviewing FEC disclosures, I’ve never seen a mess quite like White’s disbursements,” Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Inc. told The Daily Beast.
“Misusing campaign funds can be a serious criminal offense—many politicians have gone to jail for diverting donor funds to personal expenses,” Brendan Fischer, a specialist in campaign finance law and the deputy executive director of Documented, added. “A close read suggests an incredibly long list of illegal expenditures.”
Well, the Federal Election Commissino better look into this tout de suite, because if Trump is elected president, White will surely get a pass—and perhaps a strip club per diem drawn directly from the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Of course, while White isn’t the nominee yet, he appears to have captured the black, bloodless heart of today’s funhouse mirror GOP. According to The Daily Beast, White is a “right-wing Steve Bannon protege” who’s been criticized for making antisemitic remarks, advancing conspiracy theories, and—with Walker-like aplomb—somehow managing to be against abortion while standing accused of paying women to terminate their pregnancies.
And speaking of women, did you know they’ve become far too “mouthy” these days? If not, you’re clearly not plugged into the current right-wing zeitgeist.
As Michelle Goldberg wrote in The New York Times:
By 2023, White was not just appearing on [Alex] Jones’s show but also guest-hosting it. Bannon, Trump’s first chief strategist, had become a mentor to him, delighting in his unvarnished machismo. “Women have become too mouthy,” White said on Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. “As the Black man in the room, I’ll say that.” Elsewhere, White denounced the “Jewish lobby” and the “Jewish elite” and called Israel “the linchpin of the new world order.” He described the L.G.B.T.Q. movement as “Luciferian” and wrote that it’s “the brainchild of radical feminists and their cucked men.” In 2020 he wrote in Tulsi Gabbard, then a Democratic congresswoman, for president, but is now fully behind Trump.
In other words: “Shut up, lady. You’re gonna carry that fetus to term. Or not carry it to term … depending on how I feel at any given moment … and whether that baby is mine or someone else’s. Because I’m staunchly pro-choice, so long as a man is doing the choosing.”
Okay, he didn’t literally say that, but that’s the gist. Somehow, it seems like a difficult sell in blue Minnesota during the current post-Dobbs climate.
Of course, the Minnesota Senate primary is scheduled for Aug. 13, so there’s still plenty of time for GOP voters to reject him or for the state party to reverse course, but knowing today’s Republicans, they might see his potential lawbreaking—and his über-regressive attitudes—as a plus.
After all, Republicans are running the most corrupt, sketchy, dishonest, conspiracy-minded, and (allegedly!) criminal presidential candidate in history, and the vast majority of the party still looks up to him. So why shouldn’t scoundrels everywhere try to get in on the action?
At the same time, as characters like Santos and Walker have shown, Republican officials appear to be doing very little vetting of these Trump wannabes. Or maybe they just think character issues no longer matter at all—which would mark a stunning about-face for the supposed party of “family values.”
Sadly, White is yet another glaring symptom of a thoroughly corrupt and out-of-control party. And the only real remedy is voting against these candidates—including Trump—in overwhelming numbers. It’s the only way to send a message and begin to right the ship.
As progressives, we have our work cut out for us, and and GOTV and fundraising efforts will be more important this election cycle than ever. But Republicans sure seem to be helping our case that the other side can’t be trusted.
Hopefully, the electorate as a whole will take a long look at what’s right in front of their eyes … before it’s far too late.
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We’re heading across the pond for this week’s episode of “The Downballot” after the UK just announced it would hold snap elections—on July 4, no less. Co-host David Beard gives us Yanks a full run-down, including how the elections will work, what the polls are predicting, and what Labour plans to do if it finally ends 14 years of Conservative rule. We also take detours into Scotland and Rwanda (believe it or not) and bear down on a small far-right party that could cost the Tories dearly.
