Corey Stewart nearly became Virginia’s Republican nominee for governor, and now he’s gearing up a Senate run for 2018. At a recent get-out-the-vote rally for this year’s Republican ticket, Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy reports that Stewart showed off the Trump-like chops that got him more than 42 percent of the votes in the gubernatorial primary:
“The Democrats really fall into four basic categories: criminals, communists, crackheads, and weirdos,” Stewart said at the outset.
His examples included Sen. Tim Kaine’s son, who was arrested protesting at a pro-Trump rally in Minnesota; former Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry; and Democratic state House candidate Danica Roem, who is transgender. As you might imagine, he was all class:
“I don’t know if you’ve heard this, folks: The liberals, the left-wing lunatics, are erecting a statue to Marion Barry,” he said.
“Oh my god,” someone in the crowd said.
“On Pennsylvania Avenue—of Marion Berry,” Stewart continued. “A crackhead. So that’s who the Democrats honor: crackheads. Who do we honor? Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, James Madison, George Washington—all the great heroes.” Stewart referred to Lee, who is known mostly for an armed struggle against the US military, as a “US military veteran.”
It’s hard to say there’s even a thin veil on that racism, pivoting from disgust at a statue of a black longtime mayor who was caught smoking crack decades ago to defending statues of a general who led an army against the United States in the name of slavery.
While Ed Gillespie, who narrowly defeated Stewart in the primary for governor, wasn’t at the rally, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor was there—and Stewart lavished praise on his former opponent for taking the racist traitor side of the Confederate monuments fight. Gillespie didn’t need to get his hands dirty by showing up; Stewart did the work for him.
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