Meet Corey Stewart. He just secured the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Virginia and will face off against U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, the Democrat currently representing the state of Virginia. To illustrate just how much racism Virginia’s primary voting Republicans are apparently willing to endure, let’s take a look at Corey Stewart’s recent history.
For starters, the Minnesota native made preserving “his” heritage a central theme. He’s held numerous events with the Confederate flag behind him and turned up to “protect” monuments dedicated to the defeated Confederates like Robert E. Lee. To show you just how far this lunatic goes, here he is with people in period costumes, Confederate flags adorning the room as he talks about “his” heritage. This man is better suited running for the Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan than the United States Senate.
To be clear, Corey Stewart was born and raised in Minnesota. He attended college and law school in Minnesota and then moved to Virginia. As the Minneapolis City Pages noted, he’s a Yankee by birth and a Confederate by choice.
Stewart has also teamed up with Jason Kessler, one of the organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where counter-protester Heather Heyer was murdered. Prior to that rally, Kessler and Stewart united to try and remove Charlottesville City Councilmen Will Bellamy, who is also the city’s first black vice mayor, from office because of his push to remove the offensive Confederate monuments to white supremacy from public spaces.
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
With Stewart by his side, Kessler delivered petition signatures Thursday to the local courthouse in an attempt to have a judge kick Bellamy off the City Council.
“He and his ilk have targeted all the Founding Fathers, philosophers, artists and other leaders of our glorious Western civilization for abuse and smears,” Kessler said of Bellamy. The Lee statue, he said, is a cultural artifact of “ethnic significance to Southern white people.”
Kessler has claimed he’s not a white nationalist, but in the same breath, Stewart’s pal said this:
“I do think that the Democrats are explicitly trying to flood white countries with nonwhite people,” Kessler said.
If the racism weren’t enough, Stewart has also embraced a number of right-wing conspiracies, conspiracies that, of course, have racist foundations. From Right Wing Watch:
In addition to his ties to explicit racists, Stewart keeps company with rampant conspiracy theorists, including Paul Begley. Yesterday, Stewart spent extended time with a “Pizzagate” proliferator, Jack Posobiec, who was once removed from a Washington pizzeria for filming a child’s birthday party as part of his “investigation” into the conspiracy theory. Yesterday, Posobiec interviewed Stewart for his employer One America News and gave a speech at Stewart’s election night party during which he called Stewart’s ties to white nationalists that had been unearthed by reporters “smears” and “lies.”
Corey Stewart was also Trump’s former Virginia campaign chairman. That is, until he was fired for protesting against Reince Preibus at the Republican National Committee headquarters during the heat of the 2016 primary battles. Preibus was hesitant to endorse Trump and Stewart was mounting an insurrection against “establishment” Republicans trying to force them to get on the Trump train.
Although Donald Trump may have fired him back then, he can’t get enough of his racist buddy now. He took to Twitter to support his good ol’ boy back in Virginia.
All told, Republicans nationwide (not named Donald Trump) had to be watching aghast as Virginia Republican primary voters went into the voting booth and made Stewart their nominee for U.S. Senate. Sen. Corey Gardner, who heads the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC), the organization responsible for doling out money to Republican candidates, was asked about Stewart securing the nomination and he literally and figuratively ran away from Stewart.
Until Republicans find their backbones and take back their party from racists and conspiracy theorists, all the way up to Donald Trump, they will continue to lead the entire country down this rat hole. After all, the fish rots from the head. They can give sensible but meaningless speeches on the Senate floor about civility. They can offer bland, meaningless speeches back home about being independent and working for the voters of their states, but until they stand up to Donald Trump and truly start acting as the check they were intended to be, Corey Stewart and Donald Trump are the face of their party, whether they like it or not.