Welcome to the 765th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing former South Dakota State Senator Neal Tapio, who was first elected in 2016 while running unopposed while simultaneously running the Donald Trump campaign’s operations in South Dakota. He made a name for himself by criticizing higher-ranking Republicans like Sen. John Thune and Gov. Dennis Daugaard for “inadequately supporting Donald Trump” and doing his damnedest to connect violent extremism and Islam in the public eye. Tapio thought that he had all the momentum in the world to seek higher office in 2018, and wanted to move into the void created by Kevin Cramer abandoning his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for South Dakota’s “At Large” district to make a run for Senate. And thus, with his dedication to Donald Trump and hatred of Islam being the bedrock of his political profile, Tapio apparently thought, “How can I further act like a white nationalist?” That would be the only explanation we could come up with why in South Dakota of all places, that Tapio would call for the abolition of Native American reservations, and start blaming crime rates in South Dakota on Native Americans.
Seriously, it’s the South Dakota equivalent of the Trump strategy, save for the lack of an escalator, and instead of “Mexicans are rapists”, it was, “Native Americans cause crime”.
During the 2018 campaign, while serving in the South Dakota State Senate, Neal Tapio continued to further his anti-Muslim rhetoric, defending not just the Trump administration’s attempt to ban all Muslims from traveling to the United States, but to call for any refugees from the Middle East to be blocked from resettling within South Dakota. By January of 2018, Tapio went full bore bigot, screaming at a planned interfaith gathering in the state capitol as it went on:
“I don’t like being called a racist. If you don’t have the freedom to leave a religion, is there a freedom of religion? …That’s the question we have to asks ourselves as a state. When 14 Islamic countries kill you for leaving Islam, don’t you think we would want to keep those people out?”
Only ten days later, Tapio was straightaway arguing that the freedom of religion protected for Americans by the First Amendment of the Constitution did not apply to Muslims. And, all the while, Tapio was attacking the media for “unfairly” making bigoted or Islamophobic remarks.
Thankfully, Tapio was still trailing in the GOP Primary to become the next Congressman from South Dakota, but what made sure he wouldn’t mount a last minute surge was when audio emerged of him wistfully hoping for a terrorist attack to help his chances:
“There will be one more terrorist attack between now and then and I will be the, just by the Trump effect, I will be the candidate.”
Further audio also revealed that Tapio thought of certain portions of the U.S. military stationed in the Middle East as “mercenaries for Saudi Arabia”:
”We both agree that we wouldn’t want our kids to serve in the military even with Trump as president. You just are giving up your life to be mercenaries for Saudi Arabia”.
Neal Tapio ended up finishing third out of three candidates, netting just 22% of the vote in the 2018 GOP Primary for South Dakota’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and is now out of office entirely. We can only hope that this intolerant douche-canoe losing $300,000 that he self-funded his campaign on is a permanent setback for all his political ambitions.
One Year Ago, July 9th, 2018: Luther Strange (AL)
Two Years Ago, July 9th, 2017: Mick Mulvaney (SC)… 2017 Update
Three Years Ago, July 9th, 2016: Mick Mulvaney (SC)… Original Profile
Four Years Ago, July 9th, 2015: Randy Terrill (OK)