Post-Donald Trump’s presidency, the party isn’t post-Trump at all.
“If you leave the press area, you will be physically removed,” your correspondent is admonished by a campaign worker as he enters an American Legion hall in the town of Easton, Pennsylvania. Trips to the toilet and to get water are permissible with an escort. Some 200 people are assembled—many sporting red “Make America Great Again” caps, one proudly wearing a shirt saying “ultra maga”. They are all here for Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in the state, and perhaps the most extreme candidate for governor running in this election cycle.
Mr Mastriano, a former army colonel and current state senator, did not just believe that the presidential election of 2020 was stolen from Donald Trump because of voter fraud. He bused dozens of stop-the-steal enthusiasts to the president’s rally in Washington, dc, on January 6th 2021. He was photographed at the Capitol before it was overrun by Trump supporters (though he maintains that he did not enter). And he has appeared at conferences affiliated with qAnon, a far-right conspiracy mythos.
“We are the seed of the nation, we are the holy experiment,” Mr Mastriano says at his rally, where he pledges that, on day one, he will ban critical race theory in schools, mandatory covid jabs and any form of “gender transition for minors”. The lost status of Christianity is a recurring theme. “We’ve seen now it’s open season, you can mock Christians for their faith and it’s not a problem. What other faiths are doing you can’t touch,” he says. Campaign posters at the event include a quotation from John 8:36: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
Mr Shapiro’s conviction that Mr Mastriano was so cataclysmically unfit for office also led him to conclude that he would be the easiest opponent. He spent an estimated $855,000 on advertisements to boost Mr Mastriano’s chances during the Republican primary—more than double what Mr Mastriano spent on his own ads. Even though Democrats claim that the risks are existential, they were willing to make rather risky bets.