Republican political candidates have been brandishing their guns with such regularity in campaign ads during this primary season that it’s almost become unremarkable. But two such recent ads from Eric Greitens, the leading Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri, have managed to cause widespread shock for the way they blatantly call for violence in politics.
In his ads, Greitens openly calls for right-wing vigilante violence against moderate Republicans and the political establishment, and has little else to say about policy or ideology. They showcase how some anti-establishment Republicans see straightforward calls for authoritarian violence as a political lane unto itself.
Greitens is no stranger to controversy. In 2018, just a little more than a year after he became the governor of Missouri, he resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct and charges of campaign finance impropriety. And this spring he was accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife. Nonetheless, he’s been the front-runner in the Republican primary for Senate. And against that backdrop, he’s chosen in the past few weeks to dive headlong even further into controversy.
In the first ad, released in late June, Greitens depicts himself breaking into a house with a group of men wearing camouflage fatigues as they go “RINO hunting.”(RINO is an acronym for Republican in Name Only, and is used pejoratively against Republicans deemed too moderate.)
“Get a RINO hunting permit. There's no bagging limit, no tagging limit and it doesn't expire until we save our country,” Greitens says to the camera.
The ad was such an explicit call to violence that Facebook removed it and Twitter restricted engagement with the video and appended a notice to it saying that even though it violated Twitter’s rules on abusive content, it was keeping the ad up because it was “in the public’s interest.”
In the second ad, released this week, Greitens turns his sights on the political establishment. He promises to “take dead aim at politics as usual” before shooting an assault rifle at a target in a grassy field, which isn’t visible but appears to produce a fiery explosion.
“Because I fought for you, they came after me,” he says to the camera. “We’re back … this time, with an army of patriots.” After he says this three men dressed in camouflage fatigues, who had been hiding in the grass, rise behind him.
Notably, in both videos Greitens declines to mention his governorship and identifies himself as a Navy SEAL in the present tense — even though he served as a SEAL many years ago.
It should go without saying that this is all appalling, and in a healthy democracy this mode of rhetoric would be considered disqualifying. Greitens could not communicate more plainly that he is militantly hostile toward his political opponents and believes that violence should play a meaningful role in our mainstream political life.
But what may be even more striking is that Greitens doesn’t seem to have much else to say other than calling for people to be shot. In contrast to the usual Republican campaign ads in which candidates talk about guns alongside other conservative ideas (“I believe in Jesus, guns and babies” is one Georgia gubernatorial candidate’s memorable summary), Greitens doesn’t bring up any other hot-button issues like, say, immgration or abortion, in either ad. He doesn’t even mention support for gun ownership. His sole message is one of militant opposition to opponents.
In a rare moment of specificity, Greitens does call for his fellow “RINO hunters” to “join the MAGA crew.” Yet he only seems interested in the violent aspect of Trumpian political tendencies.
Greitens has received some Republican criticism for his ads, but not widespread condemnation. And while some establishment Republican operatives have backed a super PAC to attack his candidacy, their calculation seems to be fueled by concern over his vulnerability to loss in a general election contest rather than a repudiation of his calls for violence. That’s a shame, because as political scientists have made clear, allowing these kinds of messages to become normalized is terribly dangerous for our political future.
