{"id":1061,"date":"2026-07-15T16:40:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2026-07-15T16:40:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:40:39","slug":"the-most-extreme-gop-candidate-in-the-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1061","title":{"rendered":"The Most Extreme GOP Candidate in the Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Marx<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

A version of the below article\u00a0first appeared\u00a0in David Corn\u2019s newsletter,\u00a0<\/em>Our Land.\u00a0The newsletter\u00a0comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month\u2014but you can\u00a0sign up for a free 30-day trial.<\/em><\/p>

Read more Nation\u2019s Biggest Public Utility Just Doubled Down on Coal, Gas, and Nuclear<\/a><\/p>\n

Before I get to<\/span> the most extreme Republican candidate\u2026<\/p>\n

By now you\u2019re probably sick of hearing about Graham Platner and the debacle in Maine. Last week, the allegation from a former girlfriend that he had once raped her\u2014a charge he denied\u2014ended the Senate campaign of this Marine vet and oysterman who had been embraced by some Democrats and progressives as the Great Blue-Collar Hope of the party. That credible accusation led to much debate over whether Platner\u2019s advocates had been wrong to stick with him through earlier scandals about his Nazi tattoo, extramarital sexting, assorted online remarks, and allegations that he had mistreated girlfriends, with some folks suggesting Platner had been cut slack because he was a white guy. Three hundred members of the Democratic Socialists of America angrily urged DSA candidates to cut ties with Morris Katz, a key consultant to Platner\u2019s campaign; New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a DSA member who has a close relationship with Katz.<\/p>\n

No one\u2019s asking me for advice. But with so much at stake in the coming midterms, such post-Platner squabbling is not useful. Donald Trump and the GOP have been implementing authoritarian measures, and American democracy is at risk. Democrats looking to counter this threat need to succeed in November. Those elections should be their sole focus\u2014be they DSAers or centrists. This truly is not the time for intraparty score-settling.<\/p>\n

Okay, one more thing about the Platner disaster. I hate to come across as an institutionalist, particularly when our political institutions, including the Democratic Party, are frequently failing to serve the best values of the nation. But there\u2019s often good reason for traditional practices.<\/p>\n

Platner was a political novice. As has been widely noted, he was not thoroughly vetted. I\u2019m not confident that a thorough investigation would have turned up what happened between him and an ex-girlfriend. Campaign vetting is hardly a magical operation that uncovers all. But had he run previously for lower offices, this and other past conduct might have become known.<\/p>\n

Seeking political office is damn hard, and candidates must contend with many challenges\u2014some real, some manufactured by opponents. It\u2019s generally good to develop experience as a politician. There\u2019s a reason why virtually all major league baseball players start in the minor leagues. That\u2019s where they learn the ropes. It\u2019s also where their potential can be scoped out and evaluated by coaches and fans.<\/p>\n

Platner parachuted into politics at a high level. Very few people can do this. (You-know-who did so, and that\u2019s been good for him and his cronies, but a disaster for the nation.) Pursuing a career in politics by moving up the ladder from one office to another is easily scorned. But it does repeatedly put candidates in front of the electorate and in a position to be poked, probed, and examined. Platner skipped all that. That was to his detriment and that of Maine voters.<\/p>\n

To be sure, there are people who can traipse into politics from other fields. And given how broken American politics have become, it\u2019s easy to be cynical about conventional candidates and hopeful about fresh-faced outsiders. But perhaps the lesson here is that experience and battle-testing ought not to be readily dismissed by those who justifiably yearn for political change.<\/p>\n

Now on to another disastrous but successful newbie politician who is perhaps the most extreme GOP candidate in this year\u2019s elections: Victor Marx, who last week won the Republican gubernatorial primary in Colorado in a highly competitive contest.<\/p>\n

Marx, a Christian fundamentalist, is a Marine vet who once worked as an assistant to James Dobson at Focus on the Family, a leading religious-right outfit. Dobson, who died last year, was one of the nation\u2019s most prominent opponents of LGBTQ rights and marriage equality. He called for women to be subservient to men in the home. He said that mass school shootings were God\u2019s vengeance for Americans\u2019 acceptance of abortion and homosexuality. You know, the whole megillah.<\/p>

Read more \u201cHuge Wave\u201d of Carbon Storage Projects Sets off Alarms in Rural Indiana<\/a><\/p>\n

Marx founded a nonprofit ministry called All Things Possible that says it mounts operations in \u201chigh-risk\u201d areas, such as war-torn nations, to rescue women and children. His campaign website claimed that his group had rescued more than 45,000 women, but that assertion proved not to be true and was removed. Marx blamed a campaign consultant for the supposed error.<\/p>\n

When Colorado reporter Kyle Clark in May pressed Marx on how many rescues his ministry had accomplished, Marx wouldn\u2019t share an estimate. He was also shifty when Clark asked him for details on the 130 missions he had previously said his group had run to rescue women and children, and he provided no specifics on these operations. He also wouldn\u2019t share any information to back up a previous claim that on one of his missions he called in an airstrike on ISIS.<\/p>\n

It was hard to watch Clark\u2019s interview with Marx and not conclude there has been a fair bit of BSing on Marx\u2019s part.<\/p>\n

And there are plenty of other suspicious elements within his biography. Marx says that when he was three years old, his stepfather forced him to behead a cat andwear the cat\u2019s carcass on his head. He also says that when he was seven, his stepfather made him shoot and kill a man. Not surprisingly, there\u2019s no proof of these awful stories.<\/p>\n

Beyond pitching (tall?) tales about his past, Marx promotes the concept of spiritual warfare, which holds that Satan is rather busy in the real world and responsible for the evils perceived by Christian fundamentalists, such as abortion and homosexuality. That means that anyone supporting reproductive rights or LGBTQ rights is in the clutches of the devil and that only believers in Jesus Christ (as Marx defines that belief) are on the right side. He produced a\u00a0movie\u00a0that declares \u201cspiritual warfare is real.\u201d Marx has repeatedly criticized Christian pastors across the country for being \u201ccowardly.\u201d Appearing on Charlie Kirk\u2019s podcast in 2022, he\u00a0complained\u00a0that \u201cin America, the Christian faith has been hijacked by\u2026woke\u2026or passive\u2026or liberal\u201d people.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more: Marx claims that demonic possession is real and that he has been able to remove demons from the possessed through prayer. In\u00a0a 2022 talk, he described how he had rescued a demon-possessed girl incarcerated in a juvenile prison. He purportedly did so after meeting with her in the prison\u2014encountering the demon who spoke through her and claimed to be Satan\u2014and later simply saying a short prayer for her. He didn\u2019t explain why it was essentially so easy to beat back this Satan-wannabe demon.<\/p>\n

Marx\u00a0asserts\u00a0that demonic possession can be caused by pornography or unmarried couples living together. In a 2023 Turning Point USA podcast, he noted that\u00a0he \u201chunts demons\u201d\u00a0and that his dog once identified a supernatural presence in a couple at a pool, and he subsequently freed the woman from \u201cfive demons that had been assigned to her.\u201d He has called himself\u2014jokingly, he says\u2014a \u201creluctant exorcist.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the primary campaign, Marx, who had not previously run for any office,\u00a0deliberately avoided offering specifics on policy matters, noting he\u2019d rather have voters adjust to his unorthodox background. He was endorsed by Rep. Lauren Boebert and Ted Nugent. He won the primary with 39 percent, besting state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer by 2,500 votes. Coming in third was Scott Bottoms, a state representative. Throughout the campaign, establishment Republicans criticized Marx, and some questioned whether he was a con man.<\/p>\n

A majority of Colorado Republicans did not back Marx. But this race shows that as Trump\u2019s approval ratings plummet, the GOP remains dominated by extremism and Christian fundamentalism. Marx is not the Republicans\u2019 Platner. But he\u2019s an inexperienced candidate with a sketchy past who believes most of the people he seeks to lead are being controlled by Lucifer. His primary victory is a reminder that Trump is far from the only dangerous influence within the GOP.<\/p>

Read more The Race to Stop AI\u2019s Threats to Democracy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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