Why a Threat to Pennsylvania Is a Threat to Us All

By David Corn  May 21, 2022

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary in Pennsylvania, at his election night party on May 17, 2022. Carolyn Kaster/AP

Here’s a perplexing question: how can we convince Americans that the nation is undergoing a democracy crisis that threatens the foundation of our constitutional order? Sure, the folks reading this newsletter get it—and probably several million beyond that. But for most of our fellow citizens, the fact that the United States is edging closer to authoritarian peril doesn’t truly register. Look at Rudy Giuliani, a guy who tried to disenfranchise millions of Americans in order to keep a narcissistic and devious autocrat-wannabe in power, yukking it up on The Masked Singer, as I complained about a few weeks ago. Clearly, mainstream America is not alarmed or put off by the malicious schemers trying to rob us of our democratic birthright.

This week we received another wake-up call, warning, or whatever you want to call it. Almost 600,000 Pennsylvanians voted for one of the nation’s more prominent reality-denying election conspiracists, state senator Doug Mastriano, who participated in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He crossed police lines and breached barricades. (There is no evidence he entered the building.) He also was a main player in the effort to overturn election results in the Keystone State so Dear Leader Donald Trump could retain power. He argued that the state legislature should throw out the legitimate vote count and designate pro-Trump electors for the Electoral College count. In other words, he wanted to mount a political coup.

Mastriano won the Republican gubernatorial primary, with 43 percent of the vote.

Oh, there’s this, too. This Trump-endorsed politician has promoted the crazy QAnon conspiracy theory that holds a global band of elites (including Hillary Clinton, of course) are sex-traffickers and baby-eaters who are trying to control the entire world and Trump is engaged in a titanic behind-the-scenes battle to thwart their evil designs. Media Matters discovered that his Twitter account contained numerous tweets promoting QAnon. (Most were deleted after the group posted an article about this.) He’s also an anti-vaxxer who has flirted with Christian nationalism. Put simply, a far-right kook and extremist.

And nearly half of Republicans want him to run their state.

There’s one particular reason why a Governor Mastriano would be especially dangerous. In Pennsylvania the chief executive directly appoints the secretary of state, the chief elections officer who must validate all election results. If a secretary of state refused to okay a tally, the cheese steak would really hit the fan. Clifford Levin, a Democratic election lawyer in Pennsylvania, told the Washington Post: “The biggest risk is a secretary of state just saying, ‘I’m not going to certify the election, despite what the court says and despite what the evidence shows, because I’m concerned about suspicions.’ You would start to have a breakdown in the legal system and the whole process.” Imagine if Trump (or any other Republican) loses Pennsylvania in 2024. Mastriano’s handpicked secretary of state could toss out the votes. And there are other devious steps Mastriano and this official could take, including decertifying returns from only certain areas. Like, say, Philadelphia. This one Big Lie-spouting whacko could control 20 Electoral College votes and perhaps determine the outcome of a presidential contest. He has demonstrated the will to do so.

The good news is that Josh Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, running unopposed, with 1.2 million votes—far more than Mastriano pulled in. But the total number of votes among the GOP candidates was 1.3 million. The state is evenly divided.

The possible election of a QAnonish extremist who seeks the right to cancel voters ought to scare folks far beyond the state’s borders. If he wins, the craziness that happens in Pennsylvania won’t stay in Pennsylvania. It could well affect the entire nation—especially if it lands Trump back in office.

Mastriano’s win reflects the alarming reality that about half of Republicans are delusional, Trump cultists, autocracy fans, or all of the above. His primary triumph is a sign that after Trump’s attempted coup and the January 6 riot, the GOP has grown even more extreme. Whether it’s calling for the most restrictive abortion bans (with no exceptions) or recklessly and falsely assailing the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court as a friend of pedophiles, the Republican Party these days is operating as if there are no guard rails. And it’s correct. There aren’t any. Neither Trump nor any of the party’s Trump-enabling leaders paid a price for January 6 or the Big Lie. That is certainly what Mastriano has proven. If they can get away with an attempt to grab power and subvert the Constitution, well, why not swing for the fences? Gilead, anyone? Hungary? Turkey?

If Mastriano’s win isn’t a break-glass moment, what is? I realize, we are hip-deep in broken glass. Trump has been shattering norms ever since that damn escalator ride. And there are plenty of other Trump-loving Republicans in office or seeking a position of power who pose threats, as well. But I must hand it to them: they’re not being all that sneaky about it. Mastriano’s views are in the open. He didn’t win despite being a detached-from-reality extremist. He won because of it.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

Are we sorry to see Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) defeated and booted out of Congress? He was good for copy, often appearing in this feature. He made things easy for me. What did Cawthorn say this week? Bingo—there’s the winner. Or at least a contender. But I am sure that he will wind up in a spot where uttering idiotic remarks is part of the job. I don’t suspect we’ve seen the last of him in this corner of Our Land.

This week, Cawthorn would have had a tough time beating out another perennial winner: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). In a campaign ad, the onetime QAnon fangirl casts herself as the victim of a Democratic crusade to destroy her, and she notes that the Democrats who are endeavoring to ruin her are controlled by—wait for it—communists. Now, who exactly are these communists? Greene is not afraid to name names. They are...George Soros, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Greene, in this ad, cites three of the most successful capitalists in human history. You might not be fond of them, but they’re certainly not commies. One made billions trading currency, another revolutionized the retail industry, and the third created a profit-hungry social media firm now worth about half a trillion dollars. This is about as dumb a campaign pitch as can be, and I wonder if Greene is this ignorant or if she just thinks her supporters are total numbskulls who will fall for this guff. “Let’s save America and stop communism,” she declares at the end of the ad. I’m not sure that overthrowing the likes of Soros, Bezos, and Zuckerberg will impede communism. In fact, it seems like something a communist would want to do.

Elon Musk was the runner-up this week and almost beat Greene. (That would take some doing.) In a tweet, the quarter-billion-dollar man proclaimed, “In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold...” He ended the tweet with a popcorn emoji. The retort here is obvious: Did the Democrats try to overturn an election and incite violent domestic terrorists to attack the US Capitol? (Talk about dirty tricks!) Did Trump and his GOP enablers increase kindness during his presidency? Is it kind to try to end health insurance for millions without providing an alternative, to block the expansion of Medicare for dental coverage, to prevent the implementation of paid family leave, to care more about your reelection than a pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, to recklessly and falsely tar the first Black woman appointed to the Supreme Court as soft on pedophilia? I could go on. But when Musk refers to kindness, he has none of this in mind. My hunch is that he’s thinking about how the libs treat him, and if he doesn’t feel the love from them, that’s what matters. For a fellow who claims to be a free speech absolutist, he has a rather thin skin.

The Mailbag

Many thanks for the positive feedback to the guest column in the last issue by Mark Follman, who shared the story from his new book, Trigger Point, of how the killing of John Lennon helped spur the effort to develop behavioral science that could be used to prevent horrendous acts of violence. Reader Karen Martin observed, “Thank you for bringing this information to our attention. I had no idea anything good resulted from such a tragic death.”

But David T. Bunker had an intriguing critique:

There is certainly a place for Dr. Shervert Frazier’s work identifying mental illness and violence. However, it is absolutely wrong to assume that the majority of killers are mentally ill. In the recent past, the NRA and conservatives have deflected calls for gun regulations by claiming gun violence is a ‘mental health’ issue and that should be the focus, not regulations. The American Psychology Association says this:

While perpetrating violence is relatively uncommon among those with serious mental illness, when it does occur, in many cases it is intertwined with other issues such as co-occurring substance use, adverse childhood experiences, and environmental factors, says Eric B. Elbogen, PhD, a psychologist and professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Duke University School of Medicine who studies violence and mental illness.

“If a person has a severe mental illness, [they] may have other risk factors for violent behavior,” he says. “So, it may not be mental illness that is driving the violence at all, but rather factors like having been abused as a child, being unemployed, or living in a high-crime neighborhood.”

It is important to learn about these issues not only to better treat these individuals and to aid their families and communities but to combat the misperception that most people with serious mental illness are violent, adds Jeffrey Swanson, PhD, a medical sociologist at the Duke University School of Medicine and a prominent researcher of the topic. For example, people often believe that people with mental illness are largely responsible for incidents of mass violence and that people with mental illness are responsible for a large share of community violence. Yet both views have been roundly debunked by research, says Swanson.

“We need to do some serious myth-busting around these ideas,” he says, “because people believe them, and they have real consequences.”

The “replacement theory” driven mass killers are not per se mentally ill. Instead they act like soldiers in a battle for the white soul of America. Hatred and mental illness must not be conflated.

David was citing an article on the APA’s website. I asked Mark for a response, and he replied.

It's important to note here that the experts doing this groundbreaking research eventually learned that mental illness was NOT the cause, or even a major factor in most mass shootings, as was initially thought. The argument that mental illness “pulls the trigger” is wrong, extensive case research shows, and I'll be writing more about this soon. The further history and case studies in Trigger Points also cover this ground extensively.

Tom Friedman had a question after reading the recent issue previewing the January 6 committee hearings slated to start next month:

I like your posts. They are always on point and represent, at least for me, the best in moderate journalism. Do you think that the hearings are about 60 days late and do you think that they will change any minds?

I’m not sure the hearings are late. It does take time to conduct a thorough investigation, especially when key witnesses refuse to cooperate. Still, the committee has interviewed hundreds of people and collected hundreds of thousands of pages of material. That’s a lot to process. The problem is that the Democrats have not been able to shape the narrative since January 6 to make this event—and the deterrence of any further authoritarian moves—a top national priority. How could that have been done? That’s a subject for another newsletter.

Michael Maxon emailed:

Just briefly, a great article about upcoming Jan 6 hearings.  If a person somehow hasn't been paying attention, this provides a nice little primer on what to look and perhaps hope for. 

Thanks, Michael. But as the lead item above shows, a lot of people do not want to pay attention to this. That’s the essence of the crisis.

MoxieCam™

“Did you really go outside without me?”

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

May 17, 2022: Special Book Excerpt: How John Lennon’s murder led to preventing mass shootings; and more.

May 14, 2022: The January 6 committee gets ready for prime time; Dumbass (and Disappointing) Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more

May 10, 2022: Can Joe Biden convince America the GOP is a threat?; Slow Horses gallop; an old new Brian Eno-John Cale tune; and more.

May 7, 2022: Imagine if elections were boring (guest column by James West); and more.

May 3, 2022: Reality and reality TV at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; the excessive glamour of WeCrashed; a reminder to watch The Survivor; and more.

April 30, 2022: Elon Musk and Twitter—what to worry about; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Russian Nuclear Annihilation Edition); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™ (an Impossible Burger commercial?); and more

April 26, 2022: Trump’s lust for revenge spreads through the GOP; The Batman mopes; the Peruvian origins of punk rock; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.