Time to Log Off is a weekly series documenting the many ways our political figures show their whole asses online.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the former NFL player-turned-MAGA candidate embarrassing himself in a vainglorious attempt to capitalize on his party’s violent zeitgeist and propel himself into elected office. No, not that one. I’m talking about one-time pro running back Jerone Davison, now a Republican congressional candidate in Arizona who has hopped aboard the Trump train with a new campaign ad all about murdering his political opponents.
Entitled “Make Rifles Great Again,” the 30-second spot is about as subtle as you’d expect from its name, opening with a shot of a person dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes with a Democratic Party donkey sewn on the front.
“Democrats like to say that no one needs an AR-15 for self-defense, that no one could possibly need all 30 rounds,” Davison intones over crisp shots of himself drinking coffee, and then walking around in suit and tie, carrying an enormous rifle. “But when this rifle is the only thing standing between your family and a dozen angry Democrats in Klan hoods, you just might need that semi-automatic ... and all 30 rounds.”
Now, beyond the obvious issues that come with painting the most infamous white nationalist movement in American history as a patched-in wing of the modern Democratic party — and then endorsing gun violence against them — Davison’s ad has a few other glaring (albeit slightly less, uh, murderous) issues. For instance, doesn’t explicitly enumerating “a dozen” attackers definitionally negate his previous assertion that you “need all 30 rounds”? Also, given that the ad’s “Democrats in Klan hoods” are largely carrying things like gardening tools and other melee weapons, meeting them with a military-grade assault rifle seems, if you’ll forgive the turn of phrase, like a bit of overkill?
Ordinarily, I would say that a piece of media depicting Ku Klux Klansmen getting their just desserts is a good and righteous thing. But when that piece of media twists a message of standing up against historical racial intolerance into essentially endorsing of the murder of your political adversaries — kind of a theme among the GOP these days! — well, that’s another thing altogether. Particularly, I should add, when it’s coming from someone whose campaign website wholeheartedly endorses the same “stolen election” lies that already prompted some of the worst political violence in the past century.
Davison is currently part of a crowded field of Republican candidates hoping to secure the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton in the fall. Before then, however, I can only hope he does us all a favor and logs directly and immediately off. Before someone gets hurt.
