In his endorsement of the Republican candidate for Ohio’s ninth congressional district, Donald Trump was unequivocal.
“JR Majewski will be a fantastic congressman,” Trump said. “He has my complete and total endorsement.”
Left unsaid was Majewski’s extremist recent history – as a proponent of the QAnon conspiracy myth, a participant in the January 6 insurrection, and someone who has called for Republican states to secede from the United States.
Majewski will face Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat who has been in the House since 1983, in November’s midterm elections.
This is no quixotic campaign, however. The ninth district has been redrawn for 2022, and is now rated as a toss-up by the Cook political report, ahead of elections in which Republicans are increasingly hopeful of winning the House and the Senate. If that happens, Joe Biden will face extreme difficulty in passing any meaningful legislation for the rest of his first term.
That would be concerning enough for liberals, but the increase in the extremism of the Republican party presents another, equally pressing, issue. If Majewski wins, he would become the third Republican representative to have supported QAnon, but away from that he would join a party just as beholden to the myth that the 2020 election was stolen.
That big lie, which has proved essential to winning the support of Trump, has formed a central part of Majewski’s campaign.
Majewski, 43, spent four years in the air force before leaving to join the nuclear energy industry, and has said he would push for energy independence in Congress. Beyond that, it is hard to know exactly what Majewski wants to achieve. The “issues” section of his campaign website is specific-lite, focusing instead on stock phrases including “I will support our troops” and straw man discussion of “communist propaganda”.
“We need a leader, not a politician. Someone who can unify our communities and champion an effort to make both Ohio, and America great again. I am that someone,” reads a bold print quote on the website.
Majewski might be vague about his goals, but his recent past makes clear that he will not be the most sober of representatives.
In 2021 he recorded a rap song, with two fellow Trump supporters, called Let’s Go Brandon (an anti-Biden catchphrase), and before that Majewski rose to fame, of a sort, during the Trump-Biden presidential campaign, when he painted a gigantic Trump 2020 sign on his lawn.
“A lot of my neighbors have come by and I’ve had a lot of positive feedback,” he told the Columbus Dispatch at the time.
“We do not have to be vicious to one another, that’s what’s dividing us right now.”
That was in July, but the sign would change. In a photo posted on Parler, uncovered by CNN, Majewski showed how he had tweaked it: to read 2Q2Q.
The sign repainting wasn’t Majewski’s only dalliance with QAnon – a baseless rightwing conspiracy theory which has been labeled a potential domestic terror threat by the FBI – and which states, among other things, that a cabal of Democrats and liberals are engaged in child trafficking.
In a television interview about the sign, Majewski was wearing a QAnon T-shirt, and Media Matters, a media watchdog, documented multiple instances of Majewski posting images and hashtags relating to the baseless conspiracy theory.
If elected Majewski wouldn’t be the only adherent. Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert have both promoted QAnon slogans – although they have since distanced themselves from the conspiracy theory.
Nothing in Majewski’s background prevented him from winning Trump’s endorsement this week, the former president praising his work in the military and in nuclear energy.
“In Congress, JR will always promote American energy, secure the border, support our farmers, protect life, defend the second amendment, fight for election integrity, and provide our veterans with the care they deserve,” Trump wrote.
Trump was perhaps also impressed by Majewski’s presence at the US Capitol on January 6 – in fact, Majewski claimed that he had raised $20,000 to bring 30 Trump supporters to DC.
“I wanted nothing more than to go in that building,” Majewski said in a video a few days after what became an unprecedented attack on the seat of American democracy.
He ultimately stayed outside because he was with people who “had physical limitations”, Majewski told the QAnon program Spaceshot76, according to Media Matters.
The social media accounts of Majewski, who has described himself as “ultra maga”, mirror his website in terms of policy detail. But there is plenty of discussion of Hunter Biden and a lot of pictures of Donald Trump, while a photo posted on 5 June seemingly referenced either LGBTQ+ pride or the right wing’s ongoing attack on discussion of sexuality in schools.
“Our children should be spending their summers playing sports, engaging in hobbies, or attending parades,” Majewski wrote in the caption.
“Not being indoctrinated and groomed by sexually motivated people.”
For now, the more revealing aspects of Majewski’s political attitudes have come from social media snippets like these. He has gone to pains to delete as November approaches, and as he attempts to pitch himself to the electorate of Ohio, but plenty of his more extreme opinions remain visible on the internet.
“I didn’t want to be a hype beast, but I’ve had it in my back pocket to say that every state that went red should secede from the United States,” Majewski said in a video on the livestreaming app Periscope, uncovered by CNN in late May.
“I don’t think it sounds out there,” he said.
