On one side is an aggressively conservative state attorney general who has fought and often won multiple battles, including at the Supreme Court, against illegal immigration, against lax voting practices, against leftist overregulation, and against a national vaccine mandate.
On the other side: a callow 35-year-old who repeatedly cites the Unabomber’s manifesto as a source of wisdom, approvingly cited what he called a “poignant quotation” from Herman Goering (Adolf Hitler’s chosen second in command), and whose campaign is largely dependent on $10 million in support from his employer, the socially liberal billionaire Peter Thiel.
Naturally, former President Donald Trump is supporting the latter guy, the extraordinarily strange Blake Masters, for the Republican Senate nomination in Arizona against the former, the highly accomplished Mark Brnovich, even though hard-line conservative heroes Mark Levin and Sean Hannity are for Brnovich. It’s almost as if Trump is trying to make Republicans lose an eminently winnable race against short-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. Just as Trump did in causing Republicans to lose two Senate runoffs in Georgia in early 2021, his agenda in Arizona seems more motivated by personal emotional gratification than by his adopted party’s best interests.
Trump blames Brnovich for not ginning up proof of enough election fraud in Arizona to deliver the state’s electoral votes to Trump. This is bizarre, considering that Brnovich actively prosecuted every case he could find — and considering that he so enthusiastically has fought for ballot security that both Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey say he has been too aggressive rather than not aggressive enough.
In the Supreme Court case of Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the attorney general successfully defeated Democratic attempts to invalidate Arizona’s law restricting ballot harvesting and out-of-district voting. Brnovich also set up the state’s first “Election Integrity Unit,” prevented the counting of mail-in ballots lacking legally required signatures, and stopped a county official from mailing thousands of ballots to people who had not requested them.
Brnovich checks every box for modern America First conservatives, not just in words but in his actual actions as attorney general. He’s solidly pro-life, actively against critical race theory, against free benefits for illegal immigrants, strongly supportive of religious freedom, for gun rights, against secret Big Tech information harvesting, against President Joe Biden’s massive energy regulations, and against divestment from Israel.
Masters, on the other hand, is so close to the eccentric Californian Thiel that conservative outlets find it highly worrisome and liberal outlets raise, with some justification, numerous ethical questions that surely will hurt Masters in the fall campaign if he is the nominee. Yet amid all his history of associating with or being strongly supported by noted anti-Semites, the biggest sign of his outright weirdness is Masters’s embrace of the manifesto of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
This appeared not just in some long-past musings, but at least twice since announcing his candidacy. Masters has praised major parts of the manifesto, saying that “everybody should read” it and that Kaczynski is “a subversive thinker who is underrated” (see the beginning at the 4:00 mark in the John Oliver video here).
As a reminder, the manifesto in question began this way: “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” It immediately made clear that its goal is “a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence.” Later, “with regard to revolutionary strategy, the only points on which we absolutely insist are that the single overriding goal must be the elimination of modern technology” — with the elimination of modern “refrigeration” happily provided as one example.
Masters has no business being anywhere near the Senate, especially against an accomplished public official such as Brnovich (or three other candidates). Early voting in Arizona began this week. Wise Republicans there will ignore Trump and listen to Levin and Hannity instead.
