Senator Amanda Chase Is What the Next Frontier of GOP Lunacy Looks Like

[Zorro]

She texts with Boogaloos. Her QAnon-linked “security” pals were busted with guns en route to a Philly vote-count. Now she’s running for governor.

Virginia state Senator Amanda Chase and her staff wanted to be clear: She was experiencing a sinus infection, not COVID-19 symptoms. Just a little head cold. In fact, Chase told The Daily Beast on Friday shortly before stating that she would refuse a COVID-19 vaccine, she was already feeling much better.

Such a diagnosis would be very good news for Chase, but also her colleagues in the Virginia General Assembly. Chase, a far-right Republican and 2021 gubernatorial candidate, refuses to wear a mask during government session, forcing her at times to sit alone in a plexiglass quarantine box that she calls “the square of freedom.” Framed by sheets of wobbly plastic in these moments, Chase is a portrait of her political reality: isolated from her fellow Republican lawmakers and walled off by conspiratorial belief.

But Chase, who recently left the state Senate’s Republican caucus and was ousted from her local chapter of the GOP, is not alone. All year, she has stood shoulder to shoulder with members of far-right militant groups and conspiracy movements, some of whom would be arrested by year’s end. Now, in the twilight of 2020 and the Trump presidency, she’s playing the hits for the extremist crowd, lying about the vaccine, knowingly taking donations and “security” help from neo-Confederate and QAnon-linked extremists, and calling on President Donald Trump to overturn his election loss by declaring martial law.

Her gubernatorial campaign is an eerie preview of even stranger, more conspiratorial post-Trump Trumpism, even as her own state party grows increasingly uneasy with her antics.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/virginia-state-senator-2021-gubernatorial-candidate-amanda-chase-is-next-level-maga

[thucythucy]

1. See, that's the problem right there.

Republicans are "uneasy" about her statements, stunts, and associations, when they should be appalled and embarrassed and looking for ways to minimize the harm she does.

"Uneasy," even "increasingly uneasy" just doesn't cut it anymore.

[sandensea]

2. They're morphing from the Party of Trump to the Party of QAnon

The 'mainstream' Repugs will hem and haw until '23 or so - and when a Q-head is in fact nominated, they'll line up behind him (or her) in a second.

The GOP should change its mascot animal to alemming.

[Midnight Writer]

3. When your workmates build a plexiglass wall around you, it's time to reflect on your life choices.

Maybe it's not them, it's you.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. The Republican party is a party of extremists, including domestic terrorists.

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dufor2020runoff

A few questions: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14520874

and answers: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14520972