[guest post by Dana]

As you are aware, this is campaign season, and with that comes a myriad of political ads. This newly released “RINO hunting” ad from Navy Seal and MAGA Republican for Missouri Senate candidate Eric Greitens is a foul piece of work:

We are sick and tired of the Republicans in Name Only surrendering to Joe Biden & the radical Left.

Order your RINO Hunting Permit today! pic.twitter.com/XLMdJnAzSK

— Eric Greitens (@EricGreitens) June 20, 2022

As Axios points out:

“The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice…There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country,” Greitens says in the video.

He calls on his supporters to join the “MAGA crew” and get a “RINO hunting permit.”

“We are sick and tired of the Republicans in Name Only surrendering to Joe Biden & the radical Left,” Greitens tweeted alongside the ad. “Order your RINO Hunting Permit today!”

Greitens also shared a link for people to order their “RINO hunting permit,” which leads to a donation page.

Interesting about Greitens: His ex-wife has accused him of domestic abuse toward her and their children, and he faces a campaign finance scandal. Greitens has also been accused of sexual assault and blackmailing a woman with partially nude photos of her

Despite having been forced to resign as governor of Missouri because of the scandals, Greitens confirmed his MAGA bona fides by claiming that all of this is nothing more than a “witch hunt”.

But here’s the thing: given that MAGA rioters said that they were at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 because former President Donald Trump “asked” them to go and that the Jan. 6 Committee noted that “Trump “energized” far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers to storm the Capitol weeks before the January 6 riot, when he tweeted that his supporters should travel to D.C. and said: “Be there, will be wild!,” this open season on RINOS messaging is a dangerous game to play. Yet as far as the Greitens campaign goes, the ad is just a metaphor:

Reached for comment by Fox News Monday, the Greitens campaign called the add a “message to RINO elected officials who continue to hurt the people of this country– your time is up.”

“If anyone doesn’t get the metaphor, they are either lying or dumb,” the campaign added.

And that’s the concern: some unbalanced, deceived and/or dumb individual might take the ad seriously and believe that they are being called to “hunt RINOS” just as we saw a mob, encouraged by the President of the United States, attack the U.S. Capitol and demand that the vice-president be hanged. We’ve also just seen an assassination attempt of a sitting Supreme Court Justice by an unbalanced individual angry over the leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s Roe decision and the Uvalde massacre. And just this past week, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who sits on the Jan. 6 Committee and is considered a RINO by a certain wing of the GOP, received a death threat against his wife and five-month old baby. Clearly, this isn’t the time for any candidate to be “targeting” (because that’s what it is) any group by using violent and wildly inflammatory imagery. The days of blowing this off as nothing but a metaphor are long gone.

I’m glad to see former members of the military criticizing the ad:

“I’m a huge fan of hyperbolic rhetoric using martial references,” said former America Matters director and Army Special Forces veteran Jim Hanson on Twitter. ” Much less so Of using actual violent military imagery To try to make a pedestrian political point. Lame.”

“This guy. So cringe,” said conservative commentator and retired Army Colonel Kurt Schlichter on Twitter, who also encouraged Missourians to vote for Greitens primary opponent, Eric Schmitt.

This really isn’t the way to make America great again…

One final thought: Today’s ReTrumplican Party wants to stifle and shut down any Republicans who dare to think differently and deviate from the MAGA company line. This only further confirms that the GOP is not the Big Tent party, and has not been for some time.

–Dana