That’s right, Mo Brooks, the man who has somehow managed to spend more than 10 years in Congress without getting a single bill passed, announced his intentions to run for the seat soon to be vacated by longtime Sen. Richard Shelby. Brooks made his announcement at a Huntsville gun club, because, I assume, all the local landscape businesses were booked.
To set the tone for the evening and the campaign, Brooks sacrificed a live chicken and conjured up the spirits to awaken Stephen Miller, a former White House aide to Donald Trump and the guy who decided that ripping scared children away from scared parents would be an effective and Christian-like immigration policy.
In terms of tone-setting, it was most effective. Because with Miller’s presence and a horrid speech filled with lies and scare tactics, there is little doubt that Brooks’ campaign will now be one of fear — fear of Brown people, fear of Black people, fear of attacks on Christians, fear of life changing for white people, fear of this great country ceasing to exist, fear of economic terms mis-defined, fear of a future with only Andy Griffith Show reruns in color.
And who should you be most afraid of?
Why, those crafty Democrats who stole the election from Donald Trump, of course. Brooks, as he tends to do, prattled on and on about election fraud and the greatest fraud of all time and yada, yada, yada.
At this point, there are only two types of people when it comes to claims that overwhelming fraud cost Trump the election: either you know it’s an outright lie that was only proclaimed by Trump to soothe his ego and stoke outrage among the base, or you’re a moron.
Brooks is clearly relying on there being lots of morons in this state.
Because not only will voters here have to overlook Brooks’ pathetic record of managing to rename a post office as his only accomplishment in more than a decade in office and his ridiculous claims of election fraud that have been disproven by court after court, they’ll also have to overlook his treason.
Brooks is very likely under investigation as you read this for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt at the nation’s Capitol Building. Another House member specifically asked that Brooks be investigated and federal law enforcement officials have indicated that they plan a thorough investigation that could include members of Congress.
Should a serious effort be made to investigate Brooks, they’ll find plenty of evidence that he was a willing and active participant in inciting the mob that descended upon the Capitol. In fact, as ProPublica reported on Monday in a story that documented Brooks’ comments in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, he was one of the loudest, craziest amplifiers of the election fraud lie from the very start.
And not only did he push that lie, he did so using rhetoric that encouraged violence and destruction.
Numerous times in the days after the election, which was rightfully won by President Joe Biden, Brooks went on rightwing TV and radio shows to encourage people to “fight” and reminded them that our ancestors had “sacrificed their lives” for this country.
Before he told the crowd at the Trump rally on Jan. 6 that it was time to “kick ass,” he also said this: “Our ancestors sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives to give us, their descendants, an America that is the greatest nation in world history. So I have a question for you: Are you willing to do the same?”
A few weeks before, on Dec. 17, Brooks, obviously in the Christmas spirit, dropped this bunch of a crazy on a Newsmax audience: “When it came time to fight in the Revolutionary War, beginning in 1776, people actually put their lives at stake. All throughout history, American history, there have been time after time where American men and women have stood strong and fought for their country, often losing their lives in order to keep our republic, keep our liberty, keep our freedoms. And the bedrock of all those things are accurate and honest elections. And right now, the socialist Democrats have successfully stolen those from the American people in 2020. And we need to fight and take it back.”
According to the right-wing extremist who helped organize the Trump rally on Jan. 6, Brooks was part of the group that originally planned that rally and said it was designed to stoke the anger and end at the Capitol. Because they wanted to put pressure on Congress to not certify the electoral college votes and instead proclaim Trump the winner.
When it blew up and armed insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, searching for elected leaders to kill, Brooks, of course, ran like a child who accidentally set the kitchen on fire.
He blamed the whole thing on … “antifa” and “too many Trump supporters who allowed themselves to be manipulated … by antifa.”
Numerous law enforcement agencies have testified before Congress that there is no evidence whatsoever of antifa, or any other outside group, being involved in the attack on the Capitol.
But you knew that. And you also know that this is who Mo Brooks is — a thoroughly deplorable person willing to use hate and lies to further his own self-interests. And he’s running for Senate.
