Certainly not. But in a primary election with a sure winner, people may stay home - and the wacko can pick up percentages way out of proportion to his actual support.
Special elections have worse problems.
I’ve seen this in action - I volunteered for a campaign that elected a Republican to the Arlington, VA County Board in a special election. That’s just about impossible to do in normal circumstances (they don’t call it Pyongyang on the Potomac for nothing) and he did lose the next general election.
Well, 30% of Indiana Republicans. I love Indiana, but it’s the only place I’ve ever seen white supremacists in person - they were handing out pamphlets on a street corner across from the diner where we were having lunch one Sunday. I’ve heard from friends and family members who live/d there that it has far more than it’s fair share of xenophobic, racist nutjobs.
Nope. Only 30% of Republicans are evil in this way, support this particular evil, or are ignorant in this way.
There are many other ways to be evil, support evil, or be ignorant, so the Zirkle story just supplies us with a lower bound.
I don’t want to think about it too much, but whatever this guy needs to get his jollies has got to be something either truly bizarre or absolutely pathetic.
His warnings about “Divorce aids” and suicide remind me of that Lynyrd Skynyrd song, “The Dildo and the Shotgun”.
Hey, I don’t think we should be that rough on the guy. In my moments of dissatisfaction with American politics, I have referred to things as “the party of evil versus the party of stupid.”
By speaking at a Nazi function, Mr. Zirkle manages to embody both in one swell foop! A true case of crossing party lines.
This country need more uniters like him. :p
Fine to ask about qualifications in a general sense, but there are many historians without doctorates or even degrees in history. This is especially true outside of academia, where historian is assigned as a collateral duty or full-time job in military units, corporations, and nonprofit organizations.
I think we can all agree that credentials by themselves demonstrate little except an ability to sit through grad school and write a dissertation, and need to be judged along with someone’s actual work.
