{"id":3334,"date":"2020-08-29T16:51:04","date_gmt":"2020-08-29T16:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3334"},"modified":"2020-08-29T16:51:04","modified_gmt":"2020-08-29T16:51:04","slug":"laura-loomer-the-anti-muslim-congressional-candidate-praised-by-trump-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3334","title":{"rendered":"Laura Loomer, the anti-Muslim congressional candidate praised by Trump, explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Laura Loomer is a former contributor to the conspiracy site Infowars<\/a> and a self-described \u201cproud Islamophobe<\/a>.\u201d She is famous for, among other things, spreading conspiracy theories about mass shootings<\/a> and demanding that Uber and Lyft stop allowing Muslims to work as drivers<\/a>. She has been banned from Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, Paypal<\/a>, Venmo<\/a>, and GoFundMe<\/a> for violating their policies on hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday night, she won the Republican nomination for Congress in Florida\u2019s 21st Congressional District \u2014 the stretch of southeastern Florida where President Trump is registered to vote<\/a>. And on Wednesday morning, the president voiced his support, tweeting about Loomer\u2019s victory five separate times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGreat going Laura,\u201d Trump wrote in one tweet. \u201cYou have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loomer does not, in fact, have a great chance. FL-21 has been represented by a Democrat since 2013 and is generally seen as a safe seat for the party. It would likely take a massive Republican wave election for Loomer to unseat incumbent Rep. Lois Frankel, which seems exceptionally unlikely in 2020. (The Loomer campaign did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But her victory is telling nonetheless. In a healthy political party, extremists who cheer the deaths of migrants<\/a> and were arrested for trespassing on the California governor\u2019s mansion while wearing a sombrero<\/a> wouldn\u2019t get more than a handful of votes. Instead, Loomer was endorsed by two sitting members of Congress \u2014 Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) \u2014 and feted by the president himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loomer is now part of a group of fringe Republicans<\/a> winning congressional primaries in 2020, the most notable of whom is Marjorie Taylor Greene<\/a>, a Georgia-based believer in the QAnon conspiracy theory<\/a> who won in a safe Republican district and is very likely heading to Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not an isolated problem. A closer look at Loomer, in particular, reveals that the causes of this rot run deeper than Trump and are very likely to continue remaking the Republican Party after he\u2019s gone.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2020\/8\/19\/21375159\/laura-loomer-congress-republican-florida-trump-explainer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Laura Loomer is a former contributor to the conspiracy site Infowars and a self-described \u201cproud Islamophobe.\u201d She is famous for, among other things, spreading conspiracy theories about mass shootings and demanding that Uber and Lyft stop allowing Muslims to work as drivers. She has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Paypal, Venmo, and GoFundMe for violating their policies on hate speech.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, she won the Republican nomination for Congress in Florida\u2019s 21st Congressional District \u2014 the stretch of southeastern Florida where President Trump is registered to vote. And on Wednesday morning, the president voiced his support, tweeting about Loomer\u2019s victory five separate times.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat going Laura,\u201d Trump wrote in one tweet. \u201cYou have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!\u201d<\/p>\n

Loomer does not, in fact, have a great chance. FL-21 has been represented by a Democrat since 2013 and is generally seen as a safe seat for the party. It would likely take a massive Republican wave election for Loomer to unseat incumbent Rep. Lois Frankel, which seems exceptionally unlikely in 2020. (The Loomer campaign did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)<\/p>\n

But her victory is telling nonetheless. In a healthy political party, extremists who cheer the deaths of migrants and were arrested for trespassing on the California governor\u2019s mansion while wearing a sombrero wouldn\u2019t get more than a handful of votes. Instead, Loomer was endorsed by two sitting members of Congress \u2014 Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) \u2014 and feted by the president himself.<\/p>\n

Loomer is now part of a group of fringe Republicans winning congressional primaries in 2020, the most notable of whom is Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia-based believer in the QAnon conspiracy theory who won in a safe Republican district and is very likely heading to Congress.<\/p>\n

This is not an isolated problem. A closer look at Loomer, in particular, reveals that the causes of this rot run deeper than Trump and are very likely to continue remaking the Republican Party after he\u2019s gone.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[982,968,170],"class_list":["post-3334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-laura-loomer","tag-republican-party","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3335,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions\/3335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}