Lawyer Hopes To Convert 15 Minutes Of Wingnut Fame Into Senate Seat

Building a campaign on the sole plank of 'Black people scare me' may be troublingly effective in Missouri.

Screenshot via Twitter

Why spend years building a sound record of public service and developing a coherent legislative vision when you can get elected with a viral video?

When Mark McCloskey saw protesters marching past his house on their way to City Hall, he went out on his lawn barefoot in a fetching pink polo with his AR-15 to wave menacingly at people in the street.

Totally not insane behavior.

His antics earned him a felony charge because even on one’s own property, aiming guns at people on the street is not, in fact, legal. But more importantly for McCloskey, it earned him a promised state pardon, a guest spot on Tucker Carlson, and a stilted appearance at the GOP Convention. Flush with this level of unearned fame, McCloskey’s taking the next logical step — at least in 2021 logic — and running for office.

It was only yesterday, after his old lawyer makes news for another controversial outburst, that we thought, “Oh, right, those jackholes with the guns in St. Louis… I wonder what they’re up to now?” And for my sins, I now have an answer.

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Other than the protesters neither marching to destroy his home nor kill his family, he’s really on to something here! Can you imagine how long two civilians with a peashooter and a (presumably not fully automatic) assault rifle would last if a mob actually intended to do them harm? I’m setting the line at around 15 seconds.

In any sane world, voters would roundly reject this country club commando for trying to con the public into accepting armed paranoia as a substitute for legislative acumen. But since his primary competition is a guy who resigned office after being indicted, McCloskey might have a better shot than he really should.

From the NY Post:

“What I’ve learned is that people out there in this country are just sick and tired of cancel culture, and the poison of critical race theory and the big lie of systemic racism, all backed up by the threat of mob violence,” McCloskey told host Tucker Carlson. “People are just sick of it. They don’t want any more poseurs and egotists and career politicians going to DC. All we hear is talk, and nothing ever changes.”

“Poseurs and egotists,” says the yuppie lawyer fronting like Rambo. There’s enough projection in here to bring back America’s movie theater sector. Alas, he’s got all the right intellectually vapid buzzwords for his campaign and that might be enough. After all, no one can possibly know more about the “big lie of systemic racism” than a guy who’s going to be pardoned for waving an assault rifle at a crowd walking by his house while Tamir Rice was killed for holding a toy gun two seconds after police showed up.

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Remember how in the immediate aftermath of the event, the McCloskeys told the press through their attorney that they “want to make it really clear that they believe the Black Lives Matter message is important“? That seems to have morphed into “the poison of critical race theory” real quick once the accolades from people with screen names like SSPatriot69 started to roll in.

This is where the country is now. The Republican Party has more or less ceded building credible political leadership in favor of gimmick candidates. The path from Bedtime for Bonzo to Celebrity Apprentice littered the political landscape. Alabama put its bad former college football coach in the Senate. Caitlyn Jenner is running a campaign focused on making South Park’s characterization a lot less of a cheap shot than it seemed at the time. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s relative competence stands out as an exception proving the rule in this mess.

But at least those gimmick candidates have some degree of legitimate celebrity. That’s the real risk with candidates like McCloskey: if someone can become a political force just by going viral for engaging in dangerous, almost certainly illegal acts it sets the incentive structure toward more and more bad behavior from wackos trying to earn their infamy on the road to power. The trend of encouraging bad conduct already dominates college and law school conservatives, but it used to be confined to writing white edgelord columns in school papers. Now getting noticed is going to require taking the aggression up a notch. We’re only a year or two away from some convicted Capitol rioter using a picture of them pissing on a Democratic office door to pick up a House seat in Tennessee.

Acknowledging literal viruses may be taboo in the modern conservative movement, but figurative virality is king.

Gun-toting St. Louis lawyer Mark McCloskey announces run for Senate [NY Post]

Earlier: Capitol Riot Attorney Zealously Defends, Insults His Client
AR-15 Couple Teach Us All About Adverse Possession!
St. Louis Lawyers Wave AR-15 At Protesters Like Totally Normal, Totally Not Bonkers People
Law School Students Just Saw A Radical Shift In The Pathway To Success


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.