Tim Eyman proposes risking the lives of a lot of people with a massive election night party

Since March, more than 100,000 peo­ple across this coun­try have got­ten sick or died from SARS-CoV­‑2, the nov­el coro­n­avirus, which the Unit­ed States has utter­ly failed to mit­i­gate, let alone con­tain. While Wash­ing­ton State has been more effec­tive at com­bat­ing the virus thanks to its Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship, the state is still see­ing an increase in cas­es, which is grave­ly concerning.

Tim Eyman does­n’t care.

The long­time scam­mer and sleazy polit­i­cal oper­a­tive — who has tak­en a break from pitch­ing destruc­tive ini­tia­tives to embark upon a nar­cis­sis­tic guber­na­to­r­i­al cam­paign — has for months been dis­re­gard­ing the guid­ance of pub­lic health offi­cials while attempt­ing to drum up inter­est in his can­di­da­cy (and money).

All spring, Eyman invit­ed peo­ple to join him for a house par­ties, ral­lies, and press con­fer­ences where they are at risk of catch­ing COVID-19. As if that weren’t bad enough, now he wants to take things to a whole new irre­spon­si­ble level.

From an email dis­trib­uted to his fan club yesterday:

Eyman pro­pos­es all gov­er­nor can­di­dates and all their sup­port­ers have elec­tion night cel­e­bra­tion in the same loca­tion. Think about it: this ensures imme­di­ate uni­ty so we can beat Inslee!!

I firm­ly believe I will win the August 4th [Top Two elec­tion] and be the can­di­date cho­sen by the vot­ers to chal­lenge Jay Inslee in the fall cam­paign. I’m con­fi­dent of that.

And I’m also con­fi­dent that Anton Sakharov, Joshua Freed, Loren Culp, Phil For­tu­na­to, and Raul Gar­cia think I’m wrong and that vot­ers will choose one of them instead.

So let’s take advan­tage of every­one’s self-con­fi­dence in the out­come of the pri­ma­ry by com­mit­ting right now to hav­ing all of us and all our sup­port­ers hav­ing one elec­tion night cel­e­bra­tion at the same loca­tion.

Tim Eyman may not be billing this as a “COVID par­ty”, but that’s essen­tial­ly what this would be (if it took place): A poten­tial­ly dis­as­trous super spread­ing event that could result in a lot of peo­ple get­ting sick and pos­si­bly dying.

Many on the right wing believe COVID-19 is a hoax.

But it is ter­ri­fy­ing­ly real, as many Trump sup­port­ers have found out to their cost.

That includes high pro­file Trump sur­ro­gates and Trump staffers.

For instance, after par­tic­i­pat­ing in Don­ald Trump’s June 20th Tul­sa ral­ly a few weeks ago, Her­man Cain con­tract­ed COVID-19 and had to be hos­pi­tal­ized.

So did mem­bers of Trump’s Tul­sa advance team.

Mean­while, the Repub­li­can gov­er­nor of Okla­homa, Kevin Stitt — a Trump boost­er in one of Amer­i­ca’s red­dest states — has test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, back in the spring, peo­ple who spend time around both Trump and Pence in the West Wing had got­ten infect­ed with COVID-19.

And yes­ter­day, COVID-19 became real for Chuck Wool­ery.

For­mer game show host Chuck Wool­ery, who tweet­ed Sun­day that “Every­one is lying” about COVID-19, includ­ing the media, Democ­rats and the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion, said a day lat­er that his son was diag­nosed with the disease.

His Twit­ter account no longer exist­ed on Wednesday.

“The most out­ra­geous lies are the ones about COVID19. Every­one is lying. The CDC, Media, Democ­rats, our Doc­tors, not all but most, that we are told to trust,” Wool­ery wrote Sun­day night with­out cit­ing evidence.

“I think it’s all about the elec­tion and keep­ing the econ­o­my from com­ing back, which is about the elec­tion. I’m sick of it,” he added.

His tweet was retweet­ed by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

On Mon­day after­noon, Wool­ery said his son test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, the dis­ease caused by the coronavirus.

“To fur­ther clar­i­fy and add per­spec­tive, COVID-19 is real and it is here. My son test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus,” Wool­ery tweet­ed, adding that he feels for “those suf­fer­ing and espe­cial­ly for those who have lost loved ones.”

Empha­sis is mine.

We’re sor­ry, Chuck. Sor­ry that you did­n’t take this pub­lic health cri­sis seri­ous­ly, and sor­ry that your son has con­tract­ed the dis­ease. We hope he recovers.

As I have remarked here before, many of Tim Eyman’s fol­low­ers are elder­ly Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, and they are thus at the great­est risk of dying if they con­tract COVID-19. For Eyman to will­ful­ly pro­pose putting their lives (and oth­ers!) at risk just so that he can have the biggest pos­si­ble crowd cheer­ing for him on what he thinks will be a tri­umphant night for his twist­ed polit­i­cal career is sickening.

But not surprising.

After all, Eyman looks up to Don­ald Trump — he has express­ly said so — and big in per­son gath­er­ings of right wing activists are a sig­na­ture facet of Trump’s cam­paign, along with pro­pa­gan­da dis­trib­uted through Fox and Facebook.

Though Don­ald Trump recent­ly donned a mask — which I imag­ine might well have been jar­ring for Eyman and oth­er rabid Trump sup­port­ers who had ful­ly bought into Trump’s absurd posi­tion against masks — Trump is still utter­ly fail­ing to pro­tect Amer­i­cans from the threat of COVID-19.

What is par­tic­u­lar­ly mad­den­ing is that Trump has the pow­er to pro­tect mil­lions of peo­ple mere­ly through the mega­phone of his Twit­ter account and oth­er plat­forms that car­ry his mes­sage, like the Mur­dochs’ FNC. He could save a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of lives with­out even using the pow­ers of the presidency.

If Trump ful­ly embraced mask wear­ing, then a lot of his fol­low­ers like­ly would, too. If Trump told his fol­low­ers to stay away from bars and sup­port his can­di­da­cy from home as opposed to con­gre­gat­ing in per­son, a lot of his fol­low­ers would do as they’re told. Not all, of course. But many would. Hav­ing cho­sen to fol­low Don­ald Trump as their author­i­tar­i­an strict father, many would obey his directives.

Repub­li­cans have repeat­ed­ly proven they’re very good at turn­ing on a dime.

They stopped car­ing about deficits and pres­i­den­tial over­reach as soon as Trump was in office, for instance, and they had no prob­lem scrap­ping the fil­i­buster for Supreme Court jus­tices when they want­ed to get Neil Gor­such confirmed.

One Repub­li­can can­di­date for gov­er­nor — Raul Gar­cia — has cham­pi­oned mask wear­ing and is try­ing to stand out in what for­mer Eyman ally Phil For­tu­na­to (now an Eyman rival) has called “a clown race”. Gar­cia enjoys the sup­port of Repub­li­cans like Dan Evans, Sam Reed, and Mark Schoesler.

But he’s prob­a­bly not going anywhere.

“Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­cans have had suc­cess only when they have made clear they were a lit­tle dif­fer­ent than the nation­al par­ty,” for­mer Repub­li­can state par­ty chair Chris Vance argued today in Cross­cut. “Today, a can­di­date like Gar­cia needs to go even fur­ther and make it clear he is very dif­fer­ent than the Trump GOP.”

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the few rea­son­able Repub­li­cans left, that would­n’t work as a recipe for elect­ing Repub­li­cans to high office here in the Pacif­ic Northwest.

To be a Repub­li­can nowa­days means to be part of the Trump Par­ty — because that is what it has turned into. The peo­ple who run the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty and rep­re­sent it in high pro­file roles could­n’t sep­a­rate the par­ty from Don­ald Trump even if they want­ed to. Their base would turn on them.

The Main­stream Repub­li­cans of Wash­ing­ton State — a group which we at NPI hold in high regard — are basi­cal­ly all that is left of the par­ty that used to be the polit­i­cal home of dis­tin­guished lead­ers like Evans and Nel­son Rockefeller.

Tim Eyman made it clear this week that he’s glad that par­ty is dead.

“For decades, the estab­lish­ment keeps telling us to nom­i­nate Repub­li­cans who are nice, civ­il, and respect­ful. That approach has failed — repeat­ed­ly,” Eyman wrote in an email enti­tled Mosh­pit pol­i­tics is the only way to win.

“Mosh­pit pol­i­tics” has def­i­nite­ly served Don­ald Trump well at the nation­al level.

But Wash­ing­ton State’s pol­i­tics are very dif­fer­ent than the coun­try’s as a whole. About three out of five Wash­ing­to­ni­ans have a neg­a­tive opin­ion of Don­ald Trump, and pub­lic opin­ion research going back to 2012 has found that most Wash­ing­to­ni­ans aware of who Tim Eyman is have a neg­a­tive opin­ion of him.

Wash­ing­ton is a state where sci­ence mat­ters, where med­ical break­throughs are secured, and where coop­er­a­tion and inclu­sion are val­ued. Don­ald Trump per­formed poor­ly in Wash­ing­ton in 2016, and is on track to do worse this year.

Tim Eyman has cer­tain­ly had some suc­cess run­ning cons against vot­ers in years past by qual­i­fy­ing decep­tive­ly word­ed ini­tia­tives. But this time, for the very first time, he’s on the bal­lot him­self. And if his expe­ri­ence turns out to be any­thing like Bill Size­more’s in Ore­gon back in the nineties, he’s going to lose. Badly.

As for Eyman’s rivals, they would all do well to decline Eyman’s invi­ta­tion to join him in vio­lat­ing Gov­er­nor Inslee’s just-issued direc­tive pro­hibit­ing social gath­er­ings of more than ten peo­ple. If they care about their health and their fam­i­lies’ health and the health of their most fer­vent sup­port­ers, they’ll stay home on Top Two Elec­tion Night, and watch returns get post­ed in safe­ty and comfort.