The Candidate Caught in a Nazi Porn Scandal Is Today’s GOP Personified

Though Reid came out as gay in the 1990s, and has been with his boyfriend, Alonzo Mable, for eight years, he opposes enshrining gay marriage (along with voting rights and reproductive rights) in Virginia’s constitution. He regularly orates on “predatory” trans women, “the physical mutilation of children,” and the rest of the MAGA urban legends.

Meanwhile, his whole ticket is troubled. At the top, gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears is polling well behind her Democratic rival, former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. Youngkin, for his part, is whipping up made-for-Fox outrage about Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general, who not long ago shared high-key disturbing fantasies about committing political violence. And on Tuesday, the Republican Governors Association dropped another $1.5 million into the race to boost Earle-Sears.

So it’s gonna be another nutty month in Virginia. But have no fear for John Reid. If he wins, he wins. But if he leaves Richmond for D.C. in some Trumpy capacity, he might also get a hero’s welcome there. The perv-fascist solidarity in Trump’s Washington has come to seem like the #MeToo movement in reverse. Lechy newcomers get to burst onto the scene at Butterworth’s—“me too, guys!”—into the loving arms of the sex-scandal-plagued elite: former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, and of course Trump himself.