Eric Greitens, a Republican candidate for the United States Senate in Missouri, released a violent new political advertisement on Monday showing himse
Eric Greitens, a Republican candidate for the United States Senate in Missouri, released a violent new political advertisement on Monday showing himself racking a shotgun and accompanying a team of men armed with assault rifles as they stormed — SWAT team-style — into a home in search of “RINOs,” or Republicans in name only.
“Join the MAGA crew,” Mr. Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, declares in the ad. “Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”
The ad by Mr. Greitens was just the latest but perhaps most menacing in a long line of Republican campaign ads featuring firearms and seeking to equate hard-core conservatism with the use of deadly weapons.
During a hearing by the committee on Thursday, J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge widely respected by conservatives, suggested that Mr. Trump and his allies posed a “clear and present danger to American democracy.”
The use of violent rhetoric has steadily increased in Republican circles in recent months as threats and aggressive imagery have become more commonplace in community meeting rooms, congressional offices and on the campaign trail.
While much of the violent speech and image-making by Republicans has been aimed at Democrats, some of it, as in Mr. Greitens’ ad, has been focused on fellow party members thought to be insufficiently conservative.
On Sunday, Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and a member of the Jan. 6 committee, published a letter addressed to his wife from someone who had threatened to execute the couple.
The Greitens campaign could not immediately be reached for comment on the ad.
Mr. Greitens has sought an endorsement from Mr. Trump, so far without success. His campaign chair is Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancée of Donald Trump Jr. The Greitens campaign also employs a firm owned by Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for the former president, as a communications consultant, records show.
Mr. Budowich declined to comment on the ad.
Experts have warned that violent rhetoric can often result in actual physical violence.
“When individuals feel more confident and legitimate in voicing violent sentiments, it can encourage others to feel more confident in making actual violence easier,” said Robert Pape, who studies political violence at the University of Chicago. “Unfortunately, this is a self-reinforcing spiral.”
Some Republicans criticized Mr. Greitens for posting the ad.
“Every Republican should denounce this sick and dangerous ad from Eric Greitens,” Barbara Comstock, a former Republican congresswoman from Virginia, said on Monday. “This is just a taste of the ‘clear and present danger’ that Judge Luttig talked about last week.”
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