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Politico reports today that the Republican Party is aghast and baffled that yet another miserable demon from beneath the world of men may end up winning the party’s nomination in a crucial race.


West Virginia coal baron Don Blankenship—who recently completed a one-year prison sentence for conspiring to violate health and safety standards at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 of his workers died in unimaginable horror—is running for the GOP nomination for Senate in West Virginia, and fuck me, it looks like he could win it.



Just like Certain Other Famous Republicans, Blankenship’s success (so far) seems to come from his decision to position himself as an anti-establishment outsider, despite being such a caricature of a rich bastard that he went to prison for letting his workers die because he was too cheap to ensure proper safety standards. But he’s never been an actual politician, so yee haw, he’s gonna tell them bastards in Wurshington what for! It also helps that, as Politico notes, he’s spent more than a million dollars of his own money on campaign ads, “far surpassing” his opponents’ buys. Even before he announced his campaign, he spent $600,000 on ads designed to clear his name. Gotta love America.


The Upper Big Branch Mine received 50 safety citations just a month before the 29 miners lost their lives, including for failure to maintain proper escape routes. An independent investigatory panel also faulted federal inspectors for failing to properly enforce the safety regulations, but agreed that Blankenship’s Massey Energy was responsible for the explosion.

So, we can add “cartoon multimillionaire villain buying his way to redemption for his awful crimes” to “alleged pedophile” and “Donald Trump” on the list of impossibly awful candidates who the Republican party base appears to find more appealing than their truly repulsive establishment. Lol. Nice party, idiots.