The sweet smell of family betrayal is once again in the air this midterm season. This time, Adam Laxalt, the Republican candidate in Nevada’s gubernatorial race and the state’s current attorney general, is the latest politician to get (rightfully) stabbed in the back by his kinfolk for being a total piece of shit.
Twelve of Laxalt’s family members published an op-ed in the Reno Gazette-Journal urging Nevadans to vote against him. Why? Because they say he’s a liar who is unqualified for the state’s executive branch.
First up, the lying! Turns out, Laxalt’s family consider him a bit of a carpet bagger:
First, for those of us who were actually raised in Nevada, it’s difficult to hear him continue to falsely claim that he was raised in Nevada or has any true connections to Nevadans. The simple fact is that while he may have been born in Reno, he left as an infant and was raised on the East Coast, 3,000 miles away, in Washington, D.C., and moved here only in 2013, only one year later launching his political career. Aside from the occasional short visit, Adam never knew the state or its people. Perhaps if he had, he would stand for Nevada’s values rather than for those of his out-of-state donors.
Ouch. But the family isn’t done dragging Laxalt just yet! The op-ed also mentions a Basque Fry fundraiser that Laxalt hosts every year. The family took issue with a promotional video for the event, in which tractors and hay bales are prominently arranged in a manner that oozes such phoniness that it even extends to Laxalt’s attire.
Adam is dressed in a “western” shirt monogramed with his campaign logo, “work” boots and jeans that look like they were ordered off Amazon the week before.
Next up, Laxalt’s qualifications, which his family don’t appear to value all that much! They say Laxalt’s brief stint as a lawyer was a “train wreck,” a claim that is apparently backed up by members of his own firm.
If Adam is elected governor, these values will be put in danger. Public lands will become less accessible for hunters and fishers and backpackers. Adam’s positions on health careand reproductive rights would limit how Nevadans care for their bodies, or be free from government interference in relationships as sacred and personal as marriage. Adam wants to repeal hundreds of millions of dollars of education funding, even though he knows full well that Nevada is ranked 49th in the nation for pre-K-12 education.
They also believe Laxalt is a hypocrite for his anti-immigration stances despite the history of immigration in the state of Nevada and their own family history. The Washington Post reports that as attorney general Laxalt, “opposed former president Barack Obama’s deportation deferral program, and, under President Trump, he has supported the administration’s efforts to penalize sanctuary cities.”
The family writing the op-ed—consisting of several aunts and cousins—admit that they aren’t close with Laxalt, but that that’s simply because, “[Laxalt] spent his life in Washington, D.C., while we lived in Northern Nevada and grew up in public schools and on public lands.”
While cutting, this admission gives the op-ed a little less bite than, say, the son of Bob Goodlatte—the retiring Republican congressman from Virginia who chairs the House Judiciary Committe—donating to a Democrat trying to win his seat.
And nothing has been as brutal as the campaign ad against Arizona Republican congressman Paul Gosar. Last month, six of Gosar’s siblings urged voters to support their brother’s opponent, Democrat David Brill.
Thanksgiving is going to be weird as hell this year.