Eric Greitens is a predator and a degenerate. We knew that and today’s ad showing him launching commando raids to murder or “hunt” RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) only cements that reputation. But his ad — of a piece with the Jan. 6th insurrection and mass shootings across the United States — is part of a much longer trajectory. While I was familiar with the different parts of the story I only really came to understand it when I read this email from TPM Reader SS ten years ago (yes, back in 2012, days after the Newtown massacre).

I mentioned a few days ago that the most compelling part of the Jan 6 committee hearings so far for me has been the description of the particulars of how the breach of the Capitol complex happened. The story is usually presented as something like this. There was a big group of angry and potentially violent Trumpers. There was a much smaller group, maybe as few as a few dozens of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers with a more focused ideology, a clearer plan of the insurrection and so forth. They were both more eager to get violent and had a lot more experience getting violent. But they were in the extreme minority of the people up there. So even though they’re now the ones facing serious charges including seditious conspiracy they are only a small part of what happened.