Laura Loomer, an infamous white-nationalist social-media personality, has joined Donald Trump’s campaign entourage to the chagrin of many of his other supporters. “Laura Loomer is a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage,” says Sen. Thom Tillis. “The history of statements by Ms. Loomer are beyond disturbing,” complains Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “I hope this problem gets resolved.”
Who could have foreseen that a bigoted conspiracy theorist would be associated with Donald Trump of all people? It is an affront to the former president’s good name! The once-sterling reputation of Donald Trump is now associated with totally unfounded claims and weird rants about minority groups. A shocking fall from grace.
Yes, yes, Loomer’s rap sheet, which includes describing herself as “pro-white nationalism,” is comparatively more scandalous than Trump’s, and we shouldn’t discount the importance of every incremental step toward the party’s legitimizing explicit racism. But the Republican angst over Loomer’s influence is not an attempt to establish boundaries. It is, to the contrary, a reflection of Republicans’ inability to confront the derangement and racism expressed by their party’s leader.
The agita around Loomer’s influence is difficult to understand in ideological or moral terms. News accounts attempting to summarize what makes Loomer’s beliefs unacceptable tend to fall short. “Loomer has a history of pushing a variety of conspiracy theories,” reports NBC. “She has also called for Democrats to be executed for treason,” nuts Huffpost. Trump, of course, also has a history of endorsing conspiracy theories and has called for the execution of various opponents.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most prominent Loomer antagonists, complained about one of her recent social-media posts, “This is appalling and extremely racist. It does not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA. This does not represent President Trump.” Taylor Greene is herself a fan of paranoid, bigoted social-media posting, and the best way to understand this complaint is not that Loomer has gone too far but that Loomer has horned in on MTG’s racket.
Loomer has made enemies by clawing her way into Trump’s inner circle. Trump is the focal point of Loomer’s personal and professional life. She does not date, she explained to the Washington Post in a revealing profile in May, and reshaped her body to make herself acceptable as a prospective Trump press secretary, her apparent dream job. “I try to eat really healthy,” she told the Post. “I want to work for Trump. He doesn’t really like … I’m not saying you have to be thin to work for President Trump. I’m just saying that if I wanted to work for the president and have a communications job, I’d have to look presentable.” Steve Bannon compared her to “a monk in medieval France,” saying, with apparent admiration, “I don’t know anybody who has dedicated their body and soul to not only Trump, but MAGA, the way she has.” (Bannon himself has dedicated only his soul).
Loomer’s ascension owes itself not only to her cultlike devotion to the great man himself — this is mere table stakes in Trump world — but also a willingness to knife fellow sycophants for their alleged disloyalty. Her trademark move, which she calls “Loomering,” involves confronting Republicans with a camera at close range and attacking them for some real or imagined betrayal of Trumpism. This tactic has the simultaneous benefit of drawing public attention to Loomer and helping her ascend the greasy pole at Mar-a-Lago.
One recent, typical Loomer set piece involved a tiff with Republican spokesperson and former Miss Ohio Madison Gesiotto Gilbert. The latter attacked Loomer as a “racist” and a “grifter,” to which Loomer responded by labeling her antagonist “a bimbo who calls herself a ‘beauty queen’ and you didn’t even defend Donald Trump a single time tonight when he was attacked while you were glammed up on a network in a segment meant to attack Donald Trump.” (Who says Trump’s campaign is not a healthy work environment for women?)
Marc Caputo reports Loomer “has long been viewed by a faction of Trump land as a Rasputin-like figure.” It is a telling comparison. Rasputin certainly had a deeply unhealthy influence on the czars. But the problem with Russian governance was not Rasputin; it was the czars themselves. The consternation that centered on Rasputin’s hold on the royal family in St. Petersburg served as a distraction from the fundamental decay of the Romanov dynasty and the dysfunctional state it produced.
Trump himself is both a racist and a conspiracy theorist. These facts are both too inculpatory for his Republican allies to concede yet too obvious for them to deny. And so their dismay is channeled into the figures surrounding Trump. Like indulgent parents of a delinquent teen, they focus their anger on the other kids who might be exerting a bad influence over their precious child, ignoring the obvious possibility that their child is himself the bad influence.
