Kansas GOP Senate candidates pander to rogue barber and coronavirus conspiracy theorists
On his Facebook page, McPherson, Kansas, barber Luke Aichele suggested that state officials fighting COVID-19 are like Nazis putting out propaganda about genocidal “safety” measures. In answer to those in McPherson who complained that his rogue haircuts were risking public health, he posted a photo of Stalin, who deliberately starved millions of Ukrainians, offering snitches extra rations.
Aichele also put up that “PlanDemic” video that holds that the current crisis was cooked up to enslave us all, and posted admiringly about the salon and barbershop owners in Michigan and Texas who had reopened their shops in defiance of stay-at-home orders.
“Not a peep from Dems,” he said last Thursday, “about the Texas salon owner being separated from her children and locked in a cage for opening her salon.”
Then he followed her example and made national news, too.
Coronavirus infections are spiking in Kansas — the “curve” is a straight line, headed in the wrong direction — and there have been 26 confirmed COVID-19 cases in McPherson County. It’s Aichele’s indifference to whether he could have been spreading the virus that’s the issue, rather than his First Amendment right to spread conspiracy theories.
And it’s the lawmakers who are defending his law-breaking who have a lot more to answer for.
Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle tweeted, “Luke is simply trying to feed his family. It’s immoral to prevent those who want to work safely, from doing so. #FreeKansas.”
Yeah, well, those merchants selling butchered dogs and baby crocodiles in Chinese wet markets are just trying to feed their families too, right? Because not all honest work is safe.
Wagle, who is running for the U.S. Senate, has been so marginalized by her own party that Republicans asked her to get out of the race in a form letter they then leaked.
But the establishment favorite in that race, U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall, also called Aichele to offer his support and then put out a statement defending the barber’s decision to ignore Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive orders in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I was raised by a Chief of Police,” Marshall’s statement said. “I was raised to respect the law. But I was also raised with basic common sense. Telling someone they cannot work to feed their family, offering them no help, and then threatening their arrest if they safely try to earn a living is wrong.”
McPherson County Attorney Gregory Benefiel said there had been “a lot of different people complaining about the situation” at Luke’s Barber Shop, “from the director of the health department to individuals calling and reporting it.” Stalin’s treacherous network of tattletales, as Aichele saw them.
The threat of arrest was withdrawn after Aichele agreed not to open his shop again until next Monday, just like everybody else in his business. So his martyrdom could have been worse.
But now, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who also hopes to run for higher office some day, is reviewing whether anyone who violates any of Kelly’s emergency orders can be prosecuted under the state constitution.
Since Kelly has worked with Schmidt’s office on every executive order she’s put out, maybe he will find his own involvement unconstitutional.
We’re waiting impatiently for more Republicans to follow the example of Govs. Mike DeWine of Ohio and Larry Hogan Jr. of Maryland, who have shown as much leadership as anyone during this crisis.
This virus is not some political angel of death who will nod and pass over the houses where Fox News is on. And it’s hard to believe that those politicians who pandered to conspiracy theorists will be rewarded by either historians or voters with families to feed.