Two months ago, I blogged about how the Wheeling Intelligencer’s editorial page was moving farther to the right and more divorced from reality with its syndicated columnists. That movement (or perhaps more precisely, descent) reached a new low today with the publication of a syndicated column by Wayne Allyn Root:

An Open Letter to Sen. Manchin

Root begins:

This is not your father's Democratic Party.

Every move President Joe Biden and his socialist/communist cabal makes takes us one step closer to the destruction of the greatest country and economy in the history of civilization.

The column advises West Virginia’s Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, to “change the course of history” and “single-handedly stop the socialist takeover of America.” (I’m old enough to remember when it was communists, not socialists, that were hiding under our beds; for right-wingers, the names can change, but the fear tactic remains the same.)

Like several of his fellow right-wingers, Root provides no proof for his arguments. Instead, like them, he asks rhetorical questions. (Seven to be precise.) For example:

You think your voters want transgender women playing women's sports? You think your voters want boys who think they're girls in bathrooms and locker rooms with their daughters?

Who is Wayne Allyn Root? The Intelligencer provided no clue and so I did some research on his background, qualifications, and what he has written. The most complete background source would appear to be Andrew Kirell, who wrote an extended piece on Root for the Daily Beast in 2019. (A significant portion of Wikipedia’s entry for Root comes from Kirell.)

In the article, Kirell discusses some of Root’s right-wing conspiratorial statements:

Perhaps most infamously, when gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire and killed 58 people at a country-music festival on the Vegas strip last fall, Root proclaimed on Twitter, without a shred of evidence: “This is real thing. Clearly coordinated Muslim terror attack. PRAY for our Vegas police. PRAY for victims. VERY bad. Awful.”

Months earlier, after it was revealed that a white nationalist allegedly murdered a female anti-racism protester during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Root shared a particularly deranged theory: “Such B.S,” he said of the alleged killer’s far-right politics. “Probably paid actors & infiltrators hired by Soros. No conservative I’ve ever met commits violence. EVER.”

Root also believed that the Democrats killed Seth Rich:

“They just killed him for no reason and nobody seems to be interested in finding the killer. And it sure seems to me to point to leading Democrats—Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC, the Clintons, Hillary Clinton, all the above, Donna Brazile, all the above, seem to be mixed up in this, they all had a motive to kill this guy.”

Additionally, Root labeled former President Obama the “first Muslim president” and a “Manchurian candidate.” And on Robert Mueller:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating President Trump’s ties to Russia, Root posited earlier this year, because he has “penis envy.” The radio host declared: “Mueller’s is smaller than Trump’s.” According to Right Wing Watch, Root has claimed that “all liberal men are gay” and “all liberal women are ugly.”

There is a lot more in the article.

Yes, the Intelligencer should be proud they gave space to this guy.

An afterthought -- I was surprised to find that, upon further research, that the Intelligencer could have gone even lower – they could have published Root’s original column as found at Creators Syndicate. For example, here is the first paragraph at the syndicator's site (The Intelligencer’s version does not print what is in bold):

This is not your father's Democratic Party. These people are certified insane. Either that or they're hardcore, radical socialists and communists hellbent on turning America into Cuba, Greece or Venezuela. I believe it's a combination of both.

The Intelligencer’s version also dropped other sentences in the column including one that describes how the virus would be spread by illegal aliens at bus stations.

I’m not sure if today’s shortened version in the Intelligencer is a PG-13 version of the original article put out by the syndicator, one that was slightly-abbreviated by the Intelligencer because of space limitations or edited because the paper actually does have some (albeit minimal) standards for publication. Whichever it is, I still find it appalling that the Intelligencer gave any space to this conspiracy-monger.