In Montana congressional candidate Matt Rosendale’s newest ad, which you can you can watch above, Rosendale aims a sighted rifle at a “government drone” and blows it away, before sending a message to the Obama administration: “Spying on our citizens—that’s just wrong.”
This isn’t the first attempt by Rosendale, a state representative who is seeking the GOP nomination to replace Rep. Steve Daines in Congress next fall, to make nice with his state’s far-right elements. In December Rosendale attended an event held by a group called Defend Rural America, whose founder, Kirk MacKenzie, called environmentalists “domestic terrorists.” And although this is the first time a candidate has pretended to shoot down a drone, politicians have a long history of blowing things up in campaign ads. In 2008, Montana Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer used a double-barreled shotgun to blast the federal Real ID law into tiny bits.
As always, Mother Jones reminds you that if you must ritually annihilate a federal policy in a campaign ad, you should at least wear safety goggles and ear plugs.
