Of all the Trump-endorsed MAGA candidates making a run this fall, perhaps none are more extreme in their conspiratorial views and Trump-loyalty than Doug Mastriano, the Pennsylvania GOP candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania. Mastriano is so extreme that he quickly ripped some of his most embarrassing videos off Facebook after winning the Republican nomination, videos that go a long way in demonstrating the danger in electing this man to an office that could play a role in the 2024 presidential election. Indeed, upon winning the GOP nomination, Mastriano was heard exclaiming “20 electoral votes” were just delivered to the Republican 2024 candidate.
Of course, that kind of extreme cynicism and proto-fascist worldview tends to leave a trail, and Mastriano has been caught cleaning up his past. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mastriano had to remove an embarrassing video about a Cub Scout trip to Washington D.C. in 1970 when, as he told the story, there were fears that they faced world catastrophe as the global population reached one billion people. He likened the non-event to climate change.
“Heck, the weatherman can’t get the weather right 24 hours out.
“That was the outrage and fear back then,” Mastriano said. “There was no global catastrophe when we reached one billion. … They talked about it like it was fact, like with climate change.”
The world’s population was almost four billion at the time of Mastriano’s 1970 trip if he took one at all. He was clearly simply delivering a fictional story, just like it’s a fiction that the meteorologist (a different science than climatology) are damned good at making 24-hour forecasts. The video is gone.
More? Sure:
The removed videos include freewheeling discussions in which Mastriano predicts that this November’s election will be marred by Democratic voter fraud; accuses Republicans who don’t support him of looking down on veterans; and calls the fight against abortion “the most important issue of our lifetime.”
Given that even now, some Republicans who lost their primaries claimed that the election was rigged, it would seem to be an entry-level MAGA requirement nowadays to deny any loss. Mastriano must have wanted to get a head start. The video is gone.
The videos are not just older embarrassing ones, but even more recent events have been scrubbed:
But the fact that Mastriano or his campaign is now preemptively deleting newer posts — one Facebook Live video recorded three weeks ago is already gone — is puzzling even to those who’ve followed him closely. Why are some videos removed but others not? “I honestly don’t know,” Gallagher said.
New polling? Showing that he said something or gave an answer that doesn’t fit well into what the voters are thinking?
Mastriano must be watched closely because he is as MAGA as they come, and that means there are near no limits as to what he’ll do to deliver Pennsylvania to the GOP nominee, whether Trump, DeSantis, Tucker, or any other nightmare candidate the MAGAs find under a rock going into 2024. The next presidential election will be difficult enough (to say the least) for Democrats. A roadblock in Pennsylvania could make a win near impossible.
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.