Forget That Herschel Walker Has Multiple Personalities Or Threatened To Kill His Wife, McConnell Loves Him Now

Silly me, I was just musing on what direction the Republican party might be taking, what they would do to level out from the kamikaze nose dive that they’re in. I keep thinking that they might even be concerned about traditional conservative values and wish a return to the days of platform and policy. Then I read that being credibly accused of domestic violence and having bona fide mental problems are zero impediment to getting Mitch McConnell’s blessing to become a Republican senator. Oh yes. McConnell is welcoming Herschel Walker with open arms. So if you’re looking for the GOP’s new face, this is it. They’ve still got no clothes, but this is their face. Politico:

“Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate. I look forward to working with Herschel in Washington to get the job done,” McConnell said in a statement to POLITICO.

McConnell’s endorsement of Walker is the leader’s first for a non-incumbent in the 2022 elections.

Herschel will unite the party. And he may be the perfect candidate for that, considering how blatantly dysfunctional so many of them are.

Walker has faced scrutiny over his past behavior, including his divorce from a woman who accused him of pointing a gun at her head and engaging in controlling behavior. He was also faced questions about his management of a chicken company he owns, Renaissance Man Food Services.

The former running back has been open about his struggles with Dissociative Identity Disorder, a mental health condition in which a person has multiple personalities that control their behavior.

That doesn’t sound like the profile of somebody I want making my laws. For that matter, I’m not sure I want this guy making my hamburger. And he’s a celebrity candidate who lies about how much money he’s got, but why would that be a problem? It’s not like the GOP has ever had problems with somebody like that, right? Associated Press:

His account details years of struggles and an eventual diagnosis in 2001. Walker describes himself dealing with as many as a dozen personalities — or “alters” — that he had constructed as a defense against bullying he suffered as a stuttering, overweight child. […]

In an AP interview at the time, Walker emphasized his purpose was to help others with similar disorders. “People say, ‘Herschel is just trying to write something to make money,’” he said. “I say, ‘Guys, why would I write something like this to make money?’”

The National Alliance on Mental Illness describes dissociative identity disorder as “alternating between multiple identities,” leaving a person with “gaps in memory of everyday events.” It notes men with the disorder “exhibit more violent behavior rather than amnesia.”

In his book, Walker acknowledges violent urges. He writes that he played Russian roulette and recounts sitting at his kitchen table in 1991 pointing a gun, loaded with a single bullet, at his head. “I wasn’t suicidal,” Walker explained, but “just looked at mortality as the ultimate challenge.” […]

A watershed moment, he writes, came in February 2001, when he drove around suburban Dallas, hunting for a man who he said was avoiding his calls after being days late delivering a car Walker had purchased.

“The logical side of me knew that what I was thinking of doing to this man — murdering him for messing up my schedule — wasn’t a viable alternative,” Walker wrote. “But another side of me was so angry that all I could think was how satisfying it would feel to step out of the car, pull out the gun, slip off the safety, and squeeze the trigger.”

Ultimately, Walker wrote, he had a change of heart after seeing a “SMILE. JESUS LOVES YOU” bumper sticker on the man’s car-hauling truck. He decided to seek professional help.

“I’d been running for most of life, from what only I really knew but seldom talked about. It was time to stop running and face some harsh realities,” he wrote.

Walker’s threatening behavior continued well after the 2001 revelation, according to court records obtained by AP that have not previously been reported.

Four years later, in December 2005, Cindy Grossman, Walker’s ex-wife, secured a protective order against him, alleging violent and controlling behavior.

Grossman has said she was long a victim of Walker’s impulses. When his book was released, she told ABC News that at one point during their marriage, her husband pointed a pistol at her head and said, “I’m going to blow your f’ing brains out.” She filed for divorce in 2001, citing “physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior.”

Our elected officials used to be people of better than average character, or at least that was our wish and that was how the situation was portrayed. Now, you can be any kind of a lunatic and as long as you slap the “born again Christian” label on the situation, you’re fine. This is how Trump got around so many credible allegations of rape and sexual assault, with the endorsement of grifting right-wing pastors who were willing to create the fable that he was a “baby Christian” and had been born again and all the wingnuts saw it on their religious broadcast channels and ate it up with a spoon.

It’s no small thing that McConnell just endorsed Walker. As recently as late August McConnell was singing a very different tune indeed. CNN:

McConnell himself has yet to speak out publicly against Walker but, according to sources cited by CNN, has made his reservations very clear privately. Wrote CNN’s Manu Raju, Alex Rogers and Mike Warren earlier this month:

–

“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested to allies that former Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler should take another look at running again, according to three sources familiar with the matter, after their narrow losses in January flipped the Senate to Democratic control.”

–

The problem for McConnell is that — as I noted above — Walker has a very high likelihood of being the party’s nominee given his celebrity and the likely strong backing he will have from the former president. (In March, Trump put out a statement that read in part: “He would be unstoppable, just like he was when he played for the Georgia Bulldogs, and in the NFL. He is also a GREAT person. Run Herschel, run!”)

–

Given the current power dynamic in the Republican Party, it’s not at all clear that a McConnell-backed candidate like Loeffler or Perdue could overcome Walker — even with the various issues I documented above surrounding him.

–

Which would then mean that in one of the GOP’s best pickup opportunities in the country, the party would put forward a candidate who is an opposition researcher’s dream — not to mention someone who has never run for any office prior to 2022.

–

If that scenario does come to pass, it has implications well beyond Georgia. Republicans need to net just a single seat to retake control of the Senate in 2023. And Georgia, with the narrow victory margin for both Warnock and President Joe Biden in 2020, is at the top of the list of potential pickups. Lose Georgia, and Republicans need to find a pickup elsewhere — in places like Arizona, where Sen. Mark Kelly looks very strong, or New Hampshire, where essentially all GOP hopes lie with the potential candidacy of Gov. Chris Sununu.

–

In short, Senate Republicans are not in a place where they can simply write off one of their best pickup chances without feeling the impact elsewhere in the country. And while no one should say conclusively that Walker would lose to Warnock, it is quite clear that the former running back would have major challenges if he was the Republican nominee.

–

The worst thing for McConnell and his fellow establishment Republicans? They know all of this. They just might not be able to stop it.