Milei-style flamethrowers and ‘racist bigotry’: The candidate for Missouri governor who promises to send back migrants

Ever since Donald Trump emerged on the American political arena, the campaigns and statements by candidates who agree with his ideology have taken an equally radical and even more extreme turn. The most recent case is that of Republican Senator Bill Eigel, who is seeking his party’s nomination for governor of the State of Missouri. In his new television ad, which has been much talked about, even among his own party’s contenders, Eigel has been criticized for the “racist bigotry” with which he addresses the issue of immigration in order to seduce conservative voters.

With the American flag in the background, and standing next to an alleged translator who repeats some of his words in Spanish, Eigel promises drastic measures against illegal immigration. As his first proposal, he announced that there will be “no more taxpayer handouts for illegals, period, nada, zilch, zero.”

As a governor he will “throw them in jail” and send them “back where they came from,” the smiling candidate continues, while his translator puts his hands on his head and exclaims: “Ay, caramba!” The 30-second commercial ends with the caption “No more illegal immigrants,” while in the background, Mexican trumpet music plays to the sound of someone exclaiming Looney Tunes character Speedy Gonzales’ famous catchphrase: “Ándale, ándale, arriba, arriba!””

Eigel likes to show off his anti-woke ideology, (“Here in Missouri we believe in boys and girls, not its, they or thems”) his worship of “God and not abortion”; his support for gun ownership and his an anti-immigrant policy. The senator has been seen in other campaign videos with a flamethrower, in the style of the ultra-conservative president of Argentina Javier Milei with his chainsaw; in another video, with the American national anthem in the background, he burns the Chinese flag as a “patriotic salute” for the 4th of July.

Eigel, 46, who on his Twitter account, boasts of being the “conservative candidate” supported by Trump, a Christian and former Air Force veteran — where he served for eight years — has defended the video with even stronger statements posted in a tweet on his profile: ““The party’s over. Pack your bags. You’re getting the hell outta here.”

Eigel’s propaganda, which has been in circulation for almost a week, has not gone unnoticed by the other seven Republican candidates who aspire to win the nomination for governor of Missouri in the primary elections, which will be held on August 6. It has also been noticed by the Democratic Party and by the Latino community in that state.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) has warned that “as the oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States, LULAC believes that the current climate of hate speech and vitriolic rhetoric in political campaigns is deeply damaging to our democracy and must come to an end.” However, despite widespread unrest among the Latino community, the candidate’s radical strategy appears to be having results.

Eigel, a member of the Senate since 2017 — representing the 23rd District, part of St. Charles County — has, according to various polls, managed to make a jump in his claims by turning the electoral race into a three-way contest between himself and his party's favorite candidates, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

According to a poll commissioned in June by American Dream PAC, the political action committee backing Kehoe, the front-runners were tied at 27%, with Eigel in third place at 16%. About a quarter of respondents were undecided. This, of course, was before the video hype.

A grenade launcher for ‘Make America Great Again’ justice

The effect of Trump’s rhetoric has permeated not only the Republican race for Missouri governor, but also the state’s choice of its next attorney general. Will Scharf, one of the tycoon’s lawyers who played a key role in defending the Republican presidential candidate’s “immunity” from the classified documents case, has run in a primary against the state’s current attorney general, Andrew Bailey. Both are competing for the former president’s sympathy with a series of lawsuits and complaints in their names.

“Are you sick and tired of Joe Biden’s attacks on President Trump, our Constitution, and the MAGA agenda?” Scharf writes in a post on X. In the video that accompanies the caption, the lawyer can be seen in what appears to be a meadow where leaves with evidence and accusations against the former president are falling. The jurist is then seen cocking a grenade launcher, firing at the stack of boxes full of documents and watching them explode. “It’s time for a Missouri Attorney General who will return fire.”

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville was also in the eye of the storm after making statements in which he referred to immigrants as “garbage,” amid criticism of the current government’s immigration policy and the leadership ability of the vice president and the Democratic presumptive presidential nominee, Kamala Harris.

“How can you put somebody in charge of a situation where you let 15, possibly even 20 million people come into our country? Now some of these people are good, but most of them are garbage. They come from jails and prisons in other countries,” Tuberville said during an interview with Fox Business.

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