The chair of the Hopewell County, VA GOP stood outside the home of a Democratic congressman brandishing an assault weapon. He says it was "a protest." This is an indicator of just how radicalized the GOP has become at the local level. vpm.org/news/articles/…
It would be terrifying enough to look out your window and see this sight. But it adds something to the picture when you know the person with that gun is not some rando, but instead the *leader* of your county's GOP. 
Here's a thread on a theme I've been hammering at for quite a while now. The institutional rot in the GOP has worked its way down to (or up from?) the local level. Trump is just the tip of the illiberal iceberg.
Because local journalism has been systematically hollowed out over the past few decades, these local stories are barely getting covered and rarely are they percolating up to the national media. This is a problem.
Th NYTimes will send innumerable journalists to hang out in rural diners and chat with guys in red hats. But how about more deep dives into the local GOP organizations that are driving the party rapidly rightward into some pretty scary territory?
I grew up in one of those Central PA red counties where the Times likes to send journalists in pith helmets to write "local color" stories. It might be more worthwhile for them to just stay home and peruse the official FB page of that county's GOP.
There are many stories about extremist elements within the GOP that we could add to the list. Like advocate of domestic terrorism, Matt Shea, who serves (and has been re-elected multiple times) as a GOP legislator in the state of Washington.
The Nebraska GOP employed a white nationalist as a field director until he was exposed as such. talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/whit…
In the summer of 2018 the Washington GOP elected one of the organizers of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and an avowed white nationalist to be a party precinct leader. mynorthwest.com/1011333/james-…
