Lou Barletta campaigned on Thursday with the Berks County Patriots — an “extreme antigovernment group” that has spread undemocratic conspiracy theories and vaccine misinformation.
PENNSYLVANIA — Since the first day of his campaign, Lou Barletta has peddled dangerous misinformation and promoted absurd conspiracy theories — and last night, he hosted a campaign event with the Berks County Patriots, a far-right group that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an “extreme antigovernment group.”
“Hundreds of members” of the Berks County Patriots traveled to Washington, D.C. for the insurrection, and the group has promoted dangerous conspiracy theories about the election and shared misinformation questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
Barletta has already proven that no MAGA litmus test is too extreme for him, so he was surely right at home among the Berks County Patriots on Thursday. In his first week as a candidate, Barletta doubled down on the Big Lie, telling ABC27 that, “dead people have been voting in Pennsylvania for a long time. […] They can mail in their ballots from the cemetery” — and just last week, he praised Trump acolyte Ron DeSantis’ response to COVID-19, even as Florida “leads the country in hospitalized children” and “hospitals are overrun” with COVID-19 patients as the state has become the “epicenter” of the summer coronavirus spike.
“Lou Barletta’s campaign for governor has been founded on dangerous lies since day one, so it’s no surprise that he’s campaigning with antigovernment extremists like the Berks County Patriots, who participated in the violent insurrection on January 6th and have spread anti-COVID vaccine propaganda,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesman Brendan Welch. “Barletta is racing to the far-right, and his penchant for promoting misinformation is putting Pennsylvanians at risk.”
With Barletta actively courting antigovernment extremists, he’s proving once again that he’s too extreme for Pennsylvanians.
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