Just as it has in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other states, the Republican embrace of extremism in Maryland is having a dramatic impact on the race for governor and other elected positions.
But as it has statewide, the growing strength of Democrats has led many conservatives here to retreat further to the right. That shift has changed the tenor of ground-level politics in Frederick County, the kind conducted at political club cookouts, American Legion forums — and over the roar of demolition derby at the Frederick Fairgrounds.
With him at a table were Nieves, 59, still slightly agitated from her exchange with the passing Democrat, and Stephanie Dellamura, 55, who had been showing a Washington Post reporter a handout — with definitions of various types of government including socialism, Nazism and democracy — that she uses to explain, to those who need convincing, that modern-day Republicans are not fascists.Both women support Cox and Trump, and doubt the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
The divisions often seemed to start with Trump, but had cascaded to the lowest tiers of politics. There was, for example, the fate of “The Republicans I knew when I started out in politics, we had philosophical or policy differences. But we didn’t have these far-right crazies that deny the election, that are buying into QAnon and stuff like that,” Young said. “There are people that I have known all my life who I would have never guessed would buy into that kind of thing. But they have.