Las Vegas Sun: “When your party meeting ends with at least eight police cars and a K-9 unit rolling in to disperse an angry crowd, you know things have gone seriously wrong with the organization. And so it is with the Republican Party in Nevada, as shown a couple of weeks ago when the Clark County Republican Party (CCRP) met to select leaders. The scene that unfolded demonstrated the courage of the CCRP’s moderate, responsible leaders in their battle to keep the state party from devolving into Big Lie extremism and right-wing violence.”

“Tensions within the party have been running high since last month after the CCRP leadership sounded an alarm over reports that the state party’s extremist director, Michael McDonald, had recruited members affiliated with the violent Proud Boys hate group to establish a significant presence in the state GOP. On July 20, the situation boiled over when the CCRP met to choose new officers and a large and angry crowd – which included those individuals associated with the Proud Boys – showed up and demanded to take part. It was an ugly scene with echoes of the Jan. 6 riot, except instead of Big Lie insurrectionists trying to take over the Capitol, they were trying to bully their way into a takeover of the county party’s moderate leadership. Egged on by the Proud Boy members, the crowd broke into angry chants of ‘Stop the steal’ and ‘Let us in.” Security officers had to face down crowd members rushing the meeting room entrance before a small army of Metro officers arrived to quell the situation and break up the crowd. Again, we see the horrifying spectacle of extremists in the Republican Party trying to introduce violence and intimidation into our politics. This time these incipient terrorists were targeting fellow Republicans, which makes one wonder: If this is how they treat their own, what level of brutality would they sink to when confronting political opposition?”