Last week the DOJ charged a man named Leo Brent Bozell, IV of breaching the Capitol during the January 6th Capitol riot. Bozell IV is the son of L Brent Bozell III, the founder of the Parents’ Television Council and batshit right wing site CNSNews.com. Read the complaint here.
The younger Bozell was filmed in the Senate chamber and later exiting the Capitol building. He has been charged with obstructing an official proceeding, entering a restricted building, and disorderly conduct. Wearing a sweatshirt from the Hershey Christian Academy, a school in Pennsylvania is daughters attend and where he once served as girls basketball coach, the younger Bozell also posted clips of his activities in the Capitol to his social media accounts.
What’s interesting here is how much the traditional “family values” conservative world surrendered to the nihilism and malevolence of Trumpism. And it goes back to WWF (now WWE) pro wrestling. Bozell’s Parents’ Television Council group (PTC) waged a campaign against the WWF accusing the wrestling company (correctly) of promoting violence and indecency to children.
WWF CEO Vince McMahon responded by having one of his mid-card performers Stevie Richards – a punkish headbanger type wrestler – rebrand himself as “Steven Richards, head of ‘Right to Censor’ (RTC)” who would run out wearing an oxford shirt and tie and ruin other wrestler’s matches or scenes staged with women in bikinis and what not. A decade and a half later Vince McMahon was one of Trump’s biggest supporters and his wife was a cabinet secretary for four years – until shortly after Bozell’s adult son was committed a felony for participating in a mob assault on the Capitol incited by Trump. How’s that for Christian conservatism?