Chris Smith (R-NJ-04), longtime serving Republican Congressman and staunch opponent to Women’s Rights, is facing a battle on two fronts: one from his up-and-coming Democratic Challenger, Matt Jenkins this November, but also from Alt-Right candidate Mike Crispi. The Republican establishment is deeply divided in Ocean County. Having spent years nurturing ultra-nationalistic radical wing to the party devoted to Donald Trump, the Republican establishment is finding it difficult to keep this radical element of the party from cannibalizing their incumbent leadership.

Chris Smith is in trouble - Mike Crispi is looking to replace longtime serving Congressman Chris Smith. Crispi. Mr. Crispi is a Trump acolyte. The Ocean County GOP was so fearful of Crispi that they hired armed police officers to prevent Alt-Right Republicans from challenging Smith at their mini-convention. In a classic Trump move, Crispi argues he would have won the GOP primary endorsement in a landslide had the establishment played fairly.

Mr. Crispi calls himself is an “America First” Republican, a term President Trump revived from its origins that opposed US involvement in WWII as Nazi sympathizers. Crispi is anti-democracy, saying that holding the 2020 election was a crime and that “we [America First Republicans] must ensure it never happens again.” The isolationism and xenophobia extant in America First ideology is prevalent within the tennants of the alt-right. 

Americans must soon reckon with the undeniable fact that the modern Republican party is no longer the party of Reagan. From their national policies to local candidates, they are more so the party of the alt-right and Trump.