The Republican Party must remain a political movement grounded in character, national strength, stability, and responsible governance. Florida’s 6th U.S. Congressional District has been a shining example of those standards. From 2013 to 2018, it was represented by now-Governor Ron DeSantis. From 2019 to 2025, Mike Waltz continued the 6th District’s legacy until he was selected to serve as National Security Advisor.
Located on Florida’s northeast coast, the 6th is a traditionally conservative district composed largely of homeowners, retirees, veterans, law enforcement families, and working Americans seeking stability, economic growth, and safety.
Overwhelming Republican victories serve as evidence that moderate Democrats are willing to cross party lines to ensure the best candidates are elected. Selecting the best candidates starts with the primary elections.
This August, the Republican primary will include Randy Fine, who was selected in a special election to replace Mike Waltz, along with six other candidates. Among them is Dan Bilzerian, the son of the convicted felon Paul Bilzerian.
Paul was convicted in 1989 of securities and tax fraud, as well as conspiracy. He was indicted in 2024 by the Department of Justice for “…his alleged years-long avoidance of a judgment—now exceeding $180 million—to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) while running a cannabis and lifestyle brand company purportedly helmed by his social media influencer son—a company whose investors he allegedly cheated…”
Enjoying the wealth of his father’s ill-gotten gains, Bilzerian cultivated an image built on excess: high-stakes poker, guns, fast cars, and scantily clad models. For a Hustler magazine photoshoot, he unsuccessfully threw a model from a house roof into a swimming pool. Both Bilzerian and Hustler refused to help pay her subsequent medical bills. Banned from a Miami nightclub for kicking another model in the face, Bilzerian has also been in trouble with law enforcement in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Ironically, Bilzerian was a badge-carrying member of the Lake Arthur, New Mexico, Police Department until state police busted the hamlet for selling fraudulent law enforcement credentials to anyone willing to pay the price.
In 2018, Bilzerian went to Armenia. He took the oath of citizenship and was conspicuously photographed shooting a variety of weapons, including a rocket-propelled grenade, during a visit to the Russia-supported separatist region of Karabakh.
In 2020, he became a self-styled entrepreneur as Chairman and CEO of Ignite International Brands. According to a lawsuit filed by Ignite President Curtis Hefferman, his employment was terminated after the challenged Bilzerian’s use of company funds to subsidize a lavish lifestyle. The company later went bankrupt and figured in his father’s 2024 indictment.
Post the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Bilzerian began proclaiming increasingly strident anti-Israel and anti-Jewish positions, eventually declaring “Jewish supremacy” the “greatest threat to the world today.” Piers Morgan obliged in providing Bilzerian with an opportunity to spit his venom.
All Americans should reject Bilzerian’s rhetoric of conspiratorial grievance politics. Verbiage that alienates people, inflames tensions, and cheapens political discourse is dangerous. Citizens should debate foreign policy openly, including U.S. support for Israel, military aid, and Middle East strategy. However, there is a difference between serious policy disagreement and grievance-driven spectacle built around hate.
Bilzerian is not alone. A growing ecosystem of internet personalities and organizations uses outrage aimed at Israel and Jews to amass clicks, donations, followers, and attention. That doesn’t make it principled. It makes it profitable. America cannot remain strong if politics devolves into ethnic hostility, online tribalism, and outrage entrepreneurship.
This is not merely another sideshow in the age of social media politics. The campaign of this extremist influencer-turned-conspiracy theorist is a warning that conservatives should take seriously. All this aggressive branding made Bilzerian famous online. It does not make him fit to serve in Congress.
Bilzerian’s campaign is rooted in attention-seeking and division. At best, he is sullying American democracy by using elections to boost his online popularity. At worst, he is using it to spread insane, disgusting ideas and drag them into high office.
Our country was built on moderation, social cohesion, and civic responsibility. America’s political system is becoming increasingly vulnerable to influencer culture, where attention-seeking masquerades as competence and vulgarity substitutes for strength. Narcissists are noisy.
The Republican Party faces threats from the progressive Left, but it also faces dangers from the far Right: opportunists, narcissists, and internet celebrities who mistake provocation for leadership and online attention-getting for public service. Bilzerian personifies that problem.
America needs leaders with integrity who can handle power under pressure. This race should not be about social media followers or grievance culture.
Bilzerian likes to point out his years of military service. Real leadership requires judgment and restraint. In military operations, those qualities are not optional. They are the difference between mission success and catastrophe. Not hard to figure out why, after four years active and three in the reserve, Bilzerian never got beyond junior enlisted. One thing is for certain. During those years, he never learned the meaning of duty, honor, and country.
Wes Martin, a retired U.S. Army colonel, has served in law enforcement positions around the world and holds an MBA in International Politics and Business.