FATHERLY ADVICE

Michigan House Candidate: I Tell My Daughters to ‘Just Lie Back and Enjoy’ Rape

In 2020, Robert Regan’s three daughters urged Michiganites, “for the love of god,” not to vote him into the state legislature.

A GOP candidate for Michigan’s House of Representatives said he counsels his daughters to “just lie back and enjoy” being raped, in a clumsy attempt to weave an analogy about fighting to overturn the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Robert “RJ” Regan, who placed first out of four Republican candidates for a state House seat in a primary last week, issued the remarks during a Sunday virtual panel hosted on Facebook. When one panelist suggested it was “too late” to challenge the election’s results, Regan replied, “I tell my daughters, ‘Well, if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it.’” In 2020, Regan’s daughter Stephanie urged Michiganites, “for the love of god,” not to vote him into the state legislature. Regan also recently drew flak from both sides of the aisle for saying the Ukraine invasion was a “fake war just like the fake pandemic.” Tori Sachs, executive director of the conservative, Betsy DeVos-backed Michigan Freedom Fund, called his comments “disgusting and dehumanizing.” Sachs added: “I teach my four young daughters to stand up for themselves, to know their worth, and to fight back and speak out against creeps like Regan.”