You are judged by the company that you keep
In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe tried to tie Trump around the neck of GOP challenger Glenn Youngkin with a ship’s anchor. It didn’t work. Youngkin quietly and politely, but insistently distanced himself from Trump and used nods and winks instead of air raid alarms to dog whistle the base.
In New Jersey, GOP challenger Jack Ciattarelli, already a well known local flake long before Trump, for wanting to make swearing illegal in New Jersey, yeah, I know, fuckin’ Jersey, right?, also ran a campaign that held Trump at arms length, and quietly touting the party’s racism instead of blasting it. And he committed the cardinal sin of conceding the race today, while admitting that it was a fair and free election. But he took Murphy to the mattresses.
There is a lesson to be learned here by the wise, if they choose to learn it, and also an opportunity. In both Virginia and New Jersey, whether Trump wanted to interject himself or not, the candidates kept him at arms length, and went with quieter dog whistles to motivate the base, and the white suburban GOP voters put Trump in the rear view mirror, and came home to their down ballot candidates. But it was no walkover, and it is clear that the party itself is still on probation with more traditional voters, who want Trump gone once and for all.
Traditional base GOP voters made it clear They are sick to death of Trump, and as long as Trump himself is not on the ballot, they are willing to put him in the rear view mirror, and return home to the mother ship for more traditional candidates, the key being traditional. GOP voters have long lived with dog whistles from their candidates, just don’t rub their noses in it. And therein lies the opportunity, because in 2022, there is going to be another way to interject Trump into the elections at a local level.
It has already been widely reported that Bannonites, Trombies, and Loud Tois have not only been interrupting and making threatening goo-goo noises at local school board and city council meetings, they have been signing up to run for seats on those boards. And it was reported on MSNBC today that Loud Tois (Bois), as well as Oath Creepers are filing their papers to run for congressional seats in 2022. And there is the Democratic mother lode.
Unfortunately, in many cases, these brainless idjits will be running in safely gerrymandered districts like Gosar, Jordan, Jordan and Inglorious MYG. And will most likely win. But these same shit kickers can run for school board and city council seats anywhere, simply because nobody pays attention to them!
The Democrats, especially on the local and state level need to start paying attention. Like Santa, they need to be making a list and checking it twice. GOP voters have shown twice now that they won’t be swayed by the ghost of Trump, but that doesn’t mean that they want a bunch of Trombies, bucket heads, and bedsheet bandito’s helping to run their government. Bring the issue home!
All politics is local. So make it local! The GOP incumbents and challengers to local far right insurgent candidates with questionable associations. And if there are none? Fuck it, tie them to other far right morons in other places. Do you really want to elect a representative from a party that not only welcomes, but runs candidates from organizations that have been labeled as domestic terrorist threats?
I often like to refer to the GOP vs the Democrats as the Crips rumbling with the Chess Club. But you can get down and dirty without wallowing around in the mosh pit. I saw a report today that said that even with GOP gerrymandered redistricting, there are going to be 70+ competitive or highly competitive congressional districts up for grabs in 2022. Tying local GOP congressional candidates to the racist bent of their own party can be a highly effective way of turning white suburban voters off on these candidates. And the way the GOP primaries are going to shape up, they should have plenty of ammo to work with.
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I certainly hope our local GOP nuts decide to put Trump at arm’s length but I really doubt it. We don’t even have our Senate primary races until JUNE of 2022 and there are already GOPers running ads on television with one of them (can’t recall his name at the moment) proudly tying himself to Trump. I think the guy’s actually in violation of some military regs because his ads are showing him IN UNIFORM but the ad (as far as I can recall–it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had the misfortune of seeing it) says he’s retired from the military. A woman’s doing her usual GOP “I’m a Christian” nonsense but I don’t recall the ad actually meaning the “T” word. (All I can say is, it’s gonna be a damn long campaign if these nuts are going to be running this crap for the next 6 1/2 months. Then, of course, we’ve got to deal with the light run through July and August and the saturation ads in September and October and the hypersaturation ads that last campaign week in November. Yichhhh. Luckily, most of my TV viewing is cable networks which usually don’t air the campaign ads–even when the “local” ads take over the commercial blocks–but I do watch quite of bit of network shows. But even one campaign commercial is ten too many.)
Does kooky pants think she looks cool or something? Someone needs to tell her she looks much like she always does-like an unhinged idiot.
To which kooky pants are you referring? At least add name clue (MTG or an actual name [Boebert]) would be helpful as those of us on phones don’t see the Kooky Pants.
The democrats need 2 fire up their base with whatever they use, & they need2 start now & not stop til Jan 2025. The Republicans use the nazi strategy of repeating lies; I have to think actions & pointing out those things over & over would also have impact…& don’t be nice. This is war.