And no, that’s not a rock band.
Don’t take the blue wave for granted.
While we’re all busy running around and campaigning, we communicate mainly with people who agree with us. We’re on the email lists of organizations that are essentially cheerleaders.
Spend a few minutes on a Republican MoC’s website, and you’ll run screaming back to the blue bubble. To quote Donald Trump’s witty interjections during Hillary Clinton’s speeches at the Presidential campaign debates, “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!”
It’s hard to determine if the outrageous fake news on those websites is what the MoCs actually believe, or if they’ve simply measured their constituents’ level of intelligence (amoeba-like), and manufactured bespoke “facts” and “positions”— or a combination of both.
Rolling Stone recently featured “The Hateful Eight,” a murderer’s row of the types of enemies that Indivisible (and other sentient beings) are up against. Some of their profiles are harrowing—what kind of human could vote for someone who thinks incest is okay? Well, here they are folks:
These guys (yes, they’re all white male) are running for office:
1. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Republican, U.S. Senate – Arizona
2. He told his officers to demand proof of citizenship from anyone they suspected of being undocumented—even after the courts ruled it was racial profiling. He was convicted of contempt of court in 2017, but Trump pardoned him before he was even sentenced. Atta boy, Donald.
3. John Fitzgerald, Republican
U.S. House – California’s 11th District
He thinks the Holocaust is “an absolute fabricated lie,” and that the 9/11 tragedy was a Jewish-orchestrated conspiracy. He promotes his campaign on neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic podcasts. He’s running in November.
4. Seth Grossman, Republican – U.S. House – New Jersey’s 2nd District
He thinks gay men should‘ve been quarantined in the ‘80s, and that Islam is “a cancer.” On Facebook, he shared a post saying that Arabs (like Obama) want to “move to your country, rape our women, bomb your buses, riot in your streets, and demand that you accept [their] religion.”
5. Arthur Jones, Republican – U.S. House – Illinois’ 3rd District
Former member of the American Nazi party (as if they actually resign!). Ran for Congress 7 times; now he’s on the ballot, nominated by the GOP, because they couldn’t come up with anyone else. He told POLITICO: he’s running to counter a “two-party, Jew-party, queer-party system.” A document on his campaign website is headlined, “The Holocaust Racket,” and refers to Simon Wiesenthal and Elie Weisel as “professional concentration camp survivors.” Professional actors? Sound familiar, anyone? Reading past the first paragraph of the document is too upsetting, so the description stops here.
6. Steve King, Republican – U.S. House – Iowa’s 4th District
King supposedly will win an eighth term this November. He kept a Confederate flag on his desk for years, and thinks white people contributed more to civilization than any other “subgroup” in history.
7. Paul Nehlen, Republican – U.S. House – Wisconsin’s 1st District
Calls himself “pro-White,” hung around with former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. The state GOP and even Paul Ryan condemned him for his views, but then he’s after Ryan’s job. He used to be in Breitbart’s good books, but apparently not any more. How horrible can you be, that even Breitbart doesn’t wanna know? Yikes.
8. Corey Stewart, Republican – U.S. Senate – Virginia
About the Confederate flag controversy he tweeted, “Nothing is worse than a Yankee telling a Southerner that his monuments don’t matter.” He doesn’t believe that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, either.
9. Russell Walker, Republican – U.S. House – North Carolina’s 48th District
According to him, “God is a racist and a white supremacist” and all Jewish people “descend from Satan.” On the white supremacist Stormfront Action podcast the host actually chided him for using the n-word about voters in his district. He thinks the Bible holds the white race superior. The NC GOP disowned him—but how did he get on the ballot and why didn’t they run anyone else? And guess who he’s going up against in November? African American minister and Democrat Garland Pierce.
That’s all depressing – especially the tactic where the GOP disavows the crazy candidate but doesn’t set up any opposition, so they can pretend they don’t condone the lunatic, but still get him installed in Congress and maintain the majority.
These people were defeated, but you never know. MAGA amnesia can kick in at any time:
• Nathan Larson, Independent – U.S. House – Virginia’s 10th District
He created websites for pedophiles, and told HuffPost there was “a grain of truth” to his posts about father-daughter incest and spousal rape. His campaign tenets: “benevolent white supremacy,” legalizing incest and child pornography, repealing the Violence Against Women Act, and setting up “a system that classifies women as property, initially of their fathers and later of their husbands.” He’s going to be on the general election ballot in November.
• Patrick Little, Republican – U.S. Senate – California
The campaign slogan he wanted to use against Sen. Dianne Feinstein: “Liberate the US from the Jewish Oligarchy.” He promised to have the U.S. formally state that the Holocaust was “a Jewish war atrocity propaganda hoax that never happened.”
• Roy Moore, Republican – U.S. Senate – Alabama
Well, we all know what happened to Roy: on Alabama’s Supreme Court, he got away with racist, anti-gay, and transphobic views. Then his sexual activities with underage girls were revealed— but he still showed up to vote, on horseback and wearing a cowboy hat, hallucinating that he’s a hero. Doug Jones kicked his ass, and the Daily News came up with one of their best headlines of the year: “Screw you & the horse you rode in on.”
We can’t afford to get complacent. There are people who will vote for swamp slime.