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Virginia Democrats are Bad at this Politics Thing

Rich Meagher | October 11, 2018

Topics: Democrats, DPVA, gerrymandering, GOP, Republicans, U.S. Constitution, VA Republicans, Virginia Democrats

While I’m teaching, I find myself restating the same point to my students over and over again: Republicans are better at politics than Democrats. We just saw it recently play out at the national level (welcome, Justice Brohim). And it’s certainly true in Virginia, especially after last week’s redistricting debacle.

Here’s the rundown in case you missed it:

A federal court ordered Virginia to redraw the lines of 11 state legislative districts, arguing that they sorted voters by race in violation of the U.S. Constitution. After the General Assembly called a special session to respond, Democrats offered a new map that seemed designed to help Democrats win more seats — Republicans called it a “partisan power grab.” They then responded with their own map. This plan garnered some bipartisan report, including from the aptly-named Portsmouth Democrat Steve Heretick, who criticized his own party for “corrupt gerrymandering.” The Governor vowed to veto the plan, so the Republicans cancelled the session.

While the Democrats get what they probably want anyway – the courts redraw the lines, probably in ways favorable to Democrats – the GOP gets to paint them as partisan hacks.

We can learn two big lessons from this mess:

First, redistricting remains an important battleground in the national Vote Wars between the two parties. Ever wonder why Republicans scream to the hilltops about voter fraud, despite the lack of any evidence that it’s occurring on a wide scale? Or why Democrats across the country are challenging a number of Republican-drawn district maps in the courts?

It’s the Great Game, played out at a national, state, and local level, in the courts, statehouses, and media, over the basic rules of our electoral system. It includes district lines, but also a number of laws and rules that govern access the polls, like voter ID and polling locations. And the Democrats have been getting their asses kicked in all these arenas for years.

Which brings us to Delegate Heretick, and the second lesson we learned last week; again: Democrats are terrible at politics.

Part of that is individual. Heretick may be a great person, and even a great legislator — but in criticizing his own party, he comes off sounding at best naïve and, at worst, a dupe for the GOP.

It’s great that Heretick supports an independent redistricting process. It’s also great that he wants to “work across the aisle” and find some bipartisan common ground. But he’s operating in a hyper-partisan environment, engaged in a fundamental battle over the rules of the game. Heretick sandbagged his own caucus in the middle of an important political confrontation, and acted like he was the hero of the story. In an interview with the Virginia Mercury’s, Ned Oliver, are Heretick’s own words:

“In other words, the federal court order ordered us to redraw the 11 affected districts … and yet [Democrats] were using this opportunity for a blatantly partisan purpose, and that is to try to weaken Republican incumbents.”

Oh my heavens! How shocking that your political party was practicing…politics (gasp)!  Heretick sounds like a Pollyanna in the middle of a red light district.

But this isn’t entirely the Delegate’s fault; it also doesn’t help that Democrats seemed to bungle the whole process of informing their own caucus. In his interview with Oliver, Heretick complained of a “mysterious” process, including caucus phone calls where he didn’t even know who was on the line. Worse still, the Democrats’ proposed map cut into Heretick’s district, likely reducing his possible margin of victory in the next election. If you want your people to take one for the team, you have to make sure they know why and what they’re getting in return.

The one thing the Democrats did do well was the thing which they were most criticized: offering a blatantly favorable map at the start. You don’t begin negotiations by giving away everything, and a “neutral” map would have meant they were starting the process from the middle — allowing the GOP to chip away at lines until they got something more favorable. Heretick’s complaints about his party’s own gerrymandering just gave political top cover to the GOP who, of course, were engaged in the same kind of gerrymandering on the other side.

It’s obviously not a good thing that this kind of political battle rages in our state legislature. The basic rules of our democracy should not be up for grabs in a power struggle among partisan forces. This is why good government groups like One Virginia 2021 have been so vocal in advocating for redistricting reform: the rules of the game are too important to be determined by the players, especially the ones who are winning.

And everyone who wants bipartisan reform and fair rules have to favor the losing side right now; Democrats have the incentive to change how district lines are drawn because they’ve lost so much ground to the GOP in that battle.

But Heretick was acting last week like the game had already been reset. The Democrats who run his caucus didn’t help him understand this very well. If the Democrats want to avoid even more political losses, they need to get their act together — or, to put it more bluntly, they need to get their heads out of their you-know-whats. I’m not holding my breath.

Nazis and Anti-Semities Now Openly Running on Republican Tickets Ahead of Midterms

Landon Shroder | July 25, 2018

Topics: Anti-Semities, GOP, Holocaust Denial, Mid-Terms, Nazis, politics, Republicans, white nationalism, white supremacy

Incidents of anti-Semitism are on the rise in the US, up 57 percent in 2017, the largest single increase on record since the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) started tracking incidents in 1979. The ADL classifies anti-Semitism as, “The belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. It may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews, for instance, or political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about Jews.” According to their most recent audit, the majority of incidents have appeared at schools and on college campuses and have doubled for the second year in a row.

What is driving these incidents? The report draws conclusions that should be obvious to just about anyone who has been alive since President Trump has been elected, but among other things, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, Chief Executive of the ADL gave the New York Times three main reasons: the divisive state of US politics, an emboldening of extremists, and the adverse impacts of social media. All of which culminated last summer during the Unite the Right rally when white supremacists marauded through Charlottesville chanting, “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil” (a Nazi slogan).

While these incidents would have been an outlier in a previous political era, the full Republican embrace of President Trump has normalized the kinds of racism and anti-Semitism now on the rise. His claims that there were some “very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville” (one side being the Nazi side), gave agency to white supremacists and nationalists who’s anti-Semitism directly comprises their core ideology, and has empowered a new group of GOP candidates to run for office, namely Nazis and anti-Semites.

So here we are, in a political age where white supremacy, nationalism, and anti-Semitism is becoming normative and mainstreamed as a political tactic to ensure Trump’s base stays ever loyal. Have a look at some of the mid-term contests this season where the GOP ticket is actually being held by a Nazi, anti-Semite, or someone who has been in direct support of white nationalists, supremacists, or anti-Semites.

Arthur Jones: 

Arthur Jones is a member of the American Nazi Party who is running in Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District and has referred to Jewish teachings as “satanic”. On his campaign website he legit has a section titled “Holocaust?”, and refers to the death of six million Jews as a “racket” and claims, “This idea that ‘six million Jews,’ were killed by the National Socialist government of Germany, in World War II, is the biggest, blackest, lie in history.”

In June he told  told Politico that he “snookered” the Republican Party into winning the nomination. “I played by the rules, what could I say?” Some notable Republicans denounced his candidacy including Senator Ted Cruz who tweeted, “To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes.” While the Illinois GOP was publicly aghast with horror at what their party has become – refusing to endorse Jones – he still ran unopposed and collected 20,681 votes from Republicans in his district. Fox News claims the Illinois GOP will start a campaign for a write in candidate–don’t hold your breath waiting.

Arthur Jones

Regardless, this only highlights the continued disconnect between what the GOP base has come to assume their political agency is in the age of Trump versus the normative conservative policies preferred by status-quo Republicans, yet impossible to have it both ways in this new era of extremist politics.

John Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald is running in California’s 11th District against an incumbent Democrat. After capturing close to quarter of all votes in California’s “jungle primary” he qualified for the state’s GOP primary. However, soon after his ascension to the hallowed ranks of the GOP, his anti-Semitism and holocaust denial started to become somewhat an unmanageable open secret – thanks to a section on his campaign website – basically just the top post of his website –  offering $3,000 to anyone who can prove the holocaust actually happened.

Since the Republican Party in California finally uncovered Fitzgerald’s not so subtle anti-Semitism they have rescinded their endorsement, which has led him to only increase his Jewish resentment. According to the New York Times, the GOP Candidate has appeared on numerous podcasts spewing holocaust denial. In one such instance he told Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, a known anti-Semite, that, “Everything we’ve been told about the Holocaust is a lie,” going on to further say, “my entire campaign, for the most part, is about exposing this lie.”

John Fitzgerald

The GOP in California claimed that it was their policy to automatically endorsed their candidate and that they conducted minimal vetting on Fitzgerald. But in the age of Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and the mainstreaming of the alt-right, which is heavily intoxicated on anti-Semitism, this no longer seems like a solvent policy. What do they say about assumptions? The mother of all anti-Semitic fuck ups?

Paul Nehlen

This Republican is making his second attempt to to fill the largely diminished shoes of soon to be retired Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District seat. In a not unfamiliar twist of GOP identity politics, Nehlen has described himself as a “pro-white” candidate who supports banning all Muslims and tweeted a deeply racist and offensive picture of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, where she is photoshopped, according to Ballotpedia, to look like a “dark-skinned prehistoric man nicknamed Cheddar Man.” Shortly thereafter on a subtweet he posted an article about “disappearing whites”, the whole incident led him to be banned from Twitter.

Paul Nehlen

Nehlen’s anti-Semitism, however, is rooted in the age old conspiracy theories of Jews controlling global media. As far back as January this year, Buzzfeed uncovered communications on private Twitter DMs where he is lamenting the “Jewish media” and fake conservatives who “happen to be Jewish.” A short time later he essentially doxxed Jewish executives at leading media organizations, along with Tweeting out a meme of said executives with the star of David next to their image. Nehlen wrote, “Do the people pictured seem to have anything in common?” before deleting the tweet.

The Atlantic has also covered his fusion of anti-Semitism with Christian identity politics, reporting, “And he loves making odd generalizations about what Jews are like. ‘”Poop, incest, and pedophilia. Why are those common themes repeated so often with Jews?'” he tweeted. One of Nehlen’s 89,000 followers declared that “@pnehlen is one of the few American Christians courageous and honest enough to defend the Faith against Islamists and Talmudic Pharisees alike even when it’s unpopular. God bless you, Paul!” Nehlen hit retweet.”

Corey Stewart

Last and of course not least, there is the Commonwealth’s very own Corey Stewart, who is running against incumbent Senator Tim Kaine. Stewart’s stances on Confederate culture, immigration, and his public appearances with Jason Kessler, the organizer of Unite the Right, makes his candidacy the embodiment of the kinds of racism and anti-Semitism that has now overtly taken over the GOP.

Stewart and Kessler. Photo by Community Ideas Station

And in a strange twist of fate, CNN reported that Stewart actually engaged Wisconsin’s Nehlan (mentioned above) to act as a “fundraising commission” according to reports filed with the Virginia Department of Elections. Additionally a video surfaced of the GOP contender praising Nehlan, calling him “one of my personal heroes”. Stewart has since dialed back his support, which is clearly an attempt at political expediency claiming, “When he started saying all that crazy stuff, I wanted nothing to do with him after that.” He also made similar claims about Kessler telling the New York Times, “Nobody knew who Kessler was back then…Certainly I didn’t. I didn’t know he stood for all those horrible things. I want nothing to do with those things.”

Given Stewart’s long history of support for racists, xenophobes, and anti-Semitic provocateurs only changing direction after they have been exposed, it is hard to imagine a scenario where he is not a believer in the underlying ideologies that govern this growing political menace. Stewart is a shrewd operator only touching the fringes of anti-Semitism without jumping in full-stop, yet the implication and dog-whistles remain the same.

Anti-Semitism is one of the world’s oldest forms of hatred and one that has been used over the millennia to justify some of the most repressive and brutal policies, ending in gross atrocities like the holocaust. Anti-Semitism does not exist in a vacuum, however, and the mainstreaming of holocaust denial, conspiracy theories, and overt attacks against Jews and Jewish symbols by candidates running for high office is a harbinger for anyone concerned with how this political age is shaping up.

Dissension in the Ranks: Virginia GOP Chairman Resigns, Fueling Speculation about Corey Stewart

Mike McCabe | July 3, 2018

Topics: Corey Stewart, Democrat, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, GOP, Midterms, Republican, Republican Party, Senator

John Whitbeck, the chairman of the Virginia GOP, resigned early Saturday afternoon, presumably because he didn’t want the proverbial shit storm of supporting Republican Senatorial Candidate Corey Stewart on his resume. More so, given the bigotry and charlatanism in the Republican Party has not yet returned to Reagan-era levels.

In a subliminal statement posted to the Republican Party of Virginia’s Facebook page, Whitbeck said, “I started this job with a message of party unity being the key to our success. I will end the job the same way. No matter what happens cycle after cycle, Republicans must stand together.”

Naturally, Republicans are emphatically not standing together on this one.

Bill Bolling, former Virginia lieutenant governor under Governors’ Tim Kaine and Bob McDonnell–and a Republican candidate for governor in 2013 himself–tweeted after Stewart won the primary that he was “extremely disappointed that a candidate like Corey Stewart could win the Republican nomination for US Senate.” He went on to say, “This is clearly not the Republican Party I once knew, loved and proudly served. Every time I think things can’t get worse they do, and there is no end in sight.”

John Whitbeck

Stewart will now take on incumbent Senator Tim Kaine in the November midterm elections. His refusal to renounce ties with the white supremacist organizer of Unite the Right, Jason Kessler, along with his “I was Trump before Trump was Trump” comments have earned him derision from both parties. This has led many long-time conservatives, and many other Republicans on the ticket this fall, to not touch Stewart with a ten-foot pole. He has even been eschewed by the ultra-conservative Koch Brothers and their political funding. 

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, for one, chose not to endorse Stewart after his primary win. Their chairman, Cory Gardner, said they have “no plans” to spend any money on Stewart’s campaign. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) were both eager to distance themselves from Stewart; Sen. Cornyn effectively gave the “Who’s that?” response when asked about Stewart, and Sen. Paul said he was “disappointed” in the result of the primary. 

And then there are the incumbent representatives on the Republican ticket in Virginia this fall, all of whom will assuredly stay silent on Stewart until they are forced to make a public comment.  Susan Swecker, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, said that Stewart will bring out the true colors of his fellow Virginia Republicans. “There is no place to hide — you are either running with Corey Stewart and you condone his vile politics, or you don’t,” she said in a statement.

While party divide is the most likely reason for Whitbeck’s resignation, a dismal track record in elections since taking over as chairman in 2015 could also be a factor. Ralph Northam won the gubernatorial election last year by nine points, which was the largest winning margin by a Virginia Democrat since 1985. Democrats also flipped 15 seats in the House of Delegates, which was the biggest electoral shift towards the Democrats since 1899.

The midterm elections this fall will be in many ways a litmus test for the Republican Party in the age of Trump. Virginians will get an opportunity to show the rest of the country just how much they approve of their president with the Kool-Aid drinking Trump acolyte on the ballot this fall.

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