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Didn’t Fight the Good Fight at Thanksgiving Dinner? Try the Game, “Push Trump off a Cliff Again”

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For those who survived Thanksgiving with conservative parents, racist uncles and aunts, and the all-around political calamity that comes with bringing disparate generations together in close proximity, we give you Push Trump off a Cliff Again. The web-based game is an emotional solution for those lingering thoughts, feelings, and concepts you wish you would have brought up around the dinner table, but didn’t have the gumption or family wherewithal to do so.

Sick of hearing your uncle telling you that Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback fighting for social justice, is un-American? Well, now you can push President Trump off a ledge into a volcano bristling with liquid hot magma. Sick of hearing your father tell you that every poll in America is lying about the president’s popularity and that Trump is just telling America what it needs to hear? Well, now you can make Trump run, jump, and disappear into a New York City manhole. Sick of hearing your aunt tell you that privilege is not a thing because she’s worked her entire life? Well, now you can walk Trump through a majestic forest, and into the waiting mouth of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

As Trump plummets to whatever end he might meet, he can be heard shouting, “ahh,” “bye,” and “duh, who put the lights out.” Glorious indignation.

The game, released earlier this year, was the creation of Justin Hook, a former writer for the animated series Bob’s Burgers on Fox. To date, the game has sent Trump to his mythical fate 9, 948, 692 times and climbing. In a tweet, Hook said, “If you’ve ever felt like pushing Trump off a cliff, then this Zen game I built is for you.” The game’s popularity has also been bolstered by Rosie O’Donnell, who tweeted out support for the game earlier this year. Nonetheless, as you start preparing your arguments for Christmas dinner, let Push Trump off a Cliff Again be that political stress relief that gets you through any contentious holiday season.

Opinion: Never Underestimate Virginia Republicans

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Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for Governor, could not have imagined a worse time for the Mueller indictments to come down. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller hit Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his business partner, Rick Gates, with 12 different indictments. One of the most headline-grabbing of those charges was “Conspiracy against the United States.” As a result, one might wonder if the arrest of Republican operatives for crimes against America would make the election of Democrat Ralph Northam for Governor that much easier.

However, Virginians are never that predictable.

Republicans and President Trump have tried to distance themselves from Manafort, the campaign, and the election.  They are sticking to the talking points that Manafort’s crimes happened long before he joined the campaign and that he only served as Trump’s campaign chairman from June-August 2016, leaving the campaign after his past history with the Ukraine and Russia was revealed. Rick Gates, a protege of Paul Manafort, was around much longer, however. Gates, a Richmond resident, actually stayed with the campaign, and then went on to facilitate the transition after Trump was settling into the White House.

While the core base of Trump’s supporters remain with the president, Republicans across the country are starting to lose faith in their national party. Not only is it embarrassing for them to see the behavior coming out of the White House, but the Republican-held Congress has yet to pass any of the major legislation that they have promised to the rank and file.

Nonetheless, citizens know how to separate national politics from their state and local politics. This presents a challenge for Democrats in our gubernatorial race.

Just as an anecdotal example, I recently had a conversation with a friend that has been a conservative his entire life. He refused to vote for Trump, yet when I asked him whom he is voting for in the gubernatorial election, he came back with a quick “Gillespie.”  I then proceeded to inquire why he made that decision in the current climate and he boiled it down to one simple statement:

“He’s the Republican.”

With Mueller charging GOP operatives with a potentially wide range of crimes against America, one could imagine that Northam’s momentum and minimal lead in the polls would continue to grow. Regardless, if there is one thing we have learned throughout the years, it is never to underestimate Virginia Republicans.

In the 2014 Senate race between the incumbent Mark Warner and Republican Ed Gillespie, Warner was dominating Gillespie in the polls. The final RealClearPolitics average had Warner ahead by 9.7 percent, and polls as late as that September had the incumbent up by more than 20 points. But what ended up happening? Gillespie lost to Warner by less than 1 point – only a 17,000 vote difference with over 2 million votes being cast.

Northam is also fighting his own political blunder with an ad being released showing minority children running away from a truck that sported an Ed Gillespie sticker.  The ad was removed Tuesday after a terrorist attack in New York City was carried out by a pickup truck.

Northam addressed the ad the next day in an on-air interview, where he said, “This group that put out this ad – it was not from our campaign – I wouldn’t have put that ad out, but the ads that Mr. Gillespie has put out have provoked this hate and fear mongering, and so these individuals have responded, and they did it in a way that perhaps wasn’t what I would do, but it certainly provoked fear in them.”

Over the course of the election, Gillespie has been trying to equate Northam to a gang sympathizer and a supporter of sanctuary cities. Nor has he missed a chance to point out that Northam was the tie-breaking vote in the Virginia Senate on the sanctuary cities bill. These messaging strategies clearly piggy-back off of the president’s hateful rhetoric as a means of invoking fear in Virginians – the very same methods that Trump used in the presidential election.

Gillespie has tried to keep the president at arm’s length, even with Trump sending out random tweets showing his support of Gillespie. On October 26, the president tweeted: “Ed Gillespie will turn the really bad Virginia economy #’s around, and fast. Strong on crime, he might even save our great statues/heritage!“

Gillespie, the former Republican National Committee chairman has always pushed for more outreach to minorities from the GOP.  Now it seems that he is abandoning those values in order to stay competitive in the election. Yet Robert Mueller’s investigation is moving faster than expected, and that has potential unintended consequences for Gillespie and Virginia Republicans.

The White House is in a state of fear. A Republican-controlled Congress has failed to move any of the major legislation that they have been promising for eight years. The indictments handed down by Mueller have GOP leadership rightfully frightened that they could lose their majority in the House at midterms. How that matters to Virginians on election day remains to be seen. One thing is for sure – Gillespie will compete until the final vote is counted.

President Trump Tweets in Support of Ed Gillespie, Again

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Earlier this morning President Trump tweeted in support of the Republican candidate for Governor, Ed Gillespie. In the first tweet Trump claims that Gillespie will “save our great statues/heritage.” This was preceded by a declaration that Gillespie will fix the economy and is “strong on crime,” a nod to Gillespie’s campaign message that his Democratic opponent, Lt. Governor Ralph Northam, is weak on crime by supporting sanctuary cities and the gang MS-13. There is no evidence to support this claim, and Northam has consistently refuted it.

In the second tweet, Trump says, “Ed Gillespie will be a great Governor of Virginia,” which was followed by “His opponent doesn’t even show up to meetings/work,” which is another talking point from the Gillespie campaign and was featured prominently in an early campaign video.

Gillespie has had an uneasy relationship with Trump, and has not been particularly active in seeking the president’s support. Nonetheless, his campaign content has taken on a decisively negative tone and is reflective of Trump’s overall messaging strategy. Given the closeness in the polls, the last of which had both opponents within the margin of error, along with all of the big names being pulled out on both sides, from Obama to Biden to Pence, a tweet from the president might have the ability to swing the vote one way or the other.

 

Virginia Politics Sponsored by F.W. Sullivans

 

March against white supremacy from Charlottesville to Washington DC starts tomorrow

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On August 28th a coalition of community activists, faith based groups, and students will embark on a strenuous ten day journey from Charlottesville to Washington DC to protest white supremacy. The March to Confront, including groups like Action Group Network, Color of Change, and The Movement for Black Lives, amongst others, is a response to the events in Charlottesville that left one person dead and up to 30 wounded in a domestic terrorist attack by a white supremacist.

The March to Confront

The march will take place between August 28 and September 6. According to the organizers, “We are marching from Charlottesville to Washington DC to demonstrate our commitment to confronting white supremacy wherever it is found.” The event webpage goes on to say, ” It’s clear that we can no longer wait for Donald Trump or any elected official to face reality and lead. We are coming together to reckon with America’s long history of white supremacy, so that we can begin to heal the wounds of our nation.”

People participating in the march will travel 112 miles with churches providing housing along the way. The route will begin in Charlottesville and pass through towns like Ruckersville, Madison, and Calverton, before entering into the Northern Virginian cities of Manassas, Fairfax, and Falls Church, finally terminating near Catholic University in Washington DC. However, from September 6 onwards the organizers will be offering training in non-violent civil disobedience. “We will hold our ground and launch wave after wave of nonviolent civil disobedience demanding Trump be removed from office and that an agenda be advanced that heals the wounds of white supremacy.” The organizers went on to say, “This is will be a sustained civil disobedience campaign, so bring what you need to stay.“ 

President Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville has been largely condemned by both sides of the political spectrum. Equivocating between white supremacists, nationalists, and the alt-right with those protesting hate and bigotry continues to prove divisive nationally and is driving a new generation of direct action activism. Organizers of March to Confront have insisted that white supremacist violence has escalated since Trump’s campaign for president and “…reach[ed] a boiling point in Charlottesville, as courageous people of moral conscience stood up to an army of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and members of the KKK.”

Press Release, The March to Confront

Governor McAuliffe speaks on Daily Show about Trump’s voter fraud commission

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Things are not looking good for President Trump’s voter fraud commission, also known as the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Chaired by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the commission is now facing at least seven federal lawsuits from various entities. This comes after 44 states have roundly rejected the request for data pertaining to voters names, addresses, the last four digits of social security numbers, party affiliation, and voter history.

Virginia was one of the first states to reject the request by the commission, with Governor Terry McAuliffe blasting the president over the request for voter data. In a June 29 press release Mcaullife stated, “At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump’s alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression.”

The potential for the president’s commission to be used for voter suppression forms the basis of the federal lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). Amongst other things the complaint argues, “…the commission was formed with the intent to discriminate against voters of color in violation of the Constitution.” The NAACP legal claim originates with the statements made by the president and various political operatives alluding to the fact that Latino and African American voters are the primary drivers of the alleged voter fraud.

However, last night in an appearance on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah, McAuliffe remained increasingly defiant about the illegitimacy of the president’s claims. When asked early on about the president’s commission by Noah, McAuliffe was quick to respond with, “…which is a fraud, the commission.”

There has been no cases of wide spread voter fraud documented in the U.S. The basis of the commission started with claims made by Trump that millions of illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote in the November election.

McAuliffe completely rejected this notion in his interview with Noah, “We have no issues at all of voter fraud. This is all because he cannot get the fact that Hillary Clinton actually got 3 million more votes in the general election than he did, plain and simple.” He went on to say, “If you have evidence in Virginia, I’ll act on it immediately…but they’re denying people, they want to make it harder for people to vote.

Some of the other groups which have also filed federal lawsuits against the president’s commission are the Electronic Privacy Center, the ACLU, Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, Public Citizen, the Florida ACLU, and finally the watchdog group Common Cause. The rationale for the lawsuits varies with some groups claiming that the data request breaches the privacy rights of citizens, while others claim that the commission violates transparency laws.

Regardless of the rationale for these lawsuits, McAuliffe summed up his feelings on the commission by saying, “They’re spending $500,000 of tax payers money and has no authority from Congress, to try and get data.” He concluded with, “The gentleman running this, Mr. Kobach is the poster child for voter suppression in this country.”

Much like many of the president’s other initiatives and executive orders, this one looks destined to face similar challenges both legally and ethically.