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Republicans Resort to Racism As Their Closing Argument

What do you do campaign on when your party has made good on none of the promises made by Republicans in 2024 and your only signature legislation is a bill that lavished tax cuts on the very wealthy and large corporations while slashing programs that benefited millions?  With election day today, Republicans have given a clear answer: resort to overt racism and transphobia and hope the fear tactics win over enough votes to stave off election disaster. We have seen this game plan for decades from the GOP, but this election cycle with no achievements to point to - other than bragging about tax cuts, but without being truthful that only the very wealthy really benefited - stoking racial and religious hatred against minority groups is all Republican candidates have left.  The actions of the Felon and Republicans who prostitute themselves to him have made costs soar for Americans and the explosion of the federal debt under the Felon makes claims of fiscal responsibility utterly ridiculous. As for Hispanics and young working class voters who - stupidly, in my opinion - shifted toward the Felon in 2024 appear to be either running for the exits to vote Democrat or will stay home wrapped in a sense of betrayal.  Race baiting and and utterly foul GOP ads about "men in women's bathrooms" hopefully fall on deaf ears.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the GOP's nasty closing argument:

Faced with flagging numbers over an unpopular and unnecessary war in Iran, inflation exacerbated by tariffs, lawless immigration enforcement, and corruption, Republicans have gone back to basics for their closing message: stoking hatred against minority groups.

The Michigan Senate campaign between the Republican Mike Rogers and the Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has been particularly ugly. Rogers has accused El-Sayed—without any evidence—of being “bought off by the Muslim Brotherhood.” At a recent rally, J. D. Vance said El-Sayed harbored “anti-white racial hate,” and President Trump called him a “jihadist” who would need to go through a “metal detector” to enter the Senate. The only time in recent memory that the Senate was subject to political violence, it is worth noting, is when Trump himself incited an attack on it.

Republican attacks elsewhere have also focused on vulnerable minorities. The Iowa Republican Ashley Hinson has accused her Democratic opponent, Josh Turek, of voting “to allow government employees to help their kids change their gender at school and keep it secret from the parents.” Anti-trans ads are a GOP staple in Texas, where Republicans backing the Senate candidate Ken Paxton have tried to turn allegations of corruption and infidelity into a positive by attacking the Democrat James Talarico’s masculinity. Also in Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who’s in a close race with the Democrat Gina Hinojosa, has accused his Catholic opponent of supporting “Sharia law.” On Halloween, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted a fake costume for a “SNAP fraudster,” complete with handcuffs and piles of “taxpayers cash,” that was little more than a racist stereotype about Black people.

All of this has coincided with Trump’s usual race-baiting about immigration. Pointing to unrest in France, the president posted on his social network that “the immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country.” The idea that there was no history of violent protest in France before immigrants got there is—well, let’s say you have to know very little about France to believe that one. Still, the message is pretty clear: If you let people who aren’t white into your country, you will get riots.

Overt bigotry is nothing new for Trump or the Trump-era Republican Party. One reason the GOP is betting the House and Senate on this approach working is that the electorate has not rebuked it often or forcefully enough. Republicans didn’t draw the line when Trump called Somalis “garbage” or when he slandered Haitian immigrants as pet eaters.

Put simply, bigotry remains a large part of American politics because some American voters like it, and many others do not find it disqualifying. If Republicans thought this kind of talk was politically ineffective, they would not engage in it.

MAGA has historically bet on white identity politics to mobilize white voters in large enough numbers to give Republicans an insurmountable advantage in the Senate and Electoral College. To this end, right-wing candidates have tried to make fears of minority groups as salient as possible every election cycle, even if it requires senseless conspiracy theories.

But at this point, Americans should recognize this campaign for the cynical gambit that it is. Trump’s scapegoating has not solved any problems. It has not brought down inflation or the cost of living; it has not raised wages or led to greater job growth. The only winners of the Trump administration are his family members, whose wealth has grown since he took office, and industries that have enjoyed favorable regulatory decisions or lavish tax cuts. For those at the top, bigotry provides a justification for unearned advantages—while for those at the bottom, it can serve as an explanation for life’s disappointments. One thing it can’t do, though, is provide the broad-based prosperity Trump promises.

At the turn of the 19th century, the populist Tom Watson wrote that Black and white laborers were “kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism that enslaves you both.” Tragically, Watson later abandoned this insight—he became an arch racist and anti-Semite. The bigger tragedy is that more than a century later, a major political party is still trying to make this scam work.

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The MAGA Reckoning Hopefully Is About to Arrive

There is one more day until the 2026 mid-term elections and I remain cautiously optimistic that the Democrats can retake control of both houses of Congress and be in a position to rein in some of the Felon's worse abuses and also impeach and remove dangerous and unqualified cabinet members such as Pet Hegseth and RFK, Jr.   Like many, I am exhausted with the non-stop campaign ads - locally, the GOP ads are filled with outright lies - and look forward to the election being over, although I worry about illegal efforts the Felon may try to take if he drags the GOP down to a resounding defeat.  Nonetheless, one can also hope and pray that the election will prove to be a repudiation of the Felon and MAGA which can usher in the beginning of a rebuilding of the nation's morality.  MAGA has stood for renewed open racism and deliberate cruelty to American citizens and undocumented immigrants alike.  MAGA has also put on open display the moral bankruptcy of evangelicals and "conservative Christians" who remain the Felon's most steadfast base of support.  These people have demonstrated time and time again that despite their pretense at morality, they will countenance anything that the believe will give them power and allow them to mistreat others, especially blacks, Hispanics, gays and non-Christians. Their fake piety is betrayed by their embrace of cruelty and misogyny.  A piece at The Atlantic looks ate where we find ourselves:

In the first months of Donald Trump’s first term, as one moral outrage followed another, I often found myself repeating, in conversation, a seven-word phrase: Where there’s no bottom, there’s no bottom. However bad things got, they were bound to get worse. That applied above all to Trump, but also to his party, which was fusing with him.

We’ve since seen endless examples of what “no bottom” looks like. The latest is an ad from Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for governor of Ohio. It features the estranged mother of Ramaswamy’s opponent, Amy Acton, calling her daughter a liar about her childhood and urging Ohioans not to vote for her.

Here is what we know about that childhood. In 1978, when Acton was 12, her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was indicted for raping her. He fled to Pennsylvania, where he died as a fugitive in 2004. Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody, and she has not spoken with her mother since. Her mother, Donna Arthur, stayed married to the man charged with raping her daughter until he died.

Ohio’s current governor, Mike DeWine, called the ad “deeply, deeply troubling.” But the two most important Republicans in the country, Trump and Vice President Vance, defended it. Trump called it “very powerful” and wrote, “Who wouldn’t use such an Ad? . . . . This is what family values look like to Republicans in the Trump era.

As a young conservative in the 1980s . . . . I was especially shaped by George Will’s 1983 book, Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does, which argued that statecraft is inherently “soulcraft,” the cultivation of public spirit and moral sensibilities. These thinkers shared the conviction that self-government depends on what Kristol called “republican virtue.”

They believed, too, that norms are fragile and that the membrane separating civilization from barbarism is thin. Character and conscience need to be cultivated. Public discourse either elevates or degrades, moving us away from or closer to a will-to-power ethic. The conduct of leaders, including political leaders, is educative. And when deviancy becomes widespread, we grow used to it. It was a Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who coined the phrase defining deviancy down, by which he meant that a society overwhelmed by destructive behavior lowers its standards rather than confronting it.

None of this means that conservatives, or the Republican Party, were paragons of virtue.. . . . But their aspirations were ennobling, and some of them lived lives that matched their words.

Today the American right is not merely indifferent to character formation; it is in the business of character deformation. It takes pride in its transgressiveness. The Ramaswamy ad embodies the “no bottom” ethic of the Trump-era GOP, and its wickedness comes in layers.

Cruelty and coarseness have momentum, but they also have limits. Political leaders who relentlessly push brutality do lower a nation’s standards, at least for a time. But if we’re fortunate, they also awaken its conscience. The revulsion comes first, almost physical, like bile rising in the throat. . . .The reckoning follows.

The anti-MAGA reckoning may have finally begun, though much later than it should have. Trump has lost most of the country. His hold on his own base is weakening; its members, like everyone else, are suffering because of the staggering incompetence of the president. And many of those who continue to support Trump are exhausted. In Ohio, a GOP poll shows that the Ramaswamy ad is backfiring. . . . those who said they were familiar with it said it made them more likely to vote for Acton.

But Ohio alone won’t be enough. A true repudiation of the politics of savagery will require a rebuke from voters in every region of America. It should come, and in a good society it would.

The Republican Party, after all, is led by a man found liable for sexually abusing a woman and then defaming her. The president has rallied behind an ad featuring a mother who, rather than stand by her 12-year-old daughter, sided with the man charged with raping the girl. Trump mocked the murder of one critic and openly cheered the death of another. He has called his political opponents “vermin,” said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country, . . His misogyny is undisguised; so is his bigotry. As president, he has enriched himself and his family by billions of dollars. He swoons over dictators while treating Canada as an enemy. He lies and distorts reality on a scale that was once unimaginable. He incited a violent attack on the Capitol in an effort to overturn an election. The list goes on. No American president has matched Trump’s limitless corruption or his cruelty.

The election, and especially the reelection, of Donald Trump caused me, for the first time in my life, to question the fundamental decency of America. I could not understand how anyone, especially my co-religionists, could look at such a squalid figure and vote for him, let alone support him enthusiastically. . . . . Don’t honor and integrity matter? Isn’t Trump’s peculiar form of madness an obvious disqualifier?

For tens of millions of Americans—more than 77 million in 2024 alone—the answer has been no. That stain is now a permanent part of the American story. But the story isn’t over. We can move beyond this grotesque chapter to something better, though the path won’t be smooth. Even if Democrats sweep the midterms, Trump will still be president, and his closing act will likely involve trying to tear the country apart. We can’t allow him to do that.

We need to get to the other side of this era with our institutions, our bonds to one another, and our commitment to justice and the rule of law intact, and then begin the work of reclaiming American ideals. A wipeout of the party of Trump on Tuesday would be an awfully helpful step in that direction.

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The GOP Braces for Some Once-Unthinkable Losses

Over the past decade countless congressional Republicans have prostituted themselves to the Felon and in general rubber stamped his pro-billionaire, anti-working class agenda that have showered tax cuts on the ultra-rich and large cut social programs ranging from SNAP benefits to Medicaid coverage.  Many have happily prostituted themselves - think of the photos of gathering of House Republicans celebrating the "big beautiful bill" - while others have shown no spine and quietly gone along with the reverse Robin Hood agenda. Now, with the Felon extremely unpopular, his war of choice and tariffs making the cost of living soar, the bill for such blind obedience and harmful policies may be about to come due, if the polls and believed congressional seats in play in ruby red states, a number being labeled as "toss ups."  It's telling that in some of these contested seats in red states that all Republicans can do is trot out ads demonizing transgender citizens since they have passed zero legislation that aids the majority of voters, especially working class voters. I am cautiously optimistic that the polls will hold and that Democrats retake control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Like others I worry what lies and extreme actions the Felon may take if his party suffers severe losses. A piece at Politico looks at the current situation:

Republicans are bracing for a brutal election night, convinced they’re set to face some previously unthinkable losses in deep-red Trump territory as key battleground races hang on a knife’s edge.

House Republicans are privately discussing not just if they’ll lose their majority, but by how many seats. Imperiled GOP incumbents in once safe districts have been begging party leaders for more money in the final few days to stem the bleeding, according to six people involved in internal conversations, granted anonymity to discuss them. Senate Republicans have found new cause to worry about contests in Ohio, Kansas and other red states.

“It could be quite a brutal evening,” said one senior Republican involved in the private conversations, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Once the dominoes start falling it becomes hard to stop them.”

Some Republican incumbents made an eyebrow-raising emergency decision. They stopped doing their own polling weeks ago as they tried to save every dollar for swaying voters as they begged for the GOP cavalry to arrive from President Donald Trump’s political operation to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to three of the people.

One Republican strategist working on midterm races simply responded to a question about the environment with a video of a dumpster on fire that was being swept away by flood waters.

Top GOP officials and lawmakers have long known the political landscape would be bad, amid voter anger over the cost of living and aspects of Trump’s policy agenda. But they’re facing a worse position than they expected earlier this year, with less than one week until Election Day.

Republicans for weeks have worried that young men who’d voted for Trump, including white and Hispanic working class voters, will stay home amid disillusionment with high costs and the Iran war.

That alone could allow Democrats to overperform in some areas after they hemorrhaged support among that voting bloc in 2024.

At a Kwik Trip in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, this week in the hotly-contested 3rd District, Isaiah Romero was filling up his silver Ram truck. The 20-year-old said he cast his ballot for Trump in his first ever presidential election two years ago. His verdict on high fuel prices? “I think they’re bull,” he said as he looked over to the $6.39 per gallon diesel and $4.29 gas at the pump. Is he voting this time? “No,” Romero responded, adding: “I didn’t vote for this.”

“Any Democrats telling you they aren’t winning the Senate [besides] a couple of seats are sandbagging expectations,” the senior Republican said.

In Ohio, the race between GOP Sen. Jon Husted and former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is still incredibly close in private and public polling. But Republicans have watched with horror as GOP governor nominee “Vivek’s [Ramaswamy’s] numbers have gone off a cliff” in the last few days after he ran an ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother saying her daughter is a liar, according to the senior Republican and two others who saw the internal polling. Acton’s stepfather was charged with raping her when she was 12.

The headwinds across all of Ohio are deeply problematic for Republicans. They now believe embattled Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) — who is facing child and domestic abuse allegations that he denies — will lose in a seat Trump won by double digits.

South Carolina has become another unexpectedly nailbiting race for Republicans, where political newcomer Sen. Darline Graham is facing a well-funded Democratic challenger.

But in one of the most dire signs, once-unimaginable GOP worries have started to creep about deep-red Louisiana — where Trump announced this week he will hold an election-eve tele-rally for Senate nominee Julia Letlow. Speaker Mike Johnson, who is close with Letlow, will join as Republicans have grown wary about a surge of Black voters and other Democratic-leaning voters in early voting across the South. Senior Republicans believe Letlow will win, but they fear it will be by single digits if nothing changes.

“The cakewalk turned into a knife fight,” said one Louisiana Republican who has talked with Letlow recently. “If Democrat turnout surges on Election Day, it’ll be a long night in Monroe,” the person added, and they expect Letlow to win by just 6 points in a state Trump won by 22 points two years ago.

In another painful development for Republicans in Louisiana, GOP groups have even started an eye-popping spending war in a safe red gerrymandered seat — where a bitter Republican-on-Republican primary is unfolding between state Sen. Blake Miguez, who was formerly endorsed by Trump, and state Sen. Rick Edmonds, Johnson’s former pastor.

On the House side, Republicans are bracing for a brutal night. But they’ve long been spending in some redder GOP districts to forestall a true disaster.

Republicans still think they can unseat Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), while flipping retiring Rep. Jared Golden’s (D-Maine) seat. But privately, Republicans believe North Carolina’s open 11th District is close to gone, as are several other deep-red seats Trump won by double digits, according to four people with knowledge of the situation. And they’re still not confident they’ll beat Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) in a seat the GOP thought would be an easy flip when they redrew it early this year. It’s become the most expensive House race in history.

The Republican in Kentucky’s 6th district, where Trump won by 15 points in 2024, is barely hanging on, according to the four people.

Even in the South Texas districts the GOP redrew in their favor, Republicans reached the point days ago where no amount of new money is going to change the upcoming catastrophe, said one Republican official involved in conversations about those races.

Johnson traveled to Minnesota on Thursday to headline a fundraiser for GOP Rep. Brad Finstad, who Republicans are scrambling to shore up in a +12 Trump district.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are upbeat at their prospects, but public and private polling across close to the entire battleground map is running within the margin of error — meaning those states could break either way.

“I would rather be us than them. But if anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen, they’re full of shit,” one senior Senate Democratic operative said. “Everything is close.”

And some Republicans are taking solace in the fact that at least it’ll all soon be over.  “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said a GOP strategist working on a campaign that is trending toward Democrats. “It might be a semi-truck, but at least I can see it.”

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