Today's GOP - Team Misogyny

As ProPublica is reporting, at least two women in Georgia died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state.  Sadly, similar tragedies are occurring in other states with abortion bans and laws that make physicians afraid to provide care out of fear of losing their medical licenses, punishing monetary fines and/or imprisonment.  One report noted that maternal deaths were up 56% in Texas.  All of this is due Donald Trump's three Supreme Court nominees (who committed perjury during their confirmation hearings) and to Republican controlled legislatures that have passed draconian restrictions on abortion access that leave women with few alternatives and doctors fearful of being second guessed by tribunals as to the need to act to save women's lives. Here in Virginia, the Democrat controlled General Assembly have stymied Glenn Youngkin's desire to turn Virginia into Florida, but women in numerous other states have not been so lucky. All of this Republican agenda has been in keeping with evangelicals' desire to keep women barefoot and pregnant and in the home save for those running pro-Republican "ministries" and lobbying groups that support the GOP's war on women and reverse Robin Hood policies. This year's presidential contest is putting a spotlight on the consequences of the GOP's policies.  Donald Trump - who lies incessantly - claims he is against a national abortion ban, but Project 2025 shows how the 19th century Comstock Act could be used to drastically curtail women's access to necessary treatment.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the GOP's misogyny: 

In a race between a Democrat who could be America’s first female president and a Republican who has been found liable for sexual abuse, the issue of gender was always going to be inescapable.

But this week, the subject surged to the forefront of the fall contest in new and vivid ways, as Democrats found fresh fuel for their argument that today’s Republican Party is disrespectful of women and their autonomy — sometimes with dangerous consequences.

On Monday and Wednesday, the deaths of two mothers in Georgia were linked to the state’s far-reaching abortion ban in new reports from ProPublica.

On Thursday, the deeply conservative Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina scrambled to deny that he had made graphic and incendiary remarks on a pornographic forum, including about women.

And on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris took to a stage in Atlanta to argue with new urgency that the Republican Party was infringing on some of the most personal decisions a woman can make.

“It’s clear that they just don’t trust women,” said Ms. Harris, speaking a day after joining a livestreamed event with Oprah Winfrey that attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers. “Well, we trust women.”

For years, Democrats have tried to paint their Republican opponents as anti-woman, with mixed results.

In 2012, they effectively highlighted Republican comments, like the use of the term “legitimate rape” by Todd Akin, a Senate candidate in Missouri, to press their claims of a G.O.P. “war on women.” . . . in plenty of races before and after, many Americans simply did not buy the Democratic argument that Republicans would take away abortion rights if given the chance.

But after Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominees helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, millions of Americans suddenly found themselves voting to protect or restore abortion access — and to punish Republicans.

Now, in an unpredictable presidential election shaped by a yawning gender gap and simmering concerns about the economy, Democrats hope abortion rights will be galvanizing once again. Increasingly, they are drawing voters’ attention to the cascade of disturbing stories tied to abortion restrictions that many Americans view as draconian.

“Every week, there are different examples of the harmful consequences of these abortion bans,” said Molly Murphy, a pollster for the Harris campaign. “Being able to elevate and show that this has real consequences to real people is an important part of our campaign.”

That was a goal of Ms. Harris’s appearance in Atlanta. She and other Democrats are casting abortion access as a health care matter that should be nonpartisan and that carries vast implications for a broad swath of Americans.

And when Democrats highlight Republicans’ past comments calling for strict abortion laws, they hope that voters will now take those candidates at their word.

That is why, despite the near-unprintable statements reportedly made by Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina that CNN uncovered this week, some national Democrats are using the scandal to emphasize his anti-abortion stance, rather than focusing on the most salacious comments.

A television ad in North Carolina, announced on Friday by the Harris campaign, called “Both Wrong,” showcased Mr. Trump’s past praise of Mr. Robinson, alternating with video clips of the North Carolinian discussing abortion. The ad shows Mr. Robinson declaring that abortions amount to “killing a child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

“This is ‘War on Women’ on steroids,” said former Representative Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican who is voting this year for Ms. Harris, the first Democratic presidential candidate to ever earn her vote, she said.

Compared with Mr. Akin’s remarks, Ms. Comstock said, this moment is “exponentially politically toxic because there’s nothing worse than being a hypocrite, particularly on these things that are so toxic with women.”  “It is Team Misogyny with Trump,” she added.

Republicans have plenty of advantages in this race: For many voters, Mr. Trump is seen as the change candidate. In polling, he has the edge on the economy, a top issue for many Americans. And while Ms. Harris has benefited from a surge in support from women, Mr. Trump has strong standing among male voters.

But there is a major difference between this election and all the times before when Democrats cast their Republican rivals as anti-woman.

“Back then, that’s what the Democrats had: They had outrageous statements” from their opponents to discuss, said Christine Matthews, a pollster who has worked with Republicans but opposes Mr. Trump, citing the 2012 races. “Now,” she said, “they can point to policies.”

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Birds of a Feather: Chaos in North Carolina Gubernatorial Race

Much like the Virginia Republican Party base, the base of the North Carolina Republican Party base is attracted to and typically rallies around extreme candidates that alienate moderate and suburban voters (a recent piece looked a Virginia's U.S. Senate race and the extreme GOP candidate that has even spoken about witchcraft).  Throw in an endorsement by Donald Trump and the MAGA base swarms to otherwise ridiculous candidates who do not fare well in general elections.  In North Carolina's gubernatorial race, Trump endorsed the current lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, who gives a whole new definition to crazy and bigoted.  Robinson is hostile to women, anti-LGBT in his statements  and has said some people simply need to be killed  and has been significantly trailing his Democrat opponent in polls.  What more could possibly go wrong?  A lot based on a new story broken by CNN that looks at Robinson's porn use and and even more inflammatory postings on porn sites, past voyeurism, and wish for a return of slavery so he could "buy a few" people.  Yesterday was the last day for Robinson to withdraw from the race, but he has vowed not to do so, thus leaving the North Carolina GOP with an even weaker candidate who, with luck, will reduce GOP turn out or cause some voters to vote a straight Democrat ticket come election day. A piece in The Atlantic looks at the unfolding scandal and how Robinson should never have been the GOP nominee.  Here are excerpts: 

Though it was hard to believe that Mark Robinson could stoop any lower, the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina found a way.

A CNN report this afternoon said that Robinson described himself as “a Black Nazi” and said in 2012, “I’d take Hitler over any of the sh*t that’s in Washington right now!” Robinson also posted about his enjoyment of transgender pornography, recounted intrusive voyeurism of women showering while a teenager, and criticized Martin Luther King Jr. He wrote that “slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few.”

The comments were posted on the message board of a pornography site called Nude Africa. Robinson denies having made them and says he will not leave the race.

One sign of just how troubled Robinson’s run for governor already is was the queasy anticipation that coursed through North Carolina and national political circles much of the day in anticipation of the scoop. The Carolina Journal, a conservative publication, reported earlier in the day that CNN was preparing a damaging story and that pressure was mounting on Robinson to drop out.

The same question kept coming up as I tried to figure out what the CNN story might be: How much worse could it possibly be than what’s already known? The answer is worse, but not categorically worse. Robinson has for a long time made shockingly racist and anti-Semitic comments. . . . . If the North Carolina GOP was going to draw a line on this sort of behavior, it should have been drawn years ago.

Now, according to The Carolina Journal, some North Carolina Republicans have been privately pushing Robinson to withdraw. This is not because they are shocked by the new information, but because they can read the polls. Robinson trails state Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic nominee, by substantial margins. His reputation is so bad that the GOP is concerned he could be a drag on both Donald Trump, for whom North Carolina is an important state, and Republicans down the ballot. Today is the final day by which Robinson could withdraw. Even if he did, his name would still be on absentee ballots, which have already been printed.

Robinson said the story was a “high-tech lynching,” and insisted that the posts don’t sound like him. One problem is they sound extremely similar to what he’s said elsewhere. Robinson said in June that “Some folks need killing!” He previously denied the Holocaust and called the comic-book hero Black Panther a ploy by Jews “to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets.” He called Michelle Obama a man and Beyonce’s music satanic.

Robinson has a long trail of offensive Facebook comments, and throughout the campaign, reporters have turned up more damaging information. I reported last month that despite making veterans’ issues a center of his campaign, Robinson has skipped every meeting of the state Military Affairs Commission, one of his few statutory duties as lieutenant governor.

Nor does it stretch credulity that Robinson would have been hanging out on a porn site. Earlier this month, the North Carolina publication The Assembly reported on Robinson’s frequent patronage of porn shops in the 1990s and 2000s. Robinson denied having visited the stores, but employees and fellow customers attested to his frequent presence, and the owner of one provided a photo of himself with Robinson.

Perhaps most embarrassing for the Robinson campaign is how these old comments cut against his campaign message of highly religious social conservatism. That too, has already happened in other instances during this campaign. Robinson is a hard-liner on abortion and said he wants to outlaw it completely, although his wife obtained an abortion early in their marriage. In recently revealed 2022 comments, he said the way to empower women was to “get this under control,” waving his hands over his groin.

Another staple of his campaign has been attacks on transgender people, who he has warned, “If you’re a man on Friday night, and all the sudden Saturday, you feel like a woman, and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested, or whatever we gotta do to you.”

On Nude Africa, however, Robinson took a different view. Not only did he boast about illegally peeping on women in restrooms, but he wrote about consuming transgender porn. “I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”

Politico also reported today that Robinson’s email address was used on Ashley Madison, a site for people to connect for extramarital sex.

The hypocrisy—like the bigotry—is staggering, but it’s hardly new. Republicans now appear to be stuck with Robinson in the gubernatorial race. They can’t say they weren’t warned.

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Meet the GOP’s Gift to Tim Kaine and Democrats

With the exception of Glenn Youngkin who ran a deceptive campaign portraying himself as a moderate and a major gaffe by his opponent, Republicans running for statewide office have not done well since Bob McDonald won election. True, Youngkin pulled his ticket mates across the finish line, but I suspect that was a fluke and a repeat performance is unlikely since once elected Youngkin showed his true colors and his ticket mates are both extremists that play to the MAGA base and alienate suburban voters in the so-called urban crescent running from Northern Virginia down through Richmond and then to the cities of the Hampton Roads area.  Now, in 2024, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate running against Senator Tim Kaine is a throwback to the GOP's failed pattern of running far right crazies that simply do not appeal to the suburban voters so crucial to state wide victory.  That candidate, Hung Cao has run a few ads but otherwise is largely missing from the campaign trail and appears to be offering a full MAGA style platform.  With Donald Trump urging the House GOP to shutdown the federal government and the hapless Mike Johnson unable to control his caucus and pass a spending bill, it's as if the Republicans are going out of their way to alienate Virginia's large number of federal employees and huge numbers of the members of the U.S. military who would suffer most in a shutdown.  Hung Cao may play well with the lunatic base of the Republican Party of Virginia, but as a column in the Washington Post lays out, he seemingly is a gift to Tim Kaine and Virginia Democrats.  Here are column highlights (for disclosure, I have known Kaine since 2002 and have contributed to his 2024 campaign):

After Glenn Youngkin won the race for governor in 2021, piercing the myth that Virginia had become a solid-blue splotch on the map of the South, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine had every reason to be a bit anxious about which suburb-friendly Republican would seek to block his bid for a third term.

He got Hung Cao.  Kaine is one lucky man.

Look at the arc of Kaine’s Republican opponents through the years. First, in 2012, came George Allen, the former governor and senator who knew and loved Virginia, football and classic conservative policies. Kaine won, 53 percent to 47 percent.

Next, in 2018, came Corey Stewart, a proud bomb thrower who sneered at the “Virginia gentleman” notion that the state boasted a better brand of politics. Stewart, whose mantra was “I was Trump before Trump was Trump,” was the top elected official in Prince William County, where he won national attention for cutting off undocumented immigrants’ access to public services. Kaine dispatched him, 57 percent to 41 percent.

Now comes Cao, relatively new to politics, as is the fashion these days, a military man with 25 years in Special Operations, a Vietnamese immigrant who went to the top-shelf Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria and the Naval Academy.

Cao, 53, is running a mystifying campaign. He has turned down all but one invitation to debate Kaine. Cao is so scarce on the campaign trail that Kaine’s opposition trackers show a near-empty calendar for him. No one has even bothered to create a Wikipedia page for the man.

What Kaine has faced through the years isn’t an arc of Republican challengers. It’s a nosedive.

Cao’s supporters wonder where he is: “When are you coming to Henrico County?❤️” one woman asked on Instagram (where Cao has about 6,400 followers, compared with Kaine’s 110,000.)  . . . . A third urged Cao, “Come to Charlottesville! People need to hear your vision and story! Get into the lion’s den, it’s only half as bad as you imagine!”

Having Cao atop its slate this year does not bode well for the party of Donald Trump in the cradle of American democracy.

“The Democratic brand in Virginia during [Sens.] Mark Warner and Tim Kaine’s years in office has been moderate, centrist, relatively pro-business, inoffensive,” said Chris Saxman, a former Republican Virginia House delegate who now runs Virginia Free, a nonprofit that advocates pro-business policies. “Republicans used to have a great brand, too, with George Allen, John Warner, candidates who appealed to Virginia’s heavily suburban voters.”

Suburbanites just want stuff done, Saxman said: “They pay for things to work. That’s why they moved here. Then I go to Republican meetings, and all I hear is ‘We need someone more conservative.’ The environment just doesn’t exist now to attract the money you’d need or to attract a candidate with the talent and caliber of Tim Kaine.”

Saxman, who said he has reached out to Cao but got no reply, looks “at Hung’s campaign, and I’m going, ‘Are you running?’ I mean, nice guy, great story. But where is he? The campaign seems to be like a ‘Seinfeld’ show — a campaign about nothing. Why is he doing this?”

Cao seems to be appearing primarily at events starring Youngkin, Trump or others from the Trump orbit.

Cao told a TV reporter that he turned down most invitations to debate Kaine because “I don’t need more than one to defeat him.” Cao seems to think he can gain steam by posting on Facebook (13,000 followers, compared with Kaine’s 294,000) and X (about 71,000 followers against Kaine’s 935,000), where he slams Vice President Kamala Harris and dispenses tired Trump-lite riffs about purportedly dangerous vaccines or immigrants committing crimes.

Cao faces the same problem plaguing other lesser GOP candidates around the country. They mimic Trump’s rage and complaints, but because they lack the former president’s celebrity Teflon, their rhetorical excesses stick to them.

So when Cao calls Staunton, a west-central Virginia city that’s more populous than Fairfax City or Herndon, “Podunk,” or when he compares abortion to the Holocaust, or when he goes on a Christian nationalist’s YouTube show and frets that witchcraft has “taken over” Monterey, Calif., and “we can’t let that happen in Virginia,” he comes off not as a populist entertainer like Trump but as a strange, unknown extremist.

Cao paints Kaine as “a beta male” because the senator got stuck on I-95 during a snowstorm. Virginians “want hard men,” Cao said. “We need alpha males. We need meat eaters right now.” (For the record, Kaine is a burger and fries guy. We’re here for the essential issues of our times, folks.)

A Washington Post-Schar School poll this month found Kaine ahead of Cao 53 percent to 41 percent. As Harris pushed past Trump by eight percentage points in the poll, Cao seemed to be losing his preferred path to victory — being lifted by Trump’s coattails.

Cao might want to try an alternate route: He could campaign for the job.

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What Does It Take For Republicans To Break Up With Trump?

As noted before on this blog and Facebook and elsewhere I am at a loss to understand how people I once thought to be decent and moral can be enthusiastic Trump supporters and even in some cases attack those who see him as both a danger to the nation and the personification of evil.   I have found myself pushed to block people - most acquaintances rather than true friends - or unfriend people because I simply cannot take the batshit craziness of their support for Trump and their willingness to embrace every insane conspiracy pushed by Fox News, its imitators, and, worse yet, lunatic podcasters.  As I see the 2024 presidential election, it is not a disagreement about politics, but instead a matter of basic morality.  If you support a man whose stock in trade is hatred of others - primarily non-whites, gays and religious minorities - constant lies and outright misogyny, its a testament to one's own immorality no matter how much one wears religion on their sleeve or talks about being "Christian."  All of which brings me to a piece at Bearing Drift, which calls itself Virginia's conservative voice, that calls out Bill Bolling, a former lieutenant governor of Virginia who once upon a time was deemed a moderate, decent and commonsense Republican.  Like my reaction to Trump supporters I know, the author ask what would it take for Bolling to disavow Trump and reembrace decency and morality.  Here are column highlights:

For much of the time I’ve been here on Bearing Drift, Bill Bolling has been here with me. Unlike me, he has stayed with Donald Trump and his party throughout the decade, as late as yesterday. As it happens, I was in the hospital yesterday so I missed his latest post. Now that I’ve caught up, I can only ask him….

Why are you doing this, Bill Bolling?

If I could, I’d ask that of every Republican who is still defending Trump; I just can’t speak to all of them. I can speak to Bill, however, through this medium. So I’m giving it my best shot.

Last week, Donald Trump parroted an insane, ridiculous, and racist lie about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio (WaPo). In response, he and his running mate, JD Vance, “sound like a radical deconstructionist in a 1990s faculty lounge, appealing to the ‘larger reality’ of immigrant crime that is so true that the facts of the particular case, even if shown to be untrue, are beside the point” (Russell Moore via The Atlantic).

Ohio is a Republican state, with a longtime Republican Governor who completely debunked the nonsense:

Ohio Gov. DeWine on ABC says “absolutely not” when asked if he’s seen any evidence of Haitian migrants eating pets and adds, “The Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move and Springfield has really made a great resurgence.”

That didn’t stop Trump from lying anew, declaring that the Haitian refugees were “illegal” (ABC News) and claiming Kamala Harris will “bring back the draft.” Vance continued to press the lie on CNN.

This is the pair you want in the White House? Really?

Policies? What Policies?

In Bill’s attempt to justify his decision, he cites Harris’ “far-left agenda” and “the failed economic policies of President Biden.” I’ve spent quite a bit of bandwidth on the mistakes of Bidenomics and I’ve already noted Harris’ economic plans are far from perfect. But last I checked, only one candidate is demanding a $350 billion tax increase – and it’s not Kamala Harris.

This is why I fail to understand the impulse to claim “policies” as a reason to support Trump. What exactly are you supporting here? His massive tariff plans? His willingness to let Russia carve up Ukraine (WaPo)? What could possibly justify this?

Remember Who These People Are

I get the pull of tribalism and the need to belong. But is this Republican Party really yours, Bill? Has it ever been?

Lest we forget, this was the same party that told you not to run for Governor in 2009 in favor of a candidate who won fewer votes than you did. Four years later, you were told to do it again. The party to which you have given loyalty has not given it back to you. Now they are asking you to support the most spendthrift, tax-hiking, and isolationist president in the party’s history.

You don’t have to do this. Dick Cheney isn’t doing this. Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales isn’t doing this. George Will isn’t doing this. Hundreds of former Republicans, including Reagan alumni, aren’t doing this.

If you’re still willing to support Trump after all of this, what does that say about you?

I ask this same question of "what does supporting Trump say about you" to those I know who remain supportive of a man (and Vance is proving to be no better) who is the epitome of moral bankruptcy and frankly cares nothing about others, only himself.