GOP Campaigns Getting Darker And Darker And It’s Only Just Begun
In his latest campaign upchuck, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is working hard to out-trump trump in the battle for the bottom. But DeSantis is hardly alone in his downward spiraling crusade.
And the result is that the political landscape is getting even more ominous. Here are some of the latest developments.
DeSantis said this week that if he is president he will “destroy leftism in American” and “leave woke ideology” in the “dustbin of history.”
A a member of Congress, Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., whined that it’s “almost Impossible for a white guy who’s not gay” to be nominated to the judiciary by President Joe Biden.
Fox radio host Jesse Kelly thinks that America “needs a dictator” because “Weimar problems lead to Weimar solutions.”
A New Jersey Superior Court Judge has found Berkeley Township Mayor Carmen F. Amato, Jr. guilty of systemic anti-Semitism and discrimination against Jewish employees, and ordered him to pay the plaintiff $610,001.
After interviewing trump, a Fox News commentator said that he has spoken with many “important people, Supreme Court justices, presidents, presidential candidates, brilliant people. And talking with you is really the most impressive conversation I’ve had.”
A trump ally from Florida claimed that Casey DeSantis, the wife of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, has “over exaggerated” her claims to be a cancer survivor.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democratic candidate for president, has given his support to Roger Waters , the former Pink Floyd singer who has been accused of anti-Semitism and is under investigation by the German government.
DeSantis was a guest on “Fox and Friends” and promised to “destroy leftism in America” and leave woke ideology behind. Threatening words, to be sure, apparently directed to anyone who disagrees with DeSantis’ beliefs in Christian nationalism, anti-LGBTQ, anti-African American studies and more.
Is the American who demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, now a “leftist” target? What about the person who believes a woman has the right to choose to have a child or abort or the activist who supports a person’s choice of gender and sexuality? Is another “leftist” the person who believes that it should be illegal to purchase military-style semi-automatic rifles or to stand for any gun control measures? Evidently, a teacher who tries to enlighten students about the history of racism and its continuing legacy, is a “leftist” as is anyone who protests censorship of books that collide with the Christian nationalist philosophy. And lastly, apparently a love for Mickey Mouse is enough to claim the “leftist” label. And maybe you long-hairs ought to keep your hair tucked under your hats or face the wrath of the self-annointed guardians of good.
“I will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology on the dustbin of history,” DeSantis bellowed. “And I pledge to Republican voters if you nominate me, I will be taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2025, on the west side of the Capitol. No excuses, no more excuses about why we can’t get it done. We need to get it done, and I will get it done.”
Then we have Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., who is fed up with President Biden’s nomination of non-whites and gays to the judiciary. As proof of his concerns, Grothman cited the words of an unnamed “gal” he met in a bank who said the bank “had an opening for months, but they couldn’t fill that opening because all their applicants were White guys.”
“I don’t know if she’s right or wrong on that, but talking to some other bankers, that’s entirely possible. And we should have a discussion whether that’s right. You have to say, ‘Where is this ending? What is the goal of the Biden administration?’” said Grothman.
The congressman also cited a survey by the conservative Claremont Institute. The survey has since been deleted but Grothman wants you to believe “a study was done a little while ago on the federal judiciary” and it showed that in his first two years in office Biden appointed 97 federal judges, including just five “white guys” and two others who were gay.
“So, almost impossible for a White guy who’s not gay apparently to get appointed here,” said Grothman.
Grothman, 67, was first elected to Congress in 2014. He was subject to a recall effort in the spring of 2011, but the effort failed, collecting only 75 percent of the required signatures. The Washington Post has described Grothman as “a shambling, strident conservative” who had the highest score in Congress reflecting “Trump Loyalty.”
Grothman has said that sexual orientation should not be discussed in any public school, he opposes gay marriage and supports the right to carry concealed weapons, except in bars. In April 2014, Grothman said that he was concerned about what God might think of the United States after then-Secretary of State John Kerry announced plans to send scientists to Uganda in response to a new law against homosexuality.
The congressman also said that Kwanzaa is not a real holiday and that Martin Luther King Jr. Day should not be a state employee holiday.
Radio host Jesse Kelly thinks that America “needs a dictator” and that “Weimar problems lead to Weimar solutions.” Kelly denies the COVID-19 pandemic and warned about “monstrous communists” in our nation.
“Weimar” refers to the Weimar Republic, which was the remnant of the German Empire after the nation was defeated in World War I. Many claim that the harsh punishment meted out after the war by the allies planted the seeds for the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.
Kelly’s live Fox radio show is carried by Premiere Networks, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, Inc. In a December 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, he criticized President Biden’s Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Christopher W. Grady.
“We don’t need a military that’s woman-friendly, that’s gay-friendly,” Kelly said. We need men “who want to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls.”
Regarding a dictatorship, Kelly tweeted that “As the great John Adams said, a free country only works for a ‘moral people’ We are not worthy of freedom. A dictator is coming.”
And Kelly is not alone in his point of view.
The right-wing outlet “The American Reformer,” proclaimed that “America is going to need a Protestant Franco.” That would be a reference to the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco who was an ally of the Nazis. White nationalist Nick Fuentes, a recent dinner guest of trump at Mar-a-Lago, also said that “we need a dictatorship.”
In a speech, the Young Republican Club’s president, Gavin Wax, declared that “we want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets.”
A political activist with ties to white nationalists. Wax has been listed as a partner in the Yorkville Group, a political consultancy firm whose founder advised the anti-Muslim, Nazi-sympathizing German political party, Alternative fur Deutschland.
In October, 2018, Wax called the extremist Proud Boys a “patriotic fraternal group who like America and beer.” Members of the Proud Boys have been convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol by trump supporters.
A Superior Court jury last week ordered Berkeley Township Mayor Carmen F. Amato, Jr. to pay $610,001 to a woman who sued Amato for systemic anti-Semitism and discrimination against Jewish employees.
Amato has been mayor of the Ocean County municipality since 2012 and is running for a state senate seat in the 9th district. He is a close ally of county Republican leader George Gilmore. Ocean County is home to a sizeable orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood.
The judge found that Amato had forced Jewish employees to work on Yom Kippur, and yelled at them for wanting to pray; instructed his wife to shout loudly that Jewish employees were “morons” for not observing Halloween; Changed township “Holiday Tree Lighting” ceremony to “Christmas Tree Lighting” to ensure that the event is in no way related with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah; banned Jewish employees from working at the lighting ceremony; and singled out Jewish employees for unsubstantiated financial punishment.
The ruling stems from a 2018 lawsuit filed by a Berkley Township employee against Amato and others accusing them of discrimination and harassing her over her Jewish identity.
Fox radio personality Mark Levin interviewed trump last month and had this gobsmacking, hallucinatory observation.
“I’ve talked to a lot of important people Supreme Court justices, presidents, presidential candidates, brilliant people. And talking with you is really the most impressive conversation I’ve had,” Levin spewed. “Number one, there’s very few people who could sit there and speak the way you do from subject to subject to subject to subject. If people would let you speak and actually listen to you while you have the enormous pressure on your shoulders of these grand juries and other things going on and you still are able to do it, that is absolutely remarkable.”
A portion of the interview was held to promote a new book by trump titled “Letters to Trump.” Levin called the trump years a “phenomenal presidency” and said that history will show the greatness of trump.
“When people look back and say, wait a minute, he was right about this, this and this and so forth. We’re regressing and regressing towards what you call correctly this Marxist ideology. And so you’re not going to get a fair break from the people in Washington and the media. They want you to do what Republicans normally do. Roll over and play that,” Levin said, while blindly promoting the new trump book.
Laura Loomer, a trump sycophant and far-right anti-Muslim activist who twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress and who was in 2018 banned from Twitter for “hateful conduct,” said DeSantis exaggerated his wife’s battle with cancer in a desperate attempt to woo voters.
Loomer called for the release of Ms. DeSantis’s medical records to prove she is not being exploited as a campaign prop for her husband’s political ambitions.
Gov. DeSantis announced in October 2021 that his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and revealed in March 2022 that she was cancer-free after undergoing surgery and treatment. Her battle with cancer inspired her to launch a fund for cancer research and care for Floridians and become “a champion for fighting cancer,” claimed her biography.
Loomer once described Islam as a “cancer” and in a 2017 tweet, she celebrated the deaths of migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Loomer, who is Jewish, was barred from Twitter in 2018 after she attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-N.Y., and called her “pro FGM [female genital mutilation]” and that Omar was “anti-Jewish.”
Loomer’s Twitter account was reinstated by Elon Musk following his takeover of the company.
To paraphrase a famous comment from a former presidential campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., you are no Robert F. Kennedy.
Junior is a controversial anti-vaxxer and 2024 Democratic presidential hopeful who tweeted support for Roger Waters as the former Pink Floyd singer faces accusations of anti-Semitism.
Kennedy Jr., the son of the slain former attorney general and nephew of President John F. Kenned, tweeted that Waters is “the global hero Orwell had in mind when he said ‘In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’ The high priests of the totalitarian orthodoxies are trying to silence you with censorship, gaslighting and defamation. Please keep speaking truth to power!”
Waters said he wore a Nazi-style uniform to depict “an unhinged fascist demagogue” and that it was a statement in opposition to fascism and bigotry. He wore a long black trench coat with bright red armbands, while aiming an imitation machine gun into the audience. The outfit included a swastika-like emblem made of two crossed hammers. The same symbols were on costumes in a film based on Pink Floyd’s hit 1979 album “The Wall,” which was a critique of fascism.
Waters said the depiction of “an unhinged fascist demagogue” had been a feature of his shows since “The Wall”.
Waters is a member of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement that targets Israel over its occupation of territories where Palestinians seek statehood.
Waters has come under investigation by German police after a series of complaints were lodged after the singer’s May performances in Berlin.
”The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace,” said a police statement.
A longtime environmentalist, Kennedy is a key player in the anti-vaccine movement, spreading misinformation and propaganda. The Center for Countering Digital Hate in 2021 identified Kennedy as one of 12 people responsible for up to 65 percent of anti-vaccine content on social media platforms Facebook and Twitter.
Several members from his close family have distanced themselves from his anti-vaccination activities and condemned Kennedy’s comments equating public health measures with Nazi atrocities
In early March 2021, Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense, released an anti-vaccine propaganda video, “Medical Racism: The New Apartheid” that promotes COVID-19 conspiracy theories and claims that COVID-19 vaccination efforts are medical experiments on the Black community.