Campaign Notes, Elections, Jamie O, Political Crack

Convention Week Contrasts

Happy people having fun.

I often tell people who try to argue with me that somehow the two major parties are both equally bad to think about bumper stickers.

By this, I mean the bumper stickers on the vehicles of people on the left and the vehicles of people on the right. Dems/lefties tend to have bumper stickers on their Prius (stereotype, I know) that are about coming together, protecting the environment, celebrating differences, combating hate, etc. The GOPers/righties tend to have bumper stickers on their F-150s (stereotype, I know) that are angry, include varying levels of racism, promote violence, feature threats against political opponents, make sick jokes, etc. I mean, just based on that, what side do you want to support?

I bring this up as we begin Democratic Convention week. On one hand, you have the Democratic schedule. These are the themes.

These are pretty upbeat subjects, with great speakers. You got Obama, who of course is always going to be inspiring. You have America’s TeacherDadCoach, Tim Walz, who along with being a great progressive governor is always, as they might say in Minnesota, a hoot. You got Joe and Jill Biden, saying farewell to the political game after a pretty damn good career of public service. Then you have the headline act, the festival closer, in Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president. If you have never seen her speak lately and believe the nonsense that she is a bad speaker, I suggest watching. She’s a great orator.

Okay, then, let’s turn to what the GOP has planned to counter. It seems like they are focusing on crime and safety. This might seem like a questionable strategy, given the reality on the ground pointing to crime dropping. However, historically public perception of crime is problematic, with the majority of Americans often believing that crime is constantly rising, even during times when crime is falling, such as now.

This makes it ripe for GOP misinformation, and also ripe for another opportunity to take some good old-fashioned Republican racism for a spin. First, a little background about how Republicans send messages to racists that they have their back. The OG of using this tactic is of course Ronald Reagan, who kicked off his post-convention campaign by speaking on states’ rights at a fair held just a few miles away from where this happened:

As Bob Herbert wrote in the New York Times back in 2007, in response to the unfortunate “oh I don’t think he meant anything racist by it” nonsense:

He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you.

 

And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.

So, Trump and Vance are doing something similar but worse this week. Vance is holding a press conference Tuesday on “crime and safety” in Kenosha, Wisconsin. If that city’s name sounds familiar, that is the place Kyle Rittenhouse traveled to so he could murder two anti-police protestors. I’m not sure if Rittenhouse will appear with Vance, but it would not be surprising. The kid is still a modern-day folk hero in the MAGA world.

Meanwhile, Trump is heading to Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday for a rally. If your response is “Look, I’m not a Trump fan but why is doing a rally in a swing state so bad?” then you might want to sit down for this.

Howell has a deep reputation as a KKK town because the head of the Michigan Klan, Bob Miles, lived there in the early 70s. The reputation has not gone away. Back in 2005, the town made some news due to the auction of a Klan robe, and in 2014 made news over high school students posting racist messages on social media after a basketball game.

Most recently, white supremacists marched last month through Howell, saying things like “We love Hitler, we love Trump.” To be fair to the town’s people who are not delusional racist, there was some backlash.

But it doesn’t take a raging conspiracy theorist to see why someone like Trump, with his history, would choose to hold a rally focusing on crime and safety in a town with such a reputation. The message, and who it is aimed at, is pretty clear.

The contrast between the two parties, and the choice they present, is also pretty clear. Especially so this week.

The last word goes to Curtis Mayfield, with a song that wouldn’t be a bad thing to play this week at the DNC convention.