Friend received an aggressive push poll call today in support of Selma Pierce, running for OR House against @PaulEvansOregon. It identified Pierce as an independent (untrue) & asked which of 3 statements about Evans (all of them untrue) would make them less likely to vote 4 him.
When asked, the caller would not identify who had paid for the poll. I assume Pierce chose to be falsely identified as an independent because our district is fairly purple and it's a tough time to be a Republican. Seems duplicitous, if not strictly illegal. #orpol
The previous day I had received another @gop-friendly push poll call in support of @KnuteBuehler which also pushed the conservative line on several ballot measures. I have not received and do not know anyone who has received Democratic-leaning push poll calls in Oregon.
For those hoping that states like Oregon might lead the way in bringing the @gop back to some semblance of reasonableness...these two recent experiences of mine suggest that this is not likely to be the case.
The Oregon's @gop's Dorchester Conference this year squares with this conclusion. Here's a picture of their keynote speaker, Roger Stone, posing with some Proud Boys in the hotel lobby...a pic which was retweeted by Alex Jones.
And here's a thread from back in March offering a fuller account and interpretation of that conference.
1. With the "America is a republic not a democracy" crowd in full voice these days, I figured I'd share this piece I wrote back in 2012 on the meaning of the word "democracy" in the late 18th century. medium.com/@sethcotlar/ye…
2. Here are some of the key takeaways. Significant numbers of people began calling the American political system a "democracy" (with a positive connotation) in the early & mid 1790s.
3. Most (if not all) of the men who wrote the Constitution in 1787 differentiated between a republic and a democracy, and they indeed saw a republic as preferable.
1. Conspiracy theories (like the S*ros and Q stuff) are all "beautiful cacophony of free speech," "haha," fun & games, cultural sideshow until people start acting upon them.
2. It's worth remembering that Nazi Germany was (in its most elemental terms) an anti-semitic conspiracy theory upon which people, and then a militarized state, acted. First they acted by vandalizing synagogues, then boycotting Jewish stores for a day, then Kristallnacht, then...
3. American history is filled with conspiracy theories upon which people acted to one degree or another. Here's a quick list:
1. The modern-day identity of "lib hater" is an improvisational and flexible stew of homophobia, anti-semitism, misogyny, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and racism---all mixed together in different proportions depending on the specific individual we're talking about.
About an hour after @gop President Trump and @gop Senator Grassley claimed that Dem opposition to Kavanaugh was part of a secretive, international, leftist, Jewish (Soros) conspiracy, McConnell has the stones to claim that "the other guys" are deploying McCarthyite tactics.
And here. As @ddale8 noted, this is the first time Trump has used the name "Soros" in a tweet. It is a longstanding dog whistle on the far right. Google "Orban and Soros" to see the sorts of laws Hungary's Trump is supporting re. "paid protestors."
1. Flashback to another similarly charged moment in American political history when a wedding intervened. It's 1796 and the House is considering the controversial Jay Treaty. The deciding vote that broke a 49-49 tie was cast by Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania.
2. Muhlenberg's constituents were adamantly opposed to the treaty, but his daughter was engaged to marry the son of a leading Federalist who strenuously supported it. That Federalist father-in-law-to-be threatened to call off the wedding if Muhlenberg voted against the treaty.
3. So Muhlenberg buckled, saving his daughter's marriage but destroying his political career. An anti-treaty relative of Muhlenberg's was so incensed by the vote, that he stabbed him. Muhlenberg recovered, but never held elective office again. speakershouse.org/history/
1. G. Washington (1796): "The unity of gov't wch constitutes you one people is...a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty wch you so highly prize."
2. "It is easy to foresee that...much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth...batteries of internal & external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed [against it]."
3. "[I]t is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it..."