I’m sitting in an airport bar at JFK thinking back about my trip to a red state. I didn’t visit any diners, though I bought some beer at a bar/package store where I had to wait for a fight to finish before I could walk in. Still, the most interesting conversations I had were at a party where the majority who attended were Democrats.
The consensus at this non-diner locale was that things really started getting worse a couple of years ago. Before the Trump era, somewhat reasonable Republicans were in the majority of the Republican majority. These Republicans, assholes they might be, had some interest in actually governing. Between passing resolutions advocating burning down every Planned Parenthood, and bills requiring ownership of an AR-15 to vote, “moderate” Republicans passed legislation that advanced the overall public good.
With the rise of the MAGA hat, those days are gone. The state Republican Party has been overrun with feral Trumpers whose only concern is the legislative equivalent of shitposting. In small red states, it costs very little to send a couple of direct mail pieces to every mailbox in a legislative district. “Moderate” Republicans, who are often mild-mannered retirees interested in community service, don’t have the expertise or money to mount a campaign to counter flyers calling them RINOs. The result is an inexorable slide towards a legislature full of old, loudmouth white men wondering if the pizza restaurants in their towns are hiding pedophile Democrats in their basements. The Democrats in the state are left hoping that the more moderate Republicans will win their primaries to at least keep the shit at shoe level.
The people at this party weren’t the usual flock of old, bitter retirees who give good quote to whatever New York Times stringer is tasked with interviewing the usual suspects. They were professionals and businesspeople who do the real work that keeps their state running. Outlets like the Times, which are only interested in Cletus safaris, won’t sell subscriptions on the upper West Side by writing about these folks.
So, here’s my contribution to trying to understand the more complex reality in red states, where at worst a quarter to a third of the population voted for Biden. Thanks to B-J reader Lori, who I met at the party, for helping explain her red state reality to me.
rikyrah
Thread
He can really tell a story
Michael Harriot (@michaelharriot) tweeted at 4:46 PM on Sun, May 30, 2021:
On the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre, let’s acknowledge that what happened in Greenwood was not a spontaneous eruption of hatred.
That’s the narrative that America likes to portray but what happened on May 31, 1921, is an example of systemic racism.
A thread
(https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1399119972174110721?s=03)
zhena gogolia
We just talked to relatives in a red state who have felt they have to register as Republicans in order to try to vote out the nuts in the primaries.
HinTN
@zhena gogolia: Good luck with that. Our State Senator is a self proclaimed “Pistol Packin’ Mama” who believes Jesus rode a dinosaur, our State Representative is a cypher who got elected when the incumbent realized he could have an $80k salary as the County Mayor instead of having to run his business (which he sold) and take per diem in the Leg, our Congressional Representative is Dr Scott DesJarlais, who made his mistress have an abortion while he rails against that deadly sin, and our Senior Senator is Marsha Fucking Blackburn, who’s trained as a medical professional, fer gawd’s sake
ETA – Dead Red for years before TFG and by fucking God proud of it.
MattF
IMO, the generation of Republican politicians who rose with Reagan and are still in office now fear and despise their constituents. Any pretense of integrity or intelligence is gone— it’s all about survival.
E.
Here in my very red county there are no Republican candidates who are not provably insane for any position including City Council of my teeny little town. Most Republicans I talk to voted for Biden or stayed home. One employee of mine, a lifelong Republican (he’s 74) confided to me that he is “basically a Democrat now” because he hasn’t voted for a single R since Romney, and he votes the whole ballot. Sadly these people are not numerous here. Most are die hard Former Guys.
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah: Thank you, I listen to Santita Jackson on my morning commute, and this has been part of the discussion all week.
Cermet
@E.: Tragically, by their previous voting for Ray-gun, they set in motion all of this – this was preordain by that loon and anyone with an ounce of brains saw that looser for what he was – crazy, and determined to destroy the country he claimed to support.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@zhena gogolia: My few remaining relatives in Wyoming are registering Republican to vote for freaking Liz Cheney in her primary. Never thought I’d see that day.
Steeplejack
@Mistermix:
For better context: is this one of the Dakotas, where you have relatives?
Yutsano
Eastern Washington. I still haven’t heard anything (yet) regarding Dan Newhouse and the repercussions from his apostasy. I’d almost like to think they’ll be reasonable here, but TFG has his tentacles here too. Could be interesting come jungle primary season.
mvr
Thankfully, Nebraska’s unicameral is officially nonpartisan which means no party primaries to select the most crazy candidate for legislature. Also a relatively weak governor (by design) though Rickett’s wealth has bought him a couple of seats in the legislature. Lincoln is now solidly Democratic, Omaha is sort of on the cusp – gave both Obama (1x) and Biden an electoral vote – but currently has a Republican mayor and a split council (I don’t know the exact ratio). The west is solidly red and at least a few of the legislators (but not all) are crazy.
What this means is that the legislature overrode three vetoes of programs to extend various sorts of help to those in need this last session. It wasn’t a lot, but it wasn’t nothing. Medicaid was extended by referendum and the guv stalled implementation, but it is now real. Medical Marijuana was taken off the referendum ballot last year by the Supreme Court (in the guv’s pocket I hear), could not survive a filibuster this session, so will be back on the ballot as a referendum for full repeal of marijuana laws (so as to circumvent the Supreme Court’s rationale that the last version dealt with more than one issue in virtue of actually adding regulations for medical marijuana. I think it will get the signatures and then also the votes to pass.
Steeplejack
Seems like a good place to drop this epic “receipts” thread about the former guy. Recommended.
mali muso
@rikyrah: Michael Harriot is a national treasure.
Baud
Who would have thought the new God of the heartland would be a sleazy New York City real estate developer?
Baud
@Steeplejack:
I didn’t realize Twitter had that many pages.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: That’s very good, indeed.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Benw
@rikyrah: Mike Harriot is always 100% on point. One of the best writers around. Thanks for the linky!
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah: Thanks for sharing that. Hard reading, but necessary to understand how it really was.
karen marie
I’m going to need some specificity here. I’ve been alive a long time, and other than legislation to benefit their sponsors, I don’t remember anything passed by or with Republicans that “advanced the overall public good.”
Steeplejack
@Baud:
I didn’t either! I just kept going and going and going. But it needed all of them!
John Revolta
@Baud: I’ll never get over it. I guess it must have been his stupid TV show, because without that, TFG is nothing more than the exact type of bigmouth bullshitting big-city hustler that they all (used to) hate.
Matt McIrvin
In Massachusetts our Republican governor is not insane, just a dipshit. He detectably is trying to govern the state, he just has a lot of bad Republican-lite ideas for doing so, like always being exactly 15% more eager to reopen everything during a COVID pandemic than he should be.
zhena gogolia
@Bluegirlfromwyo: Same state I’m talking about, and same deal re Liz.
Dan B
@rikyrah: Fascinating background on Tulsa. My mother grew up 100 + miles east of Tulsa. We visited every other year. We never saw a black person until we lived there and it was rare to see them anywhere near white people. My father got us out. I’m forever grateful.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Yes, that is epic, but also unreadable!
Another Scott
@rikyrah: Excellent. And horrifying. And yet utterly unsurprising. :-(
Thanks very much.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Meghan McCain shoots her mouth off, and shoots herself in the foot. Again. Not that I think it will matter because apparently the shrieking screeching freak show atmosphere she brings to the View is exactly what draws eyeballs. But it’s pretty funny.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
Impressive.
I can’t be bothered to send another angry email since he’s practically out the door, but fucking Rod Portman voting for the January 6th commission after all his mealy-mouthed statements supporting a reexamination of the voting process.
sab
Stepdaughter moving to an apartment this weekend. We get her cat and pitbull.
Supposed to have dumped the pets off at 7:00. Now it’s almost 9:00. We are supposed to absorb an unneutered male cat and a feisty unspayed female pitbull into our menagerie ( five cats, one old dog) at this hour.
I am pissed. Also hungry, because we postponed cooking dinner until pets came and dust settled, which hasn’t fucking happened yet.
I am going to shut my door and go to bed with my favorite cat (who will absolutely hate the pitbull) and see what happens tomorrow.
Grrrr.
debbie
@Baud:
Racists gotta stick together. //
sab
@debbie: I wonder what that sleaze is planning for his political or other future. I share your feelings about him, but he doesn’t care what we think.
jackmac
Meanwhile here in the Mirror Universe — AKA Blue State Illinois — Democrats have completely trampled Republicans on every conceivable issue during the recent General Assembly sessions. And Dems locked in their dominance for the next 10 years with friendly legislative House and Senate districts and state Supreme Court boundaries. Congressional maps still to be released but likely to also be quite Dem-friendly. The ineffective GOP is left to sputter and whine and it makes me appreciate what we have here.
Jake Gibson
I’ve got Senator Tortoise and Senator AquaBuddha. Congressman is Brett Guthrie, a not completely insane Republican. Old school country club type.
Juju
@HinTN: I thought Blackburn was one of those people who did colors and aroma therapy for people. Medical technician is a step or two better than that, but Blackburn is still an empty headed buffoon no matter what she did before being elected a senator.
Baud
@jackmac:
Good.
Chetan Murthy
@Juju: wut? Blackburn? wikipedia has not a shred about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_Blackburn#Early_life_and_education
JML
I live in a red county in a purplish state, and I can attest to the creeping lunacy of the GOP, where they show little interest in legislating, excepting for trying to forbid the big cities from doing things that their citizens want, but said angry legislators don’t believe should be allowed. (at the same time, they love to tell people that those city-dwellers aren’t the “real” part of the state and are trying to “steal” everyone’s tax dollars for nefarious purposes at the expense of the “real” citizens, which as far as I can tell simply means “Republicans”)
It’s definitely hurting the GOP in the suburban areas, but there’s a fair question if the urban-suburban alliance is sustainable in the face of grievance politics. The suburbs have been uncomfortable with the gay bashing and misogyny…but racism? religious bigotry? we will see. The exurbs are the haven for the GOP’s (lack of) program and the aging and dwindling rural areas are ripe for the grievance politics targeted to people who feel left behind. The GOP has been failing badly in state-wide races (haven’t won any in 15 years?) but cobble together enough legislative seats to block things.
But our GOP used to be strongly independent and that streak has been wiped out. It started in ’94 with Gingrich and now the Trumpians rule the roost.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
You can’t handle the truth!
dnfree
Watching the PBS Memorial Day special, and they ended with the service songs.
What the heck happened to the caissons???
They just did the army song, and it has the same melody we learned in grade school, but the caissons are gone. Now it’s “the army” goes rolling along.
Is nothing sacred??
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
I lived through it.
zhena gogolia
@dnfree:
Did you ever know what a caisson was, even as you were singing it? I didn’t, and still don’t.
All I know is they used to build the Brooklyn Bridge.
ETA: husband says, “horse-drawn ammunition carts for field artillery.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Juju: I think maybe there was an editing snafu in that comment and the medical professional thing refers to Scott Desjarlais
Juju
@Chetan Murthy: I think I read that information on LGM and I never bothered to check because it seemed about right to me. It must have been sarcasm before I figured out the sarcasm font thing.
Jackie
@Yutsano: Trump has Newhouse in his crosshairs. Two Trumpies are primarying him – including mini-Trump Culp. I’m very concerned for District 4.
Marshall Eubanks
Here in Virginia this has been going on at least 20 years and certainly predates Trump. The reasonable Republicans I knew in the statehouse (who were mostly middle-aged professional people) were all targeted and replaced by (mostly young) know-nothings with deep pockets from somewhere. What I want to know is who is supporting these people? It may not take much to buy a bunch of signs and mailers, but it costs something, and the crazies never seem to lack for it.
All I can say is thank goodness Virginia as a whole has largely slipped out of their grasp.
Citizen Alan
@Cermet: I would go back even further. I think TFG is the logical and completely foreseeable consequence of everything the Republican Party has done since 1964. There are honestly times when I wonder if the world might be a better place had Nixon won in 1960. But then I remember that the people who made the GQP so awful would probably have just stayed Democrats.
Xavier
Nah, Republicans have never been about governing. From their point of view, protecting private property rights is the only legitimate role for government. Everything else is pandering to bigots.
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
yurp,…… smart hubbie. History Nerd?
Steeplejack
@Chetan Murthy:
Cringeworthy stuff on Blackburn’s Wikipedia page. Picture of her from high school—in 1969!—with caption saying she was “voted fourth alternate most beautiful.” Maybe that was added by some stalkerish fan, but c’mon! Don’t Wikipedia subjects have some ability to edit their pages like anyone else?
Denali
@Cermet,
Reagan was an idiot, but he wasn’t a traitor.
@Sab,
Hang in there.
sab
@Denali: 9:45 and I am still hanging in there very pissed
ETA Also too still hungry.
Kent
Here in the Pacific Northwest, Republicans like Mark Hatfield, Dan Evans, and Tom McCall passed a lot of progressive environmental legislation. But that was a LONG time ago now. When I was a kid basically. They would all be Democrats today I expect.
Ksmiami
Fuuuuuuck Joe Manchin.
Steve in the ATL
@sab: I have one kid who would have arrived one minute early, and one kid who would arrive…maybe next week, maybe never….
sab
@Steve in the ATL: With an unneutered cat and a pitbull to move in?
Ksmiami
The GOP is an existential threat- how come elected Dems don’t start shouting this from the rooftops
dnfree
@sab: then you are hangry. Understandably
sab
@dnfree: Well put.
Kent
I’m not. We have a jungle primary here in WA so they really can’t effectively primary him. Every voter in the district gets a primary ballot in the mail that will all the candidates of very party or no party and the top two progress to the general. Same thing is happening here in the WA-3rd where they are trying to primary Jaime Herrera Beutler for her apostacy of voting to impeach. I don’t think it will work. Here in the WA-3rd Jaime is very popular with the suburban soccer mom types because she gets her name on all sorts of kids-related legislation the family leave and such and the local media dutifully reproduces her office’s press releases. She and Newhouse will almost certainly progress to the general on name recognition alone, especially if there is a slate of unknown MAGAts. And there will hopefully be one prominent Dem in each district who also advances. No way Herrera Beutler or Newhouse take THIRD in a jungle primary. I don’t see it. Especially on in which EVERY voter in the district gets a ballot.
Jay
Redshift
@Marshall Eubanks:
The right-wing billionaires. It’s cheap, and they get an unbelievable return.
I Democrat I know joined the local Tea Party group back in the early days when they pretended to be nonpartisan and pretending to be grassroots, just to keep an eye on them. One thing he noted that was strikingly different from other groups was that they never talked about fundraising or how to pay for anything. They’d plan bus trips to events and stuff, and the money was coming from… somewhere.
Kent
Husband is right. During the Civil War and before the caissons were the ammunition wagons. Those are the caissons rolling along in the Army song. It’s a French word that just means “box” or large box.![]()
zhena gogolia
@Jay:
Oh, yes.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ksmiami: If it wasn’t for Joe Manchin, we’d still be calling Moscow Mitch Majority Leader.
dnfree
@Kent: well, they’re not in the Army song anymore, and apparently haven’t been for a long time. I guess I usually hear it done by a band, not sung, so I had no idea.
And they showed the logo for the stupid Space Force along with the Air Force.
Kent
I live in a purple area of a blue state (Clark County in SW Washington which is Vancouver and surrounding rural burbs). The county has supported Biden and narrowly Clinton in the past 2 elections but tends to vote for local MAGAts and GOPers for lower office like our Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler who is the last GOPer with a district that touches the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska. She probably widened her margin in 2022 due to her impeachment vote because that thrilled a lot of suburban soccer mom types around here who are GOP-lite. We have some absolutely horrid GOPers at the County and state legislature. They run the county but thankfully are deeply in the minority at the state legislature.
Washington’s unique jungle primary (I guess CA has the same thing) makes it very hard for ultra MAGAts to primary any old-time GOPers but doesn’t prevent them from winning open seats. I keep hoping we can finally defeat Herrera Beutler but I haven’t seen any good candidates emerge yet. She is beatable with the right candidate. Carolyn Long who ran the last two times against here was not the right candidate. She had the whiff of a Portland carpetbagger about her and wasn’t very charismatic.
persistentillusion
@rikyrah:
You are right; a well-told, deeply tragic story that reveals all of the racist failings built into this country. We tell ourselves stories about how noble we are by virtue of being American. The truth is much smaller and more flawed.
Kent
Our local high school uses the same tune for our school song so I’ve heard my daughters play it in the marching band about ten-thousand times over the past 4 years. Every time they score in football, for example, which is a lot.
Ksmiami
@?BillinGlendaleCA: He is now contributing to The end of American democracy. If he doesn’t back off his obsession, this nation is done.
SiubhanDuinne
@Juju:
@Chetan Murthy:
Probably conflating Marsha Blackburn with Diane Black. When they were both in the House, they represented adjacent districts. Black has a nursing degree and worked as a nurse before getting into politics. And Black/Blackburn, in addition to the similarity of their names and districts, have similar politics.
Jackie
@Kent: Culp is concerning. There weren’t very many Trump yard signs displayed in the Tri-Cities, but Culp signs were everywhere. He easily won our district for governor.
I’m surprised he didn’t choose to challenge Patty Murray.
rikyrah
@jackmac:
Hoping that the post-Census map is indeed settled, and we can move forward.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Only someone who’s read the Bible. Jesus flat-out said that in the end, everyone would have to choose between God and Mammon. What I never imagined would be that 4 out of 5 self-described Christians would worship Mammon but be too dumb to know it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ksmiami: The decision to change that was made in November, but as it stands he’s better than having the undertaker of democracy in charge of the Senate.
Ohio Mom
According to google, a caisson can also be a watertight, underground chamber used for building bridge foundations. Why two such different things — an engineering/building technique and a ammunition cart — should share the same name…
Sab, I hope you have eaten. Clearly, no adult children and pets are going to show up until you have sat down at the table, just like it doesn’t rain when you remember your umbrella.
My sister and BIL visited today on their way home from a longer visit to cousins in Louisville. It was a nice enough visit but as soon as they left, I realized how stressful it was to have other people in my house. My hermit tendencies have really blossomed over the last fourteen months.
sab
@Ohio Mom: No dinner yet and no pets. Urk. I did put some tiny appetizer tacos in. Those pets better not come tonight. But I would hate for that poor dog to be stuck in an empty house all night.
My stepdaughter is a great mom and stepmom, but she should not be allowed to have pets. She has no comcern for their feelings or welfare.
Kent
Because “caisson” is a French word that means large box. So it applies to both.
Patricia Kayden
@karen marie: I’m also trying to remember when “moderate” Republicans were in charge of their party. Ever since Gingrich took the House, moderate Republicans have been disappearing en masse.
As far as I can remember, when in power, Republicans cut taxes for the rich. They don’t pass laws to benefit regular Joes.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah:
Excellent thread by Michael Harriot. He makes every word and example count.
Pappenheimer
@Ohio Mom: I suspect that bridge caissons and artillery caissons are just using the same French word for different structures. Box is box
(already commended on – I missed 77)
Soprano2
I live in MO, where Republicans run the whole state government except auditor and have a supermajority in the state legislature. My senators are insurrection supporter Hawley and Roy Blunt, who is an old-style Republican. Running to replace Blunt are Trump-in-training disgraced former governor Greitens, the St. Louis man who pointed a gun at protesters, and state attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is the sanest of the three. In my House district the Republican wins at least 65% of the vote. So yeah, I live in political hell.
Ohio Mom
Duh…yeah, big boxes.
I think it’s time to call it a day. Good night, all.
James E Powell
@Ohio Mom:
Because they are both boxes.
Ksmiami
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I guess I wake up so many days wondering how half the voting country can’t see the GOP for what it is…
Urban Suburbanite
@Jackie:
Culp is profoundly dumb and lazy, and only got the nomination because the state GOP knew they didn’t have a chance of beating Inslee, nor did they care to try. His campaign was just a thinly disguised book tour (and using campaign funds to boost sales).
Anything past halfassed grifting and self promotion is beyond him.
Dan B
@Urban Suburbanite: Culp seems like competition for MTG and Bobert. To be pushed out of a police department in a right wing community is a sign.
Villago Delenda Est
Nuke the Vichy Times from orbit.
It’s the only way to be sure.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kent: ♪And the caissons go rolling along!♪
H.E.Wolf
@Villago Delenda Est: ♪And the caissons go rolling along!♪
♪Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?♪
(Jeopardy question: What songs from WWI can I sing 1 line from?)
And since it’s Memorial Day evening, and we’re on about WWI, how about a shout-out to the Harlem Hellfighters?
Urban Suburbanite
@Dan B: The official reason was that his tiny department was a waste of money, but it might have also been connected to him covering for an officer who had been assaulting his stepdaughter since she was 5. According to Culp, it was Republican opponents who made that known to reporters, but I have no idea if that’s true or not.
Geminid
There are four Republican House impeachers from the Midwest up for reelection next year: Peter Meijar and Fred Upton of Michigan, Anthony Gonzales of Ohio, and Adam Kinzinger of Ohio. If elections were held today and they each had one trumpist opponent, they would all probably lose. But these primaries won’t be held for a year or so, and there will likely be multiple challengers. So I will stay tuned.
Mike in NC
Had a good time in Key West, despite the many wingnuts (Florida was in the Confederacy after all), and will being busy with many Trip Advisor comments in the days to come. Just looking forward to seeing our cats again.
Uncle Cosmo
Fuuuuck Ksmiami, who has the political acumen of a cranky two-year-old.
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia: A lot of Democrats tried that in my ruby-red county a couple of election cycles ago. The first result was that we got a moderate Republican Board of County Commissioners who were actually interested in, y’know, governing. The second result was that the feral Trumpers in our county went bonkers and started a recall campaign against all three. One of them survived the recall, and we got two right-wing boneheads elected. Now the one sane one is gone – not only left office, but left the state afterwards – and we have the other two plus another slack-jawed eedjit.
So…good on your relatives for trying, I guess. But I’m not sure it’s going to work.
Tern
@Jake Gibson: We live in the same district!