Tuesday’s elections afforded Americans a rare chance to see people show graciousness in winning and losing alike. It also allowed the voters to select representatives who most demonstrated their appreciation of decency and individual freedoms.
Those didn’t happen.
Instead, there were attacks from the Democrats on the Green Party candidate in Ohio 12, as typified by Alyssa Milano.
You know what sucks?
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) August 8, 2018
Because of our unwillingness to pass policy that protects our election integrity, I immediately think the Green Party votes tonight are Russian meddling.
Why else would anyone cast a protest vote in Ohio when there’s so much at stake?#OH12
Leaving aside the offensive sense of entitlement in this tweet which leads to the assumption that every Green voter would have otherwise voted Democrat (history demonstrates that this is absolutely not the case), the math is terrible. If all of the Green voters had bucked all historical precedent and lined up behind O’Connor, O’Connor would still have lost the initial vote tally. It was merely scapegoating and an attempt to de-legitimize a rival political party.
Meanwhile, the Green candidate, Manchik, didn’t get many votes for a variety of reasons, but they have nothing to do with him being evil or conniving, as the Democrats are attempting to portray him.
It was because he ran a disorganized, haphazard campaign, was a socialist anti-corporatist and said he was descended from aliens.
That hasn’t kept him from getting death threats. It isn’t the only example of irrational hatred, though.
Corey Stewart, the Republican Senate candidate for Virginia weighed in following the Michigan primary. His Twitter quote, now deleted, read “Migichan almost elected a far left ISIS commie. This guy wants to abolish ICE & won 300,000 votes. Dangerous stuff. Don’t let wimpy @timkaine bring this dangerous, far left communism to VA.”
The person to whom he was referring, Abdul El-Sayed, came in second in the Michigan primary. The fact is that El-Sayed is far left in his politics and has argued for abolishing ICE. Those are reasonable criticisms. Calling him a terrorist (ISIS) without any evidence is hate speech, and if it is due to El-Sayed’s muslim religion it’s bigotry. There is no good option, which is why he deleted the tweet. But the internet is forever if you’re in politics, and it was captured. (The Hill)
It was also an unfair attack on his political opponent, attempting to tie Kaine to the politics of El-Sayed due only to their shared party.
And all of that pales in comparison to the “discovery” of Missouri House primary winner Jim West’s statements. Only after cruising to a 25 point victory did people notice his online videos of anti-Semitism.
There was a time, not long ago, when a single anti-Semite who speaks well of Nazis would have been removed from the Republican party, with politicians rushing to the microphones to distance themselves from the offender. Now candidates reveal their bigotry regularly, and they are being embraced.
