The Tyranny of Ideological Narratives
And why it may cost Democrats in Wisconsin
My latest, in Politico Magazine:
In Wisconsin, Democrats have a Kenosha problem — from the police shooting of Jacob Blake, to the protests and riots that followed, and now the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict.
And it could cost them the state’s governorship and a senate seat next year.
Even before Rittenhouse’s acquittal on Friday, it was clear that the incidents in Kenosha were going to cast a long shadow over the 2022 elections in Wisconsin. But the verdict once again highlighted the deep partisan divisions and particularly the problems that Democrats face in the crucial battleground state.
Moments after the Rittenhouse verdict was announced, Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), issued a statement denouncing the acquittal. “It’s disgusting and disturbing,” he said, “that someone was able into carry a loaded assault rifle into a protest against the unjust killing of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man…”
The only problem? Jacob Blake was not killed (he was paralyzed), and he was not unarmed. He was, in fact, holding a “razor blade-type knife” when he was shot. And the “protests” also included riots, vandalism, and looting that caused more than $50 million in damage and destroyed many local businesses.
But Maloney’s statement (which he later corrected) reflected the tyranny of the powerful — and often misleading — narratives that remain central to the ideological battle over the events here.
Since the video of a police officer firing seven shots into Blake’s back went viral in August 2020 — a moment when anger over the killing of George Floyd was still at its peak around the country — much of the media and political world has insisted on seeing the incident through the prism of Black Lives Matter. More than a year later, Wisconsin Democrats remain committed to that template, even though much of the original narrative surrounding the shooting of Blake has been discredited by subsequent investigations.
Just last month, the Biden Department of Justice found that there was insufficient evidence that the police officer who shot Blake “willfully used excessive force.” That finding mirrored the decisions by the local district attorney, the state’s own Justice Department, and an independent review by the African American former police chief of the state’s most progressive city.
Read the whole thing at Politico.
Speaking of Mandela Barnes
Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor is leading in both the polls and in fundraising in his bid for the Democratic nomination to challenge Senator Ron Johnson.
But, as NBC noted a while back, Barnes is a progressive true-believer, far to the left of the state’s narrowly divided electorate.
[By] branding himself a progressive, some observers say, Barnes could be getting in his own way. In Wisconsin, a purple state that is one of the most sharply divided in the U.S., a firmly progressive Democrat could hamper the party's appeal among the suburban and working-class voters the party needs to win a statewide race.
I’ve commented on this before:
“Wisconsin is on the razor’s edge and the margin of victory tends to be decided by a very small number of swing voters, who have recently, mostly been relatively centrist voters in the suburbs, so I’m not sure his formula is the right one,” said Charlie Sykes, a former conservative talk radio host in Wisconsin and an editor-at-large at The Bulwark.
Sykes and others pointed to not only Biden’s victory last year, but to wins in recent months by centrist Democrats over progressive candidates in primaries in different parts of the U.S. In New York City, centrist mayoral candidate Eric Adams won over several popular progressives. In Ohio, congressional candidate Shontel Brown touted her loyalty to Biden to best former Bernie Sanders campaign co-chair Nina Turner.
Unlike many other Democrats this year, Barnes wears his wokeness on his sleeve. During a recent on-line candidate forum (which you can watch here at 1:33:38, Barnes says:
"The reality is, the United States of America is the most wealthy, it is the most powerful nation on earth, and that is because of forced labor on stolen land. We have to teach the reality of why we are where we are or else people will just assume it just happened this way because of hard work because of pulling up by your boot straps."
You are of course, free to disagree, but I suspect that may not be an appealing message to Wisconsin voters next year.
Another deplorable bites the dust
Sean Parnell, a candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, suspended his campaign after a judge ruled Monday in favor of his estranged wife in a court fight over custody of their three children.
His estranged wife, Laurie Snell, had testified about abuse she said she and occasionally their children endured from him.
Awkward for MAGAWorld:
Heartbreaking
“What we know so far about the five victims of the Waukesha Christmas Parade.” Via Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
Every parade has an act that draws the eye, that brings a quick smile and a delighted laugh.
An act like the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, who with their pom-poms, sense of humor and moxie have entertained crowds across the area for decades.
Founded in 1984, they usually performed 25 times a year, although they had to take a break in the earlier months of the pandemic.
"The Grannies are kind of a really tight unit," said Beth Krohn, a retired member of the group. "We used to call it a sisterhood."
On Sunday, the women were doing what they loved best: performing, providing entertainment and bringing joy to those gathered at the Waukesha Christmas Parade.
But in an instant, when a red SUV roared down the parade route, several of the Dancing Grannies were tragically run down, with four fatalities.
**
Unfortunate bonus take:
Quick Hits
1. How Trump Repeatedly Duped the GOP Elites
Amanda Carpenter writes in this morning’s Bulwark that Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s new book offers a modern tale of the definition of insanity.
If you listened to the hype, Peril seems like another in the parade of new books about Trump palace intrigue, bombastic personalities, behind-the-scenes controversies, disgruntled officials, and f-bomb-dropping pols. It is all that. But tucked in the book’s pages is another story—a story about how various elites kept getting duped by Trump and are setting themselves up as his stooges once again.
2. The Twisted QAnon Vigil Awaiting JFK Jr.’s Return
Don’t miss Thomas Lecaque in today’s Bulwark:
K Jr. has stubbornly refused to appear in Dallas, despite messianic predictions that the late scion of the Kennedy clan would return to the land of the living. But the members of QAnon—the Trump-era political conspiracy-theory-cum-cult—who gathered weeks ago in Dallas to await him did not go home. Many of them stayed at Dealey Plaza, one day making the shape of a giant Q, another day lining up to have Michael Brian Protzman, known as Negative48 on Telegram and other right-wing sites, with a bird on his shoulder, show them a nonexistent Illuminati pyramid on top of the Book Depository. The QAnoners attended a Rolling Stones concert and claimed that a number of dead famous people were in fact alive and there in disguise. And one of their followers reportedly offered them property nearby so that they can stay, permanently.
Protzman, who claims to base his predictions on gematria, a form of Jewish numerology, is not alone in prodding the Dallas QAnoners. Yesterday, a Twitter account named for—or pretending to be—John F. Kennedy Sr. asked for a candlelight vigil on the anniversary of his assassination:
Can we do candlelight. Tonite @ Dealey Plaza from 21:11 9:11pm to 23:11 11:11 pm? Can we make that happen?They obliged, gathering at Dealey Plaza last night to sing the 1985 anti-famine anthem “We Are the World”—an incongruous choice of songs, perhaps, but one that certainly highlights the average age of the participants…
Cheap Shots
The governor of Maryland would like a word.
The United States of Insanity.
Amanda’s article….bullseye!
Let it be noted…..the majority of the people that stood up to Trump in REAL TIME were women: Fiona Hill, Marie Yavanovitch, Liz Cheney, Nancy Pelosi.
Just sayin’
Charlie, are you aware that you're saying the democrats are in the thrall of ideological narratives, while then posting about how people are saying JFK Jr is alive and about how MTG et all are saying that the driver who plowed into that parade was a terrorist? You cannot be that blind. Please tell me you're trolling.
The other problem is this: if voters look at Rittenhouse, a man who was armed with a gun he wasn't allowed to have and driven to his community he wasn't supposed to be in, and shot three people, two of them fatally, and go 'yeah we think that the people lionizing him are better than the democrats' then we might as well pack it in. Because if voters, not elites or the media, decide that actually armed vigilante murderers are good, then there's really no reason to think that this republic of ours has a chance of success.
Furthermore, does it really matter why police shot someone that many times in the back? Are we really going to say that we don't have a problem with police violence? This isn't a tough on crime issue. This is an issue where the police, who as demonstrated with the refusal in many places to get vaccinated, see themselves as above the law and feel justified that they can do anything because they wear a badge. That all they need to feel is threatened and they can shoot people with impunity. The police see themselves as hostile occupiers in many places, and as a result are more paranoid and violent than they need to be. And yeah, it's a dangerous job, but more cops died of covid in the last year than in the line of duty.
Part of the problem is if voters look at the shooting of black men and at armed vigilante children and go 'actually that's good' then we're basically admitting that law is for white men and no one else. Because if there's no consequences, why wouldn't people simply keep doing it?
I fear that you're dislike of 'the left' or whatever that may be is blinding you to the fact that you're not staking out 'moderate' positions, and instead justifying behaviors that are entirely unconservative. There's nothing conservative about child soldiers or caste systems, at least not in our western traditions.