Betrayal at the finish line.
Democrats all over the nation are seething over centrist Michigan Democratic Representative Haley Stevens endorsing Republican Mike Rogers for Senate over Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.
Shortly after her betrayal of freedom, the rule of law, and human rights, Stevens’ staffers resigned, and the Democratic Party expelled her and cut off her access to the party’s voter data.
Seattle would never
Damn! Seattle’s self-styled “mainstream” Democrats and the politeness police in our political establishment WOULD NEVER.
Some of them get VERY mad at me when I dare to even point out such betrayals.
I cannot tell you how often someone freaks out at me over this. I’ve had centrist consultants tell me I’ve “got to stop.” One former journalist completely lost his mind and embarrassed himself on Twitter about this. Somewhere in the midst of all his middle school snark, he managed to say I was “smearing” people for pointing out such betrayals, even though he didn’t dispute the underlying facts of the betrayals themselves!
What kind of moronic ethical framework guides people to think doing the bad thing is no big deal, but saying they did it is so gauche?
The Michiganders are right.
We are a big party, with a big tent. Sometimes a genuine moderate is a good fit for a district. (I’m not sure about “centrists” —almost all of America doesn’t think corporations should rule the world, but I’ll grant that districts deserve to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.) We can and should celebrate diversity and we don’t need to engage in circular firing squads, as our moderate former President called them.
But we can acknowledge that purity tests aren’t great without pretending that an open embrace of MAGA politicians and policy is remotely okay.
Seattle Version
Sadly, we have lots of Haley Stevenses in Seattle politics.
Recently-former City Attorney Ann Davison left the Democratic Party during the Trump era, and filmed a promotional video to get people to join the GOP, just months before the January 6th insurrection.
Yet when this embracer of MAGA ran against a mainstream-to-progressive Democratic prosecutor, she received endorsements from Seattle City Councilmembers like Maritza Rivera and Bob Kettle. She also got endorsements from former Washington State Governors Gary Locke and Chris Gregoire. Gregoire now seems to spend all her time with big tech/corporate bosses, a group of people who have famously bribed and otherwise welcomed the neo-fascist regime as long as it keeps their taxes low.
Candidate Andrea Suarez lied—repeatedly—about being a Democrat. (Here is her recent appearance on Laura Ingraham’s show.) Fortunately our state party chair publicly said she was not a Democrat. But Seattle politicians embraced her anyway. Here are then-Council President Sara Nelson and Councilmember Bob Kettle at her fundraiser.
Bruce Harrell, Seattle’s former Mayor, broke election law by headlining a fundraiser for a supposedly independent PAC that supported him, and that PAC was funded partly by Republican megadonors. Perhaps most egregious was that PAC’s explicit statement that it wanted to cooperate with the fascists in the bad Washington. Harrell was a crappy mayor, but he was more mainstream than whackos like Rivera and Suarez. Still, this embrace was a serious betrayal. Why was it so under-discussed in the media? Even progressive media?
Candidate Will Dreher signed a letter praising Brett Kavanaugh, coordinated and released by the Trump Administration, on the day his nomination. He now lies repeatedly and says this isn’t “campaigning” because he thinks we are too dumb to figure out that the letter is obviously meant to boost Kavanaugh’s candidacy. Kavanaugh was a known right-winger on abortion, gun rights, and more.
When it turned out Kavanaugh was also an attempted rapist, Dreher didn’t even rescind his praise! He famously echoed mealy-mouthed Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins’ call for an investigation. And like Susan Collins, Dreher shirks responsibility for his hand in ending basic rights for women all over this country.
And the now-bought Stranger is stupid or craven enough to claim he is a progressive.
Let’s learn from Michigan.
We should recognize betrayal—whether it was for career reasons, ideological reasons, or something else—for what it is. We don’t have to lose our minds over it. We just need to be clear-headed. We don’t have to pretend they are mainstream—because they are not.
Thank you for bringing all of these little morsels to light!
Staying on topic.