EXPENSIVE, UGLY AND DISHONEST

 Everything about the coming midterms shows the worst in American politics: first, its shows the influence of money, as over eleven billion dollars have been spent on these elections, a new record.  While it appears, thankfully, that the Democrats are poised to prevail, especially in the House of Representatives, the enormous influx of cash that the GOP has gotten (with hundreds of millions being spent by the odious Elon Musk) has helped the party do better than it deserves to.

Along with the power of money, this election is showing just how much politics has degenerated in the  in the Donald Trump era of the past decade or so: once upon a time, politicians never would have hurled the kind of mean spirited insults at their political opponents that the Republican party has been, lead by the president himself.  Along with him calling Texas Senate candidate James Talarico a freak, a secret vegan and insinuating he's gay, Trump has also gone after Michigan Senatorial candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed as a “vicious, violent jihadist.”  

Pictured above, the end of America, according to Bo French

Also in Texas, Bo French,  the Republican nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, posted a picture of young people celebrating at a football game, many of whom were of South East Asian descent, and said that it showed   “The problem is now obviously far worse that anyone imagined.”  Despite inspiring anger from even some Republicans, French has predictably defended his post, showing the never apologize, always attack mentality that has taken over the modern Republican party.   Or as Jeff Flake, an Arizonan Republican who has often criticized Trump put it, "It's awful.  We’ve gotten progressively more crass and crude and vulgar."  Yes, sadly we've come a long ways from the days when Senator John McCain corrected a woman who smeared Barack Obama as a Muslim while running for president.  The time of the GOP showing  that kind of decency in a campaign ended when it became the cult of Trump.

And if the speeches are bad, the political ads are worse.  Recently, America Next, a conservative political action committee, ran an ad in which a cowering white woman said "I can't even show my face because my skin is white, and they'll spew hate at me."  It's a truly strange ad that doesn't endorse any specific candidate or movement, it just claims that "Liberals are the new racists".  I suppose it shows how desperate the GOP is before the midterms that they would resort to such obvious bigoted race baiting, but the ad is still shocking in its brazenness, revealing that the conservative movement in this country has always benefited from white middle class Americans feeling ripped off, even while conservative politicians gut their healthcare and cut taxes for the rich.  Even though he said it decades ago, former President Lyndon Johnson's quote still applies:  “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

And even that race baiting ad doesn't sink to the level that Ohio Gubernatorial candidate  Vivek Ramaswamy has in his campaign: he recently ran an ad in which Donna Arthur, the estranged mother of his political opponent Amy Acton, called her daughter a liar and told people not to vote for her.  By doing this Ramaswamy has ignored the fact that decades ago Arthur chose to stay with the man who was arrested for raping Acton when she was twelve rather than support her daughter.  Thankfully, many Republicans have denounced the ad, like the outgoing Governor Mike DeWine who called it "deeply, deeply troubling", but, shamefully, both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have endorsed the ad, and Ramaswamy has doubled down on it, spending more money to keep airing it.

The only good news here is that it appears that all of the money and offensive attacks by the GOP aren't working, with the Democrats currently favored to retake both the House and the Senate on Tuesday.  Yes, after what has seemed like an eternity with Trump dominating politics even when he was out of office, his era will soon to start ending, with him spending two years as a lame duck president (and you just know that he will hate that term!) before fading from the scene.  Good riddance!