In one of the great "tut-tut" pieces in a while, the Editorial Board of the New York Times (motto: "We're partly responsible for the Iraq War and Trump's election, but you'll still subscribe") wrote that it was appalled by the idea that "Democratic Party groups have been elevating Big Lie proponents over their moderate Republican opponents all year." They take great umbrage - umbrage, I say - that Democrats would dare attempt to give subversive support to the fucknuts and grifters who make coin and get votes by saying that Donald Trump really won the 2020 election and that a conspiracy involving at least a few hundred thousand people worked to keep him out of office. The idea, of course, is that in a general election, those fucknuts and grifters (and, to be fair, the fucknut grifters) will be easily defeated by a Democrat. And what's the big strategy here? Reminding voters who is endorsed by Trump because to some idiot voters, that's like getting oral from Jesus.
But the Times's reasoning is this: electing "moderate Republicans" is a good thing. And what makes you a "moderate" Republican these days? Pretty much if you're not hooting racism into a tin can because an internet ghost told you it will bring about the Great Googamoogle or something.
One example the Times gives of a Big Lie-loving, Trump-endorsed fucknut is Maryland's Dan Cox. It should be pointed out at all times that his campaign website is "Cox for Freedom." No, I'm not lying. Anyways, yeah, Cox is huffing deeply of the fumes from Trump's taint, but in just about every other way, he's your average fucking mad Republican. He supports guns for babies (or something close - you really can't tell anymore), is a nutzoid on abortion, and hates him some critical race theory in schools. You know who else supports all those things except is a little more distant from Trump's grundle stink? Cox's opponent, Kelly Schulz. Oh, and groups like the Democratic Governors' Association bought ads saying that Cox was endorsed by Trump.
Here's the thing, though. No one forced those voters to go for Cox. They were adults making adult decisions.
Look at the even more bugfuck mad Kari Lake in Arizona. She campaigned on shitting in the dried up Lake Mead and laughing while she did it. Yet she won her primary. So, clearly, Republican voters in Arizona are good with attacks on wokeness and anti-choice madness (by the way, one interesting thing about Lake? She's for making almost all birth control available over-the counter and having the government pay for it. Hmm). But other than her support of the Big Lie and her vows to change Arizona voting laws so that this thing that never happened never happens again, her defeated opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson believes pretty much the same damn thing. Again, the key difference is that Lake got the help of Democratic groups because they hope crazy will lose.
But the key point here is that they're all fucking crazy; nearly every Republican is nuts. And even the ones who aren't explicitly saying that the 2020 election was stolen are calling for election "reform" or support gerrymandering and other shit that will hinder voting and help the GOP undo democracy. So maybe we need a little less garment-rending over the idea that Democrats' bet that the general election voters won't give a nod to the crazies will fail and a little more over the fact that it simply doesn't fucking matter which Republicans are elected.
And also let's not pretend that the right doesn't do this shit all the time. As Judd Legum and Kyle Tharp reported, a Republican-linked group is attempting to influence liberal members of Congress to vote against the climate change legislation by pretending to be a liberal group. The motherfuckery is deep in our politics.
