Last week's posts essentially made three points:
- We are at our best through our caring for each other, but...
- That gets held back by sexism.
- That gets held back by racism.
When I want to talk about how leftists (and Republicans) get it wrong, the racism and the sexism keeps coming up. They get very offended when you call it that, but ignoring that foundation won't help.
There is a strong resistance to engaging with the truth, which means resistance to any reasonable engagement, doubling down, and not worrying about sincerity.
I am going to give two very recent examples that relate.
One is from Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, regarding a lack of forthcoming information on Mitch McConnell's status:
"I publicly and privately urged the last administration to address the public’s concerns with the former president’s health. I’m calling on Sen. McConnell to do the same and provide voters an update on his own health. Let’s end the crazy speculation. Just tell us what’s going on."
This series will also cover people who sound like they are saying good things but are doing damage at the same time.
It is reasonable to call for information on McConnell, especially given some of the relevant circumstances. The public pronouncement may not have been the best way of doing it, but maybe he had tried other channels with no luck and that was a last resort.
What was completely unnecessary was the reference to Biden. It's easy to miss, but it's important because it's part of a larger theme of (I could also reference Jon Stewart here) trying to convince us all that Biden was severely incapacitated, as opposed to having one debate that didn't go well. The fact that the presidency was being well-conducted and that Biden is to this day -- although old -- healthy and functional and way more rational than the current president is not something to talk about.
I believe there is some guilt for bad choices, but an inability to admit those choices or that guilt. Keep an eye out for it and you will see it a lot, with other themes that create a pattern.
The other example relates to several not well-established accounts going hard on calling Haley Stevens a millionaire.
Stevens is a Michigan representative who is currently running for Senate. She is running against Abdul El-Sayed, currently a favorite of those getting amnesia about their Platner support, so it's going to be that kind of campaign.
El-Sayed might be a millionaire, but he won't release his taxes so that's unknown.
Stevens has released her taxes; her income and accumulated worth and all of that is well below even one million. However, these attackers are saying that because she is keeping campaign donations from SpaceX instead of redirecting them to charity, and because she has a campaign chest of more than a million, that means she is keeping it and therefore a millionaire.
Many of the leftist candidates do refuse to take money from PACs, but they end up getting a lot of money from other donors and they tend to already be wealthy... I don't think it's the moral high ground they think it is.
As it is, the $50,000 from SpaceX has not kept her from criticizing Musk; she is known for that.
There is certainly the potential for corruption. Yes, big donors might expect to exert influence, though they can't force that. More common is that candidates will allocate a large part of their campaign chest to salaries for "advisors" who happen to be friends and family. Platner did a lot of that.
Campaign finance laws can prevent some of that. Stevens so far has a pretty good record of being open about finances, but none of that matters if you have decided the person is not on your team.
A big theme is not giving anyone else any credit.
Currently, Zohran Mamdani is getting a lot of praise for his click-to-cancel rule. Biden had one, but then between a Federal Appeals court and Trump, it's dead. If you try and bring that up, you get responses that Biden just didn't have any initiative and gave up too easily, as opposed to it being easier to get things done in a pretty solidly liberal state than on a national level with a bunch of obstructionists.
Okay, if your philosophy is going to be that only my candidates are good and everyone running against them is bad, can you at least actually start with truly good candidates?
Or is there something you are looking for that gets in the way?
Related posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/07/better-than-wed-hope.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/07/worse-than-wed-like.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/07/with-friends-like-these.html
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