Facebook Publication Date: 5/3/2018 22:05
Lace on Race
Lace on The Race
Well, this is a pickle. A conundrum. A head scratchier. A fine how-do-you-do.
Lace on Race, after seriously considering imbibing enough to remember *all* of the words to ‘Take On Me’ so we could distance ourselves from the next paragraph, are, however, stone cold sober, and feels it responsible and teeth grindingly necessary to say the following:
This racist ad against Mitch McConnell, and, by extension, his wife, Elaine Chao, is wrong. We need to unpack it.
And I need my trauma therapist on speed dial. Dr. W, has it come to this? Penzey’s Spices is hiring. Huffing oregano has to be a better gig than coming to the aid of, dear Lord, the odious team of McConnell and Chao.
The ad, taken by itself, is laughable, which indeed LoR did between shots of Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper, all the while looking longingly at the side table with the good gin.
Then we stopped laughing, and aspirated our 3rd favorite diet beverage.
Even after Slate.com excoriated Blankenship in a blistering article, even after he suffered ridicule, you will notice that the ad has not been taken down.
Blankenship knows his audience; knows that when he says ‘China People’ there are people in West Virginia nodding their heads in approval. When he hoists up the blond children at the end of the ad, the whistle was so loud it woke Tikka Rose up from a sound slumber in the San Diego evening.
My black Lab Mix hoisted up her right paw, raised her left eyebrow, barked ‘Black Lives Matter’, and went back to sleep, secure that Blankenship knew neither her address, nor how to spell out the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ and, as usual, left the heavy lifting to me.
We were talking about being on the horns of dilemma.
Welp.
So is the West Virginia GOP.
So is McConnell and Chao.
All of them are contorting themselves, in the attempt to do two tasks that are diametrically opposed to the other: distance themselves from Blankenship without totally disavowing him, because of the substantial number of Good West Virginians who only like their China covered in cloying Americanized ‘Orange Sauce’; or in 95% of the aisles at their Local Walmart, which is the only place to get boxer briefs festooned with Stars and Bars these days, since every single local business was run out of town, along with those crunchy noodles so tasty you’d almost lay down your xenophobia.
Almost.
I am not going to have to chew a tums cuz heartburn over Mitch and Elaine. Both of them have been under the thrall of the Republican platform for decades–both the official one that nobody really knows, as well as the ‘unofficial’ platform, which nobody talks about but everyone knows and runs their plays with. They are both covered with pustules from the GOP plague and the blood of the lives of the people, both within the state of West Virginia and out of it, whose lives they have made worse by advancing policies that hurt the people they say they serve. Nope. No GI distress there.
Nor are there any kleenex that will be needed for the West Virginians who are supporting Blankenship, or, for that matter, supporting the GOP. Dems, unless Manchin implodes, are actually favored to win in a state that broke 40% for Trump.
West Virginia, despite itself, may indeed break right, er, I mean *correctly*, for the first time in years.
Blankenship, who has no realistic chance of winning the GOP primary, is still a danger. He will not lose points for this ad, which could easily have run at a 1918 screening of ‘Birth Of A Nation’, and could make virulent, blatant racism a theme in the November election, no matter who wins.
Jenkins and Morrisey, the two Repub front runners, could start whistling themselves, in an attempt to entice the 15% (you heard right) of voters leaning Blankenship.
As they advance toward the November Midterms, the Dem candidate could well be faced with not one, but three funky choices: silence in the face of probable dog whistling; strong pushback against the siren song of racism, or, because he needs to remember he’s running in W Virginia, not some hippie state like Kansas or North Dakota, he might have to tack right and do some Dixie whistling too.
That is why a badly executed ad by a loser candidate could do serious damage. Not just in W Va, but in wide swaths
Which is why the Midterms are so important.
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