A common complaint among Republicans is that their opponents are mainly in the business of manufacturing victims and turning those victims into Democratic voters.

That complaint is true as far as it goes. Yes, Democratic politicians work overtime to get out the vote for their party by portraying society at large as having wronged members of particular racial, religious, ethnic, or gender/sexual groups, and by promising reforms that end the discrimination and compensate those discriminated against.

But grievance-based politics is nothing new, nor does America’s political “left” enjoy a monopoly on it. For proof of that latter claim, one need look no further than the case of Nick Sandmann.

“I’m the teenager who was defamed by the media,” Sandmann told the Republican National Convention on August 26. But, he said, “I would not be canceled.”

Leaving aside the question of precisely how turning him into a celebrity (with stories that, while initially mildly inaccurate, were almost instantly corrected as more information came in) constitutes an instance of the “cancel culture” he decries, let’s be clear about what he, and his handlers, are up to:

Nick Sandmann publicly plays the victim for money. That’s his job, and it will probably remain his job until he’s stretched his proverbial 15 minutes as far as they can be stretched.

After participating in an anti-abortion protest in Washington, DC, Sandmann went through a tense moment with some other protesters, who were agitated about other issues, and his motives were (mistakenly, but not libelously in any sane universe) misinterpreted by journalists based on partial video.

Lawyers Todd McMurtry and Lin Wood offered Sandmann a lucrative career opportunity, representing him in frivolous/malicious defamation lawsuits that media companies settled rather than fight.

The settlement amounts weren’t publicly disclosed, but while they likely came to pennies on the demanded dollar, they also probably brought Sandmann more wealth than a life of real work would have. It’s hard to blame a teenager for jumping on a get-rich-quick con as presented by two experienced ambulance chasers. Especially one that’s actually worked out for him.

Now the Republicans are attempting to parlay Sandmann’s faux victimhood into votes by creating a new victim category: “Whiny, white, Christian abortion opponent.”

Not that such a bloc would vote Democrat absent the attention. But Republicans are afraid the people resembling that description might not bother to vote at all. And they need every vote they can get.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Dear Ma’am,

Where were you in late 2016 and early 2017, when a little bit of encouragement from a much-admired former First Lady might have sparked transformation and reform in the Democratic Party, bringing better candidates out of the woodwork and positioning them as real alternatives to Donald Trump’s GOP?

Where were you last winter, when you could have used your bully pulpit to influence Democratic primary voters toward better presidential nomination choices than Joe Biden? Why didn’t you come out and urge those voters to support Bernie Sanders, or Tulsi Gabbard, or Mike Gravel?

Where were you a month ago when a call from you would likely have carried great weight with Biden as he considered his choice of running mate? Why didn’t you pick up the phone and tell him that some melanin and two X chromosomes couldn’t magically turn a pro-carceral-state, pro-bad-cop, nowhere near ready for prime time party apparatchik into vice-presidential material?

Given your party’s Herculean efforts to blow its second presidential election in a row, and your complete cooperation with those efforts, you’ve got a lot of nerve to lecture millions of Americans, wagging your finger at us and demanding that we not “withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning.”

Look, it’s true that I’m not really your target market. I’ve been a partisan Libertarian for 25 years. The last time I voted for a Democratic presidential ticket was 1988.

Then again, the last time I voted (or expect to vote) for a Republican presidential ticket is never.

And I really, really, really want to see Donald Trump sent packing this November. Really.

Heck, I even donated a few bucks to Senator Gravel’s campaign (he’s a personal hero of mine) and might have been able to bring myself to vote for Congresswoman Gabbard if your party had had the brains and guts to nominate her.

I’m all in for my party’s nominee, Jo Jorgensen. I admit that that was probably always going to be the case. But there was the possibility, however slight, that I might have been persuaded otherwise.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just people like me — the hard cases — that your party couldn’t be bothered to even try to appeal to.

The Democratic Party told “independent” voters they don’t matter.

The Democratic abandoned “swing” voters to Trump.

Heck, it even thumbed its nose at its own substantial center-left wing.

And then it sent you out to make excuses for it and demand that everyone it declined to listen to reward its bad behavior and poor people skills with our votes in November.

Sorry, no dice.  And you should be ashamed of yourself for accepting the assignment.

Signed,
A. Voter

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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As you no doubt know by now, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has chosen US Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate.

You’ve probably also noticed  the first salvo of Republican attacks on Harris: She’s “not really black,” and she may not even be a “natural born citizen” as required by the Constitution to hold the office of president or vice president.

No one sane or intelligent finds either of these attacks convincing.

One need not be a direct descendant of slaves in the antebellum American South to be “black.” Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father of African descent, has been treated as a member of the African-American community, both by that community and by society at large, for her entire life.

Nor must one be the child of American citizens to be a “natural born citizen.” Harris was born “in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” per the 14th Amendment. Her claim to “natural born citizen” status is better than that of 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain (born in Panama) or 2016 Republican nomination contender Ted Cruz (born in Canada, with a Cuban father).

These attacks on Harris miss the point entirely, and I find that neither surprising nor coincidental. The attacks that actually make sense boil down to this:

Skin color and eligibility concern trolling aside, Kamala Harris would make a perfect post-Nixon Republican candidate for any office, including president or vice president.

Harris made her name as a “tough on crime” prosecutor.

As San Francisco’s district attorney, Harris dramatically increased the number of prosecutions for marijuana possession (thereby encouraging higher arrest rates). Nearly 2,000 San Franciscans found themselves entangled with the “justice” system over possession of a plant she now jokes about smoking herself and says she wants to legalize.

In her one-and-a-half terms as attorney general of California, Harris oversaw the incarceration of nearly 45,000 new African-American, and more than new 80,000 Latinx, prisoners, several thousand of them for victimless “drug crimes.” When it comes to persecuting African-Americans, Bull Connor had nothing on Kamala Harris.

When she wasn’t hassling people of color, Harris spent her time as AG protecting corrupt and violent cops, fighting against the release of exonerated prisoners, and engaging in showy arrests without legal basis (e.g. her instantly dismissed charging of Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer with “pimping” for publishing material she disliked).

Harris doesn’t seem to be a Democrat based on any particular conviction — at least not any conviction matching the current Democratic mood. She just climbed the political ladder of the party in power where she happened to live. Republicans who question her racial background and citizenship status would carry her to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on their shoulders if she had an “R” next to her name.

Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a world where people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” By that standard, Kamala Harris is completely unfit for the office of vice president.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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