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Sean Hannity discussed how Democrats have nothing to run on for midterms so they have turned to attempt to dehumanize Republicans on "Hannity."

SEAN HANNITY: DEMOCRATS IN WASHINGTO9N ARE TRYING TO PLAY POLITICS WITH HURRICANE IAN

SEAN HANNITY: And vile, personal attacks from the left are reaching a fever pitch, they can't run on their record. You know, with absolutely nothing positive to run on Democrats, they are now attempting to dehumanize Republicans all across the country in senatorial and gubernatorial races. They do so from a glass house. And tonight, we will expose two Democratic candidates for Senate who do not deserve the vote in their respective states. We begin in the great state of Georgia tonight.

Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, speaks during a campaign rally in Macon, Georgia, on Wednesday, May 18, 2022. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

While the media mob, they are obsessing over anonymous sources in The New York Times regurgitated by other media and fixated on family drama surrounding Republican Herschel Walker. They have been more than happy to ignore very serious allegations against the Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock.

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SEAN HANNITY: Democrats have nothing positive to run on - Fox News

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Once again, everyone cant stop talking about Beto ORourke.

FiveThirtyEights polling average shows a single-digit contest in the Texas gubernatorial race between ORourke and the Republican incumbent, Greg Abbott. Earlier this year, ORourke made headlines for his record-breaking fundraising, and the fallout from a succession of high-profile events in the state the triggering of a preexisting state law banning abortions, continued strains on the power grid and a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history are giving him unexpected leverage against Abbott. As a result, this gubernatorial election could be one of Texass most competitive since Democrats last held the office in the 1990s.

Lets be real about one thing, though: The overall electoral environment might be improving for Democrats, but ORourke is still a serious long shot. FiveThirtyEights 2022 midterm-election forecast gives Abbott a 95-in-100 chance of besting his ubiquitous Democratic challenger. But is it possible that after his closer-than-expected Senate race against Ted Cruz in 2018 and rise to national prominence after a nearly eight-month campaign in the 2020 presidential election, a narrow loss against Abbott in November could be a victory for Texas Democrats in the long run?

The idea that ORourke could be laying the groundwork for future Democratic victories in Texas isnt a crazy one. After all, other Southern states like Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina have become somewhat more competitive over the past several election cycles. But another close statewide race for ORourke this year doesnt necessarily mean Texas is on the verge of turning blue or even purple. Thats because ORourke is, well, ORourke, and without a stronger campaign infrastructure throughout the state, it will be hard for most Texas Democrats running in statewide elections to replicate his level of fundraising and fanfare. And, fundamentally, Texas is still a red-leaning state.

ORourkes campaign style is hard to emulate because, for one, hes become a buzzy celebrity candidate since his 2018 race, and he has a gift for making headlines. When hes not standing up to hecklers at campaign events or interrupting Abbott at a news conference in Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers died in a mass shooting, ORourke has made a name for himself by zig-zagging his Toyota Tundra across the state, snapping selfies with voters and dropping f-bombs to fire up his base.

As the chart below shows, public curiosity about ORourke has waned since his 2020 run, according to Google Trends data, but hes still able to draw national attention.

But politicians can only get so far on personality alone and ORourke is no exception. That doesnt mean he isnt a strong candidate, though. A poll fielded in late August and early September by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin gave Abbott only a 5-percentage-point edge over ORourke. And another, more recent, poll from Quinnipiac University conducted in late September gave Abbott a slightly larger, 7-point edge.

Still, its unlikely that ORourke will be able to build a lasting campaign infrastructure for future Texas Democrats to replicate if they want to run statewide. Thats because of one major problem: an apparent lack of organization among the Democratic Party in Texas. To build on ORourkes 2018 and likely 2022 margins against incumbent Republicans, the party would need to build and sustain a solid campaign infrastructure well past this years midterm elections.

One of the issues for Democrats here is that theres been a lot of turnover in their candidate pool, said James Henson, the executive director of the Texas Politics Project. To me, thats a pretty big indicator that theres not really an established, institutional foundation in the Democratic Party here in the way that you do see it on the Republican side.

In addition to issues with recruitment and turnover facing Democrats running in marquee Texas races save for ORourke and former oil executive Mike Collier, who is challenging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick again after losing to him by 5 points in 2018 the party has run inexperienced candidates against formidable Republicans and doesnt have a presence in a sizable chunk of the state. Case in point: Over 50 of Texass 254 counties have no organized county party or leaders, according to the state Democratic Partys website. A notable number of those counties are in rural parts of the state too, and even in 2018, ORourke won the support of only 24 percent of the voters living in Texass 186 rural counties, according to The Texas Tribune. Cruz, in contrast, won over 75 percent of the vote there.

Moreover, Henson told me, theres no obvious successor who can build off and improve upon the infrastructure that ORourkes campaign has created. In the past, there were times when successful campaigns, at least indirectly, provided people with a model for organizing and professional skills, Henson said. But thats just not happening here in Texas. In 2018, ORourkes close contest against Cruz helped Democrats Lizzie Fletcher of Houston and Colin Allred of Dallas flip two congressional districts by each unseating a long-term Republican incumbent. Democrats had a net gain of 12 seats in the Texas House as well. But then, in 2020, Texas Democrats fell short of their electoral goals.

There are other reasons, though, why a close win for ORourke doesnt necessarily speak to Democrats political future in Texas. For one, the Republican Partys brand is still strong in Texas. When it comes to key policy issues, polling suggests that voters still overwhelmingly trust Republicans over Democrats. The August-September Texas Politics Project survey, for example, showed that voters were more likely to trust Abbott over ORourke on handling issues like the U.S.-Mexico border situation and the economy. Voters trusted ORourke more on abortion, however.

Yet while voters were divided over who could better handle gun violence, Texans said the top issues facing the state were border security, immigration, political corruption/leadership and inflation/rising prices abortion and gun control/gun violence were further down their list. That means that any Democrat running after ORourke would need to win voters trust on these issues and thats a tall order given that even ORourke has had only limited success.

On top of that, demographic changes in Texas that at one point may have been viewed as good news for Democrats might not end up working in their favor. The states Hispanic population is growing, but demographics are not destiny in American politics and those voters might be a hard bloc for Democrats to make further gains with, especially after Texass border counties moved sharply to the right in 2020. Voters in other rural parts of the state have also been hard for Democrats to win, and despite ORourkes campaigning in rural counties, its not clear whether even he is making significant inroads.

And so far, ORourke hasnt necessarily provided a foolproof model for winning over Republican and independent voters, whose support hed need to beat Abbott in what is still a red-leaning state. ORourke might be a major presence in Texas, but hes not actually that popular. A September poll from the University of Texas at Tyler for The Dallas Morning News, for instance, found that almost half of the states registered voters 47 percent had a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of ORourke compared with 40 percent who viewed him in a positive light. He didnt fare well with independent voters, either: 46 percent had an unfavorable view of ORourke versus 34 percent who had a favorable opinion.

The survey didnt ask respondents to assess Abbotts favorability, but exactly half of voters said they strongly or somewhat approved of his job performance as governor; meanwhile, 47 percent said they disapproved. Those numbers have given ORourkes opponents an opportunity, too. Since his presidential campaign, he has given Republicans a useful foil to inspire their own turnout.

In short, for Texas Democrats to succeed statewide, theyd need to have a healthy mixture of ORourkes popularity, an appeal to a wider swath of voters and, ideally, not be a bogeyman or bogey(wo)man for Republicans. Thats a big ask in a state that hasnt fielded especially strong Democratic candidates beyond ORourke in the past few statewide election cycles.

Of course, because the Democratic candidate is ORourke a micro-celebrity in the state and nationwide the race could be close. That said, his race likely wont say much about Texas Democrats larger ambitions to flip the state because theres still a lot of work that needs to be done before they get there.

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Democrats Need More Than Beto ORourke If They Want To Flip Texas - FiveThirtyEight

My grandma often scolded me when I was a boy. If you think the world owes you a living, you got another think coming!

To the contrary, many today adhere to a doctrine of entitlement.

Throughout his life, Winston Churchill fought against a similar philosophy the philosophy of socialism. In 1945, in a speech before the House of Commons, he said: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

In a 1908 speech, Churchill said: The socialists are very fond of telling us they are reviving in modern days the best principals of the Christian era. They consider they are the political embodiment of Christianity, though, to judge by the language that some of them use, and the spirit of envy, hatred, and malice with which they go about their work, you would hardly imagine they had studied the teachings of the founder of Christianity with the attention they profess to have given to the subject.

He continued: But there is one great difference between the socialist of the Christian era and those of which Mr Victor Grayson [a political adversary] is the apostle. The socialism of the Christian era was based on the idea that all mine is yours. The socialism of Mr Grayson is based on the idea that all yours is mine.

Timothy RobinsonPortland

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Letter to the editor: Churchill had it right about contemporary socialism - Press Herald

My uncle and his family fled Syria in 2012 as one of the many families who sought safe haven in the United States. Many of the Venezuelans fleeing the oppressive regime of Nicols Maduro are seeking the same thing he was safe harbor in a nation opposed to authoritarian oppression.

Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, both likely presidential candidates, have each made bold claims about their stance against socialism, but if they want to maintain their credibility, they are going to have to adjust their response to immigrants fleeing authoritarian socialist oppression. You cant fight an ideology if you dont help the people suffering from it. Spending millions of tax dollars to bus and fly Venezuelan refugees to Marthas Vineyard directly opposes the governors proclaimed ideals.

The Republican governors elaborate political stunt last week was supposed to highlight the hypocrisy of sanctuary states and follows months of efforts by both Abbott and DeSantis to ship migrants and refugees out of their respective states to destinations like Chicago, New York City, and Washington. As of early August, the state of Texas has paid over $12 million to the charter service used to transport migrants, while the state of Florida has pre-allocated $12 million for the same cause.

While Abbott and DeSantis waste tax dollars to punish their colleagues across the aisle, the real recipients of this performative cruelty are Venezuelans who have fled the authoritarian regime of Nicols Maduro. By using victims seeking refuge from socialist regimes as mere political pawns, the so-called anti-socialists expose their hypocrisy.

Since Nicols Maduros rise to power in 2013, Venezuelas refugee crisis has grown to rival that of Syrias a country facing one of the bloodiest wars of the 21st century. Some of Venezuelas poorest compose the recent waves of refugees reaching the United States, many of whom did not have the economic means to flee the country during the mid-2010s. Most end up in South Florida and Texas, where one would presume that the so-called anti-socialist leaders of those states would be happy to provide refuge to those fleeing an ideology they so ardently oppose.

Referring to the Venezuelan asylum-seekers as illegal immigrants, DeSantis minimized the plight of Venezuelans seeking refuge from one of the worlds most oppressive dictatorships. This rhetoric is all too familiar to me, as scores of Syrians fleeing the Assad regime to the U.S. and Europe including my own family members faced similar anti-refugee backlash during the height of the Syrian refugee crisis.

DeSantis has been an outspoken opponent of Maduro, calling the Venezuelan authoritarian a communist, a murderous tyrant, and urging the U.S. not to line Maduros pockets. When it comes to the victims of this murderous tyrant, however, DeSantis seems uninterested in extending an open hand to refugees fleeing arbitrary arrest, torture, and state-sanctioned death squads.

Through his and Abbotts decision to ship away Venezuelan refugees, DeSantis has removed his mask of performative opposition to the Maduro regime. Greg Abbott who has repeatedly accused Beto ORourke, his Democratic opponent, of being a socialist seems somehow comfortable dismissing the needs of victims of the man whom his friend DeSantis has called a communist and a murderous tyrant.

Ultimately, Abbott and DeSantis efforts to promote their anti-immigrant and anti-refugee agenda through their Marthas Vineyard stunt failed miserably. Locals embraced the refugees and provided around-the-clock support ranging from food, shelter, and even high-school Spanish students serving as basic translators, before Republican Governor Charlie Baker called in the National Guard to provide humanitarian assistance. In an effort to expose the so-called hypocrisy of sanctuary states, Abbott and DeSantis accomplished the opposite. Their callousness towards asylum-seekers undercuts their supposed anti-socialist agenda, exposing their principles as nothing but empty words.

If DeSantis and Abbott really want to oppose socialism, they should start by cutting the wasteful government spending theyve been dedicating to the transport of migrants and refugees to other states. Instead of performative political stunts to promote their anti-immigrant and anti-refugee agenda, they could instead use their national influence to encourage the Biden administration to heighten economic and political pressure against the Maduro regime, the root of the Venezuelan refugee crisis.

Until then, DeSantis and Abbott have no credence to call themselves opponents of socialism.

If you're interested in writing for International Policy Digest - please send us an email via submissions@intpolicydigest.org

Originally posted here:
Dear DeSantis and Abbott: Stop Mistreating Victims of Socialism. - International Policy Digest

In the aftermath of Brazils last general election in 2018, the Wall Street Journals editorial page celebrated the victory of Jair Bolsonaro a former low-ranking army officer, far-right fringe politician, and fan of Brazilssadistic military dictatorship from1964 to 1985.

According toone bizarre article by the right-wing writer Mary Anastasia OGrady, there was a simple explanation for the electoral triumph of the man that many analysts had compared with the then-president of the United States, Donald Trump. Despite the fact that Bolsonaro had been labeled a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, a fascist, an advocate of torture and an aspiring dictator, he had prevailed, the piece argued, because Brazilians were in the midst of a national awakening in which socialism the alternative to a Bolsonaro presidency has been put on trial.

While a socialist presidency certainly beats fascist torture any day, socialism was in truth not even in the running in 2018. The Brazilian Workers Party (PT) whose candidate Bolsonaro defeated is not socialist but rather centre-left, and has furthermore done its fair share to advance neoliberal capitalist interests over the years. Granted, the PT has also committed such flagrantly leftist crimes as helping to extricate millions of Brazilians from poverty and hunger, as transpired during the first decade of this century under President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.

Now, its election time again in South Americas largest country and folks may be in for another awakening. As Brazil votes tomorrow, Lula is back in the race, and is leading Bolsonaro in thepolls(although, as Bloombergreports, Goldman Sachs and concerned hedge funds have assured clients the election will be tighter than surveys suggest).

Of course, Bolsonaros disdain for democracy means that he wont necessarily accept a Lula win on October 2 or, in an October 30 run-off, which would be required if no candidate secures half of the votes cast. Nor must one underestimate the power of social media disinformation a veritable scourgein Brazil in rallying Bolsonaro voters.

It bears recalling that, in 2018, the election of Bolsonaro who would go on to suggest that coronavirus vaccines could turn people into crocodiles and make women grow beards was significantly facilitated by an obsessive right-wing campaign to demonise and criminalise the PT under the guise of anti-corruption. Before Lula himself was imprisoned in April 2018 on trumped-up charges produced by that same campaign he had been the favourite to win that years presidential race.

Benjamin Fogel, an historian who researches Brazilian anti-corruption politics, recently explained to me some of the additional factors driving the general right-wing shift in Brazilian society that enabled Bolsonaros emergence as head of state. They include a growing middle class with a meritocratic societal view that essentially blames poor people for their poverty. Social welfare programmes and other government efforts to address structural inequality have thus been frequently seen as unmerited or as a form of corruption in themselves.

Also tied up in the right-wing shift are,of course, ever-charitable financial machinations by big business, as well asthe normalisation of once-taboo topics such as those pertaining to the military dictatorship. The swift spread of Christian evangelicalism, too, has proved politicallycompatiblewith Bolsonaros brand of conservative zealotry.

However, as Fogel emphasised, Bolsonaros approach to the presidency didnt really translate into any sort of practical terms for governance beyond dismantling the basic institutions of government. Public health, public education and other concepts that are anathema to the right wing came under fire. Bolsonaro packed the cabinet and public administration with more military officers than even during the dictatorship.

Thanks to Bolsonaros stewardship of the pandemic during which he wrote off the coronavirus as a little flu Brazil has racked up nearly 700,000 official deaths, putting the country in second place after the United States for most COVID-19 fatalities. When a female Brazilian journalist questioned the president about the domestic vaccination rate, Bolsonaro respondedwith typical maturity: You think about me in your sleep, you must have a crush on me or something.

He has also been a plague on the environment, enthusiastically championing the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. After all, its not like the Amazon is crucial to life on Earth.

Add to this severe economic mismanagement, soaring inflation, rising poverty rates and asurge in membershipof neo-Nazi groups in Brazil, and it starts to seem like the old awakening wasnt all it was cracked up to be. Still, hey, at least Bolsonaro rescued Brazils presidential palace from thedemons that had formerly overtaken it, according to his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro. The president has also strived to inculcate his citizenry with a deep and God-fearing piety, and in August encouraged supporters: Buy your guns! Its in the Bible!

Meanwhile, Lula, whose corruption convictions have beenannulled, hasrightly disillusioned many leftists by being overly accommodating in his efforts to court elite voters unhappy with Bolsonaro. He has chosen a right-wing running mate with a history of antagonising the PT. Yet, as things currently stand, Lula is the only ticket out of the Bolsonarist nightmare.

As the historian Fogel remarked to me, what Lula stands for in this election, rather than radicalism, is a memory of a better time where you could provide for you and your family. He stressed the importance of questioning whether the Brazilian right has any actual interest in governing or if the aim is simply to remove all protections in the pursuit of a sort of war against all.

Perhaps nothing better encapsulates the apocalyptic nature of that war than the fires that have been ragingin the Brazilian Amazon ahead of Bolsonaros expected defeat in the election, as deforesters race to deforest while the deforesting is stillgood.

As Brazilians head to voting booths, heres hoping the country is about to awaken from a bad dream.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Brazil, it is time to wake up from your Bolsonaro nightmare - Al Jazeera English