In this edition: The climate left grapples with the Ukraine crisis, a conservative operative explains how the Supreme Court can wipe out Democratic-friendly maps next year, and a candidate who wants to run elections in Colorado goes to jail.
A Democratic president barely mentions climate change in the State of the Union. His secretary of energy tells the fossil fuel industry that America needs “oil and gas production to rise.” Democratic governors campaign to suspend the gas tax, which hasn't been raised in 29 years.
This is not where the climate movement, brimming with optimism after Democrats' 2020 victories, expected to be right now. Activists who'd rallied for a Green New Deal are adjusting and retooling their messaging for a new moment — one where the Biden administration hasn't delivered on many of its climate pledges, and where environmentalists are being blamed for higher gas prices anyway.
“I'm really scared about it,” said Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, which pushed Biden and other Democrats to make broad climate commitments and has watched some of them get throttled by the Senate or by federal courts. “Talking to young people, there's a lot of fear about our inability to pass climate policy at the federal level.”
The Biden administration's response to the Russia invasion of Ukraine, including appeals for domestic and foreign energy providers to crank up production, has frustrated the climate left. It could, they say, have been much worse: The administration has continued to tout renewable energy as a way out of long-term energy crises, reframing the policies Biden ran on as national security necessities.
“As Putin's brutal war in the Ukraine has led to such high energy prices, we know we need to move forward and accelerate,” said White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy on a Wednesday night call with the Climate Power Education Fund, a campaign group created by environmental groups — including Sunrise and the Sierra Club — during the 2020 election. (The meeting was streamed live on Facebook.) “The more we put out renewables, the less dependent on fossil fuels we are, and the more secure we are.”
Even as a candidate, Biden was wary of some of the climate promises other Democrats made, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pledging to transition to 100 percent “renewable and sustainable” energy by 2030. Climate activists bird-dogged Biden and other Democrats throughout 2019 and 2020, asking them to commit to leaving carbon in the ground. Republicans cut ads with the material, with swing-state Republicans warning that Biden would end fossil fuel production altogether if he won.
In the new president's first year, the climate left racked up some early wins, such as the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. As demand for gas returned to pre-pandemic levels, the price went up; that meant setbacks for the climate left, including increased approval of drilling on public lands and a pressure campaign by the Biden administration to get OPEC nations to ramp up production.
The Green New Deal wasn't being implemented, but Republicans insisted that it was. There wouldn't be a moratorium on new drilling, but there might be climate funding in Build Back Better legislation — until Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.V.) deep-sixed Build Back Better, which didn't stop Republicans from suggesting that the Biden administration really was trying to kill new energy exploration in the name of climate justice. And then came Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with Republicans confidently blaming the climate left for not putting America in a stronger position.
“How much suffering are middle class Ohioans expected to endure for the foreign policy of a man who won’t unleash the energy reserves of his own country?” tweeted Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance on Thursday. The climate left did want America to become less dependent on foreign energy; in campaign language like Vance's, this was characterized as Biden and the left wanting Americans to suffer, and to stop exploring for domestic energy altogether.
“There's no political appetite for that, much to the chagrin of people in the climate movement,” said Danielle Deiseroth, the lead climate strategist at the left-wing polling and advocacy group Data for Progress. “We couldn't just shut it all off tomorrow, and we're realizing that more than ever.” Polling for climate groups, said Deiseroth, was revealing that “the language of ‘moratoriums' and ‘stop drilling'” alienated voters, while “transition away from fossil fuels over a longer period of time” did not. The policy was the same, but the apocalyptic language wasn't helpful.
Some on the climate left saw an opportunity in the fossil fuel industry's rhetoric, and the speed at which the industry reacted to Russia's invasion of Ukraine by saying it was ready to drill more, like the American Petroleum Institute's statement on the “critical role” the industry was ready to play.
“It was like API turned into a cartoon cat, salivating over a meal, with dollar signs in its eyes,” said Jamal Raad, the executive director of Evergreen Action, a group that grew out of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee's (D) climate-focused 2020 presidential bid. “I'm worried about any short-term congressional action that creates long-term carbon damage to deal with the volatility of fossil fuel prices right now. I give folks a little latitude right now to deal with the prices that are hitting working families' bottom line, but it's not an excuse to do something like more pipeline approvals or expanded drilling in the Arctic.”
Instead, said Raad, the climate left and Democrats needed to treat the crisis as a reason to meet renewable energy commitments — which had been part of the conversation during other oil shocks, such as in the 1970s. A few days after the Russian invasion, groups on the climate left began collaborating on a letter with a specific ask: Biden could invoke the Defense Production Act to charge ahead on the goals it already had.
“The DPA — which you have already used to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and respond to wildfires — provides you with the historic opportunity to produce alternatives to fossil fuels, fight the climate emergency, combat Putin’s stranglehold on the world’s energy economy, and support the transition to a renewable and just economy,” the climate groups, around 200 of them, wrote in the letter. “While we call for the use of the DPA, we implore that you use this mechanism for peaceful means, not increased militarization of the conflict.”
The Biden administration had not responded to that request as of Thursday, but the climate left, adjusting to the new political reality, wasn't being ignored. It would have been unthinkable, back when Democratic candidates were being heckled by climate protesters for not rejecting fossil fuel money, for Democratic Party leaders to urge energy companies to use the leases they had already and drill for more oil. But it was happening. The administration wasn't abandoning the climate left, assuring its activists and voters — and donors — that it would use the crisis to expand renewable energy, too.
“When the president announced yesterday a new ban on the imports of Russian oil and gas, he made this point abundantly clear,” McCarthy said on Wednesday's organizing call. “That's why we have to keep pushing for congressional action so that we can do whatever it takes to get the president's climate agenda over the finish line.”
The climate left could be patient, while it put pressure on Biden and Manchin. Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said that even Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm's appeals to energy companies, which Republicans saw as told-you-so moments, didn't back away from the climate agenda.
“She also pointed out that only 10 percent of drilling happened on federal land, that the other 90 percent is on private land,” Sittenfeld said. “She was saying that there are ample opportunities for drilling out there, and that is clearly not the long-term solution.”
Reading list
If you didn't like high gas prices before, may we interest you in blaming Russia?
“How an anti-war statement made DSA a target,” by Aída Chávez
The political splashback from a call to quit NATO.
“Democrats embrace politically risky strategy on rising gas prices,” by Sean Sullivan, Mike DeBonis and Marianna Sotomayor
A midterm argument emerges, for a problem that had been building.
“2022 elections are important, women say — but a poll suggests they may be too overwhelmed to prioritize politics,” by Barbara Rodriguez
Whatever happened to the pink hat brigade?
“Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law has its day in Supreme Court,” by Stephen Caruso
The latest legal battle to undo part of the 2020 election.
Q&A
When the Article III Project launched in 2019, Republicans controlled the White House and the Senate, and were trying to confirm as many judges as possible before an election intervened. Mike Davis, who'd been chief nominations counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised to “take off the gloves” and battle the left, which had infuriated Republicans during the Supreme Court confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
The project was a success, but Democrats got back the Senate 14 months ago — and before that, they'd won a number of crucial state court races that would end up saving seats for their party in post-census congressional redistricting. Davis has kept his gloves off, with an ad campaign portraying Democrats as hypocrites over their embrace of Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court nomination, and with condemnations of state courts which, he says, have acted unconstitutionally by throwing out Republican-drawn congressional maps. In the short term, he wants to make the Supreme Court fight as painful for Democrats as possible; in the near term, he sees a way to demolish the Democrats' redistricting efforts by bringing them back to court next year.
Davis talked about the group and its strategies on Wednesday, and this is a lightly edited transcript.
The Trailer: Take me back to January 2021. Democrats have a 50-seat Senate majority and can confirm judges if they stick together. What was your strategy, and what seemed achievable for the Article III Project?
Mike Davis: I actually seriously contemplated endorsing Merrick Garland for attorney general. I didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t, but I came into this with realistic expectations. We had a Democratic president, and we had a Democratic Senate. It would have been a whole different world had Republicans won one or both of those Georgia U.S. Senate seats, and the Senate Judiciary Committee would have been a graveyard for radical nominees.
They didn’t, so Republicans need to pick their battles. They should fight ferociously like they did with Rachael Rollins, the radical nominee out of Boston. They can still oppose judicial nominees based upon their judicial philosophy, but it shouldn't be scorched earth, as the Democrats tried to do in the Trump years. What the Democrats did was stupid, particularly with Kavanaugh.
TT: What are the actual stakes of the Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination, given that if she’s confirmed it’s one liberal replacing another liberal?
MD: I actually think Biden made a mistake by not picking California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger. Judge Jackson, if you look at her opinions, has more of an emotive style. Justice Kruger has more of an analytical style, more in the mold of Justice [Elena] Kagan. A Justice Kruger could have picked off two conservative justices from time to time and eked out liberal victories. A Justice Jackson's rarely going to be able to do that. She’s our best pick, because she’ll be emotive and ineffective, like Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor.
TT: You’ve started running digital ads that point out how Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats voted against 95 percent of non-White judicial nominees put forward by Donald Trump. What’s the strategy there?
MD: The Democrats are talking about picking the first Black woman for the Supreme Court, so I'm going to point out the hypocrisy — they actually filibustered who the woman should have been the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, Janice Rogers Brown. Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin filibustered the nomination of Judge Janice Rogers Brown to the D.C. Circuit, the second-highest court in the land. And then Senator Biden publicly said that if President George W. Bush elevated her to Supreme Court, the Democrats would filibuster her nomination.
Democrats pretend like they care about diversity, but they have a 30-year pattern and practice, going back to Justice Clarence Thomas, of opposing women and minorities when they’re nominated by Republicans. These Democrats pretend like they care about diversity, and they don't. They care about power. I want this to be, instead of a political win for Democrats, a political wash for Democrats. Pointing out their hypocrisy is going to help chip away at that.
TT: Republicans have criticized Jackson for representing Gitmo defendants. Why is that a strike against her?
MD: Democrats right now are trying to disbar 100 Republican attorneys who helped with the 2020 election challenge, so Democrats apparently think it's fair game to go after attorneys for their clients. It's really stupid for Democrats to go down this path: If it’s fair game to go after Republican attorneys for representing 2020 challengers, it’s fair game to question Judge Jackson for going out of her way to provide free legal services to Gitmo terrorists while she was in private practice.
At a minimum, I think that they need to ask her why she made that decision. Out of all the people in this country who need free legal services, including Black families in Washington, D.C., in her own backyard, why does she think it was so important to provide her limited time and resources here?
TT: Were you surprised by the Supreme Court not hearing complaints from North Carolina and Pennsylvania legislators about the maps forced on them by state courts?
MD: If you look at the chief justice's opinion on the 2015 Arizona redistricting case, a dissent on a 5-4 decision, he very clearly would be on the side of the state legislatures. The Constitution says that state legislatures draw U.S. House seats. Not commissions, not courts. The three conservatives, [Justice Samuel A.] Alito and Thomas and [Justice Neil M.] Gorsuch, very clearly stated where they are. Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence, saying that he wants to get it on the docket next year. There’s your five votes, and I think [Justice Amy Coney] Barrett would go along with that, so it would be 6-3.
TT: Would the Article III Project take a role, next year, in getting this in front of the Supreme Court?
MD: It wouldn’t be us. It would come from the state legislatures. But, look: If I were the Ohio Supreme Court, and I just saw these votes lined up with where [Chief Justice John G.] Roberts was, I would say, oh well, there are at least five votes to reverse this at the U.S. Supreme Court, so maybe we shouldn’t do this. That Republican justice in Ohio needs to understand that if she sides with [Democratic elections lawyer] Marc Elias and [former attorney general] Eric Holder, the Democratic operatives in this case, she’s going to get reversed by the Supreme Court.
TT: Why did Republicans end up in this position, filing so late that Kavanaugh, at least, said there was no time to adjudicate it?
MD: Marc Elias and Eric Holder are very good attorneys, and Republicans are stupid. They just let Democratic justices on these supreme courts in Pennsylvania and North Carolina steal these damn seats.
But this is going to backfire on them. They’ve been playing this game with redistricting for decades, right? That's going to come to a screeching halt, because they were piggish and they went too far. It’s pretty clear from Kavanaugh’s opinion that he sees through their games.
So, good job, guys. You won these two battles and you've lost the war on redistricting. Because now your commissions, your state Supreme Courts, your Democratic justices, are no longer going to redraw U.S. House seats. You get these seats for two years — if that, if they can win in this Republican wave. It’s a self-own. Democrats only care about power, and they’re shameless about it, but their whole redistricting game with courts and commissions is over.
Ad watch
The Pat McCrory Committee, “Stand With Me.” This is one of the first 2022 campaign ads focused on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the angle is that Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), the Trump-endorsed Republican running for North Carolina's open U.S. Senate seat, once praised the strategic mind-set of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “As Ukrainians bled and died, Congressman Budd excused their killer,” says McCrory, a one-term Republican governor running against Budd. “I don't compliment our enemies.” The Club for Growth, which backs Budd, has run ads accusing McCrory of being too critical of Trump; this spot ignores Trump entirely but drags Budd for voicing the same opinions on Russia as the former president.
Wes Moore for Maryland, “Imagine.” The author of “The Other Wes Moore” is the only Democrat running for governor of Maryland who's written a best-seller or hosted a TV show. But his name ID is low, so this ad sums up his life story, from poverty to the military and a Rhodes Scholarship. “Everyone deserves a fair shot at success,” says Moore, “no matter where their story begins.”
Ron Johnson for Senate, “Joseph Project.” In his first 2022 ads, Wisconsin's Republican senator talked more about what he was trying to stop in Washington than what he was doing. That changes in this spot, which focuses entirely on Johnson's support for the Joseph Project, a faith-based employment initiative in Milwaukee that Johnson's office helped to get started. Narrated by Markeitha Smith, the widow of the program's co-founder, who calls Johnson “family,” the spot shares images of Johnson at Greater Praise Church of God in Christ and happy people who benefited from the project.
Vicky Hartzler for Senate, “Suspended.” Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) ran one of the first congressional candidate ads focused on keeping transgender women from playing women's sports, which got plenty of earned media, and a suspension from social networks that police anti-LGBT speech. That decision was a boon for Hartzler, and this spot simply describes what happened. “Yep, I said it. It's what God intended,” Hartzler explains after showing a clip from the first ad. “But guess what happened next?” What better way to make her point that liberals control the government, the media and big tech? “They don't just want to silence me; they want to cancel you.”
Dolan for Senate, “Keep His Word.” Ohio state Sen. Matt Dolan (R), who's rejected the Trump-centric strategy of other Republicans running for U.S. Senate, keeps messaging on his legislative experience; he's the only candidate in the race who has any. A few sheriffs who've endorsed Dolan stand in front of the camera and thank him for giving law enforcement everything it asked for in Columbus: “Funding, training, equipment, you name it.”
Sarah for Governor, “No.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders already wiped out her competition ahead of the GOP's May 24 gubernatorial primary, but some of the $13 million she's raised is showing up on TV. Here, she sums up her agenda as “good schools, lower taxes and higher-paying jobs” and saying “no to Biden and the radical left's agenda.” The gimmick, that Huckabee “had to say no, a lot” as a White House press secretary, is paid off when she tells her kids to shut off CNN.
Chuck Edwards for Congress, “Mountain Values.” There are two references to “mountain values” and one to how western North Carolina is Edwards's home, all of which is relevant in a primary for a version of Rep. Madison Cawthorn's (R-N.C.) district. (Cawthorn initially planned to run in a different seat, closer to Charlotte, and more safely Republican, but that seat was erased when the GOP-led state legislature drew new maps.) Edwards, who started as a McDonald's employee and went on to own seven franchises, introduces himself as a bootstrapping businessman who made “liberals crazy” as a state senator.
American Bridge 21st Century, “Jen.” The liberal megafund keeps running ads in swing states to bracket negative media coverage of the president, featuring real people who like the job he's doing. This one stars the owner of a small botanicals business in Augusta, Ga., who says it's gotten hard to live a good middle-class life, that she's worried about rising costs and that Joe Biden is “making progress.” The only data in the ad is the latest number of jobs created since Biden took office, 6.6 million, which Democratic pollsters worry is getting lost in day-to-day coverage and muted by inaccurate monthly jobs reports.
Poll watch
Georgia GOP gubernatorial primary (Fox News, 914 Georgia GOP voters)
Brian Kemp: 50%
David Perdue: 39%
(Don't know): 6%
Every recent poll of Georgia's Trump grudge-match-by-proxy has put Gov. Brian Kemp (R) ahead of Perdue, a former senator defeated in last year's runoff. Kemp leads overall thanks to strength with every demographic group, but he does best with the parts of the GOP electorate who were least happy with Trump at the end of his presidency. Voters under 45 back Kemp by 29 points; suburban voters support him by a 28-point margin over Kemp. Perdue was urged to run by Trump, and has tried to make the primary about Kemp's failure to challenge or overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. But Kemp's ads have made him — a 2018 Trump endorsee — look just as supportive of the ex-president as Perdue.
Ohio GOP U.S. Senate primary (Fox News, 918 Ohio GOP voters)
(Don't know): 24%
Mike Gibbons: 22%
Josh Mandel: 20%
J.D. Vance: 11%
Jane Timken: 9%
Matt Dolan: 7%
Neil Patel: 2%
Mark Pukita: 1%
No candidate is breaking away in the most expensive Senate primary in Ohio's history. Every candidate except Mandel was encouraged by his relatively low support given his high name recognition, and waited for him to fade. His support has remained flat, not fading, and Gibbons's lead comes from a 5-point advantage with voters who identify as “very conservative.” No candidate has a lead even that large with another demographic; Vance, who's run the most anti-elite, populist campaign, does slightly better with White voters who have a college degree than with White voters who don't.
Pennsylvania GOP U.S. Senate primary (Fox News, 960 Pennsylvania GOP voters)
(Don't know): 31%
David McCormick: 24%
Mehmet Oz: 15%
Jeff Bartos 9%
Kathy Barnette 9%
Carla Sands: 6%
George Bochetto: 1%
Everett Stern: 1%
The 2½ months since McCormick entered this race have been a feast for negative ad-makers, with the ex-hedge-funder and his supportive PAC ripping the paint off Oz and his supportive PAC. No surprise: The two candidates who've spent the most on TV are leading the field. Oz's support is stickier, with 40 percent of Oz voters saying they've made their minds up, compared with 22 percent for McCormick. But McCormick has more overall support from every demographic, leading Oz narrowly in the suburbs but beating him nearly 2 to 1 in cities — still plenty of GOP votes there — and rural areas.
In the states
Minnesota. Activist and former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels made it official: He’ll challenge Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in the Democratic primary to represent the 5th Congressional District. Samuels had supported another Omar challenger in 2020, and opposed a 2021 ballot measure that would have replaced the city’s police department and removed city charter language setting a requirement for how many officers the city employs.
“I've shown that I was very much in touch with the sentiments of the citizenry,” Samuels told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, pointing to the failure of the 2021 ballot measure.
In the 1st Congressional District, where the death of Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R) has created a vacancy, former Hormel Foods CEO Jeffrey Ettinger entered the special election and introduced himself as a moderate Democrat.
“I think our district is moderate, if you just kind of look at the history; it’s gone back and forth between Democrat and Republican representation,” Ettinger told the Austin Daily Herald. “My opinion is that whoever represents the district should really make a strong effort to represent the whole district and not have it be kind of a winner take all.”
Ettinger had donated to the National Republican Senatorial Committee before entering the race; the first Democrat to announce for the May 24 primary was Richard Painter, a Republican-turned-Democrat who ran for U.S. Senate in 2018.
Oregon. The candidate filing period wrapped on Tuesday, setting up a one-on-one Democratic primary in the 5th Congressional District and two gubernatorial primaries with 36 candidates between them.
Only a few of the candidates in the Democratic and Republican primaries for governor have built competitive campaigns; many more took advantage of the low filing requirements to get on the ballot, including at least one life coach who ran for president six years ago. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof's high-profile campaign for the Democratic nomination ended last month, after he fell afoul of the state's residency requirement.
In the new 5th Congressional District, Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), a leader of the Blue Dog Democrats who had argued for voting on the bipartisan infrastructure package separately from the Build Back Better budget, got just one challenger — Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who’s making her third run for office, and her first for a seat designed to elect a Democrat.
“He actually underperformed the Biden win margin in this new district, so it actually puts the district at risk if Democrats nominate him,” McLeod-Skinner said of Schrader in an interview. “The framing that he and other conservative Democrats use is: You water down solutions and that gets you across the finish line. That's just simply not the case. People are hurting. We need tangible solutions now. The president ran on this, and I think the president was right.”
Tennessee. Democrat Odessa Kelly quit her campaign for the new 5th Congressional District to run in the new 7th Congressional District. Both seats include part of Nashville, carved up by Republicans to eliminate the city's safe Democratic seat, and the 7th District went for Donald Trump in 2020 by 15 points, while the 5th backed him by 11 points. But the new 7th district includes liberal parts of north Nashville, and suburbs that, as of 2020, had been trending slowly toward Democrats. Kelly announced the move in a Twitter video, in which she described the entire gerrymander as racist: “This is what racism looks like when it's not stepping on George Floyd's neck.”
Crime watch
A Republican candidate for Colorado secretary of state turned herself in to authorities Wednesday, after a grand jury indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters on 10 counts related to her alleged effort to copy voting machine hard drives to prove that the 2020 election was stolen.
Peters was indicted on a charge of alleged conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and attempting to influence a public servant — all related to how she obtained information from Dominion machines and brought it to an August 2021 voter fraud symposium organized by MyPillow founder Mike Lindell.
“You know what this indictment is?” Lindell told the Daily Beast on Wednesday. “They're trying to cover it all up, because they committed crimes. Serious crimes.”
Colorado Republicans condemned Peters and called on her to quit the race; two other Republicans, including a former clerk from Jefferson County, are also running for the right to challenge first-term Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D). In an interview, Griswold said that the GOP had taken its time to reject Peters.
“It’s important to recognize that an election administrator who compromises her own voting equipment, who's under criminal indictment, and who was on stage clapping as election deniers called for me to be hung, days before announcing her candidacy, is unfit for office,” Griswold said. “But this is not an issue in one state. Our country is facing a crisis of democracy, as extreme elected officials and insiders continue to pump out misinformation to tip the scales of American democracy in their favor.”
Lexicon
“Mayor Pete” got plenty of attention when it was released last year, both as a documentary and as a way for Pete Buttigieg's political enemies to vent about him. In one early scene, Buttigieg's husband, Chasten, was filmed on his way to a camp for LGBT youth, then leading the kids there in a tongue-in-check rewrite of the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I pledge my heart to the rainbow of the Not-So-Typical Gay Camp,” Chasten Buttigieg said. “One camp, full of pride, indivisible, with affirmation and equal rights for all.”
This week, a short clip of that scene went viral on the right after a Log Cabin Republicans affiliate flagged it — and explained why it should shock people. “Figuring life out is hard enough for youth,” Richmond Log Cabin Republicans president Casey Flores told Fox News. “They don't need adults pushing them one way or another on things like sexuality. Some would call that grooming.”
Grooming, a term typically used to describe sexual predators taking advantage of young people, has entered the Republican lexicon as a way to describe something else: people, especially teachers, who teach children about gender identity and sexual preferences. Last week, Christina Pushaw, the press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), pushed back on activists who referred to the state's new restriction on sex education for public school students below grade four as the “don't say gay bill” by suggesting that it would be better referred to as an “anti-grooming” bill.
“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children,” Pushaw said on Twitter. Jesse Kelly, a former GOP candidate turned commentator, suggested on Twitter that it would be good politics to accuse liberals of “grooming” children for sex: “Call them groomers and pedophiles if they oppose it. Put THEM on the defensive. Make THEM afraid.”
That strategy had been making inroads before any Republicans adapted it. In November, anti-leftist commentator James Lindsay used the term “Groomer Schools” on his New Discourses podcast, warning against the “sexualization of children through critical theories of identity,” and linking it to Marxism's critique of the traditional family structure. Lindsay wasn't talking specifically about any sexual orientation, but the idea that teaching children about sex is a way for predators to take advantage of them has been around for a long time, and bubbled up all last year in other fights over what could be displayed in classrooms and school libraries. But the flat-out accusation that liberals want to empower sexual predators and pedophiles is new — and “grooming” is the word being used for it.
Countdown
… 54 days until the next primaries
… 75 days until Texas runoffs
… 235 days until the midterm elections
