Loser SC Democrats Trash Sanders, AP Pretends It's News (Updated Below)

No Good Deed Dept. - This week, some Democratic Establishment figures in South Carolina decided to bitch about a planned trip to their state by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Meg Kinnard of the Associated Press decided to pretend as if this was a real news story, write it up and send it out to the world.

The tone of Kinnard's piece is reflected in its headline, "South Carolina Democrats: Better If Sanders 'Got Lost'". These Democrats "say [Sanders'] visit isn’t wanted or helpful to their candidates in advance of next month's election," that his "left-leaning, progressive message doesn't resonate" in the state. "I just think it's extremely selfish of Bernie Sanders to think he could walk into South Carolina without an invitation from a candidate and think he's going to be welcomed with open arms," sniped Amanda Loveday, who had served as executive director of the state Dem party. "It's hard for me to think of an actual, legitimate Democratic candidate who would stand on stage with him here." Former Democratic state representative Boyd Brown insisted, in the words of the article, that "Sanders' messaging is too extreme":

"'Bernie does not resonate in South Carolina,' Brown said. 'He'd be doing us all a favor if he just got lost.'"

Charleston County Democratic Party Chairman Brady Quirk-Garvan characterized Sanders' appearance as, in the words of the AP, merely "a revival of Sanders' 2016 effort" that "does nothing to help voters who want to put the bruising primary process behind them":

'Even back then, most Democrats were not on board with what he was pitching,' Quirk-Garvan said of Sanders’ primary campaign. 'For many, even people who backed Sen. Sanders in the primary, they're looking for some new ideas... If he comes to South Carolina, he'll have his 15 people will show up,' Brown said. 'I hope it’s worth it to him, because he's doing greater damage to the party overall.'"

And with that, Quirk-Garvan gets the article's last word.

Kinnard notes that, according to a press release, the South Carolina chapter of Our Revolution had invited Sanders to speak at a rally on 20 Oct. in Columbia but she doesn't quote a single Sanders supporter. Her article is just stenography of these party insiders' bitching.

It's no secret that the Democratic party Establishment doesn't like Bernie Sanders. Covering this--or at least just mentioning it--would have provided some vital context here. While bashing Sanders, Brady Quirk-Garvan pretty straightforwardly tries to promote other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. As the article notes, several will be visiting the state around the same time as Sanders but the likelihood of the Associated Press deciding to hunt down those candidates' detractors and write a piece like this, wherein those candidates are portrayed as selfish bastards doing harm to the party and who should just go away, seems rather remote.

While Kinnard offers the 2020 presidential race as the context for Sanders' visit, it's also the case that, for the last 2 1/2 years, Sanders has been almost constantly touring the U.S. on behalf of Democratic causes and candidates. The senator has forcefully argued that it's foolish for Democrats to ignore what have traditionally been Republican strongholds. He's been taking the progressive gospel to deep red states that are typically neglected by Democrats--taking on Trump on his own turf and trying to revitalize the often moribund state parties there. The other 2020 contenders only discover a few of these states when they're about to run for president (SC in particular is situated early in the Democratic primary process), whereas Sanders has been visiting them as part of this project for years. His appearance in Columbia is much more a part of this than of any potential presidential race; he's speaking at a rally in support of Medicare For All healthcare reform. Kinnard doesn't mention any of this.

Most egregiously, in covering one state party insider after another pontificating on how Sanders isn't what's best for the party and harms the party, Kinnard never questions how qualified these insiders are to render such a judgment, though their record in this regard is as stark as it is unflattering. In South Carolina, Republicans control the governorship and both houses of the legislature. The Republican advantage in the state House is nearly 2-to-1; they control over 60% of the Senate. In the 2016 election, the Republican contender defeated the Democratic candidate there by nearly 15 points. In short, the state Democratic party is a complete joke, and these insiders trashing Sanders have demonstrated no competence whatsoever in estimating what South Carolinians want. They're perpetual losers who are content to sit on the ash-heap they've made of their party and repeat the same errors that got them there while expecting a different result and sniping at someone who suggests there may be a better way.

Their record, alone, is enough to send this Associated Press article up in smoke. As it stands, it's just anti-Sanders propaganda, as worthless and inappropriate as it is ugly.

--j.

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UPDATE (Mon., 22 Oct., 2018) - In that AP smear-piece, Charleston County Democratic Party Chairman Brady Quirk-Garvan said Sanders will "have his 15 people will show up." Amanda Loveday, former executive director of the state Dem party, thought it ridiculous that Sanders could "think he's going to be welcomed with open arms." Former Democratic state representative Boyd Brown said "Bernie does not resonate in South Carolina." From the Columbia Free Times' coverage of Sanders' event:

"However, the Vermont senator seemed to resonate with those at the Koger Center, receiving a thunderous standing ovation when he took the stage."

The Free Times notes that the event drew a crowd of not 15 but about a thousand people.

"Something Better": The Wall Street Journal Keeping It Fashy

As fascism and protofascism continue to rise around the world, Brazil, the 4th largest democracy, now stands right on the brink of becoming the latest straight-up casualty. In the first round of voting on 7 Oct., proto-Nazi Jair Bolsonaro, often called "the Brazilian Trump," came within a hair's breadth of winning the Brazilian presidency outright. Stopping him now is going to be very difficult. The Wall Street Journal has just offered an approving editorial on Bolsonaro. Though appalling, longtime observers of the paper won't really be surprised by this. Still, for the neophyte, comparing the real Bolsonaro to the version the Journal's editors have just offered their readers offers an eye-opening glimpse of the ethos of the largest circulation conservative newspaper in the U.S..

Jair Bolsonaro

Historian and fascism expert Federico Finchelstein has just written a piece in Foreign Policy, "Jair Bolsonaro's Model Isn't Burlusconi. It's Goebbels." It offers a nice, compact profile:

"[Bolsonaro] combines promises of austerity measures with prophesies of violence. His campaign is a mix of racism, misogyny, and extreme law and order positions.

"He wants criminals to be summarily shot rather than face trial. He presents indigenous people as 'parasites' and also advocates for discriminatory, eugenically devised forms of birth control. Bolsonaro has warned about the danger posed by refugees from Haiti, Africa, and the Middle East, calling them 'the scum of humanity' and even argued that the army should take care of them.

"He regularly makes racist and misogynistic statements. For example, he accused Afro-Brazilians of being obese and lazy[1] and defended physically punishing children to try to prevent them from being gay. He has equated homosexuality with pedophilia and told a representative in the Brazilian National Congress, 'I wouldn't rape you because you do not deserve it."

Finchelstein notes that insofar as Bolsonaro hasn't rhetorically called for an end to democracy, he isn't quite at full Nazi stage yet:

"However, things could change quickly if he gains power. Recently, Bolsonaro argued that he would never accept defeat in the election and suggested that the army might agree with his view. This is a clear threat to democracy.

"He implied the possibility of a coup. He endorses the legacy of Latin American dictatorships and their dirty wars and is an admirer of Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet and other strongmen.

"And like the Argentine Dirty War generals of the 1970s and Adolf Hitler himself, Bolsonaro sees no legitimacy in the opposition, which for him represents tyrannical powers. He said last month that his political opponents, members of the Workers' Party, should be executed."

Bolsonaro is openly nostalgic for the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 (he was an army captain then)[2] and openly indulges in such political murder fantasies:

"Bolsonaro famously declared in 1999 that the Brazilian dictatorship also 'should have killed 30,000 persons, starting with Congress as well as with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso [then the president of Brazil].'"

From Buzzfeed:

"'I am in favor of a dictatorship,' he said in a speech in 1993. 'We will never resolve serious national problems with this irresponsible democracy.'

"In 2015, he was quoted as saying the military rule of Brazil was 'glorious.' He's also said that if he ever became president he would stage a military coup on his first day."

Vox:

"In 2016, Bolsonaro voted to impeach then-President Dilma Rousseff, and indicated he did so in honor of the then-deceased chief of the secret police in Sao Paulo, who oversaw the torture of hundreds under military rule. It was a disturbing act, as Rousseff herself had been imprisoned [Editorial note: and tortured] by the dictatorship.

"For his presidential run, Bolsonaro chose a retired military general as his running mate who’s also made disconcerting statements about military power, including that the return of military rule in Brazil could be justified under some circumstances."

Progressive columnist Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Brazil, has called Bolsonaro "the most misogynistic, hateful elected official in the democratic world." His account of the reactionary pol is equally grim:

"[Bolsonaro's] primary solution to the nation’s crime epidemic is to unleash the military and police into the nation’s slums and give them what he calls 'carte blanche' to indiscriminately murder anyone they suspect to be criminals, acknowledging many innocents will die in the process. He has criticized monsters such as Chile's Pinochet and Peru's Fujimori--for not slaughtering more domestic opponents. He has advocated that mainstream Brazilian politicians be killed. He wants to chemically castrate sex offenders. In all respects, the hideous Brazilian military dictatorship that took over Brazil and ruled it for 21 years--torturing and summarily executing dissidents, with the support of the US and UK in the name of fighting Communists--is his model of governance."

This is the creature about whom the Wall Street Journal editors have just written that approving--even adoring--editorial. Under the headline--no kidding--"Brazilian Swamp Drainer," the Journal editors present Bolsonaro as merely a "conservative presidential candidate." Here's how they summarize him:

"Mr. Bolsonaro, who has spent 27 years in Congress, is best understood as a conservative populist who promises to make Brazil great for the first time. The 63-year-old is running on traditional values and often says politically incorrect things about identity politics that inflame his opponents. Yet he has attracted support from the middle class by pledging to reduce corruption, crack down on Brazil’s rampant crime and liberate entrepreneurs from government control."

To offer this characterization, the editors decline to share with their readers any of the appalling facts outlined above. Of Bosonaro's call to free up police to indiscriminately murder suspected criminals,

"On crime he has promised to restore a police presence in urban and rural areas that have become lawless."

The editors dismiss the notion that Bolsonaro is any sort of threat to democracy with a single line, insisting simply that "he isn’t proposing to change the constitution, which constrains the military at home." Well, that certainly settles that, doesn't it? Clearly uncomfortable with this line of thought, the piece immediately proceeds to attack Bolsonaro's Worker's Party opponent Fernando Haddad as working "from the Hugo Chavez playbook."

The editorial mocks "global progressives," who, is says, "are having an anxiety attack" over Bolsonaro's near-win.

"After years of corruption and recession, apparently millions of Brazilians think an outsider is exactly what the country needs. Maybe they know more than the world’s scolds."

Its conclusion:

"After so much political turmoil and corruption, it’s hardly surprising that Brazilians are responding to a candidate who promises something better."

The Wall Street Journal has a decades-long history of backing fascist movements and dictatorships, acting, over the years, as apologists and propagandists for even the worst of the lot, and it isn't surprising that its editors think of such horror shows as "something better." But it is something to keep in mind.

--j.

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[1] From NPR (30 July, 2018): "Last year, he caused an outcry by declaring that in his view the inhabitants of Afro-Brazilian communities known as quilombos are 'not even good for breeding any more.'"

[2] In the Summer, he told NPR that dictatorship was "a very good" time for Brazil.