Column: California takes the lead on hate. That’s a good thing. Someone has to.
There’s a reason that every political campaign in the nation has at least one hate-monger on the ballot this year. Hate is the politics of the moment. It brings voters to the polls on election day.
And hate is good politics. That’s the lesson of the recent Democratic primary in California, where multiple candidates have accused the incumbent governor, Jerry Brown, of being a Nazi and a sexual predator.
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We’ve been down this road for more than a half century, with Republicans running against Democrats in presidential primaries who called President Roosevelt a Fascist, and Democrats running against Republicans in presidential primaries that accused Ronald Reagan of being a Fascist.
The result? The Republicans lost the 1960 election in a landslide.
Democrats should not apologize for pointing out that, at a time when Republicans are losing the elections all over the country, and many are abandoning conservatism because they are afraid they are out of power, the party that leads the nation in hate is the one we should stand by.
If you’re angry at California’s governor, just remember there’s a national electorate with even more angry at him.
There is a fundamental difference between hatred and a healthy democracy. There is more of the former now, than there used to be in our country, or ever have been.
That’s why we should not allow a party that makes a habit of hate to lead the nation when the country enters the era of an angry, intolerant citizenry.
The governor is a bigot. But he is not the party’s bigot. And his party should not give him the time of day when it runs on the issues of hate.
In fact, the governor should be the party’s target. His policies are what give the party the right mix to survive — but he is a disaster that makes it impossible for the party to win the election by any of the means that normally would give it the edge, like having better fundraising.
The governor is a big-spending liberal, more interested in who gets what from the state than in getting California to live well within its means. He is a tax and spend liberal who will put California over the top — but in the end, he will lose California.
His policies are not even an attempt to make California a more tolerant state. Rather, his policies are an attempt to make the state a less tolerant state