It may be hard to see, but behind the mild-mannered facade, Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom OโHalleran is a radical leftist.
Thatโs what his Republican challenger in Congressional District 1, Wendy Rogers, has said over and over about OโHalleran, a former Chicago police officer and Republican legislator who changed parties. Releasing a new ad on Sept. 9, Rogersโ campaign said the ad was โcalling out Tom OโHalleran for being a leftist radical who wants open borders and wants to impeach President Trump.โ
Repeatedly, she has hammered that message. In an Aug. 31 campaign email, Rogers said OโHalleranโs supporters in the evenly split district โare every bit as radical and angry as the Antifa socialists that you see attacking patriotic Americans on TV.โ
Whatโs going on here is bigger than Wendy Rogersโ congressional campaign. Itโs become a broad Republican response to Democratic anger, especially since the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court. And itโs left me bewildered.
President Trump tweeted Oct. 6, the day Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate: โYou donโt hand matches to an arsonist, and you donโt give power to an angry left-wing mob. Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern. Republicans believe in the rule of law โ not the rule of the mob. VOTE REPUBLICAN!โ
Leave aside the ridiculousness of a president who worked with the mob โ the Mafia โ in his previous career, called for violence during his campaign rallies and tried to turn the Justice Department into his personal law firm, proclaiming his love of the rule of law.
Republicans, from Arizona candidates up to the president, have been pushing the idea this campaign season that Democrats are radical and โunhinged,โ to use a recently favored descriptor.
Itโs true Democrats are angry, and a few demonstrators have gotten out of control. But the more I hear left-leaning people like me described as a โmobโ of โunhingedโ people with โradicalโ views, the more I think I understand the meaning of the term โgaslighting.โ
That term derives from a 1938 play, โGaslight,โ in which a husband convinces his wife she is crazy by denying that the things she sees are real. For example, she sees the gaslights dim, and he denies it happened, though he knows it did. The self-doubt he sows in her allows him to manipulate her. The term experienced a revival after the inauguration of Trump because of his tendency to tell baldfaced lies, making some people question reality.
As a left-leaning registered independent, Iโve felt increasingly subject to gaslighting, as Democrat after Democrat is called radical. Then, after the Kavanaugh hearing, the whole left half of our body politic was deemed a โmob,โ as if there were no justification for anger.
Itโs happened in Republican Doug Duceyโs campaign for governor. For a long time, Duceyโs supporters have tagged his general-election opponent David Garcia as โradical.โ
Itโs true Garcia comes from the Democratic Partyโs progressive wing. But what did Duceyโs campaign say about the more moderate Steve Farley when he was still in the Democratic primary? They labeled him โFar Left Farley,โ a Bernie Sanders disciple. Seems pretty clear that whoever won the Democratic primary, Duceyโs campaign would have labeled a left-wing radical.
In the U.S. Senate race, itโs been similar. GOP Rep. Martha McSallyโs team has worked hard to label her opponent, Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a โradical.โ Theyโve especially pointed to her behavior in 2003 when, as a Phoenix activist, she organized anti-Iraq War protests, a completely justified activity in retrospect. However, Sinema also sent out flyers that likened U.S. troops overseas to terrorists and did other arguably โradicalโ things, so she gave them ammunition โ 15 years ago.
Since then, Sinema has remade herself as a moderate, much as McSally has evolved from a Trump critic to a Trump enthusiast. Now, though, Sinema has a six-year voting record in Congress. Itโs not at all radical: Sinema has voted with Trumpโs positions 62 percent of the time, more than any other House Democrat except one. In fact, her record is so moderate that she has infuriated some Democrats, putting her at risk of abandonment among actual leftists.
Yet when Sinema finally, at long last, came out as opposing Kavanaughโs nomination to the Supreme Court, Arizona Republicans treated it as some sort of radical position.
โRather than defend Arizonan values and voters who support Judge Kavanaugh, Kyrsten Sinema has sided with the Senate Democrats and their circus,โ Republican National Committee spokeswoman Renae Eze said.
An Arizona Republic/Suffolk University poll found that 42 percent of likely Arizona voters surveyed opposed confirming Kavanaugh, while 49 percent supported confirming him. The same poll found that a plurality of respondents believed the woman, Christine Blasey Ford, who accused him of sexual assault, more than those who believed Kavanaugh.
Sinemaโs position was not some sort of radical outlier; it was the opposite, a late bow to mainstream Democratic opinion.
And thatโs why Iโm finally starting to feel I understand what itโs like to be the subject of gaslighting. It was not a radical position to oppose Kavanaughโs nomination โ it was defensible. He has supported excessive presidential powers, he arguably lied under oath about receiving stolen Democratic emails, and there is good reason to think heโll vote to overturn Roe v Wade. All that came before the credible accusation of sexual assault and his overwrought, misleading testimony in response.
Another position Republicans have pointed to as radical in an effort to mobilize GOP voters is the idea of impeaching Trump. It is a big step that merits serious deliberation, for sure.
But it is not an outlier idea. In a late August poll by ABC News and the Washington Post, more Americans supported the idea of beginning impeachment proceedings than opposed it. Impeachment is mainstream.
The arguments that could form the basis of an impeachment include violation of the Constitutionโs emoluments clause by taking payments from foreign governments through Trumpโs businesses, or the illegal payments made by attorney Michael Cohen to one-time Trump mistress Stormy Daniels, or whatever Robert Mueller ends up finding. Itโs a legitimate possibility.
But leave aside impeachment concerns, and even acknowledge that the economy is doing well under President Trump โ Americans still have plenty of reason to be angry with his performance in office. The deliberate separation of parents from children was morally repugnant and is not over. Pulling out of international climate-change agreements was a rebuke to future generations. He embraced authoritarian enemies and rejected democratic allies. He has tried to turn the Justice Department into a legal branch of his party and campaign.
So Iโd tell my fellow liberals to go ahead and be angry. Yes, Republicans may use it against you, as is their right. But donโt let anyone tell you your anger is not justified or that your beliefs are radical. Itโs as silly as saying Tom OโHalleran is an Antifa socialist.
