Wait.
Ben Johnson? He’s the congressman from Kentucky who was Corey’s golden boy, his meal ticket. But Corey said the allegations were about an affair. He didn’t mention that the member of Johnson’s congregation Johnson was involved with was a minor. He didn’t mention the ‘her’ Corey wanted to ‘go after’ was a child.
Still, it’s not as if Republicans have a lock on exploitative sexual behavior. I’m looking at you, Bill Clinton, Brock Adams, and Mel Reynolds.
I pick the poster up, hand it to Mrs. McCready, and head outside in search of a cell signal to call my lawyer.
I get through to him almost immediately. But he’s a corporate lawyer, not a criminal lawyer. He says sit tight, he’ll track down somebody who can handle an assault or public disturbance charge and works in the area. He promises to call me back. So I sit tight on the steps in front of the Main Auditorium for the half hour it takes him to track down a guy to help me out, Steve Beineke. Steve’s driving in from Manteca and will pick me up on the way. This means another twenty minutes on the steps. Soon the debate will be over.
By the time Steve and I make it to the police department on 10th Street, Imogen and Corey have already been released. I am a tardy, unnecessary cavalry.
Long story short, Imogen already had a lawyer, Constance Chu, her classmate from Columbia Law School who was her initial contact with the Delgado campaign. Imogen and Mrs. McCready had contacted Chu in advance of their ‘performance’ at Mike Reed’s constituent meeting. They wanted to understand their rights with regard to ‘participating in’ or ‘disrupting’ the meeting, depending on your perspective. Mrs. McCready reached Chu before Imogen was even handed into the back of the police cruiser.
Chu beat them to the police headquarters, by which time Mrs. McCready had emailed Chu a video of the entire episode, captured on the iPhone of one of Delgado’s high school volunteers. Chu encouraged Imogen to press charges, but Imogen said that in her experience, he-said-she-said tended to be resolved by discrediting and ostracizing her, regardless of the evidence against him. Besides, she didn’t want a sideshow so close to the election. She wanted it all to go away, so Chu worked with the Modesto Police Department to make that happen.
Corey, who suffered a ‘severe scrotal contusion,’ was dissuaded from pressing charges when it was made clear that cell phone video of the entire interaction had come into the possession of the police, including his aggressive approach, his attempted theft of Imogen’s sign, and his assault on Imogen.
I know all this because Chu had given Imogen a ride home. They were debriefing at the apartment when I finally got back. Chu, who’s barely five feet tall in heels, looks more like she should be on a gymnastics team than arguing cases in court. At the sight of me, Imogen decided it was time to retire for the evening. Chu gave me the rundown in the time it took her to pack her briefcase and put her coat on.
“To be clear, Mr. Whitman, I thought Imogen should press charges. Corey Strutsky screamed racial and sexual epithets at her, attempted to steal her property, and then assaulted her. That is completely unacceptable and also illegal. I promised her my support and asked if there were anyone we could call to provide additional emotional support. She said she shared an apartment when in Modesto with a childhood friend, but that she doubted her friend would advise her to press the matter. Do you think she was right about that?”
Chu stares at me, waiting for an answer.
“I hardly think it is my decision.”
Which isn’t quite a non-answer.
I thank Chu for taking care of Imogen. I tell her I’d tracked down Steve Beineke to help out, but that when we got to the police department Imogen had already been released. I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell Chu this. It’s like I’m trying to get partial credit for something.
She gazes at me for a moment, then searches around in her briefcase until she comes up with a business card and hands it to me.
“Steve Beineke is a douche and also incompetent.”
At the apartment door, she pauses with her head bowed for a moment, debating something with herself. I’m not sure which side won, but she says, “I think you should try to be a better friend, Mr. Whitman. Imogen deserves a better friend.”
I have nothing to say to that, and Chu allows it to stand as her parting shot.
When I get tired of the sight of the door closed behind her, I head to the kitchenette and find a bottle of Tito’s vodka in the freezer. I pour myself a couple fingers in a water glass and take the glass and the bottle to the couch.
What a shit day.
I never even made it into the auditorium, didn’t catch a word of the debate. Not that it mattered. I heard the debate was mind-numbingly dull: softball questions followed by buzzword-rich double-speak. At least, that’s how Darryl heard it.
44
The Master Solution
Tuesday, October 30th, seven days until the midterms
“Since the 1980s, Republicans have held together a coalition around a woolly vision of ‘limited-government conservatism’ . . . Libertarian-minded business owners saw it as low taxes and deregulation. Conservative Christians saw it in terms of religious liberty or not extending rights to LGBTQ citizens. Middle-class whites who scored high on racial resentment scales saw it as government not taking their money to give free things to freeloading black and brown people.”
Lee Drutman, “Yes, the Republican Party Has Become Pathological. But Why?” Vox.com, September 22, 2017.43
I hate being in the same room with Corey. It takes effort to put a neutral expression on my face. Corey’s face makes it clear he feels pretty much the same way.
Dangerous World 2.0 is still drawing traffic to the RAPAC website. But with the election a week away, I want to know my options for a Plan B while there is still time to get another message out. Corey has consistently opposed small government and entitlement reform messaging as Republican kryptonite. That has me wondering if there’s a RAPAC play in a small government message, and failing that, messaging utility for the Delgado campaign. Of course, since Corey is opposed, he’d have to go before I could run with it. I can’t wait to show him the door. Before he goes, I need to tap his best thinking on the kryptonite of small government, and in particular if that messaging differs for the critical swing voter. Hopefully, this won’t take long.
From the way Corey eases himself gently into one of the visitor chairs in my office, I take it his ‘scrotal contusion’ is still sore. I feel no sympathy; in fact, I can’t quite keep a small smile off my face. I can’t even feel badly that he catches the smile.
“Not all-purpose messaging, Corey,” I reiterate from my meeting invite. “I’m talking about messaging for swing voters—”
He waves me off. He’s decided to ignore my enjoyment of his scrotal discomfort. He must sense how very little patience I have left. He’s decided to play the snarky, but genial, professor. He commandeers a legal pad from my desk and begins scribbling on it with his signature Sharpie pen.
“Number one: You got to keep your eyes on the prize, Iz. The goal is to get Republicans elected who will cut taxes and deregulate, whether that means slashing the capital gains tax, the death tax, or whatever, that’s not my problem. Because the piece that concerns us here is to GET REPUBLICANS ELECTED. Second place isn’t the silver medal here. Second place is a stupid way of saying loser. We’re not playing by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules. There are no rules—there is only winning and losing.”
“You’ve said that before—”
Corey talks right over me.
“Number two: Stop getting hung up on the Republican platform. Nobody, not even the candidates, reads the platform, so no need to worry about the popularity of the platform’s positions or delivering on its promises. In fact, I don’t want to hear another word about that shit. What matters in our messaging is SYMBOLISM. People vote as members of a tribe, and that’s especially true of Republicans. Sometimes there’s a divide between the Republican elite an
d the Republican base on issues, but what unites them is the SYMBOLISM.”
Corey pauses in his scribbling and bugs his eyes out at me.
“Are you listening, Iz?”
So in addition to talking over me, effectively shutting me up, he’s going to insist that I speak when he wants me to speak, like a trained dog. Every goddamned meeting with this guy involves an alpha dog demonstration.
“I guess that means you don’t want to have a conversation about whether the ends justify the means,” I say.
“Don’t be a pussy,” he says, which I take to be a ‘no,’ given his high regard for women.
I cannot wait to fire this asshole.
He goes back to his pad and scribbles furiously.
“These days, there are six issues that are gonna come up, one way or another. I rank them on two scales. First, on their importance for the elite, from zero, or not important, to ten, extremely important. Second, on unity between the elite and the base. Here, zero equals no real conflict between elite’s and base’s position, and ten equals a lot of conflict. Subtract the unity from the elite importance, and it gives you a ranking of how much of your time you should spend talking about the issue.”
He keeps scribbling and then, finally, slides the legal pad back across the desk towards me, saying, “Here’s your new bible.” He laughs a nasty laugh. “Your Master Solution.”
It looks to me like something Imogen would write as a joke. The difference is that Corey views it as a winning strategy, and Imogen views it as an abomination. He has handed me a smoking gun. He even had the courtesy to sign it and scribble a copyright sign on it.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he says. “The cornerstone of Republican messaging is putting women and minorities in their place.”
“So am I right in assuming that minorities’ rightful place is below whites?”
“Well, yeah.”
“So that’s not racist?”
“Not if they’re at the bottom because they’re lazy and stupid.”
“You’re saying minorities are lazy and stupid?”
“It’s an explanation for why they’re at the bottom. A reasonable, alternative explanation, as opposed to racism.”
“Isn’t calling minorities lazy and stupid racist?”
“Not if it’s true. Anyway, that’s where the art comes in because ‘racist’ is still a dirty word in America. You have to create deniability. So don’t say ‘black,’ say ‘inner city’ or ‘urban.’ Don’t say ‘white,’ say ‘suburban’ or ‘real American’ or ‘working folks.’ Believe me, the base knows who you’re talking about when you use those words.”
“You’re saying the base wants women and minorities put in their place, which is below whites and men, but the base does not want to be called racist or sexist?”
“Yeah, except that sexist is not as untouchable as racist. But you need to create deniability with both.”
“So let me ask you a question, Corey.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you think more Americans voted for Donald Trump, despite the ‘grab women by the pussy/Mexicans are rapists,’ holding their noses while they pulled the lever, or BECAUSE he talked about pussy and Mexican rapists?”
“Are you being a pussy, Iz?”
“Are you answering a question with a question, Corey?”
“Here’s the thing. In the ’70s, basically all you had to do not to be racist was to stop using a couple of words, like nigger, kike, chink, gook, slant, jigaboo—”
“Enough, Corey. I get the picture.”
“Okay, so a lot of people didn’t want to give up those words—they really added to the color, heh heh, of a conversation. But over time it got to the point if you busted out those words at dinner, the whole table would go silent and you’d look like a schmuck. Even if it was a table of white guys. So we gave up saying those words, and the reward was supposed to be that because we didn’t say those words, we were, by definition, not racist. With me here?”
“Yes, Corey, I speak English. I’m with you.”
“So the problem is, over time, the Democrats and the media, they started moving the goalposts. Now it wasn’t enough not to say nigger. There was Equal Opportunity This and Equal Opportunity That. They started complaining about shooting black men, then the infamous, so-called microaggressions. Then came unconscious bias. I mean, unconscious bias? We’re gonna hang folks for stuff they’re not conscious of and that can’t be proved?”
He makes a disgusted noise while he waves his hand as if clearing the air, the classic Trump gesture. Corey is definitely modeling himself after Trump.
“The genius of Donald Trump is that he moved the goalposts back. Trump didn’t come out and say the n-word, but he sidled right up next to it. Trump says ‘The Blacks’—”
Corey interrupts himself with a bark of laughter.
“Ah, the genius. ‘The Blacks,’ I mean, everybody knows what that means. Whites for sure know what that means. But Democrats and other whiners can’t call him out without sounding seriously petty.”
“What’s your point, Corey?”
“My point, Isaiah, is that there is no doubt in my mind, no doubt whatsoever, that more voters chose Donald J. Trump BECAUSE he made folks feel okay about how they really think and feel about minorities, by a country mile, than voters who voted for him despite it all. ‘Make American Great Again.’ Ha! For who? There’s only one answer.”
I hate this man.
But he still hasn’t answered my question.
“Okay, the Republican base heard that. But what about the swing voter? What about the Obama-Obama-Trump voter?”
“What about him?”
“He voted for Obama.”
“So?”
“So why does ‘The Blacks’ work for a guy who voted for Obama?”
“Well, it sure wouldn’t work for everybody who voted for Obama. Certainly not The Blacks.” Corey chuckles, like he made a funny. “But if you’re thinking everybody who voted for Obama was on-board the elitists’ Kumbaya Train, you are sorely mistaken. In 2008, 26 percent of whites thought it was not okay for blacks and whites to date. And of those folks who were not okay with the races mixing? A quarter of them voted for Obama.44, 45 That is a lot of votes. My guess? Something like five or six million votes.”
“A quarter of white racists voted for Obama?”
“I didn’t say racist. I said folks who didn’t want white people dating black people. What? Is it only The Gays who get to decide who they date now?”
Dear God.
“Why would they vote for Obama?”
“They’re populists, they’re worried about entitlement programs, about health care. Like Darryl. When it was Obama versus McCain, they had to choose. But the Great DJT didn’t make them choose—he told them they could have it all, what you call racism and populism.”
“But Trump’s claim that he could drop the individual mandate while preserving protection for pre-existing conditions doesn’t make sense. You ripped Darryl for believing that. No insurance plan could do that and stay solvent. You need the participation of the healthy as well as the sick for the numbers to add up.”
“The numbers don’t work if you’re trying to cover everyone. Have you heard the expression white welfare state? The arithmetic is easier if you’re only covering whites. Easier still if you get rid of shit only women use, like childbirth or mammograms.”
Corey shifts in his chair. I hope his nuts are killing him.
“But it’s not clear that strategy can work again, not now that entitlement reform is on the table. I’ll tell you though, it cracks me up whenever the Democrats talk about trying to win back the Obama-to-Trump swing voter. Even after all that’s happened, they still don’t know to take care of their base.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If Hillary had taken care of the base, she would have won. Yeah, she lost 6 million of Obama’s voters to Trump. But she lost 6.7 million of Obama’s vot
ers to staying home and to third-party candidates.46 The Great DJT’s chant of Crooked Hillary got under the skin of even the party faithful. Didn’t even bother to vote or voted for that freak Jill Stein. Those folks were every bit as important to the victory as the swing voters. And frankly, it’s easier to get folks to sit it out than to switch teams.”
45
God Bless America
Tuesday, October 30th, seven days until the midterms
“[C]hange in financial wellbeing had little impact on candidate preference. Instead, changing preferences were related to . . . issues that threaten white Americans’ sense of dominant group status.”
Diana C. Mutz, “Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 23, 2018.47
“[B]esides partisanship, fears about immigrants and cultural displacement were more powerful factors than economic concerns in predicting support for Trump among white working-class voters . . . [W]hite working-class Americans who report being in good or excellent financial shape are significantly more likely to say that Trump understands their problems than those who report their financial condition as being fair or poor.”
Robert P. Jones, Daniel Cox, and Rachel Lienesch, “Beyond Economics: Fears of Cultural Displacement Pushed the White Working Class to Trump,” PRRI/The Atlantic Report, May 9, 2017.48
“[T]he effect of economic dissatisfaction is dwarfed by the relationship between sexism and racism and voting for Trump . . . [C]ontrolling for racism and sexism effectively restores the education gap among whites to what it had been in every election since 2000 . . . [I]n a campaign that was marked by exceptionally explicit rhetoric on race and gender, it is perhaps unsurprising to find that voters’ attitudes on race and sex were so important in determining their vote choices.”
Rules of Resistance Page 17
