In a year of overwhelming political defeat for Democratic candidates, progressive or otherwise, a few exceptions stand out. While the country swung heavily to the right in Congress and in most down ballot races, there was at least some evidence that blatant extremism is still not acceptable in this country, and that loony political stances are still called out as BS.
It has already been reported here that in general, whenever progressive issues were on the ballot, like raising the minimum wage or legalizing marijuana or relaxing our draconian drug laws, voters approved, while conservative initiatives like “personhood” amendments lost badly (you can check the status of your favorite ballot initiative here). This might seemingly be construed as evidence of a leftward movement in American politics. But we know that in general, Democratic candidates did not fare well while conservative politicians seemed to benefit from a clear trend to the right. But I want to show you a few races where the loonies did not prevail – results that should give everyone some hope in an otherwise dismal election cycle for progressives.
In an article published by the Southern Poverty Law Center last summer, a dozen political candidates running for office in 2014 were identified who were particularly reprehensible in their public pronouncements and actions regarding human rights, gay rights, women’s rights, racial equality, and anti-government paranoia. This group of homophobes, misogynists, conspiracy theorists, and racists were identified as the worst extremists in America’s great pool of political candidates seeking public office, or as SPLC calls it:
“would-be political leaders who have links to hate groups or engage in promoting extremism based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or antigovernment conspiracy theories.”
Yet these candidates appeared to be only a majority vote away from rising to legitimacy as elected officials in 2014 and making their distorted visions an official part of the American government.
More of the story below.
The bios of the characters in the SPLC “dirty dozen” read like a rogue’s gallery of mayhem and lunacy and I encourage you to read about them all in greater detail (see the list below). A collection of white nationalists, Christian literalists, anti-gay activists, Tea Party members, secessionists, anti-abortion protesters, and conspiracy theorists - the fact of their candidacy suggests a surprising ability to shut out the voices long enough to find their way to the county registrar’s office.
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center
Well, guess what? Despite the rush to the right by voters in November, only one of these misfits succeeded in his or her quest. I consider that very good news indeed. America still recognizes hate when hate raises its ugly head.
The only one of the dirty dozen identified by SPLC to win his election was Michael Peroutka, a Republican running in an Anne Arundel County Council race in MD. This local race appears to have attracted national attention. Peroutka has been a member of the board of the League of the South, a neo-Confederate hate group that has advocated secession from the US. He believes that the US was founded as a Christian nation, he has advocated that women who have abortions should be charged with murder, and he has donated dinosaur fossils to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY. He has made racist, homophobic pronouncements over a decade of political campaigning, including a 2004 campaign as the Constitution Party candidate for President, where he won 150,000 votes nationwide. In 2014, he scaled down his sights and his rhetoric, won a crowded Anne Arundel County Council Republican primary by 38 votes, and went on to defeat the Democratic candidate by a 53-47 margin, in a county that has been a Republican stronghold for two decades.
Interestingly and “coincidentally,” the pastor at Peroutka’s church, David Whitney, switched parties to become a Democrat and also ran for the same Anne Arundel County Council seat, but was defeated in the primary. Whitney is also a secessionist and a LOS supporter, and has preached many of the same ideas that Peroutka advocates. Whitney was listed in the SPLC “dirty dozen” article along with Peroutka.
The voters of Anne Arundel County are seemingly suffering an onslaught of political lunacy, and I suspect that a diary by someone with better information could shed an interesting light on this phenomenon. League of the South? In Maryland? C’mon, really?
In any case, overall the news is good - most of these characters were soundly defeated. The Peroutka case bears a close watching.