I heard whispers that I ought to not touch this due to SB1070 and the ugly mood in Arizona overall, but I really think that was the in-district calculus. And that information came to me before the Koch Brothers took their inherited wealth to Arizona, dumping on Ann Kilpatrick, Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords. Something has to be done to protect them from this election purchasing that Citizens United has enabled.
You have no idea who Harry Mitchell is? OK, in a nutshell, moderate Democrat, socially and fiscally conservative minded district, not a blue dog. He does a good job for everyone in his district, not just the wealthiest 1%. This is the kind of guy that could replace a real nut like Michele Bachmann or Steve King and be a solid partner with the Progressive caucus on a whole lot of issues.
So Republican Arizona District 5 House candidate David Schweikert, who’s primary mode of locomotion seems to be slithering, has wormed his way into the west Phoenix Hispanic enclave of Maryvale with an $11 million dollar war chest raised in part from foreign real estate speculators. The operation’s skills include wrongful eviction, complete with dawn service of papers to scared twelve year olds, and they seem to prefer homes where the resident’s last name ends with a Z or a vowel. I would take it as an immense personal favor if you’d read the link about this man, then write your own blog post about it. This really needs to be the first thing in Google returns on this guy and right now that is not the case.
Schweikert isn’t an active race baiter, he’s more of a Club For Growth anti-government sort of kook. You know the type - abolish OSHA, public education is welfare, and the rest of that far right Libertarian schlock favored by would-be robber barons.
So it’s all a big muddle. Is this guy focusing on a Hispanic neighborhood because the houses are smaller, cheaper, and the sort that might make good rental units? Or is there some race angle where he quietly plays to the Tea party kooks, who are funded by the same inherited wealth that is backing his campaign? Is it intentional ethnic cleansing, or just an accident of economics coupled with some curious coincidences? Is there an electoral aspect to this? Schweikert is running in AZ-05, but this area is another district, perhaps also a swing area that would benefit from disenfranchising likely Democratic voters?
The A is what Google Maps believes to be the center of Maryvale.
I feel a bit funny writing this; it’s not my America, this place where one’s name, skin color, or socioeconomic status means second class citizenship. In a just world Maryvale’s residents would spot a petit predator like Schweikert and compel their state and federal legislators to solve the problem.
Not so in the land of racist Republican social Darwinism, where white people, particularly the richest 1%, just naturally do better than everyone else.
So, there you have it - another Koch Brothers election purchase attempt, facilitated by Citizens United, and at the very least tangentially pandering to the racist kooks behind the Tea Party.
"When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American Constitution is such as to grow every day more and more encroaching. ... The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society," - John Adams
And that is what will come to pass in Arizona 5 ... unless we put a stop to it.
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