Former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher last night, to pay lip service and lend further credence to the most infuriating double standard in American politics.
As a primer, here’s me last July:
...as I’ve written ad nauseam, the Democratic Party, its elected officeholders and electoral candidates are somehow held directly responsible and, supposedly, punished electorally for the worst rhetorical/behavioral excesses of far-left liberals as described and perceived in political punditry, and no one has a problem with that. … Meanwhile, while far-left liberals are being obnoxious or saying mean things about Republican Vice Presidents-elect and invited right-wing college-campus speakers … for all of which Democrats apparently must take the blame and suffer the electoral consequences, what are right-wingers doing and saying?
...
Is the Republican Party itself responsible for the militias and the racism and the hate crimes and the religious fanaticism and the gun-buggery and the other excesses of the far-right, in the same way the Democratic Party is supposedly responsible for the political correctness and campus-safe-spaces and other purported excesses of the far-left? … Does anyone think that the militias and the racism and the hate crimes and the religious fanaticism cause, have caused, or will cause Republicans to lose elections? Are there any pundits out there saying ... that Republicans will start (or keep) losing elections until the far-right militias and racists and religious fanatics knock off the hate and the racism and the misogyny and the homophobia and the proselytizing and the jingoism and the gun-buggery and every other crime against humanity and society they commit on a daily basis?
More here, here, here and here.
Cue the Distinguished Gentlelady from Missourah, last night on the teevee machine, explaining what she meant by a comment she made on the campaign trail last year and, more broadly, why she still thinks Democrats need to stay in the center and not “get carried away” with progressive policy ideas that are “great for our party” but that the people (“especially older voters”) in Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania “aren’t going to be comfortable with”:
MAHER: You said, famously, when you were running only a year ago, you said, “I’m not one of those crazy Democrats.”
McCASKILL: That’s correct. I am not.
MAHER: I am?
McCASKILL: But you are. You might be.
MAHER: I am. I’ll take it as a badge of honor. But you’re running in Missouri, where Donald Trump won 57% of the vote. It’s amazing a Democrat gets elected at all there. What do they think, when they hear … What is a “crazy Democrat” to them? Why do they think Democrats are crazy?
McCASKILL: Well, I think the “crazy” that I was referring to were not the Democrats that fought with me, shoulder to shoulder, trying to fight the tax cut, or to pass the [Affordable Care Act], or to do all the things we did as a Democratic Party when I was in the Senate. The “crazy Democrats” I’m talking about [are] the State Senator in Missouri, who actually put on our Facebook page that Donald Trump should be assassinated. That’s a bad idea. This makes us look very, very bad. Or the people, frankly, who go in restaurants, and get up in the face of someone...
MAHER: And scream at people, yes.
McCASKILL: ...and scream at people. And, I think what we’ve got to do is get back to realizing that how we appear matters.
(emphasis added).
I hate to break it to you, Senator, but most of the “crazy Democrats [you’re] talking about” are not Democrats.
Here, McCaskill both makes and fails to make a critically-important distinction between Democrats as a Party, as elected officeholders and political candidates, and some random anecdotal episodes of obnoxious behavior that the former is in no way responsible for but somehow takes the blame and suffers the electoral and political consequences. What is missing from this exchange is what is missing from every conversation I’ve ever seen, heard or read about how annoying liberals can be, and Maher — because he buys into it too — utterly failed to call this out or complete the circle.
Even that bit about the State Senator in Missouri who wrote a comment on Facebook saying that the Drumpfenführer should be assassinated, while certainly true, inexcusable and unhelpful, is still an anecdotal example of an elected official whom practically no one outside her home state (and, perhaps likely, very few in her home state) has ever heard of and who in any event has no national political presence, power or influence, popping off one time on social media about the demented racist gangster in the White House. I must confess, I had never heard of this incident until I looked it up to find out who and what McCaskill was talking about. Yes, it happened, and it’s not good, but it doesn’t make me think twice about voting Democratic or consider voting Republican. Me again:
“Gee; I like the idea of universal health care, of having a clean environment, and I think women and LGBT people should have equal rights and opportunities. I also think we should do something about gun violence, we should invest in public education, and that giant corporations ought to pay their fair share in taxes. But you know what, this [random person] once said mean things about [a Republican], so I’m going to vote against all of that.”
If this strikes you as a realistic or plausible scenario, please get off the planet now; we are trying to have a civilization here.
Of course, there comes a point where anecdotes are no longer anecdotal; where behavior becomes so commonplace amongst a particular cohort that individual instances of similar behavior can no longer be dismissed as anecdotal and ought to be regarded as representative of that cohort. But we are a long way from that. And I think it’s worth repeating that the only “crazy Democrats” McCaskill could think of were a single State Senator whom no one’s heard of and a couple of random people who yelled things at Republicans in restaurants that one time.
McCaskill’s error here is twofold: (1), feeding into the well-worn political tactic of the Right to draw sweeping conclusions and generalizations about Democrats and their various constituencies from isolated, anecdotal incidents of obnoxious behavior; and more egregiously, (2) reinforcing the double standard by which the Democratic Party is responsible for Jussie Smollett and should suffer electorally as a result of his antics, but the GOP is not responsible for Christopher Hasson and shouldn’t lose any votes because of him. Somehow, Missouri State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal represents all Democrats, but U.S. Rep. Steve King (and for that matter, the Grand Nagus himself) doesn’t represent all Republicans.
I’m going to keep calling this bullsh** out every time I see it or hear it. This Has. To. Stop.