Readers comment on the sad Monahan / Ellison controversy:
I think Monahan is being dishonest.
It certainly feels like it, but we may never know unless she takes one of two actions: release the video, or recant her accusations. At the moment, she’s in deep long-term danger as far as her future goes, because not releasing the tape isn’t an option, and if she releases the (or “a”) tape after the election and it’s not considered to show what she claims its shows, then her reputation is absolutely done and she’ll spend the rest of her life working waitressing jobs, because the Democrats won’t touch her, organizations who might like her experience working for the Democrats will take one look at this episode and mark her untrustworthy.
Even the Republicans would hesitate to hire her.
And even if she waits to release it until after the election and it does show Ellison engaged in loathsome behaviors, she’s still tarred with poorly chosen behaviors.
Any conclusions concerning her motivations are purely speculative. Her actions are congruent with a woman who’s been abused as well as a woman who has been spurned. Out on the fringes, there’s still congruency with her being a Republican mole, and even her being a Russian mole.
And, of course, there’s the Muslim angle to consider. This would also be fringe, but not yet formally out of the picture.
Just not enough information, and we’ll probably never have it.
Another reader:
Minnesota has really been disappointing me. Way too many racists outside the metro. Probably too many inside it too, but they are more likely to be drowned out.
I’m disappointed, but, on reflection, not surprised. Over the last few decades there has been an awful lot of change being forced on Americans, on the fronts of moral, cultural, and work (among others), and while we may embrace change that we choose, it’s a rare person who likes to have change forced on them.
My perception is that city folks are accustomed to change. The city council decides to upgrade a road and forces an assessment. The restaurant down the road closes and becomes a little trade shop. A light-rail line is installed. Extra taxes are bestowed on vehicles in order to reduce congestion in downtown. It’s off to the theater, the cinema, the Fringe. Not all of these are forced changes, but those that are have accustomed the city folks to change.
Red are Trump-voting counties, Blue are Clinton leaning counties.
Source: Wikipedia.
Not so in smaller towns and rural areas. The pressure of population, and the change that inevitably accompanies more and more people, isn’t present in those communities; indeed, many are drying up. As we can see on the right, this map of voting in Minnesota show the rural areas voting for Trump, while the cities of Duluth (4th largest in the state) and the Iron Range, an old union area, the Twin Cities, and Olmstead County, where Rochester, the third largest city in Minnesota, and Mayo Clinic are located, voted for Clinton.
These are well-known results, but I bring them up to point out that the Democrats represent change. They support, to lesser and greater extents, gay marriage, LGBTQ rights, changes to our national healthcare system, power station regulations, anthropocentric climate change crisis regulations, and other proposals which escape me.
And change, at the moment, is a negative for the smaller cities and the rural areas. Many small towns are emptying out as they lose their economic purpose. They continue to “suffer” from environmental regulations which are designed to keep them safe & healthy, but also hinder their ability to grow crops, raise livestock, and other activities. Prices for the commodities they produce are down.
And you know what doesn’t represent change? Racism. Racism and its cousin, xenophobia, are simply part of the old, old way of doing things, recognizing someone is “other” based on the easily observed, and victimizing them if they’re other. Because the other represents change, represents a threat to the present social order, the present power structure.
When times are tough, it’s a lot easier to blame the other for your problems rather than admitting that the way of life to which you’ve committed yourself may be going away, or even that your personal failures, such as failing to commit to learning and growing and changing, are at fault.
In the cities, we’re used to change and don’t have a lot of time for the overt racist who wants to return to the old ways, because there’s a critical density of people who understand and explain why that’s unjust, not to mention stupid. Of course, there’s still the covert and unconscious racists, a problem we still work on.
And this semi-obvious line of reasoning leads to a big problem incoming for the Republicans. They’ve told the rural areas that they’ll help restore them, explicitly or implicitly. That will require economic change. Thus, the Republicans must either tie themselves strongly to the policies which bring that change, or become the Party of Change, and I don’t think the latter is acceptable to them, unless they spin it as the Party of Regressive Change. The return to the Golden Age has certainly been a recurrent theme for them, but it’s ultimately a dead-end – coal, for example, is not coming back.
Thus, they run the possibility that the Democrats may take credit for any changes which benefit the Republicans’ base.
And, worse yet, those changes will engender positive attitudes towards other change, once again fracturing the Republican base.
They can walk this tight-rope, I’m sure. But I’m not sure they’re smart enough.
