Something big is in the wind.
— In Ohio, Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has enlisted the abusive mother of a child rape victim — his opponent Dr. Amy Action — in a pathetic smear attempt that equally pathetic Vice President JD Vance just endorsed.
— In Michigan, after Dr. Abdul El-Sayed explicitly said that he disavows the Muslim Brotherhood — which he’s never had anything to do with in his life — Congressman Mike Rogers (who’s running for the same Senate seat) went on TV and lied, saying that El-Sayed had “refused” to repudiate the organization. He continued the lie even after the host called him on it twice (she, of course, didn’t call it a “lie” because reporters are terrified of using that word to describe Republicans).
— In Pennsylvania, Rep. Scott Perry is putting up ads that purport to be a court document alleging that his opponent, former TV news anchor Janelle Stelson, had once years ago walked into her own backyard naked. The document isn’t a court document at all, just an allegation that a fanatic Perry supporter signed and had notarized so it “looks official.”
— In Texas, Republicans are running ads against James Talarico that feature deep-fake AI images of him in a dress, suggesting he’s gay or at least queer-sympathetic. Trump went to Texas and claimed, “He’s a freaky guy. He’s got something wrong with him.”
It’s easy enough to point out that when you can’t win on the issues, the fallback strategy is to smear your opponent.
George HW Bush did it with his infamous ads against Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis featuring Willie Horton (who was let out of prison on a program put into place by the previous Republican governor), and in 2024 Trump did it by claiming that Kamala Harris wanted government-paid gender transition surgery.
But these ads today go far beyond those kinds of smears, and for a good reason: Republicans are at the end of their political rope. Their past is finally catching up with them and it’s not pretty.
Back in 1981, newly inaugurated President Ronald Reagan took the advice of the billionaire-funded Heritage Foundation, which had given him a “Mandate for Leadership” booklet with over 2,000 policy recommendations (an early version of Project 2025).
These billionaires believed they had figured out a bold new way to govern America, which would make them fabulously richer while not damaging America’s middle class too badly.
Well-intentioned politicians of both parties jumped on board, hoping this dramatic new idea could reinvigorate our nation and its economy.
They figured wrong, but because the billionaires were successful at convincing Reagan to redirect the GOP and the American economy, we’ve been living in their experiment for 45 years now.