by William Skink

There is no more taking the high ground from Montana Democrats. Instead they prefer to swim in the gutter with the rest of the political filth that pollutes our political discourse. Any moaning and gnashing of teeth at how mean Republicans can be evaporates into the general noise of mud slinging.

From that noise I was recently criticized by progressive scold, Pete Talbot, for using labels, specifically “liberal do-gooder”. I think if I want to be more skilled at deploying labels to damage opponents, I should take notes from Pete’s Democrats, because that seems to be all they are capable of doing–labeling and fear-mongering for votes.

The latest political labeling Democrats used through their mouthpiece blog, Moogirl, wasn’t even against a Republican. It was against Caron Cooper, who made the cardinal sin of running as an independent after her initial run as a Democrat was challenged by nepotism-loving party insiders in the form of Pat Noonan. In yesterday’s post, JC pointed out the family ties that make Noonan, for some, so odious:

Caron’s Dem opponent in the PSC race is none other than Pat Noonan. If the name Noonan doesn’t strike a bell, his uncle and political mentor Art has been a longstanding stalwart with the MT Dem party, including stints as a legislator, head of the MT Dem Party, working for Pat Williams and John Melcher, and deputy FWP Director.

But the icing on the cake is Art Noonan’s latest work as advisor and lobbyist for NorthWestern Energy. So yeah, if his nephew gets on the PSC, he’ll be lobbied by his uncle, who coincidentally is a director for AWARE, where Pat recently worked. Nepotism runs deep in the Dem party, and the Noonan family. They’ll take Caron out however they can.

For those not paying attention to the latest details of this drama, Moogirl literally labeled Cooper with hashtags, which is what prompted the ill-advised complaint that was recently thrown out. Here is Cooper from a recent comment:

An anonymous Montana Cowgirl blogpost provides the mud – by making up Topic Tags that link me to “Racist Views” and “Porn.”

This is a classic means of shaping and framing an issue that has been used by the political establishment since the era of mean-spirited gridlock began.

So porn is now an issue at the national level, with Trump’s soft-core champagne cameo, and locally, with a partisan blog trashing a capable woman unnecessarily. Is this how you want to win, Democrats?

Usually capable women are touted by Democrats, because identity politics. But not this time around. Instead they are trashing and smearing a woman because she chose to run as an independent after MT Democrats made it clear they were backing the legacy candidate despite his conflict of interest regarding his family connections.

Democrats are in trouble, locally and nationally, and they genuinely don’t seem to understand why. Maybe it’s their presidential candidate, consigning half the electorate to her basket of deplorables, then mocking millennials living in their parents basement. Maybe it’s the smug success of political correctness that disparages anyone who doesn’t think like a coastal liberal.

If Democrats want to get a clue, there is a book I just got that would do them good. It’s by Arlie Russell Hochschild, and it’s called Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. Here is a link to an interview with Hochschild on Democracy Now.

Educate yourselves, Democrats. Your labels and smug arrogance aren’t working anymore. Or don’t, because it probably won’t matter. Diplomacy in Syria is officially off, and the financial contagion from Germany could be the trigger for the next economic collapse that was baked into the cake 8 years ago when Obama sold us all out to Wall Street.