If Jon Tester Loses, Blame Russia

by William Skink

Democrats are hoping that the midterm elections result in a blue wave of Democrat victories. If the wave doesn’t materialize, Russia is already being set-up to take the blame:

Russia is already meddling in the midterm elections this year, the top American intelligence officials said on Tuesday, warning that Moscow is using a digital strategy to worsen the country’s political and social divisions.

Russia is using fake accounts on social media — many of them bots — to spread disinformation, the officials said. European elections are being targeted, too, and the attacks were not likely to end this year, they warned.

“We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople and other means of influence to try to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States,” Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee at its annual hearing on worldwide threats.

It’s very convenient to have a scapegoat ready to go because accountability is a term that doesn’t seem to be a part of the Democratic lexicon. If Democrats lose, it’s because Russia is spreading discord among the electorate, not because Democrats refuse to change their tune.

We’ll get to Montana’s Senate race in a second, but first let’s take at how the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is taking the unprecedented step of attacking a Texas Democrat ahead of a primary:

ON THURSDAY EVENING, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took the extraordinary step of publicly attacking a prominent Democratic candidate in a contested Texas primary. The party committee’s move was made all the more jarring given the background of the candidate, Laura Moser, who in 2017 became a hero of the Trump resistance movement as the creator of Daily Action, a text-messaging tool that channeled progressive anger into a single piece of activism per day.

“Voters in Houston have organized for over a year to hold Rep. [John] Culberson accountable and win this Clinton district,” DCCC Communications Director Meredith Kelly told the Texas Tribune. “Unfortunately, Laura Moser’s outright disgust for life in Texas disqualifies her as a general election candidate, and would rob voters of their opportunity to flip Texas’ 7th in November.”

The comment followed the release of an opposition dossier the party compiled on Moser. To date, the DCCC has made only two such memos public, one on Moser, and the other on arch-conservative Rick Saccone, a Republican running in an upcoming special election in Pennsylvania.

Why is the DCCC doing this? It would seem the Democratic establishment is continuing to do what it can to marginalize progressives, like when the DNC purged Bernie supporters late last year. At a time when Democrats need all the help they can get, moves like this seem inexplicable.

Maybe the Russians are using remote mind-control technology to get the Democratic establishment to undermine its progressive wing?

In Montana, Democrat Jon Tester is facing a very difficult reelection bid. Republicans will try to depict Tester as an out-of-touch liberal and that depiction may work with low-information voters, but for the more political savvy, Tester is far from being a liberal.

Back in 2014, when Tester was tapped to chair the DSCC, this is how the Washington Post described the decision to go with Tester to head this fundraising arm of the Democratic establishment:

With this move, the Democratic leadership has signaled its appreciation of the brains beneath Tester’s trademark flattop haircut and the political tapestries his seven-fingered grip has woven nimbly. In selecting Tester to head the DSCC — responsible for spearheading the campaign efforts of the Democratic Party in the Senate, including messaging, candidate recruitment and prodigious fundraising — the party chose someone who won two tough races, made inroads into traditionally Republican constituencies in a red state and understands rural values. Democrats probably were going to lose the Senate in 2014 no matter what they did, but a careful review of exit polls suggests that the party lost major ground among white men and rural voters. And while national demographic trends may favor Democrats, they must appeal to these groups to remain competitive electorally in key states.

That was a long time ago, before evil white men in flyover country helped elect Donald Trump. Will Tester really be able to make more in-roads with that deplorable demographic to win another election in Montana?

To win, Tester will need to make more than just in-roads with white, rural voters. This time around, the Libertarians in Montana are without Mike Fellows, who died in a car crash in 2016. Why is that important? Because Libertarians have helped Tester win his last two elections by peeling off potential Republicans votes, making it a part of the calculus of Tester’s past successes.

Being tarred and feathered as a liberal is not good for Tester’s reelection bid, so it’s not surprising to see that Montana’s premier progressive blog, The Montana Post, is trying to make the case (correctly) that Tester is a moderate, not a progressive, which you can read about in a post by mature blogger Pete Talbot, titled Scum-sucking dog: a compendium.

Jon Tester is getting bills signed into law left and right, which is strong evidence that Tester is able to work with Republicans to get things done. Even Russian agent Donald Trump has signed Tester legislation into law. I guess the anti-Russian hysteria can be put on hold when it comes to promoting the strengths of your preferred candidate in a hotly contested Senate race.

One sub-set of voters who have not been impressed with Tester are the non-collaborating environmentalists. Maybe it’s because Tester has referred to this demographic as extremists, or maybe it’s because Tester has been exposed lying about claims of logging litigation, or maybe it’s because the moderate collaboration Tester represents is a direct threat to the remaining wilderness these environmentalists (who chose not to compromise their integrity by hopping in bed with industry) are still dedicated to protecting.

In a Counterpunch article last Friday by Joshua Frank, he implores the band Pearl Jam to put pressure on Tester regarding the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project. Here is a portion of that article:

Despite the rhetoric that Tester’s Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project would protect 80,000 acres of Montana wilderness — where there are roads there’s no wilderness, and Tester’s bill will cut the roadless acres in the Monture area of the Bob Marshall Wilderness in half.

Tester’s monstrous bill will set up two recreational playpens in the center of Monture, a 3,800-acre mountain biking area and another 3,000 for snowmobiles. Currently, neither are allowed in this roadless area. If passed, Tester’s bill will change all of that.

Indeed, it was road development across the West that sparked the modern day environmental movement. The great Bob Marshall was one of the first to speak out against roads in wilderness areas. Now, Tester wants to allow roads in Bob Marshall’s namesake wilderness preserve.

Don’t expect to read any criticism of Tester’s poor record on environmental issues from the self-described progressives at The Montana Post. Time and time again, progressive environmental ideals take a far back seat to the political expediency of protecting Tester at any cost and I don’t expect that to change during this contentious mid-term election.

And that’s the problem, a lack of substantive change by Democrats despite loss after loss. But they don’t want to hear that kind of criticism, so they retreat to better-insulated platforms where opposing views can be censored and critics maligned.

Jon Tester has a very difficult road to reelection. He will need all the left-flank, ass-covering by partisans pretending to be progressive that he can get.

And if he loses, Democrats can just blame Russia.

Author: Travis Mateer

I'm an artist and citizen journalist living and writing in Montana. You can contact me here: willskink at yahoo dot com View all posts by Travis Mateer