(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Extremist anti-democracy election denialist bigot GOP Rep Gooden makes bigoted anti-Chinese attacks [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-02-25

Representative Chu is the subject of an ugly, bigoted attack by the conspiracy theorist, bigot, election denialist Lance Gooden.

Bigotry has a long, ugly history in the United States and that includes bigotry against Chinese Americans)

Here is a wikipedia entry describing anti-Chinese American bigotry in the United States:

Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States began in the 19th century, shortly after Chinese immigrants first arrived in North America,[1] and continues into the 21st century. It has taken many forms throughout history, including prejudice, racist immigration restrictions, murder, bullying, massacre, and other acts of violence. Anti-Chinese sentiment and violence in the country first manifested in the 1860s, when Chinese people were employed in the building of the world's first transcontinental railroad. Its origins can be traced partly to competition with white people for jobs[2] and reports of American merchants, missionaries, and diplomats who had lived and worked in mainland China and wrote relentlessly negative and unsubstantiated reports of the local people.





Donald Trump has always refused to accept accountability for his own failures. When the novel coronavirus first appeared, he praised Chinese leadership for their work in helping address the crisis and provide information. However, he believed that taking actions to mitigate against the spread of the virus would hurt his re-election campaign. The failure to encourage the American public to take simple actions that would slow the spread of the virus and keep more Americans safe, actions like wearing a mask and maintaining social distance, led to more cases and more deaths than would have happened otherwise. The United States has four percent of the population of the Earth and about twenty five percent of deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus and twenty five percent of the cases despite being better positioned in important ways to meet this crisis.



“The US has 4% of the world’s population but 25% of its coronavirus cases President Donald Trump has refused to wear masks in public, which research has proven can control the spread of the virus, and has encouraged businesses to resume operations against the guidance of health officials who believe premature reopenings could lead to surges in cases like the US is seeing now. More people are infected with and die from coronavirus in the US than anywhere else in the world. And President Donald Trump throughout February downplayed the threat the virus posed to the US. Health officials argue that February was a crucial time to contain the virus, and the US missed that window. The mortality rate for Black Americans is 2.3 times higher than the rate for whites. Source: American Public Media Research Lab. US GDP turns negative, worst since 2008 The US economy had its worst quarter since the 2008 recession US GDP shrank at a 4.8% annualized rate in Q1 due to the coronavirus pausing the economy.” .

When statistics began to emerge showing the results of Donald Trump’s intentional mismanagement of the pandemic, then he had to deflect since he lacks the character to acknowledge his failures and abandon unethical and unsuccessful paths. That deflection centered on vicious attacks on China and people of Chinese heritage. Trumpers, by their very definition, are bigots since bigotry was an unmistakable feature of Trump’s campaign that could not be missed by any voter in the country and this meant that they didn’t find bigotry a deal-breaker.





This led to persecution of Chinese Americans based upon nothing more than mere prejudice and bigotry.

Then we must add in the consequences of gerrymandering. Only about one tenth to one fourth of all congressional districts are competitive.

there remain limits on how many competitive districts can be drawn as long as Republicans and Democrats tend to live in very different places. Still, fewer than 40 competitive districts out of 435 leaves more than 90% of the country with little more than a long-shot chance of electing a representative from the opposing party.

and

Nearly three-quarters of House districts were not just uncompetitive but highly so — often by design — with the victor winning 15 or more percentage points. For voters living there, it was the winning party’s primary that decided their representative, not the general election. By contrast, Democratic map drawers drew only 6 of the 30 most competitive seats, while Republican map drawers drew only 2. Republican maps were especially uncompetitive. Republican legislatures drew 177 districts — far more than any other map drawer, and GOP congressional candidates won in more than three-quarters of them. Only 1 percent of their maps’ districts were highly competitive, and only 4 percent were decided by 8 or fewer points. Republican legislatures also drew more super-safe districts: More than 8 in 10 Republican-drawn seats saw the Republican candidate win by 15 points or more in 2022 — giving Republicans a major foothold in the battle for a House majority. This foothold was reinforced by court decisions putting on hold the redrawing of racially discriminatory maps in Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana until after the midterms.

In a congressional district that leans left, one might hear support of gasp, Medicare for All. In a congressional district that leans right, one will hear conspiracy theories, anti-democratic speech, election denialism, anti-science propaganda, and bigotry.

I need to make a very important point here even though it is only tangentially related (Gooden is an election denialist) to the topic of the diary. The politifact and other fact-checkers appear to intentionally mislead people into thinking republican and even extremist republican talking points are correct when the claims are clearly misleading. As an example, an extremist election denier made a claim that House Democrats have objected to counting state certified electoral college votes (something I wish that they had NOT done because they opened the door to this false equivalence) every recent presidential election in which the Republican Party’s candidate won. I saw this on google and wrote something that I hoped to post in order to educate those who were interested in the truth and were legitimately seeking information. I wrote with great brevity because I was afraid that there would be a limit to how much they would allow me to post. So, here’s what I wrote:

Was it a written objection which required support from a member of each chamber? Did the Democratic Party’s nominee for president support the written objection? How many House Democrats gave an ORAL objection as opposed to a written objection? Had the Democratic Party’s nominee already conceded? Difference: (1) Kerry had conceded. Trump didn't. (2) Kerry told Boxer not to do this. She did it anyway. Trump encouraged all Rs in Congress to vote for a written objection. (3) Boxer said she wasn't disputing who won, but simply drawing attention to voter suppression in Ohio. House Republicans and Senate Rs voting for a written objection WERE DISPUTING WHO WON.

The question as posed is stupid. It misleads people as to the actual state of affairs and how different what happened in 2020 was from any other modern presidential election.

They characterized the claim by the election denier as mostly true. I understand why the election denier would intentionally mislead the public to justify his unjustifiable votes. However, the politifact people are mostly aware of the most important differences, especially the difference in context. The importance of those differences CANNOT BE OVERSTATED and again v the politifact people were aware of those differences. Those differences, especially the difference in context, should have led to a mostly false verdict. It is my impression that most of the fact-checking fails in just this way and I can’t avoid the conclusion that it is intentional as much of what I wrote appeared in their essay. The problem is that the verdict is the summary and the conclusion. It is all that most people will look to. It allows republican extremists, election deniers and conspiracy theorists to mislead the public because they can claim that a “politically neutral fact-checking organization” rated the claim as mostly true. A half-truth masquerading as the whole truth is a complete untruth. My apologies for this detour.



One of these two (referring to the congressional districts lean) is not a threat to anything since it has no chance of becoming law or even the dominant view among lawmakers in the Democratic Party’s caucus. On the other hand 139/211 or about 2/3 of House Republicans voted against counting state certified electoral college votes that gave then President Elect Biden a majority of the electoral college votes. If a congressional district doesn’t lean far right and is relatively competitive, then the Republican Party’s nominee to the US House of Representatives representing that congressional district is much less likely to embrace all of the lies, the conspiracy theories, the election denialism, the anti-democracy speech, the anti-science propaganda and the bigotry. Enter Lance Gooden, a far right MAGA election denier and bigot, who is on the Judiciary committee.

Daily Caller - Media Bias/Fact Check https://mediabiasfactcheck.com › daily-caller Daily Caller - Right Biased - Conservative - Republican - Libertarian - Not Credible Factual Reporting: Mixed - Not always Credible or Reliable · RIGHT BIAS. I acknowledge that I am entering into a topic that I don’t have original knowledge of. So, it is possible that I am wrong and if others with any knowledge or expertise or better skills than I have disagree, I will remove this part of the diary. I did spend hours looking at this material including the pictures. Again, I could be wrong and if I am, I hope somebody does make that clear. However, the pictures of Congresswoman Chu and the pictures of Zhao Meixin appear to be of two different people to me. Yes, the dresses are both very similar and are both purple and the necklaces are very similar as well. However, the faces look quite different to me. In addition, the X in Zhao Meixin is different than Zhao Mei Shin. The x is the Americanized pronunciation and so could possibly be the same as the S for Shin. Then, there is the fact that the “award” is made out to Judy Chu when the woman in the picture is referred to as Zhao Meixin.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/25/2154895/-Extremist-anti-democracy-election-denialist-bigot-GOP-Rep-Gooden-makes-bigoted-anti-Chinese-attacks

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.