There was another anti-Jackie Walorski flyer, paid for by the Indiana Democratic Party, in my mailbox when I got home this afternoon. Once again, the flyer makes no mention of who the flyer-ers think you should vote for, only that you should not vote for Jackie Walorski.  Now, the last time this happened, I was kind of wondering just how much Hall’s people had had to do with it, since he was never mentioned.  Well, his radio ads are all about “Washington Walorski,” so even in his own stuff for his campaign he can’t avoid using Republican frames.  I’m not going to bother talking about the entire flyer.  Let’s just talk about this part of it:

The general theme of the ad is that Walorski voted for the tax bill without knowing what was in it, so she’s “voting blindly.”  Get it?  She’s covering her face?  Or at least someone’s manly hands have been photoshopped over her face?  It’s the exact same hand in a different image on the other side, so this isn’t even a good photoshop, and don’t think that I haven’t noticed that it appears to be a man’s hand they used– rumors about Walorski’s sexuality (she’s married, to a man) have been floating around for literally as long as she’s been in office.

And then there’s that fucking gesture again.

Let me be one hundred percent clear:  that image is photoshopped.  It is not real.  Even if it is an actual image of her using that gesture and only the right arm is added on, it’s still a photoshopped image and therefore by definition the entire thing is suspect.  Which means one of two things:

• That somebody affiliated with the Indiana Democratic Party deliberately decided to use an image of Jackie Walorski making a white power gesture in an ad and then not call attention to it, basically just doing it as a dogwhistle to both white supremacists and antiracist leftists; or
• That they were unaware of what they were doing.  In September of 2018, just a couple of weeks (how the fucking hell has it only been a couple of weeks??) after Brett Kavanaugh’s asshole assistant caused a rather substantial brouhaha by making the same gesture behind him at his confirmation hearing.

One of these possibilities is disgustingly cynical at best and actively slanderous at worst.  The other possibility is proof of utter fucking incompetence.  And neither of them are fucking okay.  I hate these people.  I hate this fucking election, and I hate the fact that I’ve now had to spend two fucking posts defending Jackie Fucking Walorski, who is also an asshole, but who still doesn’t deserve this shit.

A pox on the lot of these fuckers.

You may recall parts one and two of a series that wasn’t originally called “Fuck Mel Hall,” but to hell with it, this is my blog and I get to rename stuff if I want to, plus: fuck Mel Hall.  Mel, if you’re not aware, is one of two Republicans who is running for my district’s House seat, IN-02.  The incumbent, Jackie Walorski, is a Republican who says she is a Republican.  Mr. Hall, who received barely 40% of the vote in the primary, somehow is the Democratic nominee, but is not a Democrat.  He has made it repeatedly clear that he has no interest whatsoever in advancing the goals of the Democratic party and has never identified himself as a member of the party in any advertisement– radio, TV or print– that I have ever seen.

I will not be voting for him.  I think he’s a prick.  I vote for Democrats; he isn’t one.  If I’m going to be represented by a Republican I want to be represented by one who is honest about it.

Now, an interesting fact about Ms. Walorski:  she only got about 3/4 of the vote in her primary, and the person she was running against literally had no campaign at all.  Not a website, did no campaigning, nothing.  But he was a dude, so 25% of the Republican primary voters voted for someone who they literally knew nothing at all about other than that he had a penis and their current representative didn’t.  Mel Hall supposedly got 40% of the vote in the Democratic primary; the other two candidates running were significantly more progressive than he was and he has continued to run as a Republican anyway.  I pay attention; there was no enthusiasm for this man anywhere during the primary and the lack of enthusiasm remains today.  He will lose and lose badly.

Anyway, take a look at that flyer up there.  My wife got one; I didn’t.  That’s unusual– neither of us ever miss an election, so generally whenever we get any election-related flyers, we get two of them.

Take a close look and see if you can figure out what’s going on here.

Also: be aware that an election cycle or two ago, faced with no significant races in the Democratic primary, my wife cast a vote for the least objectionable candidate in the Republican primary.  All you have to do in Indiana is ask for a ballot and they give you one.

This flyer, paid for by the Indiana Democratic party, appears to be trying to peel Republican voters away from Jackie Walorski, but never once mentions who they ought to vote for instead.  The entire damn flyer is Republican-framed: Democrats tend to believe government is actually good for something, so the bullshit “Washington Walorski” nonsense isn’t really going to get any traction with us.  I want my representatives to be experienced and good at their jobs, goddammit, and Walorski has been in office for six years, not thirty.  I don’t even like her and I recognize a bullshit attack when I see it.  Another tell?  Every person in the ad is white.  Democrats don’t send out ads like that.  Republicans, who know good and fucking well that their base mostly doesn’t see people of color as human beings, do.  And apparently we’re not above buying into their racist asshole framing if we think it’ll get, well, somebody some votes.

Fuck every single thing about this flyer, in case that isn’t clear.  Fuck the cynicism embedded in it, fuck the racism, fuck the sexism, fuck the candidate that it doesn’t bother to mention, fuck the bullshit nickname, which comes from the same asshole impulses that led the Republicans to call Joe Donnelly “Mexico Joe” in some of their bullshit ads, fuck every single thing about it.

I need better fucking representation around here, across the goddamned board.