The US mid-term elections have seen a level of outright lying and racism and bigotry and fearmongering by Trump and the Republicans that is far beyond anything that I have witnessed before. Things that used to be signaled with coded dog-whistles to avoid being seen as an awful person have been abandoned and are now on naked display. They are owning to being disgusting people.

The ugliness is sickening and can be better stomached if wrapped in satire as in this piece by Jordan Klepper.

The worst example has been in the Senate race in Michigan where the Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been viciously targeted by the usual suspects simply for being a Muslim, with the Israel lobby also pouring money into the race. Furthermore, the Democratic establishment with people like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi,, and Haley Stevens (the person he defeated in the primary) are not only not vigorously campaigning on his behalf but even sometimes actively undermining him. This shows that for these people and groups, protecting the genocidal Israeli policies is more important than even winning a majority in the US Senate.

The display of bigotry and lying is so disgusting that any right-minded person should be so repulsed by it that they vote for the Democrats but unfortunately such people are not as plentiful as one might wish and are in particularly short supply among Republicans and almost non-existent in the MAGA cult who seem to relish the ugliness. If El-Sayed wins, it will be a miracle and largely due to the fact that he is such an exceptional candidate who ran a tight, disciplined campaign.

Meanwhile in California, the greedy billionaires have been pouring money into defeating proposition 40 that would seek to impose a one-time 5% tax on wealth, and passing 41 and 42 which is a more subtle way that they introduced of doing the same thing by pretending that they are protecting the interests of ordinary workers and retirees. They have flooded the airwaves with ads, most focused on 41 and 42. These two obfuscate the issues while 40 clearly is targeted at billionaires and is popular because people hate them.

Michael Kosta talks about the referendums with one doofus who opposes 40.