Almost two weeks ago, I received a many-times-forwarded message with the subject “Congressional Reform Act of 2011” (see Debunking 'Congressional Reform Act of 2011' on this site). On the surface, it appeared to be a typical piece of Tea Party/neocon invective that was unexceptional in any way; it started off with the obvious lie that it had originated with Warren Buffet, and then went on to call for a number of “common sense” responses to problems that don’t really exist, etc., and looked like something that had been making the rounds on Facebook a few days earlier. When I looked to see if I could tell where this message had originated, however, I was struck by a genuine surprise: It had, by all accounts, been sent out by the Chair of the Democratic Party of Comal County, Texas!
“While I personally do not fully agree with all of these suggestions, they are a good place to start,” this good lady writes at the beginning of her message. In that the contents of the message were ultimately written by the kind of people who make Democrats feel nervous about living in Texas, I would imagine that she would not agree with them. Why things she does not agree with would be “a good place to start,” however, I have no idea.
The idea that the leader of an organization representing besieged Democrats in a frighteningly Red state would be sending out rightwing literature was too much for me to accept and so I immediately sent her an email message to let her know I had received it. I expected she would probably let me know that she had been a victim of identity theft, but figured there was also a slight chance she would embarrassedly admit to accidentally disseminating something she had not bothered to verify (or even read very carefully to ensure it was in keeping with her party’s ethos).
When I had not received a reply after three days, I followed up with her again, once again emphasizing my affiliation with this site and my intention to publish an article about the hoax to which she had, one way or another, been party. That was a week ago and, as of this writing, she has still not had either the sense or the courtesy to reply to me or the readers of this site.
Seemingly coincidentally, right after I sent my first message to the Chair of my local Democratic organization I received a friendly and somewhat solicitous message from a gentleman who shared her last name. A little investigation revealed that this individual is currently running for a U.S. Senate seat, that he is also a member of the Democratic Party of Comal County, and that he is, in fact, the husband of the woman who had sent out the message being discussed here. We traded a few messages but, when I asked him about the email message that had originated with his wife, it went quiet at his end and our correspondence ceased.
And so, in the absence of any kind of a response, I am left to conclude that the most recent rightwing hoax to cross my desk originated with … a local office of the Democratic Party. This is certainly not an auspicious way for an organization of this sort to start off any year -- all the less so one in which we are about to experience what might be one of the most crucial national election cycles of our lifetimes and in which the Democrats will need to be on their game.
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Mike, I get these stupid chain emails from nutty right swingers all the time. Like you, I simply go to snopes and send them the link. Most still don't think they're wrong. It's all a conspiracy to hide the truth. They're literally delusional and hopeless. Funny though that the Dem party was involved. Says alot about Texas!
ReplyDeleteYou base way too much on party affiliation. there are some Democrarts who are not as corrup[t as Rod Blagovitch. When Jim Crow was in effect it was teh south was called the solid South because it always voted solidly Democratic. In my district the congressman is a very conservative Democrat when somehow a totally corrupt crook won the republican primary the vast majority of the republicans in my district tossed party labels and made sure that the corrupt war crimminal did not get elected even if it may have cost the party nationaly.
ReplyDeleteJ.D., are you suggesting that Texas is so extreme that even our Democrats are right-wingers? ;) I certainly don't think that is the case and suspect that what we are dealing with here is more a matter of someone not paying attention to what they were sending out, not being particularly bright to start with, and suffering from an ignorance of their own party's ideology.
ReplyDeleteTotalee, you may be right that I do base too much on party affiliation ... In that I am not a member of either, I probably objectify them and their representatives and incorrectly assume a level of knowledge, competence, and dedication that is often not there. I have no reason to think, in any event, that what I experienced is indicative of any sort of corruption.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the old tradition of the South being Democratic, it is pretty well known that that was a long-running antipathy to the Republican party of Lincoln. A shift away from that took place over the past several decades and most of the people who would have been Jim Crow Democrats in the '50s are Republicans today.