Gaslighting Squared
The frightening (in appearance and deed) NY governor Kathy Hochul has a novel explanation for her and her fellow Democrats’ unexpected political peril: Republicans are “master manipulators” who “have this conspiracy going all across America to try and convince people that in Democratic states they’re not as safe.” (Warning! Article contains a photo of Hochul! It did appear on Halloween, but still.)
In other words, Republicans are gaslighting Americans to believe–against the evidence of their own eyes–that crime has spiked in the US.
I have to say the Republicans, especially in places like New York, have given no evidence that they are in fact “master manipulators.” The last Republican governor of the Empire State left office 15 years ago. The last Republican senator departed 23 years ago. Eight out of 27 members of the NY Congressional delegation are Republican. Biden won 61 percent of the vote in 2020: Hillary won 59 percent in 2016.
Doesn’t sound like mastery to me!
The New York media–including the national media based there–are reliably left/Democrat. There is only one non-Democrat major media outlet in the state (the NY Post). So how are the Republicans convincing people that they aren’t safe?
In fact, the last major Republican figure in the state–Rudy Giuliani–won because of the last crime epidemic in New York. He was popular because he was instrumental in making New York relatively safe, in comparison with other cities, and in contrast with its recent history.
Kathy Hochul is thus engaged in gaslighting about gaslighting. In her desperation and her palpable panic that New Yorkers will indeed vote with the evidence before their eyes of New York’s crime relapse the only way that she can think of responding is to tell them is that it’s all in their heads, and that it was planted there by the Republicans. The same Republicans that have been political roadkill in New York–especially New York city–for decades.
It’s self-evidently absurd. And it’s hard to think of a more telling admission of the political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, especially on the issue of crime .
Trying to bluff people about things they personally experience everyday like gas/grocery prices and the safety of their neighborhoods is a very strange strategy.
Comment by ThomasL — November 1, 2022 @ 7:36 pm
I blame all the woes in the US on the fact you do not have a functional news media. The American Left can say and do anything, be as extremist as it wishes to be, and they are never called on it by the partisan hacks at NYT and CNN. The journalists over here are dumb and incompetent, but they do not straight up make stuff up, or actively campaign for censorship of their political opponents, both inside and outside their industry.
Hopefully they get so demolished during the election, they will moderate their behavior out of survival instinct, if nothing else can move them.
Comment by deith — November 2, 2022 @ 6:25 am
George Pataki was a very moderate Republican, maybe the last of the Rockefeller type, but Zeldin is a solid conservative. Even coming close, let alone winning, is amazing.
Comment by Andrew Stanton — November 2, 2022 @ 7:48 am
O/T: maybe Putin was just an old man in a hurry after all.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20160557/putin-parkinsons-pancreatic-cancer-russian-insider-reveals/
But is there any reason I should believe this story? Or most other stories about the war, from either side?
Wiser to stick to hellhound Hochul I suppose.
Comment by dearieme — November 2, 2022 @ 10:38 am
The growth of Executive Orders (Orders in Council to us Brits) means the mid terms may not make much difference.
I’m rather nostalgic about the old days – you know, when stuff got debated in a democratic assembly – but then I’m a sentimental old coot.
Comment by philip — November 2, 2022 @ 4:30 pm
As an NYC resident for the last 10+years – it is disgraceful what this woman said. She may still win because the city is still controlled by the labor unions/mob and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the same “statistical anomalies” emerge to allow her to win by the skin of her teeth. If she thinks New Yorkers are going to allow this to persist, whether she wins or not, she’s in for a rude awakening.
Comment by MP — November 2, 2022 @ 6:33 pm
Hmm, meanwhile Kari Lake just exudes class, doesn’t she? Weirdly the Beeb ran a piece about her almost back-to-back with one about Ben-Gvir. Separated at birth?
@deari: Annnd another article about Putin being on death’s door. Alas he never appears to look that way whenever we see him on TV. On this subject, it was most peculiar for him to walk back on the grain deal a mere day or two after saying it was over, in retaliation for the Uke drone attack in Sevastopol (wot, no more Iranian drones to fling at Uke infrastructure? Maybe they’re saving them for their last hurrah in the ME). Word is that he received assurances from Erdogan that the Ukes pinky-promised that they would not further molest his beloved lickle Black Sea fleet (such as it now is), at least for now. And what to make of the Brit Ambassador reportedly being summoned to the Kremlin over our alleged (ahem) involvement in the attack. Makes one proud, nice bit of payback for Salisbury etc etc.
Comment by David Mercer — November 3, 2022 @ 1:04 pm
“Article contains a photo of Hochul!”
Imagine sitting across the breakfast table from this face. Every morning. Every morning of your existence.
Dante was rather brutal in his imagined punishments of the wicked in the Inferno.
This would be a far more subtle torment. Imagine sitting across the breakfast table from this face. Every morning.
Every morning of Eternity.
Comment by Simple Simon — November 6, 2022 @ 11:59 am