You may recall my post of about two weeks ago about the Michigan GOP where a bonkers QAnon-supporting election denier Kristina Karamo and her followers took over the leadership of the state party just a year ago and promptly made a mess of things so that the party is on the verge of bankruptcy. This resulted in efforts by even those who once supported her bid for the leadership to try and oust her and yesterday, they managed to do just that.
But if you think that ended that saga, then you still haven’t understood today’s MAGA GOP. They never accept an election result unless they win. Karamo herself has still not conceded that she got trounced in the race for Michigan secretary of state back in 2022 claiming (you guessed it) that the election was rigged.
Karamo, a former community college instructor and election-denying activist who was elevated to her post in February, has indicated she would not respect Saturday’s vote, setting the stage for a potentially messy court battle over party leadership.
At a special meeting called by critics of Karamo, nearly all of the state committee members present voted to remove her from her post, according to Bree Moeggenberg, a state committee member who helped organize the meeting in Commerce Charter Township.
…A report released last month by Warren Carpenter, a former congressional district chair and one-time Karamo supporter, said the state party was mired in debt, on the “brink of bankruptcy” and “essentially non-functional” under her leadership.
Calls for Karamo to step down came three years after she made claims of election fraud on her Christian podcast that would propel her to a leading voice in Donald Trump’s campaign discrediting the 2020 election.
Karamo continued to espouse her outlandish views last year after winning the party seat, echoing the QAnon conspiracy theory that a shadowy cabal of elites are harvesting children’s organs.
“There’s a ton of money involved in those freshly harvested organs,” Karamo said on a 2020 podcast hosted by RedPill78, a conspiracy theory website. She has also called Beyoncé and Jay-Z “satanists”, said yoga is a satanic ritual and described Cardi B as a “tool of Lucifer”.
What is it with this obsession that people are harvesting and marketing children’s organs? Of all the weird conspiracy theories out there, surely this must be the most outlandish. Are there teams of surgeons involved? Do they think that people are doing this as a business? What would be the point of doing so? What do people do with the organs they buy? It seems like such a niche market that I cannot see it as a viable business model even if one overcomes the sheer horror of the whole thing. There must be many easier ways of making money even in the criminal world. Or is it to indulge in some weird cult rituals?
That is not the only fight that Karamo is involved in. She also lost a legal battle over her attempt to have her people recognized as leaders of the Hillsdale county GOP. She is also involved in another lawsuit over her attempt to try and sell the party’s headquarters to pay the party’s debts.
The Michigan Republican Party is in dire financial straits amid a failure to fundraise and unpaid debt. They’ve also sued a trust that owns the party’s longtime headquarters in Lansing, which Karamo has declined to use, arguing they should be able to sell the building to pay the party’s debts.
There you have it, today’s GOP. A bunch of grifters from the top all the way down, who act as if they have a divine right to win every election that they contest.
I’m pretty certain Karamo is a true believer in conspiracy, not a grifter.
But I also suspect that there are grounds to claim some irregularities in the vote to remove her. I don’t know what the bylaws of the Michigan Republican Party say, but there is often a specific process for removing officers of an organization. Even if all the state committee members voted to remove her, if they didn’t follow the process agreed upon in the bylaws she has grounds to fight it. I wouldn’t necessarily say she is wrong in claiming the vote was invalid until we know more information. Considering the party lawyer agrees with her on this stance, I will withhold my judgement.
However, being a stickler for technicalities is bad politics. If she was interested in saving face, and continuing to be an important person in the Republican party, she should apologize and resign rather than fight. If she was a grifter that’s probably what she would do. Instead, she is a true believer fighting a holy war. Which means that any opposition, including opposition from within her own party, is only a reason to fight harder.
This isn’t over by a long shot.
Karamo…has indicated she would not respect Saturday’s vote, setting the stage for a potentially messy court battle over party leadership.
#Bone4Tuna with that claim…the Supreme Court established a long time ago that political parties are PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS, and can govern themselves pretty much as they please; and no one has any legal right or entitlement to hold any office within it. She MIGHT have a case if the party had acted in violation of their own written rules; but private organizations can change their own rules too.
It’s one of an infinite number of variations on the old Blood Libel. This might help.
One of the most memorable Law and Order episodes I ever saw had to do with organ harvesting, but it was an adult’s kidney, IIRC. I guess children’s organs are more popular these days.
Stated this way, it seems a reasonable way out of their debt. Sell, downsize, reconvene in a more modest and affordable location. But…
It’s not even their property.
And this I think is what Mano referred to when calling them grifters.
@Matt G, who wrote,
They grow on you.
Give them credit; where else can one find such a collection of freakish beliefs and plain stupidity?
I mean, Kristina Karamo surely qualifies.
And what, nobody made the Karen Kristina Karamo joke yet?
If I (who is annoyed by that overloading of a perfectly ordinary name) thought of it, it can’t be that far off.
(Um, not everyone is halfway cluey; KKK are not insignificant signifiers, semiotically speaking)
Actually, John M., as Kristina Karamo is black, that joke is in rather poor taste and falls pretty flat.
She’s a republican because she holds ultra-religious beliefs and had bought in to some really deep conspiracy theories. She got elected because of her passion, and because there are a lot of people who felt disenfranchised with the current political system and believe that their own lack of success is due to others actively working against them, i.e. paranoia. (Lack of success because the system is biased against them is something the far-right republicans do not consider for an instant. USA! USA! USA!) There was probably also frisson of white republicans thinking that we can show the liberals we aren’t racist by electing a black person as state party chair.
There isn’t any evidence that she is racist. She could be, but I have heard no whisper of any evidence that she is, and I live in Michigan and follow the politics.
flex:
Does it? Or does it get even spicier?
(Black, eh? Don’t forget the current style is to capitalise Black, unlike white, which is not capitalised)
Anyway, I have no idea of what she looks like or where she comes from; this is the first time her existence has impinged on my consciousness, and obviously I’m hardly gonna Google the stats on someone merely because they are featured here. The facts at hand suffice: MAGA, GOPper, weird beliefs.
The facts at hand suffice: MAGA, GOPper, weird beliefs.
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But fine, not appropriate, just because she’s a MAGA and GOPper with weird beliefs.
I was going by the KK bit, one more K fits. But she’s black (Black!), so no worries.
Black people, by some definitions, cannot be racist. Not my definition, but then, I’m not USAnian.
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I didn’t think she was, particularly. Nor did I say she was, it was a play on initialisms.
You know, hateful goddist Christian freaks. But you do have a point, the KKK was racist, and (again) Black people can’t be racist, by the USAnian definition of racism.
Still.
Karen, yeah? The term which I reject, and to which I particularly object on linguistic grounds among its other aspects (the overloading), but which does not entail racism in itself, to most people or to me.
Oh? Sorry to hear that, you have my pity.
I live in Queensland.
John: The fact that you felt a need to explain your joke pretty much proves flex’s point about it.
Heh. Either that, or it proves that flex did not get it and I had to explain it, Arbee.
(Nor was it a “ha ha” joke, it was initialistic linguistic drollery. Shall I explain it further to you?)
[phonetically, Karen Carpenter is also a KK. But I would never ever make such a snide comment about her.
OTOH, she was not
blackBlack, so that aspect would not be applicable]Well, I see I’m not alone in linking the GOP (groper party, I take it) with the KKK.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/racist-republicans-donald-trump/
“The KKK did not choose to support Donald Trump because he was a Republican—but because they agreed with the ideas that he and other far-right politicians spout.”
A triple post in response to a single observation. Someone sure is easily nettled.
Nettle me some more, Holms. Go on. Been missing my remoras.
So, even I have heard of Uncle Tom.
(And, of course, I’ve heard of Clarence Thomas. And of… (checks) Diamond and Silk)
And, now, I have heard of Kristina Karamo.
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I mean, I freely admit I had zero idea that the specimen at hand was Black.
(Kinda shows I’m not USanian, to whom these things matter)
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And, +1, Holms.
(You know to what I refer)
John,
I did not expect you to automatically know she was black, I know you live in Australia. Nor did I expect you to automatically google her to find out. Finally, I do know that the appearance of the republican party, especially as the US media projects it abroad, is that they are almost exclusively white and largely racist. So your assumptions are understandable and forgivable.
Further, if you want any citizen of the USA to understand that you are simply mentioning alliteration when referring to the KKK, you will need to specifically say that. Even then you will be miss-understood. The string of letters which is KKK is synonymous in usage with violent, anti-Black, racism. Even if you made a suggestion that you were trying to say, “Krazy Klown Kar”, most people will read it as violent, anti-Black racism.
Finally, anyone can be racist. The color of their skin does not matter. But I’ve never heard of a black person joining the KKK. The Dave Chappelle skit, which you may not have seen, about a black man who joins the KKK because he is blind and doesn’t know that he is black is disturbing on many levels. First, it suggests that an organization of racist white men would accept a black man who was racist as a leader as long as he shares their racism, which is absurd. Second, it suggests that a black man would join an organization which has such a well established record of murdering people of his skin color, which is also absurd. But finally, it suggests that the personal awareness of one’s skin color is what determines racist beliefs, which is also absurd and can be seen as a rather derogatory view of that character. Whether a person finds all that absurdity funny or not likely depends on how familiar they are with the horrors of both overt and systematic racism within the USA. I can understand why Dave Chappelle thought it was funny, from the absurdity, but that skit made light of things people take very seriously. That’s not a bad approach, to make fun of the things people take seriously, but there is always a risk when doing so that the joke doesn’t work. When that happens a comedian should retire the joke, not complain about his audience.
As far as black vs. Black, there are grades of differences depending on usage. If you are specifically talking about skin tone, “black” can be used. If you are talking about culture, then “Black” should be used. If you are uncertain, and there is a large grey area, use “Black”. Most people will be able to tell by context if you are being respectful of a person or not. That matters a lot more than spelling.
I do appreciate your advice, flex. Really.
As for Dave Chappelle, I tried to watch his “comedy” some years ago, before he was seen as noxious.
Did not work one bit for me.
Should, eh? What if it keeps making them money? How exactly does that entail their jokes are failing?
Here’s the thing: different people find different things amusing, and shitty comedians like him are still successful.
(de gustibus and so forth)
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Regarding the orthography of black vs. Black, I did research it, back when it was mentioned here.
Style guide stuff. I mean, to me it doesn’t matter one whit, but I do like to get the form correct.
(https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php)
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Finally:
I reckon ‘respect’ is something earned, not a given.
And over-rated, in that weaker form where it’s supposed to be a default setting.
(Honesty is more important, IMO — and fake respect is particularly insulting to me)
I expect it’s for the adrenochrome. Of course they could just synthesise it, but where’s the fun in that?
John,
Style guides are fine. Use them. There are a lot of nuances within a dialect, and no one is going to be very upset with you if you make a mistake, or if you follow a guide which specifies certain forms. They may get irritated if you start lecturing them on a dialect form which you are clearly not as familiar with as the user.
As for Chappelle, I don’t find him very funny, but I don’t consider myself the arbitrator of other people’s humor. If other people find him funny, that’s fine with me. What happened a few years ago was that while some people found him funny, other people had an issue with some of his humor, i.e. they found it insulting. What Chappelle could have done was to apologize to the people who found it insulting, explaining that he understands their concerns but that he and the people who laugh at his humor do find it funny so he will keep telling those types of jokes. Instead, he insulted the people who had concerns about his humor, said that his jokes were funny, and that it was the listener’s fault for not thinking the joke was funny. I’m not saying that he needed to take either approach. I will say that the people who had issues with his humor wouldn’t have gotten quite as mad if he hadn’t insulted them. The reason he plays mainly to right-wing audiences these days isn’t because his humor isn’t funny, but because he doesn’t acknowledge that some of his jokes are not funny to some audiences. I submit that he should probably take a good look at his audience, because while he is trying to use sophisticated, self-referential, humor taking subtle jabs at Black culture, I don’t think his current audience is picking up on that. I fear that his current audience is simply getting their existing prejudices reinforced.
Finally, as far as respect goes, you and I have different approaches. I feel that even the most obnoxious, irritating, ignorant, blowhard deserves respect. I feel that way for a number of reasons. Possibly the most important reason is because while I don’t believe we have free will, I do believe people can change. One of the first steps toward changing someone else’s mind is to show them respect. Calling them an idiot generally only reinforces the belief you are challenging. Letting a person know that you don’t think that they are an idiot, but that some of their beliefs may further consideration has been far more effective for me than just telling them they are an idiot. I know I won’t change someone’s mind during our conversation, but by showing them respect I have had people come back to me and say they thought I had some good points. You may not be interested in changing people’s minds, that’s fine. If the way you enjoy yourself is through trolling, that’s you. There are other reasons I try to show respect for people, animals, and things; but that is one of the more important ones.
I’m not certain what you are saying here. Maybe because I don’t really understand different levels of respect. I do not respect ex-President Obama more than I respect you. I admire the actions Obama has taken and appreciate the good he has done in the world, while deploring the actions he took which I believe made the world worse. I don’t admire your actions mainly because I don’t know what actions you have taken. But I respect you in that you have agency, you can think for yourself. You don’t need me telling you how to think or live your life. That I feel that your thoughts and opinions are worthy of reading, that is a form of respect. You are an internet voice which presents itself in a snarky, pedantic manner (I’m often pedantic myself). But this internet voice gives me no indication how pleasant or irritating you might be in person, or what good or ill you personally have done in the world. By default I presume you have tried your best to do what is good according to your lights. I know of no one, outside of penny-dreadful villains (and their successors in entertainment), who doesn’t try to do good according to their own viewpoint. The same people may hold bigoted views of other people or races, and perform incredibly harmful acts on them, but they are still trying to do good according to their perception of good. Kissinger and McNamara thought they were doing good. That’s a sad commentary on humanity, but it seems to be true.
I don’t have a desire to change your opinion/approach toward showing respect, I know a lot of people who profess the same opinion of respect as you do. This doesn’t make me better than you, or worse than you, only different. I recognize that my feeling about respect is probably a minority opinion, and it likely does come from a position of privilege. But if it was my position of privilege which allows me to feel respect for everyone, I want to eliminate that privilege by extending it to everyone.
I agree with you about someone showing fake respect. Fawning obsequiousness is generally transparent and abhorrent to everyone other than a narcissist.
This is not as crazy as you might think. While I don’t know of the KKK admitting a non-white person to their ranks, I do know that black people have nevertheless attended some of their meetings (example). Also, the quoted sentence is simply incorrect when taken in isolation. A great many racists will have some associates from the groups they otherwise sneer at, which they justify by saying their friend is ‘one of the good ones’. The friend need only share or tolerate the racism themselves, and on that note please remember people like Jesse Peterson exist.