‘Krazy Kari’ Lake’s Fake ‘Ask Me Anything’ Tour

by

Just as the Russians are conducting staged elections in Ukraine this week, “Krazy Kari” Lake is conducting staged events with her supporters, pretending that they are open to members of all political parties and even the “enemies of democracy,” as this demagogue likes to call the “evil” reality-based media.

The alternate reality media, Trump propaganda outlet Breitbart reports, WATCH: Arizona Republican Kari Lake Launches ‘Ask Me Anything’ Tour:

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, launched her “Ask Me Anything” tour Monday and held her first event in Phoenix.

Those who wish to receive updates on the tour can text “Kari” to 70789, or go to Campaign website.

In a video shared on Twitter, Lake announced she was kicking off the tour because her Democrat opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, refuses to debate [this MAGA/QAnon Big Lie election denier conspiracy theorist.]

“My opponent Katie Hobbs’s strategy is to hide from me, hide from the media [that’s rich], and hide from you, the voter. I’m taking a different approach. I’m so excited to announce my “Ask Me Anything” tour,” Lake said.

“Hate me? Don’t trust me? Are you still a little skeptical? That’s fine,” she added. “I signed up for this. I am applying for the job of governor, and you, the voter, are the hiring manager, and this tour is my job interview.”

Lake took the stage in downtown Phoenix on Monday after prayer backstage and answered questions for nearly 45 minutes. The first question for the GOP nominee was why Hobbs, who told the Arizona Clean Elections Commission last week that she would not share a stage with Lake, refuses to debate.

Oh, what were the odds? This staged event was built around the CCEC debate, and the very first question was a softball toss on that very topic from what had to be a “Krazy Kari” campaign worker. FAKE!

“I think the same reason that I won’t box Mike Tyson,” Lake jested. “It would not end well for me, and it won’t end well for her.” 

“Krazi Kari” Lake is full o’ shit. She has a long-standing offer from the lawyers at Blog for Arizona to face our cross-examination, er, questions in a real debate. See, The Chamber of Commerce Gubernatorial Forum Is A Waste Of Money. Let’s Have A Real Candidate Debate (excerpt):

Blog for Arizona has several trial lawyers skilled at cross-examination and a damn site tougher than the softball questions you are going to get from that Chamber of Commerce moderator. We would be happy to host this debate. How about if YOU face us, mean girl? Let us cross-examine, er, I mean question you. I’ll bet we can make you cry. You’re not so tough.

Let’s start with the obvious question that you have been dodging and have failed to answer for several weeks now: “During your primary you alleged that you had evidence of fraud in the primary election before election day, and yet you never took your “evidence” to the proper legal authorities, or to the media. When aked by media reporters to reveal your “evidence,” you refused.”

Anyone familiar with the candidate from “Q,” “Krazy Kari” Lake’s campaign website and her social media musings, can readily discern that she is a White Christian Nationalist.

So the next question she took from one of her supporters was also a softball toss:

Another question concerned attack ads against Lake that highlight her past comments about men and women not being equal. The person who submitted the question asked, “Why do you think this?”

“They run attack ads, and if you’re believing attack ads, and that’s affecting how you vote, then you should know… they’re tricking people with those,” said Lake. “They go, ‘Oh, the voters who are the lower informed voters will fall for this.’”

“What I was saying in a speech I was delivering to young women was we are not the same. Men and women are different,” she continued. “Women are created for certain reasons, and men are created for others, I think we all get that. We’re not equal in a sense of a man can’t have a baby, even despite what the left says.”

Who exactly, “Krazi Kari,” who on the “left”? This is Donald Trump’s bullshit move of saying “some people say” or “a lot of people say” – when no one is actually saying it.

After a round of applause, she said, “We are equal in America, and we should be treated equally when it comes to the workplace,” adding:

Most men would agree, that they can’t do the things that women can do. Men aren’t equal to women either. And women aren’t equal to men. We are complimentary to one another. That’s how God made us. But they took that part out, they tried to make it an attack ad. The funny thing is everybody who watches that ad says ‘well she’s right, they aren’t the same. Men and women aren’t the same.’ But what I do believe, obviously you are going to find occasional men who can do typical women’s things better and vice versa. You might find a woman whose really good at something men are typically good at and we have the ability to live that life here. If you want to make it in a man’s career that typically men go into, as a woman you have right to enter that career and you can do that and vice versa. And that’s why we have such a great equality in our workforce and we need to treat people equal in the workforce. And I find it very ironic that Katie Hobbs is running that ad when she has actually been proven twice in a court, unanimously by two juries, to not treat women equally to not treat people of color equally. She’s trying to deflect and make look it like I don’t, and I believe in equality for all, absolutely. But I have still yet to see a man who has baby. 

You will note that “Krazi Kari” Lake studiously avoids discussing a woman’s reproductive freedom and freedom of choice in family planning matters. That’s because this White Christian Nationalist is an anti-abortion, no exceptions for rape or incest kind of gal.

Dr. Laura Mercer writes, Will Kari Lake enforce a ban on nearly all abortions? Voters deserve to know.

As a physician …I fear that [Kari Lake’s] increasingly veiled stances against abortion could be not just misleading, but harmful and even deadly for Arizona women.

Lake has made many statements on abortion in the past that have raised my concerns considerably as a doctor. Physicians, like the majority of Arizonans, regard abortion as lifesaving health care. Like other forms of health care, we believe decisions around abortion are private and personal, and should be made between women and their trusted doctors, without political interference.

[Y]et Kari Lake has referred to abortion as “the ultimate sin.” Doctors find this label not just wrong, but dangerous. We took an oath to do no harm, and assigning this sort of stigma to standard health care is harmful, at best. We know our patients, we listen to them, and we trust them to make the right decisions for themselves and their health.

We also know that, sometimes, abortion saves women’s lives, either in the immediate or longer term. Health issues aren’t black and white. Complications that seem minor earlier on in a pregnancy can escalate quickly, sometimes even within seconds. A condition that isn’t acutely deadly, such as bleeding, one day could worsen dramatically, causing unnecessary pain and suffering. Health conditions like high blood pressure can turn into a disease called preeclampsia, which can cause kidney failure, liver failure, seizures and even death. Doctors should be able to use the full range of reproductive health care in these instances not only to prevent death but also to avert severe health conditions long before they become deadly.

So when Lake says that she supports exceptions to save the “life” of the mother, doctors have to ask: At what point? She has said, “The mother does have some choices when it comes to her health[…].” But what does “health” mean? How close to the brink of death must a patient be to make that call?

[P]erhaps sensing that most people don’t agree with her past statements on abortion, Lake has seemingly tried to move away from sharing specifics — another practice that makes doctors uneasy as we try to navigate the changing landscape of abortion laws.

Lake said in May that, as governor, she would work to enact anti-abortion legislation, but didn’t give specifics. Her campaign claimed that she supports exceptions from banning abortion for rape and incest. Yet she simultaneously says she supports Arizona’s existing (and conflicting) abortion laws, which do not provide such exceptions for rape and incest. And shortly after becoming the GOP nominee for governor, Lake dodged a question from a reporter asking if she would advocate for more restrictive abortion laws.

Doctors overwhelmingly oppose more restrictions on — and government interference in — abortion care. But if Lake supports extreme bans on abortion, she should give it to Arizonans straight. She should be honest and clear, just as physicians try to be when delivering bad news to patients.

Here is some more fodder for questions that “Krazy Kari” Lake does not want to take at her fake “Ask Me Anything” tour. Key Vakil rhetorically asked at the Copper Courier, Could Anti-Abortion, Election-Denying Conspiracy Theorist Kari Lake Be Arizona’s Next Governor? We’ll Find Out Soon. (excerpt):

Can you support an attempted coup to override the will of Arizona’s voters; embrace a near-total ban on abortion; associate with dangerous conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, and Nazi sympathizers; campaign with an ex-felon who plotted to kill an FBI informant; say it’s “child abuse” to make children wear masks to protect them from COVID-19; falsely accuse the president of “grooming our children” and Democrats of having a “demonic agenda”; call for cameras to be put in classrooms to spy on teachers and students; refuse to enforce federal gun safety laws; threaten to imprison journalistsand your political opponents; and still become Arizona’s next governor?

* * *

Here are 5 things you need to know about Lake:

1. Lake is deeply committed to the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen

Nearly two years after President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in Arizona, Lake continues to spread lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Lake has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, citing the Arizona GOP’s sham forensic audit that actually confirmed Biden’s victory in Maricopa County.

Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence that the 2020 election was not stolen and that Trump’s actions and rhetoric led directly to the violent assault on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, Lake remains committed to the “Big Lie” and has even preemptively made claims about voter fraud in her own race.

During a recent speech, Lake suggested that the only way Robson could beat her was if she had “dead people voting” on her side.

“My opponent, the RINO [Republican in name only], is trying to tell people that she’s doing well and she’s up in the polls, which I guess if you’re counting people who are dead people, she might be,” Lake said. “But she’s not up in the polls, but it makes me think they might be trying to set the stage for another steal.”

[Foreshadowing what she will do when she loses in November.]

“We don’t have the luxury, nor would we want dead people voting on our side, but as long as they’ve got dead people voting on their side, that means we’ve got to go out and vote like our lives depend on it,” Lake added, riling up her supporters.

Dead people quite obviously cannot vote and there has been zero evidence of widespread voter fraud in Arizona involving dead voters or any other voters in recent years.

But by sowing distrust in elections, Lake has set the stage to enact severe changes to voting in Arizona.

Lake wants to end the use of electronic voting machines, permanently end mail-in voting, and end ballot collection practices that are especially beneficial to Tribal and rural voters.

2. She holds radical, anti-abortion views that are out of step with most Arizonans

Lake has said she would support and enforce Arizona’s 1901 pre-Roe ban on abortion, which would ban the procedure in nearly all cases and criminalize doctors who perform it. 

She has also said she believes abortion is the “ultimate sin” and that she would sign a “carbon copy” of Texas’ draconian abortion ban, which bans the procedure after six weeks–before most women even know they’re pregnant.

The Texas law also includes a cash “bounty”payable to anti-abortion vigilantes, who can reside anywhere in the United States, for turning in a woman and her abortion provider for prosecution. (It is based on the fugitive slave acts). Welcome to Gilead, ladies.

Lake also wants to ban medication abortion altogether [e.g., Morning after pills]. “I would very much support banning those types of abortion pills,” Lake told Fox News’ Bret Baier last month.

3. The former TV News anchor uses dangerous rhetoric and has openly associated with conspiracy theorists and extremists

After decades of reading audience-friendly scripts from the teleprompter, Lake has opted to take her campaign in another direction, embracing dangerous and extreme rhetoric.

She has helped sow a baseless, right-wing moral panic over sex, LGBTQ individuals, and “child grooming,” a term used to describe the act of getting close to and building trust with a child or young person with the intent of sexually abusing them. Lake even accused—without evidence— President Joe Biden of promoting a “perverted sexual agenda of grooming our children.”

Needless to say, this is nonsense. So too are Lake’s attacks on drag queens. Lake has criticized drag queens as being dangerous to children and also labeled them “groomers,” even though she spent more than two decades attending drag shows and was herself friends with a local drag queen.

Lake has also campaigned with and paid a convicted felon who schemed to kill an FBI informant. According to campaign finance reports, Lake’s campaign paid Kenneth Ulibari $2,000. Ulibarri, who appeared at multiple Lake campaign events over the past year, pled guilty after the Department of Justice accused him of trying to hire a hitman to kill an FBI informant in 2015. In 2019, he also pled guilty to a separate 2014 charge of battery upon a police officer, according to New Mexico court records.

At a campaign event last August, Lake posed for a photo and video with Greyson Arnold—who has a history of racist, anti-Semitic, and pro-Nazi statements—and far-right conspiracy theorist Ethan Schmid-Crockett, who last year harassed the operators of a store that created wigs for cancer patients over its COVID masking policy. Lake has also posed for photos with Ron Watkins, who spread and amplified the violent QAnon conspiracy theory, and she’s affiliated with multiple other proponents of QAnon.

Other conspiracy theorists embraced by the Lake campaign include state Sen. Wendy Rogers and former Trump aide Michael Flynn.

The MAGA acolyte has also attacked the late Arizona Sen. John McCain and said that the likely Democratic nominee for governor, current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, should be locked up.

Lake’s education agenda could be harmful for Arizonans

One of Lake’s first controversies occurred before she became a political candidate. In 2018, Lake faced backlash after she falsely claimed that the “Red for Ed” educators movement—which advocated for fair pay and more school funding—was “nothing more than a push to legalize pot.”

Lake’s relationship with public education has not improved in the years since. In 2021, she called for schools to institute cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers. Earlier this year, she supported Republican lawmakers who voted to cut public school funding by 16%—a potentially devastating outcome that was only narrowly avoided.

Instead of offering solutions to improve the state’s public schools, Lake has attacked them as “government schools” that have “stifled” educational attainment of students. Instead, Lake wants to direct even more taxpayer funding to charter schools, even as Arizona is already home to the possibly most permissive school voucher program in the country.

Lake supports a “100% Backpack Funding” program that would use state funding to allow parents to send their kid to private schools, charter schools, and neighborhood pods using state funding. Effectively, this would divert more taxpayer dollars to for-profit schools.

Lake also wants to limit teachers’ ability to teach about racism in American history, give parents far more control over curriculums, and align state educational standards with a radically conservative education agenda, known as the Hillsdale 1776 curriculum, which is conservative propaganda. [White Christian Nationalism].

Lake claims the Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum is “factually accurate” and “balanced,” but it falsely depicts America’s founding fathers—even those who owned slaves—as secret abolitionists while depicting actual reformers, including those who sought to end child labor, as anti-American promoters of “group rights.” The curriculum also argues that systemic racism was defeated by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and that the movement’s ideals were “turned [into] programs that ran counter to the lofty ideals of the Founders.”

The curriculum rails against diversity policies, suggests that civil rights sit-ins at Southern lunch counters were unconstitutional, and misrepresents Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideology.

5. Lake has embraced ideas that could put Arizonans in danger of gun violence

Amid a surge in gun violence and countless horrifying mass shootings, Lake not only opposes modest gun safety proposals, but has also said she would flat out refuse to enforce any federal gun safety laws.

“When I’m Governor, Arizona will not recognize unconstitutional Gun Laws in our state. We just won’t do it,” Lake wrote in a June tweet. “What are the Feds going to do? Fly down here and arrest a sitting Governor? Call my bluff.”

OK, have it your way.

Arizona has among the loosest gun laws in the nation, and in 2020, it had the 20th-highest gun death rate in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This round-up only touches the surface of Lake’s agenda. She has also embraced extreme ideas and rhetoric on other issues, including immigration and public health.

I encourage real voters and reality-based repoters to crash “Krazy ‘Kari” Lake’s fake “Ask Me Anything” tour and force her to face real questions that she does not want to answer, and not those canned softball questions from her campaign supporters. Watch how fast she gets angry and turns on you with her “nasty girl” attacks. Expose this fraud for who she really is. Save Arizona from this extremist.




5 thoughts on “‘Krazy Kari’ Lake’s Fake ‘Ask Me Anything’ Tour”

  1. GQP – We’re about Freedom!

    Also GQP – You are going to be a Christian. Like it or not.

    Me – Which if the 600 strains of Christianity in the USA are we going with?

    GQP – We’ll use 2A remedies to sort that out, like the Bible says. Unitarians will be first to go, and Quakers. And for sure no Catholics or Mormons.

    Jews – Abortion is allowed in our religion.

    GQP – Oh, we’ll get to you folks, top of the list, even before Muslims, don’t you worry!

    Me – I’m not drunk officer, I’m Pentecostal. Slabbydurpbaday. Hic.

    Jesus – I’m imaginary.

    Satan – Me too. 🙁

  2. “As Midterms Loom, Right Wingers Are Revving Up the Faithful with Talk of Religion and Guns”, https://www.thetrace.org/2022/09/christian-nationalism-guns-election/

    After the FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on August 9 as part of an investigation into the alleged mishandling of classified documents, right-wing candidates for state office across the country took to their fringe social media pages. They posted that the federal government needs to be reined in and even called for the FBI to be abolished.

    Kari Lake, a gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who won the GOP primary in August after being endorsed by Trump, issued a statement on Telegram and TruthSocial, Trump’s new social media platform, calling the federal government “tyrants” and an “illegitimate, corrupt Regime” that hates America. “If we accept it, America is dead,” Lake wrote. “We will not accept it.”

    [GQP] candidates in Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, among a slew of others, are major influencers in this fringe ecosystem. And they are making connections between the 2020 election — which they claim was stolen — Christian nationalism, and gun rights.

    The Trace reviewed their campaign platforms, public appearances, posts on fringe websites and social media, analyzed engagement with their supporters, followed their newsletters, and closely tracked right-wing events and media. We found that their rhetoric mixes Christian nationalism with armed rebellion — presenting a threat that extremism experts do not take lightly.

    The groups that participate most in these spaces, which include The Proud Boys, Stop the Steal, and Christian nationalists, draw attention to a stew of political issues including supposed election fraud, abortion, school curricula, and COVID-19 restrictions. Most of these groups “prioritize Second Amendment rights, and will continue to do so, especially as things seem increasingly urgent to them,” said Dr. Amy Cooter, a senior research fellow at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at Middlebury College, where she focuses on anti-government sentiment, militias, and Christian nationalism. “There’s distrust in the system and a sense of unfairness that will all feed into each other and make a perfect storm of factors headed into the next election cycles.”

    Last month, a poll by the University of Chicago found that nearly one third of surveyed Americans believe that they may soon have to “take up arms” against the U.S. government. Breitbart, a far-right news site that incorrectly claims the 2020 election was fraudulent, picked up on the poll, and followers quickly voiced their expectations of civil war. “It means there’s no political solution to entrenched corruption when elections are clearly rigged and the existing parasite class is clearly corrupt,” one comment read. Another said: “So Asymmetrical warfare and guerrilla warfare is the Patriot response! Must be!”

    Guns, largely because of their ubiquity in America, are the weapon of choice of domestic extremists, according to a new report by the Center for American Progress. “Radicalized individuals who are emboldened by the gun lobby and far-right politicians often have far too easy access to firearms and greatly contribute to the rise in domestic extremism,” the report states.

    Candidates for governor, secretary of state, and other state-level offices — many of whom emerged in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, when Stop the Steal provided something of a unifying principle for the far right — are using moral, religious language, and campaigning on issues that resonate with their base.

    “They flesh out what messages are going to be appealing to a mass audience,” said Cooter.

    The Christian nationalist movement does not take an inherently anti-government, anarchist position, but rather espouses an unwillingness to accept an elected administration that, as adherents see it, betrays their Christian values, in terms of abortion, sex education in schools, and guns. While Christian nationalism has existed for generations in the U.S., the 2020 election has so far proven to be a catalyst for far-right ideologies to seep into mainstream GOP thinking.

    “All of this is about a sense of loss and unfairness, and it’s really easy to paint a target on a specific agency or individual who is seen as promoting if not causing that kind of threat,” Cooter added. “There’s still a tendency for pundits or others to talk about this as an issue of the fringe or a handful of extremists. I’m afraid that the more we simplify it in that direction, the more we’re going to miss the scope of the problem.”

    The nexus between these issues has been apparent in the ReAwaken America tour, which launched in the spring of 2021. . . Headlined by former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, the ex-Army general who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017 about contacts with a Russian ambassador, the tour brings together Christianity, antipathy toward COVID-19 restrictions, claims of election fraud, and other hot-button conservative issues. Speakers may vary in their focus, but many of them call on audience members to reject the legitimacy of the current federal government.

    Frequent speakers include Mark Finchem, Kari Lake, Kristina Karamo, and Doug Mastriano, who are all Trump-endorsed, right-wing politicians running for offices that control state and local elections. All claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and some have ties to extremism. Finchem previously associated himself with the Oath Keepers militia. Mastriano spent $5,000 of campaign funds paying Gab, the alternative social media network known as a hotbed of racism and the alt right, for “consulting.” Local news media recently reported that Mastriano’s security team is armed and not certified with state authorities, and one member was listed as a regional leader of the Oath Keepers.

    The Trace reached out to each political candidate to ask about their ties to extremism, why they are participating in events that spread misinformation, and if they could clarify their views on Christian nationalism. None responded to requests for comment.

    The tour takes place in churches and features at least 14 pastors, including one who has called for President Joe Biden’s to be held for “treason.” Other speakers include January 6 participants, Eric Trump, and several financiers of election fraud claims who have been subpoenaed by the House January 6 Select Committee, like Patrick Byrne, Mike Lindell, and Roger Stone. New York State Attorney General Letitia James wrote a letter to Flynn and the tour’s founder, Clay Clark, saying the August event in Batavia, New York, could “could spur extremist or racially motivated violence.” The letter referred specifically to speakers’ promotion of “white nationalist ideals” linked to the Great Replacement Theory, which James noted had inspired a mass shooting this past May in Buffalo, where 10 people were killed and three more were injured.

    “Christian nationalism isn’t a religion, it’s a political worldview,” the Reverend Nathan Empsall, executive director and head of campaigns at Faithful America, an online community of Christians organizing for social justice causes, told The Trace. Events like the ReAwaken America tour, he said, play on people’s sense of fear and distort religion to fit their messaging.

    An earlier statement from a grassroots initiative called Christians Against Christian Nationalism, signed by over 25,000 people, criticized the ideology underlining the ReAwaken America Tour. “Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State,” read the statement, “and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation.”

    Candidates including Kristina Karamo and Mark Finchem also appeared alongside priests, “researchers,” and “fighters” at another event that took place in August, in Detroit, called the Church Militant Convention, organized by a far-right website espousing Catholicism alongside highly politicized news, videos, and articles. (The Southern Poverty Law Center designated the website as a hate group for its anti-LGBTQ language.)

    There is much more in this report.

  3. Poliitco reports, “Most Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation”, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/21/most-republicans-support-declaring-the-united-states-a-christian-nation-00057736

    Christian nationalism, a belief that the United States was founded as a white, Christian nation and that there is no separation between church and state, is gaining steam on the right.

    Prominent Republican politicians have made the themes critical to their message to voters in the run up to the 2022 midterm elections.

    [A]ppeals to Christian nationalism have a long tradition in American history, though they have usually operated on the fringes. But the increasingly mainstream appearance of this belief in GOP circles makes sense if you look at new public opinion surveys. Our new University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll suggests that declaring the United States a Christian nation is a message that could be broadly embraced by Republicans in the midterms and 2024 presidential race. But our findings also see limits to its appeal — and over the long-term, Christian nationalism could be a political loser.

    Most Republicans Say Christian Nationalism Is Unconstitutional — But Still Support It

    Our national poll included 2,091 participants, carried out May 6-16, 2022, with a margin of error of +/- 2.14 percent.

    We started by asking participants if they believed the Constitution would even allow the United States government to declare the U.S. a “Christian Nation.” We found that 70 percent of Americans — including 57 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of Democrats — said that the Constitution would not allow such a declaration. (Indeed, the First Amendment says Congress can neither establish nor prohibit the practice of a religion.)

    We followed up by asking: “Would You Favor or Oppose the United States Officially Declaring the United States to be a Christian Nation?” The findings were striking.

    Overall, 62 percent of respondents said they opposed such a declaration, including 83 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of Republicans. Fully 61 percent of Republicans supported declaring the United States a Christian nation. In other words, even though over half of Republicans previously said such a move would be unconstitutional, a majority of GOP voters would still support this declaration.

    Not surprisingly, much of the support for declaring the U.S. a Christian nation comes from Republicans who identify themselves as Evangelical or born-again Christians: Seventy-eight percent of this group support the move compared to 48 percent of other Republicans. Among Democrats, a slight majority of those identifying themselves as Evangelical or born-again Christians also backed such a declaration (52 percent), compared to just 8 percent of other Democrats.

  4. White Christian Nationalists “Krazy Kari” Lake and Mark Finchem have an antisemitism problem.

    E.J. Montini writes, “Kari Lake mimics Mark Finchem’s antisemitic denial of antisemitism”, https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2022/09/22/kari-lake-mimics-mark-finchem-antisemitic-denial-antisemitism/8079367001/

    Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for Arizona governor, doesn’t like it when someone points out her campaign’s thinly cloaked antisemitic rants, some of which are aimed at her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs, while others are posted, seemingly, just for fun.

    But they are what they are.

    Lake, like her kooky conspiracy cohort Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state, is constantly bringing up the name of George Soros, which she knows is a Jew-hating dog whistle for the antisemitic base of the Trump-controlled GOP.

    Last week, as part of a column about Lake, I noted Finchem’s latest antisemitic trope.

    He published a tweet reading, “Democrat politicians on the ballot in Arizona are liars and deceivers. They want total control over you and our state. Their loyalty is to George Soros and Mike Bloomberg. They want Arizona to be like California. Do not be deceived.”

    Antisemitic tropes are a campaign strategy

    In response, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix, tweeted, “@RealMarkFinchem: your reliance on #antisemitic tropes to spearhead your campaign is an embarrassment to the majority of #Arizona residents.”

    He’s not alone.

    Using antisemitic tropes is the strategy of the entire top end of the Arizona GOP’s slate of candidates.

    Lake’s “war room” seems irritated when this is pointed out, tweeting recently, “George Soros is currently funding radical candidates like @katiehobbs & @krismayes. The media needs to stop using Soro’s religion as an excuse for the poor quality of his character. Soros isn’t awful because of his religion. He’s awful because he’s pro-crime & open borders.”

    My, my.

    Touchy, aren’t we?

    Lake knows that Hobbs and Mayes and other Democratic candidates get their campaign donations from hundreds of different individuals, as do many other candidates, both Republicans and Democrats.

    Why mention George Soros so often?

    But the name that keeps coming up in Lake’s tweets, and those of Finchem and others (like Wendy Rogers) is … Soros. With an occasional Bloomberg tossed in.

    That’s because candidates like Lake and Finchem are counting on the support of a xenophobic, antisemitic base.

    That’s also why Lake recently mimicked Donald Trump, telling a campaign gathering, “The media might have a field day with this one, but I’m just going to repeat something President Trump said a long time ago and it got him into a lot of trouble. They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime. And they are rapists and that’s who’s coming across our border. That’s a fact.”

    Republican U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters holds a similar view, speaking of an “invasion” on the border and espousing the racist “replacement theory.”

    Kari Lake’s friends say a lot about her

    When the white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Va., they chanted “Jews will not replace us,” and “You will not replace us.” Remember how Trump said there were “very fine people” on both sides of that horror show?

    On its website the Jewish Defense League says, “Since many white supremacists, particularly those in the United States, blame Jews for non-white immigration to the U.S. the replacement theory is now associated with antisemitism.

    It’s not just using the Soros trope over and over again, either. Lake endorsed a virulent antisemitic candidate for the Oklahoma Legislature, Jarrin Jackson. She only withdrew the endorsement when her support for Jackson made the news.

    However, her pals Mark Finchem and Wendy Rogers held firm in support Jackson. Just as Lake has held firm in supporting them.

    So, as I’ve said before, it all goes back to a wise old saying you probably heard from your parents or a teacher or a coach. Something that puts situations like this in plain English. It goes:

    “Show me your friends and I’ll show you who you are.”

    • You wrote “White Christian Nationalists “Krazy Kari” Lake and Mark Finchem have an antisemitism problem.”

      Actually, they have no problem being anti-Semitic.

Comments are closed.

%d bloggers like this: