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Opinion
The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
The other day, in one of his many appearances on right-wing and MAGA-oriented podcasts, Republican congressional candidate Joe Kent brought up an unexpected subject: light rail.
“We have kind of a local issue here, the Columbia River crossing,” Kent explained to the national show the “War Room,” hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. (Side note: Shouldn’t he be in jail?)
Kent was explaining to Bannon the dynamic in his race for the 3rd Congressional seat of Southwest Washington, in which he keeps getting called an “extremist” by Democrats and others. But, he said, what’s really extreme is the idea of putting light rail on an I-5 bridge connecting Vancouver with Portland.
“That would be an antifa superhighway into our district,” Kent said as Bannon nodded along. “It would be a superhighway for crime.”
I’m highlighting this because of how unhinged it is — mass transit is bad because it’s an antifa vector? But also how remarkable it is to have a major party congressional candidate making such blunt cultural appeals, targeted to his own base, only two weeks or so out from a general election.
I’ve noted this before: That political candidates used to come out of primary elections and then pivot toward the broader middle. But there is no pivot anymore, especially on the right.
Out, for good maybe, is the kind of scripted, coalition-building tones typified by politicians like Barack Obama. In is riffing whatever’s on your primal mind, no-holds barred — even if that’s antifa mobilizing on a train.
“If someone like that can win in a district like this, it sends a message that there is no limit, right?” New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg said about Kent and the 3rd Congressional District last month. “There is no kind of limiting principle on how far Republicans can go. (But) if somebody like that loses in a district like this, it says to the Republican Party that kind of this extreme Trumpism is a — is an electoral dead end in a lot of the country.”
Kent right now is favored to win.
We’ll have to see if this stuff works on a broader general election audience. At the same time, the Democrats’ approach is to play it safe and bland.
Maybe that’s because the democratic socialist wing of the party, ascendant a few years ago, has been more or less silenced. This is in part because, unlike with MAGA challengers who have won some primaries on the right, all the democratic socialist challengers in Washington lost.
Democrats are on the defensive. Example: The one socialist-adjacent representative around here, Seattle U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, just had her head lopped off for suggesting, in a letter, that the U.S. ought to keep supporting Ukraine but also seek to negotiate an end to Russia’s war with that country.
Her request seemed kind of mild to me, even anodyne. But the incident shows the asymmetry of the languages of two parties. Because Jayapal’s anti-war view was instantly shushed.
There was one person on the local scene who backed Jayapal, though. It will be cold comfort to her. It was none other than . . . Joe Kent.
“Kudos to Jayapal and the progressives for this bold move,” said Kent, who, as a vet of the Iraq War, is now even more anti-war than he is anti-rail. On war he meets up with the far left on the back side.
I think what’s happening here is Donald Trump smashed the political speech rules — for Republicans. It’s anything goes with them. It’s not only that the old rules no longer apply, but breaking the rules is the new rule. Even if what comes out is false — or is nuts like antifa on the train — the point is to create a contrast with the scripted messaging of old.
Will that work? Republicans are rising right now. But Trump never got to 50 percent of the vote. In this state, you need to appeal to a messy majority to win a general election. So we’ll see.
But if it does in any major way, it’s going to alter the way politicians talk to us for years to come.
