A tale of two parties

Democrats still believe there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. Republicans don't.

Shelly Headen, left, and Mark Robinson, right.

Democrats have momentum heading into the midterms, with an outside chance to even take the NC House. Instead, they've put principle before politics and rejected one of their own in a district they'd need to win the chamber. Shelly Headen, the Democratic nominee in a Guilford County district, made social media posts that called for violence against Trump supporters. She also compared herself to Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, and Lincoln. The House Democratic caucus told The Assembly that she no longer has their support.

Republicans would never have done that. They would have stuck with her, just like they backed Mark Robinson to the end. Just like they are now defending Republican candidates who make vile claims about women and racist comments about their fellow Americans. That’s the moral difference between the two parties. Democrats have lines and Republicans don’t.

Unfortunately, the media holds Democrats to a higher standard. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed can’t go through an interview without a journalist asking about his relationship to Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Republican Ohio Senator Jon Husted quietly parted ways with a campaign staffer who apparently had Nazi sympathies. In Georgia, Republican Congressman Mike Collins hired numerous people with white supremacist views and ties to neo-Nazis, including his son-in-law. Minnesota congressional candidate Eric Pratt had to force out his field director after his social media accounts were found to be full of white supremacist and antisemitic posts. It seems like there’s a pattern here, but none of it is getting the coverage that Piker gets.

Republicans are no longer hiding their bigotry. This weekend, House Speaker Mike Johnson went on CNN and defended a Texas congressional candidate who referred to mothers as “cum trophies” and called Nazi machine guns “the original ghetto blasters.” There’s no way Democrats would support a candidate like that, and if they tried, the story would dominate the news for weeks. With Republicans, it’s a Sunday morning segment that will be history by Monday.

In North Carolina, Republicans nominated Mark Robinson as the candidate for governor. Virtually the entire GOP political establishment endorsed him knowing that he had made antisemitic comments and posts. Even when it came out that he called himself a “black Nazi,” Republicans refused to pull their endorsements. It took salacious porn posts to bring him down, and even then, nobody questioned the associations of people like Congressman Tim Moore or Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger.

There’s a double standard in American media and politics today. Democrats, who are fighting over the direction of the party, get painted with a broad brush when left-wing commentators make inappropriate or controversial statements. Republicans as a whole rarely get called out when their candidates engage in racist, misogynistic, or anti-American behavior.

Still, I’m glad Democrats reject candidates like Shelley Headen. One party needs to have a moral backbone and standards for their candidates even if the other one doesn’t. I think it’s more important for Democrats to condemn the harmful and hateful rhetoric of shock jocks and provocateurs like Piker who want to insert themselves into our politics. The party should be led by pragmatists who span the political spectrum instead of guided by ideologues who alienate too many Americans.

Republicans have lost their core values to the whims of a carnival barker and his troupe of con men like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Loomer. Democrats need to stick to their principles and reject the contemptible. Winning cannot be the core value of the party.