Illinois Democratic State Senator's fundraiser features mock assassination attempt on Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

Edit: When I click the link to the article, it tells me that the link is not secure/private. Don't know if anyone else is getting this, and I checked the link to the article (which I found as a Chicago Tribune on Google News) and I'm pretty sure its the correct link, but click at your own risk. I'll provide a second link below.

He claims that its the vendor's fault. You can judge for yourself whether he's a just an incompetent, or deliberately incited violence as a fundraising gimmick.

https://chicagotribune.com/politics/ct- ... story.html

State Sen. Martin Sandoval on Monday blamed a vendor hired to provide music and entertainment at a Friday fundraiser for photos posted online showing a man pointing a fake gun used as a novelty beverage dispenser at someone wearing a mask depicting President Donald Trump.

“I had absolutely no knowledge that this regrettable exchange between one of my 1,200 guests and a third-party vendor even took place,” the Chicago Democrat said in a statement. “Those individuals involved exhibited extremely poor judgment.”

The photos, which were posted to Facebook by a user who tagged Sandoval, sparked swift condemnation from Republicans and Democrats alike after they were first reported by Champaign-based TV station WCIA.

Sandoval issued a statement to the TV station over the weekend. “The incident that took place is unacceptable,” Sandoval said, according to WCIA. “I don’t condone violence toward the president or anyone else. I apologize that something like this happened at my event.”

A political fundraiser for @SenatorSandoval simulates an assassination attempt against a mock @realDonaldTrump decked out in Mexican garb. Looks like a man pointed a fake assault weapon at the fake President to pose for a picture. pic.twitter.com/MlT9zjB1mn

— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) August 17, 2019
The person wearing the Trump mask was from Harvey-based Party District Entertainment, which has provided entertainment at previous Sandoval fundraisers. Sandoval’s campaign fund has paid the company $7,700 since 2017. The company provides costumed characters, DJs and other services for parties and events. The “gun” in the photos was a novelty beverage dispenser.

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“This offensive use of a beverage dispenser was in no way part of any scheduled program,” Sandoval said in his Monday statement. “I had no knowledge of it and neither did my staff. I want to again express my deepest regret that this unfortunate incident took place at (an) event in my name.”

A man named Jose, who declined to give his last name, answered a call at the number listed for Party District Entertainment. The company has used the Trump mask at previous events, and it has not caused controversy, said Jose, who said he was the one in the Trump mask, though he didn’t recall the beverage gun being pointed at him.

After being sent one of the photos, he wrote in a text message: “We have no control on what guests do. In this case I guess the questions should be for this guy (in the photo) which we do not know about.”

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a statement Saturday condemning the pictures and also addressed the issue Monday at an unrelated news conference.

“In this moment especially, political civility is important," Pritzker said Monday. “And we also live in a moment when we’ve seen gun violence proliferate. I think it was important for me to speak out about it; it was important for Sen. Sandoval, as he did, to speak out about it. It’s inappropriate to point even a fake gun at any individual, especially at this moment.”

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The state’s Democratic Party also criticized the images, and made reference to recent mass shootings in Texas and Gilroy, California.

“The tragedies in El Paso and Gilroy have demonstrated how hate-filled political rhetoric can fuel violence,” spokeswoman Maura Possley said. "These images are unacceptable and dangerous. The place to make our voices heard against Trump is at the ballot box.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider called Sandoval’s apology “too little, too late,” in a statement issued Monday.

“Dangerous imagery like this will be condemned and seen as inappropriate by people of sound mind; however, a mentally unstable individual who wants to harm President Trump might find them as an inspiration,” Schneider said. “It’s inexcusable for an elected official to allow the promotion of violence in any way. If the individual pictured is a staffer or volunteer, they should be terminated immediately.”

The story also drew the attention of presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway, who tweeted, “Every Democrat should be asked if they support or disavow this.”

dpetrella@chicagotribune.com

jmunks@chicagotribune.com

Stupid dip shit. Thanks for giving the Republicans an endless resource for "Both Sides" and Whataboutism to screen their white supremacist terrorists.

Enjoy your visit from the Secret Service, asshole.



Second link: https://wcia.com/news/capitol-news/sand ... undraiser/

[Zaune]

I can think of less stupid-sounding promo picture concepts, but otherwise, who the fuck cares anymore? Trump's name has been attached a hell of a lot worse, and his base have actually gone out and killed people for him over it; if anyone claims to actually believe a tasteless joke is somehow "just as bad" they were looking for an excuse to suck up to the fascist movement anyway.

[The Romulan Republic]

I can think of less stupid-sounding promo picture concepts, but otherwise, who the fuck cares anymore? Trump's name has been attached a hell of a lot worse, and his base have actually gone out and killed people for him over it; if anyone claims to actually believe a tasteless joke is somehow "just as bad" they were looking for an excuse to suck up to the fascist movement anyway.

I figured you'd say something like that, but stop and think this through:

First off, if a Republican did this about, say, Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren, we wouldn't be calling it a tasteless joke. We'd be calling it incitement of violence and terrorism, and rightly so. Maybe the context is different, maybe this guy doesn't have the track record of actually acting on violence that the Alt. Reich does, but I do think that consistency is important here.

Secondly, there are, in fact, a lot of Americans who are not die-hard Trump supporters, are not fascists or fascists sympathizers, but who are not most definitely not supportive of a violent uprising or assassination (myself among them*). Those are the people who's support will be needed to defeat Trump. They might not agree that this is "just as bad" as El Paso or Charlottseville- but it will be objectionable and alarming to them, nonetheless. It will make them wary of voting for this Democrat, and any other Democrats who don't distance themselves from him. This kind of posturing is unlikely to actually lead to any harm being done to Trump, but it will do great harm to the people who are actually trying to stop him.

You may just hand wave that away with "anyone who isn't with me is the enemy", but if you do that, you are accepting that the people who are with you are a tiny minority who can never possibly hope to win.

The sad truth is, "Both Sides" works- even on people who aren't fascists. They wouldn't use it so much if it didn't work, or if it only worked on people who are already on their team.




*As I've stated before, I am not an absolute pacifist, and I can see us reaching a point where armed resistance is justified and necessary, but I believe that armed resistance must be the last resort, and that in any conflict, it would be vital for political legitimacy/PR reasons that the other side be the aggressors, not ours'. And I will wait to see the result of the 2020 election and its immediate aftermath before considering any modification to this position.

Also, I would never want Trump dead, by natural or unnatural means. Death is the easy way out, and would potentially make him a martyr. I want him to stand before a court and be tried and condemned for his crimes, and serve the rest of his life in disgrace behind bars for his crimes.

[The Romulan Republic]

Basically, this guy is a dip shit, and I'm not going to give him a pass because he's on "my team". That really would be being just like the Republicans, who's corruption, hypocrisy, and inconsistency on every principle under the rule of the Donald have made it clear as a party that their only real "principle" is "Its okay when we do it."

[Zaune]

You may just hand wave that away with "anyone who isn't with me is the enemy", but if you do that, you are accepting that the people who are with you are a tiny minority who can never possibly hope to win.

Hah. Are you under the impression that I hadn't come to that conclusion a long, long time ago?

[The Romulan Republic]

You may just hand wave that away with "anyone who isn't with me is the enemy", but if you do that, you are accepting that the people who are with you are a tiny minority who can never possibly hope to win.

Hah. Are you under the impression that I hadn't come to that conclusion a long, long time ago?

Then you are mistaken. A majority of the population do not support fascism, and I can quote the stats to prove it. Fascism by its nature makes an existential enemy of the majority of the human race, because it is predicated on hatred of the "Other", and making an enemy of the majority is the one thing that you cannot do in politics (whether democratic, oligarchic, or autocratic) and come out ahead. A tyrant can rule without the love of the majority, as long as he has their acquiesance and apathy, but no system can function for long with the active opposition of the majority. Just like no systemic reform or revolution can be accomplished if it actively spurns the majority as allies. Fascism has only done as well as it has because its good at playing "divide and conquer", because its opposition is divided. A division which actions such as Senator Sandoval's fundraiser deepen.

But even were that not the case, even if fascism did have majority support, fascism is not going to win a final victory. Change is a constant, perhaps the constant of the Universe. The wheel has never stopped turning, and its not going to stop turning now.

What we have to do is pursue the path that leads to the defeat of the Trumpers and their counterparts in other countries by the most effective and least costly route. Preemptively writing off the vast majority of the population for not being pure or extreme enough in their positions does not do that. Frankly, the attitude you seem to be expressing fits the fascists' goals very well. They want people apathetic, they want people hopeless, and they want people lashing out in ways that will further divide the opposition, and deny us the moral high ground. They want every excuse that they can get to convince the moderates that the Left is even worse, even more dangerous than the Alt. Reich. How do you think Trump got elected in the first place? Because enough voters believed that both sides were bad, that voting didn't matter and wouldn't make a difference, so it didn't really matter if a rapist endorsed by the Klan became President.

The view you espouse is therefore an actively counter-productive one. Maybe you think that the world is bad and always will be, so our actions don't matter and we might as well just lash out. I get that feeling. Believe me, I do. But if that is the course the Left takes, then we're not reformers any more. We're not the Resistance.

We're the fucking Joker.

[Broomstick]

I can think of less stupid-sounding promo picture concepts, but otherwise, who the fuck cares anymore?

Making a threat of violence is a violation of law in the US. How bad a violation varies depending on circumstances but ever since JFK had his skull blown apart in Texas the US Secret Service investigates ALL threats to the president brought to their attention, even the jokes. They have zero sense of humor about this.

In addition, the US has recently suffered and even greater than usual of mass shootings. Just this week three people were arreste making threats to shoot people on social media, and those are just the ones making the national news.

We have to stop treating this sort of shit as a "joke", then weeping and wailing about why didn't anyone SAY SOMETHING!.

Trump's name has been attached a hell of a lot worse, and his base have actually gone out and killed people for him over it; if anyone claims to actually believe a tasteless joke is somehow "just as bad" they were looking for an excuse to suck up to the fascist movement anyway.

Congratulations - you have just given someone they excuse they needed. That's what makes it "just as bad". We don't need any more fuel on the fire.

[Zaune]

The view you espouse is therefore an actively counter-productive one. Maybe you think that the world is bad and always will be, so our actions don't matter and we might as well just lash out. I get that feeling. Believe me, I do. But if that is the course the Left takes, then we're not reformers any more. We're not the Resistance.

We're the fucking Joker.

I personally prefer to identify with Wonko the Sane...

But as far as I can tell, it's not so much that a majority of people support the rise of fascism as that a majority don't oppose it enough to actually do anything particularly proactive about it. Lots of people make angry posts on social media when an unarmed black kid gets gunned down for mouthing off to a cop, but a pretty damn small percentage show up to the next city council meeting to protest or volunteer for a campaign to elect someone who's at least heard of the Peelian principles for county sheriff.

And I can't entirely blame them, because keeping your head down and your mouth shut and not drawing attention to yourself is a pretty effective survival strategy if you're not on the new regime's shitlist just for being born. And hey, it's not like all the awful shit is happening to anyone you know, right?

[The Romulan Republic]

The view you espouse is therefore an actively counter-productive one. Maybe you think that the world is bad and always will be, so our actions don't matter and we might as well just lash out. I get that feeling. Believe me, I do. But if that is the course the Left takes, then we're not reformers any more. We're not the Resistance.

We're the fucking Joker.

I personally prefer to identify with Wonko the Sane...

But as far as I can tell, it's not so much that a majority of people support the rise of fascism as that a majority don't oppose it enough to actually do anything particularly proactive about it. Lots of people make angry posts on social media when an unarmed black kid gets gunned down for mouthing off to a cop, but a pretty damn small percentage show up to the next city council meeting to protest or volunteer for a campaign to elect someone who's at least heard of the Peelian principles for county sheriff.

And I can't entirely blame them, because keeping your head down and your mouth shut and not drawing attention to yourself is a pretty effective survival strategy if you're not on the new regime's shitlist just for being born. And hey, it's not like all the awful shit is happening to anyone you know, right?

The thing is, it is happening to more and more people, or someone they know. The Trump Regime, for example, is pretty openly hostile to the interests of people of colour, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, women, poor people, and anyone who holds a different political view to them. That's... very nearly everybody. And that's before we get to the possibility of a recession or a draft happening due to Trump's actions. The trick is getting people to see it, and motivating them to get off their asses.

That's the challenge- to get people off the fence. And while a minority may be fired up by threats of violence, that will be harder to do in most cases if they perceive us, rightly or wrongly, as being just as hateful and violent as the Trumpers.

That is emphatically not to say that we must or should back down, or compromise our principles. Far from it. Voters hate weakness, and nothing has hurt Democrats more than the narrative that we don't really stand for anything, that fundamentally all the politicians are equally corrupt and in it for themselves. That's just another face of the "Both Sides" narrative used to encourage apathy and acceptance, to keep people on the fence. We absolutely have to stand for something, but we have to do it without coming off as violent radicals looking to start a fight. Especially since much of the Democratic Party's rhetoric against Trump has been to attack him for his hate, incitement of violence, and disregard for the rule of law, and draw a contrast to that.