One would be very hard pressed to find a more ambitious politician who likes people less than Ken Cuccinelli. Arrogant, distant, self-righteous, devoid of empathy, Cuccinelli is the total package when it comes to a candidate you love to hate. Yet and still, the Virginia GOP is a Petri dish for nastiness, with its most recent senate nominee, Corey Stewart, proving outright bigotry was not too low a bar for its state convention attendees to limbo on down to. Cuccinelli was certainly a more polished presence on the stump when he was handled fairly easily by Terry McAuliffe as the Republican gubernatorial standard bearer in 2013, but the arrows in his quiver were just as toxic.
In a shameful testament to off-year voter apathy Virginia voters gave Cuccinelli the nod in the 2010 State Attorney General race. His subsequent shamelessness was as bad as Tea Party governance got. A culture war and pro-life zealot, Cuccinelli enthusiastically recognized anti-sodomy laws still on the books, and equated same-sex marriage with bestiality. Obsessed with sabotaging Obamacare, he became a public face of Red state obstinance toward the law, a regular preening presence on Fox prime time.
Moreover, Virginia taxpayers could sleep tight knowing the state’s top law enforcement official was actually investigating climate change scientists for fraud! Yet and still, while Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin hailed Cuccinelli as “fearless,” and the type of “courageous conservative we need…” to stand against the Obama menace, his futile run for the governorship clarified that ever more blue Virginia had little use for reactionaries like Cuccinelli in any national capacity. So it was off to the wilderness. Until Trump/MAGA.
If there was ever any remaining doubt that Trump is not only willing but determined to foment civil unrest in service to his rabid impulses toward political viability, one need only listen to his Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security – none other than Herr Cuccinelli – not just defend, but actually boast of White House plans to unload federal jackboots on the ground in volatile cities like Portland, Oregon. Were the action anything other than a naked proclamation to the extremism White fear creates, there would be at the very least an effort to communicate with city officials. Instead, Trump vilifies them by Tweet as accomplices to anarchy and lawlessness, daring them to get in his way.
Cuccinelli is the ideal weasel worder to convey such a message, meant solely to excite the wretched core with bold declarations their nastiest inclinations will be reflected toward the scum relentless Fox/AM consumption dehumanized long ago. The rationale is two pronged. First, there is no longer any civil rights component to the protests, and peaceful demonstrators no longer count, it’s Antifa… case closed. Second, we’ll decide as to the need for protecting federal property and whether mayors are up to the task. In Portland, Cuccinelli hissed, the situation amounted to a siege “not made any easier when you have somebody like Mayor (Ted) Wheeler, who holds back, to a certain extent, his own law enforcement. For instance, they don’t allow them to utilize certain nonlethal tactics and so forth. So it makes everybody’s job harder.“
Wheeler’s response? Trump’s actions “will only escalate the situation” and “are a direct threat to democracy.” Portland has seen protests near daily since George Floyd’s murder, and Wheeler, like many other big city mayors, has had to strike a balance between confronting violence and vandalism while respecting why the discontent endures.
Trump only wants to pick a fight and look tough, just the way MAGA likes to see him. That’s now so crudely transparent as to make pointing it out inane. “They are not wanted here,” Wheeler made clear last week of the federal presence, many unidentified. “What’s happening here is, we have dozens, if not hundreds of federal troops descending upon our city. And what they’re doing is, they are sharply escalating the situation.”
Wheeler astutely pointed out that his residents don’t necessarily see any difference between local and federal enforcement. Last Friday federal muscle gassed 300 protesters; they were not in the mood for making distinctions. The good will local police had amassed for patience and restraint quickly dissipated. Now, a weeks-long situation Wheeler believed was finally winding down is rapidly heating up again; of course, that suits Trump just fine. In fact, Portland seems to be reaping so much love from the Hannity and Carlson faithful, Trump wants a national rollout. Chicago. New York, Philly, you name it, wherever disgraceful libs are falling down on the job, the MAGA gestapo will be taking names.
Is there any more stereotypical portrait of ugly authoritarian rule than several thugs jumping out of an unmarked vehicle to snatch up an unfortunate dissident for “questioning”? Like our President it is a caricature that doesn’t deserve explanation because it offers nothing but the obvious, which can only be as bad as it looks, probably worse. That Ken Cuccinelli is now the unapologetic Administration front man for an outrage only our worst would give him the opportunity to crow about, makes perfect sense to anybody familiar with his resume. It also makes it just that much more loathsome. With Cuccinelli you don’t expect much more than additional reasons to detest what he stands for. A new chapter of ruin. Looking past this is not an option we can entertain. BC