1mo ago

“It Blows My Mind That There’s No Opposition”: When ICE Allies Run Unchallenged

boltsmag.org

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250607002417/https://boltsmag.org/sheriff-elections-virginia-2025/

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This is one of the biggest failings of the democratic party. For too long they've had the "we aren't going to win there anyway" mentality, just ceding the opportunity to represent different thoughts and beliefs and keep the GOP honest.
- I'm not defending the DNC at all, but it is a tough process. Running candidates that lose takes a toll. The candidate is putting themselves at risk, painting a target on their backs, and they have to be passionate and persuasive in their campaign knowing they are going to lose.
  Conservatives are much better at it, primarily because Conservative losers aren't afraid of being lynched, and they're permitted to say whatever bat shit nonsense happens to rattle around in their skull. They aren't required to be consistent or nuanced or honest, so finding sacrificial nazis in progressive regions isn't that hard. Chances are, people in the community already know who they are and what they stand for because bigots aren't usually quiet.
  Progressives have to actually make an argument, one that resonates and establishes a foothold for reason. It's like climbing a muddy slope. Conservatives don't need to reach the summit, they just want to stop you from getting there.
  
  It's also bloody expensive.
  
  I hear you, but I also feel its shortsighted.
  The end result is somebody like MGT - who knows she'll never have to defend herself in a race, so she goes way off the deep end.
  The party is missing opportunities to tell their side of things and challenge the utter nonsense many GOP candidates spew.
  
  I think your argument is sound, but it fails to take into account the disproportionate funding between the sides. A dem needs to run on their own dollar while the mediocre GOP influencer can get set for life money from the Russians.
- It sounds like they wanted to run someone but had trouble recruiting a candidate:
  But Bloom thinks that would-be Democratic candidates were disinclined to challenge a sheriff’s office power structure that tends to be dominated by conservatives, saying, “The people that [party leadership] asked to run were scared; given how conservative law enforcement can be, they didn’t want to blow up their careers.” Unlike other states, Virginia does not require that sheriff candidates have a background in law enforcement.
  And later in the article:
  That no Democrat filed to run in Chesapeake does not surprise Liam Watson, director of Bluegrass PAC, a Virginia group working to fund and elect downballot Democratic candidates in rural areas of the state. Watson, who is also an elected council member in the city of Blacksburg, knows the dynamic well: His own community, Montgomery County, leans blue but has a Republican sheriff.
  “The challenge is finding people who are both qualified and interested,” he told Bolts.
  He and many others noted that the most obvious path to being a sheriff is to work as a sheriff’s deputy, and that there are clear disincentives to challenging an incumbent who could then make your life difficult or fire you if you lose. “Nobody wants to run against their boss,” Watson said.
- They’re just controlled opposition, they and the gop are just two sides of the same coin that is capitalism

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