Message Received: What California Can Learn From Texas Ahead of Tuesday's Primary

History will pose the question: how on Earth did authoritarianism come to fruition within the two-party American system of government? 

After all, it should seem obvious that the American people should have opposed this rising fascist movement. Sure, as history showed, there would be those who would attach themselves as a way to protect their whiteness and punish the "other." But by and large, even the most apolitical of citizens should have seen the threat and voted appropriately. They may not have been lifelong Democratic Party voters, but the expectation was that in the face of a political party fully embracing fascism, every day American voters would recognize the threat and vote accordingly. When that didn't happen once but twice, there clearly was something fundamentally wrong with our electorate. Were we, as Americans, actually in favor of replacing 240 years of democracy with authoritarian rule? Or were there other, more sinister factors at play that unknowingly influenced the way in which people voted during that time? 

Based on what we've seen and what we continually learn, there can be no doubt that the answer is the latter. From The New Republic:

A Democratic House candidate running in Texas raised eyebrows when she promised to turn an ICE detention facility into a “prison for American Zionists.” It turns out she was bankrolled by a major GOP fundraiser.

Maureen Galindo’s candidacy was anything but normal: The sex therapist faced national criticism for her antisemitic remarks, which involved pledging to turn ICE centers into “castration processing” facilities “for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists.”

Galindo nonetheless shocked state Democrats when she placed first in the March 3 primary—although not by enough to avoid a runoff.

Shortly afterward, Galindo’s small campaign—which had just a few thousand dollars in the tank—was infused with nearly $1 million from a mysterious super PAC, Lead Left, which was formed on April 24. The enormous donation forced Democrats to contend with the possibility that Galindo could actually win the Democratic nomination in Texas’s 35th congressional district, which was recently gerrymandered in order to heavily favor Republican candidates.

Lead Left went to great lengths to conceal the identities and political affiliations of its backers, though it proudly announced on its website that it “stands against MAGA extremists who will infect our country with Donald Trump’s agenda.” New reporting, however, reveals that’s not so likely.

Galindo’s windfall came by way of Caleb Crosby, the treasurer of the Congressional Leadership Fund, which serves as the primary super PAC of the House Republicans, Judd Legum reported via his Popular Information substack Wednesday. Crosby also serves as the treasurer of the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC for Senate Republicans.

Several details ultimately tie Crosby to the fundraising venture: Some of his other entities, connected to his political compliance firm Crosby Ottenhoff Group, share the same address as Lead Left, according to Legum.

Nebraska Public Media also found that the original Lead Left website included a snippet of code that linked out to WinRed, the predominant Republican fundraising website.

But the race to fill the Texas House seat isn’t the only campaign where Lead Left has inserted itself. The secretive super PAC also intervened in Democratic primaries in critical races in Nebraska and Pennsylvania, and has spent more than $2.4 million to date on political ads targeting Democratic primary races across the country.

Earlier this month, the Campaign Legal Center, or CLC, accused Lead Left PAC of violating federal reporting rules by funneling its money through two newly formed shell companies, Piruzi LLC and OTG Media LLC, in what the CLC claimed was an attempt to “conceal the actual vendors” and undermine “crucial electoral transparency for voters.”

Add Lead Left to the list of ratfucking "far left" groups. 

Because once again, we have Republicans masquerading as Democrats to try to elevate a candidate they knew would lose in the general election. As we learned, Lead Left was founded five weeks ago in the wake of Maureen Galindo's surprise Democratic primary victory in the newly created Texas 35th congressional district. And with her grotesque, antisemitic comments coming to light, the GOP donors behind Lead Left saw an opportunity to boost her candidacy so that she would emerge from the primary in one of Texas's five newly created House districts. Knowing that the district was created solely to benefit Republicans and ensure that Texas picks up five seats, the donors were hoping to guarantee the GOP pickup should Galindo have won last Tuesday's runoff. Fortunately, Texas voters saw through the charade. But nothing is stopping Lead Left and other, similar dark money GOP PACs from continuing to ratfuck their way into Democratic Party primaries. 

Ever since Citizens United, this has been the underlying threat to our democracy. The emergence of these shady, shadow PACs has created an environment where a handful of GOP donors can get together, form a PAC, and then give a seven-figure donation without their names ever seeing the light of day. Fortunately for all of us, the GOP donors behind Lead Left got cocky. They were hoping their subtle little $1 million donation to Maureen Galindo would ensure that she would be able to buy the primary over her less-funded opponent. But the voters of the 35th Texas district were not fooled. Galindo was not only defeated in last Tuesday's primary, but she was pummeled by 27 points. No amount of money could overcome a candidate whose views mirrored those of the Third Reich. Lead Left took a big swing in the district, and their swing was a huge miss, helping Democrats in the district avoid what would have been a huge disaster come November. While the district is still a long shot, the better candidate won, and every race matters during the upcoming midterm elections.

Sadly, there's no way to prevent candidates like Maureen Galindo from running for office. So it is up to us, the voters, to vet them and to vote accordingly. For every Maureen Galindo, there exists a Graham Platner, a candidate who comes out of left field and all of a sudden has support from people who aren't the base of the Democratic Party. The base here is the key part because, as we've seen, white leftists are more than happy to elevate mediocre White men to make themselves feel better. But they're not the base of the Democratic Party. Black women and Black men are. They are the ones voting like their lives depend on it because their lives literally depend on it. When we see other ratfucking groups like DSA or Our Revolution go all in on a candidate, that should be a huge red flag. When they promote billionaire Tom Steyer over Xavier Becerra, we should ask ourselves why. And when new PACs emerge out of the blue and all of a sudden endorse a candidate with a problematic past, that should be a clear and obvious sign that this candidate exists solely to cause chaos within the Democratic Party. 

So while we dodged a bullet with Maureen Galindo in Texas and are stuck with Graham Platner in Maine, there is hope that Californians are recognizing the ratfucking in their backyard before Tuesday's primary. We're seeing a polling shift in Xavier Becerra's favor, and should he emerge from the primary, he will be all but guaranteed a win in November. So, naturally, we're seeing desperation from the "people's billionaire" Tom Steyer, who has spent $213 million of his own money to try to buy the election, as well as $80 million in outside money from groups hoping to sway and influence the state's next governor. The sheer scale of the race has made it unfertile ground for a PAC like Lead Left, but we're still seeing the ratfucking element at play, particularly from Steyer. His latest line of attack has been that Becerra failed to disclose having an influencer as a paid member of his staff, an odd accusation considering that Steyer's own campaign is being investigated for allegedly failing to disclose that it paid TikTok influencer Isaiah Washington $10,000. Steyer's message here is simple: there's no way that Becerra is actually as popular as the polls are showing. It's a bold strategy for the man who has just over 200 unique individual donors with an average donation of $575,000.

These races in Texas and California exemplify what Democrats have had to fight off over the past decade. From antisemitic candidates to super secret GOP PACs to billionaires trying to buy races, the Democratic Party has faced an onslaught from all angles. Because when you're the only party standing between the country and a fascist takeover, you are in a position where your opponent will do whatever it can to achieve victory. As we've seen, that includes masquerading itself as one of your own. Democrats are fighting a multi-pronged war to safeguard our democracy, and we must understand that just because someone has a "D" next to their name, that doesn't mean they're one of us. Vetting both candidates and the PACs supporting them is now a must-do for those of us who will be voting in Democratic primaries over the next three months. There are fantastic candidates this cycle, but there are also your Maureen Galindos, Graham Platners, and Tom Steyers out there ready to bring the entire party down. We had success last Tuesday in Texas. Let's hope for that same success tomorrow in California. 

And let's continue to watch out for GOP ratfucking in the months ahead.