Let’s Trump GOP Lies and Smears in the 8th

Dear Friends,

My Republican opponent is a big-time Donald Trump supporter, and now he’s brought Trump-style lies and smears to the 8th Congressional District.

They’ve been calling President Obama a Communist and a foreign-born impostor in the White House for years. But on the same day that Trump finally admitted that President Obama was born in the United States (and then quickly lied by blaming the Birther movement on Hillary Clinton!), my GOP opponent claimed at a Congressional debate sponsored by AARP and NARFE that I had been endorsed by “the Communist Party USA.”

In response, I said that I knew nothing about it, was unaware that the Communist Party USA even existed in this century, and would happily disavow such an endorsement. I am a champion of liberal democracy and hate authoritarian rule of all kinds, like that of Trump’s bosom buddy Vladimir Putin, who jails his opponents, criminalizes the opposition and attacks a free press.

Then I challenged my opponent to call on Donald Trump to disavow the support of David Duke, Jared Taylor, and Richard Spencer, leading racists, white supremacists, Holocaust deniers, and anti-Semites, who have endorsed Trump and are active in building support for his campaign. He declined to do so.

Fortunately, the Washington Post the next day published an article debunking and discrediting the whole thing. "False Claim of Endorsement by Far-Left Party Lobbed at Raskin," read the headline, which reported on these "baseless" claims. 

Communism is a dead ideology, but racism isn’t, white supremacy isn’t, anti-Semitism isn’t, sexism and misogyny are not. They’re alive and well in the Trump campaign. Authoritarian despotism is flourishing all over the world, and if you find a strong-man tyrant, you have found a friend of Donald Trump and the monstrous new Alt-Right formation that is powering his candidacy.

My friends, I am spending every waking minute I have, in the evening and through the weekends, campaigning over the next 49 days to save American political democracy from takeover by the King of Debt and Sweetheart Deals and the Alt.Right movement fueling his rise to power. We are campaigning for a clean sweep in Maryland and to help Democrats in razor-close races all over the country.

Let us resolve to stop the rise of this would-be autocrat and to meet every lie of theirs with greater resolve and more organizing!