Election Day is only a couple of weeks away. Early voting has started, and over the last week, we’ve seen two instances of political attacks that have stooped lower than anything we should consider acceptable in a free and fair election.

Historically, we have always had candidates who ran attack ads against each other, said horrible things about each other, and dug into their opponents’ pasts to find negative things. To a point, I’m not saying that’s wrong. I think some digging is important, and the American people deserve to know what type of politician they’re getting.

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But these two instances were shocking. One involved pamphlets sent to Texas households by people whose identities remain unknown, drawing attention to transgender issues in the middle of the Senate race between Ken Paxton and James Talarico. The other involved Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign running an ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother calling her daughter a liar.

Both of these actions are egregious in different ways, and I want to go through why I believe they are such horrible acts. But as we do that, I want you to think: how low are people willing to stoop in order to hold onto power?

I want to start with Texas.

Parents received pamphlets addressed to the “student” at their residence. These pamphlets presented themselves as resources for LGBTQ+ students and included information about emancipation and dealing with parents who did not support their identity. (texastribune.org)

Some parents were furious, and I honestly understand why. As a parent, if my child received unsolicited literature discussing separating themselves from parental authority, I would want to know what was going on.

But this immediately raised questions about who would send something like this and why.

The pamphlets directed people to the Transgender Education Network of Texas, known as TENT. That organization said it did not send them. Reporting traced the company named on the mailers, Texas Transgender Student Union, to an LLC established in Wyoming in early September. The pamphlets listed a Houston-area P.O. box, but that did not tell parents who was actually behind the company. (texastribune.org)

Now, that doesn’t sound like the kind of outreach I would expect from a nonprofit trying to help people. Most organizations advocating for trans rights would want people to know who they are and how to reach them. They would want to establish themselves as a resource, not have another organization publicly saying it had nothing to do with the materials being sent out.

And all of this happened just weeks before an election.

So look at who might benefit from this type of brochure going out to parents. I’ll tell you this: if you are trying to reach school-age children, I can think of better ways to do it than through the United States Postal Service.

But if you are trying to get their parents’ attention, that’s a different story.

You happen to have Ken Paxton running against James Talarico in a race where Republican advertising has repeatedly used transgender issues as an attack. FactCheck.org found that Texas PAC ads distorted Talarico’s record by describing his opposition to a broader ban on gender-affirming care as support for taxpayer-funded surgeries on young children. He had supported an amendment that would have limited the legislation to banning surgeries for minors. (factcheck.org)

This is a scare tactic. It is meant to scare Texans away from politicians and policies that could actually benefit them by keeping their attention on an identity-politics fight.

So, with Paxton standing to benefit politically, I believe these mailers came from somebody on the right who wanted to scare Texans out of voting for James Talarico. I don’t have the name of the person who sent them. I’m looking at the timing, the message, and whose political interests that message serves.

Paxton may not have even known about it. That is not the point I’m making. My point is that the fear created by this brochure serves the same political purpose as the attacks being used against his opponent.

Will it work? I don’t know. People’s emotional attachment to their children is primal. We all want to protect our children from outside threats, especially things we don’t understand.

What I find scary is that somebody was willing to send these materials under these circumstances. To me, the message is clear: if you vote for Talarico, this is what you’re voting for. Your children will be pulled into the political battle over transgender people in the United States.

That could scare a lot of people. I believe that was the point.

I want to move to Vivek Ramaswamy and his attack ad on Amy Acton.

His campaign put her mother in a political ad calling Acton a liar and telling people she should not be elected governor. Ramaswamy later confirmed that the ad came from his campaign. (ohiocapitaljournal.com)

But the history behind that relationship matters. Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody as children. Police and court records show that her stepfather was charged with raping her when she was 12 and subsequently indicted. He failed to appear in court and became a fugitive. (news.wttw.com)

The Ohio Capital Journal reported that her stepfather and mother moved to Pennsylvania. According to Acton’s brother, their mother stayed married to the man who raped his sister until the day he died. Acton says she has not had contact with her mother since the court proceedings during her childhood. (ohiocapitaljournal.com)

That is the mother featured in this commercial.

Acton has described her mother as unwell. I don’t know her mother’s condition or what she understands about what she is doing. I do know that I find the conduct described by Acton and her brother sick. (ohiocapitaljournal.com)

But more important than directing all of our anger at her mother is looking at the person whose campaign took her and put her in an attack ad against her own daughter.

To me, that is even more disgusting.

Acton has also said that Ramaswamy dismissed her childhood experiences as “complaining about something done to me.” So this is not just about one commercial. It is about taking what somebody experienced as a child and using it against them as an adult running for office. (ohiocapitaljournal.com)

We are watching a Republican campaign use a survivor’s experience of sexual abuse as a weapon against a political opponent. And the vice president of the United States has defended the ad. The president of the United States has encouraged Ramaswamy to keep running it. (apnews.com, mynews13.com)

I believe this is one of the most vile and disgusting uses of a political attack ad I have seen in my time on this planet.

There should be things that are off-limits. There should be a point where people say they are not willing to go that low. Some Republicans have said that, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who called for the ad to be taken down. But that is not the position Trump and Vance have taken. (mynews13.com)

Whatever it takes for their side to win power, they seem willing to defend it.

I think both of these situations, the pamphlets sent through this newly formed company and the attack ad on Amy Acton, show how far this kind of politics has moved away from trying to win over the American people through legislation and policy.

When I look at campaigning like this, I don’t see a willingness to actually do things the American people want. I see smears, personal attacks, people hiding behind a company, and a campaign exploiting childhood abuse. All in the name of holding office. All in the name of holding power.

I don’t believe the people embracing these tactics are showing the will or the capacity to do what is right for the American people.

Instead, they keep trying to scare people. Whether that is fear of immigrants, fear of Muslims, or fear of trans people, the message is the same: “If you vote for this other person, this is what you’re going to get.”

And where is the substance about what they are actually going to give you?

It is vile. It is disgusting. It is horrific. It is depressing. And it is part of the political system we are living in.

Dirty politics is not new. But that does not mean we should accept this as normal.

Every American needs to be conscious of how this kind of propaganda works so that we do not fall prey to it and so that we can help make sure these tactics do not keep defining the future of our country.

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The raid on Ilhan Omar’s home encapsulates the real essence of the Trump administration. A blatant attack on a politician who is a woman, who is Muslim, who is Black, and who is adversarial to the Trump administration.

But really, isn’t her existence the part that they’re scared of? That someone meeting those qualifications holds office to begin with? That she represents their perceived threat from the Muslim community, women, and immigrants?

I don’t believe this is about criminal activity. Want to know why? Look at Jerome Powell and Letitia James. More investigations spurred by this perceived threat. And what have these investigations actually produced? Where are the convictions? Where is the evidence of the widespread criminality we’ve been told exists?

I believe these investigations serve two purposes: to please Trump’s vendetta against anyone who opposes him and to cast doubt on the legitimacy of our election system.

The first is obvious. Trump, who ran on not seeking retribution during his presidency, has done just the opposite. The second is more nuanced.

There has been a longstanding, unwritten rule surrounding investigations of political candidates: avoid taking public investigative action close to elections when it could influence the outcome. And this raid, happening just weeks before the election, raises serious questions about whether the timing was intentional. I believe it sends a message that Muslim candidates don’t belong here and don’t deserve to hold office.

There have been calls to investigate and deport Zohran Mamdani, the elected mayor of New York City. There have been calls to investigate and deport Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. citizen by birth! And still, the constant attacks remain.

But should it surprise any of us that Trump wants to put the election in question?

The same person who gathered people on January 6, 2021, and sent his mob of zombies to the Capitol, where the certification of an election was delayed. The person who asked Georgia officials to find 11,000 votes. The person who recently promised $5,000 checks to American adults if Republicans won this November. The person who stood onstage recently and told his supporters to “cheat like hell.”

This raid is not about security, in my view.

DHS should be out securing our country from outside threats. From the very real threat of terrorism facing the United States, a threat that has been exacerbated by the war in Iran. If you want proof of the danger, look no further than the reported attempted attack on RAF Fairhope.

Remember that every single time there is one of these investigations, whether it’s from DOJ, DHS, or the FBI, these are real resources that your tax dollars have paid for. Resources that should be going toward your security, but that I believe are instead being used to fuel the Republicans’ bloodlust for retribution.

This raid represents exactly what I have been warning about since before the elections: a push toward authoritarianism.

Look through a history book. One of the first things an authoritarian does is use the power of the justice system to jail and remove political opponents. People who “oppose the regime.” People who can’t be paid off or bribed.

Ilhan Omar represents every category that the Trump administration considers the enemy, and I believe this attack on her represents point number one in the authoritarian playbook.

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