Ron Deets runs for Senate
July 8, 2021 11:23 AM Subscribe
"Why a Mentally Ill Millennial from Missouri is Running for US Senate," Ron Deets in his own words as to why he's running for senate. More Ron Deets on Twitter.
I suspect it is a metaphorical cow.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:39 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:39 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Perhaps if we imagine them as perfectly spherical cows?
I can't necessarily fault his ambition, and I generally agree with the notion that we could get a nonzero number of brand-loyal GOP voters to vote for surprisingly progressive economic and social policies if you wrapped them in a passable Republican candidate. I just don't think that the corporate interests and Christian white supremacist ideologues that run the Republican Party will allow someone like this to exist in their party for more than a nanosecond. Hell, this guy would barely last five minutes in most Democratic primaries.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:43 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I can't necessarily fault his ambition, and I generally agree with the notion that we could get a nonzero number of brand-loyal GOP voters to vote for surprisingly progressive economic and social policies if you wrapped them in a passable Republican candidate. I just don't think that the corporate interests and Christian white supremacist ideologues that run the Republican Party will allow someone like this to exist in their party for more than a nanosecond. Hell, this guy would barely last five minutes in most Democratic primaries.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:43 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
very interesting. It would be great to see a groundswell of younger people rising up to reclaim the republican party as a sane component of a competent government. I'm not going to hold my breath, but it would be a potential path back to some semblance of sanity...
(who doesn't want a cow? sheesh...)
posted by supermedusa at 12:43 PM on July 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
(who doesn't want a cow? sheesh...)
posted by supermedusa at 12:43 PM on July 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
oh, then I'll take three cows please.
posted by clavdivs at 12:44 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 12:44 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I trust a progressive who calls themself a republican even less than a conservative who calls themself a republican.
posted by Think_Long at 1:32 PM on July 8, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by Think_Long at 1:32 PM on July 8, 2021 [16 favorites]
Not being Greitens or... Racistface McGuncrazy or whatever that guy's name is again is a huge plus.... but an actually progressive platform?
Based on the platform I like him a hell of a lot more than Claire McCaskill. And running as a Republican probably gives him a better chance anyway.
posted by Foosnark at 1:42 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Based on the platform I like him a hell of a lot more than Claire McCaskill. And running as a Republican probably gives him a better chance anyway.
posted by Foosnark at 1:42 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Running as a moderate republican is a common tactic for semi-progressives in states where the republican primary is essentially the only meaningful election. That dynamic has shifted in post-Trump America but often still pencils as an electoral strategy.
posted by q*ben at 1:48 PM on July 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by q*ben at 1:48 PM on July 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
Do they ever win?
Because, just looking around the room (I don't follow state-level politics closely in Missouri, but I do in my own (even redder) state), I don't see a lot of semi-progressive moderate Republicans in elected office.
posted by box at 2:08 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Because, just looking around the room (I don't follow state-level politics closely in Missouri, but I do in my own (even redder) state), I don't see a lot of semi-progressive moderate Republicans in elected office.
posted by box at 2:08 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
This tactic is used more often for state level offices in my experience; not that moderates don’t run in the primary for senate and house seats but I can’t expect they’ll win. A lot of state senate seats for suburbs around major cities fit this profile.
posted by q*ben at 4:33 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by q*ben at 4:33 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Well.
My personal mantra has been, of late, "seeing as Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States, I am not a competent judge of what could actually happen."
Good on him. I look forward to his successful career in the United States Senate
posted by Baby_Balrog at 5:29 PM on July 8, 2021 [13 favorites]
My personal mantra has been, of late, "seeing as Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States, I am not a competent judge of what could actually happen."
Good on him. I look forward to his successful career in the United States Senate
posted by Baby_Balrog at 5:29 PM on July 8, 2021 [13 favorites]
This is making me think about what it means to be "a Republican". I'm sure many more people have thought and written about it than me, and much better than I ever could ever hope to do either of those things -- but it does make me realize that I've only associated identifying as a Republican as a few things: a profound cruelty toward the working class, minorities, and anyone generally disenfranchised; eviscerating the middle class; upholding white supremacist values; venerating the Confederacy and the legacy of slave owning families; getting cozy with white evangelicals despite the Republicans' clear Machiavellian ends; enforcing the subordination of women to men and wresting control of women's own bodies away from them, with blatant contempt for their well-beings; ensuring LGBTQIA+ people can never be safe being who they are; and, lastly, an active and seditious contempt for democracy itself.
I get that progressive people can label themselves Republican but everything I listed above (and much more) seems to be what the honest-to-god character of the Republican party is about and what the people who support it honest-to-god want. And it's gotten more and brazen over the last 5 or so years, and it's still accelerating. I have a difficult time thinking a progressive running as Republican could ever make a dent. Unless everyone who runs for any office ever starts running as a Republican and thereby diluting the Republican zeitgeist? Maybe that's the strategy...?
I really like what this person is doing and I absolutely commend their courage and honesty and willingness to put themselves out there on the line. I absolutely wish them the very best of luck
posted by treepour at 8:17 PM on July 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
I get that progressive people can label themselves Republican but everything I listed above (and much more) seems to be what the honest-to-god character of the Republican party is about and what the people who support it honest-to-god want. And it's gotten more and brazen over the last 5 or so years, and it's still accelerating. I have a difficult time thinking a progressive running as Republican could ever make a dent. Unless everyone who runs for any office ever starts running as a Republican and thereby diluting the Republican zeitgeist? Maybe that's the strategy...?
I really like what this person is doing and I absolutely commend their courage and honesty and willingness to put themselves out there on the line. I absolutely wish them the very best of luck
posted by treepour at 8:17 PM on July 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
treepour - I actually remember Republicans, long ago, who were not the things you list (and that list certainly does describe the vast majority of Republicans currently holding office - but is perhaps not quite as widely applicable to ALL of the people who are registered as Republicans).
An older relative of mine, born before World War II, was a lifelong Republican. As I knew him, he had no contempt for any workers (he, himself, had a barely managerial desk job with the same firm his whole life). I never heard him express any remotely racist views. He was very religious but in a quiet and personal way. He believed in genuine public service and helping others and contributing to his community.
I believe there is a core of that type of Republicanism still in a lot of people in the Midwest, and perhaps in many Republican-leaning communities across the US.
I know that the smirking cruelty of Fox News has infested a very large number of Republicans, but I can attest that there were once honorable Republicans who, despite having different values on some important issues, worked to make our country a better place.
In 1965, 110 Republican Congressmen and 30 Republican Senators voted to pass the Voting Rights Act.
Those of us with honorable Republicans in our extended families know that being a Republican once stood for something very different than the childish, authoritarian perversion that's so very prevalent today. (Prominent Republican (and criminal) John Dean wrote a book about the shift toward authoritarianism, Conservatives without Conscience.)
If that honorable core still lives in any Missouri Republicans (and I suspect it does, in at least a few), I think Deets could very well appeal to them.
posted by kristi at 9:01 PM on July 8, 2021 [8 favorites]
An older relative of mine, born before World War II, was a lifelong Republican. As I knew him, he had no contempt for any workers (he, himself, had a barely managerial desk job with the same firm his whole life). I never heard him express any remotely racist views. He was very religious but in a quiet and personal way. He believed in genuine public service and helping others and contributing to his community.
I believe there is a core of that type of Republicanism still in a lot of people in the Midwest, and perhaps in many Republican-leaning communities across the US.
I know that the smirking cruelty of Fox News has infested a very large number of Republicans, but I can attest that there were once honorable Republicans who, despite having different values on some important issues, worked to make our country a better place.
In 1965, 110 Republican Congressmen and 30 Republican Senators voted to pass the Voting Rights Act.
Those of us with honorable Republicans in our extended families know that being a Republican once stood for something very different than the childish, authoritarian perversion that's so very prevalent today. (Prominent Republican (and criminal) John Dean wrote a book about the shift toward authoritarianism, Conservatives without Conscience.)
If that honorable core still lives in any Missouri Republicans (and I suspect it does, in at least a few), I think Deets could very well appeal to them.
posted by kristi at 9:01 PM on July 8, 2021 [8 favorites]
An older relative of mine, born before World War II, was a lifelong Republican. As I knew him, he had no contempt for any workers (he, himself, had a barely managerial desk job with the same firm his whole life). I never heard him express any remotely racist views. He was very religious but in a quiet and personal way. He believed in genuine public service and helping others and contributing to his community.
kristi, you have just described my Father, perhaps the most honorable man in my life; and, while he died too young in 1983 I look back on his words and action in life proudly. And we argued about politics from the time I was 15 till he died -- I was 30.
I just read Deets' website. He needs a proofreader. It was a cursory reading, but are his ideas so wrong?
I don't know his reputation, but he certainly lays it all out there. Is he a viable candidate or just a fly by night? I will have to do some reading. But we certainly need people who are not bound by either party to stimulate a change in our manner of government.
I will be dead soon, so I could just turn away from all this -- but I haven't been on picket lines since the age of 15, boycotting lettuce and grapes, and protesting Vietnam... and all the myriad injustices and inequalities since... to give up hope now, on my way out.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 10:18 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
kristi, you have just described my Father, perhaps the most honorable man in my life; and, while he died too young in 1983 I look back on his words and action in life proudly. And we argued about politics from the time I was 15 till he died -- I was 30.
I just read Deets' website. He needs a proofreader. It was a cursory reading, but are his ideas so wrong?
I don't know his reputation, but he certainly lays it all out there. Is he a viable candidate or just a fly by night? I will have to do some reading. But we certainly need people who are not bound by either party to stimulate a change in our manner of government.
I will be dead soon, so I could just turn away from all this -- but I haven't been on picket lines since the age of 15, boycotting lettuce and grapes, and protesting Vietnam... and all the myriad injustices and inequalities since... to give up hope now, on my way out.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 10:18 PM on July 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
As a long-time Show-Merican, I think what Deets is doing is both admirable and, politically speaking, quixotic. But may he show me that all I've been shown before about Missouri and Missouri Republicans is no longer operative.
posted by riverlife at 11:19 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by riverlife at 11:19 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Not to abuse the editing window, may he give Grietens, Hawley, and the rest of the golems that put the G in Missouri's GOP hell--he's off to a surprising start.
posted by riverlife at 11:24 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by riverlife at 11:24 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I mean, maybe we should all start running as performance art pieces in Republican primaries. "As your [fill in the blank] I pledge to not legitimately rape anyone nor support those who do. I will not be kidnapping, sexually assaulting and photographing, nor even blackmailing my hairdresser. I will pledge to coach no adolescent nor young adult wrestlers, and promise never to make a friend apologize to me for shooting them in the face. I will never insist that I can see Russia from my home, nor applaud very fine people for killing pedestrians with their motor vehicles. I will defer from opining about Known Unknowns and also Secret Plans for victory, and refrain from testifying that I cannot recall. I will not run on term limits I have no intention of respecting once elected, and I will neither preemptively declare Mission Accomplished twenty years before the mission utterly fails nor demand that Mexico pay for any of my proposed infrastructure projects. Of course, I can make no promises regardung paying for sex during Shark Week. My opponent, careful consideration will show, can at best match my stance vis-a-vis Shark Week."
posted by riverlife at 11:48 PM on July 8, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by riverlife at 11:48 PM on July 8, 2021 [9 favorites]
In 1965, 110 Republican Congressmen and 30 Republican Senators voted to pass the Voting Rights Act.
It's interesting that you cite 1965 and the VRA, because that and the 1964 Civil Rights Act were what basically kicked off the start of the Republican spiral into bloodthirsty fascist monstrosity starting with Nixon's 1968 Silent Majority campaign, also known as the Southern Strategy, which began the process of transitioning violent white supremacists from being spread across both parties to taking over the Republican Party and driving out everybody else as best they could. Reagan is where the modern Republican party really first arrives on the scene, with Clinton a decade later heralding the start of the modern Democratic party. Anything before the VRA and CRA, it's hard to really talk about the parties as if they were the same entities as today any produce anything meaningful; trying to gets you that phenomenon where the Republicans want credit for being the Party of Lincoln while celebrating the Confederacy.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:57 PM on July 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's interesting that you cite 1965 and the VRA, because that and the 1964 Civil Rights Act were what basically kicked off the start of the Republican spiral into bloodthirsty fascist monstrosity starting with Nixon's 1968 Silent Majority campaign, also known as the Southern Strategy, which began the process of transitioning violent white supremacists from being spread across both parties to taking over the Republican Party and driving out everybody else as best they could. Reagan is where the modern Republican party really first arrives on the scene, with Clinton a decade later heralding the start of the modern Democratic party. Anything before the VRA and CRA, it's hard to really talk about the parties as if they were the same entities as today any produce anything meaningful; trying to gets you that phenomenon where the Republicans want credit for being the Party of Lincoln while celebrating the Confederacy.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:57 PM on July 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
Hello,
I'm the author of the blog post and I came across this thread while doing a Google search to see if the blog was catching on.
Just wanted to pop in and see if I could answer any questions/concerns or if you had any thoughts you wanted me to respond to.
posted by rdeets at 1:33 AM on July 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm the author of the blog post and I came across this thread while doing a Google search to see if the blog was catching on.
Just wanted to pop in and see if I could answer any questions/concerns or if you had any thoughts you wanted me to respond to.
posted by rdeets at 1:33 AM on July 14, 2021 [4 favorites]
Hi! Not sure you will get much of a reaction, since a couple of days is usual for MetaFilter's typical attention span, but welcome to the site! I don't have any questions, but I didn't want you to feel ignored.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:09 AM on July 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:09 AM on July 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
honestly, this is exactly the type of person i want in government, and who i would vote for regardless of party lines if i had the chance.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:36 AM on July 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:36 AM on July 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
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