Ald. Thuy Pham-Remmele checked the wrong box: conservative

Who knew inclusionary would be so exclusionary?

We have been saying that identity politics divides and separates — unlike the Maidenform brassiere — without lifting.

Madison is seeing that play out with the Gay Pride Parade this weekend. (Soon to be renamed the Gay Paranoia Parade.) The group governing the parade disinvited the police from the march, bowing to the insistence of the Most Woke among the identity politicians that police are using LBGTQs for target practice (or something). So now the Madison fire department says count us out, too. 

In light of the disappointing decision by OutReach to rescind the invitation to the Madison Police Department to participate in this years’s Pride Parade, the Madison Fire Department, in solidarity with our women and men in blue, must respectfully and regretfully decline to participate in this year’s parade.  

This is the Madison Fire Department in which Mahlon Mitchell serves — he being a person of color and second-place finisher out of eight candidates in Tuesday’s Democrat(ic) gubernatorial primary.

The conformity of diversity

In his last prize-worthy blogge, your Squire praised former mayor Dave Cieslewicz for breaking from Democrat(ic) party dogma on identity politics, for questioning its slavish devotion to Capital D Diversity in such ephemera as skin color and gender while demanding lock-step uniformity in political thought.

 

At his current roadside stand, the former mayor wrote:

The essence of being a liberal is to be open to different ideas and perspectives — ironically, even conservative ones. So, I would like to see at least one strong, articulate classic conservative in the [mayoral] race. Someone who would make a principled and impassioned case for smaller government, less regulation and more personal freedom.

In Mr. C’s eight years at the helm of The Emerald City, however, we could recall no conservative appointed to any commission, committee, task force, or special panel. We had forgotten, in fact, the May 2009 defenestration of the Stately Manor’s former alder, Thuy Pham-Remmele. (H/T to Cornie Gotchberg for reminding us of “The Exile of Thuy Pham-Remmele.”)

Now here is a woman and Vietnamese, to boot. Sadly, she is happily heterosexual but no one is perfect. But she is also conservative!

Mayor Dave had booted this diminutive spit fire from the consequential Community Development Block Grant Commission. That’s the body that doles out dollars to experiments like the “wet” homeless apartments at Tree Lane and Rethke Avenue. Knowing Thuy (the Squire was a principal in her campaigns) she would have pulled the emergency brake on that one.

Thuy’s defenestration was payback for forcing Cieslewicz to abandon his folly with trollies. With the mayor and police chief Noble Wray in attendance, Thuy had packed a parochial school auditorium with 900 angry constituents demanding more police instead.

Thuy was exiled to the food cart committee. Vietnamese, y’know.

A totalitarian ‘us versus them’

The white lab coats in the Research Department stumbled upon the delightful byline of Froma Harrop, a syndicated columnist who captures this point of light in the great beer bottle of truth:

The problem with left-wing movements isn’t so much “the left-wing” as it is the “movements.” Movements sometimes have a totalitarian edge that cannot abide dissent, or even a hint of it. They’re “us” versus “them.” In the case of left-wing movements, the “them” is often fellow Democrats.

Harrop (harrumph!) recalls Ralph “Recall” Nader and his ilk siphoning enough votes from Al Gore to elect George W. Bush.

… Here is how Barbara Ehrenreich put it in The Nation: “What I fear most about a Gore victory — yes, I said victory — is its almost certainly debilitating effect on progressives and their organizations.” Celebrity agitator Michael Moore was bouncing on and off stages in liberal cities urging audiences to vote for Nader. “A vote for Gore is a vote for Bush,” he bellowed. He BELLOWED! ♥♥♥

That’s why Stately Blaska Manor encourages socialist provocateur John Nichols in his work  of purging moderates like congressman Ron Kind, D-La Crosse. On the Pages of The Nation, our Comrade salivates over the ultimate prize of identity politics:

 

Christine Hallquist Isn’t Just the First Transgender Candidate for Governor — She’s Also a Visionary Progressive!

And a breath mint, too! This particular Chris is also expected to lose to the Republican incumbent. In Vermont, possibly the bluest state in the Union. To a Republican.

Party of crazy, your table is ready

Under the pen name of “David Blaska,” your Squire writes in the upcoming September issue of InBusiness magazine  that “Republicans would be their own worst enemies if it were not for Democrats.”

We had in mind the upset victory earlier this year of socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over an incumbent Democratic centrist in NYC.  The party of JFK, Bill Proxmire, and Clem Zablocki is now the party of Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, and Tammy Baldwin. More Comrade Nichols:

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The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Effect:
The Democratic party’s new rock star is storming the country
on behalf of insurgent populists.

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We quote Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, as lamenting his party’s “relentless race to the left.” So Mark Pocan moves to abolish immigration enforcement. Wisconsin Democrats vow to empty out half the penitentiaries.

“If the next two years is just a race to offer increasingly unrealistic proposals … it’ll be difficult for us to make a credible case we should be allowed to govern again,” Coons cried.