Shadowing Trump, Channeling Nixon

If you're on social media and even slightly into politics in New York's 23rd Congressional District, you are no doubt being hounded by "Extreme Ithaca Liberal" posts by the Tom Reed Campaign. Reed used this to good effect back in 2014 when he ran against Martha Robertson. It did not matter to him, his campaign, or his Republican voters that Robertson was not from Ithaca but rather from sprawling, rural Dryden. Same county, very different vibe.

Not one to let a winning strategy die, Reed is currently using the same phrase to label candidates from Penn Yan, Jamestown, and Owego as well as the two candidates vying for the Democratic nomination who actually live in Ithaca. The Peter Max lettering on his web page is meant to remind us of the evil '60s and is particularly reminiscent of Jim Trelease's 1968 posters of Nixon's rivals that year.

In 1968, Tom Reed wasn't even born. So why is he channeling Nixon's fearmongering campaign of 50 years ago? It seems especially off-putting from a founding member of the so-called Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of U.S. Representatives who purport to work toward bipartisan solutions. If you believe in bipartisanship, how can you trash your own district's Democrats? If you are "fighting for jobs," how can you disdain the one county in your district where jobs are being created? 

Reed is nothing if not contradictory, however. Despite positioning himself early on as a moderate, Reed was one of the first NYS House Republicans to endorse Trump and even served on his troubled transition team. Despite professing to stand for New York, Reed supported a tax plan that will increase taxes for many New Yorkers as they lose their state and local deductions.

Donald Trump borrowed from Nixon's playbook to win in 2016, and Tom Reed is scuttling hard after both of them. Focusing on fear is a successful way to swing a progressive era backward. You don't even have to posit a real threat. Just mention "hippies" and let the voters' imaginations run wild. If Trump can draw false equivalencies between Nazis and anti-Nazi protesters, Reed can pretend that all Democrats have extreme views, and that no matter where they live, they come from Ithaca. The only danger of such oversimplification is that it starts from the assumption that your electorate is stupid.

It is possible to disagree with Tom Reed on the Second Amendment and not be extreme. It is possible to be a Democrat and be a former military officer. It is possible to be from Western New York and espouse progressive views. We are able to hold all these things in our heads at once. If Congressman Reed respected the people of his district, he'd credit them with the brains to see through his Extreme Ithaca Liberal hogwash. Unfortunately for us all, and for any hope of thoughtful debate, he doesn't.