Hatred TRUMPS the day!

Looks like Tampa Bay Times Political Editor Adam C. Smith posted his Sunday editorial before the Unite the Right Riots broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday; oops. The riots were then followed by Trump playing cover for his racist republican base. In his editorial, Adam was pretending that policy will trump partisanship (pun intended) in the upcoming St Petersburg Mayoral Race, but Adam forgot that the Republican’s ONLY policy is Trump partisanship.

Adam posted his editorial for Sunday because he wanted you to think that the fact that Rick Baker is an old white male quintessential REPUBLICAN has no bearing on the Mayoral race. But then the riots broke out in Charlottesville and the headline on the Times’ front page is “HATRED RULES THE DAY” making Adam’s editorial ignoring Republican Alt Right policy look pretty silly. Republican’s ONLY policy is Trump partisanship and hatred rules the day.

Of course here in St Pete, we already saw firsthand the Republican Alt Right policy thanks to republican candidate Paul Congemi who- like Charlottesville- brought St. Petersburg in to the national spotlight with his flaming racist comments at the July 18 Mayoral debate.

At the debate on July 18 Congemi translated the Republican position as: “Mr. Nevel, you and your people, talk about reparations. The reparations that you talk about, Mr. Nevel, your people already got your reparations. Your reparations came in the form of a man named Barack Obama.” Congemi finished with “My advice to you is if you don’t like it here in America, planes leave every hour from Tampa airport. Go back to Africa!”

Doesn’t that inane statement capture the essence of the current Republican party? And just like our Republican Congress who give token finger wags to President Tourettes who is liable to blurt out anything at any given hour of the night, Congemi is St Pete’s own local “Trump” blurting out what the Republicans are really thinking as though he is channeling their racism and homophobia directly from the President. Meanwhile, REPUBLICAN Candidate Baker sits quietly by hoping no one will notice that he is also a republican. Hoping no one will think all the money he gets from the Republican Alt right party would influence his policy, or remember that Republican’s ONLY policy is Trump partisanship.

It does not require any great effort to see that Rick Baker is the Republican straight man, who parrots the usual hollow republican talking points, and Congemi is the Republican “hate” translator who blurts out what the Republicans are actually thinking. Baker and Congemi are the insane antitheses of the famous Key and Peele routine where Keegan-Michael Key played President Obama’s “anger translator”.

We can only imagine what it would be like if next year the Unite the Right has a riot rally at our next Pride Festival and St. Petersburg is once again thrust in to the national spotlight. That won’t happen under Mayor Rick Kriseman.