What would you say if I told you that Brady Walkinshaw, candidate for House Representative of Washington’s 7th Congressional District, had smeared his opponent, 100% Bernie Sanders endorsed progressive rock star Pramila Jayapal, by running a “Trump-style” attack ad that implied she is an ineffective woman and a racial “other”? There is only one correct answer and it is, “Can I see the ad?” Yes you may:

In short, Pramila Jayapal was rated by FiscalNote as the least effective legislator in Olympia, and missed a lot of votes in the Senate.

The charges

The Jayapal campaign has launched counter-ads and dedicated a new page (which you also should read in full) on its website to responses from elected officials, and leaders from the activist and labor communities. And while some of the responses are reasonable and thoughtful challenges to Walkinshaw’s ad, the page features numerous serious accusations from important local figures.

Attacks on women

State Senator Sharon Nelson penned the first statement and said:

As a woman in office, I’m really saddened to see desperate, Trump-style attacks on women and their accomplishments being used here in Washington state … I call on Representative Walkinshaw to stop the dog whistle language … The 7th Congressional District deserves a positive campaign on real issues, not the same baseless attacks we see at the Presidential level.

Photo courtesy thenation.com

Officers of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Jeffrey G. Johnson-President and Lynne Dodson, Secretary-Treasurer similarly stated:

Advertisements suggesting that Senator Pramila Jayapal is an ineffective legislative leader should be held in the same regard as Donald Trump saying, “No one respects women more than I do.”

To see if these accusations are fair, let’s revisit some of Donald “grab-them-by-the-pussy” Trump’s more notorious moments on the topic of gender. He belittled Megyn Kelly for “bleeding from her whatever,” insulted Carly Fiorina’s face, bragged about sexual assault, and has been accused of being a rapist and serial groper. All of the above are Trump-style attacks on women.

Racial dog whistles

To go full Trump one also has to make shockingly insensitive remarks about race. Seattle City Councilwoman Lorena Gonzalez explained:

When I ran for Seattle City Council, I was also subjected to “dog-whistle” politics — being made to be the “other” and having my race brought up in subtle ways. I am troubled by a narrative of making Pramila the “other” in this race and I feel the need to call it out here. This “other” narrative is out of step with our values and while we hear this language all too often on the national scene it has no place in this race.

When Donald Trump said in the last debate, “But we have some bad hombres here and we’re going to get them out,” he provided a textbook example of the dog-whistles we have seen on the national scene this election. This is language coded to sound inoffensive to most, but that subtly communicates a solidarity with the xenophobic wing of the anti-immigration movement. Trump has made similar dog-whistles in reference to just about every nonwhite demographic including Muslims, Jews, and African-Americans.

In short, it is insulting and improper to question the effectiveness of Pramila Jayapal. An elected public official. During an election.

Councilwoman Gonzalez needs to be more specific about which part of the ad she is “calling out” if she’s going to make the accusation that Walkinshaw is attempting to pander to people’s racial resentment. Is the claim that FiscalNote is biased against Indian women in rating them for effectiveness? Is he otherizing her by pointing out that she missed 106 votes in the Senate? What hate demographic is he pandering to by saying his co-workers liked him?

Political impropriety

Gonzalez’s next statement may actually best summarize the attitude of Jayapal’s campaign response:

To question Pramila’s effectiveness after everything she has done for the region and the country, both in and out of the legislature, is insulting — not only to her but to all of us who have stood with her in those fights for justice.

In short, it is insulting and improper to question the effectiveness of Pramila Jayapal. An elected public official. During an election.

A Trump-style attack

Divorcing specific content from Trump’s political rhetoric is a good way to understand what it means for an attack to be “Trump-style.” They typically boil down to a few key components:

Accusations devoid of substance (Obama is the founder of ISIS)

Defacement of opponent’s character (Lying Ted, Crooked Hillary)

Unevidenced claims of victimization (the system is rigged against me)

Pramila Jayapal is currently featuring all three of these bullying tactics on her website. She has, without any evidence, accused her political opponent of Donald Trump levels of sexism and racism, while claiming that she is the one victim to illegitimate attacks, and that it is insulting to her and all her supporters to question her effectiveness.

A big deal

This is the antithesis of political discourse. As an elected official, her record is going to be scrutinized, her votes questioned, her principles tested, and she will be expected to answer. Her campaign’s response to this call is an attempt to end all discussion of perfectly legitimate, if not shallow, aspects of her public record on threat of reputational destruction.

Photo courtesy rooseveltseattle.org

There are few labels more damning in Washington’s 7th Congressional District than “racist” and “sexist,” so to accuse someone of such things without good evidence is bullying. Plain and simple. Because of these accusations, it is now incumbent on Walkinshaw to spend his time and resources explaining that he’s neither of these things. Furthermore, now supporters of Walkinshaw must consider if supporting him publicly might be interpreted as an endorsement of everything Donald Trump stands for.

It gives them an opening when they hear a story about real sexism to pretend it’s made up “like that other time.”

Playing the victim card in response to such a trivial situation also diminishes how serious these accusations are when credible. When Donald Trump said that Khizr Khan’s wife, “had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” he was using both her gender and her religion to completely disregard her words. Jayapal has, by comparing Walkinshaw’s ad to this sort of dismissal, given a small amount of credibility to the Trump supporters that cry, “political correctness!” It gives them an opening when they hear a story about real sexism to pretend it’s probably made up “like that other time.” Perhaps they’ll always find a way to rationalize their beliefs, but we should not be helping them.

Ultimatum

As a recovering Bernie Sanders supporter, I was thrilled to see him endorse a candidate in my congressional district. Senator Jayapal came to my attention packing some serious progressive credibility. In truth, I had yet to seriously research either her or Walkinshaw and have had my mail-in ballot sitting on my desk for some time now. It was helpful of Walkinshaw to inform me of her Senate voting attendance before I cast my vote. However, it was even more helpful of Pramila Jayapal to demonstrate how she responds to political opposition before I voted.

We should not be represented by someone willing to make such hasty, unfounded, uncalled for, and heinous accusations of a political opponent doing nothing more than challenging their record.

This Nov. 8, we will vote for a representative of both Washington State and the Democratic Party. We should not be represented by someone willing to make such hasty, unfounded, uncalled for, and heinous accusations of a political opponent doing nothing more than challenging their record. We should be represented by someone who believes they can and should win by defeating their actual opponent, not the evil mustachioed version they can paint in the minds of overly trusting voters.

Given the apparent similarity in platform and elected experience of the two candidates, these differences of first principles truly matter. We don’t just vote on policy, we vote on political style. Campaigns are high-stakes contests and there is always potential for a line to be crossed. Pramila Jayapal has crossed a serious one and the only way to uncross it is to apologize to Brady Walkinshaw, something that Senator Sharon Nelson and Councilwoman Lorena Gonzalez should consider as well. If Jayapal does this, she will regain the consideration of my vote and I will gladly write a follow-up article, but she’d still have some ground to make up.

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