DIRTY MONEY PLAGUES BOTH PARTIES

Sometimes in the noise of a campaign, we overlook the canary in the coal mine, or choose to ignore it. Be it a racial dog whistle or sexual harassment, we can choose to cut it out like a malignancy. But before sharpening the scalpel, first we have to admit it exists.

In November 2015, candidate Donald Trump tweeted fake black crime stats he obtained from a neo-Nazi white supremacist site. I was on that tweet because he had “trolled” a Twitter conversation that included me. It was shocking, yet most granted him the benefit of the doubt that it was a stupid mistake — that in his zeal to tweet, he skipped the vetting and research process.

Such “mistakes” became more commonplace and were glossed over, denied or “Trumpsplained” away as we witnessed the mainstreaming of something ugly we had thought we were well on our way to eradicating. Trump refused to denounce former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke to Jake Tapper on CNN. He tweeted an image of rival Jeb Bush next to a swastika. He tweeted a photo of Hillary Clinton and the Star of David.

Dems are giving away Weinstein cash. GOP should do same with Mercer money.

And as white nationalists with KKK pointy hats and swastikas marched in Charlottesville, Va., where a young woman opposing them was killed, Trump went offscript to say that some of them “were very fine people.” That caused further shock waves just when we thought we could no longer be shocked by anything Trump says or does.

A disturbing BuzzFeed report outlines how Trump’s Svengali, Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, has molded the website into an “alt-right,” white nationalist safe harbor. Bannon, fresh from a stint as White House chief strategist, is far from benign as an outsider. He wields enormous power and influence due to the backing of billionaires Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah.

BuzzFeed reports that Breitbart’s alt-right ties are “illustrated most starkly by a previously unreleased April 2016 video in which (Breitbart’s Milo) Yiannopoulos sings America the Beautiful in a Dallas karaoke bar as admirers, including the white nationalist

Richard Spencer, raise their arms in Nazi salutes.” Documents obtained by BuzzFeed “reveal how the website — and, in particular, Yiannopoulos — links the Mercer family, the billionaires who fund Breitbart, to underpaid trolls who fill it with provocative content, and to extremists striving to create a white ethno state.”

As Bannon is recruiting and fielding candidates for Congress to advance his agenda, including primary challenges to GOP incumbents, the Mercer money is his juice. His fuel. His nectar. One’s first reaction to the Mercers bankrolling the Trump, Breitbart and Bannon recruits is to assume they merely lust for power, but a former Mercer employee alleges that Robert Mercer has asserted repeatedly that African Americans were better off economically before the civil rights movement. This tidbit and others reported by The New Yorker should set off alarm bells.

When Bannon sent then-Breitbart race provocateur Yiannopoulos out to rile up opposition to Black Lives Matter, Yiannopoulos was concerned about his own safety. Not to worry, the Mercers would help. “Agree 100%,” Bannon wrote in an email. “We want you to stir up more. Milo: for your eyes only we r going to use the mercers private security company.”

The Mercers have long been major donors to Republican presidential and congressional candidates and committees, and one or both have given directly in the past few years to at least 20 sitting GOP senators and House Speaker Paul Ryan. They’ve even gifted the occasional Democrat, such as Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, where their business is based.

Now that BuzzFeed and The New Yorker have blown the whistle and the Mercers are financing Bannon’s anti-establishment crusade, all candidates on the receiving end must explain why they can accept money with alt-right, white nationalist origins.

Actually, they should reject the Mercer money or return it, much like Democrats are giving away campaign donations from former Hollywood mogul and apparent serial sexual harasser-abuser Harvey Weinstein. His money is now considered “dirty money,” with one high-profile Democrat after another sending it from their campaign coffers to charity.

It’s clearly hypocritical for Republicans to cry foul when they stuck by Trump even after the eruption a year ago of the infamous Access Hollywood videos, in which Trump bragged about committing sexual assault. Those accepting funding from the Mercers should respond with the same disgust and rejection Democrats are showing toward Weinstein’s dirty money.

No more feigning ignorance, or parsing support based on cherrypicked policy items. Racism, like sexual harassment and abuse, is either something you will tolerate, or it isn’t. Every candidate needs to be held accountable.

It’s time for choosing.