The Ciattarelli-Allen Get-out-the-Vote Strategy: Trumpism and Suburban White Backlash
In a nutshell, the message from the New Jersey Republican Gubernatorial Ticket of Jack Ciattarelli and Diane Allen is: Out with the Tom Kean Politics of Inclusion, In with the Donald Trump / Ron DeSantis Politics of White Grievance.
I summarized the Politics of White Grievance in a column I authored within a few days after the 2020 election: “The NJGOP will Continue to Fail as a Party of White Grievance.” https://www.insidernj.com/njgop-will-continue-fail-party-white-grievance/ And the Ciattarelli-Allen ticket appears hell-bent on a white grievance mission, destined for landslide defeat.
A year ago, I authored a column, “No White Republican will be Elected Governor or US Senator in NJ for at Least a Decade.” https://www.insidernj.com/no-white-republican-will-elected-governor-senator-decade/ The article focused on the New Jersey Republican State Committee opposition to Vote-by-Mail (VBM). This opposition constituted a flagrant GOP effort at suppression of the African-American vote.
During the past year, I wrote other columns documenting the continuing New Jersey Republican State Committee efforts to suppress the African-American vote, including 1) Under its New Politics of Exclusion, The New Jersey Republican State Committee Joins the National Republican Suppress-the-Black-Vote Effort https://www.insidernj.com/under-new-politics-exclusion-new-jersey-republican-state-committee-suppres-black-vote/; and 2) Jack Ciattarelli, Mike Lavery, Bill Palatucci, and NJGOP Legislative Candidates: Do You Support the New Georgia “Jim Crow in a Suit and Tie Act?” https://www.insidernj.com/do-you-support-new-georgia-jim-crow-suit-tie/
But now, Jack Ciattarelli has irrevocably added his own imprimatur to the NJGOP efforts to suppress the vote of people of color.
In an interview on the Atlantic City Harry Hurley Radio Show two days ago, Ciattarelli stated his opposition to the 2020 New Jersey Election Vote-by-Mail program on the basis of its expense. Ciattarelli is shamelessly arguing that cost should be a factor in determining the extent of governmental efforts to overcome barriers that have severely limited African-American voter participation in New Jersey for over a century.
Yet after this weekend, it is clear that the Ciattarelli-Allen campaign will appeal to white prejudice against ALL people of color, not just African-Americans. The Diane Allen target was Latinos. Her radio interview remarks about undocumented Latino immigrants bringing COVID-19 across the border have been widely reported:
“I mean, right now look at all these people with COVID who are coming across the border, and it scares me. They’re put on buses, I suspect some of them are coming up to New Jersey. N — not a good idea. [But] the people pulled over from the borders who are carrying illegal guns or drugs, or whatever. So there’s a lot of things going on that I didn’t want to see go on, and that was the reason that I voted for Trump.”
You will not find a more clear repudiation of the Tom Kean Politics of Inclusion and a more emphatic affirmation of the Donald Trump/Ron DeSantis Politics of White Grievance than these Diane Allen statements. The president of the Latino Action Network, Christian Estevez accurately described Allen’s comments on these immigrants as “biased” and “dangerous” and called on her to “immediately apologize for this inexcusable dog-whistle.”
Allen should apologize to Estevez, at least for her insensitivity, but I do not expect that. The entire strategy of the Ciaittarelli-Allen ticket appears focused on generating a maximal turnout of two basic constituencies: 1) Trumpist base voters; and 2) White Suburban “Backlash” voters, the latter appealed to by a White message, based on irrational and false fears.
This strategy is hopeless. The numbers simply aren’t there to make it work. The statewide registration totals by percentage presently are as follows: Democrats, 38.4%; Unaffiliated, 36.4 %; Republicans, 22.9 %. The Democratic registration exceeds the Republican by over a million voters.
With a rising African-American voter participation and a declining GOP base, a strategy of White Backlash is ineffective on its face. This is especially true in view of the need to appeal to Unaffiliated and Democratic voters, who are likely to be repelled by a GOP electoral strategy involving racial polarization.
Neither Jack Ciattarelli nor Diane Allen is racially, ethnically, nor religiously prejudiced in any way. Both have demonstrated during the past week, however, a blind and driving ambition that makes them willing to engage out of desperation in appeals to the darkest impulses and prejudices of the New Jersey body politic.
That is indeed the tragedy of New Jersey Gubernatorial Campaign 2021.
Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.
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