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Notes -
If we're doing electoral politics culture war, how about the news out of Ohio?
For those not paying too much attention there's a fairly competitive race going on for Ohio governor between Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy. On Twitter yesterday Walter Curt, whose biography describes him as the State Director of the Conservative Caucus of Ohio, posted this video. The video features one Donna Arthur, Amy Acton's mother, who says the following:
That's a pretty powerful ad! Getting a candidate's mother to come out against them like that. Acton's campaign had their own response prepared, of course.
Those are some pretty explosive allegations! Perhaps Acton's mother's opinions are not very reliable if Acton was removed from her custody at age 12 and Donna chose her rapist husband over her daughter. As best I can tell, the allegations are true. National Review alleges to have reviewed documents showing one Cledith Arthur was charged with having sexual contact with Acton while married to Donna. Donna has her own criminal history as well, with a conviction for theft by deception and accusations of animal abuse. Interestingly the Huffington Post dug up another 2020 interview with Donna from Operation Rescue. According to that interview:
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It seems to be Donna's own testimony that her husband was arrested for sexual abuse of Action and Donna and her husband skipped town while on bond to avoid any kind of trial.
Journalists naturally reached out to Ramaswamy's campaign for comment, and they said:
On the one hand, it's hard for me to see how one goes forward with the ad above knowing the full story. If the question is to be one of credibility I am not sure I trust Acton's mother, whom she has not spoken with for almost 50 years and who chose her rapist husband over Acton, above Acton herself. Especially if she has her own criminal convictions for specifically fraud-adjacent behavior.
On the other hand, how did you not know this information? As best I can tell it took the National Review and Huffington Post less than a day to get their hands on the primary legal documents detailing the dispute. The campaign's own statement references the 2020 interview, in which Donna admits the sexual abuse allegations and discusses their leaving town ahead of a trial. I guess the hope is voters see the ad but don't dig any further into the situation or context?
I've thought that Vivek's political instincts were questionable ever since he made his infamous tweet about work culture.
When an Indian billionaire posts online the day after Christmas and tells Americans that they should adopt the stereotypical Asian childraising style if they want to be economically competitive, I might give it credit for audacity, but good politics it is not.
It also has the primary problem of being wrong. Asians goodharting all the academic metrics hasn't made Japan into the juggernaught people feared in the early 90s, nor has it even helped India keep up with the Chinese. In the end innovation seems to be driven by people like Musk and Lucky who just genuinely love the stuff, and running/founding successful companies also is full of jocks like Phil Knight, the Kochs, Bob Kraft, etc.
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