Erie County Republican Consistency

Two of the myriad asylum seekers now being temporarily housed in Erie County have now been arrested for committing sexual assault or rape. These are obviously heinous crimes that should – and are – being prosecuted with vigor.

But it is not their status as “migrants” or “asylum seekers” or “refugees” that caused the predation. Immigrants do not hold a monopoly on sex crimes, nor are sex crimes any more or less heinous depending on the alleged perpetrator’s visa status.

For Republican candidate for County Executive Chrissy Casilio to roll a podium into the parking lot of a hotel housing refugees in order to heap scorn and derision on Mark Poloncarz over a migrant’s crimes is interesting. Is it the crime that is bad? Because if rape is bad, then should she not be holding a press conference outside every rape location? Or is rape only bad – or especially bad – when the alleged perpetrator is a refugee from Venezuela or the Congo? I mean, it’s bad in all cases, so either every case deserves this sort of attention or it does not.

What all of this really underscores is that the Republicans have literally nothing to run on. They are not a political party with a platform or a set even of shared ideals – they are a ragtag collection of MAGA cult adherents who lurch from culture war item to culture war item and dig in especially deeply when it has to do with minorities or immigrants who are not white. 

Chrissy CaBoom is more familiar with making pronouncements on Facebook or at Clarence Republican Committee meetings, safely ensconced in the town where her father is Supervisor and their surname carries a lot of weight. Elsewhere, it’s all coming across a bit tired. With nothing really to run on, she’s taking advice from trolling idiots and going after Mark Poloncarz for two migrants who committed a crime for which CaBoom’s hero Donald Trump himself has already been found liable. So on the one hand CaBoom and her party slavishly pledge fealty to a sex predator and on the other hand somehow think they possess a moral high ground enabling them to criticize the sex predation from someone else because they’re seeking asylum, as if that person isn’t then duly prosecuted and, if guilty, deported. 

Every anti-immigrant (R) weasel with a Polish or Italian surname should be routinely called out for especial ridicule.