No more double digits after today! Ten days remain, Obama was in Detroit to turn out the vote, Tudor Dixon’s conspiracy theories got crazier, as did her out-of-touch comments when she refused to pick a team in tonight’s game. Here’s what you missed.
The Outlandish Dixon Comments That Made Headlines *Just This Week*
Across detailed coverage from Detroit Metro Times and CNN, Michiganders this week got the clearest picture yet of just how deep Dixon’s conspiratorial rabbit holes run. Without further commentary, here’s an excerpt sampling of the unhinged, racist, and generally bigoted rhetoric that flowed like water during her time hosting a show on far right-wing and Steve Bannon-headlining media outlet Real America’s Voice.
- “The Republican gubernatorial nominee in Michigan invoked a conspiracy that the Covid-19 pandemic and protests in the summer of 2020 after the killing of George Floyd were part of a decades-long plan by the Democratic Party to ‘topple’ the United States as retaliation for losing the US Civil War, adding that the party wanted to enslave people ‘again.’”
- “Dixon went on to claim that Democrats used the Covid-19 pandemic and the killing of Floyd to divide the country and feed White people ‘white guilt’ so they can assume power.”
- “Dixon…also peddled inaccurate claims about schools and education, including falsely suggesting that school nurses could perform abortions without parental consent if a ballot initiative was passed.”
- “Dixon also claimed that Democrats were not teaching the ‘true’ history in public schools […] and said the party didn’t want people to know that White Republicans ‘freed the slaves.’”
- “Dixon defended blackface after YouTube star Jenna Marbles apologized for doing an impression of rapper Nicki Minaj that involved darkening her skin with makeup. ‘What is acting if you are not acting like someone else?’ Dixon asked. ‘She was being funny.’”
- “On a separate show, Dixon called hijabs ‘oppressive garments’ and suggested Iranian women are being ‘murdered by their own family’ for marrying without their consent.”
For lack of a better word, these are the highlights! As of today, Dixon has yet to respond to multiple requests attempting to uncover whether she still stands by the statements made in her not too distant past.
Dixon Fails the Transparency Test – Again
After initially refusing to release even a single year of her tax returns, then dodging “months of questions” as to when or if she ever would, Dixon uploaded some personal financial info to her campaign website in the dead of night, unannounced.
Upon review, reporting from MLive determined that Dixon failed to provide anything close to a “complete picture” of her personal finances. A brazen, sunshine-devoid move compared to Governor Whitmer, who has maintained her pledge to voluntarily disclose a “tax return, financial disclosure and travel breakdown [for] each year she’s been in office.”
Making it abundantly clear to Michiganders that transparency is a game to her, Dixon provided a limited copy of her 2021 return knowing damn well it wouldn’t “cover a full year of unemployment,” seeing as she withdrew from conventional employment to launch her bid in May of that year.
The Final Debate of the Cycle
Governor Whitmer and Tudor Dixon gathered in Detroit for the second and final debate of the cycle. Like the previous display in Grand Rapids, Michiganders got a clear contrast of the options before them. Governor Whitmer demonstrated the type of leadership that only comes from working across the aisle to sign over 900 bipartisan bills in four years. Dixon, however, failed to meet the mark.
She completely crumbled on several key issues. Dixon’s first deer-in-the-headlights moment came when the Governor cornered her on her claims that she wouldn’t criminalize abortion providers while actively continuing to back the 1931 near-total ban that does just that. The second, after her Fahrenheit 451 but make it 2022 rant, in which Whitmer asked with just the right level of indignation, “Do you really think books are more dangerous than guns?”
Governor Whitmer even found time to remind working families that a vote for Dixon is a vote to put “biggest financial booster” Betsy DeVos at the helm to fulfill her long-held crusade to rip public education from the studs, by any means necessary.
Even conservatives had to concede it wasn’t Dixon’s brightest hour. Nolan Finley and Kaitlyn Buss noted that she “came off sophomoric” for trying to label Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist an election denier while dodging a question about her anti-choice extremism. Similarly, Bankole Thompson sniped that Dixon’s “limited knowledge about policy issues and the nuances of governance were glaringly clear” and he came away unconvinced that she could act as a “big problem solver” on day one.
Another Thing on This Boogeyman List of Books…Where Are They?
Ever since Tudor Dixon decided treating books more dangerously than school shootings was her ticket to the governor’s office, folks have been asking for some examples, and she and her staff have been swearing up and down that a list is forthcoming. But after weeks of bait, Dixon finally pivoted to the switch. She’d just love to tell you about these disastrous books, but…. “I can’t read them out loud because I can’t be on tape reading these things, because they’re so disgusting.”
Can’t be seen rattling off the content of these books, but happy to make a broadcast career of saying say blackface is “funny” and accuse the Democratic Party of trying to “topple” the country “as retaliation for losing the Civil War” so they could “enslave people ‘again.’”
The math is simply not mathin’.
If that wasn’t enough, Dixon also called for the “accurate” history to be taught in schools (we’d love to know what she meant by that) and called for the removal of books that reference divorce because they give her heartburn or something.
