DeSantis poll numbers continue to collapse

Plus, a Holocaust denier runs for a school board seat in suburban Minnesota.

WHAT YOU MISSED

Florida governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis continues to fall out of favor with GOP voters. With the second Republican debate around the corner, polling out of the crucial primary state of New Hampshire from CNN indicates that support for DeSantis has plummeted: DeSantis is now the preference of just 10% of all potential primary voters, down from 23% since July.

Meanwhile, business grifter Vivek Ramaswamy (13%), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (12%) and former New Jersey Gov. Christie (11%) appear to have all surpassed DeSantis, according to the CNN poll.

It is important to note that New Hampshire is the most moderate red state on the primary calendar. Trump is polling at 39% among likely primary participants — well below the national average.

A candidate for a school board election in Roseville, Minn. made outlandish and horrifically anti-Semitic remarks about the Holocaust in a podcast appearance. Vaughn Klingenberg, who will be on the ballot for the Roseville School Board election on Nov. 7, is an out-and-proud Holocaust denier. He published a book called “The Big Lie: The Holocaust (An Introduction to the Greatest Fraud of the 20th Century).” How subtle.

“Zionist Jews wanted the Holocaust, not the Nazis,” Klingenberg said on a VT Radio podcast which bills itself as having an “alternative” take on foreign policy.

“The thing is too and what annoys me is that we’re doing the Jewish community a favor. We’re doing them a favor by giving them the facts about the Holocaust which they may not want to face. I think there’s profound cognitive dissidence in the Jewish community. But us Holocaust truthers are doing the Jews a favor.”

Klingenberg also rejects the idea that six million Jews were exterminated in one of the world’s bloodiest genocides. He puts the number closer to 300,000 and falsely claims that “there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Jews were gassed in the concentration camps.”

Such revelations come days after a group of white nationalists in nearby Wayzata staged a protest on a highway overpass that involved banners reading things like  “end white genocide,” “white unity is strength” and “diversity means anti-white.”

Klingenberg’s candidacy seems in line with the broader right-wing strategy to take over school boards across the nation. Over the past several years, hordes of reactionary cranks have attempted to seize control of local public school policy by running in these often neglected elections.

Meanwhile, Jewish culture understander Rep. Marjory Taylor Greene (R-GA) logged on yesterday to post on X (formerly Twitter) — and then later delete — a Yom Kippur message for the many, many Jewish constituents living in her rural Georgia district. There’s just one problem: The post included an image of a menorah, which is a symbol for Hanukkah.

INSANE IN THE SHAWN FAIN

United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain is not standing idly by while right-wingers try to undermine workers with claims that their strike will hurt consumers. Fain has (rightfully) put the blame on the C-suite executives who have failed to offer a fair contract — and, broadly speaking, have been responsible for much of the persistent inflation that everyday people continue to be harmed by.