Why Are Romanians Running Fake "Black Trump Supporter" Accounts?

Facebook announced it had suspended a legion of accounts that purported to be Black Trump supporters but were actually Romanian in origin. Which raises the question: Why are Romanians pretending to be Black Trump supporters on Facebook?

To be clear -- there's no "good" answer to this. All the possible motivations are terrible. But they can be differently terrible. For example, while the most likely explanations are political, there are some apolitical rationales I can imagine, namely:

• It's a grift. Scammers have discovered that gullible White people are thirsting for Black Trump supporters to exist, and this is an easy way to exploit that hunger for cash.

Someone could be interested in running this con with no particular interest or concern with the political ramifications. 

But there are quite a few different political motivations I can imagine as well (and these might all occur in conjunction):

• The purpose is to support Trump by galvanizing Black Trump supporters -- showing them that they're not alone, there's a community, and they should be out and proud.
• The purpose is to support Trump by galvanizing White Trump supporters -- showing them that "not all Blacks" oppose him and that therefore claims that he's racist are just ginned up by the liberal media/BLM Marxist/Soros network.
• The purpose is to sow chaos. It's not really about supporting Trump per se, but about generating dissension, fraying bonds of trust, and inculcating a sense that everything one sees is a lie or at least a potential lie -- sentiments which, if strong enough, are toxic to functioning democratic societies.

Again, all of these "motives" are terrible things, and do real damage to the vitality of the American democratic system. Which is why, while I give Facebook some belated credit for expunging the accounts, it is absolutely essential that they take a firmer hand on this sort of problem.

Tennessee Primary Night

Tennessee had a primary tonight. There aren't really any competitive general election races in Tennessee, so I wasn't paying too much attention to the primaries either. But a few things worth noting:

• Tennessee's Senate race wasn't going to be competitive, but everyone thought they knew who the Democratic nominee was. Attorney James Mackler had the DSCC endorsement and raised millions of dollars. Nobody else in the field had broken out of 5 digits in fundraising. Yet Mackler ended up taking third, with the victory going to virtual unknown Marquita Bradshaw. This wasn't on anyone's radar screen (while Bradshaw is definitely a progressive, this wasn't a case where there was some big grassroots energy burbling up against the establishment). Bradshaw will once again be the prohibitive underdog against GOP nominee Bill Hagerty. I admit that every time something like this happens -- a complete unknown randomly secures a major party nomination in a high-profile race -- I brace myself for some embarrassing revelation about something they once said on Facebook or a controversial job they once held.
• Once again, Rep. Steve Cohen (D) faced a credible primary challenger (this time from Shelby County Democratic Party chair Corey Strong). And once again, he had nothing to worry about, throttling his opponent by a 70 point margin. Strong's explanation for why he got into the race is unintentionally hilarious: he acknowledges that Cohen (a) has a great voting record, (b) supported Obama administration policies and opposed Trumpist policies, (c) is a national leader, and (d) has been deeply attentive to his district. So what exactly does he think the angle is? Eventually people will learn.
• Tennessee's 1st congressional district has the longest Republican winning streak in the nation. So when the seat is open, a lot of Republicans jump at the chance to go to Washington. This year, the winner -- with just 19% of the vote(!) -- is Diana Harshbarger. Five candidates had double-digit vote tallies -- the field was that fractured. Meanwhile, I can't figure out how to say "Harshbarger" without sounding ridiculous.
• The most serious primary challenge of the evening came against Nashville-based Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper, who is considerably more conservative than his district demographics suggest is justified. He survived Keeda Haynes' attempt to take him out from the left, albeit by a rather underwhelming 53-44 margin. That might give Haynes some inspiration from a rematch (look at Cori Bush and Marie Newman), but there are rumors floating around that the Tennessee GOP might try to gerrymander this seat out of existence now that the Supreme Court has waved the green flag at partisan redistricting.

Should Peter Beinart and Co. Ally with the Israeli Right?

One of life's little paradoxes is that a prerequisite for a one-state solution, which many on the left support, is Israel formally annexing the West Bank, which most on the left bitterly oppose.

I was thinking about this in relation to Peter Beinart's bombshell announcement that he no longer supports a two-state solution but instead will now back a secular, one-"state for all its citizens" solution. Many have noted that this proposal has essentially no backing among any constituencies of note in either Israel or Palestine (in both, the main divide is between two-staters versus "one state for me but not for thee" sorts).

But, in another of life's little ironies, the camp in Israel who probably comes the closest to supporting Beinart's view and those of "left-wing" one-staters abroad is ... the Israel middle-right. A great many of them are, of course, avowed supporters of a one-state solution. But many of them forthrightly say that in that one state all residents should gain full citizenship and voting rights. President Ruvi Rivlin is in this camp, but it also includes folks with a more hardline reputation like Tzipi Hotovely. It also has representation in the rank-and-file -- interviewing some of the right-wingers who have joined recent anti-Bibi protests that have rocked Israel, we saw people who claimed to be security "hawks", delighted at the prospect of annexation, but only if "Palestinians living there receive full rights."

We shouldn't overstate things. For one, there are plenty of folks on the settler right who are equally clear that their "one-state" vision is one where Palestinians are permanently subjugated and/or expelled. And in the case of folks like Hotovely, I can't help but think she hasn't quite thought through the implications of one-state with democratic equality with respect to our right-wing politics (Hotovely thinks that mass Jewish migration to Israel will preserve a Jewish majority, but even if that's the case it is very unlikely that the Jewish right she's a part of will be able to maintain its hammerlock on political power once 40% of voters are non-Jewish). 

Yet I can't help but think that one state with nominal equal rights will be the inch that gives a mile -- even if people like Hotovely get cold feet, it will be much harder to resist more extensive equality claims in this context than in the status quo. It's even possible we'll end up seeing what I've termed the "Czechoslovakia gambit" -- one state leading to two states.

Ultimately, the fact is that with the left in Israel essentially moribund, the most viable political actors who could push for something resembling "one state with equal rights" lie on the Israeli right. There is yet another layer of irony here, since frustration with the anti-democratic and illiberal actions of the Israeli right in its decades of power are largely responsible for people like Beinart abandoning the two-state solution. Given that history, can Beinart and company stomach working with them? Politics makes for strange bedfellows indeed.