The Snowjobs of Yesteryear

A look-in on one of our pet peeves

There are thousands of grifters in the Republican ecosphere, from the big ones in Congress to the small fry you normally only hear about when they’ve been nabbed molesting children or committing vote fraud or just plain fraud. But during a recent election season my attention was drawn by Mayra Flores, briefly a Congresswoman and now angling to get back in the game.

You may recall Flores was not a traditional politician but a QAnon nut who, CNN reported, “under the handle ‘LaRepublicana86’… spread false claims about election fraud and immediately began suggesting on January 6, 2021, that the Capitol riot was caused by Antifa and ‘infiltrators.’” Republican quality control being what it is, she managed to get the GOP nomination for a June 2022 special election for the House seat in Texas’ 34th District.

She won that race (“major breakthrough for Republicans eager to blaze new inroads in the historically blue region,” gushed the Texas Tribune; “I voted for Mayra Flores — first time I ever voted Republican,” lied Elon Musk) and immediately began running for the general in November, which meant ixnay on the anon-Qay and a shift to the Evil Dems Attack Brave Latina Conservative shtick, as with the “I’m UNDER ATTACK!” email I told you about on July 1:

First, I overcame the odds stacked against me to flip the first seat RED of 2022.

Now, I’m having horrible, SEXIST, XENOPHOBIC insults thrown at me by the Radical Left.

They think I’m an “unqualified pawn” and that I’m NOT A REAL AMERICAN because I was born in Mexico…

Then the pitch for donations. “Unqualified” and “pawn” actually were words Flores’ opponent used to describe her but, as summer faded, her campaign took on a more clinically paranoid tone, as I recounted:

When Jill Biden maladroitly called Latinos “as unique as the breakfast tacos” in San Antonio, for example, Flores sent emails with subject lines like “I’m not a taco?” and “OPEN if you’re NOT A TACO” with copy protesting Biden’s “WILDLY OFFENSIVE and RACIST insult to millions of Hispanic Americans because we’re PROUD Americans who shouldn’t be compared to food.” In these instances she has offered NOT A TACO stickers in exchange for contributions…

“They think I’m ‘far-right’ and an ‘extremist;’ JUST BECAUSE I stand for God, Freedom, and Family!” Flores told mailing list people like me on July 6. “Unfortunately, Friend, I’m not surprised about this vile attack…”

She also accused Nancy Pelosi of shoving her little girl. This kind of thing is catnip to MAGA conservatives nationwide who have cash to spare and like the idea of a rightwing Latina — particularly one taking a hard build-the-wall anti-refugee line (“my husband is a border patrol agent, and his only job is to protect our country, but he’s unable to do that with the Democrats in power because of their RECKLESS lack of policy”). Who knows how much out-of-district cash this caused to flow to her campaign (and what eventually happened to it)?

Culture war hooey may draw big bucks from national mailing list subscribers, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into votes, particularly when silly season is over and the electorate is paying attention. Flores got kicked out in the aborted Red Wave election of November 2022 (“Vicente Gonzalez holds back Republican surge,” wept the Texas Tribune).

Flores immediately set to preparing her 2024 campaign — not by going out into her community and getting a better feel for their concerns, but in the now-traditional Republican rage-clown manner:

She hooked up with the rightwing Texas Public Policy Foundation (“She is a proud U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP] wife and a mother”). She took a gig with “Americano Media, the nation's first ever Spanish language network rooted in American values.” (Their slogan: “No Más Fake News.” No, I’m not kidding.) She fielded speaking engagements from other states’ Republican organizations. And this month she declared for the race (“We made history in South Texas last year, but there is more work to be done”).

If you’re wondering whether Flores has moderated her political approach in anticipation of a rematch — well, I’m still on the mailing list and I can tell you: No, not at all.

For example, from a recent email:

I’m Mayra Flores, the America First Hispanic woman running in the biggest race in the nation.

After we made history and flipped a blue seat red for the first time in 100 years, the Democrats threw the kitchen sink at me, and I had to concede my race.

[Emphases in original] Notice she doesn’t say she lost — standard procedure for MAGA types now is to evade any admission of actual electoral defeat, just like Tubby.

From another email:

Last year, I flipped a blue seat red for the first time in 100 years and the Democrat Political Machine went CRAZY.

And that’s what you want, isn’t it, my fellow Republicans — not any particularly policy, nor a philosophy of governance, but to drive the people you despise CRAZY?  I can do that!

And just yesterday, an email with the subject line, “I was attacked by a pervert”:

After we delivered the historic upset to Biden & Pelosi in the TX-34 special election last summer, the liberal media & woke Democrats immediately sunk to disgusting lows to defeat me in the November midterms.

My opponent hired a twisted left-wing pervert to attack me & sexually degrade me. The liberal journalists called me a “white nationalist Latina” and an “self-hating Latina.”

To sum it up- the woke liberals in America showed their true colors.

I’ve been looking for a source for these accusations, and have come up empty on “Mayra Flores” and “white nationalist Latina”; as for “self-hating Latina,” I’ve found one Facebook commenter who called her that (no info of that person’s perversity status) and one reference in a Los Angeles Times story to a 72-year-old Trump supporter (presumably not Flores) who claimed “relatives belittled her on Facebook, using a Mexican idiom — ‘You have a nopal on your forehead’ — to accuse her of being a self-hating Latina pretending to be white.”

As for the “pervert” thing, well, no fucking clue — but, as we know, it’s Republican SOP to call Democrats “groomers”; maybe the routine has so evolved that you don’t even need a specific person to accuse. (Makes sense — less chance you’ll be hit back!)

To sum up, like pretty much every Republican, Flores isn’t changing — she’s just doing the same thing, only harder. I don’t see how this could be expected to lead to success, unless what you’re really after is to lose and just soak up years of also-ran paydays from donors thereafter — or maybe a coup or other craziness to overturn the board. With this bunch, who knows?