hanimmal
Well-Known Member
Continued:
Long (but good) Story... Continues.“I’m running against a radical Democrat. A Democrat socialist. He’s an AOC progressive — that really means communist — candidate,” Green said, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), “who absolutely loves AOC and Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, you know, king of the basement dwellers. So, help me beat this Democrat in November. Help me go on to Congress.”
Below the video, her supporters began posting comments.
“WWG1WGA,” one wrote, using QAnon code for “Where we go one, we go all.”
“Gloves are off,” another wrote.
The comments kept coming, and Kevin, trying to calm his nerves, went into a spare bedroom, shut the door, and stayed there long enough that his wife finally texted him from another part of the house to see if he was okay.
“She is calling for a civil war!” he texted back, referring to Greene. “And I am expected to call her out tomorrow!”
He waited for a response. He and his wife had been having marital problems for a while, and the campaign wasn’t making anything better. When she did not write back, he texted again.
“F-----g crazy ass white supremacist terrorist support her. She is radicalizing them and I am supposed to call her out and become her enemy.”
“Omg really,” his wife texted back.
“I am not joking” he texted back.
“Wtf,” she texted.
“I am f-----g breaking down,” he texted back, not that anyone on the campaign team knew any of that was happening.
“Jesus Christ,” Michael said as another day began.
He had just seen Greene’s latest Facebook post, this one showing her in sunglasses and holding an AR-15 rifle next to a photo of three of the four Democratic congresswomen known as “The Squad,” titled “Squad’s Worst Nightmare.”
“We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart,” her post read, and now, as Pelosi was calling on House Republicans to condemn Greene and Rep. Ilhan Omar was calling the post a “violent provocation,” Michael was on a video call with Kevin and the team.
“I have Roll Call, NPR, Politico, CNN, NBC, New York Magazine, Slate, the Hill, Vox, BuzzFeed, not to mention a whole bunch of party people, calling,” Michael said.
The time for rehearsing was over. The angry statement about Greene had to post immediately, he said.
“I haven’t taken a shower,” Kevin said. “I was going to go to the post office and — ”
“Kevin. Take a moment. Breathe. Center yourself,” Michael said.
He took a moment. He breathed. And soon he was changing into the light blue shirt that the team had suggested, and rolling up the sleeves as they had suggested, and balancing his new camera and laptop on his kitchen table, centering his head in the frame of the screen.
“Okay,” Ruth said.
It was Day 24 of the campaign. He took a deep breath.
“Hi. I’m Kevin Van Ausdal,” he began, reading from the script on his laptop.
“All down tones,” Ruth reminded him. “Say it like you’re banging your hand and fist. Aus-dal. Dal is like the fist.”
“Dal,” Kevin said. “I will not stand by — ”
“Do me a favor. Take a deep breath. Put your shoulders back,” Ruth said. “Read it angry. It’s this crazy situation. Read it mad.”
“Hi. I’m Kevin Van Aus-dal. ... Marjorie Taylor Greene does notrepresent us …”
“Again. Mad,” Ruth said.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene is not one of us …” Kevin said.
“Not one of us,” Ruth said.
“Not one of us …” Kevin said. “What’s the psychology behind this?”
“There’s psychology but I don’t have time to explain,” Ruth said. “Okay, go for it.”
“We are watching her use her platform to cheer violence against Democrats,” he continued, then stopped. “Be angry,” he reminded himself.
“Be angry,” Ruth said.
“There is a line. And Marjorie Greene is too far. Go to Kevin Van Ausdal dot com and join our fight for northwest Georgia and for the soul of our nation.” He paused. “Do I emphasize our? Or fight?”
“The thing you have to emphasize is soul,” Ruth said.
“Soul,” said Kevin.
“And you have to give it a little beat,” said Ruth. “So-ul.”
“For the so-ul of our nation,” Kevin said. “Like that?”
“Perfect,” Ruth said. “Remember. You’re angry.”
Kevin took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment.
“Hi, I’m Kevin Van Ausdal,” he began, and this time the camera was on and recording a man who appeared increasingly uncomfortable as he tried to hammer the singsong tone out of his voice and say words like “violence” and “civil war” while trying not to think about Greene’s armed supporters.
“One more time,” Ruth said.
Kevin cleared his throat and did it again, his eyes darting to the right as he read the statement. He did it again, and again, and after the fourth attempt they had a version they liked.
“That was great,” Ruth said.
“I think we can put the campaign logo in the corner,” said a new team member who had joined the call, and as they prepared to send the video into the world, Kevin turned off his computer and tried to calm down.
It was a warm and clear night, so he went outside into his yard to meditate, but all he could think about was how close politics was coming to violence. He thought about the time in 2018 when pipe bombs were mailed to former president Barack Obama and other Democrats by a man whose van was plastered with stickers of Trump, one of which read “KILL YOUR ENEMY.” He wondered if he was becoming the enemy.
Not that anyone on the campaign team knew any of that was happening, either.
Two days later, as the video was sailing around the Internet, Kevin put on his only suit and headed for a rare in-person event, a drive-in service at an African American church.
“Hi. I’m Kevin Van Ausdal,” he said through his mask into the window of a car, his tone reverting back to the Kevin of the drum-and-fife video. “I want to be your next congressman. I’m running against Marjorie Taylor Greene?”
“Well, we’re going to need you,” said the man inside. “We don’t need those radicals.”
“Hi, I’m Kevin …” he said through the window of the next car.
“Kevin Van Ausdal. That’s you?” said the woman inside. “I don’t even have to tell you how important this election is. What are you planning to do?”
“Well, we need opportunities in this country. I’m working to address health care, and green jobs …” he said, trying for a moment to be the candidate he wanted to be.
Day 27: “Hi, I’m Morgan. I’m your new assistant,” said the young man with the iPad who met Kevin in the parking lot of a Men’s Wearhouse. Ruth had booked him an appointment. “I’ll be following you the rest of the campaign.”
They raised their face masks and went inside, where a clerk ushered Kevin to a table laid out with navy blue, gray and plaid outfits, which Morgan began photographing to send to Ruth for approval.
“We’re going to make you look like a congressman,” the clerk said.
Morgan cracked his knuckles.
“Slip these on,” the clerk said, handing Kevin a light blue button-down and a blue blazer.
He put on the button-down over his T-shirt, and the blazer over that, and stood in his shorts and white socks on the box in front of the mirror. He looked at himself. He smoothed the front of the shirt. He turned to the side. He was losing weight from stress.
“Is it out of your comfort zone?” the clerk asked.
It was, he wanted to say. All of what politics had become in America was out of his comfort zone — the lack of substance, the conspiracies, and especially the anger, which he nonetheless realized was working. Donations were skyrocketing. Hollywood actors were following him. And the team’s internal polling was showing that he had momentum — every time Greene posted some new statement, she got more followers, and every time Kevin answered, more people rallied to his campaign, a dynamic of ever-escalating outrage.
“You will have to be more aggressive than this! She is running on pure crazy!” a woman wrote on his Facebook page.
“Kevin, please stop this insane woman who only wants to spread hate and division!” someone else wrote.
“WE MUST STOP THIS CRAZY PERSON MARJORIE GREENE!!!!!!!”
There were other comments, too, ones that the team tried to remove before Kevin could see them, but he did see them or hear about them, such as one that read “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat” and one that read “I bet if I put a gun to his face he’d cry like a baby.”
Now Morgan was showing him two more red ties.
“The bright red will show up better in photos,” Morgan said.
“Okay,” Kevin said.
The clerk rang up the power tie, the blue suit, a blazer and five shirts, and Kevin went home, where he and his wife got into an argument. They had been arguing a lot, but this time it kept degenerating until his wife said she wanted a divorce. Kevin said she could not possibly understand the stress he was under. He asked if she could wait until after the election, but she said no, she was done, and they kept on arguing until Kevin punched a wall hard enough that he broke the paneling.
