GOP fundraisers send Dr. Seuss books to donors who give $25 in effort to retake House
05 March 2021
The House Republicans’ campaign arm is offering donors copies of the Dr. Seuss classic “The Cat in the Hat," seeking to capitalize on a new front in the culture war.
Why it matters: The offer, while gimmicky, shows how potent appeals to “cancel culture” can be for grassroots Republicans, even amid debates about more weighty policy matters like coronavirus relief and voting rights.
What’s happening: The National Republican Congressional Committee is sending the books to donors who give $25 to GOP efforts to retake the House.
- “We won’t be able to speak or think freely by the time the Dems are through. Chip in $25 now and we’ll send ‘Cat in the Hat' right to you,” the NRCC writes in the final verse of a Seussian passage on its online donation page.
- The committee has sent three fundraising emails and hundreds of texts this week. It's seeking to capitalize on consternation over the decision by Seuss’ publisher to cease printing six books deemed racially or culturally insensitive.
- "The Cat in the Hat" was not among them.
The big picture: The Seuss controversy is just the latest front in the cultural battles.
- It touches upon published works some consider anachronistic and offensive toward marginalized communities.
- Opposition to “cancel culture” has become a rallying cry for much of the political right, which has railed against social media companies for cracking down on content deemed culturally out of bounds.
- "The Liberal mob wants to cancel the Fourth of July," the NRCC wrote in a fundraising email last year. "The Radical Left wants to cancel Christmas for good," declared another in late November.
The potency of this particular flashpoint was evident Thursday morning, when 11 of the top 12 best-selling books on Amazon were Dr. Seuss works.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.