Florida DSA Candidate Shifts Positions — So Major Fact-Checking Outlet Decides to Correct … Her Republican Opponent

Ah, the games fact-checkers play to contort the very thing they are charged with preserving: the facts. At PolitiFact, they are back to pulling out their familiar toolbox items to deflect from Democrat foibles and DSA upheaval. In doing so, they manage to impugn a Republican candidate – for being accurate.

This familiar strategy is brought out in reference to the campaign for Florida’s Senate seat, where interim occupant Ashley Moody is running against the upstart from the Jacksonville area, Angie Nixon. Since Nixon turned many political heads last Tuesday with an upset victory, Nixon has been trying to establish her platform positions.

That a newly-minted candidate needs such help in correcting her agenda items, which should already be made manifest, explains so much. Fortunately for her political fortunes, PolitiFact has jumped to the fore to help her out.

The issue is that in a short period of time, Ms. Nixon has taken several positions. She began her campaign as a straightforward Democrat, pledging to address affordability problems and combat ICE activity. Then midstream, she made a hard-Left turn.

In June, Nixon announced that she was positioning herself as a Democratic Socialist candidate, hoping to tap into the populist wave that movement has been experiencing. Her Democrat foe in the primary was Alexander Vindman, and he called out Nixon for being a socialist and communist in Florida. You will not find Vindman being corrected over those comments on the site, as he had been the favored candidate at the time.

But then suddenly, after winning her primary and making the media victory tours, Nixon started backing away from that newly minted DSA moniker. Now trying to align her with her avowed connection to the group is considered problematic.

In one post-election interview, Nixon was literally verbally tap dancing on the fence line. When asked directly about her DSA bona fides, she answered, “I just recently joined DSA,” but then when pressed about the agenda of that sector of the party she replied, “I don’t fully align with anybody’s full platform 100%.” She wants the credit and adulation, but not the responsibility.

But when faced with a candidate who is taking up a number of positions, PolitiFact steps in and decides to do its work – at discrediting her opponent, for noting these details. The site deployed Maria Briceno and Samantha Putterman to address recent comments made by Ashley Moody about Nixon. Moody said in her speech after securing the GOP nomination:

“My opponent will be a self-proclaimed socialist that proudly signed up and joined the Democratic Socialists of America. That will be my opponent. … You’re going to have one side that I’m going to be up against that wants to, and the platform says, ‘Defund the police, don’t fund our military, open up the border, noncitizen voting.’”

Rather straightforward content, but the viscounts of vérité at PolitiFact took exception with Moody for…being accurate. When asked about the comment, Moody’s campaign pointed to the DSA charter, and the writers used the needs-more-context gambit to shield Nixon. “The DSA has specific policy goals, but there is no set of beliefs that members must follow.”

Then you have more have-it-both-ways attempts by Nixon that are excused away. “Nixon has said publicly she does not support defunding the police, but she does promote criminal justice reform.” OK, is there anything in the way of clarification there? Nope.

And on prisons, she also vacillates: Nixon said she doesn’t support abolishing all prisons, but wants to end for-profit prisons because of the industry’s labor exploitation and financial incentive to keep the prisons full.

One would think that when faced with a candidate who is shifting her agenda so much, that would warrant the attention of fact-checkers. Instead, while Nixon is all over the road politically, it is Moody who they want to charge with a moving violation.

The bulk of this entry is laying out Nixon’s policy proposals (A check under Moody’s name on PolitiFact did not produce an entry itemizing her policies.) It appears that what is attempted here is to say that Nixon holding multiple positions is not the problem but noting her doing so is the issue. You see what is in play, as the start of the entry suggests how Moody is wrong for her comments, yet the site would not go as far as assigning any “False” measurement to her words.

So, they give Nixon credit for aligning with the DSA, but she can be exempted from those DSA agenda items that may hurt her chances in Florida. It appears that Moody’s claims about her opponent are disproved by Nixon’s waffling. It used to be that was a handicap in a candidate’s campaign. Now it is cause to say others are wrong for noticing.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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