Michelle Steel’s Pathetic Red-Baiting of Patriot Jay Chen

How low can the Steels go? And in how many ways is their attempted red-baiting of Michelle’s Democratic challenger Jay Chen laughable, hypocritical, and just plain wrong? Let us count the ways:

ONE. Jay serves as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves and even holds a top secret security clearance. He has spent the last few years helping to bring ISIS to its knees, and he also spent plenty of time on the Korean Peninsula, protecting our nation and our allies from Communist aggression. Yes, Jay put his life on the line defending Korean-American Michelle Steel’s countryfolks – probably a lot of her extended family – from the Communists of North Korea.

Let’s contrast that with the military record of Michelle’s husband, Mr. Shawn Steel … oh, wait. The old codger HAS no military record. He has spent his whole sorry life trying to help the Republican Party win more power, and help the rich get richer. And Shawn’s decades are littered with such great and humane causes as 1994’s Prop 189, which lost the entire Latino race to the California GOP for a generation or more.

TWO. Jay’s family comes from TAIWAN. Do you know what Taiwan is? Officially named “the Republic of China” in contrast to the mainland’s “People’s Republic of China,” it is the island off China that has always resisted the mainland’s Communism and its domination, and has always been threatened by it. It’s the last holdout against the mainland’s totalitarianism (which should actually no longer be called Communism, as neither it nor Russia retains any egalitarian pretense.) When I heard Jay speak in Fullerton last year (long before he knew this would be a GOP smear) he spoke passionately and knowledgably about the danger of “Communist” China, especially to his homeland. It’s something he cares and worries about, and knows ALL about.

THREE. Talk about glass houses. It turns out it is SHAWN STEEL who hobnobs with Chinese government officials, helping them get close to his dear President Trump, as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2020:

Soon after Trump took office, people with ties to the Chinese state poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into his re-election bid to get close to and potentially influence the new president… As guests of a Republican official named Shawn Steel, Chinese nationals, including a man working for China’s central government, attended an invitation-only gathering in May 2017 where GOP leaders discussed campaign strategies and other issues…

In May 2017, David Tian Wang [right, a pro-Trump organizer and native of China with a U.S. green card who’d been asked by the Chinese consulate to help lobbying Trump on China issues] attended a Republican National Committee invitation-only leadership meeting in San Diego as a guest of Mr. Steel, the California committeeman, people familiar with the matter said. The gathering was an early chance for Republican leaders to plan the path forward for the party after Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

Accompanying Mr. Wang to the meeting as Mr. Steel’s guests were three men linked to China’s government. The first was Zhao Gang, whom Chinese official websites identify as a researcher for China’s Ministry of Science and Technology focused on national security, tech diplomacy and other issues. Mr. Zhao’s work has connected him with the senior echelons of China’s Communist Party, including a close associate of President Xi Jinping, say people who have met Mr. Zhao.

Another was Tang Ben, a China-born U.S. citizen who served as an executive-committee member at the China Strategic Culture Promotion Association, an opaque group that state media have said advises China’s leaders on security issues. Its secretary-general, retired Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, is well-known to U.S. officials for his hawkish posture toward the U.S.

The third was Li Su, a government-connected businessman who has worked closely with a well-known former associate of China’s vice president. The presence of Messrs. Zhao and Li at the GOP leadership event was unusual because federal election rules don’t permit foreign nationals to play any role in decision making at U.S. political committees. .,.,

And this cat has the GALL (nobody thinks Michelle comes up with her own smears) to smear Jay as a Commie-coddling Manchurian candidate? Well, as they say in the more sophisticated strata of society, “He who smelt it, dealt it.”

FOUR. No, the above is not “whataboutism,” as Jay has absolutely nothing to apologize for. There is nothing “Communist” about the very popular and successful Mandarin-immersion language and culture curriculum Jay voted in favor of 12 years ago, as a member of the Hacienda Heights school board. Sure, it was partly funded by the Chinese government, but the idea that the Chinese language and culture is inherently dangerous or Communist is so ridiculous and paranoid that it was lampooned at the time by the Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi. Jay’s in this clip too, playing the “straight man.” But my favorite is the smart young student saying he wants to be an engineer and it will be VERY HELPFUL for him to know Chinese. (Watch this 3-minute clip for sure, I can’t “embed” from Comedy Central…)

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

PS. Have I mentioned that Mandarin is the main language spoken on ANTI-COMMUNIST TAIWAN, where Jay’s parents hail from?

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FIVE. Yes, this is RACIST, accusing an ethnic Chinese guy with being in league with the Communist Chinese which is so easy for prejudiced and ignorant people (who generally vote Republican) to believe. Long before anyone even pointed out the racism, we could hear, echoing from GOP hangouts, the sound of Republicans slapping their knees and thighs with laughter: “Haha, they’re gonna say this is racist, but LOOK AT MICHELLE – she’s an Asian-American female!”

And this is the reason the OC GOP loves to hide behind Asian-American females, to insulate themselves from charges of racism. But nobody believes that this CLEARLY brainless woman, who can barely speak English after 50 years, invents her own smears. They are fed to her by, if not her husband Shawn, SOME damn cackling white men in suits. I mean, in case you don’t remember, this is what it sounds like when Michelle Steel thinks and speaks for herself:

SIX. Connected to this being racist, the Steels’ smear campaign on an ethnic Chinese candidate being a tool of the “Communist” Chinese comes in the overall context of the recent wave of anti-Asian hate crimes, which started with racist Americans blaming the Chinese for the coronavirus pandemic, egged on by the constant cries of “Chinavirus” from the Steels’ idol, Donald “Rotting Yam” Trump. (They STILL brag of being the “only OC elected leader to meet President Trump at LAX on his first California trip.”)

Have I reminded readers recently that Trump LOST this county in both 2016 and 2020? And that the new plurality-Asian district 45 in which Jay and Michelle are running also has a Democratic advantage?

But really, there is NO section of Orange County – not even Yorba Linda – that is backward enough to be represented by Michelle Steel, who is still fighting against same-sex marriage and the right of women to terminate their pregnancies. This racist smear on military hero Jay Chen, pulled right out of the McCarthyite 1950’s which so shaped Shawn Steel, is the best we can expect from this aged and hateful couple, who both need to retire or be retired forthwith.

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.