The Ego Has Landed
Socialist Richard Elliott's latest gambit is egomania run wild. It's also quite deceiving.
If you’ve heard of Richard Elliott at all, it’s usually from him making a spectacle of himself. Whether it’s his submission of grammar-challenged op-eds, submission of amazingly lame, pointless and improperly formatted legislative testimony, or his slate getting destroyed at the Young Democrats convention, Elliott knows how to simultaneously get attention while making a fool of himself.
However, Elliott has recently taken it to a new level.
Look at this bad boy.
I mean, wow.
Don’t get my wrong. It is a very impressively designed poster. It’s well designed and apparently inspired by this old Earl Long poster.
Of course, when you look at the Elliott version and look at the original, you can see the immediate flaws.
First, the Elliott poster places Elliott as the most prominent person on the ticket. Richard Elliott has not been elected to anything by anybody. He has no actual accomplishments, political or otherwise. Greenbelt Mayor Colin Byrd (who has his own issues) and Bowie Mayor Tim Adams (who has his own issues with personnel) get demoted to second fiddle despite actually serving in elected office.
At least those elected officials don’t get demoted to the bottom rung, a list which includes a Delegate, two County Councilmembers, and a Central Committee Member.
The second obvious flaw is the photograph. How can anybody take somebody wearing a mask in a campaign picture seriously. It makes it appear as if Elliott is untrustworthy or has something to hide.
He even uses this baffling version of it as his Twitter avatar.
The next line issue is the fact that he wants this group to “Carry Forward the Legacy of Mayor Marion Barry and Wayne Curry.” It’s a baffling line considering the individuals. Marion Barry’s legal and ethical problems are the stuff of legend, and that’s not even talking about the famous cocaine arrest and conviction. Wayne Curry’s flirtation with becoming a Republican makes him an even stranger choice. A very off message to be sending.
But the biggest problem of all here is the overall message not of what is said, but what is implied.
The header on this graphic says “Elliott’s Endorsements” can make two different implications. I could imply that Elliott is endorsing them. If that it is that case, that’s fine. However, it’s not worded in a way that implies that Elliott is endorsing these candidates; it is worded in a way that implies that they are endorsing Elliott.
It’s not the first time that this kind of language has been used on Elliott literature. For months he has been posting a similar on his text-heavy Instagram page for months.
I have no idea what poor soul would actually sit and read that whole thing. It’s a terrible piece of graphic design, but I digress.
Regardless, you will note that piece also includes the phrase “Elliott’s Endorsement” and includes endorsements for (or from?) Adams, Byrd, McKayla Wilkes and, most bizarrely of all a “Jill Carter for Lieutenant Governor” graphic even though that position is not a position Jill Carter can run for in her own right without being selected by one of the B-listers running for the Democratic nomination for Governor.
We know that some of these candidates are candidates ones that Elliott has endorsed. Maybe. Toward the very bottom of Elliott’s text-heavy and horrifically designed website is a list of candidates with the label “Candidates Endorsed By Rich” which includes many of the candidates listed on the fliers (plus, oddly enough, former Maryland Young Republicans Vice-Chairman Brandon “Ric” Gordon who is running for Greenbelt City Council).
On the website is clear. But the phrase “Elliott’s Endorsements” amorphous. Did they actually endorse Elliott? There is scuttlebutt on the internet that not all of these candidates support Elliott. If that’s the case, then Elliott is being deceitful in his literature. It’s something that Elliott should clarify, but probably won’t.
Richard Elliott’s poster above actually does something useful. It displays Elliott’s colossal ego for all of the world to see. It’s something that we have seen from the socialist side of the aisle, both here and abroad, for decades. Socialists of all stripes have had cult of personalities develop around them. Lenin had one. Stalin had one. Castro had one. Chavez had one. Sanders has one. That Elliott also has the ego to think he can create some sort of cult of personality shows the flaw in socialism itself.
Though socialism professes to promote equality of opportunity and outcome, Socialist “leaders” like to pretend that they are above that fray. Socialist leaders like Elliott tend to have massive egos and like to inflate their importance and competence in order to hide their insecurities and their heavy case of imposter syndrome. Elliott truly believes that “all people are equal, but some people are more equal than others” and that he is in the latter category. And socialism draws that kind of “leader”, those who could never make it politically in any other way.
This flyer shows what a lot of people already new: that Richard Elliott is an egomaniac running wild. It will be fascinating to see if just how soon Elliott and his campaign implodes.
I think you are off base about Rich here - they may not be popular in other areas but Berry and Curry are EXTREMELY popular in PG.