The New York Times editorial board scolds North Carolina Republicans for losing a case in federal court in which their voter suppression laws were found to have racist intent. More on that in a second.
Over in Wisconsin, the Republicans lost in court on Friday, too.
In Wisconsin, where one federal judge already had eased restrictions on voter-ID requirements, a second judge found that additional elements of the law passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) were unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson suggested he would strike the entire law if he were not bound by the Supreme Court’s decision that states may use properly written voter-ID laws to guard against voter fraud.
“The evidence in this case casts doubt on the notion that voter ID laws foster integrity and confidence,” Peterson wrote. “The Wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities. To put it bluntly, Wisconsin’s strict version of voter ID law is a cure worse than the disease.”
These laws were enacted in the wake of the Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder that was handed down on June 25, 2013. For North Carolina, the ruling freed them of restrictions on changing their voting laws that had been in place since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to address entrenched racial discrimination in voting, “an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution.”
Section 5 of the Act contains a “preclearance” requirement that requires certain states and local governments to obtain a determination by the United States Attorney General or a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that changes to their voting laws or practices do not “deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group”, before those changes may be enforced.
Section 4(b) contains the coverage formula that determines which states and local governments are subject to preclearance under Section 5.
Unlike Wisconsin, North Carolina was a state “subject to preclearance under Section 5” because of its history of Jim Crow laws restricting the black franchise. However, in Shelby, the five conservatives on the Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) as unconstitutional, meaning that the formula used to determine that North Carolina and other states still could not be trusted not to disenfranchise blacks could not be used to demand preclearance for changes in election laws.
Unless Congress created a new formula that could pass the conservative Justices’ sniff test, Section 5 would be rendered useless for lack of Section 4(b). There were Republicans in Congress like Rep. James Sensenbrenner who were eager to work on a new formula, but he was overruled.
In Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent, she acknowledged that (in 2013) there was much less evidence of racial discrimination in voting laws than there had been in 1965, but, she wrote, “throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
The conservatives on the Court didn’t see it that way, but they were proven wrong immediately. No sooner than the Shelby case was decided many of the previously covered states began passing racially discriminatory laws aimed at suppressing the black vote. In North Carolina, it was particularly blatant:
Significantly, the appeals court noted that the restrictions were enacted by the state within weeks of the Supreme Court ruling that struck down a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act — the requirement that states with histories of racial discrimination obtain preclearance from the federal government for any voting changes. The Legislature moved quickly, the appellate judges found, and first “requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices.” The General Assembly then enacted an “omnibus” bill of restrictions, “all of which disproportionately affected African-Americans,” the court found.
The court also noted that Republican lawmakers were swift to respond “in the immediate aftermath of unprecedented African-American participation” in 2012, which is particularly troubling in state with a history of racially polarized voting. If the voting restrictions had not been struck down, they would have been a sizable hurdle for black voters.
“The new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision” and “impose cures for problems that did not exist,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the panel. “Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the State’s true motivation.”
In fact, Republican election officials across the country were ready to get to work restoring Jim Crow-style laws: “At the state level, Texas and Mississippi officials pledged within hours of the decision to enforce voter ID laws that had not been precleared by the Attorney General.”
The very conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just struck down a voter suppression regime in Texas. The Leadership Conference Education Fund has a new report out that details post-Shelby efforts to suppress the vote in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, and Arizona.
What’s probably changed since 1965 is the way vote suppressionists see the world. In the Jim Crow South, part of the aim was to prevent blacks from being elected to any positions at all, even local positions in all-black communities. Today, the motivation is more about winning statewide elections for the U.S. Senate, governor, and for states’ presidential electors. Obviously, this kind of suppression can also help in some of the more closely contested House districts, but these are unfortunately few in our system.
In other words, in the old regime, preserving a system of apartheid was more important than winning a few otherwise losable elections, whereas today the goal is less ideologically racist than racist as a means to other ends.
A different kind of power is trying to be protected.
Fortunately, the Courts (including some rather conservative Courts) have not been sympathetic to these voter suppression tactics. But, ever since the five conservatives on the Supreme Court handed down Shelby, there’s been a massive cleanup in aisle three. To really fix the problem, we need Merrick Garland confirmed as the replacement for Antonin Scalia. Either that, or we need Democratic majorities in Congress and a Democratic president.
You’d think there would be more shame among Republicans at having the governor and legislature of North Carolina called out by a federal court as being “surgically precise” racists.
But you’d be wrong.
Being able to win at the state level SOMEWHERE would also help.
Do you ever wonder what quirk in your personality leads you to respond first to any news about Republican misbehavior by finding some fault with Democrats?
Whatever that quirk is, it’s better common around here.
I’m not talking about this particular poster, but,
I hate to pyschoanalize on the Internet, but it seems to me there is a lot of personal baggage involved. Otherwise why all the personal references? And the obsession with the looks and appearance of political opponents (‘carrying too much weight’, ‘has difficulty climbing stairs!’ ‘Wears the wrong color pant suit’, posting non flattering pictures of women, and flattering pictures of men).
There is certainly some VERY personal quirks being exposed.
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nalbar, I know you dont necessarily mean me but I want to stress I DO NOT made any comments on the outfits or weight of politicians. Longterm struggles with weight make me incredibly disappointed whenever someone knocks say, Christie for his weight even if they go on to knock his policies or ideas.
No, I did not mean you. As I posted.
I NEVER bought into the Christy thing. A bedrock progressive principle is that everyone, no matter their looks or disability should be allowed to run for office. Shaming Christy or Clinton or whomever violates that principle, and repeats what republicans LOVE to do. In fact, it’s taking republican talking points right off their web sites.
What does a persons weight have to do with them governing? What does the ability to bound up stairs two at a time have to do with governing? How is it relevant that a person is taking blood pressure medicine relevant if they are not running for office?
None of that is relevant. The idea is to ‘put it out there’ thus giving permission for others to take it further. That takes politics out of the discussion, makes it all about looks. And ‘looks’ means ‘those not like us need not apply’.
It’s an age old trick. Mainly used by republicans these days, and no true progressive would do it, nor tolerate it.
Once again, not aimed at you, MN.
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Not anymore, because I know. I’m a pessimist by nature and I prefer to look at the situation straight in the eye. You said fix this problem by xyz and thats all quite true, but imo the root of the problem is the unprecedented triumph of the GOP at the state level. That has knock on effects up and down the chain.
It didnt even occur to me that my comment was finding fault with Democrats. It was meant simply as a diagnosis of what I see as the main challenge.
Do you ever wonder what quirk in your personality leads you to respond first to any news about Republican misbehavior by finding some fault with Democrats?
Because, in this case, the NC Democratic Party became a hopeless mess. Have you not read anything about the NC Democratic Party these past 6 or 8 years? I know McCory is an unhinged disgrace. I want a party that doesn’t put up with criminal scum like Rahm Emanuel and Andrew Cuomo.
There are plenty of states where Democrats win all or most of the statewide races. Places where slavery never existed or progressives (mostly Republicans) figured prominently into the mix of those elected to office a hundred years ago. The oddballs are states like Kansas and Wisconsin. Hence, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
I don’t know much about Kansas beyond knowing that Wichita is the headquarters of Koch Industries. There may be a connection.
I know a little more about Wisconsin though. 2 points:
I wouldn’t characterize this as “oddball”. It’s actually pretty rational. And I think it’s more the rule than the exception — I read somewhere recently that there are on the order of 30 states where the Republicans control the governorship and both houses of the Legislature. If I were interested, as many here (though not you, Marie) are in defending the Democrats, I’d feel like I have to understand that.
Only meant oddball in the sense that a strong progressive movement existed a hundred years ago AND slavery wasn’t a feature of the state. The dispute over slavery was prominent in the Kansas territory, but it gained admission to the union as a free state in 1861.
Cultures change slowly even when one side has lost decisively and everybody should just move on.
Ah. OK. Interesting point about Kansas, it had not crossed my mind as an explanation.
I will say that we spent a lot of time here in the recall election, and since, appealing to “Wisconsin’s progressive tradition” and all the reforms the progressives put in place. And what we found is that that whole bundle of ideas cuts almost no ice, it’s so far in the past that it’s been forgotten.
And rightfully so: people today have a new set of problems, they want a new set of solutions. LaFollette never had to figure out what to tell people in a town whose main employer just loaded up a truck and took all the jobs to Mexico, whose downtown just cratered after Wal-Mart moved in, whose farm families have no choice but to sell out to corporate operations.
Even the word “progressive” translates today into “liberal Democrat”; it’s pretty useless as a self-descriptor in the process of persuading someone to pay attention to what you think and it doesn’t do anything to distinguish you from “garden-variety Democrat” at all.
All true. Once upon a time, and this is a gross simplification (which for some reason needs to be stated explicitly because too many people can’t get that from the content of my comments), there wasn’t a huge divide between private sector workers and those in the public sector. Sure, the latter had more job security, but income over a lifetime was close to that of those that did physically demanding and gritty work. They lived and worked in the same neighborhoods.
Certain events, acts, and moments in time alter the future course. Taft-Hartley was a biggie IMHO. Truman vetoed it, but after over-ridden and retaking Congress in 1948, Democrats didn’t bother to repeal it and since then have forgotten all about it. The PATCO strike was the first hit on public employees. The moment when “limousine liberals” should have, but didn’t, reengage with private sector workers and make the case that we were all in this together.
Why should those that have for decades watched their way of life being eroded suddenly rise up in support of those who are just beginning to get some of the same poison? While I was supportive of the recall efforts of those in WI, it lacked critical conceptual components. Cui bono and what is the cost-value proposition for those not directly impacted by the Walker assault on public employees to join the protests and later show up and vote yes in the recall? What do “I” personally get out of Walker being ousted? Is Barret better for “me?” Not the most principled evaluation for a voter to make, but prevalent because ordinary people can’t be expected to make projections as to what x will mean for them/theirs in the future unless a politician is wise and/or gifted enough to articulate that accurately.
Were there no better more constructive ideas than to put significant resources (energy, time, and money) into the Walker recall? Just because the GOP succeeded in recalling Davis in CA, nothing from that accomplishment was operative in WI for the Democrats. Also, the long-term consequences of ousting Davis for the GOP have been dismal. From contenders to a rump party.
No, but a lot of people made it and did so consistently with the analysis you’re offering.
The short answer would be “no”, unless you want to count the anarchists who thought the bestest idea would be to just call a general strike. Seriously.
I would still defend the strategic decision to organize the recall. However, your point about the contradictions among working-class voters is absolutely valid, as we learned to our dismay. Moveover, an effort that had only a slim chance of succeeding was irredeemably sabotaged by the fecklessness of the Democrats and the shortcomings of Barrett as a candidate.
I don’t want to criticize the WI recall decision too heavily because I have the luxury of hindsight. However, the CA and WI recalls can now be viewed through the lenses of object lessons. Which is far more interesting to me.
In CA the odds in favor of a recall were good because 1) Davis had just been reelected to his second term and 2) a serious issue had impacted large numbers of people throughout the state and left them hopping mad and could be blamed on Davis. However, who, after Davis, was integral to the question of yea or nay in his removal.
The recall effort was spearheaded (and funded) by Issa who recognized an opportunity and expected it to lead to his election as governor. Had Issa been the answer to “who’s next” if the recall succeeds, the recall would have failed. With the entry of Arnold as the possible “who’s next,” the recall passed.
People mostly vote in their own interest as they know that. The key for politicians is to get those not directly impacted to appreciate that x or y is also in their interests. Arnold, the celebrity tough guy, was attractive to voters who didn’t bother to pay attention to the facts. He had personally profited from the energy meltdown, not Davis.
So, sounds like in a particular moment of crisis a lot of the outcome hinged on personalities.
Here, I’d say the object lesson was different and goes to organizational failure of the Democrats. There was a “crisis” here too but it was wholly manufactured by Walker upon his election in 2010. That in turn was conditioned by the failure of the previous Democratic administration (2002-2010), the implosion of the Democratic Party, and the skill of the Republicans in seizing the moment and exploiting it. The Democrats got out in front of the anger at Walker, won a do-over, botched that. Then they botched the encore in 2014 even worse.
So far they refuse to understand, much less address, root causes. Until they do so (if they ever do) they’ll remain a flailing, broken organization.
What we’ve learned in observing this is that fixing these problems is up to us, and to do so we will have to address the contradictions among the voters that you point to in your comment above.
Not what I’m saying at all. However, my comment exclusively focused on the moment and what can or cannot be achieved then.
A particular crisis moment is not the time to drill down on the antecedents and who did what and when. But to deal with the moment and fully evaluate the possible in moving from it to somewhere else and the odds for success given finite resources.
The CA energy crisis was also manufactured. Beginning with the energy deregulation bill signed by WJC. Democrats didn’t think they could push back on that; so, it states went along to get along. That led to ridiculous exploitative moves by various corporations and local utilities. The LA-DWP managed that period well because its a large, old, and reasonably well-run municipal utility and therefore, far less vulnerable to marketplace manipulations.
Gray Davis had the misfortune to be on the hot seat when the shit hit the fan and with the WH occupied by a Republican with close ties to those operating the fan and they weren’t about to lift a finger in response to the governor of a state that had been blue in the prior three election cycles. Davis was trapped and like many moments in history, personality can win the day but it’s only one variable. The status quo, including the incumbent, are rarely not at an advantage. Even in a crisis moment. Hence, Davis would have prevailed against Issa.
A factor that required consideration in the WI recall was what would winning it meaning for Walker in the future? Politicians gain creds when they win and that sets them up to win the next time as well. Hell, GWB was selected in 2000 and as early as late 2002 was clear to me that he had an advantage going into 2004. His upcoming war (that agenda item was on his list before 9/11 and before he was selected) either would make him a re-election shoo-in or loser to almost any Democratic nominee or he would be vulnerable and only a Democratic nominee that could effectively work the issues would have a chance. The conservative approach was to assume vulnerable and working the issues.
Democrats tend to bank on the opponent (GOP) losing and Republicans tend to “work it.” It’s not that one can’t point out Democratic wins because the GOP lost or GOP losses when they “worked it.” Both happen. Romney “worked it” real hard in 2012, but that is only the margin of victory when all other things considered are reasonably equal which they never were in 2012.
? I thought Wisconsin was practically the birth place of the Progressive movement….I must not be understanding your comment.
By the way, my state of Oregon is a good example, too. GOP has not won an election for statewide office since 2002. It used to be that both D and R candidates here ran as “good government” candidates, with little in the way of ideologically polarizing rhetoric. The state GOP has changed, but the electorate remains pretty unreceptive to candidates espousing divisive rhetoric.
Wisconsin is the birthplace of the Progressive movement but as I pointed out to Marie, that was then and this is now. All that crap is essentially irrelevant because now people are facing a new set of problems and the current crop of “progressives” (that would be our Democrats) have not the faintest idea how to address them. Meanwhile the Republicans here do have ideas, lots of ideas, to address them. You and I may not like their ideas but the fact is that they elaborate them in a disciplined, effective, and sophisticated way.
And that’s why they win: they’re better organizers than the Democrats. Simple as that.
It’s really awful living in nowhere (aka California).
And it’s REALLY awful living in southern nowhere.
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I was just reading in another thread that pointing out racism on the right is actually a tactic intended to distract people from noticing that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the D’s and the R’s.
Apparently we need more heightening the contradictions and all that. Perhaps letting voter suppression go unchallenged will magically lead to…socialist revolution? an egalitarian paradise?
Not even Trotsky would have considered that line.
Reading posts by the republicans again?
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That would be the ones who are indistinguishable from Democrats aside from being less hypocritical, correct?
I swear, when the Tea Party/Republicans were passing these terrible laws and others like them, I was in despair. It seemed like Roe v Wade was being chipped away, civil rights were being nibbled to bits, and voting laws were being eroded. I thought it was never going to end.
So it’s heartening to me to see some sanity being restored, even if it’s in small pieces. I want to believe that the Democrats will be able to regain lost ground and further reduce the damage done by the Republicans.
I agree.
Our problem is that it always takes longer to build a house than to burn it down.
The establishment takes years to build protections, passing legistration, filling loop holes, etc. then it gets burned down and you have to start all over again.
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The Roberts Court has pulled some bullshit, but none of it is worse than the Shelby County decision, which ignored common sense, the plain text of the 15th Amendment, long-standing interpretative principles and decades of conservative rhetoric about judicial activism and separation of powers to make it harder for minorities to vote.
John Roberts had been working on this issue for over two decades, going back to his service as an attorney in the Reagan Administration, which was trying to chip away at the Voting Rights Act. Roberts had a lead role in crafting the legal arguments re. the VRA by that Administration.
He’s a terrible man who was given great power to undermine our democracy in multiple rulings.
What’s scary is he IS a terrible man, but Alito and Thomas are far worse. And Scalia was worse than them!
Roberts steps back when ever he sees that history will write him as a horrible Chief Justice. Alito, Thomas don’t care, and Scalia enjoyed it.
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Didn’t Arizona use similar tactics as NC to disenfrancise latinos? Not restrictions on registration, but making it doubly hard to actually vote by limiting polling places and such.
Many ways to disenfranchise the voters that one or the other party has deemed not to be in their favor. (AZ)
The GOP is dominate among AZ elected officials. Doubt that they give a damn who votes in Democratic primary elections. Suppressing the Latino and/or young vote is increasingly important to maintaining the dominance of old white voters. The Sanders voters were collateral damage in how AZ election officials conducted the primary. And as it was so heavy handed, they let the cat out of the bag and people will be watching very closely when the general election rolls around. Closely enough that they may not get away with it this year.
I just read the post-decision quotes from the North Carolina Governor and leaders of the Houses of their Legislature:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/us/federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-north-carolina-voter-id-prov
ision.html
Totally unresponsive to the findings. No sense of shame whatsoever. Just appalling human beings.
TarheelDem, what say you?
Who’s the “you” in that sentence? In general Republicans have no shame (and in major specific areas, nor do a majority of Democrats, including their elected officials). Racists/bigots have been voting Republican since 1972. Not voting for Democrats since 1968. And Goldwater won the deep south in 1964. Anyone that by now hasn’t figured that out is dumber than a bag of rocks.
On a positive note, racism/bigotry isn’t static within a culture. It slips and slides over many generations on its way to being less and less prevalent. The Irish, the Italians, the Poles etc. have long since passed the point of being identifiable and discriminated against. It’s a very slow slog for AAs because they don’t have the privilege of white skin. Democrats/liberals are entitled to taking some credit for reducing the virulence of racism, both overt and covert, since 1965. (Anyone that never personally experienced the deep south at that time has no idea what it was like.) But no more than “some credit” because racism remains all too real and entrenched. Hence, what we saw with Katrina and what we continue to see, if we bother to look, in our nice, solidly Democratic jurisdictions outside the south.
Some of us thought that electing an AA president would put another big chink in that wall. Perhaps we weren’t wrong and have to be patient with how slowly some things get integrated in our culture. Backlashes to “doing the right thing” are inevitable, but only temporary if those on the side keep their wits and recognize that symbolism without substantive change is weak tea.
David Talbot, author of The Devil’s Chessboard, discussed the Democratic Party and the Presidential election on a worthwhile radio program this week. While noting Hillary’s Clinton’s policy problems, Talbot details how important it is to elect Clinton to the Presidency:
http://kalw.org/post/your-call-democratic-party-2016#stream/0
The audio stream is embedded on the web page.
Non-responsive to my comment. But nice ploy on your part as I’ve been on record for months in recommending “The Devil’s Chessboard.” But Allan Dulles has been dead for almost fifty years now. What he established has morphed during those decades but remains intact and as shadowy as ever and that’s the challenge for us in the 21st century.
We didn’t understand that the Southern Strategy bigots still inhabited the Republican Party biding their time until they could grab power. We were under the illusion that de jure discrimination was a settled issue in its prohibition.
Thanks to the Lord calling Antonin Sclaia home, it turns out that nationally it still is for everyone except a more activist minority of neo-Confederates and neo-Nazia.
It also turns out that we underestimated the ability of the Secret Service to insulate the President from having a target on his back that chilled his ability to address discrimination issues firmly. President Obama did not underestimate the threat: that is what having a black Attorney General and then a black Secretary of Homeland Security signifies; it also explains how close Obama held the intelligence community and military. Hillary Clinton understands that misogyny is as rampant in law enforcement, inteligence community, and military as racism. She is aligned with those symbolically very strongly in the convention for much the same reasons as Obama. Until the fever breaks, she will have the same limits Obama had.
The fever breaks when there is a critical mass of leadership in law enforcement, the intelligence community, and the military who can see beyond the parochial limits of expanding their own power and income, and image of warrior values. It occurs when they start worrying about how one gets from the current situation to a peaceful world, worrying about how to clean up the unexploded ordnance worldwide, worry about how exactly you demobilize finally after World War II without creating an economic depression and without runaway inflation. Instead of being bound up with where the next generation of soldiers will come from.
Disagree. We understood all too well. However, we keep falling for the notion that symbolism quickly devolves into temporary feel good about ourselves moments if not followed up by concrete and constructive policy changes.
The “USA! USA!” chants outside the WH upon the announcement that OBL was no more (doesn’t matter if he was killed hours before or had died years before) was telling as to where the leadership in this country has taken us to. Historical echoes.
A disastrous war or one that ends up leading to a bitter taste in the populace results in the war party being electorally rejected. 1920, 1952, 1968, 2008. But other than the first instance, the winners just can’t resist becoming the new war party.
I was commenting on the lack or aggressive knockdown of efforts to reinstitutionalize discrimination in voting. And how those were markers in the attempts of the GOP to delegitimize a Presiden’t authority over commmand of the military and respect of law enforcement.
I don’t disagree with your take at all and fail to find where the disagreement with my comment is.
No, we don’t disagree — but it’s not just a Democratic failure not to aggressively knockdown efforts in voter disenfranchisement, but to aggressively knockdown all the regressive PR and legislation that Republicans promulgate.
Or even to take a strong and united stand on a major very bad idea. For example, the IWR. “This is a very bad idea. We object – object – object and refuse to be a party to this. If Republicans choose to proceed with it, they will own all the consequences of it.”
So, here we are. Another war that was a disaster and none of those that participated in making the war happen have been held accountable.
Americans never, as I recall, have held decision-makers in wars of choice accountable even after the war is officially “over”, which is not the case with the Iraq War as long as “endangering the troops’ can forestall accountability.
We no longer officially end our wars. At the ballot box, Americans have held individual politicians and political parties accountable for wars at midpoints. It figured largely into why Truman and LBJ and their party didn’t get a second term. Why GWB and his party were rejected in 2008. And I would submit (although in that case the war was won) why Harding won in a landslide (both the popular and EC vote).
Until Nixon, the choice between the two parties was war or recession/depression. Pick your poison.
I’d argue this differently: to expect the Republicans to feel anything like shame over these decisions reflects nothing so much as naivete on our part as to who the Republicans are and what they’re about.
Look at the history: the Republicans realized, going into the 2010 elections, that they had a historic opportunity to roll up the Democrats on the state level. And they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams (Jane Mayer covers this extensively in Dark Money).
Having won that power, what do they do? They use it, effectively, mercilessly, efficiently and unilaterally to ram through their agenda. In Wisconsin, that amounts to a record over 6 years of hundreds of pieces of legislation and 3 budgets passed. No Democratic legislative record in Wisconsin comes close to approaching that.
Among their many other successes here they passed a highly effective gerrymander and several pieces of voter suppression legislation. We had no choice but to fight those and particularly in the case of voter suppression people here have put literally tens of thousands of person-hours into doing so. To limited effect. And while we were doing that, they were off making other mischief. It becomes the political equivalent of whack-a-mole.
So, now they face a loss on voter suppression and they may take another on the gerrymander. Meh, BFD. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose — but over the past 6 years they’ve won a lot. Shame? Fuggedaboudit.
It will take years to undo their success.
All the liberals I run into are constantly weeping, weeping, weeping about how unfair this all is. But you want to talk about shame? What’s shameful is how slow the liberals are to figure out what the Republicans are doing, why it’s working, and how to go to war against them.
Funny, I didn’t imagine that electing Barack Obama as president was going to do a lot for race relations, but neither did I imagine that his election was going to bring the crazies and bigots out into the open to such an extent. Sometime during summer 2008, I hired a tile contractor to do some work, and the hired hand who was sent out had a portable radio that he kept tuned to Michael Savage, who kept ranting about BAYrack HOOsein Obama the crypto-Muslim. I envisaged spittle flying from Savage’s mouth as he spoke that name. That’s when I knew we were in for a very rough ride.
And this post is just another reason why having a Democratic president filling empty bench seats is so important. It’s important that the courts don’t reflect the proclivities and obsessions of a racist, narrow minded, fool.
A revitalized Democratic party infrastructure in North Carolina is essential to making this court decision stick. It will take more diverse geography in Democratic hands to break the gerrymanders.
A major effort at de jure voter suppression has been rendered illegal, but do not think that there won’t be a serious informal effort to produce the same results through employee intimidation and other long-term voter suppression tactics common in most small counties in the US.
So far, the presence of the North Carolina Democratic Party is not visible, nor is success at penetrating the iron curtain around the local North Carolina media, which in years past has allowed the truth to be spoken but not since McCrory (adverstiser collective action can sometimes be powerful when they are pals with the media owners.)
Turning North Carolina blue imaginally looks like 51 blue counties occupying more than 50% of the land area. Imaginally, this is important because it, more than actual numbers shows dominance. Also geographical dominance is required to break the gerrymander.
Is there anyone working on figuring out how to make this happen this year and assembling resources to do it?
North Carolina, Kansas especially should be ready to snap back after disastrous state government GOP performances. Nothing says the failure of the conservative ideas like those GOP failures.
I’m genuinely curious — many of us up here pay attention to the work you are doing down there to build up a resistance.
My question goes to what remains of the NC Democratic Party apparatus.
By far the most important movemental political initiative is the NC NAACP’s coalition around the Moral Monday Movement, which can bring 0.75% of the population to rally at the capitol in Raleigh. There is active movement in the majority black counties and most of the larger urban areas.
But those have neither become mainstream nor supported by a majority movement of Democrats. And that will be what has to be built to break the gerrymander. If Roy Cooper wants to win and govern in the style of Terry Sanford, he will have to create a broad-based majority movement instead of the usual minimalist approach. He will have to mount a campaign that seeks to win all 100 counties, even if he falls short and can only win 52 of them. Winning with the majority black counties and the urban areas is possible but it takes a lot of interim work to make that a governing position. One test is whether he can get endorsement from NC Native American communities, most importantly, the Cherokee (who have tended to Republicans recently).
Two symbolic victories of state movement would to be finally rid of Virginia Foxx, Patrick McHenry, Mark Meadows, George Holding, Richard Hudson, and Thomas Pittenger. And capture the seat formerly held by Renee Elmers.
A sign of change would be Walter Jones coming home to the Democratic Party that thought that the 3rd District seat was not designed for a family dynasty. That seat functions as the Congressman from Camp Lejeune; you can uderstand how that might happen in a Trump year. Not all Marines are Boo-Yah white guys with blond jarheads.
Sounds like in NC any resistance that is to be built will be built outside the DP.
There’s a broad consensus here around that strategy here too. Liberals have a knee-jerk reaction to look to the DP for leadership but the only people who pursue this thinking with much conviction tend to be older (late career / early retirement), white, well-to-do financially. In other words not much of a social force in the long run. Although annoying if you have to work with them.
The difference that I see is that in NC people look to religious institutions as organizational centers of the struggle — Rev. Barber’s background is no accident. Whereas here, it’s more centered around leftist trade unionists and leftist community organizations.
Smaller African-American population here too which means more patience for the Democrats’ endless BS.
Will be curious to see if Sanders-influenced candidates will be able to articulate a coherent economic reason WHY things are as they are and what can be done. Capitalism HAS to change. Fiddling around the edges just enables it.
I agree but the key consideration to me is, to what extent does the Sanders campaign, or some consequence of it, exist going forward.
As everyone knows, being a candidate is hard. If it were easy everyone would be doing it. There’s a skill set for candidates, for campaign managers, for finance people, for field people. If you don’t have the skill set you will get your ass handed to you by people who do.
That’s not to say that you have to have such an organization, or even a Sanders-specific one. Paul Wellstone’s people, in the wake of his death, set up such a school and as far as I know, it’s still in operation. But support sure helps. We all know what happened after OFA folded in 2012: nothing.
The NAACP, through the Moral Monday movement has been resisting ever since the law was passed. Indeed the consideration of the law even before it was passed was what motivated the Rev. Barber to begin direct action tactics and rallies at the Legislative Building. But the first shot out of the barrel was the NC Education Association (the teachers union) rallying in solidarity with Wisconsin workers in 2011. And then Occupy Raleigh, Occupy Charlotte, Occupy Asheville, Occupy Greensboro, and Occupy Durham held out without tents for several months.
North Carolina has a tradition of resistance that was massively successful in the Greensboro sit-ins that changed Jesse Jackson’s life path.
Why Trump Supporters Think He’ll Win
How the election looks to backers of the Republican nominee
DAVID FRUM
JUL 29, 2016
…………………………
“Here’s the bottom line. You live in an America that’s still a lot like your parents’ America. It’s mostly white. Nobody’s displacing and replacing you. It’s pretty safe too. You can read about rising crime–you don’t live it. In your America, you worry about how there aren’t enough women making Hollywood films or sitting on corporate boards. In our America, the gender gap closed a long time ago–and then went into reverse. Obama in the Oval Office was humiliating enough. But Hillary will be worse: We’re going to lose any idea at all that leadership is a man’s job.
“You’ve been building up to this for a long time. No more Superheroes rescuing women in the movies. The girl always has to throw the last punch herself. In the commercials, Dad’s either an idiot–or he’s doing the housework with his boyfriend.
“And you know what? It’s not just our hillbilly voters who are going to vote `no’ to all that. A lot of men you never imagined will vote for us. Trump’s going to do better with Latino men than you expect–probably no worse than Romney. He’s going to do better with black men than Romney ever did. And his numbers with white men will be out of sight. Every time you demand that Donald show respect to Hillary–while laughing as Hillary disrespects Donald–you push those numbers up.”
If this is accurate, Trump supporters are even bigger imbeciles than I thought.
Suspect it’s just that simple.
Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male (1999) established four points of the post-World War II social contract with men (cultural expectations for being “real men”):
The changes over 70 years have made that contract come unglued. That is why old white men seem so adrift and suckers for “making America great again” by restoring that social contract. And why the wives who were comfortable with that male reality rally to Trump as well.
Just as Barack Obama’s election and performance has laid tor rest the 19th century question of whether “Negroes” are full human beings and all the polite successors to that version of white privilege, Hillary Clinton challenges the notion of “woman’s place” and indeed represents the triumph of the suffragist movement, first wave feminism, and second wave feminism. And if she ever talks about rape with the frankness that Obama talked about race (or Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about it), or other forms of “putting women in their place”. those holding on to the old social contract will come as equally unglued as the Tea Party faction. And there will be legislative backlash in the jurisdictions in which the conservatives and religious right still hold power.
You can see why that commitment to the family has loomed so large in conservative focus.
That is one thing that Trump is testing in Colorado. How many immigrant-resenting Latino men can he capture to vote for him? How many traditional-family-values, personal responsibility black men can he capture to vote for him. How many “hillary-drove-him-to-wander” women of all races can he get to overlook his personal life?
In politics, PVI and demographics are the background noise that politicians communicate through and to. There are no guarantees that either are destiny.
Democrats better make sure to shore up their presumed base in states like Colorado now in order to be able to shrink the Trump/Pence map at the same time.
Two obvious points of organization for the Clinton team are Colorado Springs and Indiana. Another one is Long Island. Make Trump/Pence work to shore those up.
Frum’s is just another “loss of privilege” = “loss of status” = “loss of place” argument.
There still are frontiers, enemies, brotherhoods, and families. And lots of men scared of the new implicit social rules and adrift.
Finally, after 7 years, even with all the obstacles with regards to judge approval, I think we’re down to just one circuit that is right-wing. The Obama Administration has slowly but surely, shifted the other circuits.
But, even if you have the circuits, we still had the Supreme Court to contend with.
That’s why Fat Tony’s death changed EVERYTHING.
These cases had to work their way through the system. And, because of the change of the makeups of the circuits, we’re getting the decisions that we’re getting.
Up until Fat Tony’s death, it was presumed that these were lost.
But, a 4-4 split by the SC, means that the lower court rulings STAND. That’s why they were so important.
The circuit that is still right-wingish, was the one who reviewed the Texas law, which must have been so odious, that even THEY came out against it.
Fat Tony’s death changed it all. The GOP can appeal those. But, with a 4-4 tie, they’ll still lose.
for describing these lying motherfuckers (so, for that matter is “lying motherfuckers”; in fact I strain, but fail, to find words in our language — and “quels cons”, “salauds” are similarly way too mild — adequate to the task).
From NYT article that cfdj linked:
The most salient and compelling feature of at least the NC decision was the meticulous thoroughness of the court’s documentation — much of it taken directly from the state’s own documentation in the lower-court ruling that this one overturned — that:
The door isn’t, nor was it, “open” to voter fraud. The “integrity of our elections” is just fine in that respect, thank you very much. The relevant data are essentially unanimous on this (as the NYT article also points out).
Yet the response of McCrory and those NC state legislators in response to that thorough judicial debunking is to immediately repeat squawking those very same, spurious, refuted Zombie Lies.
No, our language fails for characterizing how disgusting these people are.
How many states use voting machines with no means of verifying the votes?
You know, Diebold-like.
that I stuck “in that respect” in there during a final edit with you specifically in mind, Bob, in anticipation of just this objection.
It’s a county decision in North Carolina. My county uses scanned paper ballots, marked by filling in printed bubbles like a College Board test.
Some zombie allegations refuse to die.
Well, you were on to something with the French insults. “Casse-toi, pauvre con,” and so on. And that was coming from the former president of the French Republic! I guess Sarkozy sort of prefigured the Trumpenfuehrer.
OT: The story about the secret US base in Saudi Arabia that Trump revealed. Is this the same secret US base in Saudi Arabia that was in the news in 2013? Or is it another secret US base in Saudi Arabia?
My reading was that is was the one set up in the Tahrir Square period that was delivering drones on al-Quaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in South Yemen.
uh huh
Donald Trump’s slander of Captain Humayun Khan’s family is horrifying, even for Trump
What kind of person is Donald Trump?
Updated by Ezra Klein on July 30, 2016, 2:07 p.m. ET
The most emotional moment of the Democratic National Convention was the speech by Khizr Khan, the bereaved father of Army Captain Humayun Khan. With his wife Ghazala by his side, Khan recalled his son’s character, his faith, his patriotism — and, ultimately, his courageous death in the service of the country he loved, and the fellow soldiers he was protecting.
And, yes, the Khan family is Muslim. Under Trump’s proposed policies, they would be innately suspect; had he been president when they immigrated to America, they would’ve been barred from entering, and Humayun Khan never would have served.
……………………….
On ABC this morning, Trump responded to Khan’s speech. I don’t know what I expected from Trump. Maybe he would show some gentleness. Maybe he would show some empathy. Maybe he would refuse to comment. Maybe he would attack Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s foreign policy leadership. All of those responses would have been fine.
Trump’s actual response, though, wasn’t fine.
“If you look at his wife, she was standing there,” he said, on national television. “She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”
This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. In an interview with Maureen Dowd, Trump took the same tack. “I’d like to hear his wife say something,” he said.
Let’s be very clear about what Trump is doing here: as ABC wrote, he’s suggesting “Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim.” This is bullshit. It is flatly, verifiably, false. But that’s almost beside the point.
I find myself hoping that within a very small number of days Trump comes to a new understanding of the phrase “be careful what you wish for”.
His fans love this shit. They LOVE it.