When Wrongo was a kid living in CT, he got a 3-speed English bike, a Humber. One day while riding on the road in front of our house, a truck forced me onto the roadâs sandy shoulder. The sand immediately grabbed the bikeâs front wheel, stopping it dead in its tracks. Wrongo went headfirst over the handlebars and got up with a displaced fracture of his left wrist.
While Wrongo saw the accident coming, he couldnât do anything to avoid the sand.
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, is America being pushed onto the sandy shoulder of our road? We can still avoid a crash, but weâre facing quite a few threats that might push us off the road and into the gutter:
Losing our social cohesion
Continuing income inequality
Continuing racism
Increasing threats to the right to vote
Twenty years on, America is more at war with itself than with foreign terrorists. Our society and our democracy are threatened from within in a way that Osama bin Laden could never have managed.
Think about the Delta variant. One Party thinks that people should be free to acquire and transmit to others a deadly and extremely communicable virus. They also think itâs morally wrong for the government to engage in even the mildest coercion to push people to get vaccinated, because that coercion interferes with an individualâs liberty.
They think personal liberty is the highest social value in all circumstances except abortion. On to cartoons.
Our continuing learning disability:
9/11 aftermath:
Texas has only one star in its flag. Thatâs also its Yelp review:
New rodeo event in Texas:
America’s right wing is constantly sore about everything:
âFor the first time in the history of the countryâs census-taking, the number of White people in the United States is widely expected to show a decline when the first racial breakdowns from the 2020 Census are reported this week.â
The headline news includes these facts: For the first time, the portion of White people could dip below 60%, and the under-18 population is likely to be majority non-White. In 26 states, the number of Whites has declined. Up to six states and DC could have majorities of people of color.
In case anyone was wondering what was motivating all the Republican voting restrictions, this is it.
The actual data will be released later today. So thereâs at least some chance that the WaPo and Wrongo are well, wrong about the census results. Thatâs unlikely, since the numbers have been moving in this direction for years. More from the WaPo:
âEstimates from 2016 to 2020 show that all of the countryâs population growth during that period came from increases in people of color. The largest and most steady gains were among Hispanics, who have doubled their population share over the past three decades to almost 20% and who are believed to account for half of the nationâs growth since 2010. They are expected to drive about half the growth in more than a dozen states, including Texas, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.â
The WaPo quotes William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution: (brackets by Wrongo)
âThe trend is projected to continue, with Whites falling below 50% nationally around 2045…[and] at that point, there will be no racial majority in the country. Between 2015 and 2060, the Hispanic and Asian populations are expected to approximately double in size, and the multiracial population could triple due to both immigration and births.â
America is heading into uncharted territory. Our older generations will be much Whiter than younger ones. Racial minorities will drive the growth in the US labor force as White Boomers retire. Frey calls whatâs about to happen a âcultural generation gapâ.
This could mean that both groups may compete for resources. For example, public spending on services for seniors versus spending on schools or job training.
The new data are also expected to reflect continuing ethnic diversification of the suburbs. Now, more minorities live in suburbs than live in cities. Frey says that the vast majority of the nationâs more than 3,000 counties and its more than 350 metropolitan areas became less White in the past decade.
All of this has tremendous implications for social cohesion. Cities and states that want to sustain economic growth will need strategies to attract minorities. Thatâs already happened in places such as Kansas, the Philadelphia metro area, Miami-Dade County, and Prince Georgeâs County, MD.
How predominantly White boards of directors manage predominantly diverse management teams and workers could be a big challenge.
The data release comes amid concerns over its accuracy. The 2020 count had huge problems, including the Trump administrationâs attempts to add a citizenship question and block undocumented immigrants from being counted. On top of that, the pandemic caused major delays for the survey.
This release also provides the first look at whether last yearâs count missed significant numbers of minorities. Arizona, along with Texas and Florida, each fell short of expectations with smaller gains in Congressional seats than projected.
The big event is that release of the Census data kicks off this decadeâs Congressional seat redistricting. The clock is now ticking for states to draw new Congressional maps. The fact that the data are already late creates a scramble among most states to finish their maps before primaries begin next year.
In addition to questions about data accuracy, get ready for a new round of “white replacement” tirades from the Right. Expect to see a revival of the debate over whether the undocumented should be counted in the Census. Expect a fresh wave of Right-Wing anger directed against America’s minority populations.
Our ugly politics will probably get uglier, at least for a while.
It’s ironic that Republicans are both completely resistant to more support for families, although they complain loudly about the declining share of the White population.
It isnât only people of color who need better policies â like more parental leave; control of healthcare costs; housing affordability; and better and cheaper childcare. Itâs also those Millennials and GenZâers who are of child-bearing age who canât afford kids.
Protecting voting for all Americans is the most important priority for Congress. Particularly now, as it seems clear that Republicans are trying to bail on democracy.
Why? Because it’s hard to promote White supremacy to non-white people.
Zen Garden, Fields of Wrong, CT â 2015 photo by Wrongo
Some of Wrongoâs readers also follow Heather Cox Richardson, a Boston College history professor who writes an extremely successful blog called “Letters from an American“. She has the gift of seamlessly moving from speaking about Americaâs history to todayâs politics. Last week, she had a column that Wrongo thinks everyone should read.
In it, she gives us a quick review of what led up to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Here is a long quote:
âFifty-six years ago today, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. The need for the law was explained in its full title: âAn Act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, and for other purposes.â
In the wake of the Civil War, Americans tried to create a new nation in which the law treated Black men and white men as equals. In 1865, they ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing enslavement except as punishment for crimes. In 1868, they adjusted the Constitution again, guaranteeing that anyone born or naturalized in the United Statesâexcept certain Indigenous Americansâwas a citizen, opening up the suffrage to Black men. In 1870, after Georgia legislators expelled their newly seated Black colleagues, Americans defended the right of Black men to vote by adding that right to the Constitution.
All three of those amendmentsâthe Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenthâgave Congress the power to enforce them. In 1870, Congress established the Department of Justice to do just that. Reactionary white southerners had been using state laws, and the unwillingness of state judges and juries to protect Black Americans from white gangs and cheating employers, to keep Black people subservient. White men organized as the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize Black men and to keep them and their white allies from voting to change that system. In 1870, the federal government stepped in to protect Black rights and prosecute members of the Ku Klux Klan.
With federal power now behind the Constitutional protection of equality, threatening jail for those who violated the law, white opponents of Black voting changed their argument against it.
In 1871, they began to say that they had no problem with Black men voting on racial grounds; their objection to Black voting was that Black men, just out of enslavement, were poor and uneducated. They were voting for lawmakers who promised them public services like roads and schools, and which could only be paid for with tax levies.
The idea that Black voters were socialistsâthey actually used that term in 1871âmeant that white northerners who had fought to replace the hierarchical society of the Old South with a society based on equality began to change their tune. They looked the other way as white men kept Black men from voting, first with terrorism and then with state election laws using grandfather clauses, which cut out Black men without mentioning race by permitting a man to vote if his grandfather had; literacy tests in which white registrars got to decide who passed; poll taxes; and so on. States also cut up districts unevenly to favor the Democrats, who ran an all-white, segregationist party. By 1880 the south was solidly Democratic, and it would remain so until 1964.â
Cox Richardson talks about how a debate raged over whether states or the federal government should control who is allowed to vote in elections. That eventually led to LBJ signing the Act.
She then brings us back to the John Roberts Supreme Court gutting most of the provisions of the Act. First, with the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, and in July, with their decision in Brnovich v. DNC. In the wake of the 2020 election, Republican-dominated states have increased the rate of voter suppression, and the Brnovich decision helps codify their moves. Read the whole thing.
So once again, America faces an existential crisis over voting rights and whether it is the states, or the federal government, that should decide who can vote in our elections. As Wrongo has reported, a recent Pew poll shows that more than two-thirds of Republican voters donât think voting is a right and believe it can be limited.
Thereâs still some hope that a voting rights bill can pass before the 2022 mid-terms. That could restore the power of the federal government over the states to enforce them.
Time to wake up America! Without federal oversight of voting, America will slip back into voter suppression. We can easily return to an earlier time that denied voting rights to many Americans.
To help you wake up, listen to Son Voltâs song âLiving in the USAâ from their new album, “Electro Melodierâ. Front man Jay Farrar wonders if weâve misplaced our collective soul, and how we glue the pieces of a broken country back together:
Sample Lyric:
This land of freedom, all can live the dream they say
With voices crying out and sirens wailing away
Money flows through every back channel door
Cash crowns the king, there’s no limits anymore
Livin’ in the USA
A new Pew Research poll asks whether voting is a fundamental right, or a privilege. Like most things in America today, the answer is that it depends on your age and political affiliation. Self-identified Republican voters skewed more toward âprivilegeâ while self-identified Democratic voters said âright.â See this chart:
Overall, 57% of Americans over 18 say voting is a “fundamental right for every US citizen and should not be restricted.â
Younger adults are most likely to say voting is a fundamental right, peaking at 64% among 18-to-29-year-olds. Sixty percent of 30-to-49-year-olds agree. But for people aged 50 or older, only about 50% say voting is a fundamental right.
The biggest gap is by political party affiliation. Fully 78% of Democrats say voting is a fundamental right versus just 32% Republicans.
A 67% majority of Republicans say voting is a privilege that can be limited.
Isnât it shocking that most Republicans don’t think voting is a fundamental right? Maybe that explains why they find it acceptable to re-litigate the 2020 presidential election, or to suppress the votes of those they think will vote against them.
Although the majority of Republicans view voting as a privilege that can be limited, younger Republicans and Hispanic Republicans are more likely than older Republicans to say that voting is a fundamental right for every US citizen:
44% of Republicans and Republican leaners under 30 say it is a fundamental right, compared with 37% of those ages 30 to 49, 29% of those 50 to 64 and just 22% of those 65 and older.
The Atlantic quotes historian Eric Foner, saying that since the country’s founding, Americans have been torn between: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“…voting as a right and voting as something that only the right people should do.”
Foner says that every step forward in human rights has given birth to a desire to “purify the electorate.” After the Civil War, Northern Republicans wanted to exclude “disloyal” pro-Southern Democrats and newly arrived immigrants from the ballot, while Southern Democrats were adamant that freed slaves should not vote.
The Constitution mentions “the right to vote” five times. But people on the Right often observe that the Constitution doesnât explicitly say, “All individuals have the right to vote.” It simply rules out specific limitations on the right to vote. A right not guaranteed in affirmative terms isn’t really a “right” in a fundamental sense, they say.
But if the rule is that the Constitution must say, “here is a specific right and we hereby guarantee that right to every person” then there are few rights in the Constitution. The Constitution does more ârights-preservingâ than rights-proclaiming.
States shouldnât be able to pick and choose who gets to pick and choose our elected representatives. Taking away peopleâs right to vote would further increase corruption, simply because the government would have an easier time targeting those people. It isnât inconsistent that states can make rules about conduct of elections, but they shouldnât be able to decide who gets to vote. That should be unconstitutional.
This question has become a full-on political battle with Republican states pushing for more control over who gets to vote, mostly based on the Big Lie.
Letâs close today by remembering Dusty Hill, the bass player of ZZ Top, who died on Wednesday. He, along with the other two band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame in 2004.
ZZ Top probably has the longest-running unchanged band lineup in rock and roll history. Dusty told the Charlotte Observer:
âPeople ask how weâve stayed together so long…I say separate tour buses. We got separate tour buses early on, when we probably couldnât afford them. That way we were always glad to see each other when we got to the next city.â
And when they were playing, you didnât take your eyes off Hill. Not just because of his luxurious beard. He was a great bass player, and his raw vocals were unforgettable.
This recording of their hit âTushâ says it was recorded in 1975, but theyâre playing Dean guitars in this video. That didnât happen until the 1980s. Still, itâs worth listening to Dusty live on lead vocals and the great guitar playing:
People in the Sun – 1963 painting by Edward Hopper. Notice that they are not dressed for summer.
(The Wrongologist will be taking a break for the July 4th weekend. Regular ranting will resume on Tuesday, July 6.)
As we head into the 4th of July weekend, letâs remember that in a remarkable coincidence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence who later served as presidents of the US, died on the same day, July 4, 1826. That was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration. Four years later, James Monroe, also a president and founder of our country, but not a signatory of the Declaration, became the third president in a row to die on July 4th in 1831.
For many, Jefferson and Adams dying on the same day seemed too coincidental. After all, the chances of two people dying on the same day is 1 in 365, but dying on a significant date that was the historic anniversary of an event for which they had intimate involvement? That seemed suspicious.
Some suggested a conspiracy among both physicians and family members to help the patients make it to the 4th. Margaret P. Battin observed in a 2005 Bulletin of the Historic Society article, that Adamsâ granddaughter reported their doctor gave her grandfather an experimental medicine which he said could either prolong his life by as much as two weeks, or bring it to a close within 24 hours. Others wondered if something more sinister had been afoot. In a letter, John Randolph mused that Adamsâ death was âEuthanasiaâ, adding âThey have killed Mr. Jefferson, too, on the same day.â
Americans love conspiracy theories. Today, none more so than the ongoing belief that Trump won the 2020 election. Or that Democrats are Marxists, or pedophiles. Or that Obama was from Kenya.
In 2021 America, politicians always seek to amplify their differences with the other side, regularly accusing their rivals of deliberately trying to harm the country. And these conspiracies have trickled down to the rest of us, so much so that weâve become a country at war with ourselves.
People speak with complete contempt about others. Some express contempt for the president, and the entire US government. What we hear routinely today is a level of contempt that in the past, we have reserved for enemies in a time of war. But now, weâre continually contemptuous of our fellow citizens. Contempt is particularly toxic because it implies that the attacker has a position of moral superiority, and through that, has the agency to attack another, possibly even physically.
So, on our most patriotic day, put down that hot dog, and ask the question: How do we unify a secure, wealthy country that is playing a zero-sum political game?
Our true patriots are those very few who are fighting to preserve our voting rights.
Theyâre the people who are adding new jobs in our jobs-short economy.
Theyâre the military who return time and again to the front lines, enduring the unendurable. Theyâre the families of those military personnel.
Theyâre people who serve on school boards, zoning boards and town councils, who get mostly only a psychic return for their efforts, compared to national politicians who are working hard to become millionairess â assuming they werenât millionaires when they were elected.
Theyâre average Americans who see the decline of our institutions and infrastructure, wondering where to turn if we are to reverse all of these bad trends.
Is anyone ever âHigh as a kite on the 4th of Julyâ with patriotic feeling anymore?
Since itâs Saturday, and the start of our national summer holiday, letâs hit pause for a few days before jumping in to the second half of the year. Letâs spend these days enjoying the end of lockdowns, and the revving up of our economy. Here in northwest Connecticut, on the 4th, weâre looking forward to going to our first indoor performance, an afternoon concert by the Shanghai Quartet at the wonderful Music Mountain in Falls Village, CT.
But to start the weekend, we all should listen to Ray Charles’ “America the Beautiful“. His version of the song is spiritual, emotional, soul stirring and amazingly timeless. Here, Ray is performing it live on the Dick Cavett Show in September 1972.
On Saturday, the NYT editorial board wrote about voting and vote counting. Read it if you have the time. The Times concludes that the House bill HR1 which will be taken up by the Senate later in June, is:
“…poorly matched to the moment…The legislation attempts to accomplish more than is currently feasible, while failing to address some of the clearest threats to democracy, especially the prospect that state officials will seek to overturn the will of voters.â
More: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âBecause there is little chance the bill will pass in its current form, Democrats face a clear choice. They can wage what might be a symbolic (and likely doomed) fight for all the changes they would like. Or they can confront the acute crisis at hand by crafting a more focused bill, perhaps more palatable for more senators, that aims squarely at ensuring that Americans can cast votes and that those votes are counted.â
The bill should also establish uniform rules for vote counting, vote certification, and challenges. It should also clarify Congressâs role in certifying the results of presidential elections to prevent the possibility that a future Congress would overturn a stateâs popular vote. That would prevent another Jan. 6. HR-1 doesnât address these issues.
The present situation has been years in the making with bad actions on both the part of states, and the US Supreme Court. Ultimately, SCOTUS will have the last word on voting rights laws. Democrats need to craft legislation that they believe passes the strictest Constitutional muster. On to cartoons:
The GOP is all about the air quotes:
Jan. 6 looms over America:
Bipartisan negotiation with Biden continues:
Biden ends drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge:
Why do Americans need incentives for vaccines?
They tossed Bibi overboard. Heâs still confident:
âIf you were part of an amoral political movement, wouldnât you want to attack free and fair elections in order to give yourself a permanent advantage? If you had no concern for democracy, wouldnât you set out to make sure future Democratic victories could be invalidated? Thatâs what Republicans are now doing, without pause, and out in the open.â
Two snippets of news from over Memorial Day weekend. First, in Texas, Republicans held an all-night legislative session to try to pass one of the most stunning voter suppression laws in the country. According to the Texas Tribune, the law will:
â…cut back early voting hours, ban drive-thru voting, further clamp down on voting-by-mail rules and enhance access for partisan poll watchers…â
Itâs designed to curb voter fraud that doesnât exist in Texas. The bill didnât pass because Democrats walked out of the legislative session just before it expired, in a form of walking filibuster. It is merely a temporary setback for Texas Republicans.
Second, in Maricopa County Arizona, the GOPâs âauditâ continues unabated, as Republicans continue to  try to conjure up a different election result than the one that gave Biden a victory. The ballot review being conducted by a private company called Cyber Ninjas, has drawn widespread contempt for its lack of professionalism and poot control over the ballots, while also raising conspiracy claims that bamboo fibers were found in ballots supposedly shipped in from Asia.
Across the country, many Republican legislatures are moving swiftly to make sure that fewer people vote in upcoming elections.
Vote suppression was the Republicanâs game in the late-2010âs. Now theyâve concluded it didn’t work well enough. So, theyâve gone to the next level, which is to simply put state legislatures in the position to nullify their voters’ wishes. That’s going to be their game in the 2020âs. Taken with the Republican vote to filibuster the Jan. 6 commission, the eyes of Democrats should be open to this change in GOP strategy. Republicans correctly perceive that the doors will quickly close to mount legal challenges to their electoral suppression.
Our democratic future will only be secured by ending the filibuster, which will allow HR-1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to pass in the Senate. But that effort may not be successful despite Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumerâs intention to bring them to a vote in June, since Democrat Joe Manchin (D-WVA) wonât vote for it, and Schumer canât change his mind. As Charlie Pierce says,
âIn the fight to save American democracy, Joe Manchin Is Neville Chamberlainâ
Manchin wants peace in his remaining time in the Senate. He has defended the prerogatives of Republicans since the Democrats took control, by refusing to either reform, or nuke the filibuster. Instead, he insists that Democrats should be working across the aisle, despite McConnell vowing to block the entirety of Bidenâs agenda. Now, Manchinâs excuses are finally becoming flimsy. He called the GOP filibuster vote on the establishment of the Jan 6 committee âunconscionableâ. Yet, heâs still against eliminating the filibuster.
Shouldnât the idea that partisan legislatures and handpicked Republican officials can actually reverse election results  be enough to move any Democrat on the filibuster question? Isnât an unprecedented and dangerous assault on American democracy enough?
They even fail to see the continuing âcoupâ talk as a threat. As former national security adviser Michael Flynn said over the weekend, a Myanmar-like coup â in which the military overthrew a democratically elected government â âshould happenâ in the US: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âAppearing in Dallas at a QAnon conference, Flynn was asked during a Q&A session that was shared in a Twitter video: Â âI want to know why what happened in Myanmar canât happen here?â
After cheers from the crowd died down, Flynn responded: Â âNo reason. I mean, it should happen here.â
One way or another, the Right thinks they deserve to be in power by whatever means necessary. Hereâs Maggie Haberman of the NYT on Trump:
They want this so badly they can taste it, and so can tens of millions of Republicans. They’ve already tried once. They will absolutely try again.
The problem today is like that identified by Herbert Marcuse in his critique of liberal tolerance: How do you maintain a social compact with people who simply reject that compact whenever it becomes inconvenient, like when they lose an election?
The incredibly frustrating thing about the present situation is that Democrats could potentially defend against the “GOP game” if Manchin and Sinema just recognized (or cared) about the reality of the situation.
Historians certainly won’t be able to say the Democrats (and American democracy) were overwhelmed â Â they just sort of sighed and put their heads on the chopping block.
Bodie Island Lighthouse, Outer Banks, NC – 2021 photo by Greg Kiser
Weâve talked about the Big Lie but in truth, thereâs more than one. The Reuters-Ipsos poll released last Friday found that 54% of Republican adults surveyed agreed with this statement:
â…the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol was led by violent left-wing protestors trying to make Trump look bad.â
Only 30% of GOP respondents said they disagreed. Another 16% said they were unsure.
This is another Big Lie, like the one that Democrats stole the election from Trump. But Republicans remain believers in both. They think, as George Costanza said, âItâs not a lie if you believe it.â
To help distance Trump and Congressional Republicans from the riot, GOP members of Congress began blaming the Capitol insurrection on Antifa, decentralized leftist activists with no national organization, who became a focus of Republicans during the 2020 riots surrounding George Floydâs killing.
The reason why Republicans do not want an independent commission to investigate Jan. 6 is because many of the individuals who have already been arrested for their role in the riot explicitly said they believed that Trump had invited them to Washington to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Letâs set the record straight. Since the Capitol riot, 494 people have been arrested and charged with crimes. The vast majority of those arrested have ties to the Republican Party, not to Antifa or to Democrats. Why would anyone think that Democrats would attack the Capitol, trying to prevent their own candidate from being certified as president?
Congressional Republicans would have you believe that someone else decided to try overthrowing the government to make Trump look bad while Trump happened to be down the street telling his people to well, overthrow the government. Not credible.
This is the largest attack on our country since 9/11. And it came from within, not from foreign terrorists. Potentially, it was also more damaging. From Matt Sheffield at Flux:
âFollowing the 9/11 attacks, the main question on all Americansâ minds was who was responsible. Once it was determined to be al-Qaeda, the second question that demanded an answer was how U.S. intelligence agencies had failed to anticipate such a large-scale violent act. Shortly thereafter, both houses of Congress overwhelmingly approved the establishment of an official commission to investigate. In the House of Representatives, the bill containing the authorization passed overwhelmingly, 366 to 3.â
Contrast that with today when few, if any, Republicans will vote to investigate the riot.
Once again, as we said yesterday, if a majority of Republican voters continue to believe the Big Lie(s), it raises serious questions about the future of American democracy, including whether itâs possible to have a shared politics when a large percentage of citizens believe things are true that are easily proven to be untrue.
Democrats most likely will lose the Jan. 6 commission vote since there may not be 10 Republican Senators whoâll vote to bring the House-passed bill to a vote in the Senate. At this point, the Dems are more likely to have a big political hammer to hit Republicans with, than a commission to determine what really happened on that day.
In a last-ditch effort, the two Democrats who oppose changing the Senateâs filibuster rules begged Republicans on Tuesday to support the bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot. In a joint statement, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) called the creation of a commission âcriticalâ to prevent such an attack from occurring again:
âWe implore our Senate Republican colleagues to work with us to find a path forward on a commission to examine the events of January 6th,â
If Manchin and Sinema are prepared to nuke the filibuster over this, Wrongoâs all for it. The commission and the voting rights bills hit directly at the GOPâs plans to weaken the electoral process and destroy our democracy. The Big Lie is the organizing principle of the Republican Party now. If this initiative by Manchin and Sinema fails, then perhaps the most effective way to save democracy is to continually tell the people the truth about January 6. Repeatedly using the subpoena power of the US House to investigate and provide the truth in the face of these Big Lies may be the only way forward.
And it may seem to be a fruitless task, but itâs worth the effort.
The Republican leadership must be made to confront their obvious lies. Because as George Orwell said:
âThe most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.â
âBills in several states would grant new authority to poll watchers…to observe voters and election workers. Critics say it could lead to conflict and chaos at polling places and an improper targeting of voters of color.â
A new analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice found that as of April 15, lawmakers in 20 states had introduced at least 40 bills to expand poll watchersâ powers.
âThe red dot of a laser pointer circled downtown Houston on a map during a virtual training of poll watchers by the Harris County Republican Party. It highlighted densely populated, largely Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods.
âThis is where the fraud is occurringâ, a county Republican official said in a leaked video of the training, which was held in March. A precinct chair in the northeastern, largely white suburbs of Houston, he said he was trying to recruit people from his area âto have the confidence and courageâ to act as poll watchers in the circled areas in upcoming elections.
A question at the bottom corner of the slide indicated just how many poll watchers the party wanted to mobilize: âCan we build a 10K Election Integrity Brigade?â
Republicans in battleground states are trying to make voting harder and more confusing. Theyâre making a concerted legislative push to grant more autonomy and access to partisan poll watchers, that is, citizens trained by a campaign or a party and authorized by local election officials to observe the electoral process.
Many questions: Who will train the poll watchers? Who will certify them? And importantly, who watches the poll watchers? Before this effort to make poll watching partisan, poll workers were trained by the county and certified by the county to perform the job. Without a standardized and transparent process, poll watchers are simply harassers violating votersâ privacy.
In Florida, an election bill passed last Thursday by Republicans in the state legislature specifies that partisan observers must be able see the ballots as canvassing boards work to authenticate votersâ signatures on absentee ballots. There are no limits on how many ballots poll watchers can challenge. Florida Gov. DeSantis has indicated he will sign the law.
Thereâs a long history of poll watchers being used to intimidate voters and harass election workers, often targeting communities of color. During the 2020 election, Trumpâs campaign repeatedly exhorted  its âarmyâ of poll watchers to venture into Black and Latino cities and hunt for voter fraud.
Thereâs no evidence that justifies giving poll watchers expanded access and/or autonomy in their jobs. We should fight a system where a random citizen can watch you vote, and then complain. That should be expressly prohibited.
The Republicans have grounded their reasoning in the argument that their voters want more secure elections. That desire is driven by Trumpâs repeated lies about last yearâs presidential election, which included GOP complaints about insufficient poll watcher access.
Should we be worried that these a-holes will actually scare people away from the polls? Yes, some will be frightened away. A bunch of MAGA Hat yahoos will flood voting places and try to harass and terrorize racial minorities, students, and the elderly, anyone who they believe might be voting the wrong way.
And if the GOP has their way, it will be legal to do so.
Time to wake up America! The GOP plans to turn every state that they control into little banana republics. The solution is to keep them from controlling any battleground states.
To help you wake up, listen to Larkin Poe, a Nashville-based sister group, do a cover of âLaylaâ, from their album of cover songs, “Kindred Spirits“. Youâll love the slide guitar:
The NYThas a great explainer about the new Georgia voting law. The Times summarizes:
âGo page by page through Georgiaâs new voting law, and one takeaway stands above all others: The Republican legislature and governor have made a breathtaking assertion of partisan power in elections, making absentee voting harder and creating restrictions and complications in the wake of narrow losses to Democrats.â
Below are a few of the changes, with links to the appropriate section of the article.
