Cleveland – The Plain Dealer, Letter from the Editor
And the people who are trying, yet again, to do the fooling are the state’s election officials. They successfully used a bait-and-switch tactic to derail bona-fide gerrymandering reform a decade ago. Will the tactics that Gov. Mike DeWine launched this week to repeat the bamboozling work again?
I had hoped Ohio leaders learned a lesson last year when they tried to bamboozle voters into giving up their ability to change the state constitution. The voters body slammed the leaders pushing that false narrative, proving that Ohio is a centrist state with common-sense voters who resent being lied to.
Yet over the past week, Ohio leaders launched a new bamboozling campaign, and it promises to be torrid until Election Day.
With Issue 1 last August, elected leaders intent on amassing power tried to persuade voters to give up their ability to alter the Ohio constitution by increasing from 50 to 60 percent the votes need to adopt changes. People like Secretary of State Frank LaRose looked voters in the eye and told them it would be good for them to give up their power. It was a ridiculous lie, and voters firmly rejected it.
That effort was partly about abortion. Headed to the ballot in November was an amendment to enshrine abortion as a right in the Ohio constitution. Voters approved it in a landslide, but not by 60 percent. If the issue in August had passed, the minority would have dictated rules to the majority.
Issue 1 last August was also about gerrymandering, which is the subject of the new bamboozle. Republicans have used gerrymandering to create absurd super majorities in the Legislature, and they don’t want to lose them. They are desperate to keep gerrymandering.
Our newsroom will have its hands full for the next three months laying out all the ways Ohio leaders lie to voters to get them to vote against their own interests. And make no mistake about it: Gerrymandered super majorities are not in anyone’s best interest. The Ohio Legislature is loaded with fringe thinkers who do not represent us. We are repeatedly embarrassed on a national stage as our lawmakers try to outdo each other with increasingly absurd proposals.
The gerrymandering battle is almost a decade old now. Way back in 2015, citizens disgusted with gerrymandering launched a ballot initiative to end it. When lawmakers realized the initiative would be successful, they pulled their bait and switch. They proposed their own, albeit weaker, reforms, successfully persuading the citizens to drop their ballot initiative. Voters, believing the Legislature was acting in good faith, approved the so-called reforms in 2015 for the Legislature and 2018 for Congress.
The new system created a redistricting commission that included the governor, secretary of state, auditor, Senate president, House speaker and two members of the Legislature in the minority party. Voters set strict rules on how to draw lines.
We all know what happened. DeWine and company, who all swore an oath to the Ohio constitution, failed to do live up to the oath. Over and over, an Ohio Supreme Court with a Republican majority found the commission in violation of the constitution with its maps and ordered members to do their duty.
Over and over they refused.
It was a constitutional crisis so ugly that the chief justice, Maureen O’Connor, took the extraordinary step of writing a concurring opinion calling on voters to change the mapmaking system yet again, to remove elected officials from it. Then, when she was forced to retired by age limits, she made it her mission to fix the system.
She and other volunteers came up with a system that leaves out elected officials, much like the one that has worked to end gerrymandering in Michigan. Then those volunteers collected more than 700,000 signatures to put it on the ballot.
Before I get to the new bamboozling, a note about O’Connor. She is the epitome of what we want in public servants, having devoted her life to us. She served as a Summit County judge, Summit County prosecutor, lieutenant governor, head of Ohio’s Public Safety Department and chief justice. No woman in Ohio history held elective office longer.
Her reputation is unassailable, yet when she sided with the majority of justices in rejecting the unconstitutional work of the redistricting commission, a bunch of her fellow Republicans talked about impeaching her. Not because she broke laws. Not because of transgressions. No, they wanted to trash this storied public servant for ruling based on her conscience.
And now the latest bamboozling.
First, a couple of weeks ago, we learned Republican lawmakers considered putting a competing initiative on the ballot, to confuse voters. They rightly realized that Ohio voters would see through such subterfuge and stood down.
But over the past week, people like DeWine, U.S. Rep. Max Miller and others began their campaign to persuade voters that O’Connor’s initiative is a bad one.
Never mind that DeWine, in failing to adhere to the constitution and do his job on the redistricting commission, long ago surrendered any credibility on this issue. But do recall that he is on the record saying that elected officials should not be part of the mapmaking process.
Today, he’s pushing for a system where citizens propose maps but elected officials make the decisions. No way. No how. Don’t buy it. The elected officials refused to serve us. Now, they just want to maintain power.
Who are you going to believe here? O’Connor, who spent a lifetime serving Ohioans without a hint of scandal and has nothing to gain personally? Or the latest bevy of elected leaders, hell-bent to increase their power, who have done everything possible to convince voters to willingly harm themselves?
This issue cannot get lost in the noise of the presidential election. Ohioans have the chance to take back control of their government from power-mad leaders who corrupted the system. O’Connor’s initiative would end the suffocating reign of megalomaniacs.
As we did last year with Issue 1 in August, we will do everything we can to explain what is at stake here. But last time around, you did the hard work. You saw what was at stake and contacted everyone you knew to make sure they understood.
Start spreading the word.
Again.
I’m at [email protected]
Thanks for reading
I simply don’t understand how Ohio legislators can just say fuck you to their supreme court. Not to mention saying fuck you to the people who elected them!
Ohio peeps, please fill us in on what’s happening.
Does your state have a motto? Because I’m nominating Ohio, WTF?
Worker Power Leadership School – Field Notes Vol. 3
waspuppet
“(Sneers) He’ll never make it to the big time if he keeps informing his readers instead of persuading them that it’s all a LOL coin flip.”
— Peter Baker
SuzieC
I am in that photo.
WaterGirl
@SuzieC: Wow, that’s great. Tell us more, please
Baud
@SuzieC:
👍
JML
Nice job by the Plain Dealer, good to see them live up to their name!
(I hate what right-wing media conglomerates and venture capitalists have done to local media, BTW. some many communities where it’s been bloody ruined for ideology or short-term profits)
Baud
Nothing voters can do if they’re unwilling to vote Dem under any circumstances.
J. Arthur Crank
That was a good editorial. It should be printed out (10,000 copies should do it), rolled up individually into tight cylinders, and shoved up the asses of the various GOP officials mentioned in the letter.
Glory b
Today is the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the bodies of 3 civil rights workers, Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner, in a shallow grave in Philadelphia MS.
As a reminder, this is the same city where Ronzld Reagan announced his run for president with a speech on state’s rights.
In the 4 part documentary on the Reagans, journalist Jonathan Alter said that every adult in his audience was alive in 1964 when they were killed shortly after being released from jail.
He emphasized that EVERY ONE of them knew exactly what he meant & it was a huge boost to the southern strategy.
Kathleen
Ohio’s Tourism Slogan is “Ohio – The Heart Of It All”.
My proposal – “Ohio. The Fart Of It All.”
Crude, but descriptive.
Another Scott
As with TCFFG (until relatively recently), they can do it (ignore the state supreme court) because nobody thus far has been willing to stand up to them and impose consequences.
As long as there are no consequences, they will keep doing it, and doing worse.
Ohio voters need to throw the monsters out, and federal prosecutors need to bring the hammer down (maybe equal protection or something?).
Grr…,
Scott.
SuzieC
@WaterGirl: The Citizens Not Politicians group and its allies collected around 731,000 signatures from all 88 counties. About 555,000 were found to be valid. (413,000 were needed to qualify.) So the amendment starts out with a sizable chunk of votes. Everyone knows it’s going to pass, which is why the Rs are coming out with this lame-ass strategy to propose an alternative plan. They have a deadline of Aug. 7 to proposes an alternative for this year’s ballot but it ain’t gonna happen. So, DeWine’s genius plan is to come back with another amendment next year, which gives control back to the politicians. Ohio voters refused to be bamboozled by their bait and switch tactics over the abortion referendum, and this one won’t even get to the starting gate, in my opinion.
kindness
If Kamela agrees to a debate with Trump, she should wear steel toe Doc Martins to the debate. When Trump tries to pull something weird & creepy like he did with Hillary, a swift kick in the huevos will only cement Kamela winning the election.
Oh how much I wish for the gif of that. Such a great meme!
Ohio Mom
Of course Ohio Family signed the petition (months ago) but I have heard very little about this effort, despite trying to keep my ears out.
I don’t watch TV, maybe the local news shows are mentioning it, but the Cincinnati newspaper (which I get delivered, like a proper oldster), has given it next to no attention.
My hope is that discouraged Republicans stay home and excited Democrats show up to vote for Kamala, Sherrod Brown, and redistricting.
Soprano2
That describes Missouri, too. This state’s government is so fucked up that even with a supermajority in both houses and controlling all state offices the Republicans failed (thank God!) to get their amendment making it much harder for the people to amend the state constitution on the ballot this year. They too were driven by the people getting an amendment making abortion legal in this state on the ballot. They also got the people to repeal “Clean Missouri”, which was a redistricting reform that passed in 2018. They did that by putting “ballot candy” in their repeal measure. It made the amount lobbyists could give officeholders $0, rather than limiting it to $5 as the previous law did, and they made that sentence the first one on the ballot. I guarantee most people didn’t read past that first sentence. Also, they were pissed off that the voters made them do the Medicaid expansion. We have that, legal weed, and will probably pass the abortion amendment, and yet the R’s will probably keep their supermajority. 🤷♀️
Glory b
@Baud: What I’ve said here before; people know what our message is. They’d like to have most of the things we advocate for. They are almost always winners in referenda & other ballot initiatives.
They just refuse to vote for the party with the black people in it.
I’ll refer everyone to the book “Dying of Whiteness, How Racial Resentment is Destroying America’s Heartland” by Jonathan Metzl.
TBone
Ohio state motto:
With God, all things are possible.
According to Wikipedia, it is the only state motto taken directly from the Bible.
In PA, our state motto is: Virtue, Liberty, and Independence!
Eunicecycle
When the redistricting board refused-just flat out refused-to do what the Supreme Court said, they should have been held in contempt and all of them jailed until they complied. I don’t know if our SC can jail anyone for contempt, but if so it should have been done, including Lying Mike DeWine.
WaterGirl
@Kathleen: You are in Ohio, right?
karen marie
@JML: Chris Quinn,the editor, is the one who published a scathing letter to readers about Trump back in the spring (I think that’s when it was). I bought a subscription in support of his message. I cancelled last month because I don’t live in Ohio, but I’m sorry I did. It’s an excellent paper even without the revolutionary missives of its editor.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott:
TCFFG?
Kathleen
@Ohio Mom: I don’t watch local news anymore and agree cincinnati.com has not covered this. I think the best source for Ohio news is Ohio Capital Journal which is free ( you may already be familiar with it). Below is a link to an article about the latest:
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2024/07/31/ohio-gov-dewine-lost-all-credibility-when-he-repeatedly-voted-for-illegally-gerrymandered-maps/
I have Spectrum cable service and my impression is they do not seem to be as politically biased as other outlets so I need to remember to check out the channel for possible coverage of this.
BR
https://bad-faith-times.ghost.io/weird-and-the-breaking-of-the-fascist-fever/
HinTN
@Soprano2: Misery is so far ahead of us it ain’t even funny.
Baud
@Glory b:
I’m with you 100%. It’s frankly why I see more black people becoming Republican, as people were discussing below, as a good thing long term.
Kathleen
@WaterGirl: Yes!
WaterGirl
@SuzieC: I so hope you are right thy.at this isn’t going to fly.
geg6
So sorry to my neighbors to the west. And, I might add, to the southwest (or as I call it, Cole Country). Both states are a shitshow. But what can one do when the voters keep voting for the shitters?
WaterGirl
@karen marie: If they have the $1 subscription thing again, maybe subscribe again with a note about this editorial?
M31
@TBone: PA needs to amend it to Virtue, Liberty, and Independence, ENFORCED BY GRITTY
I am your friendly neighboring galaxy and I approve this message
WaterGirl
@Baud: I don’t understand your position at all. Can you maybe explain to me why and how black people voting Republican is a good thing?
Eunicecycle
@Glory b: A paper (might have been the PD!) once did a survey of policy positions in neutral language without a party or politician attached. People overwhelmingly chose the Democratic positions. But when they attached them to the party the opinion went the other way.
I want to shake some sense into those people. The Republicans have been in charge for over a decade in the state and things just get worse, but they refuse to vote for Democrats (with Sherrod being the exception that proves the rule). I just want to scream, “Why not give Democrats a chance?”
RaflW
Holy shit, this piece is incredible.
As a Black woman, I can vouch for a white, male VP prospect from Minnesota, Tim Walz
He’d be great. He’s shown himself to be a powerful ally for Black women and women of color
By Sheletta Brundidge
StarTribune, August 2, 2024
“The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman.”
Malcolm X said that in 1962, two years before Vice President Kamala Harris was born.
His words remain true today and have been proven on the contemporary campaign trail. We’ve watched as Harris’ many accomplishments and her very character have been denigrated like no major political candidate in our nation’s history.
…
Without a shadow of a doubt or a hint of reservation, I am 100% certain that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is the best option to be her vice president. He knows how to give unwavering support to Black women. He is not just an ally; he is our accomplice.
How can I speak with such certainty? Because Walz has shown such support to me.
Three years ago this month, he accompanied me as I got my COVID-19 vaccine. The pandemic was at its height, and I had decided I was not going to get the shot. Like many Black women, I have good reason for not trusting the health care system: the shameful, tragic Tuskegee study and my own experience of nearly dying in childbirth.
But after voicing my anti-vaccine concerns on the radio, I changed my mind when my teenage son asked me to get the shot as his birthday present.
My public reconsideration turned me into a target for anti-vaxxers who planned to protest when I was vaccinated. At 11 p.m. on the night before I was scheduled to get the shot, police came to my door, saying they had received “credible threats” against me and my family.
Walz was in touch, asking what I needed to be safe. He made sure we had extra security and was by my side when the Hy-Vee pharmacist gave me the shot, whispering, “You got this.”
Because he came, there were additional officers there, which meant my children and I were safe. Because he came, the media came, too, and carried my message to other Black women that it’s OK to change your mind.
—
Much more at the link!!
J. Arthur Crank
@WaterGirl:
Perhaps “The Convicted Felon Former Guy”?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Because it’ll make white Republican voters aware that voting Republican to preserve white status is a losing proposition. Either that, or create irreconcilable schisms in their party.
Glory b
@Baud: Loooooooong term though.
Right now there are Republicans like the one saying “some of us need killing,” saying that abortion is an easy out for women who can’t keep their skirts down so they can continue to hit the club on Friday night, then confessing that he & his wife had an abortion 30 years ago.
I see black Republicans on social media now. They say absolutely filthy things about Kamala Harris & her romantic history, then deride her for marrying a white guy, then complain about their taxes.
They are only too happen to say out loud the things even today’s white Republicans are reluctant to.
B1naryS3rf
The Plain Dealer or PeeDee is to be commended for the editorial. But bottom line, they are still owned by the Newhouse Media assholes, and still have an extremely checkered past of prevaricating on political matters both state and Federal. Ohioans will hopefully not accept DeSpineless’s okee doke about the referendum, but as someone upthread said, if the state keeps granting supermajorities to these bastards while ignorantly complaining that evil liberals and “those people” are ruining the state, they deserve what they get. Our politics could turn for the better eventually with economic and demographic change in its nascent stages, but it will be a long and exhausting fight even if Harris and Dems win on the Federal level this November.
Baud
@Glory b:
Yeah. It’ll be rough. I wonder how many white Republican women will continue to accept misogyny when it’s not coming from one of their own tribe.
Steve LaBonne
Quinn has been doing things like this for a while. I hope it doesn’t end up pissing off his corporate masters because we need more of it.
Soprano2
@Eunicecycle: One of the Republicans running for governor in MO had a line in his essay about why we should vote for him that the Republicans had been in control of the state for 20 years and things still weren’t fixed, so we should vote for him to fix them!! *shake my head
Glory b
@Glory b: Happy
dc
@Glory b:
I’m sure there are some with real people behind the accounts, but there are likely lots of fake accounts as well.
RaflW
“The Ohio Legislature is loaded with fringe thinkers who do not represent us.”
This sort of theme needs to be pounded home. In state after state. It’s why the MN GOP hasn’t been able to win a statewide race since Tpaw took his bad hockey hair and carefully selected (but rarely worn) flannel shirts and ran off to try to sell his aw-shucks schtick nationally.
Republicans now are echo-chamber, closed-loop weird as fuck. But gerrymandering means the freaks have disproportionate power. We’ve gotta change that. It’ll take time but it’ll be worth it!
WaterGirl
@RaflW:
Hillary Clinton would like have a word. But the rest is great.
cmorenc
@Glory b:
Also, at least 95% of Reagan’s Philadephia, Ms audience were still registered as democrats in 1980. Because the Mississippi democratic party of the time was still the legacy of post-Reconstruction (as in, Civil War) southern politics, where Republicans (the relatively progressive party for the times, responsible for freeing slaves) were swept from power aross the south as a result of the deal that handed the tightly contestedPresidency to northern Republican Rutheford Hayes in return for freeing southern states from Reconstruction restrictions. And setting up southern democrats to set up Jim Crow laws across the south, especially after Plessy v Fergueson
A grossly misleading accusation many GOPers have repeatedly made is that it was democrats, not republicans, who enacted and vigorously enforced racist segregation. True, but all “those” democrats began jumping ship to the GOP in the era between the landmark civil rights legislation of the mid=1960s and 1994, e.g. Alabama Sen Richard Shelby switched from D to R.
WaterGirl
@Baud: i don’t see it, but I very much appreciate the explanation!
Villago Delenda Est
@kindness:
When Obama was inaugurated, I so hoped he’d step up to the podium, reach into his jacket, and say “Let me whip this out”.
Alas, Obama wasn’t into that sort of snark. It would have caused the Aunt Pittypats of the MSM to swoon, though.
Baud
@cmorenc:
Yes, white Southerners enacted Jim Crow and that cohort is Republican now.
Villago Delenda Est
@J. Arthur Crank: Prezactly. I add a slash and PAB to include Chrissy Tieigen’s published in the Congressional Record name for him.
Steve LaBonne
@RaflW: Here in Ohio we’re going to start that change with the fair districting amendment Chris Quinn was writing about. It will be a long slog but getting rid of crazy, irresponsible, unaccountable GrOyPer supermajorities is the essential first step.
eclare
And here in TN we are one of 24 states that does not allow referendums. Well we do, but only if they start in the legislature.
Fucking MS and AR allow voter referendums. No wonder TN swung hard right. Literally unchecked power for RWNJ’s because of gerrymandering.
Bupalos
“Ohio the Fart of it all”
I haven’t done one of my screeds on how BlueBubblers actively undermine our fight by amplifying the red state/blue state delusion in a while. Let’s keep it that way.
Ohio is moving in the right direction again, some of the forces that pushed it over to the right a decade ago are reversing. Some of that is thanks to climate change and some is thanks to Biden and some is thanks to the things we managed to preserve while we were retreating.
It will turn like a battleship, but it will turn. The subject of this post is one sign of that. We will win this just like we won the constitutional amendment issue and reproductive rights, and it’s a great sign. When we do, update your priors.
Steve LaBonne
@eclare: I get sick of googoo types slagging initiatives. Yeah, I know, California has had problems, but Ohio is not California and here, they’ve been an essential tool for keeping the state from going all the way down the drain.
Eunicecycle
@Soprano2: yeah that makes no sense! LOL!
Jay C
@Baud:
true: but the anti-gerrymandering campaign (in Ohio and elsewhere) isn’t (/shouldn’t be) about merely getting Democratic votes, but ensuring something like a reasonably proportional representation in the Legislature. Republicans have long mastered the art of ummm – “creative” districting to magnify/ensure their grip on power. Yeah, there are “red” states where the electorate just isn’t going to swing D much, if at all: but if the Lege is a 55-45% balance (instead of the 65-35 ratio GOP gerrymandering can often achieve) , a lot less damage might be done.
raven
@WaterGirl: It’s early
trollhattan
California Uber Alles. Both the slogan and state song.
https://youtu.be/eIqESwzCGg4?si=pxjV6yWILwm42mMy
Mel
@TBone: And the shit icing on the steaming religious cowpie of a motto: it was selected based upon the recommendation of a 12 year old boy, in 1959.
In 1998, and again in 2000 and 2001, there were legal attempts to get rid of the motto, with one successful appeal in 2000, but the right wingers won in the end, claiming that (despite the quote coming directly from the Bible) it is not promoting Christianity, but is representing all religions. First of all, WTF?!? And secondly – apparently that pesky little “separation of church and state” issue just doesn’t matter here in the Buckeye State, any more than the will of the voters matters, or the decisions of the state Supreme Court matter if they don’t match the wingnut agenda.
So, letting a hormonal, immature, self-focused person who still has the brain of an adolescent decide what the rest of the population is supposed to like / want? Sounds familiar!
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose…
TBone
@M31: 😆🧡
trollhattan
@J. Arthur Crank: I propose Current Felon Former Guy/CFFG
TBone
I like Donold. It’s so easy and sticks the shiv in where it belongs.
Plus, there is a great campaign sign meme of it. Of course, I have shared it widely.
HumboldtBlue
TBone
@HumboldtBlue: 👍
zhena gogolia
@HumboldtBlue: Good for them.
Villago Delenda Est
@HumboldtBlue: All of whom have now been marked by the “Secretary of Retribution” for exile on the North Slope.
WaterGirl
@eclare:
Power to the people!Power to the corrupt politicians!
BlueGuitarist
Icymi
check out the awesome thread downstairs
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: Among other things, that article also indirectly shows one of the reasons it’s so hard to get people to switch their votes. They are nastier and scarier toward people they perceive as apostates than anyone else. Most people who got the COVID shot didn’t have to deal with death threats for doing it, but someone who’d publicly changed her mind, that was unforgivable. (And, I’m sure, her being a Black woman also made it easier to attack her.)
RaflW
@Jay C: In theory, more ‘neutral’ / swing-y districts ought to push the fringe candidates out. Having a handful out of all the US House races be competitive has been really toxic for Republicans.
Dems have moved a tad left, but not gone crazy like the right.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: When you’re the “anti-government” party, and you also control the government, you can actually make a pitch to vote for you because you suck. I saw some of that going on during the Bush years. “Gee, we fucked up the government so badly, do you really want to vote for the party who would give the government more power?”
Sister Golden Bear
For anyone in need of a news feed cleanse, may I present the World Dog Surfing Championships held yesterday near me. More videos from past years.
karen marie
@WaterGirl: I will. I continue to get their emails, so I had already read this current editorial. Chris Quinn is a hero.
UncleEbeneezer
@Glory b: Bingo!
See also: The Sum Of Us by Heather McGhee.
WaterGirl
@karen marie: I don’t know whether he comes down on the right side of every issue all the time, but I do know that he’s done it twice now on important issues, both times at key moments.
It kind of reminds me of something, it’s on the tip of my tongue… I know, it’s journalism!
karen marie
@RaflW: Thank you for this!
Martin
@Jay C: There are pretty good technocratic approaches to gerrymandering that have been suggested. One I like is establish a set of equity metrics for the map – relationship between district allocation and vote share (you can’t get 70% of seat from 52% of the vote), distribution of voting populations (proportionality between the share of black voters and their representation within districts) that sort of stuff. You can create as many of these as you wish.
Then, you feed those rules into a computer and have the computer produce a million different maps (this is what the politicians are doing anyway) and score them by how well they meet those metrics, and then rank them. You cannot draw a map, you must pick from one of these maps, and you must pick from the top 20% of maps based on that score – any of those 200,000 maps. They’re all pretty good, use your judgement on what is best.
It doesn’t actually change the process by which the maps are picked since they’re all done now by a computer doing those things, but where one party picks the criteria and they pick the map that is the least fair, this would have voters pick the criteria and lawmakers would be limited to only those that are pretty decently fair.
Getting technology involved in government like this is just barely taking hold. It’s what allowed for secure vote by mail in 2020, when we really badly needed it, and there are a lot of good places to use it. (Also a lot of terrible ones). But drawing maps is a good place.
trollhattan
Baghdad Bob, 2024 edition.
It’s not like talking to a cinder block, cinder blocks are useful.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/04/the-new-birther-meme/
trollhattan
My new favorite event of Paris 2024 so far: women’s road cycling. Impossibly gutsy win.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan: Byron Donalds longs to be Stephen to TCFFG/PAB’s Calvin Candie.
eclare
@Sister Golden Bear:
How cool!
Lee H
@waspuppet:
A+++
Martin
@trollhattan: The goal is not to convince them. The goal is to communicate to the audience that they are lying and should not be trusted.
This is why Pete goes on Fox News. He’s not trying to change the mind of the interviewer, he’s trying to communicate to Fox News viewers that the interviewer is lying to them.
Citizen Alan
@WaterGirl: As despicable as Hillary was treated by the GOP and the media, she never had to put up with people suggesting in public forum that literally everything she had ever achieved in her life was solely the result of her skills at giving blow jobs.
BR
@Martin:
I remember seeing an even simpler gerrymandering solution, which just requires taking turns — basically one party divides up the map, then the other side gets to pick one of the districts to set in stone and can scramble the other districts, and they take turns until the map is done. Neither side has an advantage:
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2017/november/i-cut-you-choose-cake-cutting-protocol-inspires-solution-to-gerrymandering.html
Mike E
We in NC feel your pain, Ohio. The TEA coup has captured our legislature and judiciary so the gerrymander is in place to take back 3+ House seats, and voter ID requirements are in place for suppression this fall. I don’t think Mark Robinson will get the governor’s mansion but if he does then the transformation into North Florida will be complete.
Glib handwavers will tell me how the changing demographics of a “destination state” won’t allow this to happen but the NC Dem party has a lot of inertia to overcome. A national blue wave sensation can shake things up so there’s the hope I cling to.
Anonymous At Work
@Another Scott: It was more that O’Connor had a set retirement date before the final redistricting map was REQUIRED by Ohio Sec. of State for elections. “We have a corrupt window to ignore the State Supreme Court?” asked the Ohio Republican Party. “Then we win.”
Prior gerrymandering reform efforts had a trap-door in case of intransigent partisan gridlock, so guess what Republicans did?
Citizen Alan
@eclare: I don’t believe MS does anymore. IIRC, the RW state supreme court struck down the statute that allowed referendums after one was passed to allow medical marijuana. You see, the statute required that a certain number of petition signatures come from each of MS’s five Congressional districts. But after a post-census redistricting, MS dropped down to only four districts, so the whole damned statute became null and void.
karen marie
@Citizen Alan: No, instead they said she was a murderer.
BR
https://bsky.app/profile/mirandayaver.bsky.social/post/3kyvvpakemm2q
Anyway
@trollhattan: My favorite name so far from the Olympics — Oblique Seville.
Martin
@BR: The problem with that is the first districts being picked are completely disenfranchised because they are being maximally gerrymandered. And that system makes it difficult to balance across all metrics. You’ll get a more fair balance of red and blue, but you’re pretty much guaranteed to annihilate black voting power because Democrats are being forced to maximize Democratic advantage, not necessarily black voting advantage.
The other approach forces all metrics into a reasonable balance. Now, the metrics aren’t easy to set – especially by voters or a nonpartisan commission – that’s the real challenge of it.
p.a.
Wait… if the Ohio leg can ignore it’s Supreme Court, and Dems win the fed election in November… to paraphrase Stalin, “how many enforcement divisions does Lil’Johnnie Roberts have?”
Kent
What is your logic here?
Is it that if both parties have Black people then the racists can start voting Democratic since the GOP will no longer be the “White Party?”
Martin
@Citizen Alan: Man, that is some dipshit policy writing right there.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I don’t buy it. The white Rethug voters just don’t want our government to do anything that helps Black people, even if it helps them too. If Black people want to join white Rethugs in voting against the interests of Black people, I’m sure the white Rethugs are totally cool with that. Welcome, suckers!!
When TFG boasts of all the Black people voting for him, do you see his cultists getting upset? No, you don’t!
Tony Jay
@Anyway:
The Chinese diving pair Long/Wang were impressive too.
Martin
@Baud: Except that doesn’t actually change anything. Republicans won’t change their views if they have a few more black voters in their ranks.
So long as they have a worldview that civilization is inherently hierarchical, someone needs to be ordered at the top and someone else at the bottom. Conservatives shift up who goes where to some degree all the damn time – they can do it in a few days, even. So far the one absolute is that black people are at the bottom and whites at the top, and that’s been true for centuries. It’s so true that Americans invented ‘blackness’ and ‘whiteness’ in order to tidy things up. So even if you tore down blackness and whiteness as concepts, they’ll just substitute in Western European and African, or something else because someone HAS to be on the bottom.
I think it’s much more useful to consolidate black voters in the Democratic Party where they gain a greater chance of being elected to higher office and demonstrating that the hierarchy is false not just by being there, but by the voters putting them there.
If there were signs of conservatives giving up on that worldview, I’d agree with you more here, but the last week has made it perfectly clear they believe in it as strongly today as 1950 and 1850, just with some of the groups shuffled up a bit in the middle (they’re really having a hard time slotting Indians in there right now given Harris and Vances wife).
wjca
@trollhattan: California Uber Alles. Both the slogan and state song.
Baud
@Kent: Or the racists will stop voting.
@lowtechcyclist:
Too recent to have an effect. I said long term.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
They’ll accept it until white Republican men are A-OK with Black Rethugs harassing white Republican women. Which will be about the 12th of never.
oldgold
A threat?
Justice Gorsuch waves caution flag at Biden #SCOTUS overhaul plan. “I’d just say: Be careful,” the Trump-appointed justice tells Fox.
Baud
@Martin:
More than a few. And they won’t have a choice. The pressnce of diversity will change them just as it changes us.
We don’t control voter choices.
Eunicecycle
@Anonymous At Work: we do have SC seats up for election and can tip the balance back to D if we vote for our candidates!
lowtechcyclist
I took out a year’s subscription to the Plain Dealer after that earlier editorial that spoke truths about Trump that the WaPo and the FTFNYT were afraid to say.
I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth already.
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan: Is that the more specific version of slept her way to the top? I haven’t seen that.
I will say that when you are being attacked with lies and falsehoods, it’s all offensive.
Baud
@oldgold:
Yes.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Kinda like the way the presence of the Log Cabin Republicans has moderated their stance on gays and trans persons.
geg6
@M31:
No Gritty, thanks.
eclare
@Citizen Alan:
That’s awful. A giant leap backwards.
Lyrebird
@Glory b: Thank you for keeping the memory of Goodman, Cheney, & Schwerner alive and in its very current context.
I feel like every time MVP says “We’re NOT GOING BACK” that she means this too – not going back to Jim Crow Laws and the lawless violence that went with it.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
A big part of the gap between how people vote on ballot initiatives and the politicians they choose to represent them comes from the fact that people can not get accurate reporting on what each side believes.
I’m forcing this into the conversation a little because I saw someone repeatedly asserting last night when I wasn’t here that news organizations have no stake in electoral outcomes. This is blatantly false.
Leaving aside the atrocity borne of the most recent media crusade; we can see they have done similarly motivated crusades against pro-Palestinian student protestors, the right to disagree with the right via cancel culture narratives, BLM protestors, trans folk. This has only been the last few years and the list extends into eternity.
If you doubt the media pushes a political agenda or are expressing that doubt to push back on a straw man narrative about conspiracies because you supported the media’s agenda in one such case, you are a fool, perhaps willingly.
It’s not a conspiracy. It is a blatant and constantly repeated pattern of behavior.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
It has. The GOP today is far more moderate than on the past in gay issues. It’s why they’re focused on trans issues. That’s new. No red state has yet proposed to challenge gay marriage.
Will they turn right? Maybe. But the more they depend on a diverse set of voters, the harder that’ll be.
SFAW
@Baud:
“More than a few” is doing some heavy lifting here. The GOP electorate would have to be majority-Black — or at least, majority non-racist/fascist — before their elected reps do anything of value. The GOP’s unwillingness/resistance to go along with policies preferred by significant majorities of Americans — e.g., gun control — shows that until they fear losing their jobs, they won’t act positively on those policies. And while their voters/supporters are still majority racist/fascist (or racist/fascist-friendly), they have little or nothing to fear re: their jobs.
Baud
@SFAW:
If they don’t change, they’ll lose those voters they’ve tried to get or they will schism. Trump is already dependent on getting an increased percentage of the black vote.
Of course, another possibility is that black Republicans accept their second class status the way white Republican women have. Or maybe white liberals decide to give up and rejoin the.white majority in racism, in which case the black vote won’t matter. But I think those are less likely outcomes. The idea that Republicans are impervious to the force of change is giving them superhuman status. I don’t buy it.
WaterGirl
@oldgold: Yeah, I agree with you and Baud. If it looks like a threat and sounds like a threat…
It’s a threat.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@SFAW: I look at the increased black voter share for Republicans as just an example of “every broad demographic includes toxic assholes.”
They’re at about the crazification rate. This shouldn’t be a surprise.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
There’s yet another possibility: a GOP dictatorship arises
Baud
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Agreed. People have taken the extraordinary decency of black voters for granted. They’re voting over the last few decades has exceeded normal social measures.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Then voting becomes irrelevant.
BR
I don’t know how Mr. Brain Worms can get any weirder, but apparently 10 years ago he ran over a bear cub and then dumped the dead bear cub in Central Park.
XeckyGilchrist
If only democrats had voted in 2010 instead of wallowing in disappointment over the ponies they didn’t get from Obama
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@BR: Out of curiosity, where did he originally run it over. I have a hard time imagining it was anywhere near Central Park.
Martin
@Baud: The racists will stop voting when it’s demonstrated that their vote doesn’t change the outcome. That requires electing people of color.
I think this is the whole dynamic that electing Obama triggered. Racists didn’t care about voting when they were guaranteed a white president but once that changed they became invested and rallied behind the most racist candidate in order to take control. And it worked. And now they’re emboldened. And they won’t go back to their old state until they are continually defeated that they get discouraged. Or they die off, whichever comes first. My guess is we’re talking another generation yet. But right now the racists are the disaffected voters that Trump activated and racism is the GOP national strategy for better or worse. And it’s going to be really hard for the GOP to stuff that genie back in the bottle now that the racists can carry primaries. And they are bolstering their ranks with the disaffected misogynsits as well (where they aren’t already the same people). So they are currently headed in the opposite direction of where you want them to go.
SFAW
@Baud:
My memory might be faulty, but I thought that the number of persons self-ID’ing as Republicans has declined over the last XX years. So, rather than modify their views/platforms to be more inclusive, a la Reince Priebus’s suggestion during the Obama years, the GQP doubled-down on cheating (e.g., WI enacting laws to make it much more difficult for Blacks to register), gerrymandering, Dem-constituency-targeted “voter fraud” laws, and so forth. I expect that to continue, if they suffer more (national) electoral losses.
I don’t believe that adding “more than a few” Black registered Republicans will change that, until they actually affect any contests.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
At the moment, there’s still Supreme Court decisions in the way. But a number of red states have been doing what they can to put barriers in the way of gay couples adopting children. They’ll go further if given the chance.
Baud
@Martin:
I said long term. That’s not November 2024.
The binding force for the GOP socially is white identity. That won’t survive a more diverse party unless they find something culturally to replace it.
BR
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Apparently he drove around for hours (!?) with the dead bear cub and then dumped it in Central Park.
catclub
No love for the prison at Guantanamo.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
The same was true of abortion. They didn’t let that stop them. They have every reason to believe that they can get gay marriage reversed, if they tried to.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@BR: Has anyone ever looked into the possibility that Kennedy is the Zodiac Killer?
WaterGirl
@Eunicecycle: Which state?
catclub
Is IGMFY a culture? maybe an ethos?
SFAW
@Baud:
My grandchildren — if my children ever have kids, that is — will be dead and buried before that “long term” comes about. OK, maybe my kids, not grandkids. But my kids are in their 20s.
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Yes, fewer people ID as Republican. But whether they are embarrassed to be Republican matters only a tiny bit – if they are still voting for the Republicans
I suspect that we agree on that.
RaflW
@lowtechcyclist: Well, as far as I can tell, the Log Closet Republicans have never projected much of a trans-inclusive vibe. It’s felt like a white boy, but-mah-taxes glibertarian club.
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
Excellent point. How many times have we seen prominent Rethugs — Notorious Criminal Bill Barr comes to mind — trash-talk Trump, and then, without taking a breath, saying they’ll still vote for him?
catclub
Martin also had something to say about the racists being motivated to vote.
I will say that the background of this is how terrible US citizens are at voting. When Biden won in 2020 about 40% of people eligible to vote… didn’t.
I am not sure that high participation voting would bring a democratic utopia, but it would be nice if more people voted.
Hungry Joe
Postcard update:
I’ve put Postcards to Swing States on hold because they’re not to be mailed till Oct. 21, and Ms. Joe just received 100 Senate-race postcards to be mailed ASAP — 50 to Ohio (Sherrod Brown) and 50 to Montana (Jon Tester). I’m doing Montana/Tester. The message is longer, so I can’t crank ‘em out as fast, but here we go:
Yesterday:
Postcards for Tester — 8
Running total — 8
Postcards to Swing States — holding at 166
Kay
Let’s check in with Republicans!
TBone
@Mel: I suspected shenanigans but…wow. My sympathies go out to all Ohioans who deserve them.
SFAW
@Kay:
Ewick was never the brightest tool in the shed, but that thing was word salad. I’m guessing he went to bed with brain worms, not a stomach bug.
RaflW
@Kay: Erik son of Erik can fuck off with that stolen election, stolen FBI shit at the end. And putting “if you think” as a modifier is just some crap to keep the lawyers away.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
How does that work? Those Black voters are supporting Trump just as he is. Why would they leave if Trump and the GOP keep being the same party they already support?
I think Black voters were able to speed the moderation of the Democratic Party because enough of the white Democrats were already sympathetic to their demands for equal treatment. The civil rights laws of the 1960s weren’t passed because Dems were afraid of losing Black votes, they passed those laws because it was the right thing to do, even though they feared (accurately) that they’d lose a lot of white votes as a result.
There’s no similar situation in the GOP. Black Republicans have no white allies in the party the way Black Democrats had. The vast majority of Rethugs are adamantly against anything that would improve the lives of Black people, even at their own expense. Someone running in a GOP primary who courted the votes of Black Republicans by moderating their stance on race-related issues would get clobbered, end of story. Black Republicans are welcome as long as they don’t make any demands.
TBone
@trollhattan: thank you.
I was led to Digby’s most recent post, however, and now not sure I’ll sleep tonight. JFC!
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/04/the-dystopians/
The usual suspects apply (Musk, Thiel, Vance, et al.):
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@lowtechcyclist: This speaks to something I noticed watching Bridgerton and, more recently, the Caped Crusader.
Both depicted a version of the past where racial politics and the politics of sexuality were at a somewhat more modern standard. Yet misogyny always remains.
Which means it will continue to be a primary tool of the oppressors.
TBone
@oldgold: wtf 🤬😡💩
lowtechcyclist
@SFAW:
Add me to the “Who the fuck cares what Erick thinks?” list.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Regardless of what’s on their hearts, Republicans are reaching out to black voters. Those voters aren’t just acting in their own initiative. So Republicans already know they have to make the effort.
SatanicPanic
@BR: that was a great post thanks for sharing
Ksmiami
@Martin: again for the cheap seats… no one making less than 600k per yr has any business voting Republican. Period eos.
TBone
@BR: where did you get that? For real?
realbtl
@Hungry Joe:
Thanks from Montana.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: “We’ll pardon celebrities and try to relate on criminality” is, I suppose, a type of outreach.
It still represents further intellectual investment in vapidity and corruption.
M31
@TBone:
https://bsky.app/profile/nycsouthpaw.bsky.social/post/3kyvzotj2sq2n
wtf is right, what a piece of shit
BR
@TBone:
Apparently there’s a New Yorker piece coming out about RFK Jr. and he posted on social media to get ahead of it.
TBone
@BR: if this is true…
I have to go do something else now, bears are very special to me and I’m too tired out with health issues today to withstand anymore without a comfort of some sort…
It takes a lot to make me cry most days. But today… For fucks sake my heart can’t take this ugh
BR
@TBone:
A happier place:
https://explore.org/livecams/brown-bears/brooks-falls-brown-bears-low
wjca
Considering the rate at which white voters seem to vote against their own interests, why would anyone be surprised to see the same phenomena among black voters?
Soprano2
@XeckyGilchrist: Yes, the 2010 election continues to be the most consequential one of my lifetime.
TBone
@BR: thank you
SatanicPanic
Speaking of Ohio, Trump fan, Ohio- born dickhead Logan Paul lost his title at WWE Summer Slam yesterday to LA Knight. I’ll take it as a sign the good guys are winning.
Baud
@Soprano2:
The aftermath is what made me give up on Daily Kos and come here!
So it wasn’t all bad.
japa21
@BR: Watch it every day.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: Eh, it’s not that clear-cut:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/11ewogp/oc_selfidentified_party_affiliation_in_the_us/
The main trend is that “independent” gained a lot versus both parties since the early 2000s, though there’s a lot of noisy variation on top of that. It seems like Republican identification has been gaining slightly lately.
Another Scott
@SFAW: I think that Baud is right here in the **long term** (as he says).
The number one rule in politics is that candidates want to win. Everything else follows from that.
Remembering George Wallace can be instructive. He was a huge out and proud racist and segregationist as everyone remembers. But, later on, he renounced many of those views:
Voters drive politicians views, because politicians want a majority of their votes. Voters need to drive politicians to change.
The US needs a non-insane opposition party. Over the **long term** more Blacks voting Republican and forcing the party to change would be a very good thing.
But first we need to crush MAGA in November 2024. In the long run, we’re all dead. ;-)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Kay: A June Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed Georgians giving Brian Kemp a 63% approval rating, so Trump picked a fight with with a very popular Republican. Trump had nothing to gain either; it was pure vindictiveness.
lowtechcyclist
@catclub:
I will say that the background of this is how terrible US citizens are at voting. When Biden won in 2020 about 40% of people eligible to vote… didn’t.
I think your estimate is high.
First of all, 158.6M people voted in the 2020 Presidential election. According to the 2020 Census, there were 258.3 million people age 18 or over living in the U.S. then. So 61.4% of those people voted.
However, the denominator needs to be reduced by the number of noncitizens living in the U.S. (legally or otherwise) at that time. My Google-fu isn’t doing very good at coming up with any numbers there. I can get counts of foreign-born people in the U.S. but many of those have become citizens.
If, say, 240 million of those 258.3 million adults were citizens, just to toss in a semi-believable guesstimate, then 66% of age-eligible citizens voted. Historically, voting rates in the U.S. through about 2000 were more like 50%. We seem to have been moving in the right direction since then. You can say that’s still piss-poor, but it’s still a big improvement over where we’ve been.
There’s also the issue of state laws, especially in the former Confederate states, that permanently prevent felons from voting. (And we know what that’s about.) They may be age-eligible, but they’re not eligible. Again, I’m not sure how much that reduces the denominator by.
KatKapCC
@Geminid:
He gets a rush from being vindictive like other people get from sex or skydiving or something.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist:
+1
Pew says “about 66%” of eligible voters voted in 2020.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Well, yes. We are discussing Donald Trump aren’t we?
JPL
@Baud: trump has already promised not to tax tips, in order to convince those in Nevada to vote for him. trump has already said Social Security should not be taxed, to secure the old vote, and tomorrow trump will promise a special black only tax deduction.
Someone needs to ask trump when the tax on Social Security was enacted. What monster would sign that bill.
Martin
@Baud: The Democratic Party is where it is now because we have steadily rejected that worldview for an egalitarian one. If the presence of black voters was all that was needed, the south would be the least racist, most egalitarian place in the country. Clearly that’s not it.
Democrats haven’t been kind to people of color and still largely aren’t. We’re getting better, but we’re not good. Maybe this election shoves us materially more in that direction, but the mere existence of ‘black women for Harris’ and ‘white men for Harris’ indicates that we’re still self-interested along gender and racial lines because we organize and identify along those lines. Those groups are about convincing white men that electing Harris is good for white men.
I think the real reason it’s happening is that we recognize we need black voters. It’s not generosity so much as it’s maybe a little transactional, and that transaction builds the egalitarian view. We need latino voters so we open ourselves to understanding their issues, and their point of view, and then embracing their issues and respecting their point of view. I mean, Democrats have been pretty reliant on black voters for 50 years and we’re just now getting there. It has been a slow process – we’re talking 2 generations.
Proximity isn’t enough – dependency is what I think does it in the end. That can be a very basic relying on your neighbors kind of thing all the way up to building political coalitions and the process of doing so. And in order to succeed at those things, you have to tear down the hierarchical world view – or at least soften it. And the latino community softens it a bit more, and the LGBTQ community does even more. What gave me a lot of hope that Democrats might actually be getting somewhere is when Democrats went to bat for the transgender community, despite the fact that the transgender community will not win you a single election. We reached out to that community even though there wasn’t any opportunity for a transaction there, when before there always had to be one.
I’m not saying this is true at the individual level – we had abolitionists long before there was any transaction possible. But I think collectively, this mostly holds true. Embracing black candidates doesn’t help the GOP consolidate power or help them with any of their stated goals.
Baud
@Geminid:
The only one who didn’t benefit from the Biden economy is Biden.
wjca
It’s instructive that, in his very first election, Wallace was a moderate on race. Got beaten by a loud and proud racist, and vowed: “They out-n—ered me. I’ll never by out-n—ered again!”
Because he was a politician who wanted to win, that was what it took where he was.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: It’s a big problem if one of the major parties in a democracy with a two-party system starts to reject democracy itself, because now people who are for democracy only really have one place to go, and how democratic is that? (Well, opposition in primary elections, maybe, but the desire for your party to have the benefit of incumbency blunts even that.)
This is a thing that frustrates young progressives and also members of minority groups whose voting rights are historically favored by one party over another. This narrowing of possibilities because some are too horrible to contemplate, and the feeling that the Sane Party can safely take them for granted.
The situation feels too brittle.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
OK, but again, if the reaching out doesn’t consist of moderating any stances, their Black voters are voting for Trump and the GOP as they are. Why would they leave, then, if the Rethugs don’t change?
Another Scott
@JPL: Of course, the “no tax on tips” thing is actually a scam.
It’s yet another example of the MAGA folks lying to everyone not in their club.
Grr…,
Scott.
JPL
@Geminid: Kemp said leave my family alone, and still will encourage republicans to vote for him. Kemp showed such courage. HAHAH
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
Not bad for a guesstimate, huh? :D
JPL
@Another Scott: Yup. trump doesn’t promise to save Social Security either, so it’s all a scam.
WaterGirl
@Hungry Joe: Loving your daily updates!
Martin
@Baud: But there’s no way for black voters to become a large enough share of the electorate to matter there. Black voters don’t back the Democratic Party because they agree with Democratic policies. I think this is the ‘West Wing’ failing.
Black voters back the Democratic Party because they can leverage enough power in the party, particularly in states where black voters are a large share, to FORCE Democrats to give them a seat at the table. This is not a ‘we’re going to see eye to eye on the issues’ kind of thing. This is a ‘we will deliver GA for your white presidential candidate, but you will back black governor and senator candidates’. When black voters wield power, that’s when white voters start to engage with their issues and start that good faith process. I mean, that was stated in pretty stark terms during the white women for Kamala call – we see how effective black women were at winning races for us, and we are willing to pay that back with Harris and learn from you. The galvanizing force here being the attack on women’s rights, which is what makes this different from 2020 or 2016 when these efforts never happened. White women want their right restored, they need black women to do that, and they will put their energy behind a black woman as candidate in a way they weren’t willing to put behind a white woman as candidate 8 years ago.
I have no idea how you get black voters to wield power inside a party that you admit has white nationalism as a primary goal. That’s impossible. And that won’t change until there is a similarly galvanizing mechanism that aligns the interests of republicans and black voters in such a way that republicans NEED black voters to win. It’s not the presence of black votes, it’s dependence on black votes.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Voter turnout among eligible voters was quite high by modern standards in the 19th century, dropped during the Progressive Era, and never quite recovered until the last few cycles when it seems to be increasing.
https://www.electproject.org/national-1789-present
I’m not quite sure what is going on here. My first assumption was that the franchise expanded in the early 20th century to groups that were less likely to turn out. But a lot of that expansion, at least to men, happened earlier, in the 19th century. And the granting of the vote to women was right at the point when the declining trend stabilized.
It might be that the denominator of eligible voters used for the calculations is misleading because they’re counting Black voters who theoretically could vote but really couldn’t, and the suppression of their vote through Jim Crow bullshit is just what we’re seeing there between about 1900 and 1920 (which is a period when THAT was definitely getting worse and worse). But I’m not sure that that’s what it is. The really old data probably isn’t great.
Ohio Mom
@Kathleen: I look at Ohio Capitol Journal now and then. It is the best journalism in the state, without question.
Martin
@catclub: There are a lot of disaffected voters in this country because the two party system doesn’t create enough diversity of coalition and power building to reach a lot of groups.
Trump won in 2016 by energizing a large group of disaffected voters – white nationalists, and evangelicals that saw their stock rising in the 90s with the moral majority but where they are bleeding demographics at a fantastic rate, and they have a small window to take and institutional power in institutions like USSC where it can hold power until justices die.
There are a lot of other disaffected groups. The two biggest are young voters and latinos – both larger than the group Trump activated. Both sitting there for Democrats to take and which ‘Democratic blue hairs’ as young people like to call us, are adverse to activating. Trump risked sacrificing reliable moderate voters for a large pool of new disaffected voters, and it worked. It barely worked, but it worked. Democrats have two much larger pools that are also naturally aligned to the party that could be activated to turn out. I think Harris wants to make a better run at both of them than the party has done in a while, but I’m not sure the campaign people are on board with that. Democrats have some pretty bad ideas about how to reach these voters and I’m not sure they can take good advice when offered.
Hoodie
@JPL: Yes, but he’s not dumb. He’s managed to keep Trump somewhat at arms length while not alienating the GOP base in GA. That’s how you get 63% favorability. This is something Dems should keep in mind; the GOP will not always be dumb enough to rely on Trump. If he loses in 2024, I have no doubt they will be able to airbrush him out of their history and go with someone like Kemp. Trump outmaneuvered them after 2020 using the stolen election thing. Kemp was one of few who didn’t go along with that because he knew it was bullshit and actually helped saddle them with a crappy leader who never won the popular vote and cost them dearly in multiple elections. They were a few votes away from disqualifying him from office and they were too cowardly and stupid to pull the trigger. They could have a much stronger candidate now if they had done so. I think Kemp understands that from the experience in GA. A vanilla Republican would probably have easily beaten Warnock.
Bill Arnold
@TBone:
It is mentally seductive material, very readily absorbed by minds not inoculated against fascism. (79 years since WWII; living memories mostly dead.)
See also Dark Enlightenment (wikipedia), and look at some of the linked material. E.g. it covers philosopher Nick Land’s formalization of it in an essay titled The Dark Enlightenment
Hoodie
@TBone: So, basically treating Brave New World like an instruction manual.
HumboldtBlue
sdhays
@BR: When I read this, I thought, “Wait…Trump can drive a car?”
Whew. Different Mr. Brainworms.
Martin
@Ksmiami: I think you really underappreciate the degree to which evangelical churches are invested in the idea that they are under a constant state of persecution, and need to fight to protect their faith. That is this country’s origin story – religious minorities fleeing persecution. You will never talk them out of that view. Economics barely even factors into it.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Martin: Seems to me that even if Republicans only pull 10 to 20 percent of the black vote and black people are a comparatively small portion of that population; if the election is narrow, they absolutely depend on those black votes however few.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’m on the Seniors For Harris call, which started about 5 minutes ago. Jim Clyburn, first speaker. Senior volunteer sign-up link is here.
Bill Arnold
@oldgold:
Good advice, Mr. Gorsuch!
M31
@HumboldtBlue: lol isn’t it about time for Minnesota to again refuse to return the Confederate flag they captured?
If Walz gets the VP nod, he needs to take some selfies with Harris in front of that flag
Another Scott
@wjca: Touche’. ;-)
Actually, very well done. It supports my point and refutes it to equal degree at the same time.
Kudos!
Cheers,
Scott.
delphinium
@Hungry Joe:
Nice-keep up the good work!!!
I finished 30 postcards reminding Florida voters to enroll in vote by mail and have signed up to do 200 postcards for a NY house district. Gotta help take back the house for Dems.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Bill Arnold:
Weiche, Wotan! Weiche!
Which, as Anna Russell informs me, means “be careful, Wotan! Be careful!”
jonas
@Another Scott: It’s a sop to business owners who think they’ll be able to save $$ by converting their employees to “tipped” employees, paying them less and telling them it’s a tax benefit (not sure how many workers really claim tip income anyway, so it’s probably a wash in reality). The real benefit is for the employers who then save on payroll taxes because they’re passing the burden of compensating employees onto the customers (who I’m sure will just luuuv all the new tipping that will be expected of them). And it undermines Medicare and Social Security at the same time, which is gravy for Republicans.
Ruckus
Now it’s been 20 yrs since I lived, worked and voted in OH for 10 yrs and from what I’m seeing it doesn’t look like it has changed all that much. All things considered, I’m not sure I’ve ever expected it to.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: I’ve been reading a lot of anti-voting material lately, to try to get into the heads of people who won’t vote. The late George Carlin had a whole routine about why he didn’t vote and why you shouldn’t vote. People cite it a lot. At first I assumed it wasn’t actually a George Carlin routine because so much random crap gets misattributed to him, but this one was real, and it seems like a LOT of people took it as gospel and cite it approvingly. He took the popular saying “if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain” and inverted it into “if you DO vote you have no right to complain”.
It’s what you’d expect: they’re all bad, they’re all bought and paid for, the system is corrupt and by voting you’re just buying into it, etc.
At one point he says what a lot of non-voters say, that not voting absolves you of moral responsibility for the bad things politicians do (which just strikes me as not true).
Looking at a discussion of Carlin’s bit on Quora, though, it struck me that a lot of his fans just make arguments that are logically bad. One person saying voting is pointless because of the Electoral College (I guess the US President is the only elected office in existence?) One saying a dumbass like Trump becoming President is evidence that voting is pointless (so I guess you’re not going to vote against him?)
Mousebumples
@RaflW: this is awesome! Thanks for sharing the link. I posted it to bsky and tagged you.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Martin: I agree with you about Latino voters. Democratic outreach efforts have been pitiful.
With young voters? Meh. Experience has made me cynical. They are way too unreliable. I’d say Cori Bush has catered to young activists. I doubt they save her in the primary. Not enough of them will show up.
wjca
What can I say? It’s a gift
EDT A mind stocked with trivia helps. The kind that never appears in trivia contestd.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Depends on your moral frame, but it’s not true in mine.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
OMG now listening to Doug Emhoff’s parents and they are totally adorable and it’s also clear how much they admire and adore Kamala.
TBone
@Bill Arnold:
@Hoodie:
I’m back, my vape is good comfort against the onslaught. I knew about this stuff (TESCREAL, pro-natalism, the tech cult network, etc.) but the “virtualize them” thing hits a bit too close to the reality of those of us deemed unproductive right now, sitting at home in front of screens … and I trust Digby. When she’s freaked the eff out, I really pay attention.
We. Must. Win.
trollhattan
@JPL: @Another Scott:
If they’d like to help wait staff and the like who live off of tips, then cancel the restaurant industry sub-minimum wage carveout brought to fruition by Herman Aww Shucky-Ducky Cain.
There’s also the house collecting and reporting tips as income to consider. I’m sure that’s all done on the up and up.
Mousebumples
@Hungry Joe: what org are you writing with for the Senate race postcards? I can add that info to the Postcards post, if you can share a little more info. Thanks for postcarding!
SiubhanDuinne
Is anyone else zooming with the Seniors for Kamala webinar? It is fucking awesome. Will write up a few notes later (after 5;00pm blog time).
Baud
How does one start with this postcard thing? Is there a primer somewhere about what’s involved?
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
pfft. No seniors on this blog.
Ruckus
@JML:
Mostly it’s profits.
How many people do not pay for a newspaper any longer? I stopped at least 2 decades ago, and I think it was quite a bit longer, because it seemed to very much be a waste of trees and paper. In today’s world it’s far more like a total physical and environmental waste. I can get more information on my phone, faster, easier and cheaper, or on my computer.
trollhattan
Oh lord, we’re hosed.
HumboldtBlue
@M31:
Indeed it is.
Baud
@trollhattan:
did he post a frownie face emoji?
Ruckus
@Baud:
I’m not a senior, I graduated…..
Now if we are talking decades breathing……
wjca
Sophomoric, that’s us.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Young at heart.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@SiubhanDuinne: Yep. Posted a few comments above yours.
Did you love the Emhoffs?
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
And to think you wished me a Happy 82nd only yesterday!!
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Wait till they both give national speeches. One of them sounds like a patient at a mental institution and it ain’t the one that is 18 yrs younger than the mental case.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
ADORED. Newly on my bucket list: Sunday dinner at Barb and Mike’s.
ETA: Richard Chamberlain’s still got it. Be still, my thumping nostalgic heart!♥️
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: LOL. I’m actually not a senior. I’m Gen X, like the Blogfather. I know I’m outnumbered, though.
ssdd
Elon’s skeevy PAC under investigation in Michigan.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/04/elon-musk-pac-investigated-michigan.html
trollhattan
@Ruckus: We subscribe on line to our local rag because SOMEBODY needs to report locally, but they have perhaps 10% of their former capacity and staff so it’s a poor analog to what they once provided. As to the physical paper, they sold their yuge printing plant and sub that out. The subscription for that, six days/week—fuck you Saturday, nobody ever liked you is $10.83, a princely $563/year.
Guessing libraries and government offices and…libraries get that. Press run of a thousand?
eclare
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Waves at fellow Gen Xer! I’m on the older side, born in 1968.
SFAW
@Another Scott:
Agreed. Me winning the Head of the Charles 1X in my age group would also be a very good thing. I’m not laying odds on which is more likely before I die.
Which is the point. We’ve been hearing “the Republican Party (as we know it) is DOOMED, because of demographics and veeblefetzer” for 10 or 15 years now. It would give me great pleasure to see that happen, but FSM doesn’t want me to be that happy, and we sure as hell ain’t even close in 2024.
TBone
@ssdd: I adore Dana Nessel!
SFAW
@Baud:
I’m pretty sophomoric, can I stay?
ETA: And I see wjca @ 217 beat me to it. Damn.
TBone
Tiedrich brings the fire again today:
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/traitor-trump-praises-putin-in-another
He always cheers me up.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@eclare: Rock on, Dude (or Dudette)!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@eclare: Can I get some love from fellow Millennials in here?
Martin
@lowtechcyclist: 66% of eligible voters voting in 2020 (that is the actual number) has already solved the problem in the denominator. The ‘eligible’ accounts for non-citizen and all that.
But voter turnout in 2016 was 54% – 12% lower. This is why I am banging the turnout drum so hard. That’s the election-election swing possible. It’s a LOT. Expectations under Trump/Biden was that turnout would revert to that 2016 level with GOP turnout falling a bit (post 1/6 impact) and Dem turnout collapsing because there was so little energy behind Biden. Now, it’s a bit less clear because the energy on the Dem side has changed so dramatically. None of this is reflected in polls yet.
Trump gained 11 million votes from 2016-2020 which is part of why they took the loss so hard – they added a LOT of voters. Dems added 16 million, disproportionately young and black voters, and that put Dems over the top. Dems need a high energy election more than anything else to win. We need to hold onto those 16 million voters more than we need to persuade swing voters, because the swing demographic is maybe 7 million, and you’ll not win them by more than 60%. Meanwhile young voters break Dem 66% of the time, and Black voters 90% of the time. Latinos are 60% and they dramatically undervote as well.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Anyway, I think a lot of these people have some form of the “vulgar libertarian” mindset, that they just want to be left alone and live in splendid isolation. (They may be literal Libertarians–Reason magazine likes to run anti-voting screeds and I saw someone approvingly quoting Carlin on the Mises Institute website.)
I think that often they don’t have a decent appreciation of how bad it could really get. George Carlin died in 2008, after George W. Bush’s debacles but before Donald Trump became President and suddenly all this unreconstructed fascist shit was openly being espoused by the Republican Party. His attitude strikes me as very late 90s “Gush vs. Bore”.
columbusqueen
@Eunicecycle: Well, given DeWine’s son is on the state SC, that’s not going to hapousepen, alas. As least Larry Householder is rotting in jail.
Ksmiami
@Martin: I’m glad they are shrinking in population then
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Usually the case with free riders, which is what libertarians basically are.
Martin
@Hoodie: Voters are surprisingly good at separating state and federal issues. Is how we have a Senator from Montana. It’s how we get democratic governors in places like Kentucky which is a R+26 state.
It’s why a lot of election experts keep warning that a popular governor won’t help with a national race. The reasons they liked that candidate at the state level may not translate to their viewpoints on federal issues.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: It does seem like Governor is the least ideologically nationalized of major political offices. Of course, we have cases like DeSantis and Abbott where it is, but it has the possibility of being less so. You get moderate Republican governors in blue states a lot too, even recently.
Martin
@wjca: They are not voting against their interests. They are voting against what we think their interests should be. We can’t fight this if we can’t stop substituting what we think they should care about for what they actually care about.
Martin
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Cori Bush catered to leftists, not young voters.
columbusqueen
@Bupalos: God, I hope you’re right.
Another Scott
@Martin:
I think that jump was a one-off thing (unless something like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, etc., passes) because voting was made a lot easier (but not easy enough) during the pandemic. I expect similar percentages this time (maybe more because of Dobbs, maybe less because normies are scared of MAGA now but can’t make the jump to voting for a woman yet).
Unless I’m mistaken, history tells us that making voting easier drives up turnout. That’s the big prize.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: This year I am looking at Arizona to evaluate the state of Democratic outreach to Hispanic voters. A coalition of labor unions and community organization made a concerted effert to mobilize Hispanic voters there in 2020 and they are doing it again this year. One key player is UNITE HERE Local 17, which represents hospitality industry workers in southern California as well as Arizona.
Coming into this century, Arizona’s Hispanic community lagged their Anglo counterparts in political participation by a substantial margin, but they have been closing the gap since. And now, the state’s Hispanic community can see visible representation at the state level in Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Senate candidate Ruben Gallego, who seems like a very dynamic politician.
Fontes and Gallego make an interesting contrast. Fontes is in his early 50s while Gallego is 39. Gallego’s mother emigrated from Mexico, and he moved to Arizona as an adult. Fontes was born in southern Arizona and his family has lived in that area since the 1740s.
Adrian Fontes and Ruben Gallego have at least one thing in common: they are both Marine Corps veterans.
Kathleen
@Glory b: I was a freshman in high school when that happened. I cannot fathom the level of terror Black people experienced in the Jim Crow South or what those 3 young men endured. I remember the reaction to Reagan’s campaign kickoff being held in that city.
I wonder how their families endured their sorrow.
Hoodie
@Martin: You keep overinterpreting the same point. We had those 16 million voters voting for 78-year old Joe Biden in 2020. Most of that was probably anti-Trump. A lot of those voters probably would have grudgingly shown up again 2024 for Biden because of Trump. Polls showed they were dissatisfied, and I imagine there would have been some slippage in the actual vote in 2024, which is why the Harris transition may have been justified – it stands to get most of those voters back. But there is a cost to losing swing voters and it won’t necessarily be made up by trying to get even more young voters. There may be a point of diminishing returns.
JCNZ
@karen marie: Me too! Now I feel bad whenever I get a subscription offer
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: The huge jump up in turnout actually began with the 2018 midterm, which had the highest midterm turnout in over a century. That says to me that it was anti-Trump and not anything particularly to do with a specific Democratic ticket. That was also before the pandemic.
(There was a bit of dropoff in 2022, but not nearly as much as one might expect.)
Martin
@Ksmiami: They’re shrinking because the GOP has so throughly taken over evangelical/Catholic churches that young people want nothing to do with religion.
It’s not racial demographics that are shifting so quickly (though still not in their direction) but support for religion. Unless they can recruit a growing demographic like Latinos into the mission, they’ll be demographically unviable in 2 elections. They’re already there, but just barely.
Geminid
@Martin: I was reading up on the 2020 election and Wikipedia presented an interesting finding: out of the 13% per cent Hispanic vote share, 8% were women and 5% were men.
The same source also gave the Hispanic vote share in 1976, for the Ford/Carter race: 2%! The Hispanic vote share was 10% in 2012, so it grew by 30% in 2020.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Martin: In St Louis, the leftests are mostly young. Moderates are mostly older. In particular, her stances on Israel/Gaza seems to resonate more with younger than older voters.
Martin
@Hoodie: Focus groups indicated that they would have stayed home. They saw Biden in 2020 as competent to address the immediate problem of Covid which was a very executive branch-first kind of thing. They didn’t see Biden in 2024 as competent to address the broader slate of cultural problems, problems with the court, etc. many of which are legislative-branch first or are leadership but not government-led issues. You can’t executive order respect for women.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Geminid: That sounds fantastic!
Belafon
I believe Jackson said it best: They’ve made their decision, now let them enforce it.
Matt McIrvin
@wjca: In the case of the white voters, they’re to a large degree voting for white supremacy, which probably isn’t the deal here. But divide-and-conquer can work on other people too. You could get some fraction of Black voters (as well as more white ones) with anti-immigrant sentiment or with misogyny or transphobia, or any number of other things that slice the population in different ways.
In a sense, the Republicans are the party of majority or hegemonic identity, in several dimensions: their pitch is that they’re sticking up for the normal folk against the unreasonable demands of “special interests”. For the vast majority of people, even if they’re in the non-hegemonic group in some ways, you can find some identifier for which they’re in the ruling “normal folks” bin, and work on that. You might not be white, but maybe you’re straight and Christian and born in America, and you resent some people who aren’t that! And for some fraction of voters, maybe a small fraction, an appeal to that is going to be stronger than the repulsion of the racist appeal you’re making to somebody else.
catclub
Exactly. The not voting is denying responsibility for and to others. But the whole point of ‘we, the people’ is ‘we’. Not I, and not them.
Martin
@Geminid: Yeah, if latinos in Texas turned out at the same rate as whites, and the new latino voters voted proportionately to the existing latino voters, Texas would be a blue state – and not a particularly close one either.
It is by no means an easy thing, but Democrats really aren’t trying very hard either.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: Also, the right is pushing very hard the idea that Biden somehow fucked up the COVID response, mostly by doing too much (they claim masks didn’t work, school and office closures didn’t work, vaccines didn’t work, mostly by pulling assertions out of their buttholes–there’s also the whole “Anthony Fauci actually made COVID happen” conspiracy angle).
And while the appeal is mostly to people already on their side, obviously a broad range of people had their lives seriously disrupted by the closings and may be at least willing to entertain the idea that none of it was necessary.
Kathleen
@TBone: NYT or WaPo will describe his ideas as “satire” along with a hearty “that’s not what he really meant”.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Latinos in Texas have to contend with the fact that the powers that be make it very hard for Latinos to vote.
24-hour early voting. Get rid of that. Drive-through voting, get rid of that.
Ad infinitum.
Snarki, child of Loki
@Matt McIrvin: “Voter turnout among eligible voters was quite high by modern standards in the 19th century, dropped during the Progressive Era”
Electoral politics was one of the few sources of entertainment in the 19th Century. Then came radio. Then TV. Then the internet.
(in addition to the Jim Crow effects you mentioned)
Geminid
@Martin: I wonder what Democrats are doing in this area for David Valadeo’s Central Valley district. That is one of the Republican-held districts which Joe Biden would have won in 2020, in their present configuration. An increase in Hispanic participation could make the difference there.
Same with John Duarte’s district further up the Valley. Duarte won that open seat by less than 1000 votes in 2022.
Another Scott
@SuzieC: 👍
Cheeers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: Yarvin has been creeping me out ever since he first appeared pseudonymously. He was the first person I ever saw described as “alt-right” which basically caused me to define “alt-right” as “creepy weirdos who want to hypothetically genocide most of humanity and retvrn us to the year 1300”. Basically true
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
As a male child I had a local paper route, for the home town paper. There was a specific way to fold it into a square. Which wasn’t difficult as it was a small town in SoCal, which used to be a hell of a lot smaller population than it is now. It’s about 2 times what it was when I was born here. Los Angeles County population is over 3 times what it was when I was born here.
Back to the newspaper. Really newspapers were the only way to get much in the way of news when I was born. There was radio but they all had vacuum tubes, and worked – sort of. Most supermarkets, when they came into being, had vacuum tube testing/vending machines. For TV, which came out in the early 50s they had the same vacuum tubes for the sound and a cathode ray tube for video – in B&W. Which of course many here may remember. And the early ones sucked – but was better than nothing. And now we carry phones with rather decent cameras and can talk basically around the world. The world has come a long way in overall, in a rather short time.
Uncle Cosmo
Um, I wouldn’t be so quick to chalk up the Latino vote. They are by and large socially conservative, traditionally family oriented, and lean right in matters of religion. And that’s just the women. Then you have endemic male machismo (which IMHO is what TCFFG is counting on to appeal to AA men, misogyny plus resentment at black women). There is a reason the Bush boys (Dubya and Jeb) for years tried to work up immigration reform (so their big-bucks donors could continue to benefit from cheap labor) in a form that the rest of their base could live with, We’re kinda fortunate they could never thread that needle or we might have already lost democracy.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Yeah, but part of winning over voters is the effort. Even if Democrats went into Texas and put money into helping them vote, and lost, that effort around an issue that Democrats advocate for would probably pay some dividends in the next election, and so on.
With a continued investment over multiple cycles we could probably flip the state sooner, but we never do it and so we have to wait until it’s close enough we can do it in one go. And if Democrats get Texas, the GOP doesn’t have a map any more. They have to pretty radically change their approach.
And given so much cash, and the diminishing effects of dumping money into already saturated states, I question why Democrats don’t do more of that.
brantl
@WaterGirl: Probably that Convicted Felon Former Guy?
WaterGirl
@Martin:
Democrats did do that. They do do that. Does Beto O’Rourke ring a bell? :-
I’m sure you’re suggesting that Dems DO MORE OF THAT. But what you wrote gives the impression that Dems aren’t doing anything.
Geminid
@Martin: It will be interesting to see if the Party does “do more of that ” this cycle.
Fake Irishman
@Soprano2:
2010 was terrible, especially for the Midwest states. 2014 was up there too. Imagine if the Dems somehow keep 51 in the Senate. That’s several dozen more judges, including a Supreme Court seat and probably 2 seats apiece in the fifth and 8th circuits.
Fake Irishman
@WaterGirl:
and that’s fine! Beto did great. The numbers in Texas are light years better than a decade ago. We’re not you’re in Georgia territory yet, but we’re getting close to entering swing state territory from stage right.
(that is general agreement with your point by the way.)
Martin
So are black voters.
You’re failing to acknowledge my thesis above – that you appeal to latinos by giving them power, not policies. And on policy, you don’t appeal to them on immigration policy because they are all over the map on that, and it’s a bit racist to think that they wouldn’t be. But that’s sort of the only policy Democrats focus on. In a lot of communities, small business opportunities, access to capital, removing unnecessary regulation, and so on are big issues. A lot of latinos are entrepreneurial, they see that as their opportunity to build wealth. But it’s republicans who speak to those issues, not democrats. One way to solve this problem is to give latinos more power to set the laws directly who can make sure these issues aren’t overlooked. Were any latinos even considered for the VP slot? Nope. Not interested in giving them power right now.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I don’t see it changing. Whiteness has been fluid in this country right? Italians were not considered white, and even earlier the Irish were considered less than because they were Catholic.
What is I see happening is whiteness being redefined to include light skinned Hispanic people and other white adjacent groups.
brantl
@TBone: I prefer DumOld Stump.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
The right has been crazy for a long time. And they have been losing on the far right. Which seems to me why they seemingly have doubled down – maga. And they do not see compromise, at least a not all that small segment does not anyway, so it seems worse. As an old fart I can tell you it has been TWO sides my entire life, two opposing sides, but in many ways it has gotten at least more centrist, leaving seemingly many on the right as total hard core conservative. That’s my take anyway.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Dems haven’t put money into Texas for a presidential race in decades. Yes, we put some support behind Beto, but we aren’t putting money into building up the party infrastructure more broadly. Democrats are playing the map very narrowly which has the effect of voters backing the parties that show up which means the map stays narrow.
That’s why the 50 state strategy was being pushed – by investing across the map you create new opportunities down the road. But it’s not opportunistic to one race here or there, it needs to be building that activist base, making sure the party is coordinating with them and hearing them, etc. Democrats are better at this than Republicans (just ask the CA GOP) but they’re not good at it. And given how much more reliant we are on grassroots fundraising, it seems we should be better at it.
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Cosmo: But if we don’t try to take that vote, they drift further to the right. These things aren’t immutable.
brantl
@Tony Jay: I’m guessing they stuck their pool entries?
brantl
@BR: where did you hear THAT?
wjca
Two (great??) minds with a single thought. Put another way, maybe it was just steamboat time.
Geminid
@Martin: That’s an arguable complaint in the abstract, but I am not sure who the actual Hispanic Democrats are you think should have been considered for the VP slot.
wjca
@Martin: Fair enough. But the point remains even so.
wjca
Perhaps more to the point to get them power at the local and state level. Which, after all, is where many of the issues you mention are actually addressed.
Considering a Latino for VP? Got a name to offer? I mean, philosophically it sounds good. But get concrete if you want to really make your point.
Might be more useful to work of legislatures and governors’ offices. A couple of Senate seats (see Arizona) would help, too
EDT Geminid got there first on VP specifics.
Martin
@Geminid: Well, the lack of a bench sort of makes my point for me, doesn’t it?
Part of the issue is that most of the bench are Californians which risks a legal fight when paired up with Harris, so that wipes out a lot of people like Becerra and Padilla. AOC is Latina and old enough to run. She has much experience in government as Trump and Vance combined. You have Julian Castro. You have Tom Perez.
I’m not arguing that we have strong contenders for VP (especially when CA is taken out), I’m arguing that not considering a Latino sends a message to the community. There were other longshots reported out under consideration. It wouldn’t have killed the campaign to include the person they thought was the strongest of the lot on the list. There are no women on the short list, but there were two on the larger list. There is no POC on the short list but there were on the larger list.
Right now, the GOP is the only party wiling to consider a latino for VP. That’s not a great position to be in.
Ruckus
@J. Arthur Crank:
“That Crazy Fucking Fruitcake Goober”?
Another Scott
@Martin: Eh?
Democrats.org (from June 10):
Of course more can and should be spent, but they are doing the work, even in Texas.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt
What’s wrong with Ohio? The same thing that’s wrong with most of the US: a population of credulous white-supremacist goobers hypnotized by Prosperity Jeebus, folks who’d gladly set themselves on fire if it got smoke in a city slicker’s eyes.
Cheryl from Maryland
@SiubhanDuinne: OMG, Richard Chamberlain, yes. He rocked my world as a teen in “The Lady’s Not For Burning”.
Martin
@Another Scott: In a state the size of Texas $515K doesn’t go very far. You’re right, it’s not $0, but it needs to be meaningful dollars.
We’re talking a million disenfranchised voters here.
wjca
Umm, ladies you are aware the Mr. Chamberlain is gay, aren’t you?