Just a quick update while working on something longer — but this from TPM caught my eye as the Republican campaign in microcosm:
Two middle-aged white Republican activists in Texas allegedly harassed and intimidated at least seven elderly African-American voters at their homes in eastern Texas, according to a complaint filed with the Justice Department on Thursday.
Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, submitted a report to DOJ alleging that two unidentified women visited elderly African-American voters at their homes in Bowie County and questioned them about their mail-in ballot applications, Mother Jones first reported.
The women allegedly showed up to 78-year-old Willard Wherry’s home and asked him who had helped him fill in his mail-in ballot. “We are just trying to be sure no one is trying to coax someone to vote,” one of the woman allegedly told Willard. Other individuals who were allegedly visited by the women were also listed on the complaint.
It’s been repeated so often that it’s a truism that Democrats are doing much better in polls of registered voters than in ones with likely voter screens in place.
It’s also true that a longer view of the American electorate paints an even worse picture for the GOP: their core voters are older and whiter than those of the Democrats, and there are already fewer of them than those associated with what may loosely be called the Democratic coalition — but the groups that favor the Dems have historically tended to vote in smaller percentages.
So far so nothing to see here, folks. This is all old news. Except, of course, the one thing the GOP has decided to do as demographics tilt ever more heavily against it is exactly what you’d expect from the Confederate Party. When in doubt, don’t try to expand the tent; instead, restrict the franchise.
Remember: the form of democracy can long outlive its substance. We’ve got only one real weapon against the at least occasionally violent opposition: Vote by or on Tuesday, and make damn sure all your friends do too. I don’t care how bored you are with politics…or even how justifiably cynical you are about the odds for major change. If all else fails to motivate you and yours, try this: you want to let craptacular specimens like these crow over the results Wed.?
Didn’t think so.
Image: Poster for D. W. Griffith’s Birth Of A Nation, 1915
BGinCHI
I hate the White Panthers.
I especially hate their garb.
Hunter Gathers
Waiting for the usual suspects to claim ‘both sides do it’.
Tom Levenson
@Hunter Gathers: in 3, 2, 1…
Nerull
@Hunter Gathers:
NEW BLACK PANTHERS ZOMG
Bnut
For all the talk we hear about how “diverse” the Tea Party is, you would think that all these angry black conservatives would be the ones selected or who choose to go around and do this sort of thing. This only proves the right is stupid, as well as racist.
slag
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously? She didn’t seriously say that, did she?
What will America come to when people are running around willy nilly coaxing people into voting? Oh the humanity!
Ash Can
@BGinCHI: I get nervous when I see overweight white men or bleach-blonde women on my teevee. Sure, today they’re just talking, but what’s to stop them from going out tomorrow and bombing a Muslim community center?
morzer
I had the strangest dream. I saw politicians trying to coax people into voting for them. It was scary. Thank God I woke up and it was morning in America again!
sherifffruitfly
It’s ok – if we all just go spout the typical lies a few times, and we’ll all feel better.
“it’s not race, it’s class”
“it’s just a few bad apples”
And so on.
dmsilev
Fixed for accuracy.
Anyone planning to go see the President at the Chicago rally tomorrow? I’m debating whether to brave the crowds and show up.
dms
slag
@morzer: The scariest thing is that I know people who do go directly to people’s doors and try to coax them into voting. I’m not going to say who exactly they are, but I’ll just say that there are quite a few of them.
And yes, they carry clipboards.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Elie
Democrats need to coach elderly voters not to let anyone in their homes who come with those kind of questions.
They should also be given a few mean, barking dogs that like to throw themselves against the door when unexpected folks come to the door. A few of these should accidentally get out…
BTW, under what formal roles did these people come to these people’s doors? What formal roles or service were they representing? If they were misrepresenting who they were, they should be charged and fined.
General Stuck
Personally, I am looking for a return to slavery. Into the near, or not so distant future. I predict it will not be unusual to see human beings auctioned off to the highest bidder. It may well be televised with fanfare and commercials with Nielson ratings, and reruns on Hulu. The new indentured servants will be politicians, in chains, but well dressed. Corporations will give them the once over, check their teeths, feets, and gums, see if they can spell and shake hands and smile well enough. Then buy them for the high dollar, maybe even with an obligatory election to give it a thin sheen of democracy.
BGinCHI
@Ash Can: Have you ever noticed how many white people there are on planes?
Jesus, it’s fucking terrifying.
Just think if it had been white Christians who killed all the Jews in the Holocaust.
Bender
I wonder how much those “intimidating,” “harassing” women weighed? More or less than Lauren Valle? Come on, media — do your job!
Two women asking questions of black voters = intimidation.
New Black Panthers patrolling a polling station in paramilitary garb, armed with a nightstick, yelling “You’re about to be ruled by the black man!” = just fine, nothing to see here.
Your “Justice” Department At Work!
JGabriel
Tom Levenson:
Wait, only one weapon? Don’t we get Second Amendment Remedies (ed. – that really should be a band name; jg – only if they’re lefties) too?
(ed. – a little gentle ribbing there?; jg – who, me? I prefer thighs)
.
Martin
I don’t see what the problem is. It’s obvious enough that the new white panthers are patriots working to ensure that all Constitutional rights are being upheld, while the new black panthers are a bunch of shiftless negroes bent on the destruction of America.
slag
@Bender: HAHAHAHAHAHA! That is hilarious. C’mon, DougJ, the jig is up. We’re not buying it anymore. No one can possibly be that stupid.
Suffern Ace
@Elie: I do believe that offering the visitors refreshments and sending them on their way instead of releasing the hounds might befuddle those visitors even more, and be less dangerous for the elderly, who would be stuck living with dangerous dogs.
Hunter Gathers
1,2,3,4, Chuck declares a Race War!
Bruuuuce
@General Stuck: Peak Reality TV. :-P
thomas Levenson
@JGabriel: (ed. – that really should be a band name; jg – only if they’re lefties) too?
(ed. – a little gentle ribbing there?; jg – who me? I prefer thighs)
Do I sense a little gentle mockery there? (Sensitive, much?–ed. Who, me? — TL)
Ash Can
@Bender: I’m with slag. You’re overplaying your hand, DougJ. :)
@slag: Has anyone ever seen Bender and DougJ together? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
thomas Levenson
@Hunter Gathers: In a humane society, someone would have adjusted K-hammer’s meds long ago, and tucked him into those nice tight sheets in that quiet, well-lit room, where none of the voices inside his head could trouble him anymore.
morzer
@thomas Levenson:
There really should be a band called Second Amendment Remedy Sluts (SARS for short).
Jrod the Cookie Thief
@Bender: BLACK PEOPLE AAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE HELP HELP I’M BEING OPPRESSED!!!11
Hunter Gathers
@thomas Levenson: In a just world, his diving accident would have killed him.
morzer
@Bender:
Bit of a Fender Bender Surrender there, DougJ.
General Stuck
@Hunter Gathers:
Obama was flat wrong about that.
morzer
Incidentally, Tom Tancredo has achieved a new status in anti-elitist rock stardom:
My God, people get elected to Congress – and then make laws! The legislative nerve of those elitist bastards!
Elie
@Suffern Ace:
True. Just a little fantasy of a pit bull latched on to big white moma’s racist behind. sigh. Just too evil, I know but oh what a fun thing to see.
That non serious fantsay aside, they should be kept waiting outside and ask their questions through the door. I would not want the elderly to have to give them anything except a cool glass of water (drawn from the toilet tank).
I still would like to know (seriously), under what auspices these folks are calling on the elderly. Who or what organization are they saying that they are representing and what evidence of that are they providing? If they are presenting themselves as representatives of the states or the feds, they could be in some serious trouble. No one owes anyone else any answers to anything
PhoenixRising
I personally have been going to the homes of elderly non-white Americans and not just encouraging them to vote, but worse–offering them transportation to vote! Arrggh! Are the Tea Partiers going to send over a crack team of little old Republican white ladies to my place to interrogate me?
I’m loading the squirt gun and hiding in the root cellar with Toto.
morzer
@PhoenixRising:
Toto? Toto? That’s a Messican name if I ever did hear one!
Ash Can
@morzer: Because Tom Tancredo knows that a congressman’s real job is to take bribes from lobbyists, and to do what Holy Ronald Reagan told them to do: be the problem, not the solution.
slag
@Suffern Ace: Plus, Rosie’s too busy getting tied up in yard signs to have time for destroying the lives of old people. I hope John Cole is braced for the lawsuit that will inevitably follow his offloading of that dog.
JGabriel
thomas Levenson:
Heh, a little. Looks like I reversed the format though, should be (comment, em-dash, sig). (Don’t forget it–ed. Will do, or don’t, won’t, er, you know what I mean–JG)
.
trollhattan
On the left coast, a bit of sanity creeps in after some mid-summer scares.
http://www.kcra.com/politics/25548749/detail.html
http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2010/10/28/15/Rls2363.source.prod_affiliate.4.pdf
The next state inland, however, appears ready to launch a 120-pound bag of batshit into the Senate chambers.
http://media.lasvegassun.com/media/pdfs/blogs/documents/2010/10/28/Sharron_Angle_page_10001.pdf
http://www.lasvegassun.com/senate-candidate-tracker/
The Republic of Stupidity
They also tend to be balder… chubbier… angrier… and oddly sexless…
R-Jud
@morzer:
No, FUCKWIT. You make LAWS because you were elected to the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH.
R-JUD SMASH!
(+7 [at least])
max
When in doubt, don’t try to expand the tent; instead, restrict the franchise.
It should come as no surprise, since they’ve been trying to resurrect Jim Crow for 40 years, starting with the prisons. So I don’t think anybody should be surprised that screaming about ACORN is just a way to excuse a (slightly disorganized) Jim Crow II.
I can’t wait until the spring, when we get to listen to Congress talking about shipping all the Mexicans back to Africa.
max
[‘The upside is that the South always launches Pickett’s Charge, so we can look forward to a high water mark soon.’]
Odie Hugh Manatee
Racism is rampant in the gaming community too. My family and I like to play the Left4Dead games. In L4D1 there is one black character and in L4D2 there are two black characters. Since I run L4D servers I see it regularly. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen gamers ‘rage quit’ because they let the game pick their character (or there are no other character slots open) and when they got into the game they would rage quit saying ‘I’m not going to be a ni99er!’. Often they just try to repeatedly kill or maim us in the hope we would rage quit.
So I decided to have some fun last night.
The daughter and I were playing L4D2 and I was playing as the redneck dude named Ellis. I decided to be a smartass and played the game with a very pronounced lisp (I mean VERY pronounced). Two other players came in, one after the other, and both quit because they weren’t going to play the game with a “fucking fagg0t” (as the second rager said).
The second guy raged when I said “It’s a thouthern thing” regarding the game character ‘Nick’ saying “Kiss my ass” and my lispy response calling him a “tease”. Our daughter and I laughed our asses off as she was the one playing Nick and the line “Kiss my ass” is programmed into the game as a line for her character.
Homophobia and racism is a part of the gamers world and I am going to have fun with these assholes every fucking chance I get. The racists are pissed at Valve (the game company who makes the L4D series) because two of the characters are black; one female and one male. Combine that with a gay-sounding redneck and you have a formula that really pisses off the righty whiteys out there.
Good. Some of the ragers start shooting us when we are carrying gas cans, or just shooting us to kill us, because we are ‘playing when black’ (often we like to let the game pick the character for us or I choose to be ‘Coach’ and she chooses to be ‘Rochelle’, both are black characters). They get a real surprise when they find out that we are the server admins and we use Source and Meta Mods to make their visit as shitty as possible.
Then we kick their asses out and ban them from our server.
JGabriel
Odie Hugh Manatee: That. Is a pretty great post.
.
Linda Featheringill
@Suffern Ace:
Maybe they could have dogs like my Tulip, who is a sweetie but really has an impressive bark, with lots of shiny teeth showing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48117682@N05/4913828323/
Or maybe one of the other beasties shown.
Linda Featheringill
Seriously, did any of the targets of these friendly visits get a license plate number or something?
It would be nice to think of these women getting a visit from the DOJ, along with the invitation to explain their actions. I know, I know. The TeaParty would call harrassment but at least these two biddies might consider the possibility that their actions have consequences.
Svensker
@slag:
I don’t know. My cousin says this same stupid shit all the time (although right now he’s all about bombing the crap out of Yemen since a Yemeni person had the nerve to wish the U.S. ill). Hey, maybe Bender IS my cousin. Yo, cuz!
gwangung
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Dude. That sounds righteous.
kommrade reproductive vigor
The Republicans killed off ACORN and left us with a bunch of nuts.
Cacti
I get nervous every time I see an overweight middle age or older white person.
I worry they’re out to try and stop a person of color from voting.
eric
@dmsilev: i have to move, but i might try and bring my daughter….what time does it start?
PIGL
@slag: but one can be that viscious and mean. Ask the nasty little prick how.
ruemara
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Can’t wait for Cata, where one of the races you can play is Worgen. Just spell it backwards. nothing like being a black, female gamer.
Dr. Psycho
@PhoenixRising: What do you load into a squirtgun as Republican Repellent? White wine? A Portland microbrew? A San Francisco mocha java? An egg cream? Fluoridated water?
morzer
@Dr. Psycho:
A liberal latte, surely?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@JGabriel: @gwangung:
I wish I didn’t have to post what I did but thanks. It would be nice if the homophobia and racism wasn’t dragged into the gamers world but I guess that’s too much to ask. Since that is too much to ask, if they are going to be assholes then I will be a nice guy and mess with their heads.
After all, the server our game servers run on are located in our basement and if they are going to ‘come into our house to play’ and be intolerant then I will fuck with their heads.
@ruemara:
I’m not into WoW, GW or the like but I really like that! The only problem I can see is that I’m not sure the racists are going to be intelligent enough to figure it out.
But I’m sure that someone will be nice enough to point it out to them so they won’t miss out on the chance to get their rage on…lol!
thomas Levenson
@Odie Hugh Manatee: I hear you about the issues of racism, homophobia and gynophobia in the gamer world. And I love your reaction.
You may be interested in the work of a new colleague of mine in the MIT Writing Program, Fox Harrell. He’s working on expanding the universe of avatars and expression online, definitely including gaming.
Check out this piece at BoingBoing for a glimpse of what he’s up to.
El Cid
@morzer: We need to repeal Article 1!
Wile E. Quixote
@Bender:
Conservatives whining about new black panthers = scared little racist bitches. Seriously Bender, you Republicans are always talking about how tough you are and how you don’t take shit off of anyone, how come you’re so scared of some Black Panthers? Probably for the same reason that most Republicans don’t join the military, because they’re lazy cowards who love to talk but hate to work and fight, unless of course they can fight someone smaller and weaker than they are.
The BigotBasher
@Bender:
At a polling district that was 90% African American and voted over 90% for Kerry but had Republicans attacking and intimidating voters in 2004.
Given the % of African Americans that polling station served, who do you think that the New Black Panthers were intimidating?
El Cid
It would be one thing if there were these ‘New Black Panthers’ standing outside of lots of polling places around the country.
They aren’t. There are no signs that they or anyone similar will be.
There is, however, evidence that the weird snooping and challenging by the Rovian / TeaTard / 1875 Mississippi plan minions will be actually taking place in many polling places around the country.
Aimai
There is a not unsubtle difference between intimidation at the polls which can be handled by the police–and is routinely handled by them–and stalking and harassing private citizens in their homes in order to invalidate their lawfully cast votes. Or including veiled threats in an employees paycheck. The last two are extremely scary while the first one is merely a joke.
Aimai
Bender
@The BigotBasher:
Listen to you fascist wannabes making excuses for unlawfulness.
Why do you hate the rule of law so?
Enjoy the Dem-ocalypse on Tuesday!
Chris
I’ve been wondering for a long time how we could get our own “silent majority” out to vote. I agree with you on the substance of things, but unfortunately, as you say, phony democracy of this kind often lasts far longer than warranted – see the disenfranchisements of voters during the “Long Gilded Age.”
ruemara
@Bender:
STFU, moran
Steaming Pile
Tuesday can’t get here fast enough for us, but my wife and I are both showing up at the polls. No frickin’ way are the Republicans getting elected dogcatcher in central New York if we have anything to say about it.
Mnemosyne
@The BigotBasher:
Bender would be too afraid to walk into a polling place if he saw two black men standing outside of it, so he’s assuming that everyone else feels the same way — including actual black people.
The fact that most of the people walking into the poll probably thought, “Who the hell is that idiot?” and went in and voted anyway makes no difference to him because Bender would have pissed his pants and collapsed into a fetal position on the sidewalk calling for his mommy.