Tag Archives: republicans

Political Rants

“The Improvement association” needs improvement

I probably spend way too much time thinking about elections. I suspect you think so too, particularly since I’ve devoted so many blog posts to the subject. I even talked about it a lot on my short-lived political podcast, Strange Sound, though not so anyone would hear. The fact is, I kind of hate elections. They’re nerve-wracking as hell, they often turn out badly, and I’m not a big fan of suspense, especially when it runs all night long. But that’s just experience talking – long, bitter experience.

There are many things we can do that are more important than voting. Mutual aid, organizing, public service … all of these things make an immediate difference for people. But more than one thing can be important at the same time, and my contention has always been that voting is important enough to do, even if it isn’t as important as all that other stuff. For people like me – CIS-gender white males – the time commitment involved is negligible.

So, though I’m not a huge NPR fan, I was excited when I heard that a recent Serial Podcast had centered on elections in North Carolina and purported voter fraud. But after listening to it, I can only say that they kind of hid the ball. Or dropped it. Not sure which.

Organizing is the enemy

Without getting too deep in the weeds of the podcast, The Improvement Association – a co-production of NPR’s This American Life / Serial and the New York Times – talks about a political action committee in Bladen County, North Carolina that does get-out-the-vote efforts for black residents. They basically hand out a sample ballot with their recommendations and encourage people to support their list. In short, this is organizing 101, completely legal and above board, and a really effective way to drive turnout and support for Democratic candidates.

Naturally, the Association is under constant attack by white politicians, who accuse the organizers of voter fraud. They basically gaslight the organization, so that when an actual Republican voter fraud scheme is busted, somehow this black organization’s name is dragged into the conversation both on a local and a statewide level. The white people in this story – mostly Republicans – understand the power of this black voting block, and they’re using the tools available to them (i.e. baseless accusations of cheating) to undermine it. What is more of a threat to white power than organized black people?

Strange focus

What kind of astonishes me about this podcast is the degree to which the reporter, Zoe Chase, gets sidetracked by this internal power struggle within the PAC. Now, it should come as a surprise to no one that organizers and political agitators tend to have egos. It seems likely that the two lead organizers, Horace and Cogdell, push to get their own way in the context of the organization. But if the ultimate goal is more power and resources for black people in the sea of white people known as North Carolina, is this all that bad?

Chase follows Cogdell’s efforts to elect three black councilmembers in a little town named Elizabethtown – a majority black community run by rich, white people, where there is virtually no public investment in the black neighborhoods. Chase spends a lot of time on the critics’ accusation that Cogdell is doing this so that he will be able to control these three black women on the town council. In the end, Cogdell’s candidates lose, and his colleague Horace suggests that this was essentially because black people were voting against their own interests for one reason or another. This is Chase’s take on Horace:

“It’s always zero sum with Horace when it comes to politics. I’ve learned that. If you’re not with him, you’re against him. And if you’re against him, you’re wrong.“

The thing that must not be named

On the other hand, what I hear from Cogdell is a pretty reasonable economic, almost Marxist analysis of how power works in that little town. A minority of white people with money get all the benefits, while underrepresented black people get the shaft. NPR / NYT say little if anything about this dynamic. It’s really more about personal squabbles. That’s what makes a podcast go viral, right?

Am I surprised to learn that NPR / NYT reporters are constitutionally incapable of giving credence to this kind of analysis? Not at all. There was a similar issue with the podcast Nice White Parents which I talked about on my podcast, Strange Sound. They will twist themselves into knots trying to avoid it.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

When Losing starts to mean winning, we lose

Democracy is always an approximation. The countries we describe as being democratic have systems that exclude some voters, make it hard to participate in one way or the other, and are otherwise imperfect. That’s to be expected. We don’t aspire to imperfection, of course. In many countries, people try to do the best they can with what they’ve got. In France, it’s the fifth republic. In Britain, constitutional monarchy. And right here, we have the U.S. constitution – penned by rich white men, for rich white men.

During the Bush administration, people around the president were fond of saying that the the constitution isn’t a straitjacket. (Of course, they were mouthing those words in defense of torture.) Still, we are kind of locked into certain interpretations of it, and as such remain firmly under minority rule – just as the founding fathers envisioned it. I know others have said this, but apart from 2004, the insurrectionist party (formerly called the Republicans) lost the popular vote in every presidential race since George Herbert Walker Bush was elected in 1988. And yet they “won” 3 out of those seven races. Minority rule.

Narrowing the halls of justice

It goes beyond just the raw numbers of presidential terms served. Republican presidents have had far greater consequence than their Democratic counterparts over this period. Nowhere is this truer than with respect to the Supreme Court. Between Bush Jr.’s two terms and Trump’s term, they have appointed five of the sitting justices – Democrats only three. And we are seeing the results in the form of more and more draconian decisions being handed down by a court majority that is openly contemptuous of the public will.

We are being forced, as a nation, to accept an extremist view of abortion, gun rights, regulatory agencies, and others things. The Supreme Court is like our version of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iran or the old Soviet Politburo. But really, more like the former – they tell us what laws will stand, which will not. They tell us who is a person with full rights and who isn’t. They are aggressively unelected and unconcerned with prevailing sentiments. And there really isn’t much of anything we can do except wait for their next decision. Sure, we can push for court expansion and other reforms, but we have to do so within the constraints their decisions establish, and there are many.

More election drama

With the fall elections approaching, one wonders if the results will be broadly recognized. You can bet that, wherever Republicans do badly, there will be challenges, particularly in states with GOP dominated legislatures and GOP governors. I would like to think that people on the leftward side will take this election seriously and show up in unprecedented numbers, but we shall see. The pro abortion rights vote in Kansas certainly came as a surprise, especially since the ballot measure was designed to be confusing as hell. But even with a massively lopsided majority, Republicans are forcing a recount.

This is what we can expect. We have to be willing to fight back, non-violently (though I understand the need for self defense in oppressed communities). Honestly, we have to get this right. Allowing them to continue to claim victory whether or not they win races is just a recipe for authoritarianism. We know where they want to go – they keep telling us. Viktor Orban is the model they prefer. We need to believe them when they tell us who they are.

Keeping your options open

I would admonish you to vote, but I’ve done that before and look where it’s gotten us. Suffice to say that I am voting, and I encourage you to do the same (and to encourage others to do the same). If only to keep the option to vote open for the years ahead.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Froggy’s getting warmer by the minute

It’s worth remembering that, before the 1973 coup, Chile had a long stretch of stable electoral democracy. A military takeover was beyond the imagination of many, and yet it happened. Of course, it happened with full support from the United States under Nixon, but the administration found plenty of willing collaborators in country.

Granted, we’re not faced with a similar threat of powerful foreign intervention. Indeed, the current generation of Americans – and more than a few back – has never faced an all-powerful foreign foe like Chile had in the U.S. We don’t exactly walk around on tip-toe, and practically every nation of the world bears marks left by us at some point. But we ourselves don’t know what it’s like to get skull fucked by an empire.

Models exist – there’s one you’ll choose

You may have heard that Trump recently endorsed Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, for re-election. He’s a right-wing electoral strong man, a bit like Putin but with less opponent poisoning, and a particular favorite of the American right. Then there are the garden variety dictators that our networks never mention – Sisi in Egypt, MBS in Saudi, etc. Those countries hold demonstration elections as an unconvincing means of conferring legitimacy on the autocrat.

As hard as it may be for most people in America to accept, we really are on the brink of losing even the weak, highly attenuated say we have over our government. The Republican party would very much like to see us move more towards a Hungarian model. Say what you like about it, it’s a great way to stay in power permanently, and since that’s what they want above all things, they’re likely to try to bring it about. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always Egypt.

Old boys club, once again

The problem we have is what might be described as the curse of false expectations. Things have always been a certain way. Republicans and Democrats alternatively win an election, lose House and Senate seats in the mid terms, then usually (though not always) rebound on the re-elect year. The normal political cycle is burned into our brains and into the brains of our television pundits. We normalize everything, almost autonomically.

The trouble is, what we’re going through now is not normal. This is not the same thing that happens every two years. As I’ve said before, every time they come back they’re worse, only this time it’s worse than merely worse.

The extremely aged leaders of the Democratic party seem incapable of treating this situation as uniquely dangerous. Biden holds international conferences on Democracy. Garland encourages everyone to be nice to one another and to do what we can to preserve Democracy. Like with the climate crisis and COVID, they seem hyper focused on maintaining the appearance of moderation, at the expense of taking the kind of bold action that’s needed.

And if they’re wrong, well …

Let’s face it, a gradual coup is still a coup. The Republicans are putting the pieces in place to seriously game national elections. Democrats are acting like deer in the headlights. The right is out-organizing the left, and it’s clear that if they win the fall elections, they will finish what they started last year.

The water in this pot is getting hotter, folks. It’s time we leapt the hell out.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.