Reflections On Another Miserable Week In America
Tonight will mark one week since Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. And what a dreadful week it’s been: bookended by the loss of a true warrior for justice who fought until her dying breath for equality and decency, and what is sure to be the nomination of a woman selected for her willingness to undermine RBG’s legacy from which she benefited, just as surely as George Herbert Walker Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to undermine Thurgood Marshall’s, without whose efforts Clarence Thomas’s life would have had so much less possibility.
In between these bookends, Trump preached eugenics, celebrated violence against the media, hurled racist calumnies against Representative Ihlan Omar, stoked violence and hatred against those who march for racial justice, and indicated that he will not peacefully leave office, all while continuing his preemptive attack on the legitimacy of a Biden win. A terrifying article in the Atlantic mapped out the ongoing Republican strategy for a coup — one premised on suppressing the vote, refusing to count ballots, and falsely claiming that counting ballots is fraudulent. (My reactions to that article are on Facebook in two separate posts.)
On top of that, the grand jury in Louisville, predictably but no less infuriatingly, returned no charges against the police officers who slaughtered Breonna Taylor in her home, except against one for endangering the lives of her white neighbors. This came on the heels of Bill Barr’s straight-up fascist attack on Democratic strongholds where the demands for racial justice are loud, deeply supported, and well-organized, by designating them “anarchist jurisdictions” in a brazen ploy to crush dissent and punish our cities for their resistance to the ongoing racist brutality that is suffocating and destroying so many lives.
I have noted several times that the increasingly drastic and fascist statements and measures that we are seeing from the Republican party are a reflection of their fear of losing and desperation to prevent that. Every astute observer of Donald Trump predicted even before he was *elected* that he would not leave office quietly, and that he would burn down everything around him in his savage desire to protect himself. (A friend frequently notes that fascism never leaves office voluntarily.) Though many expected the Republican Party to work hand in glove with Trump to use him for their own ends, few predicted the swiftness and degree to which the Republican Party that birthed him would entirely be subsumed by, and indistinguishable from, Trumpism, willing in virtually every scenario to put their party over their country, power over democracy, white supremacy over equality.
In retrospect, however, it is entirely obvious that they would not break from him in practically any circumstance: decades of feeding toxic nonsense to the consumers of the Fox-Breitbart-Gateway News-OAN-rightwing fever swamp media complex has created a Republican base that is truly, at this point, so poisoned with disinformation that no reason or logic or fact or even human decency or personal experience penetrates it, and so any significant, much less sustained, break with Trump by a Republican elected spells political death for the candidate.
These Republican electeds have fed and stoked and catered to the prejudices of their base for decades, counting on ignorance and grievance to see them through. They cannot win without the base, and they cannot convince the base to support them without feeding the base, that monster, the poison on which it survives. Some of the Republican electeds are smart, cynical, exploitative monsters themselves because they do this knowingly to achieve their goals; others are themselves products of that very base — Q anon supporters and white supremacists and conspiracy mongers who actually convince themselves Joe Biden eats babies or that somehow Democrats across the country have executed infants at birth, or that people of color everywhere are voting multiple times.
It’s pointless to debate which is worse — the zealous misguided belief in the obvious rot and absurdity, or knowingly promulgating it for personal and political gain, because the results are the same: upwards of 40 million Americans’ minds are poisoned and seemingly unreachable.
It all sounds bleak and frightening, but you also have to remember this country has always had a segment of people who buy “newspapers” about aliens impregnating their neighbors. We have a history of whackadoo religious cults. There’s always been a paranoid strain in American politics and a deep distrust of education/intellectualism (both well documented by historian Richard Hofstadter). The generations before us had to fight and many died for the rights we came to take for granted, like having a weekend off, or getting paid overtime, or being able to vote, or even own (or how about not having to BE) property. Our history is a history of fights against those in power who don’t want to relinquish it and it’s a history, littered with obstacles and setbacks, of overcoming, of groups coming together and demanding their rights and securing them — sometimes with their blood, as we know.
We are seeing here what I hope will be, and what we can make be, the last gasp of a minority of mainly white people who do not want to live in a diverse nation where all people are equal and treated that way.
And I am here to tell you after this long and depressing introduction that despite the ugliness, despite the cheating, despite the disinformation, despite the psy-ops, despite the many Americans who are checked out and have given up and think there’s no point in voting, despite all that, there is evidence all around us that we can win this, that people know how important this election is, that we have the numbers and the money to win this, that we have hope as well as strategy on our side, that there is a burning desire for justice and change among all genders and races especially among those under 45 years old, and that more and more people are out working their butts off to make sure that this vile administration and Republicans everywhere are kicked to the curb to restore the soul of our nation and get to work addressing the deep, difficult problems that afflict our country.
OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE (just Google if you doubt the receipts, but I’ve linked to them below):
* Consistent national polling giving Biden-Harris a 10 point or so lead over Trump-Pence;
* Deep-red states are in play for the Senate across the country. Just yesterday, a polling outfit in Mississippi that had Mike Espy (D) trailing Cindy Hyde-Smith by nearly 30 points a few months ago…now has him ONE POINT behind her, a statistical tie. The open race for a Senate seat in Kansas is a toss-up between the Republican and Democrat Dr. Barbara Bollier — and Biden is within 4 points of Trump. Theresa Greenfield leads slightly in Iowa over Ernst. Independent Dr. AL Gross, in ALASKA, is in a tie with the Republican Dan Sullivan. JAMIE HARRISON is in a toss-up race with Lindsey Graham in South Carolina (with Lindsey having to beg for money on Fox because Harrison’s outraising him). Mark Kelly is beating Martha McSally in AZ and Joe is leading Trump in the polls there (though a new poll that leans GOP has the race tightening). Two Georgia senate seats are in play. TX is purple, with Biden within 3-5 points of Joe. In TEXAS!!! (Women favor Biden in IA, GA, and TX.) And there’s a massive effort underway by Biden-Harris and Powered by People, Beto’s PAC, to flip it blue.
* States that Trump barely *won* in 2016 are all in play with Biden consistently in the lead: WI, MI, PA. States Trump took handily are statistical ties or Biden is leading: Biden is leading in Ohio and North Carolina (close races); NC is likely to flip its Senate seat blue, with Cal Cunningham leading over Tillis; Cory Gardner seems to be going down to Democrat John Hickenlooper in Colorado which is bluer; Nevada is blue with Biden up consistently, though the race is tightening there a bit; Biden is leading in Florida (though it’s very close); Maine trending blue with Biden crushing Trump and Gideon poised to defeat Susan Collins. RED Montana is in a statistical tie with Daines fighting for his seat from Democratic challenger Steve Bullock, and Trump only up by 7.
* In other words: other than in places like West Virginia and the Dakotas and Idaho and the deepest parts of the former confederacy, Trump is FIGHTING for his political life and Democrats are poised for sweeping gains.
* Disaffected Republicans have seen the light and are working to educate the public and sound the alarm that our very democracy is at stake. No matter what the group, no matter how much you might not like their policies (or they ours), no matter how much you might think the Lincoln Project or Republicans Against Trump is a grift, these groups are producing outstanding ads and running them all over the country in the massive effort to defeat the GOP. I’m sure they won’t be helpful in pushing for the kind of change you or I might want in 2021, but there won’t be any discussion of any kind of change if the GOP is booted everywhere up and down the ballot. The point is they are doing what’s necessary to remove Trump and his accomplices, and they are mincing no words that this is about more than just Trump.
* All but the farthest of far lefties seem to understand that this is it. Bernie Sanders gave a speech yesterday pitched to the Biden haters on the left that the choice in November is literally Trump or democracy. And he was correct. He could not have come out more strongly or clearly about what is at stake.
* Former officials from national security and other parts of government, including a host former Trump administration officials, have come together to denounce Trump and endorse Biden, in bipartisan statements that make clear how important this race is.
* The Green Party that potentially played a spoiler role in many states did not even make the ballot in WI, PA, and several others this year.
* Joe Biden and Kamala Harris raised $365 million in August, shattering all records.
* Donations to Act Blue exceeded $91 million over the weekend after RBG’s death in an illustration of the ferocious opposition to the GOP’s effort to stack the Court; that number has surpassed $100 million.
* Polls out today show 57% of Americans want the winner of the election to select RBG’s replacement with 65% of women and independents feeling this way “strongly”, and only 38% of Americans favoring the GOP ramming a candidate through now. This blatant power grab is going to backfire.
SUBJECTIVE EVIDENCE:
* More and more positive interactions with voters in states I and others I know are calling on behalf of candidates: South Carolina, Iowa, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Nevada. When you join a phone or text bank, you get feedback from others either in the Slack channel or the Zoom/Google meet, and you see what kind of responses are coming in — people report on their interactions : who they reached, how many, what was said. Things are looking better and better for Biden (but though that could be because of cleaned-up lists that don’t include Republicans).
* Requests from friends are pouring in: what more can I do? How do I sign up? Where’s the need the most?
* More and more posts on social media from others talking about their activism and looking to motivate others: postcarding, phone banking, text banking, donating, fundraising, bird-dogging, canvassing, calling reps, registering voters, fighting disinformation, educating others. Keep it up!!
* Volunteer opportunities for voter protection efforts becoming over -subscribed (not always)
* Increased voter registration efforts. BTW, yesterday I registered voters again and I registered several felons who did not know they were allowed to vote and had never voted before. Yeah, it’s Brooklyn, but it still matters and you should have seen their faces when I pulled up the statute and showed them they are indeed permitted to vote, and then helped them register to vote on the spot. It made my day.
* Just from my own experience staffing the Michigan Democratic Voter Assistance Hotline, voters are very engaged and deeply concerned. One woman called because she was concerned when she got her absentee ballot about it not being accepted if it was “naked” since she’d read about the PA requirements in the news. She didn’t know MI has a similar requirement and so I was able to educate her on that. Calls are POURING in from voters determined to make sure they can vote and that their votes are counted. Democrats staff hotlines like this all over the country. (P.S. One guy called me who was a Trumper, asking how he could get a ballot just to vote for Trump. He’d received info in the mail from Biden-Harris so he called the Dem hotline, and didn’t even understand there’s ONE ballot, not separate ballots for each candidate. I helped him even though I didn’t want to spend my volunteer time helping a man vote for someone who will destroy this country, because everyone in this country has a right to vote and should exercise it.)
So please, please remember not only that there are more of us than them and we so obviously have right on our side: remember that action is an antidote to despair, remember that every droplet combines to make the tsunami, remember that WE are the ones who are winning, not them, and remember too that when you fight fairly for what is right, there is strength, purpose, character, dignity, and integrity in doing so. And please remember, especially if you are really just a blue droplet in a state that’s a red sea, you are joined in this endeavor by millions of others. You are not alone.
Have a good weekend.
[Note: I’ve been remiss in blogging and instead and have reverted to posting extensively on FB, where it is possible to have interactive dialogue. Please also follow me there. I posted this first on FB this morning, but decided to do so here too to be able to add in the links.]
