This is a good political issue for liberals and Democrats and it’s also the right thing to do. They should all be talking about it, all the time. Puts targeted voters in these states on notice, increases turnout and energy around voter registration efforts and it also makes conservatives look bad:
Contending that North Carolina’s voting bill will “restrict the ability of minorities, seniors, students, the disabled, and low and middle incomes citizens” to participate in elections, Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) called on Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday to review the newly signed law.
“All American citizens deserve an equal opportunity to participate in the democratic process, and North Carolina has long been a leader in the expansion of voting rights and elimination of barriers to participation in the political process,”
In a speech Monday in San Francisco, Hillary Clinton said the North Carolina measure “reads like the greatest hits of voter suppression.” A survey released Tuesday from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling found 50 percent of North Carolina voters were opposed to the measure when they were told what the law will include.
Clinton said she’s worried about Texas, North Carolina and Florida. I would add Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to her list, depending on what happens in those states. I would add Ohio just as a matter of course, but we’re winning a lot of court cases here so at this point conservatives are just throwing shit at the wall to see if it sticks:
State Rep. John Becker from Ohio’s 65th House District sent out a letter requesting co-sponsors for a bill to reduce the number of days Ohioans are able to cast an early ballot.
“The purpose of this legislation is to reduce the number of days for absent voting”, writes Becker. “I believe that allowing absentee voting for 35 days before Election Day also opens the chances for voter fraud.”
Voting “opens the chances” for voter fraud. That’s their argument.
Becker’s bill, if passed, would be in direct conflict with the decision from the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that forced Secretary of State John Husted to allow early voting on those same days during last year’s presidential election. The 6th Circuit decision was previously appealed by Husted and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In other voter-suppression news, Husted was thwarted again today in his attempts to suppress votes made through provisional ballots. U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley upheld an earlier ruling that local boards of election must count “votes cast provisionally when voters use the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.”
As we talked about yesterday, conservatives seek to slam the door closed on early in person voting because AA, Latino and Asian voters find early in person voting convenient.
There’s all kinds of lawsuits filed in North Carolina in both federal and state court. You can read about those here.
cleek
everybody finds early voting convenient.
odds are good that that‘s why so many people oppose this bill.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
It strikes me as darkly ironic when I compare the rationales here to to the rationale for the Supremes’ strike down of the VRA’s preclearance provision:
The preclearance provision was a result of data involving proven voter disenfranchisement attempts, which was apparently a bridge to far because, you know, it couldn’t be proven that it was happening NOW (you know, since it worked therefore we don’t need it anymore, etc. etc. etc.)
This crapshow however, takes it on faith that fraud is super ultra rampant and has to be stopped now, and any attempts to ask for proof that fraud is actually happening or inclement is met with ‘IT COULD HAPPEN, SO IT HAS TO BE STOPPED BEFORE IT STARTS, NOW NOW NOW!!!!’
Double standards leading to singularly focused ratfucking. And the terrifying thing to me still is that it might still work even against a voter backlash.
Southern Beale
Well by all means, please add Tennessee to that list. Cripes but we get overlooked all the damn time, we’re the breeding ground for this bullshit. We’re the state which had a voter ID law before North Carolina did — and where senior citizen after senior citizen was penalized just for wanting to vote.
I don’t know how it is in North Carolina but here in Tennessee once you get over a certain age, the state would let you renew your license by mail. Problem is, what you got back didn’t have a photo on it. So when they passed this photo ID law here, they automatically disenfranchised/inconvenienced millions of senior citizens — the majority of them I daresay were Republicans. The biggest fucking oops moment ever.
kindness
To which Republican officials have been dumbstruck and responded:
‘We don’t want to suppress the votes of the olds or the blahs. We only want to suppress the votes of the Democrats! We are insulted that you would imply we are racists.’
After which they walk away from the microphone and put on their ceremonial white cloak and pointed hood/hat.
Belafon
So, lawsuits are one thing that can be done. What else are we going to be able to do to reverse this?
burnspbesq
@kindness:
Well, they have to say something, and that’s the best they’ve got (setting aside for a moment the huge pile of evidence that has been presented in both the DC and San Antonio cases that supports a conclusion that they were in fact trying to dilute the voting power of Hispanics).
Did you really expect them to say “yup, you got us, we’re busted?”
burnspbesq
@Belafon:
GOTV and make the state legislators who vote for this crap pay with their seats.
Baud
Electoral Calvinball.
Yatsuno
@burnspbesq: I do suppose contrition is too much to expect for here. But they get called on this in 2011, think they got the prize, and then they’re getting called on it again so they throw up bullshit excuse. I get the feeling they ain’t too bright down there.
Keith G
Actually, it may be essential, more than just convenient.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Keith G:
Only essential if you think those votes are valuable, but if you think those sorts of people simply vote too easily, or vote the wrong way too often, then of course you’ll have a problem with early voting. Can’t have all those brown folk and poor folk voting the wrong way so much.
Jebediah
If you have only one day for voting, everybody has to vote that day, and pollworkers have a really high workload. More voting days means decreased workload for pollworkers. Wouldn’t that decreased workload make it easier for pollworkers to sniff out and prevent all that supposed voter fraud?
Yes, I know the real answer to that. I do wonder if any of the voter-fraud liars have had to publicly answer it – do they have a specific line of crap ready for that, or do they just fall back on the “but the turrible waste of taxpayer monies having multiple voting days.”
Kay
@Southern Beale:
You’re right and I’m sorry. In the run up to the 2012 election I had this wonderful Tennessee voting rights advocate emailing me. She was great.
Belafon
@Jebediah: “You can’t commit voter fraud if you are at work.”
People are just going to have to do what it takes to vote next year. We’re probably also going to need a lot of people at the polls to watch over things.
burnspbesq
Yeah, I know, it’s only lawyers who care about this stuff, but inaccurate reporting about the procedural posture of cases just makes me nuts.
The following statement is technically correct but incredibly misleading:
No court has ever entered a decision on the merits in Obama for America v. Husted. The appeal to the Sixth Circuit was from the District Court’s order granting a preliminary injunction. When the Sixth Circuit upheld the District Court, Ohio asked the Supreme Court to stay the injunction while the period for it to file a petition for cert was open. The Supremes declined to grant the stay, and Ohio eventually decided not to file a petition.
The case is back in the District Court. Discovery is ongoing, and must be completed by the end of the year. If neither side moves for summary judgment, there will probably be a trial in the Spring of 2014.
Kay
@burnspbesq:
I’d like for that to become more widely known, that this is not just about AA voters. Texas is outrageous on Latino voters.
burnspbesq
@Yatsuno:
They’re bright enough. Their problem is that they’re stuck between a bad factual record and an electorate that will crucify them if they don’t die with their boots on, in true Texas tradition. Bluster is about all they have.
burnspbesq
@Kay:
The lengths that they went to in 2011 to screw Hispanic voters are mind-boggling. There is some detail in the Statement of Interest of the United States that DOJ filed in the San Antonio case. I’ll see if I can find a link to an article that gets into the weeds.
Yatsuno
@burnspbesq: Live by the teatards, die by the teatards.
Served
@Yatsuno: Hoisted on their own teatard?
Starfish
I need to talk to you guys about the thing with the Bo going to Martha’s Vineyard. According to the crazy talk I heard at the hair salon today, Bo was on a different plane because Muslims cannot fly on the same planes as their dogs.
burnspbesq
In case you missed it the first time, here’s a link to the Statement of Interest referred to in comment 18.
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/dojtexas.pdf
Yatsuno
@Starfish: Wow they can’t think to save their brains. Muslims don’t own dogs at all, if they’re pious. But expecting them to know that detail is a bit much.
Mino
Texas is claiming that it is perfectly alright to discriminate against Democrats, and if a few minorities are harmed, well, it was unintentional. Plus we’re not as bad as we were in 1965. That is all.
Starfish
@Yatsuno: I did not walk by her chair and say “Allahu akbar” though I was tempted.
burnspbesq
@Served:
Hoist by their own teatard, indeed. Worth noting that the noun “petard,” which refers to a small explosive charge used to breach walls, shares a common root with the French verb “péter,” to fart. So yes, the Texas AG’s office is indeed farting around.
? Martin
@Starfish: We’re doing that again? That came up in 2009.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, duh. Eliminate voting, and there will be no more voter fraud! Case closed! Problem solved!
We can then move on to the next major issue: browns, blacks, women, gays, and liberals still being alive.
Hungry Joe
You have to admit that it makes a certain amount of sense: The surest, most efficient way to prevent voter fraud is to make it impossible for people to vote. No vote, no fraud.
Stalin had a similar point of view: “Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.”
Edit: Villago Delenda Est beats me by two minutes. Blast, I say. Blast!
Kay
@burnspbesq:
I don’t know why it hasn’t broken thru to general media. I’m hoping it will be the voting rights story in 2016, like AA voters in FL were the voting rights story in 2012. Partly it’s because Texas isn’t a swing state, but it shouldn’t matter.
Also, how great it is that they’re basically stipulating that Latinos are Democratic voters? “We aren’t targeting Latinos! We’re targeting Democrats!” Are conservatives in Texas really ready to just cede the Latino vote? Wow. They abandoned them without a second thought.
West of the Cascades
@burnspbesq: Great suggestion. How does someone in Oregon help with the GOTV in these states’ legislative races – meaning what’s the best thing we can do long-distance (or if we have, say, a few weeks free next October)? Donate to local Democratic parties?
Also, unfortunately, the plaintiffs in the NC federal case challenging their voter suppression drew a GWB appointed-judge — Thomas D. Schroeder.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay:Then we get op-eds from Brooks etc, wondering why Latinos don’t vote Republican though they are naturally conservative or some shit like that.
schrodinger's cat
OT: Not related voting per se but connected GOP and their dirty tricks, why is Glenn Hubbard advocating for a balanced budget amendment,
something that makes zero sense.
Jeremy
@Starfish: Well that makes no sense since we have seen Photos by Pete Souza of the President with Bo on Air Force one in the past. Also the President and First Lady were in Orlando before heading to Martha’s Vineyard so since BO was still at the white house they flew him there.
burnspbesq
@West of the Cascades:
If you’re not already a member of the ACLU, join. I expect that they will be heavily involved in protecting the right to vote.
That’s a start. There will be additional opportunities as we get closer to November 2014.
I’m self-employed and can work anywhere I can get an Internet connection. I may head down there and volunteer for the last few weeks.
Patricia Kayden
@Belafon: Stop voting for Republicans. Not sure what else can be done beyond that and filing lawsuits. Holder/DOJ can litigate at the federal level too.
burnspbesq
@Kay:
I don’t watch either on a regular basis, except for futbol, but I suspect that Univision and Telemundo are all over the story.
Jeremy
@Yatsuno: They are so stupid. I guess all that Rev. Wright he attended a church for about 20 years is out the window. They’ve turned the world Muslim into Communism which makes no sense.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think the liberals and gays may get it, but they want to keep the blacks, browns, and women around to be subordinate to them. Think about it. If you’re going to kill anyone who’s gay, you’d better keep women around or it’s going to be really hard to have sex slaves.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat: @schrodinger’s cat:
I think it’s a horrible idea politically to admit you’re the “white Party”. It wasn’t that long ago that I was reading whiny editorials in the WSJ written by Karl Rove and Jeb Bush where they insisted they could compete for that vote.
You really do have to ask for votes. You can’t be running around saying Latino = Democrat. Are there any other huge groups they’re giving up on? What are their politicians planning on doing all day other than asking for votes?
West of the Cascades
@burnspbesq: Thanks for the ACLU suggestion. I’m also self-employed and with the same flexibility of just needing an internet connection, so I may try find a good state to help out in come next fall.
dmsilev
@Starfish:
The Prophet Muhammed, having foreseen the development of dogs traveling in cargo holds of airliners, forbade the practice? Fascinating.
Next, we will learn that Jesus spoke out against the issuing of credit default swaps on mortgage backed securities.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
You mean other than African Americans? I’m not sure if they’ve officially given up on Muslims and Asian Americans, but they seem to be solidly in the category of being more valuable as punching bags than recruiting targets.
Mike in NC
Also, too, driving opens the chances of crashing your car. I’m throwing my keys away just to be safe!
Jeremy
@Kay: Well at this point they might as well give up. They have alienated minorities (I am one by the way) so much that many can’t stand the GOP. I remember after the 2012 election where some readers posted comments on the from page of TPM (one being East Asian the other Indian) talked about the racism against President Obama, the racists policies, and the racist rhetoric.
I think the GOP are underestimating the long term harm it’s doing to them with minority communities by treating Obama like a piece of crap. Also, the party is out of step with African Americans, Asians, and Latinos when it comes to economic policies. Studies clearly show that minorities tend to be more liberal on core domestic issues than their white counterparts. The GOP is going to be in a world of hurt if they don’t change at some point.
Kay
@West of the Cascades:
For voter registration, I think the NC NAACP would be a good investment. They had a big push to register voters as part of Moral Monday, and the NAACP was the lead. In the process of registering, they can speak to each voter individually and walk them thru what they need for ID. It really takes 3 contacts to get a first time voter…voted in an ID state and that is labor intensive. My 19 old got 2 in-person contacts by the Obama/Brown campaign in 2012, but he was registered.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Immigrants, with their non-stop immigrant bashing.
ETA: In the last election GOP lost the newly naturalized citizen vote.
Jeremy
The same is happening with the younger generations of whites who are turned off by the GOP’s rigid conservatism. The GOP did a study where they asked them to pick a word that describes the GOP to you. The words that were picked the most: Rigid, backwards, racist, old, elitist.
Baud
@Kay:
Decent people.
burnspbesq
@dmsilev:
It’s in the gospel according to Saint Barney, which has been suppressed for almost 2,000 years.
jl
Gee, I hope this stuff doesn’t hurt the GOP voter outreach program.
Oh, wait, this IS their voter outreach program…
Hungry Joe
@dmsilev: The Bible sanctions the issuing of credit default swaps on mortgage backed securities as long as you tithe the profit.
Josie
@West of the Cascades:
I don’t know about the other states, but some of the people previously involved in President Obama’s GOTV effort are heading up an organization here called Battleground Texas. They are registering new voters and helping others to get what they need to vote. They want to have an impact on the governor’s race and legislative races in 2014.
http://www.battlegroundtexas.com
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Just like they tested it out in CA 20 years ago.
Billy Dilly
@Jeremy: Dude they don’t give a shit!
The racial bite in the ass will affect the kids and the grand-kids and the great grand-kids, the bigot FauxNews viewers will long be dead and rotted by them.
Hungry Joe
The only cartoon idea I’ve ever come up with is a mother saying to her angry-looking kid, “It doesn’t matter what Trevor’s mother lets him do. If she let him issue credit default swaps on mortgage-backed securities, would YOU issue credit default swaps on mortgage- backed securities?”
Except I can’t draw …
Kay
@Jeremy:
I’m not a minority and I have to admit it’s been eye-opening. I had no idea how bad it was going to get. None. If you had told me I wouldn’t have believed you. In some ways I’m grateful. I learned a lot.
Emerald
@Jeremy: The GOP cannot change. They are what they are. They decided at least by Nixon’s time, with his Southern strategy, that they were the party for the racists. They actively courted that vote until the racist vote is now their entire base.
They cannot drop the racism. It is what they are. Therefore, their only choice is to stop Those People from voting. They cannot “court” Those People because they would lose their entire base if they tried.
Remember when Reagan gave his first post-convention speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi? Only thing that town is famous for is the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. Reagan knew exactly what he was doing with that dog whistle, and that was in 1980.
They cannot change. Voter suppression is the only path they have open to them.
J.D. Rhoades
It’s not just African Americans. It’s young people who now can’t use their student ID’s. It’s working people who aren’t the boss and don’t get to just decide to take a day off to stand in the long voting line. It’s older people from disadvantaged circumstances who have trouble getting their birth certificates and therefore, ID.
But the problem for the Rethugs is, if you piss off enough minorities, pretty soon you’ve pissed off a majority.
BillinGlendaleCA
@BillinGlendaleCA: I should note that the GOP did learn something from their experience here in CA. If you’re going to alienate voters, you’d better keep them from voting altogether.
Jeremy
@Emerald: They made a deal with the devil. So like you said the only playbook they have is voter suppression. Pretty sad for the once great party of Lincoln and Eisenhower.
BillinGlendaleCA
@J.D. Rhoades:
I think the groups that you just described above are called Democrats. This is the GOP plan.
raven
@Kay: Think about how they treated Clinton, hell think about the way they treated Roosevelt. This is the same old shit.
fuckwit
@Hungry Joe: Look on the internet, find an old New Yorker cartoon, adn replace the text. Or try xtranormal, make it an animated thing. Hell, Google image search for cartoons with parent talking to kid, then edit the text.
Jeremy
@Kay: I think one of the best things about President Obama’s election is the exposure of racism in this country. Some said that the election of the first black/ minority president was going to shine a light on the racism that was kept under wrap.
Violet
@Jeremy:
Like Kay said, it’s been eye-opening for those of us not in those groups. I also knew it was bad, but it’s been shocking just how racist they are and how open they are about it.
MomSense
I am furious about this NC law. Why do Republicans hate our country so much? They keep demonstrating contempt for our Constitution and for the foundational values, like fairness and equality, of our representative democracy.
And how fucking pathetic is it that they are so ill equipped to win a fair competition based on the merits of ideas that their only path to winning is to prevent people from participating.
And just as an aside, I canvassed last weekend and really and truly the only jerks I met on my turf were Republicans. I didn’t even go to their doors–I was greeted by the Republican neighborhood “welcoming” committee which was a couple of really stupid and rude guys who just said completely obnoxious things to me. I was gracious and polite but wow–they were complete assholes. I’m starting to think that assholes are the Republican base. The decent people have left the party by now.
Sorry to vent but I spent some time registering people to vote in NC so when I think about this new law–I am thinking about the people I met and how this will harm them.
raven
@Violet: It’s been eye opening to SOME of us not in those groups.
Violet
@raven: Well, true enough. Probably some people were aware. I thought I was aware of how much racism there still is, but to see it so blatantly on display has been shocking to me. I don’t think that until we elected an African American president it was quite so out in the open. I think that’s the part that’s shocking.
Edit: Would like to add that in some ways that’s a good thing. It’s better out in the open than hidden. Let Republicans be honest about who they are and then let everyone decide if they want to support that kind of thing.
@MomSense:
To me, the defining characteristic of Republicans is a lack of empathy. So, yeah, assholes would fit right in that category nicely.
Hill Dweller
@raven: But Clinton was allowed to govern for the most part. No President since Lincoln faced the level of nihilism and obstructionism Obama has had to endure. Republicans have shattered filibuster records, brought the confirmation process for executive and judicial nominees to a screeching halt, manufactured crisis after crisis, tried repealing everything Obama passed in his first tow years, and intentionally undermined the recovery.
All the while, the sociopaths in the Beltway act as if nothing is happening.
raven
@Violet: That is one reason all the bullshit about “The South” bothers me. I’m from “The North” and I don’t buy the notion that racism has something to do with a direction. Add that to the fact that my family lived about 5 miles from Watts when it went up in “The West”.
raven
@Hill Dweller: You’ll get no argument from me.
raven
Wait till Mrs Clinton gets in there. We’ll be shocked by the level of sexism.
Kay
@raven:
Yeah, I know that’s a theory but I disagree. It doesn’t mean they treated any of those people well. They treated those people differently. It’s funny because our former county chair called it during the primary. He’s a railroad retiree, spent his entire life in a rural majority-white community, and he said “if he wins you’re going to see it come out” and we did. Or I should say I did. I get that a lot of people think it’s the same as Roosevelt (or Kennedy, who took tons of shit, including insane billboards) or Clinton. I don’t.
Jeremy
@MomSense: The decent people left the party years ago. The Moderate and liberal republicans that occupied the republican party have either died, become Democrats or Independents. The only ones left in the party are Evangelicals, Neo Confederates, and Milton Friedman types.
Kay
@raven:
I agree with you there. There is plenty of it here. The most blatant voter suppression state in 2012 was Pennsylvania. That law was designed to suppress Philadelphia voters. If a judge hadn’t stopped it, it would have.
raven
@Kay: What qualities do Barack Obama and Franklin Roosevelt share that make them targets for such hate?
“There is an undercurrent in American politics that goes way back—this xenophobic fear of the other. In Roosevelt’s day, that fear of the other was communism or Jews. There was this whole cottage industry that was trying to prove Roosevelt was Jewish and that he was part of an international Jewish conspiracy to take over America. Right now we’re anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim; back then it was anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish. Whenever that comes to the surface, it seems to usher in these kinds of movements. Whenever there is a fear that somebody is leading us astray and away from capitalism and more into socialism, there is the eruption, it seems, of this kind of reactionary response.”
Jeremy
@Kay: I agree Kay. Those presidents had it bad and were attacked by crazies but what Obama has faced is like nothing we’ve seen before. What they did to the Clinton’s in the 90’s looks like a picnic when compared to what they are doing to Obama.
raven
@Kay: BTW, I respect the shit out of you and what you do. I forward your stuff to some folks that are deeply involved with education and they rave about you.
fuckwit
@Kay: This is MLK’s strategy (which he got from Gandhi). You act with dignity, exercise your rights and your humanity with dignity, and let the haters hate on you, take the punches (and firehoses, and insults, and rubber bullets, etc) with resolve, and you don’t strike back, you don’t stoop to their level, you carry on with pride and humility and determination, and let the haters’ hatefullness stand in stark contrast and speak for itself. Then you let decent people who haven’t been paying attention, suddenly take notice of how vile the haters are. And they withdraw their support for the haters, most importantly the implicit support that was obtained by the hate being under radar, hidden. The more and more people come over to the side of justice, and more and more people back away slowly from the side of hate. This is how the Civil Rights movement got their work done. This is how Obama has dealt with the Rethugs since day 1. I was so pissed off at him for the way he was doing things in the early ACA debate, until I understood the strategy, where it comes from, and why he’s doing it that way. Now he has the Rethugs to a point where they’re willng to shut down the United States of America just out of pure mean-spiritedness and spite, to keep 30 million poor people from having medical care, and a hundred of million from having more affordable/available care… and people are finally starting to take notice. Hopefully they’ll notice the hell out of it before the 2014 elections!!
I remember protesting in Dianne Feinstein’s office in 2009, agitating for Medicare for All instead of the ACA. I was with a group that was not affiliated with OFA, and we were irritated by the sellout nature of ACA. An older African-American woman among the group of OFA protesters that was standing near me, turned to me and said “you shouldn’t talk like that, you’ll make people angry, and we don’t want to be angry”. I was surprised, found the perspective interesting, but was a little annoyed by that gentle but unsolicited advice/lecture and was not moved to change what I was doing. I continued on and she quite deliberately turned her back on me and walked away as quickly as possible. It was certainly done respectfully, but it also clearly said, “I do not approve of what you’re doing, I think it is harmful, and I don’t want to be associated with you or be near you.” That did make me wonder if I was doing something wrong. But it was much later, after ACA passed, that I realized she was right. Being angry and bitter and cynical, and pushing for impossible idealized perfection, does not get shit done, does not draw support from non-combatants (the vast majority of voters who aren’t political junkies), and does not present a dignified position and contrast. Also, it is really only now, in the post Trayvon Martin world, that I realized another layer: what I thought was my righteous indignation and my insistence on perfection was really just my white male privilege: not everyone gets to make demands or speak their mind so bluntly, and I need to be mindful of that if I’m working with people who might not be able to get away with going down that road. And that’s really the case in almost all broad-based grassroots political action, it seems.
raven
@Jeremy: Ok, do you think HE is surprised? I bet not.
MomSense
@Jeremy:
The volume of death threats this president receives is just mind blowing (infuriating and tragic also, too) and completely overwhelms what previous presidents have faced.
raven
@MomSense: I’ll ask the question I already asked? Do you think HE is surprised?
Roger Moore
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The GOP plan appears to be to make sure they stay Democrats. I guess it works as long as the voter suppression does, but overturning voter suppression laws has to be high on the Democrats’ priority list the moment they get control back, and then it’s going to bite the Republicans in the ass big time.
raven
@Roger Moore: I think the Democrats priority list should be on getting people registered and to the polls. This legal shit is going to suck up too much energy.
Violet
@raven: When you said this, I nodded along in agreement. And realized that I can do that because I’m female and have experienced sexism my entire life. I know it in a way that men cannot know it. Men don’t live it and sometimes don’t see it, even men who are attuned to it and supportive of women.
It’s the same with minorities and racism. Those of us not in that category don’t live it in the way those inside the category do. We can sympathize and be understanding and fight against it, but we don’t live it. The thousand little slights experienced on a daily basis, we don’t live with. Let alone and larger, bigger stuff.
So no, I don’t think President Obama or his family were surprised by what they’ve had directed at them. I doubt most African Americans were surprised.
raven
@Violet: There it is.
MomSense
@raven:
The jerks get a lot of attention but the flipside is that Barack Obama put together the most diverse coalition this country has ever seen. I would bet that the big factor in North Carolina that is fueling the Republicans to take these drastic measures is that we created an incredible movement in NC in 2007-08. And we didn’t just protest, we invested significant resources in training organizers, voter registration and education and voter turnout.
raven
@MomSense: Keep up the fire.
Kay
@Jeremy:
For me, the difference is the denial of legitimacy. It’s really profound, and I think it was expressed in such basic human ways. It doesn’t get much more blatant on “legitimate” than questioning the validity of someone’s birth record and parentage. It’s so stark a comparison because you’ll recall that Bush was given legitimacy like it was owed to him and his election was really, genuinely, questionable. Obamas now been elected twice and it’s still withheld. I don’t use “Kenyan usurper” as a joke but I definitely get that joke.
feebog
@ Hill Dweller:
Really? Travelgate, Vince Foster, Whitewater, Government shut down, Ken Starr investigating every thing in sight for 5 years culminating in the Jones lawsuit, the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment? That was letting Clinton govern? Of course it didn’t help that Clinton had slept or tried to sleep with half the female population of Arkansas, and that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants even after arriving at the White House, but it was 8 years of (mostly) manufactured scandals and crisis.
The difference between Obama and Clinton is that Obama really is squeaky clean personally, and pretty damn careful politically. I agree with Raven, if HRC runs in 2016 the sexism is going to make the current racism seem humdrum.
BillinGlendaleCA
Of Democratic Presidents that have been demonized, no one has mentioned the one that is still demonized 30 years after he left office. History’s Greatest Monster(or so we’re lead to believe), Jimmy Carter.
Jeremy
@raven: Oh you mean Obama ?
No I don’t think he was surprised. But a number of people including myself knew that there would be a lot of racism and hate after the President’s election. A lot of relatives of mine feared that people would try to do harm to him being the first black president in all.
MomSense
@raven:
I don’t know if he was surprised or not but I did hear that when Mr and Mrs Obama were presented with the spike in death threats before the 2008 election (which precisely mirrored the Palin line of attack, pallin’ around with terrorists and such) that Mrs. Obama was really shocked by it and couldn’t believe that the McCain campaign would intentionally do things to drive that kind of violent behavior.
BillinGlendaleCA
@feebog: They may try that, but it’s a losing proposition, women make up the majority of voters.
Violet
@raven: There what is?
raven
@Jeremy: I’ve had that fear since the day he was nominated and it’s one of the reasons I tend to support him even when I don’t like his policies. He’s put himself out there because he believes in this country.
Frankensteinbeck
@MomSense:
Assholes ARE the Republican base. What unites the GOP’s policies? Keeping minorities down, punishing sexually active women, keeping the boot of employers on workers, pushing Christianity on nonbelievers, this all sounds appealing if you are a complete spiteful mean spirited asshole.
rikyrah
I’ve written it before, but will say it again..
the day after President Obama was re-elected, and the polls came out..
what shocked them weren’t the numbers for Blacks…
or even the numbers for Latinos, because Willard hadn’t polled above 25% with Latinos for the entire election season..
what shocked them were the numbers for Asians….
Asians…the ‘model minority’
THEY never said anything about politics…
THEY never said anything about elections…..
I believe every non-White person who wasn’t a sell-out, for the most part, observed the indignities and disrespect shown this President and his entire family..
and have been seething.
Barack and Michelle Obama are the epitome of the American Dream.
PERIOD.
THEY ARE what we tell our children to do:
go to school..
keep your nose clean…
do your best..
work your ass off….
and, you can achieve in this country.
I don’t know why the Asian numbers surprised anyone.
1. There is no community in this country that values education like the Asians.
2. And, Asians value good PUBLIC EDUCATION…it’s the reason why you find so many of them in the so–called ‘ best’ school districts – disproportionate to their numbers in the actual population. They are NOT down with the GOP’s attempts to dismantle PUBLIC EDUCATION.
3. The largest group of immigrants – PERCENTAGE WISE are Asians…meaning a higher percentage of their community are either 1st or 2nd generation immigrants. So, while the GOP thought that self-deport shyt was ‘only’ heard by Latinos…no…other immigrant communities heard it too.
I remember those letters to TPM post-election, particularly the one from the Asian gentlemen who wrote of the obvious disrespect shown President Obama.
When being President of the Harvard Law Review means something UNTIL A BLACK MAN OBTAINS IT….
You don’t think other minorities see that?
When being a Phi Beta Kappa and winner of the Top Student Award at Princeton means something…
UNTIL A LATINA NOMINEE FOR THE SUPREME COURT OBTAINS IT…and thus, she’s reverted to nothing but an ‘Affirmative Action Pick’….
When stellar candidates such as Professor Liu and Steven Chu are disrespected…
seriously….you don’t think folks notice this stuff?
Kay asked why the MSM hasn’t ‘caught’ onto this story..
It’s because they’re fucking complicit with it..
They weren’t saying SHYT about voter suppression during the 2012 election cycle….
because, if it had worked, then it would have been just ‘ those Blacks whining’ about it….
Before you write it…yes, there were a handful of people in the media who went above and beyond the call reporting on this story…but, simply put, they were dragging along the rest of the MSM who kept their fucking mouths shut, or tried to do false equivalency bullshyt instead of laying the blame and responsibility with the Party of Voter Suppression.
Violet
@Jeremy: I had the same fear. I still fear for the lives of the Obamas. What has surprised me is the openness of the racism, though. The racists are so blatant.
raven
@Violet: Uh, that is colloquial for “I agree with you ma’m.”
Jeremy
@MomSense: Yeah what was the percentage ? A 400 % increase in death threats.
Kay
@raven:
Thanks. I’m a high school drop out. Who knew I’d be palling around with teachers?
Strange bedfellows :)
It wasn’t their fault. They tried really, really hard. I used to feel bad when I got a more idealistic or devoted one. I’d think “well, she’s going to be disappointed”
raven
@Kay: I’m a high school dropout, GED in Korea in the Army in 67 and a doctorate when I was 50. And I’ve worked in higher ed for 15 years. Strange indeed.
Violet
@raven: Ah, okay. Didn’t get what you were saying. Thanks.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Their behavior with respect to both the Obamas has been ugly. Michelle Obama has stayed out of the policy arena unlike Hillary but the reaction she gets from the GOP base can only be described as vicious.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Exactly!
@raven:
This is a great video that gets into some of the background behind what is driving both Moral Mondays and the Republicans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO0UR7y6OhI&list=TLnYRxuhEMgII
raven
@Violet: That’s ok, not everyone talks like I do. My wife reminds me of that, “you have so many sayings”!
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: They know she won’t react. Some day she will.
MomSense
@Jeremy:
It was definitely in that range–I mean just a horrifying number.
raven
@MomSense: One is the horrifying number if you know what I’m sayin. . .
BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah:
Yup, Asians voted in a greater percentage for Obama in 2012 than Latinos. Asians have been voting Dem since 2000, before that they were reliable republican voters.
rikyrah
@feebog:
I call bullshyt on this.
There is nobody on this Earth,
IN THIS COUNTRY,
that has been more demonized than THE BLACK MALE.
I read something after the 2008 election that stuck with me..
Woman wrote over at Coates that it took nearly a Billion Dollars for Barack Obama to be elected President because he needed that money not only to fight the political battle, but to overcome 350 years of stereotyping of the Black Male.
Will Hillary, if she’s the nominee, face sexism?
Yes, she will.
But, you will NEVER convince me that anyone will be as demonized and disrespected as Barack Obama has been.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I bet the Vietnamese in Orange County don’t!
raven
@rikyrah: yet
Jeremy
@rikyrah: This 100 %. I mentioned the comments by Asian readers on TPM who talked about the blatant racism. And the 70 % + Asian vote margin for President Obama really shocked them. Though the Asian vote has been trending in that direction over time.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I agree with you about the black male being the most demonized bar none. I also think that because HRC is a very pro-corporate Democrat with long standing ties to the Walton family and others, she is not going to face the same onslaught at all.
Woodrowfan
that will just make her a “class traitor” and the hate will escalate.
Kay
@raven:
I got a GED in Atlanta, so it gets more and more eerie, raven, these “coincidences” :)
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: What is your take on the black critics of Obama, like Cornel West, Tavis Smiley and TNC since Obama’s reelection.
It is time bring out Purrsident Kittteh
raven
@Kay: Ha, I gave a “success” story keynote to 1000 adult ed teachers and Zell Fucking Miller a few years back! I could have used you as a research participant, I did a qual study of GED Grads. You went on to law school, right?
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: We are all DougJ but raven is Kay?
Roger Moore
@raven:
Registration and getting people to the polls is a massive, boots on the ground action, while fighting the legal case is something that takes a relative handful of lawyers. They require different kinds of effort and won’t necessarily interfere with each other too much. But my point is that if/when the Democrats manage to beat the suppression efforts and win the election, they should put a high priority on overturning the voter suppression laws through the ordinary legislative process, since that will do more to keep them winning elections than almost anything else they can do.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: Please, poor Kay. This is a woman that knows and does things that matter.
raven
@Roger Moore: Roger, Roger.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
I sure wasn’t. I work with a lot of Asian Americans, and even ones who I had thought were politically apathetic had their eyes opened, especially by the Teabaggers. Some of them even go out of their way to call them that now that they know it has rude sexual connotations. It’s sad, but fear and hate are often better political motivators than hope, and the Republicans have done a bang-up job of making Asian Americans fear and hate them.
Chris
@Kay:
Well, for the last fifty years, it’s done just fine – after all, the nonwhites were enough of a minority that you could alienate them more or less without fear. That’s only changing now.
Shortstop
@Kay: Yes. Clinton, Carter and Roosevelt were demonized past the point of ludicrousness; Clinton II will be, too, but no one questions their basic right to be elected. People might question the elections they win, and certainly question their ability and judgment, but not their basic right to serve. Not for the first or 100th time, I recently watched a woman absolutely frothing, just twisted with rage and hatred, over the fact that the current president is a “fraud” and “no one will do anything about it.” They are utterly around the bend at a black man being elected president. To them, this cannot be. It simply can’t have happened.
Rikyrah is right — no white woman will suffer that kind of challenge to her basic legitimacy, though Clinton will bring out myriad and abominable displays of sexism. I’m not looking forward to it, particularly when I’ve seen some pretty stunning displays of misogyny from guys on our side right here, some of whom are self-professed Hillary fans and blind to their own biases. But I am looking forward to seeing her elected at the end of that road. Very much.
Nice life story, by the way. Makes me admire your accomplishments all the more.
Roger Moore
@raven:
I’m not so sure. There are probably still enough older ones who have old anti-communist loyalty to the Republicans, but I don’t get the same impression from the ones who were too young to fight in the war. They may still lean Republican, but they aren’t solid the way they used to be.
raven
@MomSense: What I’d like to see is some of the players on the Tobacco Road teams walk off in protest to this shit. Where’s Harry Edwards when we need him?
Jeremy
@schrodinger’s cat: I will give you my opinion though you didn’t ask for it. West and Smiley have had a problem with Obama since he didn’t show up to Smiley’s State of the Black Union in 2007 because of a scheduling conflict. West is also angry because he didn’t get top tickets to the inauguration.
Another reason why they are angry is because President Obama hasn’t invited them to the white house for cheesing and grinning like Clinton did. This is why they put on this front that they care about the black community (though he was pushing Wells Fargo Sub prime loans to the AA community) and that they are holding Obama accountable. Whenever Obama does something positive for the black community or the country as a whole they say it’s not good enough.
This is all about them lacking popularity in the black community and their jealousy of Obama. When it comes TNC I think it’s something separate and has more to do with legitimate differences.
Violet
@rikyrah: I think the sexism against Hillary (should she become President) would be out of control. I don’t think it would be worse than how President Obama, and the Obamas in general, have been treated, but if a woman becomes president after a black man has been president, I think the screaming from the white male establishment will be out of control.
The other variable is that woman make up half (more than half?) of the country. They will see and hear the sexism against Hillary. It will be talked about in more homes because most homes have someone female in them.
The black male is definitely the most demonized “category” (for lack of a better word) in this country. But women have had their share of being treated as lesser. And the one two punch of black man followed by woman as president may make them totally insane. As if they aren’t already. Turn it up to eleven.
raven
@Roger Moore: Yea, I was thinking that after I posted it. Major General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan has been dead for a while now!
raven
@Roger Moore: Yea, I was thinking that right after I posted it. General Loan has been dead for a while now.
schrodinger's cat
@Jeremy: Thanks I appreciate your input. I have no opinion about West, don’t know much about him but Smiley has always come across like a typical punditubbie blowhard on the rare occasions I have seen his PBS show.
ETA: What do you think TNC’s deal is? His NYT columns are typically not as good as his blog posts. May be he is trying to fit in the DC media Village, who knows.
Chris
@Violet:
I was aware that the unrepentant hard core base of the GOP was racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and class-conscious – reading their blogs and finding that out is part of what scared me into the Democratic Party in the first place.
What I didn’t realize was that the entire Republican voter base was made up of such people and how absolutely nonexistent the “moderates” in their party had become. It took McCain’s campaign and the subsequent rise of the Tea Party Movement to hammer that into my head.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: First Generation, no; after that Dems get a majority.
Citizen_X
@fuckwit: That is, seriously, a great story. Good on you for taking that woman’s point to heart so deeply.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Chieu Hoi
Shortstop
@Violet: re your middle paragraph: is it 13-14 percent of Americans who self-identify as black? Compared with more than half of us who are Vagina Americans? ;) It’s very easy for a lot of households, a lot of communities, to steadfastly refuse to see the constant stream of racial insults directed at Obama. But there are too many of us women for that to work. Except for the subset of unreconstructed anachronistic females, that shit gets noticed.
Absolutely agree that the one-two punch of Obama and Clinton will drive white male republicans round the bend. I say bring it. These fellows have an unfortunate habit of overplaying their hand.
pseudonymous in nc
GOP/ALEC logic: allowing people to vote raises the prospect of rampant and undetectable voter fraud, therefore voting must be prohibited.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
Not so much. The demographics shifted to the Democrats’ favor about 20 years ago, but it’s taken quite a while for people to notice. People have made up a lot of excuses about why each election is unique and doesn’t really show a trend, but the Democrats have come out ahead in the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections. The one time they didn’t was in 2004, when Bush II was making a concerted effort to mend fences with Latinos, and did well enough to pull out a victory. The Republicans haven’t been able to get away with alienating minorities for 20+ years, and most of them still aren’t willing to accept it.
SiubhanDuinne
@J.D. Rhoades:
This needs to be a bumper sticker.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
Pretty much the defining characteristic of the guards at the Vernichtungslagern.
Shortstop
@SiubhanDuinne: I once had a hilarious (from my perspective) conversation with a guy who smugly told me, “The only people who vote ‘Democrat’ are women, minorities, unions, gays, immigrants, atheists and young people.” I just stood there smiling benignly at him.
rikyrah
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m disappointed in Coates – he knows better.
West and Smiley are haters, plain and simple.
Smiley has hated on then-Senator Barack Obama since 2007 when, in the middle of a fierce primary fight, Senator Obama declined to attend Smiley’s Negro Superbowl, but offered to send his Princeton and Harvard-Educated wife.
Smiley not only declined, but then decided to lie about it, and was busted on Roland Martin’s radio show on WVON in Chicago.
Since then, Smiley deteriorated. Don’t know if you know Smiley’s history, but he spent years doing a bi-weekly commentary on Tom Joyner’s Radio Show. I was part of that audience. Over the course of the Primary fight, as it became more evident that the Black community was deciding on Senator Barack Obama, Tavis’ commentaries became more hostile and dismissive and disrespectful towards the TJMS audience.
Week after week, the snideness from Tavis began to grate, and Tom Joyner, held out for as long as he could.
Let’s make this clear:
While, there were some ambivalent feelings towards Senator Barack Obama from the Black community during Primary season..
We were VERY CLEAR about how we felt about Michelle Obama. There was no question about how we felt towards her.
Tavis’ disrespect of Michelle Obama was the final straw for the Tom Joyner Morning Show audience. Tavis was told to get to stepping not soon after it was revealed of his snub of Michelle Obama and his lie about it.
Tavis’ hate has just grown….he’s pitiful. …eating him literally alive
and so is West.
a fabulous Steve Harvey radio segment on West and Smiley
http://youtu.be/F3K1ZQlWkUU
Kay
@raven:
I did. I thought I’d just take the LSAT and see how that went, and then one thing led to another. The truth is I still don’t like school. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Chris
@Violet:
If you listen to old Republicans talk about it (Baby Boomers, and even more so their parents’ generation)
… they really and genuinely don’t get it. They don’t see was such a big deal about the racism in the America they grew up in. At all. “[people in my generation] just don’t understand.” “We weren’t racist… it was just a different time.” “Well, they’re better off than if they’d stayed in Africa, so what are they complaining about?” Etc, etc, etc.
The young people are similarly oblivious, but for different reasons. After all, all of us grew up learning that MLK died for our sins and white racism ended then and there, so these black people have nothing to complain about anymore, why can’t they just stop whining?
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: I only know Smiley from his PBS show, which I have seen a few times.
rikyrah
and Tavis still hasn’t figured out..
the reason he will NEVER see the inside of the White House before 2017..
is BECAUSE he disrespected MICHELLE OBAMA.
raven
@rikyrah: “Tom, you need to get away from those Commodores, especially that loser Lionel”!
raven
@Kay: Paths are many. . .
James E. Powell
@Hill Dweller:
All the while, the sociopaths in the Beltway act as if nothing is happening.
Well, nothing bad is happening to them, is it? They still have their jobs and they still get invited to the good parties, right?
Roger Moore
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s not even just a first vs. second generation thing. It’s really the olds vs. the youngs. The ones who were old enough to fight in the war are mostly still fighting it. Ones who were too young to fight, even ones who had terrible experiences in and leaving Vietnam, just don’t see the world the same way. They may go back to visit relatives, but they don’t expect or want to go back to stay, so they don’t have the same investment in anti-communism.
burnspbesq
@raven:
That’s changing. The generation of 1975 was staunchly Republican. Their kids, less so. Their grandkids are pretty much like other kids of my kid’s generation.
raven
@Roger Moore: Like the Cubano’s I guess.
schrodinger's cat
Immigrants from the former Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe tend to be more Republican,especially the ones who immigrated when there was a Soviet Union.
Kay
@Violet:
At this point I’m genuinely curious. I want to see what will happen. Another national nervous breakdown? Who knows!
raven
@burnspbesq: I’m gettin the picture. I had an image of Little Saigon that was obviously dated.
Kay
@raven:
Do you know this person, by any chance? He’s a public ed advocate now:
raven
@Kay: You have mail
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
West is brilliant. Democracy Matters is an extraordinary piece of thinking that everybody should read. Somewhere along the line, he went off the deep end and descended into self-parody, which is a huge loss.
raven
@burnspbesq: He’s a rapper too, right?
Chris
@Roger Moore:
@schrodinger’s cat:
I can’t remember who it was who said this (might have been one of you), but a few months ago this subject came up with regards to Chinese Americans, and the point was made that especially among the young, they no longer looked at mainland China as a horror story. The horror story now is Russia and the absolute mess of a mafiacracy it’s become since the fall of communism, and by comparison with that, the PRC actually looks pretty good. (And as a bonus point, Russia looks a lot like a Republican utopia).
Shortstop
@Kay: Many, many men with turkey necks and well-sprayed combovers are going to say a lot of stupid things about Hillary’s looks. Many senators who are several years older than she will make Golden Girls jokes. Many fellows who have degrees from Fly-by-Night Community College and can’t speak in complete sentences will suggest that she is not bright. And I haven’t even touched on the menopausal, ball-busting, closet lesbian, frigidity stuff. It’s not going to be subtle.
And they’re going to be genuinely gobsmacked at the strong reaction of the ladies.
burnspbesq
@raven:
Cornel West is a rapper in the same sense that I am a chess player.
raven
@burnspbesq: :)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: True, I see a bit of the same in the Korean community.
J R in WV
Well, this was a great read. I’m retired now, and interested in seeing more of the world. But I guess I’ll have time to do some voter education and registration work between now and the next two elections.
Anyone dissing Michelle Obama is a – well, words fail me. she is brilliant, beautiful, and sweet to everyone who shows her even a little bit of the respect she has earned. If Hillary doesn’t run, maybe she should.
Would that lay waste to the Republicans, or what?
Kay
@Shortstop:
I’m sure. It’s already interesting. My favorite juvenile magistrate is in his 70’s, is a Republican (although he has to be to be appointed as a magistrate in this county, and I sometimes doubt his Republicanism) and he loves Hillary. He likes women, though, in general.
raven
@Kay: Get my emails?
Roger Moore
@Chris:
I also suspect that a lot of their hyperbole falls flat when talking to people who lived under Communism. Several of my coworkers grew up during the Cultural Revolution. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, they’ve known Communist hellholes, they grew up in a Communist hellhole, and Mr. Republican, Obama’s America is no Communist hellhole.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@fuckwit: Very well said. Thank you.
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@Roger Moore: I had a classmate in grad school that was from Mainland and he thought the people at Tiananmen got what they deserved.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: Chinese grad students are in general extremely cautious about criticizing their country. I have heard the same sentiment expressed about the Tibetan people.
Kay
@raven:
I did thanks. I saw his name and bio and I was thinking “how did the REM lawyer get involved in this?”
But of course it’s like we were talking about. People get involved in all sorts of things :)
Roger Moore
@raven:
I’d say that civil liberties, especially due process stuff, seem to be one area that the mainland Chinese I know have the hardest time dealing with. They really wonder why we bother having a trial when somebody is obviously guilty. But they’re so far outside the mainstream there that they aren’t going to see a lot of difference between the two parties, and that’s not really a big issue for them anyway. I don’t know that they actually like the Democrats’ policies, but they’re pissed off and scared by the Republicans.
fuckwit
@Roger Moore: I have noticed that too.
Many of the Chinese and Koreans I know are keenly, keenly sensitive to racism from anywhere. It’s a HUGE sensitivity and a HUGE turn-off. And now they’re watching the nativism of the teabaggers and seeing the same kinds of cracker ass-clowns who in the 1850s went rampaging through SF’s Chinatown beating and shooting and looting and burning, and in the 1880s passed the Chinese exclusion laws, etc. They ain’t buying.
I never thought of Asians as having been victims of racism– any farther back or longer lasting than say WWII internment–, but I’ve since had my Eurocentrism called out several times, for being ignorant of the history. I’ve been informed that white people have done shitty things to Asians for a long time (Americans in the 19th century, as noted above, and also the Opium Wars by the British, and other evils foisted by French too), and also there is a tremendous amount of racism within Asia, i.e. look at how the Japanese treated the Chinese and Koreans in WWII, etc. So if the teabaggers are going nativist, it’ll be a hard sell in many Asian-American cultures.
Also, and as a side note, I was confused by why Asians voted so vehemently against marijuana legalization in California. A friend explained: “in Chinese culture, being high or out of control like that is not respected at all. Also, we haven’t forgotten about the Opium Wars either.”. I’ve since tried to be more educated.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
It goes both ways. You also get the people who acquire such an allergy for the left wing that they freak out at anything that smells even remotely like that and will tell you all about how it starts with a value-added tax, but before you know it it’ll lead to gulags and secret police and Stalin…
(Why yes, I do have old Cubano relatives, how could you tell?)
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Oh that video is funny,
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Voter suppression is all conservatives have left. All of their policies are poison and more and more people are recognizing that. Their racist base is all they have left to vote for them. What will they do when the black man’s 8 years are up, the ACA is working and all they can tell people is that only old white people can run things?
This tactic of running on voter suppression is just that, a tactic. If we can get that to backfire on them, they are finished
This is the natural progression of what Buckley started in the 50s. His ideal was only old white people can run government and then not well. We are seeing his conservative ideal at it’s conclusion, get rid of everyone except the anointed white peoples party. Except that we are no longer that country, and we never really were.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I said at the time that, what president has been thrown out of office in the middle of a war? I doubt that was a huge reason for the neocons to want war but I’ll bet it was in the mix, the thinking being that it would give them an extra 4 years for their bullshit. I’m still amazed that bush had any stones at all to stand up to them the very little bit he did in the end.
Joel
@feebog: I assume you offer this perspective as a nonwhite person?
Not to say that the troglodytes won’t be horrible to Hilary. But what we’ve seen with Obama is off the charts.
Joel
@schrodinger’s cat: one of these is not like the others.
I Heart Breitbartbees
@Roger Moore: Someone mentioned that was the GOP policy for over 20 years in California. It worked out great for them, until it didn’t. Their legislature now has Democratic Party supermajorities in both houses, and aside from a few Gooper conclaves like the Inland Empire and farm country, the only change will be for the worse from their perspective, I think what we’re seeing mirrors the demise of the Whigs, except this is taking longer.
I Heart Breitbartbees
@J R in WV: I have to agree about Michelle Obama, but it’s not uncommon for First Ladies to be greater than their husbands. She’s at least as smart as her husband, and I think she may make an even better politician as well. If she were to run, which I believe she has all but ruled out, she would get my vote before HRC.
Berial
Something I’ve never understood. If this country is so interested in ‘everyone’ voting, why do we have our voting take place on days that MOST of the population has to work? Why isn’t voting done on the weekends when most people DON’T work? Why aren’t national elections held on a national election holiday?