State Dems must stop ICE from stealing the midterms
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Donald Trump has announced his intention to steal the midterms with a voter suppression law that would ban the mail-in voting that he himself uses (which he claims is not fit for purpose).
This voter suppression campaign is Trump's number one policy priority, and the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act that would accomplish this is behind the shutdown and aviation chaos that has hamstrung the country for weeks:
SAVE requires voters to show up at the polls in possession of ID like birth certificates and passports, and it will fill our polling places with armed, masked ICE agents – you know, the guys who just randomly kidnap and murder people for having accents, speaking a language other than English, or being visibly brown.
During Trump's aviation crisis, Trump heard about "Linda," a woman who called into a far right talk-radio program to suggest that ICE be deployed to American airports to backstop the TSA agents who'd stopped showing up for work on the very reasonable grounds that they hadn't been paid in a month:
Trump loved the idea and the next thing you knew, ICE was at the airports, hanging around like a bad smell and being totally useless. It turns out that the TSA is a trained workforce, unlike ICE, who receive precisely 47 days of training as a kind of MAGA Kabbalah (Trump is the 47th president):
ICE's uselessness at the country's airports was beyond farcical, though, as ever, The Onion found and nailed the farce in "How ICE is assisting TSA":
https://theonion.com/how-ice-is-assisting-tsa/
Overseeing the removal of shoes, belts, and abuelas
Confiscating, then brandishing dangerous items
Assuming all milling-around duties
Culling weaker travelers when lines get too long
Commiserating about failing the police academy
Drinking any shampoo that exceeds the carry-on volume limit
Simplifying the customs interview to one question about skull size
But having ICE in the airports does serve one purpose. As Steve Bannon gloated on his podcast, ICE in the airports is a way to soften people up for ICE in the polling stations. He called it a "test run" for the midterms:
Writing for Jacobin, Eric Blanc points out that Democrats don't have to sit by passively while Trump – who repeatedly promised that if you voted for him in 2024, "you won't have to vote anymore" – steals an election:
That's because America has a federal system of government, and the administration of its elections is firmly, constitutionally, unarguably in the hands of the states, and the states have large collections of highly trained, highly armed officials who can enforce their laws.
On March 13, the New Mexico state legislature passed a law banning armed federal officials from showing their fascist asses anywhere within 50 feet of a polling place or ballot drop-box:
Other blue states like "California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington" are contemplating similar laws.
It's a start, but as Blanc says, what the fuck are the other blue statehouses waiting for? This is a white-hot, hair-on-fire emergency. There isn't a moment to spare. This should be on the agenda for every union, at every demonstration, at every DSA and Democratic Club meeting. As Blanc says, if we wait until November to find out what Trump is going to do, it'll be too late. The time to act is now.
This is – as Blanc says – a "concrete, winnable demand that unions, student organizations, and immigrant and democracy defense groups could organize around today." And that organizing would "onboard and develop scores of new leaders in this fight nationwide."
I know where we can start. Unions across America have called for a general strike on May Day (May 1), under the banner "No work, no school, no shopping." As we rally on May Day, let defending our right to vote be at the top of our agenda. Mark your calendars:
"Big Tech is harming kids on an industrial scale. ... They will be treated like any industry that knowingly harms children and lies about it. History will judge them as harshly as the tobacco industry.
This bellwether case tested a new legal theory: the harm is not just what algorithms show children, but rather that these products were designed to foster addiction. The companies knew they were harming children by the millions—and did it anyway. They were negligent and dishonest."
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
America's descent into authoritarian fascism is made all the more alarming and demoralizing by the Democrats' total failure to rise to the moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KADW3ZRZLVI
But what would "rising to the moment" look like? What can the opposition party do without majorities in either house? Well, they could start by refusing to continue to fund ICE, a masked thug snatch/murder squad that roams our streets, killing with impunity:
That's table stakes. What would a real political response to fascism look like? Again, it wouldn't stop with banning masks for ICE goons, or even requiring them to wear QR codes:
The fact that ICE agents worry about consequences despite Vance's assurances suggests ways that Dems could "meet the moment."
I think Dems should start a Nuremberg Caucus, named for the Nazi war-crimes trials that followed from the defeat of German fascists and the death of their leader:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials
What would this caucus do? Well, it could have a public website where it assembled and organized the evidence for the trials that the Democrats could promise to bring after the Trump regime falls. Each fresh outrage, each statement, each video-clip – whether of Trump officials or of his shock-troops – could be neatly slotted in, given an exhibit number, and annotated with the criminal and civil violations captured in the evidence.
The caucus could publish dates these trials will be held on – following from Jan 20, 2029 – and even which courtrooms each official, high and low, will be tried in. These dates could be changed as new crimes emerge, making sure the most egregious offenses are always at the top of the agenda. Each trial would have a witness list.
The Nuremberg Caucus could vow to repurpose ICE's $75b budget to pursue Trump's crimes, from corruption to civil rights violations to labor violations to environmental violations. It could announce its intent to fully fund the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division to undertake scrutiny of all mergers approved under Trump, and put corporations on notice that they should expect lengthy, probing inquiries into any mergers they undertake between now and the fall of Trumpism. Who knows, perhaps some shareholders will demand that management hold off on mergers in anticipation of this lookback scrutiny, and if not, perhaps they will sue executives after the FTC and DoJ go to work.
While they're at it, the Nuremberg Caucus could publish a plan to hire thousands of IRS agents (paid for by taxing billionaires and zeroing out ICE's budget) who will focus exclusively on the ultra-wealthy and especially any supernormal wealth gains coinciding with the second Trump presidency.
Money talks. ICE agents are signing up with the promise of $50k hiring bonuses and $60k in student debt cancellation. That's peanuts. The Nuremberg Caucus could announce a Crimestoppers-style program with $1m bounties for any ICE officer who a) is themselves innocent of any human rights violations, and; b) provides evidence leading to the conviction of another ICE officer for committing human rights violations. That would certainly improve morale for (some) ICE officers.
Critics of this plan will say that this will force Trump officials to try to steal the next election in order to avoid consequences for their actions. This is certainly true: confidence in a "peaceful transfer of power" is the bedrock of any kind of fair election.
But this bunch have already repeatedly signaled that they intend to steal the midterms and the next general election:
ICE agents are straight up telling people that ICE is on the streets to arrest people in Democratic-leaning states ("The more people that you lose in Minnesota, you then lose a voting right to stay blue"):
The only path to fair elections – and saving America – lies through mobilizing and energizing hundreds of millions of Americans. They are ready. They are begging for leadership. They want an electoral choice, something better than a return to the pre-Trump status quo. If you want giant crowds at every polling place, rising up against ICE and DHS voter-suppression, then you have to promise people that their vote will mean something.
Dems have to pick a side. That means being against anyone who is for fascism – including other Dems. The Nuremberg Caucus should denounce the disgusting child abuse perpetrated by the Trump regime:
The people of Minneapolis (and elsewhere) have repeatedly proven that we outnumber fascists by a huge margin. Dems need to stop demoralizing their base by doing nothing and start demonstrating that they understand the urgency of this crisis.
Not to mention that a caucus like this could actually turn a classic Republican strategy against them! One of the key ways Republicans try to win over undecided voters is by making themselves look better on “the real issues” (read: economic ones) than the Democrats — rather than coming up with policies that are actually better, though, what they tend to do is bait the Democrats into having to be on the defensive for social problems, then claim that the Democrats don’t care about those “real issues”. That’s why there’s been so much weaponized transphobia: Republicans threaten trans kids, Democrats try to defend trans kids, and Republicans go “look! all the democrats care about is turning your kids trans, while WE care about giving you the freedom to choose whatever we want you to!” Some moderate Democrats have argued that the solution to this is clearly to stop defending trans kids, which is a patently stupid idea, but I think that the theoretical Nuremberg Caucus is a much better solution because it’d put the Republicans on the defensive for once.
Think about it: it’s not illegal to compile a database of crimes that are being aided and abetted by politicians. Quite the opposite, in fact. But as more and more Democrats begin to add to that publicly-accessible list of crimes they intend to prosecute, more and more terrified Republicans will start to lock into turning that into their flashpoint argument for the midterms, rather than anything remotely substantial. “Don’t let the Democrats win,” they’ll shout from their xitters and live-streamed Turning Point USA rallies, “because they’ll try to impeach the president! They’ll impeach us!” And as the Republicans laser-focus on avoiding consequences for their actions, the field will be left open for Democrats to debate those “real issues” largely unimpeded. “All the Republicans want is to commit crimes with impunity — but WE care about making sure your groceries and healthcare are affordable, AND sending those crooks to jail!”
It’s not just a winning strategy for the Democrats — it’s bait for the Republicans. They’re desperately scrabbling for flashpoint issues to use for the midterms, and they’re coming up empty: they can’t rely on immigration since most of us hate them for ICE, they can’t rely on the economy since most of us can’t afford squat these days, and they can’t blame the Democrats for everything going wrong because of how much crowing they’ve done over being fully in power the last few years. They are desperate for a cause to champion, and giving them a chance at playing martyr is an excellent way to trick them into stepping right onto the big cartoonish X we’ve painted under the Sword of Damocles.
We directly threaten their ability to commit crimes with impunity, with evidence plainly and clearly visible for all to see, and the Republicans will gleefully play victim out of vain hope that enough voters adore them enough to bail them out. Consider: with everything we’ve seen over the last year, and with the tensions in this country where they currently are, how do you think that’s gonna play out?
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