Ideas on how to shift voting and improve voter satisfaction.
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@democratz
Ideas on how to shift voting and improve voter satisfaction.
A letter to my former student:
This is going to be a long post, and I realize almost no one will actually bother to read it. But I need to say it. So let’s begin.
——————
Recently, I had a Twitter exchange with a former student. He’s a really good guy; I like him a lot, and always have. Our interactions are positive and respectful. He’s a veteran of the Persian Gulf War who has gone on to be a teacher, an administrator, and a coach at at a high school. He has been a servant to the nation and the community and deserves nothing but respect for that.
In the course of our exchange, he volunteered the following comment:
“and, please understand that it is possible to be a conservative without being a supporter of our president - in fact, I’ve been waiting for a while to cast a vote for someone I actually favored as opposed to against someone I do not!”
What follows is my response:
Of course it it possible to be a conservative without being a supporter of our president – in theory. In theory, there might be a credible conservative alternative to Donald Trump who might advance a conservative political agenda that you might agree with.
But we don’t live in the world of “in theory.” We live in this world, at this time. And the conservative politics you wish to support no longer exists. Rather, conservatism in its American sense – belief in limited government, support for independent businesses, a confidence in the rights and capacity of the individual to make choices for themselves and to live with the consequences of those choices (at least in matters not related to abortion rights, which American conservatives do not seem to trust women to exercise) – has been dying for at least 30 years. Modern conservatism is a mere shadow of its former self, and there is no evidence that there is a credible conservative core inside the Republican Party around which a contemporary conservative movement that looks like the older one might form.
My concern with your impulse to vote against candidates you don’t like (Democrats, I presume) is with the unchallengeable fact that Donald Trump and his enablers now constitute an existential threat to the survival of American democracy itself. Voting for Trump OR his Republican enablers makes one complicit in advancing that threat. Indeed, so long as no serious challenger to Trump and his enablers emerges from within the Republican Party, there is no moral or ethical way to support the party’s candidates – at least for federal office. (Federalism still allows the possibility of credible Republican choices at the state and local level, at least in some regions.)
I can’t possibly describe all the ways Trump and his enablers have made the Republican Party an existential threat to American democracy. I will focus on five: 1) Trump’s demonization of the media; 2) Trump’s demonization of the weak and defenseless in society; 3) Trump’s demand for the prosecution of his political opponents; 4) Trump’s delegitimation of elections; and 5) Trump’s delegitimation of the rule of law.
Please note that none of these topics has anything to do with daily disputes about regular political issues. I am not addressing the wrong-headedness of Trump’s actions that have undermined NATO. I am not focusing on the stupidity of his unconcern about global climate change, or about his failures in healthcare reform, or his appointment of federal judges. I might critique all of those things, but those are the stuff of ordinary politics. Rather, I am focusing on forces that pull democracies apart. Supporting Trump – and his Republican allies today – constitutes a threat to the American republic.
–1. The demonization of the media. OK: all presidents dislike the press. Some, like Nixon, hated the press. But they all seemed to understand that the press was part of the system. They (mostly) all seemed to understand that the often antagonistic relationship between the press and the politicians was a key component of a functioning democracy. They seemed to understand that, as Justice Black put it in his concurrence in NY Times v United States (the Pentagon Papers case), “In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”
Donald Trump does not believe this. In fact, he has openly stated as much, telling 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, “You know why I do it? [Attack the press?] I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.” In other words, Donald Trump is engaged in an open, unrestrained effort to undermine the press in order to serve his own power and advance his own agenda.
In undermining the possibility of a free, critical press Trump is damaging the prospects that any future American people will believe that the press can do the job it needs to do. Once all media is framed as partisan, the notion of information, of facts, dies. And no future president will face constraint by a free press either: what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Trump will not be the last president to rely on the “lyin’ media” frame if Trump manages to convince the American people that no one should believe the press, however imperfect it may be.
Notably, no significant part of the Republican party or its leaders are challenging Trump’s attacks on the media in any meaningful way. They are, if anything, promoting it. As a consequence, supporting either Trump or his Republican enablers threatens a linchpin of American democracy. It cannot be justified.
–2. The demonization of the weak and the vulnerable: The savageness with which Donald Trump treats his targets is remarkable. It has been a long time coming, of course: recall the infamous scenes in which Tea Party activists mocked a homeless veteran for seeking help during the 2010 midterms. But Trump seems to delight, indeed to positively revel, in punching downwards. Like most bullies, Trump focuses on people who can’t really fight back as he spews bile, hate, and mockery at them. His targets don’t just include minorities and immigrants, of course, but disabled persons, people – usually women – Trump decides aren’t attractive, victims of natural disasters, and, of course, even war heroes/prisoners/soldiers killed in combat serving the United States.
Please note that the research here is clear: when presidents demonize one group or other, many in the president’s audience end up hating the targeted groups more than they were already predisposed to. In other words, when presidents attack, public opinion measurably shifts in ways that reflect and amplify the president’s rhetoric.
Trump’s disgusting, hate-filled rhetoric harms the vulnerable and marginalized in society in ways that you and I, who are after all middle class white guys, simply cannot understand – even as we can empathize with them. And so long as no serious Republican challenger emerges to resist Trump’s vile perversion of our politics, so long as Republican doctrine – not just Trump’s – is to serve the powerful and afflict the afflicted, then supporting Republicans, at least at the federal level, is immoral. It also erodes the promise of the American civic experiment to discover if people of different races and creeds and ideas and histories can live together in some semblance of freedom.
–3. The demand for the prosecution of political opponents: Politics is a blood sport, and at least in elections it is zero-sum. My win is your loss. Yet most democracies manage to survive because a norm develops that win or lose, we have to respect others’ rights to participate, advocate their policies, and promote their points of view. Opponents are not enemies. They are competitors.
There has been an undeniable trend over the last 30 years to shift the language of political competition from “opponents” to “enemies.” Not all this shift has been concocted by Republicans, or by Trump, by any means. But Trump is the first president in modern US history to respond to political opponents by insisting that they need to be imprisoned for crimes against the nation. He is the first to systematically incite his supporters to openly chant for the jailing of a political opponent. He is the first since Richard Nixon to demand that the law enforcement agencies of the United States serve his partisan political agenda by investigating his opponents for crimes that they have already been cleared of.
This is the stuff that happens in crackpot countries. Newly-installed dictators purge their opponents, using the levers of power to confirm their authority. But in so doing, they make the stakes of any moment of political transition extraordinarily high: the game literally becomes all or nothing, since the consequences of losing can mean imprisonment. And since the stakes are so high, so is the conflict: no one can afford to lose, so they fight it out to the last breath.
“Lock her up” isn’t funny. It isn’t cute. Weaponizing law enforcement for political ends has profound consequences for the stability of democracy.
Trump’s claims that Hillary Clinton and other opponents ought to be imprisoned undermines confidence in the possibility of peaceful transitions of power in the United States. Until I see evidence that anyone on the Republican side is fighting back against Trump’s gross abuse of federal power, supporting him or the party that enables his abuses undermines the possibility of democratic governance as such.
–4. The deligitimation of elections: No one likes to lose. And gerrymandering, and manipulated vote counts, and other forms of voter suppression have been an unfortunate part of our political life since the Republic was formed.
But Trump has exceeded any other president in his all out assault on the norms of electoral politics. He claims he won the popular vote in 2016 … once you discount the 3,000,000+ votes cast by illegal aliens. Against all evidence he continues to assert that in-person voter fraud is vast – but only in those elections that he and his party members lose. In 2018 he described legally-prescribed recounts as efforts to “steal” the elections from his team.
All this, meanwhile, is happening when it is clear that the majority of vote shenanigans in the US are perpetrated by Republicans: North Carolina’s Voter ID law was overturned for its explicit racial bias, while both North Carolina’s and Pennsylvania’s Congressional districts were declared unconstitutionally gerrymandered. (Pennsylvania’s redrawn districts produced a balanced outcome; North Carolina’s were not redrawn due to time concerns, and Republicans in North Carolina perpetuated their 10-3 majority in Congressional seats despite the fact that Democrats in North Carolina got 100,000 more votes statewide than Republicans did.) And this doesn’t even begin to touch on the closing of vote stations in minority dominant districts, the purging of voter rolls, and the like – all of which have been shown to be disproportionately burdensome on people of color.
Given that NO Republican leaders AT ALL have in any way challenged any of this, the entire Republican party is culpable in undermining American democracy as manifested in the need for free and fair elections. There is simply no way to vote for Republicans and also vote for the protection of properly run, properly managed elections. Voting for Republicans today is to support the undermining of free and fair elections in the United States.
–5. The delegitimation of the rule of law: Criticism is one thing. It is unpleasant, but it is fundamentally healthy. But demonization is another thing altogether. Asserting that law enforcement agencies are corrupt – without evidence – is corrosive to political legitimacy.
Trump, of course, is engaged in the systematic delegitmation of the rule of law. His understanding of the law is that it should serve his interests and his political purposes. His understanding of any investigation he doesn’t like is that it is a witch hunt.
This, too, is the enterprise of dictators. If the law only works for the powerful, who at the same time insist that they are victims of the law, then democracy cannot function.
And again, the actual Republican party, the one that actually exists right now, has wholly abetted this abuse. They have cravenly cowed to Trump’s rhetoric for fear of facing his tweets, the talking parrots at FOX News, and the hordes of Trumpizoidal maniacs who are likely to show up in primary elections. Lindsay Graham prosecuted the Clinton impeachment for charges ultimately derived from the fact that Bill Clinton lied about getting a blowjob from a woman who was not his wife. Today, he insists that campaign finance payoffs running to hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally spent as part of a scheme to protect a presidential candidate’s election chances are no big deal – merely lies told to protect the candidate’s family. The hypocrisy would stagger … at any other time than this one.
Voting for Republicans today inevitably means supporting the subversion of the rule of law. It means supporting the erosion of American democracy.
At this point, Trump apologists usually offer some version of the comment, “both sides do it.” Well, no they don’t. Not to anything close to this scale. Not organized at the very top of the political system, where now the Trump reelection team is being completely integrated with the RNC’s fundraising operation – for the first time in US history. (The grift is about to get vastly bigger than anyone can even fantasize.)
America is in trouble. It is time to recalibrate “voting against people you don’t like.” It is time to kill the modern Republican Party. It’s the only way to bring it back to life.
I want it to be considered that supporting CinemaSins may have political ramifications, reinforcing fake news to the detriment of our democracy. Money and power chosen over decency and people.
A story that sheds light on the power of the alt-right, and the republicans and centrists that “support” them.
“In the late early 1900s women were stabbing mouthy men with their hatpins.” - By Marissa Fessenden, American Women in the 1900s Called Street Harassers ‘Mashers’ and Stabbed Them With Hatpins, These are the turn-of-the-century women who fought back when men tried to grab them
Put another way, the fifty senators from the twenty-five least populous states—twenty-nine of them Republicans—represent just over 16 percent of the American population, and thirty-four Republican senators—enough to block conviction on impeachment charges—represent states with a total of 21 percent of the American population. With gerrymandering and voter suppression enhancing even more the systemic Republican advantage, it is estimated that the Democrats will have to win by 7 to 11 points (a margin only obtainable in rare “wave” elections) in the 2018 elections to achieve even the narrowest of majorities in the House of Representatives.
The Suffocation of Democracy by Christopher R. Browning
Justice
I do believe Jesus was aiming for justice and it is important to recognize that. What justice looks like now is for us to figure out.
Okay, you need to make sure you play this game at some point. Maybe not today or anything, because you’ll need about thirty minutes and a serious willingness to understand how it works, but - it’s so worth it. It’s basically an answer to our occasional frustration - why do assholes always come out on top? - and the beautiful thing about it is that not only does it explain how that happens, but also how we can change it.
“In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it’s us players who define the game.”
This is fascinating if you’re into math or sociology or computer programming or all of the above.
Everyone, everywhere, without exception, should play this thing through.
Don’t check just this - check out all of Nicky Case’s work. They’re a brilliant creator and I heavily recommend checking out at least one of their projects. Their website can be found here.
Parable of the Polygons - an interactive experiment that shows how tiny individual biases can collectively cause segregation on a massive scale.
To Build a Better Ballot - an interactive experiment that shows the alternatives to the voting systems we currently use and how they can be more representative and democratic, along with their faults.
Coming Out Simulator - a short interactive story/novel about coming out, based off of Case’s own experiences. Not one I’ve played myself but still one I can recommend.
Loopy - a very simple but useful tool to show how systems interact with each other and how things can self-propagate.
We Become What We Behold - “ a game about news cycles, vicious cycles, infinite cycles.“ A short five-minute game about news and media. Warnings for violence, blood, death and stress.
Play this game! Think about how we are constructing our lives, and what it feels like to live in this time!
Something to consider
If the Iron Giant should have taught us anything it's that one of the very people you condemn and ultimately attempt to eradicate might just end up saving your life.
Making Sense of the Memo
I’ll preface this all by reiterating that while I can offer a lot of insight into trans policy I am neither a lawyer nor a policy expert; so don’t take my interpretations here as the final word.
First this: Trans folks are not going away. We’ve always been here, we’ll continue to be here, and we’ll continue to fight for our rights. We’re a resilient bunch and no memo, no administration, no effort can change that.
Sunday’s New York Times article was rough news. The Trump Administration has repeatedly chipped away at LGBTQ+ rights and protections at every level, and this latest policy move (if it becomes a reality) would be a significant legal assault on trans folks.
As of today, it’s still just a memo under discussion. It’s not policy, and even more to the point - it’s far from settled law or policy. Make no mistake, even if this moves forward the legal challenges are just beginning.
There are five main impacts that this memo would have if it were adopted widely by departments in this administration:
It would formalize the Trump Administration’s stance that current federal law only protects on the basis of biological sex, rather than a more inclusive definition encompassing gender identity (note again: at a federal level there are no explicit protections on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity).
It would explicitly remove protections tied to gender identity across all sorts of federal programs - including critically important areas like healthcare, housing, education, and the justice system. Many of these have already been rolled back piecemeal in policy moves; but this would be a major move in that direction.
It raises the distinct possibility that the State Department, if it adopted similar language, could end the current policies around passports for trans folks closing down a tremendously important legal documentation option for many.
It will further bolster court arguments by the Administration around pending legal cases regarding LGBTQ+ rights at every level of the courts.
Most troubling (though also, most likely to be challenged in courts as invasive and inconsistent), the memo proposes that biological sex be determined by genetic testing.
In short: It’s bad news.
But, let me quote the National Center for Transgender Equality on this one:
To transgender people: I know you are frightened. I know you are horrified to see your existence treated in such an inhumane and flippant manner. What this administration is trying to do is an abomination, a reckless attack on your life and mine. But this administration is also staffed by inexperienced amateurs overplaying their hand by taking extreme positions that ignore law, medicine, and basic human decency.
Agreed. Fully.
First, to reiterate, there is no change in policy or law as of today; and there’s a good chance that even if it were the court challenges would mean that the worst of this would be changed or (likely) held up indefinitely. This is amateur policy hour, and no matter how effectively the GOP has managed to stack the courts, much of this is likely to be turned back in litigation even if it is adopted. I sure am worried about how this might be interpreted by the newly established conservative majority on the Supreme Court, but I’m at least heartened by the fact that there are a ton of smart-as-hell LGBTQ+ law experts who have consistently been winning these cases in the lower courts.
That doesn’t make this any less damaging.
After the Trump administration rolled back Obama-era Title IX guidance, I reached out to the local school board around their lack of a specific policy on transgender students and facility access. They noted the uncertain legal landscape as their reason not to have a policy. Legal questions at a federal level trickle down, and while I may be well equipped to advocate for myself or navigate that tricky legal landscape, you can sure as hell bet that many trans folks don’t have the resources to do the same.
And this proposed policy is yet another clear attempt by the administration to push transgender folks back into the shadows. As much as it’s about policy, it’s about a statement of values, and part of a relentless effort to attack us on all fronts. The toll, on all sorts of levels, is very real. In short: the trans folks in your life are not okay right now.
Make no mistake, the moral arc of the universe is still bending towards a world where trans folks are going to achieve full legal and social acceptance. But we’re not there yet. And while we live under this administration, under this social and legal climate, we need your support. Particularly if you are a cisgender, straight ally. This is the time to speak up, to take action to show your support, and to fight alongside us. I know it can feel overwhelming given all the difficult news day-in and day-out, but this is a moment where action is both meaningful and necessary.
I already shared out Chase Strangio’s 7 Actions article, but I’ll add the following three things that you should do now:
Check in on the trans folks you know. We could use the extra support.
Call the Department of Health and Human Services (which is where this policy is circulating) and express your feelings on this proposal. HHS has a toll free #: 877-696-6775 and Secretary Alex Azar’s # is: 202-690-7000. No promises that you’ll actually reach anyone, but a volume of calls matters. While you’re at it, call your representatives in Washington and ask them to speak up for trans rights.
Take action at a local level. Whether or not this policy takes effect, the fight for trans rights in your state, your town, your school, your workplace, etc. will continue. Be a part of it.
Francisco de Goya - ‘’The Execution of a Witch’’, ca.1820-24.
It has been said that the investigation is a “Rigged Witch Hunt”.
Well, lets recall the history of witch hunts. For political reasons people were singled out, mostly women of power. Then they were murdered, because the options were to either drown in water, or be burned to death.
I have a feeling that the tweeter is not going to be drowned or burned alive.
He is appropriating a history he has no real knowledge of to try to defend himself. To try to defend his actions. Somehow I am livid that he wants to raise himself to the level of humanity of being a witch.
At the very least I hope his presidency “goes up in flames” one way or another.
Adds to a way forward, or backward, and the depth of the conversation.
Worth the watch.
From marketing rules to antitrust regulations to international trade agreements, U.S. policy has created a food system that excels at producing flour, sugar and oil but struggles to deliver nutrients at anywhere near the same scale. The United States spends $1.5 billion on nutrition research every year compared to around $60 billion on drug research. Just 4 percent of agricultural subsidies go to fruits and vegetables. No wonder that the healthiest foods can cost up to eight times more, calorie for calorie, than the unhealthiest—or that the gap gets wider every year. It’s the same with exercise. The cardiovascular risks of sedentary lifestyles, suburban sprawl and long commutes are well-documented. But rather than help mitigate these risks—and their disproportionate impact on the poor—our institutions have exacerbated them. Only 13 percent of American children walk or bike to school; once they arrive, less than a third of them will take part in a daily gym class. Among adults, the number of workers commuting more than 90 minutes each way grew by more than 15 percent from 2005 to 2016, a predictable outgrowth of America’s underinvestment in public transportation and over-investment in freeways, parking and strip malls. For 40 years, as politicians have told us to eat more vegetables and take the stairs instead of the elevator, they have presided over a country where daily exercise has become a luxury and eating well has become extortionate.
Michael Hobbes, Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong
Fun Fact 405
Until 2006, Russian voters had the option of voting “against all”, a special ballot option open to voters in some countries to allow voters to indicate their disapproval of all the candidates. It is usually used as a protest vote, not against democracy, but against the way politics is run in a country. The option was removed in Russia after the 2003 legislative election as it was becoming too popular with only one party receiving more votes than it in the elections for single-member districts.
Small things. Tiny pockets of joy. Remembering kindness. Being nice. It's simple but glorious to be happy. Even if the world doesn't change, I'm not going to stop trying. Because we're worth it.
Susan Calman, from Sunny Side Up