They’ve Lied About this from the Very Beginning
Anyone who bases their judgment on facts knew they were lying from the start. In fact their entire strategy is based on massive lying. What am I talking about? Voting. Republicans figured out a long time ago that their demographic (old, white, angry) is shrinking. Historically, this is a relatively recent phenomenon, started when the GOP went nuts after Goldwater lost in ’64. Ultra conservative voices began rising during that time, really more Libertarian and Bircher, and when Reagan beat Carter, the calcification of the party really set in. From those days to today, the GOP has pushed the entire country farther and farther to the right, pushing everyone not white, not old, not nuts out of the tent. Trump’s takeover of the party has completed the calcification, adding white supremacy as just another adjective to describe the base.
The GOP base is so demographically narrow that it simply cannot fairly win anymore. As the country becomes more diverse, our population is moving away from the radicalism and obvious insanity that is now the party. So, how can they win on a national scale? It’s two pronged: by keeping the base continuously whipped up and raging about dark-skinned people, and, of course, by cheating. A lot.
That cheating comes in the form of radical gerrymandering and voter suppression. Gerrymandering is a fact of life and several cases have been consolidated at the SCOTUS, but, unless Roberts has a sudden fit of rationality, I don’t have much hope. Voter suppression, though, is just as insidious; keeping Americans from being represented in the Congress, the very basis of our republic. Voter ID laws have been pushed now for twenty years, based on the lie that there is massive voter fraud occurring during our elections (by dark skinned people) that simply doesn’t exist. Trump used that same blatant lie to explain away him losing the popular vote in 2016 by 3 million votes.
One of the Republicans pushing this lie is Chris Kobach, a white nationalist (who won’t admit it) and former Kansas Secretary of State. Kobach was behind faked voter fraud studies in Kansas, and pushed anti-Muslim policies as well as strict voter ID laws. After he lost the election for governor in 2017, he became an advisor to Trump, bringing his radical ideology to the WH. And it’s not good. In 2017 he lead Trump’s bogus voter integrity committee that quietly folded in 2018 after it couldn’t find one shred of evidence of massive voter fraud and being stopped by the states in amassing private data about voters.
One of the tactics Kobach pushed to Trump was adding a citizenship question to the US Census questionnaire. Sounds benign, right? Hardly. The question is specifically designed to scare people who may have members of the family who are not citizens, have a green card, or are undocumented. Why? To undercount these populations and disproportionally increase representation to the GOP base (old and white). Seats in state houses and in the US House are at stake. Trump and crew have been lying about the reason for adding this question from the very first moment. Their problem though, is that they’ve now been caught lying to Congress about it.
It turns out that Kobach pushed the citizenship question to the Trump campaign in 2016, long before Wilbur Ross claimed it was introduced in early 2017. Yesterday, Elijah Cummings, chair of the House Oversight and Reform committee, disclosed details of a closed door interview with Kobach last Monday where he revealed this new detail. Now we know why Trump has desperately been trying to expand executive privilege over even those who don’t actually work for him, but who just talked to him. That effort failed and the administration is caught now in yet another lie.
So, Kobach lied until last Monday. Wilbur Ross lied and stonewalled the House, likely earning a contempt of Congress vote just like Bill Barr did for refusing to testify. This episode is yet another page in the encyclopedia of lies told by this administration. Hopefully we can use this lie to shut down another of the GOP’s efforts to win by cheating.
Doug Collins (R-Ga.) is there to protect Orange Foolius with another Republicon strategy: if the truth hurts, ban it.
He’s invoking a twisted parliamentary process. This is the gem he selected: “It is not in order to call the President a ‘liar’ or accuse such person of ‘lying’.”
The test of many crimes is intent, so by Doug’s reasoning bury the intent by not allowing the lies and presto magico there’s no crime. That takes care of Kris Kobach and Wilbur Ross on the census and other voter suppression techniques. https://crooksandliars.com/2019/06/republicans-want-ban-any-mention-trumps
Here’s how House Democrats should respond to that gem from Doug and other Republicons: Fine. Then we’ll be expecting silence from you boys. Or, STFU and watch us govern.
1When will “equal protection under the law” have one voice? The “equal” part has taken a decided turn for the worse under this maladministration. Kobach and Ross are just two examples of the many lies and liars. When does truth get equal time? Better yet, when will the liars be punished? We are so far from truth and justice reaching the color blind status of which Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed. Despite the lofty protections of our Constitution apartheid justice prevails.
Bill Barr is free to Gish Gallop and gaslight.
Thursday Civil Rights leader Reverend William Barber was sentenced to one-day, suspended, 12 months of unsupervised probation, a $200 fine and 24 hours of community service for exercising his constitutionally “protected” rights of assembly and free speech.
But among Donnie’s other fine people we have far-right street brawlers travelling the country participating in and organizing Proud Boys-style events that are billed as “rallies” but in reality are fronts for provocations intended to create street violence directed at left-wing activists. Color them black and see how fast their permits would disappear…
2El Jefe,
I’m with you on what you wrote but what you didn’t write is what we do about it.
I don’t have the full answer but one thing is sure: democracy is all about showing up. If “I didn’t vote” was on the ballot in 2016 it would have one over both Trump and Hillary.
If only 25% of “I didn’t vote” showed up and voted for them it would be reasonable to assume the added count would have been proportional in percentage between Trump and Hillary. The Comey letter wouldn’t have mattered. The Russian rat-fking wouldn’t matter. Fox News wouldn’t have mattered. And the state votes would probably have been much better in spite of gerrymander.
In other words they have only been able to succeed with cheating because we let them.
3Damn good piece, Jefe.
4Republican voters thrive on an enemy, them vs us. Watch Fox News for 10 minutes, there’s always something or someone over which to be outraged. That outrage gets them agitated and to the polls.
The LBGT issue, long a rallying point is off the table in 2020. As such it needed replacement with a combination of Muslims, Mexicans, Central Americans, and abortion framed in the context of a non-Christian evil, for the Evangelicals in the crowd.
Voter suppression and census questions are a twofer, it whips up righteous indignation by Fox News viewers and Republicans, and prevents Democrats from voting.
5What you say about the Birchers is 100% true. My first vote was for Kennedy. My Jefferson county TX in laws considered that blasphemy. As a people pleasing 50’s female, penance was paid for the next 10 years.
Part of it was as a proud Goldwater supporter due to his pro environment, anti Viet Nam war stance.
That enthusiasm led me to the JBS. It has taken since then, but those people are in charge of the Trump party. They were afraid of everybody but themselves and mean as hell, And twice as committed to their cause. I finally caught on to just how crazy they were when they tried convincing me Lucille Ball was a communist. They use just the right vocabulary to suck people in. Took me 2 years to see just how off the wall they were. But now, they are normal, next door neighbors.
6What to do? Good question, Alan@3. As Republicons gain a tighter grasp on our courts, suing ain’t what it used to be to restore voting rights. And we sure as hell cannot expect any help from a DOJ run by Barr. But we can volunteer with and donate to the NDRC, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee with Eric Holder. The ACLU and SPLC are two more good resources. The SPLC also sponsors an excellent blog to track the alt-right nutjobs: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch
https://democraticredistricting.com/
https://www.aclu.org/
https://www.splcenter.org/
On the local level we can work with local Democratic Party organizations. Register voters, drive voters to the polls, etc. Although it sometimes feels like spitting into the wind, contact our Congress members. Don’t leave them to rely on polls; tell them how you really feel.
El Jefe, what Primo said @4: Damn good piece, Jefe.
7I am curious to know how adults and children in camps along border states will be counted. Will we get an accurate count to know how many are locked away? Will the government release that type of data?
8Another good resource for tracking what our candidates are saying, as opposed to what the media regurgitates as having been said. https://abovethelaw.com/
Here’s a twofer from Senator Kamala Harris: https://abovethelaw.com/2019/06/getting-the-courts-to-uphold-kamala-harriss-abortion-plan-is-more-difficult-than-getting-them-to-defend-abortion/
“As usual with the plans put forward by Democratic candidates, this one seems to run into the problem that Mitch McConnell exists. Unless Democrats re-take the Senate, with a filibuster-proof majority (or do away with the filibuster), it seems like Republicans would be able to block this idea.
But Harris is more smart and more subtle here than people are giving her credit for. While, yes, previous pre-clearance plans have taken the form of legislation passed by Congress, Harris here is clearly contemplating doing it by executive order. States will have to come before “my Department of Justice for a review and approval.” From where I sit, while Harris’s plans are not as sweeping as Elizabeth Warren’s or Bernie Sanders’s, hers have been more carefully tailored to what a President may be able to do by executive fiat. I don’t know that pre-clearance by executive order actually works as a Constitutional matter, but that’s the thought here. She’s entertaining the possibility of cutting McConnell and the Republicans out of the loop entirely and letting the courts decide if she has the authority.” Elie Wystal for those of us grasshoppers without the patience to always wait for Primo’s next installment or lack the imagination to think what it is Ms. JJ and DaChipster would tell us.”
9So after at least 4 election cycles with the likihood of this being the 5th that means the thugs have gotten away with criminal elections for a decade.
10Gee I am glad the D’s decided they could take their time, like they are with impeachment.
By next cycle redistricting/gerrymandering will be redone and we can start the whole charade again with a thuglican court courtesy of demented donnie.
Thanks Tom Delay. for the gerrymandering that went with the 2000 census. And for Ted Cruz
We will be living with this another 10 years.
How he got the best of the Ds in the 2000 census is beyond me. They never saw it coming.
What’s Eric Holder doing besides sending e mails?
11Crone@6 Holder has had some success filing lawsuits in a number of states.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/politics/democrats-gerrymandering-election-maps.html
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/eric-holders-battle-against-gerrymandering
He’s also working with holding candidates feet to the fire.
“Eric Holder, former U.S. attorney general, is determined to get 2020 Democratic contenders to commit to an issue that foretells the fate of many of the big policies they advocate — and the chances of accomplishing anything if elected.”
“So far, 13 of 24 Democratic candidates have signed Holder’s pledge to end gerrymandering. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, have taken the stand. Notably absent from the list are the party’s current front-runners, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.”
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/diaz/article/Fair-redistricting-should-be-a-bipartisan-cause-13960987.php
12Alan, I don’t know what we can do to light a fire under non-voters. Last week we had a municipal budget election- defeated by the old white people living in the rural parts of town. FIFTEEN PERCENT turnout overall. If only a quarter of the more diverse voters from the center of town voted, we’d have a budget today. And schools wouldn’t be cutting more programs in the fall.
13One problem, though.
35 states will remain majority white all through the 21st century.
They will get older, and decline in both relative, and absolute population…BUT they will send 70 senators to Washington…and thus control things….they will look less, and less than the entire population, but they will reflect though, what a large number of increasingly empty states look like…
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