Friday Talking Points -- Stop Jim Crow 2.0!
Before we get to the other events of the week, we have to comment on one particular political fight that is heating up to a surprising degree. Both sides of the aisle see this fight in fairly existential terms, so it's an important one across the board. But what is rather surprising is that, this time around, Democrats seem to be ready and willing to fight for their beliefs, they appear to have both the much higher moral ground and the support of the public, and they also have a devastating bumpersticker slogan for what they are fighting so hard to prevent. For Democrats, that (sadly) is rather surprising, all around. In bumpersticker terms, the Democrats' position might be summed up as: "Stop Jim Crow 2.0!"
Senator Raphael Warnock, in his first-ever speech from the Senate floor, did a better job explaining this by using just a few more words: "We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights and voter access unlike anything we have seen since the Jim Crow era. This is Jim Crow in new clothes." (More on him and his remarkable speech, a little later in the program.)
A series of dominoes are in the process of falling right now, all across the country. Of course, this isn't really anything new, it is merely the continuation of Republican efforts for the past 20 or 30 years to make voting as difficult and as onerous a process as possible. Some of these efforts are just generally annoying to all, but many of them are targeted specifically to suppress Democratic votes. That's the real goal in all of this. A full generation ago, the Republicans looked at the demographic trends of not just the country as a whole but of a lot of their own red states, and they didn't much like what they saw. More and more Latinos, seemingly everywhere. More and more Asian-Americans. More Black people moving back to the South. This was long before the suburbs began trending Democratic, as well.
At this point, the Republicans could have decided to soften their political message and develop new policies designed to actually address some of the concerns of these voting blocs, but they didn't. They instead essentially gave up on the idea of appealing to minorities altogether and determined that the best way to stay in power was to make it as hard as possible for everyone but their own voters to cast their ballot. Sometimes, as mentioned, these have gone too far and made it difficult for even Republican voters. A good case in point is mail-in voting, which used to be championed by the GOP (since their older voters loved it so much) in places like Florida and Georgia. But now that Donald Trump has successfully demonized it, all of a sudden Republican politicians are limiting mail-in voting as well, even though they may be shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.
That's the backdrop -- the continuing effort at the state level to make it as hard as possible for Democratic-leaning groups of voters to vote. But these efforts were largely successful because they were rather piecemeal and local. The national news might occasionally mention them, and the wonky numbers guys on election night would be sure to have some offhand remarks about it, but it really wasn't that big a deal to the inside-the-Beltway punditocracy. To put this another way, television news loved to show videos of insanely long lines at polling places (no matter where they happened), but they absolutely refused to connect any dots by explaining to the public precisely why those long lines existed. They also would usually fail to mention that the long lines were almost always in precincts with heavy concentrations of voters of color. By design. To put this another way: you didn't see a long line of Karens out in the 'burbs in any of those videos, did you?
Think this is overstated? Here are the facts: in precincts where more than 90 percent of registered voters are minorities, the average minimum wait time to vote in America is 51 minutes. In precincts where the numbers are flipped (where White voters are at 90 percent or above), the average wait time is only six minutes. There's some White privilege and institutional racism for you. Textbook example, in fact.
Because there was no concerted national outcry about all these incremental changes Republicans were making, they were able to get most of them passed into law (at least, in red states where they controlled the legislature). Then came Donald Trump.
Trump made xenophobia a core part of his political persona. He rode racism and demagoguery all through his first term in office, stoking the fires whenever a distraction was needed. When he lost the 2020 election, he bundled his racism and xenophobia into the Big Lie he was already ready to deploy: that the election had somehow been stolen from him. It was rigged. There was massive election fraud and voter fraud, and that's the only reason he hadn't won.
Republican politicians (most of them) felt they had no choice, and backed up Trump's Big Lie to the hilt. By doing so, they helped fan the flames of resentment among Trump's base. Which they now are attempting to use as an excuse to suppress the vote even further: "Many people question the integrity of our election process, so obviously we need to fix it." This is ridiculous, since the only reason so many people are questioning anything is that Trump and the Republicans lied to them about it. There never was any evidence. There never were any facts to support their conspiratorial claims. The fraud they decried just did not exist and never has.
But that hasn't mattered to them. Instead, it has sparked an absolute frenzy of new voter suppression attempts. In numbers you've probably already heard by now, Republicans have introduced over 250 bills in a whopping 43 state legislatures to make it harder and harder for people to vote. In the 21st century. When it should be getting easier, not harder.
We now have the evidence for what happens when you make voting easier. Last year -- even in the midst of a deadly pandemic -- the voter participation rate was the highest it has been in a century. Due to the pandemic, most states instituted emergency measures which made voting much easier for all. And the voters responded by voting in record numbers. Because it was easier to do so.
That is what the Republicans are so scared of. People voting. More people voting because it is easier. It terrifies them, which is why the backlash is so pronounced and so egregious. They decided to use the circular logic that since their voters are questioning voting integrity because of the Big Lie, there is simply no better time to hustle through as many restrictions as possible. And sometimes they're even caught being honest about what they're up to, as this recent quote from an Arizona Republican politician proves:
Got that? Everybody shouldn't be voting. That's the Republican position in a nutshell. Only the votes from their voters should count.
This overreach, however, has now made the backlash on the other side just as fierce. Because Democrats are not going to take this one lying down. They are fighting back with the heaviest artillery possible, they are proposing sweeping changes to how the federal government and the states interact when it comes to voting, and they seemingly are not going to take "no" for an answer. This could even be the issue that (at least slightly) gets rid of the Senate filibuster -- that's how important it is, now.
And as we said, Democrats are pretty solidly united and pretty determined that the time is now to end all this dangerous GOP nonsense at the state level -- forever. Two voters' rights bills have already made it through the House: the "For The People Act" and a revival of the Voting Rights Act posthumously named for Civil Rights icon John Lewis. If both were to be signed into law, it would be the biggest change in American elections since 18-year-olds got the right to vote. It may in fact wind up being the biggest institutional change in American elections since Reconstruction.
And for once, Democrats are not only fighting back, they are fighting back with foundational changes to the system which would prevent state-level Republicans from systematically disenfranchising millions of voters they didn't like.
Even more astonishingly, so far it seems to be working. The media has taken note. Late-night comics are talking about it. Democrats are all singing from the same talking-point songbook. The mere fact that most readers will have already recognized the figure "over 250 new laws in 43 states" proves that this issue has broken through into the American political consciousness in a way it simply has not, previously.
Which means that maybe -- just maybe, mind you -- at least some of it will come to pass. And we mean "come to pass" literally -- get passed by the Senate and arrive on Joe Biden's desk for the first time. If this does happen, both it and the American Rescue Plan will indeed cement Biden's legacy as the most transformational president since Lyndon B. Johnson on the issues of poverty and voting rights. That's how big a deal this could be.
In fact, this could be such a big deal it's all we're going to focus on in this week's introduction. This is going to be historic, no matter what happens, so Democrats need to push the issue as much as they can over the next few months. And so far, we have to say, they've been doing a pretty good job of doing so.
We've got a number of Honorable Mention awards to hand out this week before we get to the main presentation.
President Joe Biden deserves credit for two things this week: reaching his stated goal of delivering 100 million vaccine shots in his first hundred days in office -- on Day 58. That's pretty impressive, you've got to admit.
Biden also deserves credit for launching his "Help Is Here" tour to inform the public (especially in swing states) of all the good things contained within the American Rescue Plan law. It's not just the $1,400 checks, which not only Biden but his entire administration have been doing their best to inform the public about.
Bernie Sanders also deserves some credit for a rhetorical question he asked during a hearing. Rhetorically, since Jeff Bezos declined the invitation to show up. Bernie asked Bezos (in absentia): "Mr. Bezos, you are worth $182 billion... you're the wealthiest person in the world. Why are you doing everything in your power to stop your workers in Bessemer, Alabama, from joining a union?" Good question, Bernie. Wish he had been there to answer that one.
Our final two Honorable Mention awards go to Representatives Grace Meng and Ted Lieu. The House held a hearing this week on the growing problem of violence against Asian-Americans (which, please note, was planned before the horrific shootings in Atlanta). Republican Chip Roy tried to hijack the hearing and began airing his views of all sorts of idiocy unrelated to the subject at hand, and both Meng and Lieu schooled him on just how offensive his remarks were.
Here are some of Roy's comments (note: what follows was taken from multiple media sources, so we are not certain the quotes are in the right order):
. . .
We shouldn't be worried about having committee members of Congress policing our rhetoric because some evildoers do engage in some evil activity as has occurred in Atlanta, Georgia. Because when we start policing free speech, we're doing the very thing that we're condemning when you condemn what the Chinese Communist Party does to their country. Who decides what is hate? Who decides what kind of speech deserves policing?... I think the Chinese Communist Party, running the country of China, I think they're the bad guys.
. . .
We believe in justice. There's old sayings in Texas about find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak tree. You know, we take justice very seriously, and we ought to do that. Round up the bad guys. That's what we believe.
So Roy took the opportunity of a hearing on violence against Asian-Americans to... threaten to raise a posse and hang some members of the Chinese Communist Party? It's hard to tell, really, what passes for a train of thought in his head.
Representative Meng's reaction has been the most prominently featured, because of how emotional she got in her attempt to explain why Roy's comments are so counterproductive (as she chastises him directly):
Representative Lieu was just as outraged, but his emotions took a different tack (Lieu served in the Air Force):
Democrats in general are doing a much better job at regaining their sense of moral outrage and righteousness, and these two examples shone through this week. Confront racism directly, and immediately!
Which leads us to our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. Expressing moral righteousness is second nature to one of Georgia's new senators. Raphael Warnock excels in this regard, since he is also the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. You may recognize the name of this church. It has had five senior pastors since its founding. One of them was the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. Those are the shoes Warnock has already been filling, before he even got to the Senate.
Warnock gave his first-ever floor speech this week, and it was one for the history books. It's only a little over 20 minutes long, and we strongly encourage everyone to watch the whole video, because it is well worth your time.
Warnock rose to speak in favor of the two voting-rights bills the House has passed and the Senate is awaiting action on. He made the case for both of them, and pretty much dared Republicans to come up with a reason not to support it. He pointed out the last time the Voting Rights Act was updated, during George W. Bush's time in office, the vote in the Senate was 98 to zero. And he did not mince his words at all:
This is Jim Crow in new clothes.
He then detailed what is in the two bills and explained why Democrats needed to jettison the filibuster, if that's what it was going to take to get them passed:
It is a contradiction to say we must protect minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights in the society.
Nobody can make a moral high-road case like a preacher, to state the blindingly obvious. Indeed, when he finished speaking, he received an incredibly-rare standing ovation.
For his debut speech on the Senate floor, we hereby award this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week to Raphael Warnock. We fully expect him to emerge as one of the prime movers behind the effort to get these two bills passed.
Or, to put it another way: Ladies and gentlemen, we are watching a new political Civil Rights icon take his place in the pantheon, in real time.
[Congratulate Senator Raphael Warnock on his Senate contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]
Before we get to the main award, we have one personally-distasteful (Dis-)Honorable Mention award, for our very own Senator Dianne Feinstein -- for sticking her oar in just to muddy the waters a little more.
This week, she apparently threw in her lot with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, by saying she is "hesitant" about voting to get rid of the filibuster. We've been saying for a very long time that DiFi simply does not represent the voters in her state very well at all, and this is just another prime example of why we feel this way. C'mon, DiFi, it's time to retire. Pretty please?
Sigh.
We have to say, we are handing out the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week on short notice. Plus, the source is The Daily Beast, so we're a little skeptical about what precisely is going on.
Even so, if the facts do prove to be true, then President Joe Biden deserves this week's MDDOTW, for letting his inner drug warrior out a little too much. Here's the story:
The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states -- and the District of Columbia -- where cannabis is legal. Sources familiar with the matter also said a number of young staffers were either put on probation or canned because they revealed past marijuana use in an official document they filled out as part of the lengthy background check for a position in the Biden White House.
In some cases, staffers were informally told by transition higher-ups ahead of formally joining the administration that they would likely overlook some past marijuana use, only to be asked later to resign.
"There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers -- rather, ex-staffers," one former White House staffer affected by the policy told The Daily Beast. "I was asked to resign."
"Nothing was ever explained" on the calls, they added, which were led by White House Director of Management and Administration Anne Filipic. "The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained."
The White House claims "only five" people were actually fired. But they haven't admitted how many didn't get offered the job in the first place, either.
It would have been one thing if this had just happened. But to have it happen after being told (essentially) that it wouldn't is more than just a little disappointing. The world has changed. The War On Weed barely even exists anymore. Tens of millions of Americans can go buy marijuana down at the local store, as easy as they'd buy a six-pack of beer. And yet people are still getting fired for past use, even in states where it was legal at the time.
Now, Biden himself likely didn't have anything to do with these personnel decisions, to be fair. But also to be fair, he could have. Deciding who gets what security clearance is ultimately the job of the president. Donald Trump handed top secret clearances out like candy to members of his family and his henchmen who couldn't clear the normal process. So Biden could have overruled these decisions -- but didn't.
So, as things stand (who knows whether media attention will cause an abrupt change in policy?), we have to hand this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week to Joe Biden. C'mon, Joe, the days of "Just say no" are long over. You can do better than this.
[Contact President Joe Biden on the White House contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]
Volume 610 (3/19/21)
OK, we didn't know where else to put this, so we have an anniversary to celebrate and a very hard question for Joe Biden: Where is our promised new First Cat?
Hrrmph. We've had lots of news about Biden's doggies, but where is the newly-adopted cat that Joe promised Dr. Jill on the campaign trail? We were reminded of this glaring lack because a reader reminded us that 27 years ago on this very day, the following photo of the White House press briefing room's podium ran in the media -- which was quite possibly the best First Cat photo ever taken.
"You there, in the back... you have a question?"
You're welcome.
Socks Clinton will live forever in that photo.
OK, on to new business. Our talking points are a rather mixed bag this week, but we saved an amusing one to end on. Enjoy, and use responsibly, as always.
Way to go, Joe
I have no idea who came up with this line, but it's fantastic. Joe Biden started using it last weekend, before his Help Is Here tour even kicked off, and it's one of those political slogans like "A chicken in every pot" that will be remembered long after the specifics of the American Rescue Plan package have been forgotten. That's our guess, anyway. It's short, it's sweet, and it's to the point. Here is Biden, explaining the main benefits of his first big legislative victory, in a slogan that could easily fit on a bumpersticker:
Jim Crow 2.0
With all due deference to Raphael Warnock's "Jim Crow in new clothes," we think this one is even snappier. Plus, it even rhymes!
"The Republican Party is now engaged in a massive effort to make it harder for everyone -- Democrats in particular -- to cast their ballot in every election. I've taken to calling this 'Jim Crow 2.0,' because that's precisely what it is. In over four-fifths of the state legislatures, Republicans have filed bills that they say are to prevent voter fraud, but are really just naked attempts at preventing as many people of color from voting as possible. In Georgia, they want to limit early voting on Sundays. Why? What is so special about Sundays? Do they actually think more voter fraud happens on this one day of the week? Or could it be because that's when African-American church congregations have traditionally held their 'souls to the polls' voter drives? How in the world do Republicans explain that one? Or any of their measures -- and there are dozens of them out there -- which limit early voting. How is that supposed to limit voter fraud? Does this non-existent voter fraud only happen when citizens are allowed a certain number of days (or more) to cast their ballot, but when the early voting periods are shorter it somehow magically goes away? How can banning handing a bottle of water to a voter in line to vote change voter fraud in any way, shape, or form? They have no answers, because the truth is painfully obvious. There is no widespread voter fraud, period. It is an excuse, built on Trump's Big Lie, to pass laws making it harder and harder for people to vote. People of color, in particular. Which is why it is nothing short of Jim Crow 2.0. But you know what? The voters have started paying attention, and the Republicans have gotten so radical that they are now affecting their own voters. Jim Crow 2.0 may turn around a bite the Republican Party on the backside, folks. One can only hope."
So, Mitch, what exactly would be different?
Mitch McConnell threw a little hissy fit on the Senate floor this week.
"Mitch McConnell outright threatened Democrats on the Senate floor, should they have the temerity to abolish the filibuster in order to get some things done. He darkly warned that he would then cause 'a completely scorched-earth Senate' which could get nothing done because of Republican intransigence, obstructionism, and willingness to always put party over country. This left me to wonder -- what, exactly, would be different about this scorched-earth Senate from the way Republicans have acted for the past entire decade? As Stephen Colbert so aptly put it, McConnell is threatening: 'if you do this, Mitch McConnell will continue to be Mitch McConnell.' And, seriously, how does Mitch think the public is going to react to his scorched-earth tactics? It will just further cement the impression that Democrats want to get things done, while all Republicans can do is blow everything up."
Spare me, please
Democrats really need to start extracting their pound of political flesh for disgraceful stuff like this.
"This week, 12 Republicans in the House voted against giving Congressional Gold Medals to the brave police forces who were forced to put their lives on the line on January 6, to protect the members of Congress from a literal lynch mob who were shouting 'Hang Mike Pence' as they invaded the United States Capitol. This is disgraceful, and there is no possible explanation for not honoring those who were defending all of Congress from murder and mayhem. But that's the Republican Party these days. I never want to hear a Republican sanctimoniously talk about his or her support for law and order or the police ever again unless they preface such statements by denouncing these 12 members of their own party. They all should be ashamed of themselves -- if there are any Republicans left who are still capable of feeling shame, that is. I have my doubts."
Also, let's call out the racism
On this one, Democrats are doing a better job of calling a racist a racist.
"A Republican in the Senate this week astonishingly said about the insurrectionists who murdered a federal officer and injured over 100 other cops the following disgusting denial of the truth: 'I knew these were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law.' Seriously, that's how Ron Johnson described a violent armed mob who killed, maimed, and injured over 100 brave cops. And then he heaped some racism on top of this, by stating he wasn't afraid of a mob that wanted to string the vice president up by a rope, but that he would have been scared if it had been Black Lives Matter protesters. When a mob is White, they can do no wrong, in Senator Johnson's mind, but when they're Black, they're guilty before the fact. Once again -- every Republican who ever says anything about supporting the police who hasn't denounced Ron Johnson's racism previously is nothing short of a flaming hypocrite."
Um, no, sorry, we're not going to do that
"A Florida man..."
"One of Florida's senators, Republican Rick Scott, made a rather outlandish plea recently, after the passage of the American Rescue Plan. Because it was a Democratic idea, Scott called on Republican governors everywhere to just refuse all the relief money for their states. In protest of adding to the national debt, or some other idiotic reason. This week, Florida's Republican governor declined to follow Scott's advice. Ron DeSantis replied to Scott: 'It doesn't make any sense.' That's putting it politely. Rick Scott shows how deep the whole 'put party before country' thing goes, these days, among some Republicans. It's not just 'country' in other words, it's now 'put party before my own state.' Remind me again, how do such people keep getting elected?"
Snarky, snarky!
The punditocracy in Washington has been all a-tizzy these past few weeks, because President Joe Biden hasn't given his first official press conference yet. The White House has pointed out that: (1) he has been talking to the press the whole time, in different venues; and (2) he's been kind of busy, you know? But the best response came from Zac Petkanas, a former senior advisor to both Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid. His tweet was priceless, so we had to end on it today.
H: "So we just got $2,800."
W: "And we got a vaccine faster than expected."
H: "Right, and our kids' school just got money to reopen faster."
W: "But I can't shake the feeling that Biden isn't holding enough press conferences."
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
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Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com
