Nationalistic Autocracy by Free Elections

Adolph Hitler was initially elected. So was Nicholas Maduro (Venezuela). Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko makes “free election” claims, with a purported 80% landslide in 2020, but there was more than a bit of ballot-box manipulation. Two decades ago, even Vladimir Putin was elected… and has since made sure that the Russian Constitution eliminated term limits. What do all of these autocrats have in common? Keeping their nation pure, their religion intact with more than a little willingness to slaughter opposition in the name of that pursuit of purity. Belarus survives because it shares that purist pursuit with Russia. Foreigners, particularly Americans, are the evil empire. 

Many even chastise “evil” America that sent its forces, under manifestly false pretenses (remember the “weapons of mass destruction” that were never found), to conquer a nation far, far away from its own borders. Iraq. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as those of this ilk still living claim, was nothing more than self-defense against a NATO threat mounted on its borders. Even within the democratically elected NATO-allied nations, disharmony mounted during the Trump years as he threatened to withdraw from that military alliance, cozied up to dictators across the globe (especially Vladimir Putin), closed US borders and even began erecting a wall, slowly building what Europeans saw as a white nationalist hegemony, pushing free elections aside, in the strongest lurch towards autocracy since the United States was founded.

But Trump wasn’t/isn’t the only isolationist outlier in NATO. Several Eastern bloc nations and Turkey veered toward undemocratic practices, shifting power away from the natural checks and balances of their judiciary to down and out ethnic and racial exclusion. Autocrats firmed their hold… even with support of their electorate. But for the unity that resulted from Russia’s vile invasion of Ukraine, NATO seemed to be on the road to extinction. Putin’s war reversed that trend… fiercely. 

No one personifies that autocratic, nationalist populism, like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (above). In his (and his party’s – Fidesz-KDNP) 12 years in power, Orbán has drifted so far away from the fundamental principles of the European Union (as well as NATO), in which Hungary is a member nation, that the EU has refused to share allocated revenues to which Hungary was otherwise entitled. During his presidency, Trump made no secret of his admiration for Orbán. The Hungarian elected autocrat also made no secret of his utter disdain for Hungarian-American billionaire, George Soros, blamed for the latter’s purported left-wing crusade against Orbán.

Orbán’s many antidemocratic machinations include crushing media critical of his administration, limiting democratic groups from organizing, allowing ethnic Hungarians no longer living there to vote (solidifying his hold), passing severely exclusionary asylum/ immigration rules, reconfiguring both the prosecutorial and judicial arms of government (purging those who did not adhere to his policies), pressing women to have “Hungarian babies” as a sign of patriotism, curbing academic freedom, rejecting minority (especially LGBTQ) rights and hailing Hungarian ethnic and religious values to the exclusion of other faiths and values. 

Orbán has always been close to Vladimir Putin, a relationship that, to this day he still maintains with pride. Although he has criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Orbán is nevertheless an outspoken critic of President Volodymyr Zelensky; the Hungarian PM refuses to allow his border to be used to resupply arms to Ukraine and refuses to participate in NATO sanctions against Russia. The only concession to his membership in NATO alliance has been to take in a significant number of fleeing Ukrainian refugees.

Even as opposing parties formed an awkward coalition to defeat Orbán and his own rightwing coalition, on April 3rd Orbán won his fourth election in a landslide victory by almost a two-to-one majority. Glowing from his victory, Orbán victory speech hailed his coalition’s triumph over the “overwhelming force” of “the left at home, the international left all around, the Brussels bureaucrats [referencing the EU], the Soros empire with all its money, the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president” as proof that “Christian democratic politics, conservative civic politics, and patriotic politics [are] not the past, [but] the future.” 

As other European powers understood that their need for Russian gas and oil was fueling Putin’s war, struggling with how to end that dependence, Orbán just smiled. Putin would always make sure Hungary was well-supplied, and Orbán was not about to change that. For all intents and purposes, the Hungarian people have ceded their democratic prerogatives to Orbán, a happy autocrat with wild popular support… Like Putin? But at least so far, Orbán is not a war criminal.

I’m Peter Dekom, and mouthing a commitment to “democracy” is hardly sufficient to protect true democracy, minority rights and free and fair elections, a lesson that seems to be sliding away from the consciousness of too many Americans.

 

The Enablers of Serious Crime – Republicans?

 

As Americans blame Joe Biden for not managing inflation, even as the vast majority of Americans voice strong support for Ukraine and utter disdain for Putin’s Russia (the true cause of higher prices), we are on the brink of a possible shift of both houses of Congress to Republican control. Voters continue to miss the obvious. What never ceases to amaze me is the obvious imprint of right-wing policies that have encouraged everything from political lawlessness to long sentences in prisons that have become advanced schools of crime within gang-controlled institutions (generating anger that grows with incarceration in dangerous and often-dilapidated prisons) and generating policies expanding the spread of guns (from assault weapons and guns with large magazines to “open carry” and increasingly lax concealed weapons rules) adding encouragement for the use private guns to kill more people… clearly evidenced in statutes like the “stand your ground laws.” See my March 20th Stand Your Ground… and Kill! blog for specifics.

Ah, but if you are rich enough and politically connected, there’s a different legal system for you. Drug cartel kingpins and mega-dealers face prospect of decades in prison. But if you are even bigger purveyor/pusher of severely addicting narcotics, using fraudulent claims to get consumers to use your product, you get fines and exoneration in bankruptcy… but none of your owners/senior managers who made those decisions gets prison time. With phalanxes of lawyers, it often comes down to money, no jail, for the mega-rich, able to play and delay the “system” entirely. Even if tens of thousands of people die from overdoses from your addictive product. Often even if you defraud banks, evade taxes or bilk millions from innocent consumers. For everyone else, the criminal justice system has an explosive capacity to put people behind bars. The party of money and wealth designed the system that way.

We only have 4% of the world’s population, so why do we have 25% of the incarcerated criminals? Why has gun ownership skyrocketed? Virtually as many guns as there are people in the United States. Why has such a large proportion new guns sales been for military grade weapons? Why have Mexican cartels been and continue to be supplied by assault weapons purchased in the United States at gun shows and other “easy access” vendors, and smuggled across the border? So many guns. Why? Technology? Or lax American control of guns, marketing efforts paid handsomely by gunmakers, resulting in a red state proclivity to make gun ownership vastly easier? Accelerated by laws justifying the lethal use of weapons in situations where once, the proper response used to be leaving the scene to avoid unnecessary conflict? Where individuals, carrying assault weapons into clearly dangerous venues and events, engage in provocation, and are exonerated under such laws even after they kill? Where serial killings are now routine, often taking place on school and college campuses, at levels this nation has never seen before.

We know that, in what I will call the “COVID-years,” gun homicides have escalated. Why? David Leonhardt writing for the March 23rd New York Times addresses the causation: “There is no fully satisfying answer, but experts point to several plausible partial explanations. They include: Social isolation and frustration caused by the pandemic. A sense of lawlessness stemming from police violence (like the murder of George Floyd). Police officers’ timidity in response to recent criticism of them. And a rise in gun sales during the pandemic…”

“Many crime experts define a mass shooting as an event in which four or more people are shot. Last weekend [March 18-2], there were a shocking number of them — at least nine — across the U.S… In Norfolk, Va., an argument outside a pizzeria led to a shooting that killed two people, including a 25-year-old newspaper reporter who was a bystander. In the farming community of Dumas, Ark., a gunfight broke out at an annual car show, killing one person and injuring 27. In downtown Austin, Texas, four people suffered gunshot wounds during the final weekend of the SXSW festival.

“The burst of weekend violence continues a trend that began almost two years ago, early in the Covid-19 pandemic, and shows no signs of easing, as my colleagues Tim Arango and Troy Closson report. Murders have risen more than 30 percent since 2019, recent data suggests. They are still far below the levels of the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s but have reached the highest point in more than two decades.” By any metric you choose to apply, to the continuing dismay of the rest of the world, we are a gun-crazy nation with accessible guns at a level that isn’t remotely mirrored in any other nation not involved in an actual war.

According to a May 2020 report from the Violence Policy Center, and based on the “Number of reported justifiable homicides and homicides taken from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) as tabulated by the Violence Policy Center… In 2017, for every justifiable homicide in the United States involving a gun, guns were used in 35 criminal homicides.” That ratio has only gotten worse over the years, as guns have proliferated as noted above. That statistic makes a mockery of that NRA self-defense aphorism, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Define “good guy” and “bad guy” and when one transitions into the other type. 

In the 1970s, when gunmakers realized that without the Vietnam War to generate military gun orders, given the hard-metal endurance of private guns, they were facing economic disaster as gun sales lagged. What to do. They turned to an organization, once predicated on increasing gun safety, to take on a new role to market gun ownership. Handsome pay was on the table. So, the National Rifle Association added a companion for-profit entity to market guns. Their well-funded core philosophy was to convince the public (and the legal system) that the Second Amendment, passed in an era of flintlocks and muskets, was all about ubiquitous American ownership of a vast array of new guns… including high-speed, big magazine, assault weapons. Think NRA executive Wayne LaPierre’s home (above) reflects the original mission of the NRA? New York’s investigation and resulting charges forced the NRA to file bankruptcy due to such excesses, but the damage was already done.

The NRA lobbying/marketing effort was wildly successful, embraced by right-wing America. Until 2008, there had never been a Supreme Court ruling that favored the NRA’s broad interpretation of the Second Amendment. But in 2008, in Heller vs. District of Columbia, Justice Antonin Scalia essentially endorsed the NRA position. Since Heller, serial killings, murders and all other forms of gun crimes have exploded. To understand that transition, just watch the original and remake of Westside Story (photos above), where the presence of a single gun among gangs used to knives, chains and pipes as their weapons of choice in the 1950s, was a shocking development. Today, drug dealers, gang members and various levels of hoodlums consider guns as basic tools of their trade. For those unable to buy the required guns in their big Blue city, a short drive to a nearby red state provides the necessary source of their desired weapons. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and that “law and order” mantle worn by Republicans has produced precisely the opposite result.

A Nation Sits in Intolerant Judgment

 

John 8:7 - So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, 

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Proverbs 17:15 - He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth 

the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.

“It is a sad and scary time,” Dr. Paria Hassouri who specializes in pediatric 

and adolescent care, addressing LGBTQ childrenOne of my most uncomfortable feelings about the American populist evangelical movement seems to be best described these words of hypocrisy: “menu Christians.” While I am sure this descriptive epithet applies to many of those of differing faiths, willing to misinterpret and selectively apply the most sacred teachings of their holiest books, the application of a most distorted Biblical interpretation to American lawmakers and legal system has resulted in some of the most severe polarized politization in our nation’s history. We live in a country that has almost as many guns as people, where homicide by gun is increasingly justified if not encouraged. Yet many fervent evangelicals oppose abortion but cherish guns and the death penalty. The United States was founded in significant part as a nation of tolerance and religious freedom. But because of a bias against cities and in favor of rural agriculture – America was 94% agricultural/rural in 1789 – 30% of the population elects 50% of the Senate.

What this means is that a minority of Americans who adhere to this distorted pattern of Biblical misinterpretation are able, by means of a series of mean-spirited and judgmental litany of intolerant laws in populist states, to repeal “tolerance” from both the Bible and the Constitution, virtually all in states where rural minorities outvote often larger urban constituencies. This reality has led one organization – Freedom House, which applies varying metrics to the laws and practices of individual nations – to determine that the United States has veered so far off its initial path that it simply has lost its way. 

Citing the Freedom House report, Moneywise (11/12/21) summarizes: “Despite the United States' reputation as the freest country in the world, Freedom House gives the U.S. a score of 83/100 — which means the country doesn’t even make the top 50… While Americans enjoy plenty of basic rights, accusations of government corruption and election fraud, growing economic inequality and controversial policies on immigrants and asylum seekers have dropped the country's ranking… Freedom House says gerrymandering and voting restrictions have also impinged on the rights of U.S. citizens.”

This unfortunate path has impacted too many Americans in a most negative way. People of color, for example, struggle against laws intended to minimize their vote and continue embedded patterns of discrimination. When you hear “cancel culture” and stopping “critical race and gender theory,” you know without doubt that you are dealing with bigotry. Racism is still with us despite the cry that it ended in the 1950s and 60s with civil rights legislation and judicial rulings. We KNOW it did not. The latest flurry of this discriminatory trend has focused on the LGBTQ community, particularly children. The notion of gender differences is attributed by such bigots as a matter of choice and not genetics. As pointed out by Tyrone Reason in the March 29th Los Angeles Times:

“Paria Hassouri feels fortunate that her family lives in California and not Texas, where the Republican governor recently issued a directive to investigate parents who seek ‘gender-transitioning procedures’ for their minors… Her 18-year-old daughter, Ava, revealed she was transgender to a teacher five years ago and now identifies as female… ‘If I lived in Texas and supported my daughter when she was in transition,’ Hassouri says, ‘I could be considered a child abuser.’

“Hassouri, a physician who runs the Pediatric and Adolescent Gender Wellness Clinic at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and advocates are alarmed that Republican lawmakers across the U.S. have introduced a record number of bills and regulations purporting to shield young Americans from what they see as undue pressure to identify as gay, lesbian, nonbinary or transgender, or accept those who do.

“With the midterm elections looming, GOP leaders see stoking homophobic and anti-transgender sentiments as way to help the party seize control of Congress in November. Their strategy was on full display at last week’s confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, which saw Republicans accuse the Supreme Court nominee of threatening parental rights as a trustee at a private school that, as Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee claimed, ‘teaches kindergarteners ... that they can choose their gender.’

“State lawmakers have proposed at least 238 discriminatory bills targeting LGBTQ students, athletes and curricula in the first three months of 2022, compared with 41 for the year in 2018, according to an analysis by NBC News based on data from the advocacy group Freedom for All Americans and the American Civil Liberties Union.

“About half of these measures single out transgender students, such as two bills passed by the Arizona Legislature on Thursday, and one of three anti-LGBTQ bills Oklahoma senators approved the same day… Instead of helping the students who need support the most, [Tenika Jackson, a clinical psychologist who counsels LGBTQ youth and their families] and other experts say, the bills under consideration, coupled with the politically charged cultural debates they’ve sparked, only add to the isolation and fear children cope with as they struggle to accept and love who they are…. ‘It’s hard for us to change that messaging in the therapy room when they’re getting that message every day at school,’ Jackson says.”

Right-wing populist Florida Governor Ron DeSantis just signed the popularly recognized “don’t say gay” law, a statute that ostensibly bans discussions or mention of gender disparity in grades K thru 3, which also applies to any level of public instruction to “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students,” a most ambiguous statement. Bigotry under the guise of “parental rights,” even though parents of school-aged children overwhelmingly find no need for this restrictive legislation. See my recent Red States Tell You Teachers are Radicalizing Our Kids blog for the underlying statistics. What have we become? Rule by a religious minority literally changing and repressing majority voters?

I’m Peter Dekom, and even as we support Ukraine’s battle to maintain its democracy, we watch serial laws and judicial rulings slowly repealing our own most fundamental personal democratic rights.

Owning the List, Bothering the Right People

 

“Owning the List,” Bothering the Right People

The GOP strategy for the next two elections?

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis still comes in a distant second in GOP polling for the 2024 primary nod to be the Republican candidate for president. 18.5% behind Trump’s 50.6%, rising to first place (28%) among likely competitors if Trump does not run. Numbers based on an Election Central averaging of national poll as of late March. We are facing a rather increasingly successful shift by the GOP away from bread-and-butter issues (like jobs, healthcare, childcare, COVID protection, etc.), their traditional anti-tax, and anti-regulation supply side mantra. 

They are trying to neutralize Biden on Putin’s war by agreeing with him, focusing on what they are calling individual rights: From antivaxxers to right to lifers but most importantly and successfully, arguing for direct parental control over public school curricula. The big culture war issue. Most of the GOP message is predicated on fabrication of an issue that simple does not exist. See my recent Red States Tell You Teachers are Radicalizing Our Kids blog for statistical proof of exactly how fabricated this conflict really is.

Effectively, the GOP is courting independents – that aspect of the voting bloc that decides elections – with what the Dems call a “racist and biased” culture, anti-CRT war and what the GOP calls parental rights to control their children’s education and let a COVID-weary public revel under the notion free choice on what is put into their bodies without government rules and pressures… oh, unless free choice over one’s body involves abortion. The GOP is trying to force Dems into that culture war debate, labeling anything Dems want on the economic front as inflationary “creeping socialism,” a moniker that still terrifies older voters, even as the words are misused. They point to the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party as proof of that leftist lean. Abstract social values that generally don’t really benefit “most of us” with tangible “life improvements,” often decried as elitist priorities out of touch with ordinary people.

Meanwhile, as pointed out in my recent The Democrat’s Achilles Heel: An American Criminal Justice System that Still Fails African Americans blog, the Dems are also on the verge of losing that “people of color” constituency which is essential for them to win elections. If the Dems fail to address hard economic realities for middle- and lower-class Americans, playing into GOP hands to fight the culture war instead. Polls are showing that a slight majority of Americans back bills limiting what can be taught in public school classrooms rising to over 60% regarding limiting the language regarding sexual orientation and gender identity in K-3 classrooms. This concept is rapidly gaining traction as Republicans have found the right words to resonate with so many voters.

Ron DeSantis is even to the right of Donald Trump on culture wars, but he does not suffer from Trump’s proclivity to shoot from the hip, prey on anger at his rallies, or rely on lies and vitriol to cause constant destabilizing chaos… nor has he ever complemented a very hated Vladimir Putin. Trump still holds sway over the entire GOP, literally threatening Republicans who do not support his every whim that he will campaign for their GOP primary opponents. But that control is beginning to show evidence of slipping. The presidential election is more than two-and-half years away, and that is a lot of time for change. DeSantis is rising fast.

Having further marginalized minority voters, DeSantis and his crew have just unrolled a litany of fabricated right-wing mythology to solve non-existent but catchy political issues. Yet his slogan driven campaign has resulted in the number of Florida Republicans edging out Dems by 2%. “The Parental Rights in Education measure in line for DeSantis’s signature [he signed], which critics are calling the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill, would ban teachers from leading lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade — which isn’t happening, — and in any grade if it’s deemed developmentally inappropriate by parents. Parents would be able to sue schools over the issue… But the bill is vague enough that it could discourage teachers from commenting, for example, on a student’s two dads or a boy’s preference for dresses for fear that commenting could be interpreted as classroom instruction. LGBTQ students protested that the bill seeks to make them invisible.

“The other bills that DeSantis [signed, include] the Individual Freedom bill. Teachers and [college] professors will have to tiptoe around discussions about race and the country’s racial history to avoid prompting ‘anguish’ in White students. Employers will also have to tread carefully when training or hiring workers. Books in schools will be easier for activists to ban. And women will have less time to contemplate an abortion.

“State Sen. Gary Farmer, a Democrat, summed it up as the legislature raced to finish. He said Republicans were pursuing a ‘4H agenda’ — ‘hurtful, harmful, hateful and homophobic.’” NBC News, March 8th. Truth? Who cares? Certainly not Florida legislators. Maybe that’s why Florida, the third most populous state in the union, doesn’t have a single college or university listed in the top 25 such institutions (US News & World Report 2022).

For Americans, tired of Trump’s turmoil and his obsession with the 2020 election, DeSantis is trying to shift the party towards a future-looking candidate who looks like Trump without that massive negative baggage. He has set a culture war trap, which he hopes will draw Democratic focus in the coming campaigns. If the Dems are smart, which they often strangely avoid, they would be well-advised to move meat-and-potato issues to the fore. 

The Dems should showcase Biden’s explosive job creation, slowing of the COVID pandemic after a GOP fumble, the rise in overall pay rates, the infrastructure bill that did pass (climate change friendly, job creating economic benefit for us all) and the proposed further infrastructure enhancement that should pass, blame Putin for inflation (noting that he is admired by Mr. Trump) and speak about the executive orders Biden really needs to start signing to promote his agenda. A few more efforts to raise the bar on African American voting rights and their treatment in the criminal justice system with a strong mention of nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court become a niched necessity when addressing that constituency.  Supporting cheaper childcare and championing abortion rights need to cast the Dems, versus the GOP, as the “woman-friendly” party.

Trump won fans by baiting and bothering the right people, often “liberal mainstream media,” but he just didn’t know when to stop or when to stop snarling and resorting to what most people believe to be over-the-top personal insults. DeSantis attacks the same “enemies,” but chooses his words much more carefully. Clearly, he wants to own that checklist of populist values, with the culture wars, anti-CRT (critical race theory), individual liberty not to follow medical precautions, and stopping “creeping socialism” in favor of God-fearing values topping the list. Note the nebulous, loose and often undefined issues that offer very little in the way of specificity. Meat-and-potatoes Dems?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder why the “it’s the economy, stupid!” maximum keeps slipping into the background when it so essential to winning elections.

Red States Tell You Teachers are Radicalizing Our Kids

 Gap Between Parent and Non-Parent Perceptions 

                      of School Quality Widens

% of Texas public school parents and % 

non-parents who give A or B grades for

local public schools

Charles Butt Foundation (Texas Public Opinion Research)

Red States Tell You Teachers are Radicalizing Our Kids

But What Do Parents with School-Age Children Really Believe?

To illustrate how teaching “radical” and inappropriate materials in public schools has become simply a right-wing political statement (as opposed to a bona fide championing of parents’ rights over their children’s public school curricula), it is important to look at what parents actually believe about their public schools and the teachers and what polled aggregations of voters believe, where non-parents are included in the samples. So let’s look at a powerful anti-CRT state, Texas, that has been proselytizing how children are being indoctrinated and misled in their schools. It is important to note the disparity between the opinions of those parents with school-age children compared to the overall general public without reference to parenthood. 

A Gallup Poll from August 2021 noted that “73% of parents of school-aged children say they are satisfied with the quality of education their oldest child is receiving. Twenty-eight percent of parents are ‘completely’ and 45% ‘somewhat’ satisfied, which is essentially unchanged from one year ago when satisfaction fell after the pandemic forced schools to close to in-person instruction…

“Gallup has also tracked Americans' satisfaction with the quality of K-12 education, generally, in the U.S. annually since 1999. For the past two years, U.S. adults were about as likely to say they were satisfied as dissatisfied with the quality of U.S. K-12 education, however the public now tilts more dissatisfied (54%) than satisfied (46%).” From Gallup. Now for a look at a super-red state, Texas:

“The share of public school parents giving their local public schools an A or B grade is up 12 percentage points in two years to 68 percent in the latest statewide survey on [Texas] public education by the Charles Butt Foundation [see below]. In contrast with the increase among parents, there’s a decline in school ratings among those without a child currently enrolled in K-12 schools. Forty-eight percent of non-parents now give their local public schools As and Bs, versus 56 percent a year ago. That makes for a 20-point gap between parents and non-parents in their ratings of the state’s public schools. 

“About three-quarters of public school parents also report that their child has a very or somewhat strong sense of belonging at school. And if other options were available, eight in 10 would choose to keep their child in their current school rather than send them to a different one.

“On teachers, public school parents also are now more likely than Texans overall to give A or B grades to the public school teachers in their community; 76 percent do so. And they’re slightly more apt than all Texans to say they’d like a child of theirs to have a career as a public school teacher. These are shifts from the past two years, when views among parents and non-parents were similar.

“Other results find substantial confidence in teachers. More Texans trust teachers to make decisions in the best interest of public school students than trust principals, local school boards, district administrators, or state elected officials. Seventy-six percent of Texans trust teachers to assess and monitor students’ academic progress; 67 percent, to develop and choose curriculum; and 65 percent, to support students’ self-management, interpersonal skills and decision-making skills.” Results from a Texas Poll taken by the Charles Butt Foundation (Public Opinion Research) from 9/24/21 thru 10/4/21. 

But if you listen to the rantings of Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, Texas school children are living in a hotbed of radical teachers indoctrinating the young with racial lies, Marxist propaganda and explicit sexual discussions… and parents are up in arms against this diabolical – if non-existent – trend. The same Governor who has signed legislation that makes it more difficult for minorities to vote (for example, 40% of the recently disqualified ballots in liberal Houston belonged to Black voters), moved enforcement of his evangelical base’s demand to end abortions to the general public now allowed to file individual lawsuits with minimum recoveries set for a victory with a very low threshold of proof, with parallel anti-CRT laws based on the that purported radicalization going on in public schools.

If teaching radical and un-American CRT lessons were a truly deep parental concern, that concern would be reflected in a radical rise in parental criticism of and faith in public schools and their teachers, certainly and clearly in the red states where statutes, banning CRT in one form or another, are being passed.  But parents’ feelings about their public schools have remained constant or risen, even in super-red state Texas. The only people that radical right-wing politicians have convinced of the rise of CRT are folks without school aged kids. Culture wars and CRT are political issues that really were not on anyone’s minds… and still have no real traction with parents. Pretty much, these unscrupulous politicians need causes to raise their electability, even if they have to fabricate the issues and further bring disunity and polarization to America.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while I think we should throw these manipulative bastards out of office in the next election, through voter manipulation and gerrymandering, these same politicians’ right-wing constituency has been given relatively enhanced power at the ballot box.

Voter Manipulation for Fun and Prophet

 

“Florida has a grotesque history of racial discrimination… For the past 20 years, 

the majority in the Florida Legislature has attacked the voting rights of its Black constituents.”

Federal District Court Judge U.S. District Judge Mark Walker striking down a Florida voter restriction law

“It’s just a matter of how quickly it’s going to get reversed.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in response

After the Supreme Court eviscerated key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (amended as recently as 2008) in 2013 – striking down as archaic provisions governing specified states with clear histories of racial voting restrictions – many clung to the hope that the remaining Section 2 of that act, which outlawed voter discrimination, would still protect minority voters from restrictive legislation. Indeed, every state that was covered in the expunged section of the Voting Rights Act immediately reenacted voting restrictions. 

But last year, in Brnovich, Attorney General of Arizona vs Democratic National Committee, the Supreme Court upheld an Arizona voting restriction the resulted in de facto discrimination against minorities, holding that if the law did not, in clear language on its face posit a direct discriminatory directive, the Court would not intervene. As noted by NBC News on July 1, 2021: “‘This significantly dilutes the Voting Rights Act,’ said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine. ‘Minority groups will now have to meet a much higher standard beyond showing that a change presents a burden to voting. It puts a thumb on the scale for the states.’” Was Section 2 effectively dead as well?

Red states everywhere delighted, some even expanding their initial contractions of voting rights by even further restrictions. For example, Georgia House Bill 1464 is wending its way through the legislature and possibly up to a willing governor’s signature. “The measure, earlier passed by the House, would let the Georgia Bureau of Investigation look into election fraud without an invitation from other officials, would create extensive new chain-of-custody requirements for handling ballots, would allow only the State Election Board to accept private donations for election administration and would let people physically inspect paper ballots after an election…

“The new bill has raised alarms among voting rights groups still angry over last year’s restrictive voting law, which reduced the time to request an absentee ballot, stripped power from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and severely rolled back the pandemic-driven expansion of absentee ballot drop boxes. But critics of Georgia elections have asked the committee to add further rules aimed at preventing what they believe is widespread fraud. Investigations and recounts after the 2020 election found no significant fraud.

“One target of officials’ ire was a proposed requirement to count blank pieces of ballot paper, which officials said would provide no security boost. Joel Natt, the deputy chairman of the Forsyth County election board, showed off a ream of paper, and said his county would have to perform three separate checks on each package, including trying to count all 500 sheets and checking the weight of the paper.” Jeff Amy writing for the March 29th Associated Press. 

As noted in the above opening quotes, the battleground on voter restrictions has refocused on Florida, where voting stations in minority neighborhoods are notoriously scarce, and new voting hours target reducing voting hours when minorities normally attend church services. Long lines, distant voting stations (from minority communities) during restricted voting hours and fewer means of voting are the natural result of those Florida laws. But…

“U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee blocked the state from enforcing provisions aimed at reducing the use of drop boxes for ballots, making it more difficult for third-party organizations to collect voter registration forms, and banning groups from offering food, water and other aid to people waiting in line to vote… Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running for reelection and is also considered a top Republican contender for the 2024 presidential election, signed the bill into law last year.

“The legislation is among several sweeping voting restrictions passed by Republican-controlled states following Republican former President Donald Trump's baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him… In a 288-page opinion that followed a trial early this year, Walker said the legislation, known as Senate Bill 90, built upon two decades of discriminatory voting laws from the Florida legislature aimed at strengthening Republican power.” Joseph Ax, Reuters April 1st.Walker also imposed a ten-year prior judicial approval requirement on any further Florida attempts to add additional or replacement voter restrictions. 

Republicans, aware of the Supreme Court aversion to ruling against both voting restrictions and gerrymandering, scoffed: “[Republican] Senate President Wilton Simpson called the ruling ‘highly unprofessional, inaccurate and unbecoming of an officer of the court.’… The Republican speaker of the state House of Representatives, Chris Sprowls, criticized Walker for making ‘unsupported inferences’ and characterized the opinion as ‘a predetermined outcome in search of an overlong and poorly reasoned rationale.” Reuters. Experts concur with DeSantis that the ruling faces a high probability of being reversed.

This tsunami of voter manipulation in red states is obvious, but smaller ripples exist in blue states too: “A judge struck down New York’s new congressional and legislative maps on Thursday [3/31] as an illegal gerrymander, dealing a setback to Democrats who were expected to benefit heavily from the new political lines.

“In a ruling, State Supreme Court [actually a trial court with a fancy name] Judge Patrick McAllister in Steuben County ordered state lawmakers to draw new lines within the next 12 days. If they are unable to submit new maps by April 11, ‘the court will retain a neutral expert at State expense to prepare said maps.’” The Hill, March 31st. Our Constitution, as applied by the US Supreme Court, continues to offer less and less protection for one of democracy’s most fundamental rights: voting.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while we praise Ukraine, sending aid by the billions, in its defense of democracy, we seem to be willing to let our own democratic rights fade slowly into the sunset.