Start The Steal
May 7, 2021 12:47 PM Subscribe
Start The Steal
From the article:
Observers of Maricopa County recount report procedural problems
The obvious goal of the Arizona recount: Injecting more doubt into the 2020 results
From the article:
Usually audits and recounts are conducted with teams of people from different parties to ensure fairness, but most observers are Republicans, and Cyber Ninjas has not made clear the arrangements for reviewing ballots. Some of the tables where counting is occurring aren’t being watched at all. Cyber Ninjas has required observers to sign a nondisclosure agreement, which defeats the purpose of having observers present.See also
One official told a reporter this week that auditors are examining ballots for bamboo fibers, apparently because of a baseless conspiracy theory about China flying in 40,000 fake ballots. Ken Bennett, a former Arizona secretary of state working with the state Senate, also told the pro-Trump blog Gateway Pundit that workers were using UV lights to examine ballots for watermarks, apparently a nod to a QAnon theory about watermarked fraudulent ballots. (What sort of fraudster watermarks their own misdeeds?)
Observers of Maricopa County recount report procedural problems
The obvious goal of the Arizona recount: Injecting more doubt into the 2020 results
These things should not be discussed because it is counterproductive. The election is over. Letting these processes happening in backwater areas of the country grab the limelight serves the denialists cause.
posted by karuna at 12:57 PM on May 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by karuna at 12:57 PM on May 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
Ah yes, bamboo fibers. They would've gotten away from it, but they just HAD to use cheap panda labor. China, when will you learn?
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:00 PM on May 7, 2021 [30 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:00 PM on May 7, 2021 [30 favorites]
The real question is if the GOP takes Congress in 2022, as it seems they will, would they ratify the 2024 elections if a Democrat wins? My guess is it’s 50-50.
posted by argybarg at 1:00 PM on May 7, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by argybarg at 1:00 PM on May 7, 2021 [19 favorites]
argybarg, the only assumption I feel confident in is that the GOP (mostly) loves money above all else. Ending American democracy fully seems like it would be bad for the bottom line. They love living in that nebulous area where they have constant grievances though.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:04 PM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:04 PM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
karuna: "These things should not be discussed because it is counterproductive. The election is over. Letting these processes happening in backwater areas of the country grab the limelight serves the denialists cause."
1. Phoenix AZ is not a backwater.
2. Whether progressives discuss it or not, you can bet your ass that trumpistas will. It is good to keep an eye on their shenanigans.
3. These Cyber Ninja clowns are probably permanently defacing these ballots.
4. There is a bigger, Russian-inspired play going on here. It is not just to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. It is to cast doubt on the idea that democracy can work at all.
posted by adamrice at 1:10 PM on May 7, 2021 [107 favorites]
1. Phoenix AZ is not a backwater.
2. Whether progressives discuss it or not, you can bet your ass that trumpistas will. It is good to keep an eye on their shenanigans.
3. These Cyber Ninja clowns are probably permanently defacing these ballots.
4. There is a bigger, Russian-inspired play going on here. It is not just to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. It is to cast doubt on the idea that democracy can work at all.
posted by adamrice at 1:10 PM on May 7, 2021 [107 favorites]
The likely endgame, at least for AZ, is that the Republican-controlled state lege will use the results of this fraudit as the basis for passing voter restriction laws like other states, including possibly taking over the vote certification directly. Which means cementing Republican rule in AZ for at least another generation (not to mention providing them a reliable pipeline to federal office, as well).
posted by darkstar at 1:12 PM on May 7, 2021 [22 favorites]
posted by darkstar at 1:12 PM on May 7, 2021 [22 favorites]
The real question is if the GOP takes Congress in 2022, as it seems they will, would they ratify the 2024 elections if a Democrat wins?
I'm more pessimistic. I think the second they get in they will declare Trump God Emperor.
posted by benzenedream at 1:34 PM on May 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
I'm more pessimistic. I think the second they get in they will declare Trump God Emperor.
posted by benzenedream at 1:34 PM on May 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
The newly-elected (in 2024) Congress takes office January 3 and counts the votes January 6, not the 2022 guys.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:38 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:38 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
This shit deeply depresses the hell out of me. It’s like I’m watching my country dissolve into a fascist hellscape and there’s not a single fucking thing I can do to stop it. How can so damn many people utterly lose their minds like this yet actually believe they’re defending democracy, not destroying it?
More and more I just want to wander off into the woods.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:46 PM on May 7, 2021 [55 favorites]
More and more I just want to wander off into the woods.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:46 PM on May 7, 2021 [55 favorites]
> It’s like I’m watching my country dissolve
It's not like that. It is that.
posted by glonous keming at 1:57 PM on May 7, 2021 [35 favorites]
It's not like that. It is that.
posted by glonous keming at 1:57 PM on May 7, 2021 [35 favorites]
Remind me, even if Biden lost AZ because of "panda fraud" or some other fake shenanigan, he'd still be POTUS, no?
posted by chavenet at 1:58 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 1:58 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
There may be a federal investigation.
Justice Department: Arizona Senate Audit, Recount May Violate Federal Law
posted by sammyo at 2:00 PM on May 7, 2021 [23 favorites]
Justice Department: Arizona Senate Audit, Recount May Violate Federal Law
posted by sammyo at 2:00 PM on May 7, 2021 [23 favorites]
Ending American democracy fully seems like it would be bad for the bottom line.
This. If a GOP-led congress refuses to carry out the law in the electoral vote count, you have a constitutional crisis that would lead to a level of social and economic uncertainty that corporations would find unacceptable.
I think you'd find out pretty quickly how much power corporate boards have to sway politicians who think they call the shots independently.
posted by gimonca at 2:02 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
This. If a GOP-led congress refuses to carry out the law in the electoral vote count, you have a constitutional crisis that would lead to a level of social and economic uncertainty that corporations would find unacceptable.
I think you'd find out pretty quickly how much power corporate boards have to sway politicians who think they call the shots independently.
posted by gimonca at 2:02 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
The GOP needs to spend a long time in the political wilderness but our system seems destined to throw them back into majorities in the House and Senate in 2022 regardless of their elected officials conduct. It terrifies me.
posted by interogative mood at 2:05 PM on May 7, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 2:05 PM on May 7, 2021 [9 favorites]
Remind me, even if Biden lost AZ because of "panda fraud" or some other fake shenanigan, he'd still be POTUS, no?
Two things are at work here. The first is to overturn the election of Arizona’s Democratic Senators, and flip the Senate back into Republican hands, killing any chance of Biden to do anything for the rest of his term.
The second thing is, if this fraudulent recount is actually accepted and allowed to stand, you will immediately see Republicans in Georgia (and any other state which Biden won but has a Republican legislature) force the same bullshit recount there, possibly overturning the Democratic Senate wins there.
I’m pretty sure, too, that if both AZ and GA manage to flip their electoral votes to Trump, he can claim the win. Of course, such an event will end up before SCOTUS, and.........oh......right...we’re so fucked.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:07 PM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
Two things are at work here. The first is to overturn the election of Arizona’s Democratic Senators, and flip the Senate back into Republican hands, killing any chance of Biden to do anything for the rest of his term.
The second thing is, if this fraudulent recount is actually accepted and allowed to stand, you will immediately see Republicans in Georgia (and any other state which Biden won but has a Republican legislature) force the same bullshit recount there, possibly overturning the Democratic Senate wins there.
I’m pretty sure, too, that if both AZ and GA manage to flip their electoral votes to Trump, he can claim the win. Of course, such an event will end up before SCOTUS, and.........oh......right...we’re so fucked.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:07 PM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday expressed concerns that a controversial audit and recount of the November election in Arizona's Maricopa County may be out of compliance with federal laws.
Hey NPR, why not call a crime a crime?
posted by chavenet at 2:10 PM on May 7, 2021 [25 favorites]
Hey NPR, why not call a crime a crime?
posted by chavenet at 2:10 PM on May 7, 2021 [25 favorites]
I’m 47, and I doubt that I will ever again *not* be terrified (from across the border) by the political situation in the United States.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:12 PM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:12 PM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
This "recount" needs to be just called "continued election fraud designed to further a fictional narrative".
posted by benzenedream at 2:13 PM on May 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 2:13 PM on May 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
There is no mechanism for Georgia or Arizona to send updated electoral votes for Trump. They already voted and those voted were recorded as defined by statute and the Constitution. They also can’t change their Senators. Those elections were certified and accepted by the Senate and those people remain in office until their term ends.
posted by interogative mood at 2:16 PM on May 7, 2021 [35 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 2:16 PM on May 7, 2021 [35 favorites]
To be clear, the Senate has the sole power to “be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members,” so Kelly and Sinema aren’t going anywhere until at least January 2023.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:16 PM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:16 PM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
Ending American democracy fully seems like it would be bad for the bottom line.
I agree with that. But until recently the GOP had two main constituencies: big business and racists. They chose to dump the former to placate the latter. The GOP establishment thought they could harness the nationalist/racist beast and use it for their ends. But the beast is now out of control.
For an example, see Liz Cheney. She was elected to Congress in 2016, promising to cut taxes and regulation, expand America’s energy, mining and ag industries. Classic GOP, big business stuff. But she wasn't Trumpian enough, so now they are about to kick her out.
posted by Triplanetary at 2:17 PM on May 7, 2021 [18 favorites]
I agree with that. But until recently the GOP had two main constituencies: big business and racists. They chose to dump the former to placate the latter. The GOP establishment thought they could harness the nationalist/racist beast and use it for their ends. But the beast is now out of control.
For an example, see Liz Cheney. She was elected to Congress in 2016, promising to cut taxes and regulation, expand America’s energy, mining and ag industries. Classic GOP, big business stuff. But she wasn't Trumpian enough, so now they are about to kick her out.
posted by Triplanetary at 2:17 PM on May 7, 2021 [18 favorites]
Thorzdad: "The second thing is, if this fraudulent recount is actually accepted and allowed to stand, you will immediately see Republicans in Georgia (and any other state which Biden won but has a Republican legislature) force the same bullshit recount there, possibly overturning the Democratic Senate wins there. "
Indeed, Cyber Ninjas has announced that they already have a contract to conduct a "recount" in Michigan.
posted by adamrice at 2:21 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
Indeed, Cyber Ninjas has announced that they already have a contract to conduct a "recount" in Michigan.
posted by adamrice at 2:21 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
For an example, see Liz Cheney. She was elected to Congress in 2016, promising to cut taxes and regulation, expand America’s energy, mining and ag industries. Classic GOP, big business stuff. But she wasn't Trumpian enough, so now they are about to kick her out.
Specifically, she is not loyal to Trump. In every other respect, include the Republicans' myriad hatreds, she is every inch a right wing lunatic hero. But the fealty to Trump is the only important thing any longer.
posted by dragstroke at 2:24 PM on May 7, 2021 [13 favorites]
Specifically, she is not loyal to Trump. In every other respect, include the Republicans' myriad hatreds, she is every inch a right wing lunatic hero. But the fealty to Trump is the only important thing any longer.
posted by dragstroke at 2:24 PM on May 7, 2021 [13 favorites]
The forces that potentially lead to the GOP destroying democracy could plausibly be more powerful than the forces that bind the GOP to corporate interests.
posted by argybarg at 2:31 PM on May 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by argybarg at 2:31 PM on May 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
Why are we accepting this? Where is the organization? Where is the fury?
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 2:36 PM on May 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 2:36 PM on May 7, 2021 [11 favorites]
> For an example, see Liz Cheney. She was elected to Congress in 2016, promising to cut taxes and regulation, expand America’s energy, mining and ag industries. Classic GOP, big business stuff. But she wasn't Trumpian enough, so now they are about to kick her out.
And they're about to replace her with a craven political opportunist who is probably to the left of Liz Cheney ideologically, but has the correct view on the one issue that matters to Republicans now, which is that Biden stole the election from Donald J. Trump.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:43 PM on May 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
And they're about to replace her with a craven political opportunist who is probably to the left of Liz Cheney ideologically, but has the correct view on the one issue that matters to Republicans now, which is that Biden stole the election from Donald J. Trump.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:43 PM on May 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
“Security comes with knowledge”™...the Cyber Ninjas have trademarked security and knowledge. Now you know. They have nondisclosure agreements to back this up.
Up until January 6th, I would have bet money that the clown bus was outward bound, out of the subbasement where I keep my nightmares. Since then, the clown bus has passed the farthest orbits of satire and is driving headlong into horror.
I retain the hope that determined voters can bring the ship of state back on some sort of recognizable course. But I easily can see us taking a route into chaos.
I hope our justice departments (at state and federal levels) can rein these people in. The Cyber Ninjas clearly is not an appropriate organization to whom the mandate to verify votes should be granted. Some sort of oversight must accompany such shenanigans. If not the state, then who? I hope I am not the only person to catch the whiff of vodka hovering over all this confusion.
Oh, and crap.--I was born in Yuma, but that was a long time ago, when Gene Autry and Andy Devine rode the range, keeping their eyes on stuff. What the hell happened?
posted by mule98J at 3:08 PM on May 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
Up until January 6th, I would have bet money that the clown bus was outward bound, out of the subbasement where I keep my nightmares. Since then, the clown bus has passed the farthest orbits of satire and is driving headlong into horror.
I retain the hope that determined voters can bring the ship of state back on some sort of recognizable course. But I easily can see us taking a route into chaos.
I hope our justice departments (at state and federal levels) can rein these people in. The Cyber Ninjas clearly is not an appropriate organization to whom the mandate to verify votes should be granted. Some sort of oversight must accompany such shenanigans. If not the state, then who? I hope I am not the only person to catch the whiff of vodka hovering over all this confusion.
Oh, and crap.--I was born in Yuma, but that was a long time ago, when Gene Autry and Andy Devine rode the range, keeping their eyes on stuff. What the hell happened?
posted by mule98J at 3:08 PM on May 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
Why are we accepting this? Where is the organization? Where is the fury?
After years and years of bailing water out of the leaking boat that is our democracy, while half of the voting electorate and their representatives actively try to drill holes in the bottom and kick out the side planks, one eventually gets a little tired and weary of putting up resistance.
Not to say that we all shouldn't be marching in the streets, but...having personally gone through burnout on high-energy political activism about 15 years ago, I can understand the temptation to succumb.
That said, you're right -- it's worthy of outrage. Thank Dog that there are people who still have the energy to be outraged, to organize, engage, and fight the bastards.
posted by darkstar at 3:12 PM on May 7, 2021 [20 favorites]
After years and years of bailing water out of the leaking boat that is our democracy, while half of the voting electorate and their representatives actively try to drill holes in the bottom and kick out the side planks, one eventually gets a little tired and weary of putting up resistance.
Not to say that we all shouldn't be marching in the streets, but...having personally gone through burnout on high-energy political activism about 15 years ago, I can understand the temptation to succumb.
That said, you're right -- it's worthy of outrage. Thank Dog that there are people who still have the energy to be outraged, to organize, engage, and fight the bastards.
posted by darkstar at 3:12 PM on May 7, 2021 [20 favorites]
The problem is not so much burnout as knowing exactly how the organizing and fury would be received by each side, and knowing that the persuadable middle is so negligible in size and influence.
posted by argybarg at 3:17 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by argybarg at 3:17 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
Why are we accepting this? Where is the organization? Where is the fury?
Florida's new voting law immediately hit with lawsuits [The Hill]
One of the lawsuits is backed by Democratic attorney Marc Elias, who filed the complaint on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Florida, the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans.
A second challenge, brought Thursday by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), Disability Rights Florida and Common Cause, alleges the law violates constitutional protections and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
There's a good deal of organizing going on - Democracy Docket is useful for staying on top of it.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:32 PM on May 7, 2021 [18 favorites]
Florida's new voting law immediately hit with lawsuits [The Hill]
One of the lawsuits is backed by Democratic attorney Marc Elias, who filed the complaint on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Florida, the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans.
A second challenge, brought Thursday by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), Disability Rights Florida and Common Cause, alleges the law violates constitutional protections and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
There's a good deal of organizing going on - Democracy Docket is useful for staying on top of it.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:32 PM on May 7, 2021 [18 favorites]
The forces that potentially lead to the GOP destroying democracy could plausibly be more powerful than the forces that bind the GOP to corporate interests.
Corporations who started pulling back on donations to the Sedition Caucus (the House/Senate members who voted against counting various Biden electors) have already started to mosey on back into their pockets.
posted by BungaDunga at 3:44 PM on May 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
Corporations who started pulling back on donations to the Sedition Caucus (the House/Senate members who voted against counting various Biden electors) have already started to mosey on back into their pockets.
posted by BungaDunga at 3:44 PM on May 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
There is no mechanism for Georgia or Arizona to send updated electoral votes for Trump. They already voted and those voted were recorded as defined by statute and the Constitution. They also can’t change their Senators. Those elections were certified and accepted by the Senate and those people remain in office until their term ends.
I know how the system is supposed to work, but we’re now in a period where those norms and mechanisms seem to be quite easily ignored with no repercussion. Let’s say this fraudulent AZ recount “finds” enough fraudulent votes to change the results of the election, and the government of Arizona accepts this finding as fact.
At no time in the history of this nation has such a matter been presented. It will be contested in court and it’s assured such a constitutional question will end up before SCOTUS. Are you absolutely sure this particular court would reject the validity of the AZ recount and preserve the electoral system as it stands and functions? I’m not.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:50 PM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
I know how the system is supposed to work, but we’re now in a period where those norms and mechanisms seem to be quite easily ignored with no repercussion. Let’s say this fraudulent AZ recount “finds” enough fraudulent votes to change the results of the election, and the government of Arizona accepts this finding as fact.
At no time in the history of this nation has such a matter been presented. It will be contested in court and it’s assured such a constitutional question will end up before SCOTUS. Are you absolutely sure this particular court would reject the validity of the AZ recount and preserve the electoral system as it stands and functions? I’m not.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:50 PM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
Where is the fury?
We're all too busy recovering from the last four years and enjoying a brief moment of respite in the last 100 days of a competent government that doesn't do terrifying and outrageous things every second day for attention. Oh and also grateful this new government believes in science and medicine and took positive steps to stop the deaths of another 550,000 Americans from a disease the Republican president promised would "just go away".
Also there is plenty of organization and some fury and righteousness, but this is the kind of wonky issue you won't see people marching in the streets for. If you're in a donating mood, two organizations that work on voting rights nationally: the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice.
posted by Nelson at 3:52 PM on May 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
We're all too busy recovering from the last four years and enjoying a brief moment of respite in the last 100 days of a competent government that doesn't do terrifying and outrageous things every second day for attention. Oh and also grateful this new government believes in science and medicine and took positive steps to stop the deaths of another 550,000 Americans from a disease the Republican president promised would "just go away".
Also there is plenty of organization and some fury and righteousness, but this is the kind of wonky issue you won't see people marching in the streets for. If you're in a donating mood, two organizations that work on voting rights nationally: the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice.
posted by Nelson at 3:52 PM on May 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
Are you absolutely sure this particular court would reject the validity of the AZ recount and preserve the electoral system as it stands and functions? I’m not.
In fairness, I remember many anxious assurances that the GOP-appointed judges, up to and including the Supreme Court, were going to be happily compliant with Trump’s challenges to the election, but this never panned out to the slightest degree.
posted by argybarg at 4:10 PM on May 7, 2021 [14 favorites]
In fairness, I remember many anxious assurances that the GOP-appointed judges, up to and including the Supreme Court, were going to be happily compliant with Trump’s challenges to the election, but this never panned out to the slightest degree.
posted by argybarg at 4:10 PM on May 7, 2021 [14 favorites]
Watching a minority party day-by-day set itself up to overthrow majority election winners, I am not sure where we are:
[ ] Germany 1933
[ ] Germany 1935
[ ] Germany 1936
posted by PhineasGage at 4:19 PM on May 7, 2021 [15 favorites]
[ ] Germany 1933
[ ] Germany 1935
[ ] Germany 1936
posted by PhineasGage at 4:19 PM on May 7, 2021 [15 favorites]
I'm 100% this Arizona not-recount is being done in bad faith. But I'm a little curious to compare it to another famous disputed election with a not-recount, the New York Times examination of the Florida ballots that they conducted in the summer of 2001.
I don't recall at the time, was the idea of the NYTimes doing a new count highly controversial? It could have been catastrophic; Bush was already president for about six months. And Florida was the deciding state (unlike 2020, where Biden won by 4 states). If the NYT count had found for sure that Gore should have won it would have been hugely damaging.
Ironically what happened is the NYT determined that by pretty much any reasonable counting standard, Bush won by a few hundred votes. That didn't address some larger concerns (like voter suppression or the butterfly ballot that tricked voters into voting for Buchanan) but it did mostly address the counting question. Doubly ironically the NYT was ready to publish these results literally on 9/11/01 when the nation got a little distracted. And then heavily unified behind Bush; no one cared by then what the NYT result said.
The main difference between the Cyber Ninjas not-recount and the NYT not-recount is the organizations. And the intent and context of why the count is being done. Back 20 years ago many more people trusted newspapers to be if not independent, at least neutral and honest. The NYT seemed to genuinely be trying to get at the question of various ways to count ballots and the fact their results were contrary to the "liberal agenda" speaks to their honesty. I don't think anyone expects "Cyber Ninjas" or the Arizona GOP to be so evenhanded.
(Also every time I read this story; "Cyber Ninjas" is the cringiest fucking name for a company and the website with actual ninja pictures and a stupid cyberpunk font... It's breathtakingly absurd. I don't think it's intended to be ironic either. In the real tech industry we've all moved past using of stupid terms like "rockstar" or "ninja" or "crushing it". Well, mostly. These guys seem a few years behind.)
posted by Nelson at 4:28 PM on May 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
I don't recall at the time, was the idea of the NYTimes doing a new count highly controversial? It could have been catastrophic; Bush was already president for about six months. And Florida was the deciding state (unlike 2020, where Biden won by 4 states). If the NYT count had found for sure that Gore should have won it would have been hugely damaging.
Ironically what happened is the NYT determined that by pretty much any reasonable counting standard, Bush won by a few hundred votes. That didn't address some larger concerns (like voter suppression or the butterfly ballot that tricked voters into voting for Buchanan) but it did mostly address the counting question. Doubly ironically the NYT was ready to publish these results literally on 9/11/01 when the nation got a little distracted. And then heavily unified behind Bush; no one cared by then what the NYT result said.
The main difference between the Cyber Ninjas not-recount and the NYT not-recount is the organizations. And the intent and context of why the count is being done. Back 20 years ago many more people trusted newspapers to be if not independent, at least neutral and honest. The NYT seemed to genuinely be trying to get at the question of various ways to count ballots and the fact their results were contrary to the "liberal agenda" speaks to their honesty. I don't think anyone expects "Cyber Ninjas" or the Arizona GOP to be so evenhanded.
(Also every time I read this story; "Cyber Ninjas" is the cringiest fucking name for a company and the website with actual ninja pictures and a stupid cyberpunk font... It's breathtakingly absurd. I don't think it's intended to be ironic either. In the real tech industry we've all moved past using of stupid terms like "rockstar" or "ninja" or "crushing it". Well, mostly. These guys seem a few years behind.)
posted by Nelson at 4:28 PM on May 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
The GOP establishment thought they could harness the nationalist/racist beast and use it for their ends. But the beast is now out of control.
The beast is in control. It's in control of the GOP.
posted by benzenedream at 4:37 PM on May 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
The beast is in control. It's in control of the GOP.
posted by benzenedream at 4:37 PM on May 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
The main difference between the Cyber Ninjas not-recount and the NYT not-recount is the organizations
There are very serious security and procedural concerns related to how this fraudulent recount is being run. The difference between these assholes and the NYT isn't just organizational reputation.
posted by meese at 5:53 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
There are very serious security and procedural concerns related to how this fraudulent recount is being run. The difference between these assholes and the NYT isn't just organizational reputation.
posted by meese at 5:53 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
As a Maricopa county voter, I have plenty of fury.
I just don’t seem to have a useful place to direct it. Our Secretary of State (a dem) has tried to fight this, but the state house and state senate are run by the absolute idiots that pass for republicans in this state. (Kelly Ward may be at the top of the pile, but the pile is hideous all the way through).
If I could come up with anything concrete to do, to protect my own vote and the vote of several million other Arizonans, you better believe I would do it. But instead all I have is a lot of fear and a lot more loathing.
posted by nat at 5:56 PM on May 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
I just don’t seem to have a useful place to direct it. Our Secretary of State (a dem) has tried to fight this, but the state house and state senate are run by the absolute idiots that pass for republicans in this state. (Kelly Ward may be at the top of the pile, but the pile is hideous all the way through).
If I could come up with anything concrete to do, to protect my own vote and the vote of several million other Arizonans, you better believe I would do it. But instead all I have is a lot of fear and a lot more loathing.
posted by nat at 5:56 PM on May 7, 2021 [10 favorites]
I should add, you might note that they aren’t looking at down ballot races. Why not? Well, several of those went for Republicans, including many positions that will be front and center in running the 2022 and 2024 elections here. Aargh.
posted by nat at 5:57 PM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by nat at 5:57 PM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
The real question is if the GOP takes Congress in 2022, as it seems they will
108 days in and we're already giving up.
posted by rhizome at 6:17 PM on May 7, 2021 [18 favorites]
108 days in and we're already giving up.
posted by rhizome at 6:17 PM on May 7, 2021 [18 favorites]
Amanda Marcotte @ Salon: "Trump's Arizona vote "audit" is a mess by design - The fake recount is a proof-of-concept to the GOP base: They can steal elections by controlling elections boards"
Making the point that this is really much less about "overturning" the 2020 results and much more about getting the Trumpublicans to change state election laws and get more direct control of state boards for 2024. Also "moral justification" for doing so, because if they can "prove" the Dems cheated on 2020 then it's ok for them to do underhanded stuff to prevent it happening again. "Extremism in defence of liberty is no vice", IOW.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:32 PM on May 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
Making the point that this is really much less about "overturning" the 2020 results and much more about getting the Trumpublicans to change state election laws and get more direct control of state boards for 2024. Also "moral justification" for doing so, because if they can "prove" the Dems cheated on 2020 then it's ok for them to do underhanded stuff to prevent it happening again. "Extremism in defence of liberty is no vice", IOW.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:32 PM on May 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
As a Maricopa county voter, I have plenty of fury. I just don’t seem to have a useful place to direct it.
Fellow AZ resident here. I agree that this is terrifying and no one person has any power over what craziness may happen. But what is somewhat reassuring in the short term is:
* Top elections official is Katie Hobbs (D) who is awesome and trying her hardest to fight this thing. Obviously she can't stop it, but she does have some power over how elections are administered at least until the end of her term.
* The GOP has only the slimmest of margins in the State House and State Senate. 16-14 in Senate and 31-29 in House - and tied votes are not broken, they just fail. So any one GOP representative can tank any legislation. Senator Paul Boyer seems to be the most moderate GOP representative. Just today, he retweeted a comment that at least indicated that he thinks this whole thing is ridiculous. He also approvingly retweeted this National Review article lauding Michael Wood, the anti-Trump candidate in the recent TX special election who got 3% of the vote. He received death threats earlier this year when he was the "No" vote that prevented the Senate from holding the Maricopa County Board of Elections in contempt when they initially refused to hand over the ballots (which would have resulted in them being arrested and thrown in jail--all 15 other state senators wanted that outcome). He seems to be a Republican more in the vein of Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney than Trump.
* The audit is taking forever--they have been at it for 2 weeks and have only counted 10% of the ballots. They are being kicked out of the Coliseum a week from today due to it being rented for high school graduations. They are trying to negotiate to get back in afterwards but the State Fair (who owns the Coliseum) is making no promises. Even if they do get back in, counting won't be done until July at the earliest at the pace they are going. Timing is important because the legislative session was supposed to end in April, but the GOP legislators are trying to keep it open to 'wait for the results of the audit' to see what voter suppression bills they want to pass. However, a number of them are upset by this because they want to go home. The AZ legislature is supposed to be a part-time job, it only pays $24K/year. Some R's (notably Sen. Kelly Townsend who is a nutjob) are threatening to withhold any votes on the budget (which is required to be passed before the Legislature can legally adjourn) until the audit is done. However, if some D's go ahead and vote yes on the budget, this can be gotten around. But this requires D's to vote yes on a budget that will likely have lot's of R priorities such as cutting school funding, etc. It's also worth noting that if they don't pass voter suppression bills this year, they won't be in effect in time for the 2022 election due to the way the legislative calendar works and some complicated rules about when laws take effect. So the end result is that it is a game of chicken to see if any Dem's will join with more moderate R's to just pass a budget and go home, in which case the only way the legislature could do anything before next January is if Gov. Ducey calls them in for a special session, which I get the feeling he is unlikely to do (seeing as Trump already hates him, he certified the 2020 election, and he repeatedly says "no comment" on the audit).
So, what I suggest you can do:
* contact Senator Boyer and urge him to come out against the audit more publicly, or failing that, to vote against any extreme voter suppression/anti-democracy bills that may use the audit as a pretext (there was one floating around earlier in the year that would have given the State Legislature the power to choose presidential electors which appears to have gone nowhere, but could obviously come back). Appeal to his sense of integrity - I get the impression that he is someone who thinks of himself as a man of integrity in much the same way that Mitt Romney might. You could also try contacting Sen. Tyler Pace, who almost killed the crazy "fetal personhood" bill that ultimately passed, but then voted for it with some reservations when he too received a ton of death threats. I believe he is a Mormon and probably also thinks of himself has having some integrity. I think he's probably the 2nd most reasonable GOP legislator.
* Contact Secretary Hobbs, just to thank her for all she is doing. She is under 24-7 guard due to the death threats and continual harassment and I'm sure she'd appreciate it.
* If you haven't already and can afford it, subscribe to your local news media. AZ Mirror, Arizona Republic, and AZ Capitol Times, among many others, are all doing a heroic effort to stay on top of all this and report the truth as best they can. Since the rules (approved by a judge) only allow 1 member of the media to cover the audit at a time, they have teamed up as the #AZAuditPool (follow the hashtag on Twitter) to cover it in shifts. Just seeing all the reporters sharing tips and trying so hard to stay objective but also support each other (they are all getting death threats and harassment from the right as well) has actually gone a really long way to keep me sane. So many amazing journalists to follow on Twitter:
Garrett Archer
Julia Shumway
Jen Fifield
Brahm Resnick
Jeremy Duda
Dillon Rosenblatt
so many more as well.
* (I can understand some people might not be comfortable with this one) - if you are comfortable with it, contact some Democratic state legislatures and urge them to compromise on the budget. I agree it's a bit problematic to give into traditional R budgeting demands as a way to get them to stop holding the threat of voter suppression/anti-democratic bills over the state's head - but sometimes you have to give the hostage what they want and live to fight another day. The most conservative D is probably Sen. Sean Bowie.
* Just talk to people about what is going on. If your social world is a bubble you may not realize this, but there's a lot of people who just don't follow politics that closely, and still think that both parties are more or less the same - maybe they favor one or another out of habit or what they've been told to think, but 99.999% of the time they're not even thinking about the political situation. I definitely saw this with a couple people who always vote Democrat, but who started going out to bars and restaurants the minute Ducey lifted the COVID-19 restrictions last May, then were shocked when they got COVID in June. Their conception of the world was that the government is fundamentally benign, so if the restrictions were lifted, it must be safe. The more we can talk to these people about how awful and crazy all of this is, the more they might start to see it that way too. Then, maybe someone who was 50% likely to vote in the midterm becomes 75% likely, and someone who was always going to vote, but not do much else, commits to doing some door-knocking/phonebanking. I admittedly haven't had any luck convincing people who don't think much about politics but habitually vote R to change their mind - but I have tried! For what it's worth, all the people I'm talking about are coworkers - don't be an angry ball of stress about it, but I was hesitant to bring up politics at work but ultimately am glad I did - it's hard these days to have relationships with people and not talk about what is going on.
posted by notswedish at 6:42 PM on May 7, 2021 [51 favorites]
Fellow AZ resident here. I agree that this is terrifying and no one person has any power over what craziness may happen. But what is somewhat reassuring in the short term is:
* Top elections official is Katie Hobbs (D) who is awesome and trying her hardest to fight this thing. Obviously she can't stop it, but she does have some power over how elections are administered at least until the end of her term.
* The GOP has only the slimmest of margins in the State House and State Senate. 16-14 in Senate and 31-29 in House - and tied votes are not broken, they just fail. So any one GOP representative can tank any legislation. Senator Paul Boyer seems to be the most moderate GOP representative. Just today, he retweeted a comment that at least indicated that he thinks this whole thing is ridiculous. He also approvingly retweeted this National Review article lauding Michael Wood, the anti-Trump candidate in the recent TX special election who got 3% of the vote. He received death threats earlier this year when he was the "No" vote that prevented the Senate from holding the Maricopa County Board of Elections in contempt when they initially refused to hand over the ballots (which would have resulted in them being arrested and thrown in jail--all 15 other state senators wanted that outcome). He seems to be a Republican more in the vein of Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney than Trump.
* The audit is taking forever--they have been at it for 2 weeks and have only counted 10% of the ballots. They are being kicked out of the Coliseum a week from today due to it being rented for high school graduations. They are trying to negotiate to get back in afterwards but the State Fair (who owns the Coliseum) is making no promises. Even if they do get back in, counting won't be done until July at the earliest at the pace they are going. Timing is important because the legislative session was supposed to end in April, but the GOP legislators are trying to keep it open to 'wait for the results of the audit' to see what voter suppression bills they want to pass. However, a number of them are upset by this because they want to go home. The AZ legislature is supposed to be a part-time job, it only pays $24K/year. Some R's (notably Sen. Kelly Townsend who is a nutjob) are threatening to withhold any votes on the budget (which is required to be passed before the Legislature can legally adjourn) until the audit is done. However, if some D's go ahead and vote yes on the budget, this can be gotten around. But this requires D's to vote yes on a budget that will likely have lot's of R priorities such as cutting school funding, etc. It's also worth noting that if they don't pass voter suppression bills this year, they won't be in effect in time for the 2022 election due to the way the legislative calendar works and some complicated rules about when laws take effect. So the end result is that it is a game of chicken to see if any Dem's will join with more moderate R's to just pass a budget and go home, in which case the only way the legislature could do anything before next January is if Gov. Ducey calls them in for a special session, which I get the feeling he is unlikely to do (seeing as Trump already hates him, he certified the 2020 election, and he repeatedly says "no comment" on the audit).
So, what I suggest you can do:
* contact Senator Boyer and urge him to come out against the audit more publicly, or failing that, to vote against any extreme voter suppression/anti-democracy bills that may use the audit as a pretext (there was one floating around earlier in the year that would have given the State Legislature the power to choose presidential electors which appears to have gone nowhere, but could obviously come back). Appeal to his sense of integrity - I get the impression that he is someone who thinks of himself as a man of integrity in much the same way that Mitt Romney might. You could also try contacting Sen. Tyler Pace, who almost killed the crazy "fetal personhood" bill that ultimately passed, but then voted for it with some reservations when he too received a ton of death threats. I believe he is a Mormon and probably also thinks of himself has having some integrity. I think he's probably the 2nd most reasonable GOP legislator.
* Contact Secretary Hobbs, just to thank her for all she is doing. She is under 24-7 guard due to the death threats and continual harassment and I'm sure she'd appreciate it.
* If you haven't already and can afford it, subscribe to your local news media. AZ Mirror, Arizona Republic, and AZ Capitol Times, among many others, are all doing a heroic effort to stay on top of all this and report the truth as best they can. Since the rules (approved by a judge) only allow 1 member of the media to cover the audit at a time, they have teamed up as the #AZAuditPool (follow the hashtag on Twitter) to cover it in shifts. Just seeing all the reporters sharing tips and trying so hard to stay objective but also support each other (they are all getting death threats and harassment from the right as well) has actually gone a really long way to keep me sane. So many amazing journalists to follow on Twitter:
Garrett Archer
Julia Shumway
Jen Fifield
Brahm Resnick
Jeremy Duda
Dillon Rosenblatt
so many more as well.
* (I can understand some people might not be comfortable with this one) - if you are comfortable with it, contact some Democratic state legislatures and urge them to compromise on the budget. I agree it's a bit problematic to give into traditional R budgeting demands as a way to get them to stop holding the threat of voter suppression/anti-democratic bills over the state's head - but sometimes you have to give the hostage what they want and live to fight another day. The most conservative D is probably Sen. Sean Bowie.
* Just talk to people about what is going on. If your social world is a bubble you may not realize this, but there's a lot of people who just don't follow politics that closely, and still think that both parties are more or less the same - maybe they favor one or another out of habit or what they've been told to think, but 99.999% of the time they're not even thinking about the political situation. I definitely saw this with a couple people who always vote Democrat, but who started going out to bars and restaurants the minute Ducey lifted the COVID-19 restrictions last May, then were shocked when they got COVID in June. Their conception of the world was that the government is fundamentally benign, so if the restrictions were lifted, it must be safe. The more we can talk to these people about how awful and crazy all of this is, the more they might start to see it that way too. Then, maybe someone who was 50% likely to vote in the midterm becomes 75% likely, and someone who was always going to vote, but not do much else, commits to doing some door-knocking/phonebanking. I admittedly haven't had any luck convincing people who don't think much about politics but habitually vote R to change their mind - but I have tried! For what it's worth, all the people I'm talking about are coworkers - don't be an angry ball of stress about it, but I was hesitant to bring up politics at work but ultimately am glad I did - it's hard these days to have relationships with people and not talk about what is going on.
posted by notswedish at 6:42 PM on May 7, 2021 [51 favorites]
interogative mood There is no mechanism for Georgia or Arizona to send updated electoral votes for Trump. They already voted and those voted were recorded as defined by statute and the Constitution. They also can’t change their Senators.
I think the problem here is that you're both putting far too much faith in institutions and, much more importantly, ignoring the unofficial democracy via general consensus aspect of the whole situation.
There's no such thing as "The United States of America" outside of the general agreement by all of us that it exists.
The ongoing efforts by Republicans to claim the 2020 election was fraudulent aren't really an effort to undo the 2020 election via legal means. It's an attempt to undo the general consensus that America exists. It's an effort to start a civil war, or at least edge up to one and undermine the whole concept of having a representative democracy.
And also an effort to lay the groundwork for a pseudo-legal sounding theft of the 2022 and 2024 elections.
I don't think either the average Republican voter, or the Republican leadership, actually wants a real shooting civil war. Such things are chancy and as others have noted are bad for business. What they **DO** want is the establishment of a defacto one party state and the ability to steal future elections as blatantly as possible while not **QUITE** pushing the rest of us into a shooting civil war. It's the boiling frog approach to ending democracy. They push as hard as they can until they reach the outer limit of what they think they can do without really starting a civil war, then they wait an election cycle and push those boundaries further.
We're already at the point where the average American uncritically accepts that the Republicans can rule from the minority as long as they do so via gerrymandering and the inherently anti-democratic nature of the Senate.
We're already at the point where the average American uncritically accepts that the Republicans can attempt to murder Congress when their Presidential candidate loses and that this is just one of those things that happens and there's nothing that can be done about it.
We're already at the point where the average American uncritically accepts that of course the Republicans do everything in their power to keep people from voting, but that's just the way things are.
This, and the other recount activities, are just laying the groundwork so that in 2022 when the Republican governors declare elections that Republicans lost to be fraud and simply appoint Republican candidates as victors there's enough of a legal fig leaf that the rest of us won't, quite, be willing to engage in actual civil war. We'll protest, we'll march, they'll sic the pigs on us and ram us with cars, and eventually it'll just sort of die down as everyone comes to uncritically accept that any state with an extant Republican legislature and/or governor will never allow a Democrat to win an election.
And at each step we'll look at the alternative, shooting civil war, and decide that it isn't bad enough for a civil war so and that maybe we can fix things via legislation.
So yes, in the short term Arizona can't recall the worthless traitor the Democrats foolishly voted into the Senate. But next time she runs she'll "lose" because any district where she got too many votes will be declared to be fraud.
it's not even a conspiracy, not really. Its just Republican powers each individually pushing the limits as far as they can.
And meanwhile, the Democrats will dither and censure any Democrat who says mean things on twitter...
posted by sotonohito at 7:30 PM on May 7, 2021 [25 favorites]
I think the problem here is that you're both putting far too much faith in institutions and, much more importantly, ignoring the unofficial democracy via general consensus aspect of the whole situation.
There's no such thing as "The United States of America" outside of the general agreement by all of us that it exists.
The ongoing efforts by Republicans to claim the 2020 election was fraudulent aren't really an effort to undo the 2020 election via legal means. It's an attempt to undo the general consensus that America exists. It's an effort to start a civil war, or at least edge up to one and undermine the whole concept of having a representative democracy.
And also an effort to lay the groundwork for a pseudo-legal sounding theft of the 2022 and 2024 elections.
I don't think either the average Republican voter, or the Republican leadership, actually wants a real shooting civil war. Such things are chancy and as others have noted are bad for business. What they **DO** want is the establishment of a defacto one party state and the ability to steal future elections as blatantly as possible while not **QUITE** pushing the rest of us into a shooting civil war. It's the boiling frog approach to ending democracy. They push as hard as they can until they reach the outer limit of what they think they can do without really starting a civil war, then they wait an election cycle and push those boundaries further.
We're already at the point where the average American uncritically accepts that the Republicans can rule from the minority as long as they do so via gerrymandering and the inherently anti-democratic nature of the Senate.
We're already at the point where the average American uncritically accepts that the Republicans can attempt to murder Congress when their Presidential candidate loses and that this is just one of those things that happens and there's nothing that can be done about it.
We're already at the point where the average American uncritically accepts that of course the Republicans do everything in their power to keep people from voting, but that's just the way things are.
This, and the other recount activities, are just laying the groundwork so that in 2022 when the Republican governors declare elections that Republicans lost to be fraud and simply appoint Republican candidates as victors there's enough of a legal fig leaf that the rest of us won't, quite, be willing to engage in actual civil war. We'll protest, we'll march, they'll sic the pigs on us and ram us with cars, and eventually it'll just sort of die down as everyone comes to uncritically accept that any state with an extant Republican legislature and/or governor will never allow a Democrat to win an election.
And at each step we'll look at the alternative, shooting civil war, and decide that it isn't bad enough for a civil war so and that maybe we can fix things via legislation.
So yes, in the short term Arizona can't recall the worthless traitor the Democrats foolishly voted into the Senate. But next time she runs she'll "lose" because any district where she got too many votes will be declared to be fraud.
it's not even a conspiracy, not really. Its just Republican powers each individually pushing the limits as far as they can.
And meanwhile, the Democrats will dither and censure any Democrat who says mean things on twitter...
posted by sotonohito at 7:30 PM on May 7, 2021 [25 favorites]
Ironically what happened is the NYT determined that by pretty much any reasonable counting standard
Well.. about that count..
What they actually determined was that Gore would have lost even if the Supreme Court hadn't intervened because the campaign only requested certain counties be recounted. Had the campaign instead requested and gotten a statewide recount, it would have gone the other way by a similarly tiny margin.
I'm actually OK with that outcome. No count will ever be perfect, the only way to have fair elections is to follow (fair) rules that are set in advance even if they occasionally end up being wrong in hindsight, and the rules in place for that election were such that it was Gore's (or Bush's) campaign that got to pick what jurisdictions they wanted to request to be recounted. The outcome sucked, but it's not fair to anyone to change the rules after the fact.
Indeed, changing procedure after the fact is exactly what's wrong with this Arizona bullshit.
posted by wierdo at 7:58 PM on May 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
Well.. about that count..
What they actually determined was that Gore would have lost even if the Supreme Court hadn't intervened because the campaign only requested certain counties be recounted. Had the campaign instead requested and gotten a statewide recount, it would have gone the other way by a similarly tiny margin.
I'm actually OK with that outcome. No count will ever be perfect, the only way to have fair elections is to follow (fair) rules that are set in advance even if they occasionally end up being wrong in hindsight, and the rules in place for that election were such that it was Gore's (or Bush's) campaign that got to pick what jurisdictions they wanted to request to be recounted. The outcome sucked, but it's not fair to anyone to change the rules after the fact.
Indeed, changing procedure after the fact is exactly what's wrong with this Arizona bullshit.
posted by wierdo at 7:58 PM on May 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
Sotonohito – The Average American does not uncritically accept the things you say they do. Only about 30 percent do and that's not the definition of average. There is not the consensus you seem to think there is.
The Republican Party you and others in this thread seem so afraid of? That party is shrinking – and ultimately self-destructing – right before our eyes. So folks: please don't give up just because you think the GOP has succeeded in some kind of a fait accompli. They haven't. Not even close.
Rather than going around spouting doom and thinking civil war is the only alternative, how about talking to your fellow citizens, talking to rational legislators, and using the media to push the idea that democracy works, because it did last November.
Don't give up. There's work to do.
posted by tommyD at 8:08 PM on May 7, 2021 [16 favorites]
The Republican Party you and others in this thread seem so afraid of? That party is shrinking – and ultimately self-destructing – right before our eyes. So folks: please don't give up just because you think the GOP has succeeded in some kind of a fait accompli. They haven't. Not even close.
Rather than going around spouting doom and thinking civil war is the only alternative, how about talking to your fellow citizens, talking to rational legislators, and using the media to push the idea that democracy works, because it did last November.
Don't give up. There's work to do.
posted by tommyD at 8:08 PM on May 7, 2021 [16 favorites]
The Republican Party you and others in this thread seem so afraid of? That party is shrinking – and ultimately self-destructing – right before our eyes.
I've been a broken record, idly (i.e. slowly) researching this for the past couple of months and from what I've been able to figure out, the leftmost 40% are registered Democrats, the "center," the middle-ish 40% of voters, are independents and leaners registered every which way, and the Republicans? The rightmost 20%.
If the middle 40% got organized and named themselves (and got on ballots and all those technicalities), they would be the new conservative/rightwing party and the Republicans would be the vestigial hardliners, and soon politically irrelevant. I hope this happens, so there's a certain amount of wish fulfilment and just-so story to it, but I think there is indeed a viable third party sitting out there right in front of our eyes.
posted by rhizome at 10:31 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
I've been a broken record, idly (i.e. slowly) researching this for the past couple of months and from what I've been able to figure out, the leftmost 40% are registered Democrats, the "center," the middle-ish 40% of voters, are independents and leaners registered every which way, and the Republicans? The rightmost 20%.
If the middle 40% got organized and named themselves (and got on ballots and all those technicalities), they would be the new conservative/rightwing party and the Republicans would be the vestigial hardliners, and soon politically irrelevant. I hope this happens, so there's a certain amount of wish fulfilment and just-so story to it, but I think there is indeed a viable third party sitting out there right in front of our eyes.
posted by rhizome at 10:31 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
The whole AZ audit is super Q-pilled, too. The CEO of Cyber Ninjas *and* the guy who "invented" the "secret" ballot scanning technology that detects folds and fingerprints are both MyPillow Guy level detached from reality. Just the existence of the audit is already a win: even when they come up empty, they've already accomplished their goal, which is to sow confusion, doubt, and give justification for voter suppression and extreme obstructionism.
posted by Scattercat at 10:49 PM on May 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Scattercat at 10:49 PM on May 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
Why are we accepting this?
Because Democrats as a party are absolutely useless. They had only one job post-January 6th, which was to permanently stop Trump and his cult from having any access and input to our democracy ever again, and they fucked that up royally.
We've had nothing but story after story all week about Trump's re-ascension into politics, and the continuing false lie about a stolen election, sucking all the air out of the room about every other priority and cleanup job that Biden had been handed upon being seated in office.
Fascists are going to fascist, but they can only go so far without help. Dems are helping, even passively. If they don't learn to play hardball, our republic is over.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:47 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
Because Democrats as a party are absolutely useless. They had only one job post-January 6th, which was to permanently stop Trump and his cult from having any access and input to our democracy ever again, and they fucked that up royally.
We've had nothing but story after story all week about Trump's re-ascension into politics, and the continuing false lie about a stolen election, sucking all the air out of the room about every other priority and cleanup job that Biden had been handed upon being seated in office.
Fascists are going to fascist, but they can only go so far without help. Dems are helping, even passively. If they don't learn to play hardball, our republic is over.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:47 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
the only assumption I feel confident in is that the GOP (mostly) loves money above all else. Ending American democracy fully seems like it would be bad for the bottom line.
Institutional racists will not save you.
Well-intentioned people fall into this trap over and over again: “The racists aren't going to do the thing. They'd just be hurting themselves!” What happens is that of course the racists do do the thing, and then take a vote congratulating themselves for being so smart. This is really what happens. I mean, look at American history, look at the history of Arizona itself. The way the current intellectual leaders of the Republican Party see it, if they don't keep ahead of Tucker Carlson's army then they'll be accused of being soy-boy libtard cucks and they won't get to be leaders any more. So unless there's some unprecedented change, whatever the Trumpets are demanding now is what the Republican leadership will be supporting in six months' time.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:18 AM on May 8, 2021 [5 favorites]
Institutional racists will not save you.
Well-intentioned people fall into this trap over and over again: “The racists aren't going to do the thing. They'd just be hurting themselves!” What happens is that of course the racists do do the thing, and then take a vote congratulating themselves for being so smart. This is really what happens. I mean, look at American history, look at the history of Arizona itself. The way the current intellectual leaders of the Republican Party see it, if they don't keep ahead of Tucker Carlson's army then they'll be accused of being soy-boy libtard cucks and they won't get to be leaders any more. So unless there's some unprecedented change, whatever the Trumpets are demanding now is what the Republican leadership will be supporting in six months' time.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:18 AM on May 8, 2021 [5 favorites]
Lindsey Graham: Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no. I’ve always liked Liz Cheney but she’s made a determination that the Republican Party can’t grow with President Trump. I’ve determined we can’t grow without him. pic.twitter.com/ptdo7AQCKD— Acyn (@Acyn) May 7, 2021
Six
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:22 AM on May 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
Because Democrats as a party are absolutely useless. They had only one job post-January 6th, which was to permanently stop Trump and his cult from having any access and input to our democracy ever again, and they fucked that up royally.
And, how, exactly, were Democrats supposed to accomplish such a thing, without wholesale ignoring the Constitution, the law, and due process, to an even greater level than Trump? You talk as if all that needed to be done was to back the trucks up and arrest and jail everyone with an R in front of their name and/or wearing a MAGA hat. You know, execute exactly the sort of "Libs are gonna put us all in concentration camps" fever dream the right has been fund-raising off for decades.
I get your fury, but what you seem to be pining for is a fantasy.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:08 AM on May 8, 2021 [18 favorites]
And, how, exactly, were Democrats supposed to accomplish such a thing, without wholesale ignoring the Constitution, the law, and due process, to an even greater level than Trump? You talk as if all that needed to be done was to back the trucks up and arrest and jail everyone with an R in front of their name and/or wearing a MAGA hat. You know, execute exactly the sort of "Libs are gonna put us all in concentration camps" fever dream the right has been fund-raising off for decades.
I get your fury, but what you seem to be pining for is a fantasy.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:08 AM on May 8, 2021 [18 favorites]
I've been a broken record, idly (i.e. slowly) researching this for the past couple of months and from what I've been able to figure out, the leftmost 40% are registered Democrats, the "center," the middle-ish 40% of voters, are independents and leaners registered every which way, and the Republicans? The rightmost 20%.
It wasn't very long ago that it was (in round numbers) 40-20-40. The entire reason that Lindsey Graham and his ilk say that Trump has to be their way forward is that people have been fleeing the Republican Party in droves since the mask came off circa 2008. Not necessarily changing their vote, mind, but fleeing in the sense of being unwilling to openly identify as a Republican.
posted by wierdo at 5:32 AM on May 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
It wasn't very long ago that it was (in round numbers) 40-20-40. The entire reason that Lindsey Graham and his ilk say that Trump has to be their way forward is that people have been fleeing the Republican Party in droves since the mask came off circa 2008. Not necessarily changing their vote, mind, but fleeing in the sense of being unwilling to openly identify as a Republican.
posted by wierdo at 5:32 AM on May 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
And, how, exactly, were Democrats supposed to accomplish such a thing
That strikes me as more of a “Joe Biden/Chuck Schumer/Nancy Pelosi” problem than a “Some randos on a website” problem. And if in the future they don’t want to be spoken of in the same breath as Marshal Petain and Vidkun Quisling, they might want to start giving it a thought.
posted by MrBadExample at 11:16 AM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
That strikes me as more of a “Joe Biden/Chuck Schumer/Nancy Pelosi” problem than a “Some randos on a website” problem. And if in the future they don’t want to be spoken of in the same breath as Marshal Petain and Vidkun Quisling, they might want to start giving it a thought.
posted by MrBadExample at 11:16 AM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Inside Democrats’ Scramble to Repel the G.O.P. Voting Push [NYT]
The TLDR, unfortunately, is that Congressional Dems have all but admitted defeat.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:39 AM on May 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
The TLDR, unfortunately, is that Congressional Dems have all but admitted defeat.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:39 AM on May 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
That strikes me as more of a “Joe Biden/Chuck Schumer/Nancy Pelosi” problem than a “Some randos on a website” problem
As a nebulous group, The Democrats can have a variety of traits, that they "are" some things, but The Democrats don't do things, people do things. So legislators and other electeds are the ones who should be pressured to do The Stuff, not "Democrats," like all of us.
So saying "Democrats should..." means handwringing and not much more. It means something to say Joe, or Kamala, or Nancy, and all the way down through each of our own personal preferences....THEY should do X. The people who know how to do X should do X, not "Democrats," who, as a group, cannot do X.
posted by rhizome at 12:12 PM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
As a nebulous group, The Democrats can have a variety of traits, that they "are" some things, but The Democrats don't do things, people do things. So legislators and other electeds are the ones who should be pressured to do The Stuff, not "Democrats," like all of us.
So saying "Democrats should..." means handwringing and not much more. It means something to say Joe, or Kamala, or Nancy, and all the way down through each of our own personal preferences....THEY should do X. The people who know how to do X should do X, not "Democrats," who, as a group, cannot do X.
posted by rhizome at 12:12 PM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
The people who know how to do X should do X
You can’t see it, but this is what I’m doing right now.
I’m through being told I’m somehow more responsible for stopping fascist riots and elections being overturned than the people who hold elected office and live on the public payroll. Don’t hold me to a higher standard than the people whose job it is to put an end to this nonsense.
posted by MrBadExample at 1:10 PM on May 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
You can’t see it, but this is what I’m doing right now.
I’m through being told I’m somehow more responsible for stopping fascist riots and elections being overturned than the people who hold elected office and live on the public payroll. Don’t hold me to a higher standard than the people whose job it is to put an end to this nonsense.
posted by MrBadExample at 1:10 PM on May 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Also every time I read this story; "Cyber Ninjas" is the cringiest fucking name for a company
I'm reminded of the Night Wolves, a pro-Putin militia dressed up as an outlaw motorcycle gang.
posted by acb at 2:09 PM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm reminded of the Night Wolves, a pro-Putin militia dressed up as an outlaw motorcycle gang.
posted by acb at 2:09 PM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
rhizome, you linked to Steve Yegge's blog rant "Have you ever legalized marijuana"
I'm just not drawing connections.. that 2009 piece is undercut by all the cannabis legalization we've been seeing these past couple of years. If anything, the alternative to legalization--War on Drugs and leveraging controlled substances to justify all manner of shitty things--shows us what does not work, and is complicated to the point of engendering any number of contradictions. What am I missing?
posted by elkevelvet at 4:14 PM on May 8, 2021
I'm just not drawing connections.. that 2009 piece is undercut by all the cannabis legalization we've been seeing these past couple of years. If anything, the alternative to legalization--War on Drugs and leveraging controlled substances to justify all manner of shitty things--shows us what does not work, and is complicated to the point of engendering any number of contradictions. What am I missing?
posted by elkevelvet at 4:14 PM on May 8, 2021
"Democrats" is a nebulous thing that takes organization (at least) to accomplish X, but it's a bunch of people, so it feels right to assign them tasks. The essay talks about "shit's easy syndrome," which is what drives people to say "Democrats need to..." It's throwing the goal over the fence, "lemme know if you need help!"
posted by rhizome at 6:01 PM on May 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 6:01 PM on May 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Letting these processes happening in backwater areas of the country grab the limelight serves the denialists cause.
A) Maricopa County is the fourth-most populous county in the United States, 4.4 million people live here, there are multiple cities & some airports & several Whole Foodses, we even have seafood buffets somehow?? I assure you it is a real place
B) imagine we're talking about a shady group of chucklefucks with known ties to a coup attempt taking your ballot out of the chain of custody & fighting like hell to be left alone in a room with it, do you want people to go "it's better to just keep quiet about this & let them get away with whatever they're doing" or would you prefer that bloody murder be screameth
because my vote is in this pile & I absolutely have an opinion about this
posted by taquito sunrise at 6:43 PM on May 8, 2021 [20 favorites]
A) Maricopa County is the fourth-most populous county in the United States, 4.4 million people live here, there are multiple cities & some airports & several Whole Foodses, we even have seafood buffets somehow?? I assure you it is a real place
B) imagine we're talking about a shady group of chucklefucks with known ties to a coup attempt taking your ballot out of the chain of custody & fighting like hell to be left alone in a room with it, do you want people to go "it's better to just keep quiet about this & let them get away with whatever they're doing" or would you prefer that bloody murder be screameth
because my vote is in this pile & I absolutely have an opinion about this
posted by taquito sunrise at 6:43 PM on May 8, 2021 [20 favorites]
...The Average American does not uncritically accept the things you say they do. Only about 30 percent do and that's not the definition of average. There is not the consensus you seem to think there is....
This information isn't comforting. 30% is what carried the colonies when we broke away from England.
posted by mule98J at 11:05 PM on May 8, 2021
This information isn't comforting. 30% is what carried the colonies when we broke away from England.
posted by mule98J at 11:05 PM on May 8, 2021
It's comforting to me! The people who accept facts are the majority. That ain't nothing.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:35 AM on May 9, 2021
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:35 AM on May 9, 2021
The people who accept facts are the majority. That ain't nothing.
But historically, that's often not enough.
30% is what carried the colonies when we broke away from England.
Yep, and Nazis only ever secured ~43% of any popular vote in Germany. So let's maybe not assume large minority percentages are not a problem. THIS IS A PROBLEM and history clearly teaches us that cooler heads do not always prevail, even when they're the majority. (And Republicans need to steal to get there because they don't have the ability to manipulate a Parliament like the Nazis did.)
posted by LooseFilter at 7:07 AM on May 9, 2021
But historically, that's often not enough.
30% is what carried the colonies when we broke away from England.
Yep, and Nazis only ever secured ~43% of any popular vote in Germany. So let's maybe not assume large minority percentages are not a problem. THIS IS A PROBLEM and history clearly teaches us that cooler heads do not always prevail, even when they're the majority. (And Republicans need to steal to get there because they don't have the ability to manipulate a Parliament like the Nazis did.)
posted by LooseFilter at 7:07 AM on May 9, 2021
Yes, but my hope is important. Other people's hope is important. I dislike that any expression of hope here has to be countered immediately. So, I will continue to take comfort in the fact that the idiots are still in the minority, they just scream and fight loudly. We can beat 30%. We can. And recently have.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:28 AM on May 9, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:28 AM on May 9, 2021 [3 favorites]
(And I regret even saying this for fear of more rebuttal that we are doomed. I probably should get off this thread.)
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:50 AM on May 9, 2021
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:50 AM on May 9, 2021
For my part, I don't intend to dismiss anyone's hope--I was responding more to the implicit sense of 'I'm hopeful that's not enough to be a problem' leading to '...and therefore we should just ignore it,' (which another comment upthread explicitly said).
We should be hopeful that nascent fascism in the U.S. is beatable, but we should not in any way assume that this isn't an urgent problem that, if we don't fight hard, will just resolve itself. This won't go away by ignoring it or hoping it will just run its course; it will only be defeated by active resistance.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:57 AM on May 9, 2021
We should be hopeful that nascent fascism in the U.S. is beatable, but we should not in any way assume that this isn't an urgent problem that, if we don't fight hard, will just resolve itself. This won't go away by ignoring it or hoping it will just run its course; it will only be defeated by active resistance.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:57 AM on May 9, 2021
I didn't say that it's not enough to be a problem. That's why it felt like a smackdown. You think I'm unaware that everything we've been through with these fascists in the last year isn't a problem? Let some positivity exist. Some, at least. Please.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:05 AM on May 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:05 AM on May 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
(Again, my comments are not directed toward any one person; I thought this was a group conversation? I'm responding to several things that have been--collectively--said in this thread.)
posted by LooseFilter at 8:22 AM on May 9, 2021
posted by LooseFilter at 8:22 AM on May 9, 2021
>There is no mechanism for Georgia or Arizona to send updated electoral votes for Trump.
True but if they do uncover fraud attributable to the Democrat party that could affect how the party does in those states at the midterms
posted by Homer42 at 8:54 AM on May 9, 2021
True but if they do uncover fraud attributable to the Democrat party that could affect how the party does in those states at the midterms
posted by Homer42 at 8:54 AM on May 9, 2021
We've heard that the Republican Party is dying for the past 20 years. And I note that in that time they won more often than not. I hope you'll forgive me if I don't take reassurances that this time your predictions of the demise of the Republican Party are totally guaranteed to be true.
I'll note that we're already the Republicans almost certainly taking the Senate in 2022 and quite possibly the House as well. Thanks to gerrymandering the Democrats already have to win around 60% of votes cast nationwide just to get a bare five or six vote majority in the House, under the anti-voter regime the Republican states are putting in it's going to take more than that in 2022.
And the Senate? We only have the Senate due to a bizarre fluke and Trump being so awful. The Senate is Republican territory just due to geography. There are a lot more low population states that vote Republican than there are high population states that vote Democratic, therefore the Republicans have an automatic advantage there.
The Democrats have 50 votes plus the VP tiebreaker, but due to Senate rules Mitch McConnell is still effectively the second President and has the power to veto all bills except budget bills.
Why haven't Democratic agenda items passed through Congress to be signed by Biden?
Answer: the Republicans rule America from the minority right this second.
I'm not hyperventilating about some hypothetical dark future where the Republicans rule without having a majority, I'm pointing out that we have that situation right this second.
2020 was about as good an election as the Democrats can ever hope to have. There was massive, historic, turnout especially in states that are traditional Republican strongholds. We won both Senate races in **GEORGIA** for goodness sake.
And that got us the Presidency, a smaller majority in the House, and a skin of our teeth majority in the Senate and the Republican Party is still running things.
Is there a general strike? Is there a civil war?
No?
Then America has accepted that the Republicans can and do rule from the minority. The average American might not like that, the average American might gripe a bit about it, but they accept it as a reality that is preferable to either civil war or a general strike.
Every single thing I said the American people accept is a real thing, right this second, that the American people accept. I'm not projecting, I'm not theorizing, I'm observing what America has accepted without civil war or a general strike.
The Republican Party isn't dissolving, it's strengthening, and it is winning. You're gaslighting yourself if you think that it's going to collapse.
posted by sotonohito at 10:30 AM on May 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'll note that we're already the Republicans almost certainly taking the Senate in 2022 and quite possibly the House as well. Thanks to gerrymandering the Democrats already have to win around 60% of votes cast nationwide just to get a bare five or six vote majority in the House, under the anti-voter regime the Republican states are putting in it's going to take more than that in 2022.
And the Senate? We only have the Senate due to a bizarre fluke and Trump being so awful. The Senate is Republican territory just due to geography. There are a lot more low population states that vote Republican than there are high population states that vote Democratic, therefore the Republicans have an automatic advantage there.
The Democrats have 50 votes plus the VP tiebreaker, but due to Senate rules Mitch McConnell is still effectively the second President and has the power to veto all bills except budget bills.
Why haven't Democratic agenda items passed through Congress to be signed by Biden?
Answer: the Republicans rule America from the minority right this second.
I'm not hyperventilating about some hypothetical dark future where the Republicans rule without having a majority, I'm pointing out that we have that situation right this second.
2020 was about as good an election as the Democrats can ever hope to have. There was massive, historic, turnout especially in states that are traditional Republican strongholds. We won both Senate races in **GEORGIA** for goodness sake.
And that got us the Presidency, a smaller majority in the House, and a skin of our teeth majority in the Senate and the Republican Party is still running things.
Is there a general strike? Is there a civil war?
No?
Then America has accepted that the Republicans can and do rule from the minority. The average American might not like that, the average American might gripe a bit about it, but they accept it as a reality that is preferable to either civil war or a general strike.
Every single thing I said the American people accept is a real thing, right this second, that the American people accept. I'm not projecting, I'm not theorizing, I'm observing what America has accepted without civil war or a general strike.
The Republican Party isn't dissolving, it's strengthening, and it is winning. You're gaslighting yourself if you think that it's going to collapse.
posted by sotonohito at 10:30 AM on May 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
True but if they do uncover fraud attributable to the Democrat party
the Republicans already did an audit of Maricopa County, which found zero discrepancies, in November
like is it genuinely more believable that Democrats shipped bags of votes from China* and the Republicans who run the elections went "derp de derr these mysterious votes showed up from nowhere & they're not attached to a voter registration but let's count them anyway?"
or that slightly more of us (in a county including MANY liberal populations that just keeps getting more liberal) voted for Joe Biden?
* this is an actual theory they're looking into by fucking testing the ballots for traces of bamboo, as though paper from China would automatically have bamboo on it & nothing else in Phoenix would
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:50 PM on May 9, 2021 [4 favorites]
the Republicans already did an audit of Maricopa County, which found zero discrepancies, in November
like is it genuinely more believable that Democrats shipped bags of votes from China* and the Republicans who run the elections went "derp de derr these mysterious votes showed up from nowhere & they're not attached to a voter registration but let's count them anyway?"
or that slightly more of us (in a county including MANY liberal populations that just keeps getting more liberal) voted for Joe Biden?
* this is an actual theory they're looking into by fucking testing the ballots for traces of bamboo, as though paper from China would automatically have bamboo on it & nothing else in Phoenix would
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:50 PM on May 9, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think the bamboo thing was not posited as an actual theory in good faith, but as a meta-level message, meant as a signal of contempt for good faith itself. It literally means: this is what we think of your rules.
It's sort of how one of the tame opposition parties in Putin's Russia, led by an aggressive crank named Vladimir Zhirinovsky and advocating preemptive nuclear war against pretty much everyone outside of Russia, was named the Liberal Democratic Party.
posted by acb at 2:31 PM on May 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
It's sort of how one of the tame opposition parties in Putin's Russia, led by an aggressive crank named Vladimir Zhirinovsky and advocating preemptive nuclear war against pretty much everyone outside of Russia, was named the Liberal Democratic Party.
posted by acb at 2:31 PM on May 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
I dislike that any expression of hope here has to be countered immediately.
Funny, I feel like it is the other way: frank discussion of how realistically scary a situation we are in is met at once with denunciations of "doomsaying" and ritual exhortations of optimism.
posted by thelonius at 3:08 PM on May 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
Funny, I feel like it is the other way: frank discussion of how realistically scary a situation we are in is met at once with denunciations of "doomsaying" and ritual exhortations of optimism.
posted by thelonius at 3:08 PM on May 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Republican Party isn't dissolving, it's strengthening, and it is winning. You're gaslighting yourself if you think that it's going to collapse.
We elected Democratic Party members to do a job, and they are not doing that job. At some point, we need to hold them to account for not going after the seditionist traitors who have dominated the news cycle this past week — and since Biden's inauguration, to some degree, which is evident by the laws being passed in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and elsewhere, which aim to minimize if not eliminate voting by non-white, non-Republican voters.
There will be no democracy left, if Republicans are not taken as the present and serious fascist threat to our country that they plainly are.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:27 PM on May 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
We elected Democratic Party members to do a job, and they are not doing that job. At some point, we need to hold them to account for not going after the seditionist traitors who have dominated the news cycle this past week — and since Biden's inauguration, to some degree, which is evident by the laws being passed in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and elsewhere, which aim to minimize if not eliminate voting by non-white, non-Republican voters.
There will be no democracy left, if Republicans are not taken as the present and serious fascist threat to our country that they plainly are.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:27 PM on May 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
Just what do you propose that the "Democratic Party members" do? Please be specific.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:22 PM on May 9, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 8:22 PM on May 9, 2021 [5 favorites]
What it comes down to is that we don’t actually have a majority in the Senate that are willing to do the things that are necessary. We have only 48 Democrats willing to vote for the end of the cloture vote BS, and maybe that many to vote for HB1, and mayyybe 49 willing to vote for DC Statehood. Fixing those three things would make a huge dent in the fascist advance.
Without both Manchin and Sinema on board, we don’t actually have a functional majority. Manchin is a Democratic Senator in a state that votes R by such an incredibly wide margin that he’s basically a unicorn. We need him, because if we didn’t have him, it would undoubtedly be a Republican taking his place. And that would be a 2-vote shift in terms of controlling the Senate.
Sinema is different. She used to be a bold progressive. She was one of the co-leads when I went through the program at the Center for Progressive Leadership. Then she got elected to the state lege and started changing, to try to appeal to the centrists in Maricopa. But I think she has broadly misjudged her state, because she thinks AZ requires her to be a Manchin in order to stay in office. I wouldn’t be surprised to find her primaried by Gallego in the next cycle, and if that happens, I think she loses her job because of her miscalculations.
(Unless, of course, Sinema was just a chameleon all along, taking whatever political positions she thought were necessary to gain the next step in her political aspirations. Which I guess is a possibility.)
Anyway, “Democrats” are generally doing what’s needed. We just don’t have the majority that would enable us to make as big an impact as is needed right now.
I’m reminded of Lieberman sabotaging more progressive health care advance, which is why we got the ACA as it was.
posted by darkstar at 10:57 PM on May 9, 2021 [9 favorites]
Without both Manchin and Sinema on board, we don’t actually have a functional majority. Manchin is a Democratic Senator in a state that votes R by such an incredibly wide margin that he’s basically a unicorn. We need him, because if we didn’t have him, it would undoubtedly be a Republican taking his place. And that would be a 2-vote shift in terms of controlling the Senate.
Sinema is different. She used to be a bold progressive. She was one of the co-leads when I went through the program at the Center for Progressive Leadership. Then she got elected to the state lege and started changing, to try to appeal to the centrists in Maricopa. But I think she has broadly misjudged her state, because she thinks AZ requires her to be a Manchin in order to stay in office. I wouldn’t be surprised to find her primaried by Gallego in the next cycle, and if that happens, I think she loses her job because of her miscalculations.
(Unless, of course, Sinema was just a chameleon all along, taking whatever political positions she thought were necessary to gain the next step in her political aspirations. Which I guess is a possibility.)
Anyway, “Democrats” are generally doing what’s needed. We just don’t have the majority that would enable us to make as big an impact as is needed right now.
I’m reminded of Lieberman sabotaging more progressive health care advance, which is why we got the ACA as it was.
posted by darkstar at 10:57 PM on May 9, 2021 [9 favorites]
As of this morning, AZ State Senator Paul Boyer (R-Glendale), who I mentioned in my comment above, is officially on record coming out against the audit in today's New York Times.
Remember, the R's only have a one-vote majority in the state senate, so this looks to mean that any attempted legislation using the audit as a pretext is unlikely to pass at this point (but this could change if Boyer gets too much pressure from the right and finds his courage lacking).
If you can, please take a moment today to send Sen. Boyer your thanks - he is almost certainly receiving another round of death threats from the far right.
As some people mentioned upthread, we have 30% of the country committed to overthrowing democracy and establishing a right-wing dictatorship, which historically has been sufficient to succeed in many historical cases. So if we're going to save this thing, Democrats and their supporters cannot do it alone. We need people like Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Paul Boyer of Arizona to continue to speak out for truth regarding the 2020 election and the influence of Donald Trump. We need to recognize that their efforts come at a much greater cost to them than it does to many Democrats--certainly at minimum their political ambitions, but also their safety and security. However much we want to chide them for their blindness and complicity in their party's authoritarian turn up to now - and however much we would be justified in doing so - and however much we find their traditional conservative policy views to be detrimental - we cannot afford to push these people away.
posted by notswedish at 8:32 AM on May 10, 2021 [8 favorites]
Remember, the R's only have a one-vote majority in the state senate, so this looks to mean that any attempted legislation using the audit as a pretext is unlikely to pass at this point (but this could change if Boyer gets too much pressure from the right and finds his courage lacking).
If you can, please take a moment today to send Sen. Boyer your thanks - he is almost certainly receiving another round of death threats from the far right.
As some people mentioned upthread, we have 30% of the country committed to overthrowing democracy and establishing a right-wing dictatorship, which historically has been sufficient to succeed in many historical cases. So if we're going to save this thing, Democrats and their supporters cannot do it alone. We need people like Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Paul Boyer of Arizona to continue to speak out for truth regarding the 2020 election and the influence of Donald Trump. We need to recognize that their efforts come at a much greater cost to them than it does to many Democrats--certainly at minimum their political ambitions, but also their safety and security. However much we want to chide them for their blindness and complicity in their party's authoritarian turn up to now - and however much we would be justified in doing so - and however much we find their traditional conservative policy views to be detrimental - we cannot afford to push these people away.
posted by notswedish at 8:32 AM on May 10, 2021 [8 favorites]
> It's an effort to start a civil war, or at least edge up to one and undermine the whole concept of having a representative democracy.
fwiw...
Trump's Big Lie Devoured the G.O.P. and Now Eyes Our Democracy [ungated link] - "Respect for election integrity is now a disqualifier for membership in the Republican Party."
fwiw...
Trump's Big Lie Devoured the G.O.P. and Now Eyes Our Democracy [ungated link] - "Respect for election integrity is now a disqualifier for membership in the Republican Party."
We are not OK. America’s democracy is still in real danger. In fact, we are closer to a political civil war — more than at any other time in our modern history. Today’s seeming political calm is actually resting on a false bottom that we’re at risk of crashing through at any moment.posted by kliuless at 11:14 AM on May 10, 2021 [5 favorites]
Because, instead of Trump’s Big Lie fading away, just the opposite is happening — first slowly and now quickly.
Under Trump’s command and control from Mar-a-Largo, and with the complicity of most of his party’s leaders, that Big Lie — that the greatest election in our history, when more Republicans and Democrats voted than ever before, in the midst of a pandemic, must have been rigged because Trump lost — has metastasized. It’s being embraced by a solid majority of elected Republicans and ordinary party members — local, state and national.
PhineasGage
I specifically, at absolute minimum, want them to pass HB1 as quickly as humanly possible, which means at the MOST the speed of the Republicans replacing RBG and ideally quicker. I want them to set a new all Senate record in passing a bill quickly. Ideally it'd be passed tomorrow.
We need HB1 passed **BEFORE** redistricting is done so it can ban gerrymandering.
I don't care if they have to take Manchin's precious coal mines hostage and tell him they'll nuke them unless he votes to end the filibuster so we can pass the damn thing.
I'd be fine with bribing him with literally hundreds of billions in coal bail out money if that's what it takes.
Literally whatever it takes.
It is 100%, no doubt at all, completely worth losing his seat in the Senate to pass HB1. The future of both the Democratic Party and democracy itself is at stake here, and the Democrats are doing their usual dither and delay routine and letting Manchin and Sinema destroy our nation.
I think, additionally, we need to admit DC as a state at the very least, and Puerto Rico would be just barely below DC statehood in priority.
That, specifically, is what I want the Democrats to do.
And if giving them the majority is insufficient for them to actually do anything, then why bother giving them a majority?
So far they have passed a budget bill, and stabbed us in the back by omitting a minimum wage increase in that one single bill that they will be permitted by Supreme Leader McConnell until the next budget bill. And everything else, predictably, has been blocked by Supreme Leader McConnell's veto.
So what I want, specifically, is for the Democratic Party to stop submitting to McConnell's rulership, pass HB1, and admit DC (and ideally Puerto RIco) as a state.
posted by sotonohito at 1:13 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
I specifically, at absolute minimum, want them to pass HB1 as quickly as humanly possible, which means at the MOST the speed of the Republicans replacing RBG and ideally quicker. I want them to set a new all Senate record in passing a bill quickly. Ideally it'd be passed tomorrow.
We need HB1 passed **BEFORE** redistricting is done so it can ban gerrymandering.
I don't care if they have to take Manchin's precious coal mines hostage and tell him they'll nuke them unless he votes to end the filibuster so we can pass the damn thing.
I'd be fine with bribing him with literally hundreds of billions in coal bail out money if that's what it takes.
Literally whatever it takes.
It is 100%, no doubt at all, completely worth losing his seat in the Senate to pass HB1. The future of both the Democratic Party and democracy itself is at stake here, and the Democrats are doing their usual dither and delay routine and letting Manchin and Sinema destroy our nation.
I think, additionally, we need to admit DC as a state at the very least, and Puerto Rico would be just barely below DC statehood in priority.
That, specifically, is what I want the Democrats to do.
And if giving them the majority is insufficient for them to actually do anything, then why bother giving them a majority?
So far they have passed a budget bill, and stabbed us in the back by omitting a minimum wage increase in that one single bill that they will be permitted by Supreme Leader McConnell until the next budget bill. And everything else, predictably, has been blocked by Supreme Leader McConnell's veto.
So what I want, specifically, is for the Democratic Party to stop submitting to McConnell's rulership, pass HB1, and admit DC (and ideally Puerto RIco) as a state.
posted by sotonohito at 1:13 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
We saw this same routine during the ACA debacle.
The voters gave the Democrats the Presidency, a majority in the House, **AND** a supermajority in the Senate and we still weren't allowed to get anything done because of that darn ole Joe Liberman.
It seems that no matter what the voters do, no matter how much power we give the Democrats they always, always, find a way for it to magically be insufficient and tell us that its our fault because if only we'd voted in just X more Democrats then the party would go voom and we'd get all the good stuff.
I'm beginning to suspect that Democratic leadership doesn't actually want to get the good bills passed because they are so very creative in finding ever more new excuses for their total inaction.
posted by sotonohito at 2:21 PM on May 10, 2021
The voters gave the Democrats the Presidency, a majority in the House, **AND** a supermajority in the Senate and we still weren't allowed to get anything done because of that darn ole Joe Liberman.
It seems that no matter what the voters do, no matter how much power we give the Democrats they always, always, find a way for it to magically be insufficient and tell us that its our fault because if only we'd voted in just X more Democrats then the party would go voom and we'd get all the good stuff.
I'm beginning to suspect that Democratic leadership doesn't actually want to get the good bills passed because they are so very creative in finding ever more new excuses for their total inaction.
posted by sotonohito at 2:21 PM on May 10, 2021
These people all committed crimes on national television. It was on the news every night. Arrest and try them without delay. Start with the insurrectionist caucus in Congress.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:59 PM on May 10, 2021
posted by ob1quixote at 2:59 PM on May 10, 2021
I'm beginning to suspect that Democratic leadership doesn't actually want to get the good bills passed because they are so very creative in finding ever more new excuses for their total inaction.
There may be some of that, but I think, more the case, it's that "Democrats" aren't a monolithic entity. Because not all Democrats come from safe Blue districts/states, and so have different calculus in terms of what is achievable and sustainable. And that means we can't just expect them all to want to fall on their swords to pass the most progressive version of whatever bill that comes along, especially when it will likely mean they lose their jobs in the next election.
So saying "Democrats need to do X, Y or Z"...kind of elides the reality that "Democrats", as imagined by such an exhortation to action, don't really exist.
As for the filibuster, imagine for a moment that Dems had nuked the filibuster in order to side-step Lieberman's objections. And then a few years later, how that would play out with Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House. We rightfully loathe what they did then, even so. How much worse might it have been if there were no filibuster during the Trump-McConnell years?
That said, I think Manchin and Sinema are shitheels for balking at either HR1 or DC statehood. These bills are absolutely the moral, ethical, right thing to do. Waffling about process or whatever as you deny statehood to hundreds of thousands of Americans, or permitting partisan actors to disenfranchise millions from having their vote counted, is just showing how shitty a human being you are, regardless of your party.
posted by darkstar at 3:04 PM on May 10, 2021 [3 favorites]
There may be some of that, but I think, more the case, it's that "Democrats" aren't a monolithic entity. Because not all Democrats come from safe Blue districts/states, and so have different calculus in terms of what is achievable and sustainable. And that means we can't just expect them all to want to fall on their swords to pass the most progressive version of whatever bill that comes along, especially when it will likely mean they lose their jobs in the next election.
So saying "Democrats need to do X, Y or Z"...kind of elides the reality that "Democrats", as imagined by such an exhortation to action, don't really exist.
As for the filibuster, imagine for a moment that Dems had nuked the filibuster in order to side-step Lieberman's objections. And then a few years later, how that would play out with Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House. We rightfully loathe what they did then, even so. How much worse might it have been if there were no filibuster during the Trump-McConnell years?
That said, I think Manchin and Sinema are shitheels for balking at either HR1 or DC statehood. These bills are absolutely the moral, ethical, right thing to do. Waffling about process or whatever as you deny statehood to hundreds of thousands of Americans, or permitting partisan actors to disenfranchise millions from having their vote counted, is just showing how shitty a human being you are, regardless of your party.
posted by darkstar at 3:04 PM on May 10, 2021 [3 favorites]
Practically speaking there **WAS** no filibuster during the Junior/Trump years. The problem is that the filibuster only ever really gets used by the Republicans. The Democrats don't get to use it in large part because the Republicans aren't actually very interested in passing laws. They're fine with just using executive power to demolish the structure of the state and packing the courts so they can redefine the law however they want.
posted by sotonohito at 3:15 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by sotonohito at 3:15 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
And yes, I understand that we can't get Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism out of the current batch of center-right people in the Democratic Party.
But I don't think HB1 is some huge leftist ask, its all perfectly liberal/centrist, and never forget that without it the Democratic Party will never be permitted to win a majority again and democracy in America will end shortly after that.
You don't have to be some wild eyed leftist with wacky totally out of touch and radical ideas like "poor people shouldn't die in the street because they can't afford medicine" to think that the survival of democracy in America (and the Democratic Party) is a good thing. You'd hope even the mainstream center-right Democrats in office would like their party to survive.
And yet, they aren't doing what is necessary to assure their survival.
I'd argue that even if the filibuster was (very occasionally) used to do good things that it is worth losing that ability to get HB1 passed. Just as I argue it is entirely worth losing Manchin's seat to get HB1 passed.
Basically I see HB1 as an existential issue that surpasses literally everything else in importance. There is no price too high to get it passed because if it does not pass our nation will cease to be a democracy and we will never, ever, be allowed by the Republicans to win a majority again.
There is absolutely no political price that is not worth paying to pass HB1.
For the record, I don't think the voters of WV will vote out Manchin if he allows HB1 to pass, nor do I think there would be any particular bad outcome for us if the filibuster were completely abolished.
Seriously, name the last time the Democrats **SUCCESSFULLY** filibustered a bad law in the Senate. It doesn't happen, like all that other keeping our powder dry talk it's just excuses for letting the Republicans rule from the minority.
posted by sotonohito at 3:21 PM on May 10, 2021 [1 favorite]
But I don't think HB1 is some huge leftist ask, its all perfectly liberal/centrist, and never forget that without it the Democratic Party will never be permitted to win a majority again and democracy in America will end shortly after that.
You don't have to be some wild eyed leftist with wacky totally out of touch and radical ideas like "poor people shouldn't die in the street because they can't afford medicine" to think that the survival of democracy in America (and the Democratic Party) is a good thing. You'd hope even the mainstream center-right Democrats in office would like their party to survive.
And yet, they aren't doing what is necessary to assure their survival.
I'd argue that even if the filibuster was (very occasionally) used to do good things that it is worth losing that ability to get HB1 passed. Just as I argue it is entirely worth losing Manchin's seat to get HB1 passed.
Basically I see HB1 as an existential issue that surpasses literally everything else in importance. There is no price too high to get it passed because if it does not pass our nation will cease to be a democracy and we will never, ever, be allowed by the Republicans to win a majority again.
There is absolutely no political price that is not worth paying to pass HB1.
For the record, I don't think the voters of WV will vote out Manchin if he allows HB1 to pass, nor do I think there would be any particular bad outcome for us if the filibuster were completely abolished.
Seriously, name the last time the Democrats **SUCCESSFULLY** filibustered a bad law in the Senate. It doesn't happen, like all that other keeping our powder dry talk it's just excuses for letting the Republicans rule from the minority.
posted by sotonohito at 3:21 PM on May 10, 2021 [1 favorite]
Agreed completely, sotonohito, about the importance of fundamental election reform as in HR 1/S 1. Is tomorrow OK?
posted by PhineasGage at 3:23 PM on May 10, 2021
posted by PhineasGage at 3:23 PM on May 10, 2021
Warning people that Republican senators in the future would be empowered by the lack of the filibuster rule is just concern trolling. It's a hypothetical about a future eventuality (Republicans have 50, but not 60 votes) at a time of genuine national crisis, and I can already tell you what Republicans would do if they genuinely felt constrained by it: they would vote to remove it, just as they did in 2017 to secure Gorsuch's appointment.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:25 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:25 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
Warning people that Republican senators in the future would be empowered by the lack of the filibuster rule is just concern trolling.
There is no such thing as "concern trolling", it's bullshit that people made up to justify ignoring things they don't want to hear.
posted by thelonius at 3:35 PM on May 10, 2021
There is no such thing as "concern trolling", it's bullshit that people made up to justify ignoring things they don't want to hear.
posted by thelonius at 3:35 PM on May 10, 2021
Shouldn't the last couple of years have given plenty of evidence that Republicans don't actually care about things like norms and precedent? The modern Republican party will not hesitate to end the filibuster the moment it becomes in their advantage to do so, so I don't even know what to call the idea that the Democrats should preserve it to set a good example.
posted by Pyry at 3:44 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 3:44 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
Seriously, name the last time the Democrats **SUCCESSFULLY** filibustered a bad law in the Senate. It doesn't happen, like all that other keeping our powder dry talk it's just excuses for letting the Republicans rule from the minority.
Okay, but if you're going to ask me do that research, I'll ask that you allow the results as being at least somewhat supportive of my point.
The filibuster generally is not as critical when we have divided government. That's because the minority party seldom needs to spend the political capital to filibuster the Senate majority if the majority's proposed legislation is going to be killed anyway by an opposition House or President. The filibuster is most critical when there is united government, and the minority really wants a way to put the brakes on Senate action, because anything that otherwise passes through the Senate would also be passed by the House and President.
So, the last time that the Republicans had control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency was in 2017-2018. During those two years, in which the Dems were in the minority and the Republicans had complete control of the Executive and Legislative branches, the Dems used the filibuster, requiring the filing of a cloture vote, 201 times.
If, like me, you find that number to be surprisingly high, it's likely because Democrats and left-leaning media I consume do not talk much about how often Democrats use the filibuster. Because it understandably kind of muddies the water when some Dems then say they want to eliminate it. Not that there is any inherent contradiction or hypocrisy. It's legitimate to use the tool if it's there, but also argue that the tool should be eliminated generally. Otherwise, you are unilaterally forfeiting the only power you have when in the minority, while the other party wouldn't likewise disarm when the tables were turned.
So the reality is, Democrats use the filibuster, rather a lot. And they use it for important things, too, like blocking legislation for Trump's border wall, fording him to do that by executive order, making it easier for Biden to reverse it. If Dems hadn't filibustered that, the border wall would have been cemented in legislation, and the border wall would likely be going on right now.
Dems also used the filibuster to block the Cares act (twice) until the Republicans agreed to add a $600 weekly unemployment supplement to it, etc.. Dems filibustered Sen. Scott's bullshit "police reform" bill, which would have allowed the Republicans to claim they were doing something about police reform, without actually doing anything. Dems filibustered a whole raft of terrible legislation related to restricting reproductive rights, as well as filibustering a bill requiring local governments to cooperate with I.C.E.
And that doesn't even count the number of times that the bad legislation never made it to the floor, because Republicans knew it would be filibustered and fail, and so it wasn't worth putting all the Republican Senators in the hot spot on controversial legislation when they knew it wouldn't pass. There's no way of knowing how often that happened.
So it's not at all true that the Democrats don't use the filibuster meaningfully. They have used it a lot when in the minority to block some truly terrible Republican bills which otherwise would have become law. And I will note also, that the Republicans, despite being a bunch of traitorous, amoral, norm-busting $EXPLETIVE_OF_CHOICE nevertheless honored the filibuster when the Democrats used it.
I think this is fundamentally why many Democratic Senators are uncomfortable eliminating it. Because they have been there long enough to remember what it was like to be in the minority with no other way to block bad legislation, when the Republicans otherwise hold all the levers of power. I.e., three years ago.
Of course, my preference would be for us not to have the filibuster, but also to have a permanent progressive majority in the Senate so that we would never have to be in the position of needing it for our side. HR1 and DC statehood would definitely help, if we could get those things passed. Plus it's simply the right thing to do, regardless of political considerations. Which is why I'm in favor of nuking the filibuster (at least the cloture vote BS), despite its utility. But I can definitely understand why a Democratic senator who has sharp memories of 2017-2018 might feel otherwise.
posted by darkstar at 8:46 PM on May 10, 2021 [7 favorites]
Okay, but if you're going to ask me do that research, I'll ask that you allow the results as being at least somewhat supportive of my point.
The filibuster generally is not as critical when we have divided government. That's because the minority party seldom needs to spend the political capital to filibuster the Senate majority if the majority's proposed legislation is going to be killed anyway by an opposition House or President. The filibuster is most critical when there is united government, and the minority really wants a way to put the brakes on Senate action, because anything that otherwise passes through the Senate would also be passed by the House and President.
So, the last time that the Republicans had control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency was in 2017-2018. During those two years, in which the Dems were in the minority and the Republicans had complete control of the Executive and Legislative branches, the Dems used the filibuster, requiring the filing of a cloture vote, 201 times.
If, like me, you find that number to be surprisingly high, it's likely because Democrats and left-leaning media I consume do not talk much about how often Democrats use the filibuster. Because it understandably kind of muddies the water when some Dems then say they want to eliminate it. Not that there is any inherent contradiction or hypocrisy. It's legitimate to use the tool if it's there, but also argue that the tool should be eliminated generally. Otherwise, you are unilaterally forfeiting the only power you have when in the minority, while the other party wouldn't likewise disarm when the tables were turned.
So the reality is, Democrats use the filibuster, rather a lot. And they use it for important things, too, like blocking legislation for Trump's border wall, fording him to do that by executive order, making it easier for Biden to reverse it. If Dems hadn't filibustered that, the border wall would have been cemented in legislation, and the border wall would likely be going on right now.
Dems also used the filibuster to block the Cares act (twice) until the Republicans agreed to add a $600 weekly unemployment supplement to it, etc.. Dems filibustered Sen. Scott's bullshit "police reform" bill, which would have allowed the Republicans to claim they were doing something about police reform, without actually doing anything. Dems filibustered a whole raft of terrible legislation related to restricting reproductive rights, as well as filibustering a bill requiring local governments to cooperate with I.C.E.
And that doesn't even count the number of times that the bad legislation never made it to the floor, because Republicans knew it would be filibustered and fail, and so it wasn't worth putting all the Republican Senators in the hot spot on controversial legislation when they knew it wouldn't pass. There's no way of knowing how often that happened.
So it's not at all true that the Democrats don't use the filibuster meaningfully. They have used it a lot when in the minority to block some truly terrible Republican bills which otherwise would have become law. And I will note also, that the Republicans, despite being a bunch of traitorous, amoral, norm-busting $EXPLETIVE_OF_CHOICE nevertheless honored the filibuster when the Democrats used it.
I think this is fundamentally why many Democratic Senators are uncomfortable eliminating it. Because they have been there long enough to remember what it was like to be in the minority with no other way to block bad legislation, when the Republicans otherwise hold all the levers of power. I.e., three years ago.
Of course, my preference would be for us not to have the filibuster, but also to have a permanent progressive majority in the Senate so that we would never have to be in the position of needing it for our side. HR1 and DC statehood would definitely help, if we could get those things passed. Plus it's simply the right thing to do, regardless of political considerations. Which is why I'm in favor of nuking the filibuster (at least the cloture vote BS), despite its utility. But I can definitely understand why a Democratic senator who has sharp memories of 2017-2018 might feel otherwise.
posted by darkstar at 8:46 PM on May 10, 2021 [7 favorites]
I would have a lot more sympathy for retaining the filibuster if it still required standing on the Senate floor speaking for days, with the help of a chamber pot when necessary. If the thing you object to is that offensive, it should be worth grinding the legislative process to a complete halt and enduring some physical discomfort over.
At the end, you'll either have convinced the public and/or your fellow senators or a simple majority can finally pass the damn bill.
Seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
posted by wierdo at 9:20 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
At the end, you'll either have convinced the public and/or your fellow senators or a simple majority can finally pass the damn bill.
Seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
posted by wierdo at 9:20 PM on May 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
I totally agree with keeping the standing filibuster. Let senators have all the time they want to stand there and talk. But once they're done, they have to vote. None of this absentee filibuster, 60-votes-to-invoke-cloture BS.
Get rid of that requirement, which is what I mean when I say "nuke the filibuster".
Eh, I probaly should use a more precise descriptor. But "Nuke the 60 vote requirement to invoke cloture" doesn't have quite the same zing.
posted by darkstar at 9:25 PM on May 10, 2021
Get rid of that requirement, which is what I mean when I say "nuke the filibuster".
Eh, I probaly should use a more precise descriptor. But "Nuke the 60 vote requirement to invoke cloture" doesn't have quite the same zing.
posted by darkstar at 9:25 PM on May 10, 2021
These people all committed crimes on national television. It was on the news every night. Arrest and try them without delay. Start with the insurrectionist caucus in Congress.
After 9/11, the so-called threat of terrorism (as opposed to a lazy and incompetent Executive Branch) was all the so-called "liberal media" talked about for more than a year. It's been four months since Republicans staged an attempted coup, and the media clearly is not taking the clear and present danger of an insurrectionist movement within our own borders seriously enough.
posted by Gelatin at 4:43 AM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
After 9/11, the so-called threat of terrorism (as opposed to a lazy and incompetent Executive Branch) was all the so-called "liberal media" talked about for more than a year. It's been four months since Republicans staged an attempted coup, and the media clearly is not taking the clear and present danger of an insurrectionist movement within our own borders seriously enough.
posted by Gelatin at 4:43 AM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
Eh, I probaly should use a more precise descriptor. But "Nuke the 60 vote requirement to invoke cloture" doesn't have quite the same zing.
You could always use the phrase adopted by NPR, the 60-vote requirement to pass legislation in the Senate.
Except that requirement doesn't actually exist except as a way to avoid saying "Republicans, and Republicans alone, are responsible for blocking popular legislation."
posted by Gelatin at 4:59 AM on May 11, 2021
You could always use the phrase adopted by NPR, the 60-vote requirement to pass legislation in the Senate.
Except that requirement doesn't actually exist except as a way to avoid saying "Republicans, and Republicans alone, are responsible for blocking popular legislation."
posted by Gelatin at 4:59 AM on May 11, 2021
PhineasGage Not really, because all that will happen is a ceremonial vote to move it from committee, when it hits the Senate floor Supreme Leader McConnell will still exercise his sacred right to veto any bill.
Sending the legislation to save democracy (and the Democratic Party) to the Senate floor to die from the filibuster is no better than letting it sit in committee forever.
Serisouly, without eliminating the filibuster there's no point in sending anything at all to the Senate floor and the entire Senate might as well just go on recess until 2022. Supreme Leader McConnell is still the ruler of America and he still decides what bills may pass, as long as that's the case why bother wasting time sitting in the Senate?
darkstar Thanks for that thoughtful and well researched reply, I suppose it does at least a bit explain why some Democrats are so (to me) mysteriously and bizarrely devoted to it.
That said, I still come down on the "abolish it completely, even the standing talking version" side because HB1 is so damn important.
Either we pass it, or America dies, it's that simple. Therefore any price is worth it.
I'm enough of a believer in actual democracy I'm not even really in favor of the filibuster if it involved the standy/talky version or even that the Democrats do use it successfully betimes.
The Senate is already an intolerable abomination of an anti-democratic institution, letting the minority party block every bit of legislation on the very few times the majority of Americans can manage to scrape together a Senate majority just means we never get anything good done but the Republicans still manage to get occasional bad shit done, meaning we continually ratchet into worse and worse laws.
The ship of state **SHOULD** turn on a dime when people vote for it. I'm opposed to, say, tax cuts for the rich, but if more than 50% of Americans say they want the rich to pay no taxes then I argue that's what should happen even if I utterly hate that outcome.
I dig the idea of having civil rights be held to a higher standard than 50%+1, that's fine. But day to day laws? Nope.
I'll agree this is complicated by the horrible nature of the Senate. But I also think that the cost of letting the Republicans block 100% of what we want to do is not worth the benefit of us occasionally blocking 20% or so of what the Republicans want to do.
If we had earmarks so the bloc voting of the Republicans could be broken up maybe then the filibuster would be at least semi-tolerable because then "the filibuster" wouldn't be synonymous with "Mitch McConnell rules America with an iron fist no matter how we vote".
But fundamentally, philosophically, I'm a believer in democracy. I despise all the stuff (not related to Constitutional protections of civil and human rights) that gets in the way of majority rule. The EC, gerrymndering, the very eexistence of the Senate, you name it.
posted by sotonohito at 12:31 PM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
Sending the legislation to save democracy (and the Democratic Party) to the Senate floor to die from the filibuster is no better than letting it sit in committee forever.
Serisouly, without eliminating the filibuster there's no point in sending anything at all to the Senate floor and the entire Senate might as well just go on recess until 2022. Supreme Leader McConnell is still the ruler of America and he still decides what bills may pass, as long as that's the case why bother wasting time sitting in the Senate?
darkstar Thanks for that thoughtful and well researched reply, I suppose it does at least a bit explain why some Democrats are so (to me) mysteriously and bizarrely devoted to it.
That said, I still come down on the "abolish it completely, even the standing talking version" side because HB1 is so damn important.
Either we pass it, or America dies, it's that simple. Therefore any price is worth it.
I'm enough of a believer in actual democracy I'm not even really in favor of the filibuster if it involved the standy/talky version or even that the Democrats do use it successfully betimes.
The Senate is already an intolerable abomination of an anti-democratic institution, letting the minority party block every bit of legislation on the very few times the majority of Americans can manage to scrape together a Senate majority just means we never get anything good done but the Republicans still manage to get occasional bad shit done, meaning we continually ratchet into worse and worse laws.
The ship of state **SHOULD** turn on a dime when people vote for it. I'm opposed to, say, tax cuts for the rich, but if more than 50% of Americans say they want the rich to pay no taxes then I argue that's what should happen even if I utterly hate that outcome.
I dig the idea of having civil rights be held to a higher standard than 50%+1, that's fine. But day to day laws? Nope.
I'll agree this is complicated by the horrible nature of the Senate. But I also think that the cost of letting the Republicans block 100% of what we want to do is not worth the benefit of us occasionally blocking 20% or so of what the Republicans want to do.
If we had earmarks so the bloc voting of the Republicans could be broken up maybe then the filibuster would be at least semi-tolerable because then "the filibuster" wouldn't be synonymous with "Mitch McConnell rules America with an iron fist no matter how we vote".
But fundamentally, philosophically, I'm a believer in democracy. I despise all the stuff (not related to Constitutional protections of civil and human rights) that gets in the way of majority rule. The EC, gerrymndering, the very eexistence of the Senate, you name it.
posted by sotonohito at 12:31 PM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's worth reading the news coverage a bit more deeply and giving some credit to the folks who are doing actual the politics on Capitol Hill. Until a bill is through committee and on the Senate floor, and then McConnell does his obstructionist thing, there is no possible way the Senate Dems will vote to make any changes to the filibuster. Manchin and others have already made clear that right now they oppose that.
We can sit here on these blue sidelines and fulminate, but stamping our feet will just lead to sore heels. Yes, write our (Democratic) senators and advocate for the end of the filibuster, but let's also acknowledge how Capitol Hill works: it's gonna be McConnell's formal FU that triggers the climactic battle, not demanding release of the kraken now, before all the pieces are in place.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:53 PM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
We can sit here on these blue sidelines and fulminate, but stamping our feet will just lead to sore heels. Yes, write our (Democratic) senators and advocate for the end of the filibuster, but let's also acknowledge how Capitol Hill works: it's gonna be McConnell's formal FU that triggers the climactic battle, not demanding release of the kraken now, before all the pieces are in place.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:53 PM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Senate and the filibuster were designed to give slavers more power. Regardless if ending the filibuster would result in some adjustment -- of course it will -- redeeming the country from its slavery past means removing the system's tools of oppression. Ya gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, as they say, but I feel there would be a better society on the other side, after that period of adjustment.
Then we move on to removing or downgrading the Senate itself. I fully believe it's possible that the filibuster is being used as a firewall against this, and that's why the rhetoric is so overheated. "If minority rule is bad in this case (filibuster), what about...uh oh."
posted by rhizome at 2:07 PM on May 11, 2021
Then we move on to removing or downgrading the Senate itself. I fully believe it's possible that the filibuster is being used as a firewall against this, and that's why the rhetoric is so overheated. "If minority rule is bad in this case (filibuster), what about...uh oh."
posted by rhizome at 2:07 PM on May 11, 2021
An NPR report on today's committee hearing on voting reform. And more reporting of the facts on the ground from Slate.
posted by PhineasGage at 5:11 PM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 5:11 PM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
Elizabeth Cheney has officially been removed from her Republican (can we please stop saying "GOP"? There's nothing grand about this party.) leadership position.
The article doesn't point out until the ninth paragraph that the removal was done by voice vote. The cowards didn't dare put their names to it. Which signals, at least, that as desperate as Republicans are to embrace the Big Lie and appeal to the fascist Trump base, they still believe they need to maintain plausible deniability.
The media needs to not give it to them.
posted by Gelatin at 6:54 AM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
The article doesn't point out until the ninth paragraph that the removal was done by voice vote. The cowards didn't dare put their names to it. Which signals, at least, that as desperate as Republicans are to embrace the Big Lie and appeal to the fascist Trump base, they still believe they need to maintain plausible deniability.
The media needs to not give it to them.
posted by Gelatin at 6:54 AM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
Money quote from the Vox article on Manchin:
The whole article is fascinating and depressing. It paints the picture of a man who is self aggrandizing, egotistical, thin skinned, and utterly, unreservedly, staggeringly, corrupt and in it for personal gain and personal vengence.
And the Vox article skipped the actual reason why he opposed Neera Tanden’s nomination at the OMB. They euphemistically said that he opposed her because of "overly partisan tweets".
That is a lie.
Manchin opposed Tanden because Tandin tweeted the truth about Manchin's daughter. She became very rich by raising the price on EpiPens. Yes, she's the one who actually started that. Manchin, thin skinned and vindictive, derailed a dedicated public servant because she dared to be critical of his evil scumbag of a daughter.
The more I learn about Manchin the more I hate him on a personal level as well as a political level. He is exactly the sort of power grubbing crooked scumbag pop culture paints all politicians as being.
posted by sotonohito at 2:33 PM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
“How in the world could you, with the tension we have right now, allow a voting bill to restructure the voting of America on a partisan line?Apparently no one thought to ask him the obvious followup about how we're supposed to feel about the Republicans restructuring voting in America on a partisan line at the state level.
The whole article is fascinating and depressing. It paints the picture of a man who is self aggrandizing, egotistical, thin skinned, and utterly, unreservedly, staggeringly, corrupt and in it for personal gain and personal vengence.
And the Vox article skipped the actual reason why he opposed Neera Tanden’s nomination at the OMB. They euphemistically said that he opposed her because of "overly partisan tweets".
That is a lie.
Manchin opposed Tanden because Tandin tweeted the truth about Manchin's daughter. She became very rich by raising the price on EpiPens. Yes, she's the one who actually started that. Manchin, thin skinned and vindictive, derailed a dedicated public servant because she dared to be critical of his evil scumbag of a daughter.
The more I learn about Manchin the more I hate him on a personal level as well as a political level. He is exactly the sort of power grubbing crooked scumbag pop culture paints all politicians as being.
posted by sotonohito at 2:33 PM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
Here's Manchin's "surprisingly bold proposal to fix America’s voting rights problem."
posted by PhineasGage at 2:40 PM on May 13, 2021
posted by PhineasGage at 2:40 PM on May 13, 2021
The whole pre-clearance proposal is good, but also open for abuse, depending upon which party controls the DoJ and the SCOTUS. So I don't see it as an either-or: we should have pre-clearance requirements AND we should have the robust protections of the voting franchise that is outlined in HR1/SR1.
posted by darkstar at 2:46 PM on May 13, 2021
posted by darkstar at 2:46 PM on May 13, 2021
Only one of these, though, has a chance at passing the Senate and being enacted into law right now.
posted by PhineasGage at 2:55 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 2:55 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm opposed to, say, tax cuts for the rich, but if more than 50% of Americans say they want the rich to pay no taxes then I argue that's what should happen even if I utterly hate that outcome.
As a citizen of the UK, and a former citizen of the EU, I disagree.
posted by acb at 3:06 PM on May 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
As a citizen of the UK, and a former citizen of the EU, I disagree.
posted by acb at 3:06 PM on May 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
Only one of these, though, has a chance at passing the Senate and being enacted into law right now.
Agreed, sadly.
posted by darkstar at 3:07 PM on May 13, 2021
Agreed, sadly.
posted by darkstar at 3:07 PM on May 13, 2021
As the article notes there is no possible way that Manchin's 50 state preclearance bill will get ten Republican votes in the Senate. I doubt it'll even get one.
And we'd like to dare to think, when his proposal is shot down with scornful laughter by McConnell he'll finally admit bipartisanship is dead?
But no, he won't. I see nothing but darkness ahead, a future of permanent Republican rule from the minority and I see no way to end it.
posted by sotonohito at 12:45 PM on May 14, 2021
And we'd like to dare to think, when his proposal is shot down with scornful laughter by McConnell he'll finally admit bipartisanship is dead?
But no, he won't. I see nothing but darkness ahead, a future of permanent Republican rule from the minority and I see no way to end it.
posted by sotonohito at 12:45 PM on May 14, 2021
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