#Most of the push to not vote last year was in an effort to not validate the democratic party for their genocide.

[dallasdrevis]

Liberals stop trying to pretend you know what's better for Palestinian Americans than we do challenge impossible.

[reasonsforhope]

"A record number of early votes have been cast in Georgia on Tuesday [October 15, 2024] as residents headed to the polls in a critical battleground state that is grappling with the fallout from Hurricane Helene and controversial election administration changes that have spurred a flurry of lawsuits.

More than 328,000 ballots were cast Tuesday [October 15, 2024], Gabe Sterling of the Georgia secretary of state’s office said on X. “So with the record breaking 1st day of early voting and accepted absentees we have had over 328,000 total votes cast so far,” he said.

The previous first day record was 136,000 in 2020, Sterling said.

The swing state is one of the most closely watched this election, with former President Donald Trump trying to reclaim it after losing there to President Joe Biden by a small margin four years ago, leading Trump and his allies to unsuccessfully push to overturn his defeat.

Those efforts have loomed large this year as new changes to how the state conducts elections have been approved by Republican members of the State Election Board, leading Democrats and others to mount legal challenges, many of which have yet to be resolved even as Election Day nears.

Despite the massive turnout on Tuesday, the process appeared to go smoother this year for some Atlanta-area voters who spoke with CNN.

“Last time I voted, I voted in the city and the lines were out the door. They only had like, maybe like three people working,” said Corine Canada. “So people honestly just started leaving because it was like that. Yeah, like, ‘This is too long. I can’t sit here (and) wait, I have to go back to work.’ But here, no, it was easy.”

-via CNN, October 15, 2024

[contemplatingoutlander]

"The gerrymandering alone undermines Wisconsin’s status as a democracy. If a majority of the people cannot, under any realistic circumstances, elect a legislative majority of their choosing, then it’s hard to say whether they actually govern themselves."

--Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times

Jamelle Bouie points out the disturbing way that Republicans in Wisconsin have basically destroyed democratic representative government on all levels by:

Creating an unbreakable gerrymander to ensure a Republican legislative majority, even if more people vote for Democrats.

Weakening the power of a Democratic governor,.

Targeting a liberal Wisconsin supreme court justice for removal or suspension so that the state SC won't have the power to rule against gerrymandered districting maps, and won't be able to prevent a 19th century ban on abortion from becoming law.

This is chilling. Below are some excerpts from the column:

For more than a decade, dating back to the Republican triumph in the 2010 midterm elections, Wisconsin Republicans have held their State Legislature in an iron lock, forged by a gerrymander so stark that nothing short of a supermajority of the voting public could break it. [...] In 2018, this gerrymander proved strong enough to allow Wisconsin Republicans to win a supermajority of seats in the Assembly despite losing the vote for every statewide office and the statewide legislative vote by 8 percentage points, 54 to 46. No matter how much Wisconsin voters might want to elect a Democratic Legislature, the Republican gerrymander won’t allow them to. [...] Using their gerrymandered majority, Wisconsin Republicans have done everything in their power to undermine, subvert or even nullify the public’s attempt to chart a course away from the Republican Party. In 2018, for example, Wisconsin voters put Tony Evers, a Democrat, in the governor’s mansion, sweeping the incumbent, Scott Walker, out of office. immediately, Wisconsin Republicans introduced legislation to weaken the state’s executive branch, curbing the authority that Walker had exercised as governor. Earlier this year, Wisconsin voters took another step toward ending a decade of Republican minority rule in the Legislature by electing Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee county judge, to the State Supreme Court, in one of the most high-profile and expensive judicial elections in American history. [...] “Republicans in Wisconsin are coalescing around the prospect of impeaching a newly seated liberal justice on the state’s Supreme Court,” my newsroom colleague Reid J. Epstein reports. “The push, just five weeks after Justice Janet Protasiewicz joined the court and before she has heard a single case, serves as a last-ditch effort to stop the new 4-to-3 liberal majority from throwing out Republican-drawn state legislative maps and legalizing abortion in Wisconsin.” Republicans have more than enough votes in the Wisconsin State Assembly to impeach Justice Protasiewicz and just enough votes in the State Senate — a two-thirds majority — to remove her. But removal would allow Governor Evers to appoint another liberal jurist, which is why Republicans don’t plan to convict and remove Protasiewicz. If, instead, the Republican-led State Senate chooses not to act on impeachment, Justice Protasiewicz is suspended but not removed. The court would then revert to a 3-3 deadlock, very likely preserving the Republican gerrymander and keeping a 19th-century abortion law, which bans the procedure, on the books. If successful, Wisconsin Republicans will have created, in effect, an unbreakable hold on state government. With their gerrymander in place, they have an almost permanent grip on the State Legislature, with supermajorities in both chambers. With these majorities, they can limit the reach and power of any Democrat elected to statewide office and remove — or neutralize — any justice who might rule against the gerrymander. [color/emphasis added[

"It’s that breathtaking contempt for the people of Wisconsin — who have voted, since 2018, for a more liberal State Legislature and a more liberal State Supreme Court and a more liberal governor, with the full powers of his office available to him — that makes the Wisconsin Republican Party the most openly authoritarian in the country."

--Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times

[edited]

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

In 1979, when President Jimmy Carter famously unveiled 32 solar panels on the White House roof, he remarked, “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

Despite his reputation as an often ineffective president, he had an enormous effect on the environment as an advocate for clean energy, protecting lands and regulating toxic chemicals.

Jimmy Carter was an early adopter of clean energy in an effort to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil following the oil crisis that preceded his presidency. Four years before Carter took office, the member nations of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an oil embargo on the U.S. and several other western nations in response to their support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. As a result, the price of oil rose by more than 300%, while American dependence on foreign oil was simultaneously rising. 

After Carter took office, he responded by creating the U.S. Department of Energy. One of Carter’s major goals for the agency was to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels by pushing for the domestic production of energy. While this push wasn’t perfect — part of his solution for the complex crisis included propping up domestic coal power — it was also a first-of-its-kind endorsement for clean energy, championing sustainable sources like solar and nuclear. “No one can embargo the sun,” Carter once said. “No cartel controls the sun. Its energy will not run out. It will not pollute our air or poison our waters. The sun’s power needs only to be collected, stored and used.”

In 1979, a second oil crisis hit, this time spurred by the decline in oil trade in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Carter responded by laying out plans to expand renewable energy sources and made a pledge that 20% of American energy would be produced by renewable sources by 2000, but was voted out of office before many of these plans could come to fruition. 

Carter also protected far more land than any U.S. president in history. In 1978, he advocated for the National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA,) which aimed to protect vast amounts of Alaskan wilderness from commercial use and destruction. After the bill failed due to a last-minute filibuster, Carter used executive authority to protect more than 56 million acres of Alaskan wilderness, designating those lands as National Monuments. This action alone would more than double the size of the National Park system.

In December of 1980, roughly six weeks before Carter left office, ANILCA was debated again in Congress, and passed. Upon Carter’s signature, the law became the most expansive federal protection of American lands in history, granting protection to more than 157 million acres of Alaskan wilderness, which included further protections for much of the land Carter had protected two years prior. Of those 157 million acres, it also designated nearly ten million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System, more than nine million acres to the Wilderness Preservation System, and more than three million acres to the National Forest System.

[botgal]

CA Internet Bills update as of 8/16/24

Hello again to Legislative-minded Californians of Tumblr. Here are the most recent updates on the big 3 of California's internet bills. Suspense Day was yesterday, 8/15/2024. Which means that the bills that didn't make it through are dead for this legislative session, and the ones that passed will continue on to second and then third readings. After which those that pass this will go through to the Governor, where he will have a month to decide whether to pass, veto, or allow to pass without signing.

Resources:

Assembly Suspense File Hearing Results

Senate Suspense File Hearing Results

Find your California State Reps

SB 976 (Social Media Addiction Act): Passed with amendment. Current course of action, call your local Assembly member to urge them to vote NO on this bill. Can focus on fears of data breaches (for both parties), and can add in things about potential dangers of holding back internet access from LGBT+ youths for whom internet access has improved their lives, and that the kind of restrictions this bill wants to place on this could do more harm than good. Especially since it would essentially mandate age verification to function.

AB 1949 (law on collecting information on individuals under 18: Passed without amendment. Current course of action, much the same as the last one. Talk about the potential dangers that this bill would, especially because even without directly saying it, this would still more or less require invasive age verification. Call your CA senate member to urge them to vote NO on this bill.

AB 3080 (age verification for adult websites): Has been held in committee and under submission. Which means that the bill is essentially dead on arrival! And in no small thanks to everyone who would've been calling or messaging about this bill.

Thank you to everyone in California who's been doing your best to help push back against these bills. Bills that don't pass by the end of August will be dead for the rest of the year, and we'll be free of them unless the author tries to push them again the next year. We're in the home stretch, and I hope that when we get to the other side we will have done our best no matter the outcome.

Thank you again, and best of luck to all of us and our efforts!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christina A. Cassidy at HuffPost:

ATLANTA (AP) — Republicans plan to move quickly in their effort to overhaul the nation’s voting procedures, seeing an opportunity with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to push through long-sought changes that include voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements. They say the measures are needed to restore public confidence in elections, an erosion of trust that Democrats note has been fueled by false claims from President-elect Donald Trump and his allies of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In the new year, Republicans will be under pressure to address Trump’s desires to change how elections are run in the U.S., something he continues to promote despite his win in November.

The main legislation that Republicans expect to push will be versions of the American Confidence in Elections Act and the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, said GOP Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, chair of the Committee on House Administration, which handles election-related legislation. The proposals are known as the ACE and SAVE acts, respectively. “As we look to the new year with unified Republican government, we have a real opportunity to move these pieces of legislation not only out of committee, but across the House floor and into law,” Steil said in an interview. “We need to improve Americans’ confidence in elections.” Republicans are likely to face opposition from Democrats and have little wiggle room with their narrow majorities in both the House and Senate. Steil said he expects there will be “some reforms and tweaks” to the original proposals and hopes Democrats will work with Republicans to refine and ultimately support them.

Democrats want to make it easier, not harder, to vote

New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said there was an opportunity for bipartisan agreement on some issues but said the two previous GOP bills go too far. “Our view and the Republicans’ view is very different on this point,” Morelle said. “They have spent most of the time in the last two years and beyond really restricting the rights of people to get to ballots – and that’s at the state level and the federal level. And the SAVE Act and the ACE Act both do that – make it harder for people to vote.” Morelle said he wants to see both parties support dedicated federal funding for election offices. He sees other bipartisan opportunities around limiting foreign money in U.S. elections and possibly imposing a voter ID requirement if certain safeguards are in place to protect voters. Democrats say some state laws are too restrictive in limiting the types of IDs that are acceptable for voting, making it harder for college students or those who lack a permanent address.

Donald Trump and the GOP have pressed for changes to the nation’s voting procedures by making it harder to vote, fueled by phony paranoia about “noncitizen voting.”

[mesetacadre]

Hello!

Firstly, Im USAmerican I’m not trying to be like “oh woe is me,” Im just trying my best to understand what would be the best option for everyone. I’ve heard so many varying things and this is my second time voting, so I just want wanted to know what other people think. This isn’t meant to be malicious or condescending in any way either! I know you can do multiple things at once it’s just that I worry that when I walk into that polling booth, that I’ll be putting more innocent people at stake.

I’ve seen people tell,call,email etc Kamala to say that she isn’t getting their vote unless she stops funding Israel and their assault on the Palestinian people. And I’ve seen some people say that there is literally no point in trying to reason/ransom with her and that she (like all other US presidents) is a monster no matter what.

I’ve seen some other people say that voting 3rd party or not voting at all is the only way to go. But I worry that a 3rd party candidate wouldn’t stand a chance so late in the game. And I also worry that not voting would be a waste of a privilege, especially since so many people don’t have the access to voting inside the US and out.

I’ve also seen people worrying about project 2025 being pushed into place and I’ve also seen other people say Americans are cowards for worrying about such a thing.

I know you don’t live in the US but I also know this election impacts people outside of the states so I just wanted to know your thoughts. I’ve asked this to another blog as well, so if any of your followers have thoughts Id like to hear them too! I just feel a little pulled in every direction and I figured asking around would be a good idea.

Thank you so much and have a nice day!

If I were in your position I would stop going back and forth about who to vote for and start organizing. Were social rights protected with Biden? Very clearly not, since people are already suffering from things that are in that think tank's document. Abortion is no longer protected, trans people are begin targeted across a good portion of the states, the border is going to keep getting bloodier regardless of who wins, etc. Sure, you might argue that these things are not in control of the president, like the Supreme Court or the individual states. So then, how are elections supposed to help? And this is just talking about domestic policy, but the imperialist cogs of the US hegemon will keep turning no matter who's in DC, and you really cannot fucking ignore the current genocide in Palestine, plus the US' entire history of foreign interventions and the suffering that has come from that. You all should really realize the scale of the situation and stop engaging with the US on its own terms. There are class interests to which every mechanism of liberal democracy are subordinated to.

It is extremely unique for you USAmericans to spend this much fucking time and energy on your elections, you can't overstate it. Practically every year is filled with election bullshit. Election periods in basically the rest of the world only last like a month at most, where I live it takes two weeks. Elections aren't even the only or most important way to participate in politics within the very basic framework of liberal democracy. But you're all constantly acting like it's a team sport, always with the election. Don't take this personally anon, I'm not annoyed at you specifically and I appreciate the effort in your ask, but it's so incredibly childish to every single time spend 2 years or more hueing and crying about the upcoming election. Do something about it then! stop hyperfocusing on a single day every 4 years! People were already talking about the 2020 election after Trump won in 2016, that's absurd!

Read Lenin and read decolonial theory, organize yourself and the working class, build political-revolutionary consciousness amongst your class, do whatever you can to strike at the stability of the empire which you live under without getting arrested or killed, and stop legitimizing this pantomime by making it the exclusive vehicle of your political thought. Voting is just a single day, and the run-up (not 3 years!) should be spent campaigning for your own interests, denouncing this bullshit system you all keep saying you also don't "like". "Surviving", which is what some left liberals keep saying they're trying to do (I know you did not say that, anon), looks like organizing yourself and everybody you can to stop relying on the scraps the managers of capitalism and imperialism sometimes throw at you.

Voting as an action and voting as a strategy are two different things. What you're worried about, as I understand it, is the action of going to a booth and putting your choice of ballot in the box. Voting as a strategy, is the decoration and structure so many people build around it. I can't recall exactly who I saw doing this, but a USAmerican mutual of mine who's also a communist got an ask about who they're voting for. This mutual laid out the options in their state, went over their policies, and explained why they'll vote for the candidate they disliked less (I think it was an independent but don't quote me on that). You know why none of us "election interfering foreign agents" jumped at them for this? because they understand the very limited potential for voting, spent a little bit of their time researching each candidate avaliable to them, and then spend the entire rest of their political energy focusing on other things outside electoralism.

Yeah, shit's fucked for social rights, so is basically anywhere else in the world right now. I also don't have good choices in my elections, half the parliament is talking about the islamization of Spain and plans to gut any public service, and the other actively anesthesizes and absorbs any social movement that could combat reactionarism. So I stop worrying too much about who I'm casting my ballot for and I dedicate all my political energy to militancy in my communist party, slowly creating class consciousness and setting up ways to eventually protect our own class from the inevitable strike. All of this while being the 12th economy in the world, and consequently, an integral part of the imperialist NATO and EU, facts that no sector of our liberal democracy even questions. And do you think our siblings in the countries victim of the imperialist doctrine of NATO have it any better? When entire elections and governments have been interfered with not by "social media bots", but by actual bloodshed and terror? They don't spend years yelling at each other about who to vote for, they also organize themselves and attempt to emancipate their own class

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

waves, you’re the only Canadian I know. What the heck is going on with Justin Trudeau? I read a couple articles but still didn’t quite grasp why he resigned and what will happen next. What’re your thoughts on it?? I trust your social commentary

First of all, you should never trust me for anything 😂 I am far from a reliable source. I'm just some girl on the internet.

The TL;DR is that there has been a lot of internal strife within his political party and cabinet for the last couple of years, and the voices got louder and louder until they basically all made it clear they would no longer support him and/or resign if he didn't do it first.

Canada's parliamentary system is a constitutional monarchy, more similar to the UK system than the US' governing-wise. So the governing party is the one who has the most amount of seats in the House of Commons. In theory, constituents vote for the party, not the leader, in federal elections, although in practice it obviously comes down to the leader's popularity. In theory, Canada is a multi-party system, although in practice, it's almost entirely governed swapped back and forth between the Liberal Party* and the Conservative Party. There are a handful of other national parties that have debatable influence depending on the era, sometimes representing regional or special interests. Also, Canada doesn't have set election dates like in the US; in theory the Prime Minister can call elections at anytime within their mandate.

(*In Canada, Liberal does not mean the same thing as small-l liberal. It's not a social outlook, it's descended from the UK tradition. Same for how historically the Conservative Party did not mean the same thing as small-c conservative a la in the US, although now they are effectively the same thing due to the influence of the Tea Party and shit from the US. The Liberals are more centrist, the Conservatives are centre-right but quickly heading more right each passing year.)

When Trudeau was first elected in 2015, he won a majority, which means his party, the Liberal Party, held more than half the seats in the House, and could effectively enact their platform. In 2019, the Liberals won with a minority, which meant that they needed the help of other minority parties to pass legislation. In 2021, Trudeau tried to capitalize off some post-pandemic goodwill and called an early election in an effort to try to win back his majority, but it was an incredibly unpopular decision as people did not want to head into another election season AND I think he underestimated the discontent about pandemic mitigating measures and the state of the economy, and instead he kind of shot himself in the foot and he squeaked through with another minority. This forced his party to enter into a coalition with two other minority parties (the New Democrats, which is more left-of-centre, and the Bloc Quebecois, which represents the interests of Quebec) in order to keep a tentative majority and fend off the Conservative Party, who are the official opposition with the second-most number of seats. In theory, this meant that the minority parties could exert some sort of influence to get their policies moving. (For instance, the NDP pushed public dental care on their agenda, which did in fact eventually get passed in some fashion.) In practice, it was more like a holding pattern.

I'm not especially well-versed in what's happening in politics to that degree, but essentially, particularly since 2021, Trudeau has lost a lot of his former allies in his party. There could be many reasons, but the most often one cited is that his team has become more insular and less likely to listen to advisers and other Members of Parliament (MPs = the members who represent ridings, e.g. like US congresspeople/senators) and had become more out of touch than he'd been before. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party is beating the battle drum and want to push for a vote of non-confidence, which means they could bring a motion to the table in the House and if a majority of members vote in favour, would mean government would dissolve and trigger an election. This was just noise when the coalition was in place, but in recent months, the other parties indicated they would no longer support Trudeau's government if a vote were to come to pass.

So it was just a matter of time until an election was called, but then the internal infighting of the Liberal Party sealed the deal. Trudeau attempted a cabinet shuffle before the holidays, which was kind of a last-ditch effort to stop the bleeding by moving ministers around to different portfolios. But one of the people he tried to shuffle was Chrystia Freeland, who was one of his most ardent supporters from the start, is Deputy Prime Minister and was the Finance Minister, which is one of the plumb roles in his cabinet. So before he had a chance to do that, she publicly resigned, which was a death blow to his cabinet, and afterwards many other MPs publicly voiced their lack of confidence in the PM and called for his resignation. There's also been a lot of concern over his handling of Trump's re-election and posturing about making Canada the 51st state and enforcing tariffs and all the usual shit. Trudeau had no choice but to step down because if he hadn't, his party would have forced his hand; he was supposed to have a caucus meeting on Wednesday and all reports were saying it was going to be a knives-out scenario for him. He's leaving before he gets left, basically.

Now, Trudeau is resigning, which means the Liberal party will be heading into a leadership race for an interim leader. He also prorogued parliament, which effectively means the House won't sit until March. When they come back, it is also almost assuredly in name only, because the Conservatives will call for a vote of non confidence on their first item of business and it will pass and the House will fall, meaning Trudeau's elected government will dissolve and an election is called. There's some debate as to whether it was fair of him to ask the Governor General (the King's representative in Canada -- basically an honourary role that rubber stamps things) to prorogue parliament as it's basically like calling a time out so that the Liberals can get their shit together and find a new leader before the election. But cynically I know the Conservatives would have done the same thing so they can stop their yapping imo. So basically, our legislative body is on hiatus until March. The mechanisms of government (e.g. the actual services) aren't, it's still business as usual. And then we're heading to the polls.

My thoughts are, I am far more left-leaning than the Liberal Party, so I have long been disenchanted with Trudeau's performance and politics. At the same time, I think he vastly underestimated how worried Canadians are about the economy (even if what they're worried about doesn't always apply to their own lives), and how much people are struggling. (Canada in some ways is far more expensive to live in than, say, the US. Inflation and price gouging is a huge concern in some areas.) The Conservative Party terrifies me because they are going to cause real harm to Canadians, like the Republican Party does in the US, but they're the party that is going to win and win a majority handily. There's a whole faction of their party that's infiltrated by MAGA-like doctrine. But they're the only challengers to the House and they've been leading in the polls for the last year or whatever, so it's a guarantee that they're going to win, especially with the mess the Liberals now find themselves in. Our minority parties like the NDP don't stand a chance of forming government because they don't have enough grassroots support. Also, our system is first-past-the-post, which means the first party to win the most number of seats wins, which essentially means whoever can win the most amount of seats in Ontario (the most populous province) and to a lesser degree Quebec (second-most, although there are regional factors at play there too but that's another topic) wins the House. (One of Trudeau's 2015 promises was electoral reform, and then he abandoned it once he was elected.) So I am very, very worried for our country and I think we're about to enter into our own dark period.

I have probably very poorly explained this, so I encourage you to look at other legitimate sources of info! This is just my layperson's read on the situation. It's not completely dissimilar to what happened to Joe Biden this summer in the presidential race, if you're looking for something to compare it to, in very broad strokes.

[collapsedsquid]

In my wife’s hometown (not as big as ours, but much more industrial), one man came home with three million rubles, which he and his friends spent in 10 days. Three hundred thousand a day for the guys – limitless alcohol and prostitutes. That is life! Those who have families, meanwhile, come home and go to the sea, buy apartments, upgrade their cars. Secondly, they get to feel like they are part of something great. Just as our grandfathers defeated fascism, we are defeating Nazism in Ukraine (or whatever is there now). At the same time, we are beating the gays, the Jews, the entire collective West, Freemasons, everyone. Those who are older rejoice at the revival of the pioneers, military training in schools, school uniforms and generally all the fixtures of their youth. It’s about time, or else today’s youth would completely let themselves go! And all these gains without any effort at all, usually without even getting up from the couch. And what can be offered to the people who, thanks to the war, got rich and feel great, like kings? Clips about the palaces of corrupt officials? The people have known for a long time, since the 90s, that they were robbed, that is not news. Discussions about how the people (who remained) are to blame for the crimes of the regime? Interviews about democracy and human rights? The tragic stories of the imprisoned Berkovich or Melkonyants? Who even are those people – they did not say anything about them on the TV or internet (for example, on the Komsomol’skaya pravda website). The cash handouts – which the people would not make in years and years from their normal jobs – coupled with the feeling of being part of something great, is an explosive mixture. If you do not take this into account, you might endlessly wonder why in the last elections it was mainly the villages (and not large cities) that voted for the governors appointed by the Kremlin and the “ruling party” – even though it was precisely the village that suffered the most from the mobilization. It is this explosive mixture that pushes grandmas, who come to the polling stations in dresses they bought 20 years ago, to vote for the regime. They sincerely are for the regime, which they believe will soon build a great country – to spite our enemies, of course.

[utilitycaster]

Stuck my I Voted sticker on my stress ball due to the joys of living in a swing state.

Valinari Ziegler (or Nari for short) was a character I played in an Exandria campaign that unfortunately died a few years ago due to scheduling issues. He was a half-elf Shadow Sorcerer who eventually multiclassed into Rogue (when the campaign died he was 6 Sorc/2 Rogue, I probably would have gone either Swashbuckler or Mastermind if I'd gotten to level him up).

When I created him, I had two thoughts in mind: I wanted to do something fun with the Shadow Sorcerer ability that allows them to possibly stabilize at 1 HP when they would otherwise drop to 0, and I wanted to create a character with a vested interest in being in an adventuring party (because I've noticed that a lot of the time people struggle to come up with a reason their characters all want to be in a group). I ended up landing on the idea that he was a former member of the Deastok Myriad who was betrayed and almost killed by another member on the orders of someone higher up (only surviving due to his sorcerous abilities kicking in), but he had no idea who or why. His goal, then, was to make powerful friends and come back to find out why he was killed and get revenge.

Once I started playing him, however, a few things I didn't anticipate happened. First, I made him in Heroforge and inadvertently made him look like the MCU version of Loki (I had already named him after the mythological Loki's children), which prompted a whole bunch of jokes from my group and ended up informing his character a good bit--I'd always planned him to be a smooth talker, but the Loki lean in characterization made me more inclined to embark on stupid plans that bit me in the ass as often as they worked out (this also meant I was the character that pushed the shiny red button more often than not, and it caused me to utter the line "Fuck it, I have poor impulse control and proficiency in CON saves", which is one of my favorite things I've ever said in D&D). Among other things, he managed to con a treasure map from a merchant by exchanging it for a piece of bent metal that he claimed to have come from the Whispered One's stronghold but actually was pilfered from a dead kobold, but he also almost got killed by a fiend that he had threatened thinking that she was imprisoned in a way that she couldn't harm him. The other thing that happened was the classic character development of him initially seeing the other party members as instruments of his revenge but coming to care about them (in particular our party's Druid was very nice to him and, in her player's words, immediately engaged Mom Friend mode upon hearing him refer to her, the person she'd traveled with for two weeks, as his oldest and dearest friend and our Monk was both interested in the way he operated and willing to call him out on his bullshit--they had a really fun dynamic).

Mechanically, Nari is one of the characters I've put the most thought into build-wise, and I had a lot of fun playing him in combat. His build was centered on the spell Shadow Blade combined with the Shadow Sorcerer ability to cast a version of the Darkness spell that only the caster can see through. Throw in sneak attack I was doing a lot of damage. The DM also gave me a magic item that allowed me to teleport in dim light and darkness 3 times a day--it was, however, identical in appearance to MCU Loki's stupid helmet.

Hey! I saw your other message, and no, i just got off Tumblr and went to bed last night for my own well-being before seeing this, no worries about word count.

I know it feels, well, kind of silly to finish up now, but I do want to thank you for voting. It's by no means the only tool we as people in the US have to express our opinion nor to enact change, but it's certainly one of the lowest effort for the highest impact and it has become bizarrely fraught on online spaces. And so silly ask memes are by far from the only thing I do around elections or in my advocacy; but they are one of them, and I hope to continue doing them for a long time.

Getting to the actual character, I think Nari sounds all around great. "Why is my character here" is perhaps the most important thing you can ask yourself in any story, whether it's D&D or original fiction, and a lot of people don't, so having a character with clear motivations available is not faint praise: it's a sign that you put care and thought in and I think the relationships your character was able to build with others in the party reflect that. I also think the Darkness + sneak attack combo is a really creative and fun multiclass - a lot of my frustration with rogues is that I love a cool assassin in fiction but D&D mechanics explicitly make being a rogue in that archetype almost impossible, and I think you reclaimed that. And I love a big red button pusher. There's hooks! Find them!

Anyway this game and Nari sounds great, and man, I kind of hope for your sake there's a way to revive it.

[mariacallous]

Before Oct. 7, 2023, before the hostages, before the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond, Israel was being torn apart by a fight almost entirely within its own borders: the judicial overhaul. 

Now, that debate is on its way back. 

It feels like ancient history now, but just two years ago, Israelis were starting to rally in the streets against a proposal from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government whose most extreme version would have essentially rendered the Supreme Court powerless. Taken together, the judicial overhaul would have let the governing coalition choose the Israeli high court’s judges, and then override any decisions it didn’t like with a simple majority vote. 

Proponents said a left-wing, elitist judicial system had struck down too many laws, effectively negating the will of the right-wing electorate. Critics of the reform said that in a country like Israel, where there isn’t really a separation between the legislative and executive branches, a move to weaken the judiciary risked giving the majority unchecked power. 

That argument resonated with hundreds of thousands of Israelis, who took to the streets week after week in an unprecedented movement for self-styled “pro-democracy” protests against what they called a “coup.”

And they won. Even though the elected coalition had a majority, it managed to pass only one relatively minor piece of the plan. And that was struck down last January. By then, almost three months after Oct. 7, the country was at war, Israelis were in mourning and their minds were elsewhere. The protest movement had pivoted to humanitarian work and pushing for a hostage release deal against an unpopular government.

Fast forward one more year, and the landscape has changed again. The wars seem like they’re winding down, much of the country is exhausted and polls show Netanyahu’s popularity is rebounding. 

Now, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the architect of the effort, has resurrected the plan. And this time it might pass. 

The provisions of judicial overhaul, part deux, are more limited than the original: The proposal changes the makeup of the panel that selects judges, giving more power to elected officials and less to the sitting judges. And it would make it harder for the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to pass one of the so-called Basic Laws that take the place of a constitution. In return, the court would have to meet a higher bar for striking down laws, and wouldn’t be able to touch most Basic Laws.

Levin partnered with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, a former critic of the overhaul-turned-Netanyahu ally, to announce it. Levin called the new plan one that is “a real fundamental change, and on the other hand is deliberate and balanced.” 

The proposal is already drawing backlash from the Israel Bar Association, which would see its representation on the selection panel eliminated, and whose leader called the new outline a “deceptive and dangerous proposal to implement the principles of the coup.”

And it comes as Levin has been resisting the appointment of a new chief justice, which the Supreme Court said he must do by Jan. 16. Parliamentary opposition leader Yair Lapid said he would “answer Yariv Levin immediately after he heeds the court order,” without giving further comment. 

Another sign of relatively muted reaction came from Benny Gantz, a centrist opponent of Netanyahu who had warned against restarting the overhaul but whose party said on Thursday that it was examining the new outline.

One key question is whether the protest movement will be able to summon the energy for yet another round of mass demonstrations. It has spent the past year-plus marching for a hostage deal that has yet to happen. The anti-overhaul rallies of early to mid-2023 had an upbeat and even optimistic vibe, feelings that are harder to come by in protests now. 

But that doesn’t mean the protest leaders aren’t trying. On Thursday, activists announced another Saturday night demonstration in the same spot that hosted the mass rallies of 2023. 

“They won’t break us,” the flier says. “We are the majority.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * * *

Reclaiming sacred ground.

October 30, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

In a pitch-perfect ending to a nearly flawless campaign, Kamala Harris delivered an address on the Ellipse at the National Mall on Tuesday—the site of Trump's speech inciting the January 6 insurrection. By choosing the Ellipse as the location for her “closing argument,” Kamala Harris reclaimed sacred ground. No longer will the Ellipse be a scar on our nation’s history. Rather, it will be viewed as the fertile ground that gave birth to a new era in American history: Our first woman president; the beginning of the end of MAGA extremism; reclaiming reproductive liberty; and overturning tainted decisions by a compromised Supreme Court affecting the right to vote, the right of citizens to choose their legislators, and the right of ordinary citizens—not corporations or billionaires—to fund political campaigns.

But it is not only the Ellipse that will be reclaimed as sacred ground. Electing Kamala Harris will reclaim the White House as the “people’s house.” We will reclaim the Oval Office and the Resolute Desk as the seat of the leader of the free world. We will reclaim the presidency as an office of trust charged to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed.” And we will restore the rule of law to apply to all citizens—including the president.

With one week remaining until Election Day, we should enjoy the calm that flows from knowing that we have done everything asked of us—and more. In an improbable campaign that could have resulted in chaos and disunity among Democrats, Kamala Harris rose to the occasion and proved worthy of the trust and hope that millions of volunteers invested in her candidacy.

It is not over. Far from it. The next week calls for more intense effort than we have devoted in the last two years. But we are incredibly well positioned because of the work we have done, the organization we have created, and the people we have recruited. All we need to do is execute on the plans that have been laid carefully and lovingly over the last two years.

While we cannot count on Republicans to defeat themselves, they are doing their best to do so. There are credible reports that the decision by the Republican National Committee—controlled by the Trump family— to “outsource” most of the work traditionally done by volunteers and paid campaign staffers has resulted in chaos. For-profit third parties tried to replicate the organization and passion that Democratic grassroots volunteers built over years. Republicans learned the hard way that a campaign based on contract labor is no substitute for party faithful.

No matter. Our job does not change because of inept decisions made by Trump family members who viewed control of the RNC as another grift. But we can take confidence from the fact that our hard work has brought us to this moment fully prepared for the final push. In a turnout election, we have the tools and people in place to drive turnout. And we have the candidate who will drive turnout by offering a vision of hope, reconciliation, and reclamation of sacred ground that was lost under Trump.

Kamala Harris’ speech on the Ellipse

 Kamala Harris’s address reprised the major themes of her campaign but with a sharper edge on the attacks against Trump and more conciliatory language offered to Trump's supporters. To all Americans, she promised to put the interests of the nation above her own—a refreshing departure from Trump's incessant narcissism.

The video of VP Harris’s speech is here: Closing Argument Speech from Vice President Kamala Harris. It well worth watching in its entirety, but the last few minutes—HERE—are stirring.

A sampling of her speech is set forth below:

[F]or too long we have been consumed with too much division, chaos, and mutual distrust. And it can be easy then to forget a simple truth: It doesn't have to be this way.

We have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms. It is time to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division. It is time for a new generation of leadership in America

Look, we know who Donald Trump is: He is the person who stood at this very spot, nearly four years ago, and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election. An election that he knew he lost. And while Donald Trump sat in the White House watching as the violence unfolded on television, he was told by his staff that the mob wanted to kill his own vice president, and Donald Trump responded with two words: So what?

Unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I'll give them a seat at the table.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. But here’s what I promise you: I will always listen to you, even if you don’t vote for me. I will always tell you the truth, even if it is difficult to hear. I will work every day to build consensus and reach compromise to get things done.

I will fight to restore what Donald Trump and his hand-selected Supreme Court justices took away from the women of America.

Harris closed her speech with a reminder of the greatness and promise of America:

They did not struggle, sacrifice, and lay down their lives, only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant. The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised. A nation big enough to encompass all our dreams. Strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us. And fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities. So, America, let us reach for that future. Let us fight for this beautiful country we love. And in 7 days, we have the power to turn the page, and start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.

It was a stirring and unifying speech.

As Kamala Harris was rising to the occasion of her closing argument, Donald Trump was reprising the greatest hits from his Madison Square Garden hate-fest. Many in the Puerto Rican community have been waiting to see if Trump would apologize for the “floating island of garbage” remarks, as well as racist and antisemitic remarks directed to Black and Jewish Americans. The wait was a waste of time.

During a Monday speech at Mar-a-Lago, Trump referred to the Madison Square Garden event, saying.

The love in that room, it was breathtaking. There’s never been an event that beautiful. It was a love fest. It was love for our country.

Trump's absolute refusal to apologize increases the degree to which members of the Puerto Rican community will blame Trump personally for the comments of the comedian who made the offensive “joke.”. There is a strong backlash in Pennsylvania, a swing state with a significant population of Americans of Puerto Rican descent.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

[cbk1000]

Not to keep belabouring this point, but as we are now in Election Year, this is your friendly reminder that I don't give a fuck what you think about Biden. I don't care how you feel about his administration's response to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. I don't care if you think he's too old, not progressive enough, etc. etc. etc.

The reality is that, unless something major changes, either Trump or Biden will be elected to the presidency in November. Our voting system is deeply flawed and deserving of criticism. But nothing magical is going to happen between now and November. There will absolutely, categorically, be no other viable choice, no third-party candidate, no perfect leftist wet dream that swoops in at the last minute to make you feel tingly in your moral purity. Unless one of them dies between now and then (and even if Biden does, guess what: the Dems aren't going to put up the Ideal Progressive as their candidate), you will get Biden, or you will get Trump. If you think you are Doing Something for the Palestinian cause by helping Trump to get elected--and that is what you are doing if you throw a tantrum and abstain from voting in a race that current polling indicates is going to be sphincter-clenching tight--I have a bridge to sell you very cheap.

However poorly you think Biden is doing, what do you think a second Trump term is going to do, domestically and abroad? Trump has consistently and regularly praised various dictators and authoritarian strongmen around the world. He admires them. He wants to be one of them. That is who we will have if Biden is not elected. You will actively harm not only vulnerable people in the U.S., but those outside this country who will be affected by the policies of Putin's biggest stan.

You need to hold your nose and vote. I am genuinely sorry that is the reality of our broken election system, but it IS the reality, and ignoring that will do far more harm than voting for Biden. Everywhere the Republicans hold power they are pushing anti-abortion legislation, they are banning books, they are trying to prevent teachers from talking about racism, they are denying trans people access to medical care. If you want to see that at the federal level, then go ahead, don't vote. And then shut your fucking whiny mouths about the Progressive Cause, because you don't even care enough about it to make the most basic effort to try and stop the people who are actively harming all those minority groups you only advocate for in online echo chambers where you think you can get a rimjob for being a good little progressive who uses all the right buzzwords.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Is this the October Surprise?

Thom Hartmann

September 28, 2024 2:20PM ET

U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith makes a statement to reporters after a grand jury returned an indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump in the special counsel's investigation of efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, at Smith's offices in Washington, U.S., August 1, 2023. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

— October surprise?Jack Smith has filed a massive collection of evidence demonstrating Trump’s direct involvement in an attempted coup against the government of the United States, and Judge Chutkan may make it publicly available. The next two to three weeks will decide what we see and when, as Trump’s lawyers first will file their opposition to the release. For anybody who’s been paying attention, we all knew Trump and his buddies were criming against our country during the last weeks of his presidency (apparently Merrick Garland missed that for two years), but the release will probably drive a short news cycle which may inform a few low information voters.

— For the first time ever, Democrats make it rain in all 50 states. Over at Daily Kos, Morgan Stephens is reporting that the DNC is sending money to every state in the union, something we haven’t seen since Howard Dean’s “50 state strategy” back in 2008. This is great news; rightwing billionaires have been funding Republicans, particularly in low population states, for decades and the result has been the Red sweep of rural states and areas. Democrats are going to try to break some Republican supermajorities and help out down-ticket Red state candidates; the Harris campaign has also pitched in $25 million for the effort. Now, if they’d just convince some leftie mega donors to buy radio stations in those Red states (media is cheap in those areas!), we could seriously get about flipping a few purple or even Blue.

— Speaking of radio… Louise and I are in New Orleans where yesterday I was the opening keynote speaker for the Grassroots Radio Conference. Last night we hung out with old friends David Sirota and Sam Seder (who keynoted this morning) and new friend Wajahat Ali at the home of the conference organizers, Dr. MarkAlain Dery and his extraordinary wife Liana Elliott, who also started and run WHIV here in New Orleans. The conference is about and for mostly low-power FM stations that are popping up all around the country (my show is on many of them). This is a very encouraging trend!

— Justice Department sues Alabama for purging voters off the rolls. As I’ve noted in several of my newsletters here, Republicans across America are purging their voting rolls, depriving literally millions of people of their right to vote. Ever since 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court said a state can do this if a voter fails to vote in the last election, they’ve been going whole hog, but in a few cases they’ve been stopped or slowed down. Most recently, the Justice Department sued Alabama for their purges, saying it’s too close to the election. If you live in a state Republicans control, go to vote.gov and double-check your voter registration; if you live in a Blue part of the state and didn’t vote in the midterms, chances are they’ve already removed you from the rolls and you’ll have to re-register to vote.

— Jews and Catholics warn against Trump’s latest attack on religious voters. In two rallies, Trump has told Jewish people that if he fails to win the election it’ll be their fault. He made similar comments in a Truth Social post about Catholics. Now some religious groups are starting to push back by warning their people about political tests for religious people, but they’re massively outnumbered by the thousands of churches and televangelists and religious radio stations that are blatantly and illegally promoting Republican candidates this year. The IRS really needs to enforce the law!

— Will NYC Mayor Adams claim he was just taking tips? Ever since six Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled that if a politician does favors for somebody (in this case, the country of Turkey) and then gets paid or spiffed, that’s not a bribe that can be prosecuted but a tip. It’d be a novel defense and its probable that Adams took gifts before he helped out the Turks, so it’ll be interesting to see if his lawyers try this one out. The level of corruption among the six Republicans on the Court is truly breathtaking, and it’s a bad sign for our democracy as they continue to promote a corrupt political culture.

— Once again, the media will refuse to do their damn job and fact-check Republican lies, this time in Tuesday’s Vance/Walz debate. Expect Vance to use the “firehose of lies” strategy, where you throw out a half-dozen or so lies in a single sentence or two, forcing your opponent to burn his time rebutting them. Trump tried it with over 30 lies in his debate with Harris, and the moderators only called him on two of them. Now CBS “News” says they’ll allow Vance to tell all the lies he wants and it’ll be up to Walz to fact-check them because, apparently, facts don’t matter any longer in the American news media culture. Disgusting.

— Crazy Alert! JD Vance is attending an event today with a corrupt evangelist who said Harris uses “witchcraft.” Lance Wallnau is a big-shot in the evangelical world, and he’s doing a tour of swing states this month to encourage people to vote Republican. His efforts, by the way, are being subsidized by your and my tax dollars, as he claims a nonprofit statute. Earlier this month, Wallnau tried out the misogynistic and hateful old “Jezebel” trope against Vice President Harris, saying, “She can look presidential. That’s the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft. That’s the manipulation of imagery that creates an impression contrary to the truth, but it seduces you into seeing it. So that spirit, that occult spirit, I believe is operating on her and through her.” If anybody is channeling evil spirits, in my opinion it’s Wallnau; he’s the embodiment of the people Jesus warned us about.

NOW READ: Comrade Trump isn’t defending capitalism — he’s defending white power

[beardedmrbean]

The U.S. Department of Justice said an illegal immigrant has reached an agreement to plead guilty to charges related to stealing a U.S. citizen's identity to vote in multiple elections and fraudulently obtain an American passport. 

Angelica Maria Francisco, a 42-year-old undocumented individual who most recently resided in Russellville, Alabama, is facing a nine-count information filed in federal court for false claims of citizenship in connection with voting, false statements in application for a United States passport, use of a United States passport obtained by false statements, and aggravated identity theft.  

A plea agreement was filed as well, indicating that Francisco has agreed to plead guilty to all nine counts, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Prim F. Escalona and Resident Agent in Charge Joseph R. Wysowaty of the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Atlanta Resident Office announced on Thursday. 

Francisco is accused of assuming the identity of a U.S. citizen in or around 2011. Prosecutors say she used the false identity to get an American passport in 2011. She then allegedly used the passport to travel to and from her native Guatemala in 2012, 2015 and 2018. Using the same identity, she allegedly also registered to vote in Alabama in 2016, before voting in the 2016 and 2020 primary and general elections.

In 2021, Francisco allegedly used the same false identity to apply for and receive a renewed passport, which she used to travel to and from Guatemala in 2022.

The State Department's Diplomatic Security Service investigated the case, with assistance from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the East Metro Area Crime Center, and the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office. 

"I have been very clear that a top priority of this Office is ensuring only eligible American citizens are voting in Alabama elections," Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement. "I want to thank the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Alabama for their diligent efforts investigating and charging this individual. We will continue to assist law enforcement in every way possible as they prosecute individuals who vote illegally in Alabama elections to the fullest extent of the law." 

Allen, a Republican, has made election integrity a top priority this cycle and previously sounded the alarm to Fox News Digital about how state agencies receiving federal funding are required under Executive Order 14019 to send out voter registration information to anyone who comes into contact with those agencies without any verification of citizenship. President Biden signed the order in 2021 as a way of "promoting access to voting," but Republicans argue that its broad interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 essentially mobilizes the federal government apparatus to become voter registration agencies. 

At the Republican National Convention in July, Allen told Fox News Digital that he had also spoken with House Speaker Mike Johnson regarding a piece of legislation called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which aims to require states to obtain proof of citizenship – in person – when registering an individual to vote and require states to remove non-citizens from existing voter rolls. 

Last month, prominent conservative Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, pushed for the SAVE Act to be attached to a spending bill extension to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year. 

"Punting new government spending into 2025 when we have a new President and attaching the SAVE Act ensures House Republicans avoid a Biden-Harris lame duck omnibus and secures our elections at the same time," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said in a statement on Friday. "The Senate can either ensure only eligible American citizens are voting in our elections – or shut down the government. To me, it’s a no-brainer."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christian Paz at Vox:

The first few weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency have put Democrats in a frustrating bind. He’s thrown so much at them (and at the nation), that they’re having serious trouble figuring out what to respond to — let alone how. He’s signed dozens of executive orders; attempted serious power grabs and overhauls of the government; and signed controversial legislation. And in the process, he’s further divided his opposition, as the Democrats undergo an identity crisis that ramped up after Kamala Harris’s loss.

Immigration policy is a prime example of this struggle: Long before Harris became their nominee, the party was debating just how much to adjust to both Trump’s anti-immigrant campaign promises and to the American public’s general shift away from openness to immigration. Now that he’s in office, Democrats aren’t really lined up to resist every one of the president’s anti-immigrant moves — and some are even backing some of his stances. The party is now divided into roughly three camps: those in the Senate and House willing to back Trump on certain tough-on-immigration measures, like the recently passed Laken Riley Act; those who see their constituents supporting some of his positions but are torn over how to vote; and those progressives who are committed to resisting his every move on immigration. Today’s public opinion is one main contributor for the divide: Americans are still largely in favor of more restrictionist immigration policy. Democratic losses in November are another contributor, particularly in areas with large immigrant or nonwhite populations. But lawmakers are also confronting longer-standing historical dynamics that have divided the working class and immigrants before. Newer and undocumented immigrants can appear to pose both economic competition and threats to existing senses of identity for immigrants who have already resided in the US, or to those who have assimilated and raised new generations. Combined with a resurgent Republican Party that has capitalized on some of these feelings, these facts might be complicating the Democratic response to Trump now.

Working class and immigrant divides aren’t new

On the campaign trail last year, Trump and various other Republican politicians repeated a specific line of reasoning when making a pitch to nonwhite voters: The “border invasion” that Joe Biden and Harris were supposedly responsible for was “crushing the jobs and wages” of Black, Latino, and union workers. Trump called it “economic warfare.” This line of reasoning — that immigrants are taking away economic opportunities from those already in the US — has historically been a source of tension for both native-born Americans, and older immigrants. Much of the economics behind this has been challenged by economists, but the politics are still effective. The main claim here is that an influx in cheaper low-skilled laborers not only pushes down the cost of goods but negatively impacts preexisting American workers by lowering their wages as well. The evidence for this actually happening, however, is thin: Immigrants also create demand, by buying new items and using new services, therefore creating more jobs. Still, the idea remains popular.

Even as far back as the civil rights era, this thinking created divisions among left-wing activist movements trying to secure better labor conditions and legal protections. Take the case of the most iconic figure of the Latino labor movement, César Chávez, himself of Mexican descent. As his movement to secure better conditions for farmworkers faced challenges from nonunion, immigrant workers who could help corporate bosses break or alleviate the pressures of labor strikes, his efforts on immigration took a more radical turn. Chávez’s United Farm Workers even launched an “Illegals Campaign” in the 1970s — an attempt to rally public opposition to immigration and get government officials to crack down on illegal crossings. The UFW even subsidized vigilante patrol efforts along the southern border to try to enforce immigration restrictions when they thought the government wasn’t doing enough, and Chávez publicly accused the federal agency in charge of the border and immigration at the time of abdicating their duty to arrest undocumented immigrants who crossed the border.

Of course, Chávez’s views were nuanced — and primarily rooted in the goal of creating and strengthening a union that could represent and advocate for farmworkers and laborers left out of the labor movements earlier in the 19th and 20th centuries. But they are great examples of the deep roots that economic and identity status threats have in complicating the views of working-class and nonwhite people in the not-too-distant past. This specific opinion has stuck around. Gallup polling since the early 1990s has found that for most of the last 30 years, Americans have tended to hold the opinion that immigration “mostly hurts” the economy by “driving wages down for many Americans.” And swings in immigration sentiment tend to align with how Americans feel about the state and health of the national economy: When economic opportunity feels scarce, as during the post-pandemic inflationary period, Americans tend to pull back from more generous feelings around both legal and illegal immigration.

Democrats also face the challenge of anti-immigrant immigrants

What makes this era of immigration politics perhaps a bit more complicated on top of those existing economic reasons is the added concerns over fairness and orderliness that many nonwhite Americans, and even immigrants from previous generations, feel. US Rep. Juan Vargas, a progressive Democrat who represents San Diego and the part of California that borders Mexico, told me that there’s a sense among some of his constituents that recent immigrants, both legal and not, are cutting the line. This feeling about newcomers not paying their dues is, again, a longstanding sentiment among immigrant groups across American history, but it appears updated for the post-pandemic era. While older immigrants feel they have worked hard and waited their turn, they feel newer ones have taken advantage of the asylum system, or gone through less of a struggle than they have. Vargas told me about a conversation he had with a constituent in his district who told him she disagrees with his stance on immigration policy, even though she once “came across illegally too” and lived in the US for 15 years without documentation. “I started talking to her, and she said, ‘You know, these new immigrants, they get everything. They get here and they get everything. We didn’t get anything, and so I think they should all be deported,’” Vargas said. “I said, ‘Oh, so, because you were given a chance, you don’t think other people should get that same chance?’ She goes, ‘Well, it’s different.’ … Really, in what way? How is it different? … And she didn’t have a very good answer.” Some immigration researchers describe this as part of a “law-and-order” mindset: folding border enforcement and immigration crackdowns with a renewed desire by the public for tough-on-crime policies in the post-pandemic era.

[...] These views help explain why there’s a vocal group of Democrats, including Latino Democrats, willing to work with Trump and Republicans specifically on immigration reforms that take a tough-on-crime approach, like the Laken Riley Act, which expedites deportation for undocumented immigrants charged with certain crimes. Some 46 House Democrats and 12 Senate Democrats ended up voting for the Laken Riley Act, including perhaps the most vocal pro-enforcement Latino Democrat, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona. He argued that the bill represented where the Latino mainstream is now on immigration. “People are worried about border security, but they also want some sane pathway to immigration reform. That’s who I represent. I really represent the middle view of Arizona, which is largely working class and Latino,” Gallego said after the vote. Even some Democrats in solid blue areas of the country agree, to an extent. Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, who represents Houston and was an outspoken supporter of immigrant rights during Trump’s first presidency, told me that his constituents back tougher immigration policies, particularly when it comes to undocumented immigrants charged with violent crimes. He himself didn’t vote for the Laken Riley Act because he disagreed with the bill’s application to those merely charged or accused of a crime (as opposed to those convicted), but he said that he feels the public’s mandate to support other kinds of proposals.

[...] They’ll fight back against Trump when he tries to undue birthright citizenship, for example, but they won’t necessarily criticize the continued construction of a border wall with Mexico, or increased deportations. They’ll point out that deportation flights using military aircraft are mostly for show, while standard ICE-chartered planes can do the job for less. Many supported the bipartisan border bill that Biden tried to pass a little less than a year ago, for example, and would theoretically support it again.

[...] And they see room to defend DREAMers, DACA recipients, and those who have benefitted from asylum protections, like temporary protected status, because they see moral value in it, and political value as well: many of those categories of immigrants are popular with Republicans, and polling backs up these nuances.

Vox has a good story on how immigrants who have been here for a long time and those assimilated are opposed to a new arrival of immigrants, and that is hurting the Democratic Party.