#election 2023 victories

[tomorrowusa]

« Americans increasingly use polls to vent, not to vote. During the 20th century, when Americans were in a better mood about the state of the country, presidents generally had high approval ratings and broad support during their time in office. Since 2003, the national mood has grown unbelievably sour, and since 2005, sitting presidents have had underwater approval ratings during about 77 percent of their terms.

[ … ]

The median voter rule still applies. The median voter rule says parties win when they stay close to the center of the electorate. It’s one of the most boring rules in all of politics, and sometimes people on the left and the right pretend they can ignore it, but they usually end up paying a price.

The Democrats’ strong showing in elections across the country this week proves how powerful the median voter rule is, especially when it comes to the abortion issue.

[ … ]

Dull but effective government can win, and circus politics is failing. The Trumpian G.O.P. has built its political strategy around culture war theatrics — be they anti-trans or anti-woke. That culture war strategy may get you hits on right-wing media, but it has flopped for Ron DeSantis, flopped for Vivek Ramaswamy, and it flopped Tuesday night on the ballot. Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, did so well in Kentucky in part because he stayed close to the practicalities, focusing on boring old governance issues like jobs, health care costs and investment in infrastructure. He also demonstrated a Christian faith that was the opposite of Christian nationalism.

[ … ]

Remember that none of us know what the political climate will be like a year from now. Neither you nor I have any clue how some set of swing voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are going to see things in 12 months, or what events will intervene in the meantime. Nobody does. »

— New York Times columnist and PBS political commentator David Brooks explaining in his NYT column last week why Democrats need to "chill" about recent polls.

Democrats are sometimes too overreactive for their own good. People who are excessively nervous tend to make more mistakes.

If you have a healthy concern about next year (as opposed to paranoid worry), there are several things you can do.

First and foremost: Volunteer to register voters. Start by asking like-minded people you know if they are registered. Help them with the process. And always remind friends that they need to register whenever they change their address. ALWAYS. Do things like having voter registration tables set up outside high school graduation ceremonies. Go to where the people are.

Shoot down any talk you hear of third party or independent saviors. Not counting faithless electors, the last third party presidential candidate to score any electoral votes was segregationist George Wallace in 1968. H. Ross Perot got almost 19% of the popular vote in 1992 but got zero electoral votes. If just 539 people in Florida who voted for spoiler Ralph Nader had instead voted for Democrat Al Gore, Gore would have been president a lot of horrible things that happened under George W. Bush (like bad SCOTUS appointments) would not have happened. And if the votes cast in 2016 for bad folk singer Jill Stein in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan had gone for Hillary Clinton instead, Trump never would have been president and Roe v. Wade would still be in effect. Electoral votes are all that matter in presidential elections.

Quit fussing over Biden's age. You rarely hear Republicans doing the same about Trump who was born in 1946. Biden can sign his name on bills or veto them – there's nothing wrong with his arm and he doesn't need to use a Sharpie. He has made excellent appointments to the federal judiciary. And some of the most far ranging progressive legislation enacted since the mid 1960s happened on Biden's watch. Being younger doesn't necessarily make somebody a good president; 38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy would be atrocious. If you really want somebody young, remember that in 2028 people born in 1993 will be eligible to be president. It will be worth the wait if Trump is in the Big House instead of the White House by then.

[moonbasetycho]

Victory for human rights in Ohio! Not even close.

[itwoodbeprefect]

maybe.... if you don't like the parties ruling on a national level...... you should simply not randomly throw your vote for the provincial elections at whichever fresh new party just popped up with zero regard for what this party's agenda actually is or whether they are a) fascists or b) a protest party specifically concerned with farmer's rights (and very little else) and for that reason explicitly opposed to measures taken to reach internationally agreed-upon climate goals

[cleoselene]

Did you know?

Democrats have won the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections going back to 1992? The only time the GOP has won the popular vote in the last 36 years in a presidential election was in 2004, and it was a pretty narrow margin. This was a wartime election and the first election post-9/11. The Democratic candidate was the unfortunately uninspiring John Kerry, who had been lied about. You know how in politics we say someone has been "swiftboated" when a successful lie is told about them? That term originates with the 2004 election because a bunch of people concocted an elaborate lie about John Kerry's military service. He wasn't super inspiring as a candidate, but that was the worst thing he did. He wasn't a bad guy. He was just running in a very gross, jingoistic time after the worst terror attack in American history, and had a bunch of successful lies told about him to the point where a whole word about a specific kind of lie was invented about it. THIS is the only time since 1988 that the Republican party has won the popular vote. George W. Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000. The Supreme Court ordered that votes stop being counted in Florida and handed the victory to Bush.

Donald Trump has never ever won the popular vote. The electoral college handed him the victory in 2016, less than 15,000 votes across three states decided the election. Hillary Clinton in total won about 3.7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Trump HATES hearing this number. He hates even more that Joe Biden got about 7 million more votes. He hates even more that you bring up the fact that he lost his midterm elections for his party in 2018, badly. And that the "Red Wave" in 2022 did not happen because of backlash at his Supreme Court. Or that in 2023 voters continued to reject his Supreme Court at the polls.

He knows, the Republicans know, that if more people vote, they lose. They don't want small d democracy. They want authoritarianism. They want to suppress it.

So when you get cute about not wanting to vote, you're not doing activism. You're surrendering.

[ariofthesea]

Voters RE: abortion last night

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The CFPB is genuinely making America better, and they're going HARD

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

Let's take a sec here and notice something genuinely great happening in the US government: the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau's stunning, unbroken streak of major, muscular victories over the forces of corporate corruption, with the backing of the Supreme Court (yes, that Supreme Court), and which is only speeding up!

A little background. The CFPB was created in 2010. It was Elizabeth Warren's brainchild, an institution that was supposed to regulate finance from the perspective of the American public, not the American finance sector. Rather than fighting to "stabilize" the financial sector (the mission that led to Obama taking his advisor Timothy Geithner's advice to permit the foreclosure crisis to continue in order to "foam the runways" for the banks), the Bureau would fight to defend us from bankers.

The CFPB got off to a rocky start, with challenges to the unique system of long-term leadership appointments meant to depoliticize the office, as well as the sudden resignation of its inaugural boss, who broke his promise to see his term through in order to launch an unsuccessful bid for political office.

But after the 2020 election, the Bureau came into its own, when Biden poached Rohit Chopra from the FTC and put him in charge. Chopra went on a tear, taking on landlords who violated the covid eviction moratorium:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cfpb

Then banning payday lenders' scummiest tactics:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/29/planned-obsolescence/#academic-fraud

Then striking at one of fintech's most predatory grifts, the "earned wage access" hustle:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

Then closing the loophole that let credit reporting bureaus (like Equifax, who doxed every single American in a spectacular 2019 breach) avoid regulation by creating data brokerage divisions and claiming they weren't part of the regulated activity of credit reporting:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

Chopra went on to promise to ban data-brokers altogether:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/13/goulash/#material-misstatement

Then he banned comparison shopping sites where you go to find the best bank accounts and credit cards from accepting bribes and putting more expensive options at the top of the list. Instead, he's requiring banks to send the CFPB regular, accurate lists of all their charges, and standing up a federal operated comparison shopping site that gives only accurate and honest rankings. Finally, he's made an interoperability rule requiring banks to let you transfer to another institution with one click, just like you change phone carriers. That means you can search an honest site to find the best deal on your banking, and then, with a single click, transfer your accounts, your account history, your payees, and all your other banking data to that new bank:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

Somewhere in there, big business got scared. They cooked up a legal theory declaring the CFPB's funding mechanism to be unconstitutional and got the case fast-tracked to the Supreme Court, in a bid to put Chopra and the CFPB permanently out of business. Instead, the Supremes – these Supremes! – upheld the CFPB's funding mechanism in a 7-2 ruling:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/05/supreme-court-lets-cfpb-funding-stand/

That ruling was a starter pistol for Chopra and the Bureau. Maybe it seemed like they were taking big swings before, but it turns out all that was just a warmup. Last week on The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner rounded up all the stuff the Bureau is kicking off:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-06-07-window-on-corporate-deceptions/

First: regulating Buy Now, Pay Later companies (think: Klarna) as credit-card companies, with all the requirements for disclosure and interest rate caps dictated by the Truth In Lending Act:

https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2024/06/cfpb-applies-credit-card-rules

Next: creating a registry of habitual corporate criminals. This rogues gallery will make it harder for other agencies – like the DOJ – and state Attorneys General to offer bullshit "delayed prosecution agreements" to companies that compulsively rip us off:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-creates-registry-to-detect-corporate-repeat-offenders/

Then there's the rule against "fine print deception" – which is when the fine print in a contract lies to you about your rights, like when a mortgage lender forces you waive a right you can't actually waive, or car lenders that make you waive your bankruptcy rights, which, again, you can't waive:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-warns-against-deception-in-contract-fine-print/

As Kuttner writes, the common thread running through all these orders is that they ban deceptive practices – they make it illegal for companies to steal from us by lying to us. Especially in these dying days of class action suits – rapidly becoming obsolete thanks to "mandatory arbitration waivers" that make you sign away your right to join a class action – agencies like the CFPB are our only hope of punishing companies that lie to us to steal from us.

There's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world right now, and much of it – including an active genocide – is coming from the Biden White House.

But there are people in the Biden Administration who care about the American people and who are effective and committed fighters who have our back. What's more, they're winning. That doesn't make all the bad news go away, but sometimes it feels good to take a moment and take the W.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/10/getting-things-done/#deliverism

[allthecanadianpolitics]

“This is a long-awaited victory for workers’ bargaining rights in Canada,” said CUPE’s National President Mark Hancock. “And let’s not forget, this is what happens when the  NDP - backed by the labour movement - put the rights of workers front and centre in the House of Commons. Let’s also not forget that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has voted against anti-scab legislation not once, not twice, but eight times in the past. The Conservatives only voted for it this time because they knew better than to pick a fight with the labour movement as we approach the next election.”

Currently, employers are able to hire scabs in order to break the morale and bank accounts of striking and locked out workers, as is the case with members of CUPE 2614 at the Port of Quebec, who have been locked out and replaced with scabs since September 2022.

Employers also use scab labour to ship jobs out of the country, as is the case with members of CUPE 2815 who have been locked out from their jobs at Videotron in Gatineau, Quebec since October 2023. While these workers have gone seven months without a paycheque, Videotron is able to continue business as usual, while paying bottom-dollar to ship jobs out of the country.

Anti-scab legislation will make all of this illegal. Employers will no longer be allowed to hire replacement workers (scabs) during strikes and lockouts, thereby balancing the scales and giving more power back to workers to fight for better wages and a better life. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[reasonsforhope]

Donald Trump charged in Georgia for efforts to overturn the 2020 election

Link here, because WaPo's security measures stop Tumblr previews. Non-paywall link here.

"Former president Donald Trump and 18 others were criminally charged in Georgia on Monday in connection with efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an indictment made public late Monday night [on August 14, 2023].

Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.

The Recap

The historic indictment, the fourth to implicate the former president, follows a 2½-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D). The probe was launched after audio leaked from a January 2021 phone call during which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to question the validity of thousands of ballots, especially in the heavily Democratic Atlanta area, and said he wanted to “find” the votes to erase his 2020 loss in the state.

Willis’s investigation quickly expanded to other alleged efforts by Trumpor his supporters, including trying to thwart the electoral college process, harassing election workers, spreading false information about the voting process in Georgia and compromising election equipment in a rural county. Trump has long decried the Georgia investigation as a “political witch hunt,” defending his calls to Raffensperger and others as “perfect.”

The Details

“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” the indictment states.

A total of 41 charges are brought against 19 defendants in the 98-page indictment. Not all face the same counts, but all have been charged with violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Willis said she has given those charged until Aug. 25 to surrender.

Among those charged are Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who served as Trump’s personal attorney after the election; Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; and several Trump advisers, including attorneys John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro...

Prosecutors brought charges around five subject areas: false statements by Trump allies, including Giuliani, to the Georgia legislature; the breach of voting data in Coffee County; calls Trump made to state officials, including Raffensperger, seeking to overturn Biden’s victory; the harassment of election workers; and the creation of a slate of alternate electors to undermine the legitimate vote. Those charged in the case were implicated in certain parts of what prosecutors presented as a larger enterprise to undermine the election."

-via The Washington Post, August 14, 2023

[comeonamericawakeup]

"This is not who we are." Freaked-out liberals and some traditional conservatives have been repeating that reassuring "myth" since Donald Trump shocked them by narrowly winning the 2016 presidential election, said Mark Leibovich. Trump's narrow victory was a fluke, many insisted, and the country would soon return to some semblance of sanity. But in 2020, after he told Americans to ignore Covid and take quack cures, was impeached for blackmailing Ukraine, and "the daily OMG and WTF of it all," Trump received 74 million votes-about 47 percent of those cast and barely lost key swing states to Joe Biden. When Trump's incendiary big lie about stolen elections helped incite the violent Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, we were again told, "This is not who we are." But even after the riot, 147 Republicans in the House and Senate backed the lie by voting not to certify the election. Now, after four criminal indictments, Trump is the likely Republican nominee, and has a serious chance of retaking the White House. Like it or not, "we" includes tens of millions of Americans who see Trump "spiral deeper into his moral void and still conclude, 'Yes, that's our guy."

THE WEEK December 22, 2023

[thethirdromana]

The droughtula is lasting forever so here are some headcanons about Dracula's characters' politics.

Arthur Holmwood (Lord Godalming) Let's get the difficult one out of the way first. Arthur is nobility, a hereditary peer in the House of Lords, in the 1890s. He's literally entitled to a say on legislation solely because of who his ancestors were. So he's unlikely to have views that we'd find sympathetic in 2023, and is probably a Tory.

He's well-travelled and outward-looking, so I think his greatest political concern is empire. He's eager to ensure that Britain is victorious in the Scramble for Africa, concerned about growing tensions with the Boers in South Africa, and admires the leadership of Lord Salisbury.

(sorry about this)

Jonathan Harker I think Jonathan is and always will be aware of how lucky he's been, as an orphan who's then catapulted into vast wealth thanks to the generosity of Mr Hawkins. As a result, I think he would be very keen to support others and generally vote for a government that's focused on the eradication of poverty. At the same time, I don't think he would be particularly radical; I think he would shy away from revolutionary thinking.

I see him finding reasonably a happy home in the 1890s Liberals, and supporting the beginnings of the welfare state in the early 1900s. He might even join the Fabian Society. By the 1920s, his sympathies would shift to the Labour Party.

Mina Harker I've written a bit about Mina's politics already. The obvious question is what she thinks of women's suffrage, and I'm inclined to say that her view is that women should have the vote one day, but not yet. At least, not at a national level; I think she'd support the move in the 1890s to allow women to vote in local elections. She would be more focused on women's access to education, so that when the time came for them to get the vote, they would be educated enough to use it wisely.

Unfortunately one other thing we know about Mina is that she's interested in physiognomy, a pseudoscience that's connected to eugenics. So it's depressingly plausible that a real-life Mina would have an interest in eugenics as well.

Lucy Westenra I think Lucy is probably less politically aware than Mina is, but also quite possibly more radical in her views. After all, we see more of Lucy chafing against her social role than we do Mina (though Lucy's life is also a lot more restricted than Mina's). As an upper-middle or upper-class woman, doing charitable works is a big part of her role. That would bring her into contact with poverty, and I think she would want to do whatever she could to help.

I don't think she would be formally a member of any campaigning organisations, but I suspect she might be sympathetic to the temperance movement. That would be her route to women's suffrage, as the two causes were connected in the 1890s. Where Mina might worry that women lacked the education to use their vote wisely, Lucy would feel that in a good marriage, a husband would help his wife to make the right choices.

Abraham Van Helsing One sec, just need to give myself a crash course in Dutch politics of the 1890s.

OK I'm back. Dutch society at this time was divided based mostly on religion: Protestant, Catholic and a secular socialist grouping. This was called 'Verzuiling' ("pillarisation") and it meant that each of the sections of society were effectively segregated: separate schools, separate institutions, separate newspapers and little intermarriage between the "pillars".

By rights that puts Van Helsing into the Catholic pillar, but I can't see it - this is a man whose close friend is an English Protestant who's half his age. The group most likely to oppose the notion of Verzuiling were the Liberals, sometimes treated as a pillar of their own. And I think that's where Van Helsing would most naturally fit.

People who learned about this bit of Dutch history more than five minutes ago should feel free to chime in.

Quincey Morris I know about as much about US politics in the 1890s as I do Dutch politics, but that's not going to stop me.

I instinctively feel that Quincey Morris has strong views on something relatively niche, like the adoption of the gold standard. So I'm pleased to learn that the adoption of the gold standard was in fact a live political debate in the US in the 1890s. Quincey is in favour. He supports hard money policies and - as a wealthy landowner - particularly worries about the rise of the People's Party back home.

Jack Seward The biggest wildcard of the lot. Other than Van Helsing, I think Jack is the character most likely to have read widely and to be open to unexpected ideas. But ultimately I think his attitude to politics is driven by his interest in and desire for technological progress, which would lead him towards the Liberal Party.

He would be horrified by Tory prime minister Lord Salisbury's repeated opposition to change (e.g. his 1879 statement that "Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible"). If he lives long enough, he'll be delighted by Wilson's "white heat of technology" speech in the early 1960s.

[tomorrowusa]

There was a special election in a swingy Virginia State Senate district on Tuesday. It did not go well for the GOP. 

Republicans just lost another competitive race — thanks, in part, to the issue of abortion.

“Republicans in Richmond are trying to pass a new ban on abortion in Virginia. And Kevin Adams, he wants to join them to take away women’s freedom to make our own personal medical decisions,” went one TV ad from Democrat Aaron Rouse, who flipped a GOP-held state Senate seat in Virginia from red to blue.

At issue is a push by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and GOP legislators to ban abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Virginia has a GOP governor, Glenn Youngkin Trumpkin, who has national ambitions. The GOP holds a small majority in the lower house of the Virginia legislature (the House of Delegates) while Dems narrowly control the upper house. Youngkin Trumpkin had been wanting to enact major restrictions on abortion like ones which exist in trifecta red states. Tuesday’s special election where Democrat Aaron Rouse flipped a Republican seat has for now thwarted Youngkin Trumpkin‘s extremist anti-abortion agenda in the state.

Axios has this analysis...

Why it matters: Youngkin's efforts to build a robust governing record ahead of a possible 2024 presidential campaign — including closely watched plans for a stricter abortion ban — are at risk.

Driving the news: Democrat Aaron Rouse declared victory over Republican Kevin Adams in the Virginia Beach-based seat vacated by former GOP state State Sen Kiggans, who was elected to Congress in November.

 • The contest was held in a textbook swing district: It backed Kiggans in 2019, President Biden in 2020 and Youngkin in 2021.

 • Rouse focused his campaign message on protecting abortion rights, campaigning against Youngkin's proposal for a 15-week ban that was formally introduced in the Virginia legislature on Wednesday.

This is yet another example of why people need to pay more attention to the legislature in their respective states.

Voters in Virginia Senate District 07 helped save abortion rights in the Old Dominion state. And VA-SD07 had not been perceived a slam dunk for Dems. When you vote, you win.

All 100 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates and all 40 seats in the Virginia Senate are up for election in November of 2023. Yep, VA is one of those off-year states. If turnout and interest statewide are similar to that this month in SD07, Democrats should retain control of the Senate and have an excellent chance of re-taking the House of Delegates. Getting involved in state government races is the best way at the moment to protect reproductive rights.

[nothingelsematterswrites]

Because I'm feeling petty, and it is the anniversary of The Tweet That Rocked The Grid, I decided to compile the most important piece of Oscar Lore.

I present to you: the most complete timeline of how alpine fucked up their handling of oscar piastri, aka, the piasco, to the best of my knowledge

(information compiled from multiple sources)

March 2021: Oscar Piastri makes his F2 debut in Bahrain, at the first round of the season. He immediately makes a splash by finishing fifth in the first sprint race and winning the second.

May 2021: Monaco. Oscar again impresses, collecting an 8th and two 2nds (including one in the feature race). Meanwhile, in Formula One land, Laurent Rossi offers a four year deal to Esteban Ocon, which he signs.

Rossi did not consult with any of the Alpine board about this offer, which is unprecedented for a driver who had not yet even won a race and unusual even for a race-winner who was not a champion.

What this does do, however, is effectively block one of the Alpine seats until 2025.

June-July 2021: Oscar continues to collect consistent points finishes at Baku and Silverstone, including podiums, keeping him in the championship hunt.

August 2021: Esteban Ocon wins the Hungarian Grand Prix.

September 2021: Oscar and Daniel win in Monza on the same day, with Oscar taking out the F2 feature race on the same day Daniel wins the Italian Grand Prix. Oscar follows this with another feature race victory in Russia, solidifying his points lead.

It is about this time that Alpine sit Oscar and Mark Webber down and explain that no matter what Oscar does now, he will not be in F1 next year. Alpine will have him as a reserve driver only and will not make the effort to put him in a race seat, despite Williams publicly saying they no longer require the money Nicolas Latifi brings in and are open to other drivers for 2022.

November 2021: Alfa Romeo announce that Zhou Guanyu, third place in the F2 championship, will be replacing Antonio Giovinazzi for 2022. This causes quite the uproar, as many despise the idea of Zhou getting a seat before Oscar, the talented rookie champion-elect.

The Piastris (Oscar and his father Chris) and Mark sit down with Alpine and agree to terms for 2022 and beyond, outlined in a terms sheet. This terms sheet is not a contract, but an agreement to sign a contract. The terms sheet outlines that Oscar will be the Alpine reserve driver for 2022; that he will be given practice sessions, certain private tests, and two FP1 sessions; and that Alpine guarantee him a seat on the 2023 grid, presumably with Williams. The terms sheet specifies that the actual contract will follow in 10 business days.

December 2021: Oscar wins the F2 championship in Jeddah after winning the second sprint race and the feature race. He then follows this up with a podium in sprint race one and a win in the feature race at Abu Dhabi, only serving to make Alpine look even more stupid. He is announced as the reserve for Alpine for 2022 and participates in the end of season test for Alpine.

No contract has appeared.

January 2022: Mark follows up with Alpine about the reserve driver contract, and is told, "it's coming".

No contract has appeared.

February 2022: Mark begins to hassle the legal team at Alpine about the contract. At some point, he has an exchange as follows: "I can't keep telling them that the contract is coming." The lawyer replies that she is the only one in the entire legal department, and that she has to do everything before the season starts.

No contract has appeared.

March 2022: During pre-season testing, Daniel Ricciardo tests positive to COVID-19. Alpine make arrangements with McLaren that if Daniel is not fit for Bahrain, Oscar will drive for him. Oscar still does not have a contract at this point. Alpine realise that without a contract, he does not have a superlicence (thereby making him ineligible to drive even if Daniel isn't fit.)

Panicking, the lawyer in Alpine's legal department writes "legally binding" across Alpine's copy of the terms sheet and submits that to the FIA in order to grant him his superlicence.

Five days before the Bahrain Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri finally sits down and signs a contract with Alpine to be their test and reserve driver for the 2022 season. This contract very explicitly only covers 2022, and does not contain any provisions for 2023.

Daniel finishes 17th in Bahrain, ahead of Lando Norris, and is running ahead of Norris and in the points when his gearbox fails in Jeddah.

April 2022: Oscar fulfils his duties as test and reserve driver, including being paraded around in Australia. Daniel finishes 5th in Australia after a nasty team order keeps him behind Norris' ailing car. At Imola, he is sixth in the sprint, only just behind Norris, but finishes 18th in the race after an uncharacteristically clumsy T1 move.

May 2022: Oscar conducts a private test with Alpine at Paul Ricard, using the 2021 car. No times are published, but there is a whisper on social media from the spectators who were there that Oscar was faster than Esteban Ocon had been the previous year. Daniel finishes 13th at the race in Miami after mechanical issues in qualifying and strategy issues in the race, which Andreas Seidl publicly apologises for. He finishes 12th at Spain, due to a broken rear end (which McLaren do not acknowledge until several days after the race).

After the Spanish Grand Prix, Zak Brown conducts an interview where he calls Daniel "disappointing" and lays the blame for their substandard results squarely at Daniel's feet. Daniel is then harassed by the media all through the Monaco weekend, where he finishes 13th.

It is also about this time that Alpine begin to publicly state that they are courting Fernando Alonso for a contract extension for 2023, meaning no seat will be available for next year at Alpine.

June 2022: It is about this time that Zak Brown begins shopping Daniel's seat behind his back. There are several interested parties involved, including Alex Palou and Pato O'Ward of Indycar.

Alpine continue to insist to Mark and Oscar that the 2023 deal is in progress. However, at about this time, rumours start to fly that Oscar is going to replace Nicolas Latifi at Williams after Silverstone. Williams angrily deny this, stand by Latifi, and publicly state that they are done being used as a dumping ground for other teams' juniors when they have their own - a seemingly firm statement that Oscar will not be welcome while he is attached to Alpine.

Mark makes contact with McLaren, and negotiations begin.

5 July 2022: On this date Oscar Piastri signs his contract with McLaren. The contract is initially as a reserve driver with mechanisms to make him the race driver if McLaren can negotiate an exit with Daniel. Oscar informs Otmar Szafnauer and Laurent Rossi shortly afterwards, and does so a second time at some point in the next three weeks.

11 July 2022: Zak Brown states to the media that Daniel Ricciardo will be driving for McLaren in 2023. About this time, Daniel visits the factory, and makes a tearful, impassioned promise to the team members that he is working incredibly hard and will be driving for them next year.

28 July 2022: Sebastian Vettel shocks everyone by announcing his retirement from Formula One at the end of the season, throwing the grid into disarray.

30 July 2022: Lawrence Stroll contacts Fernando Alonso and offers him the drive for next year. Unlike Alpine, Lawrence does not hesitate to put a paper contract in front of Fernando, and offers him a 2+1 deal where Alpine had been pondering a 1+1. Fernando, tired of the games of Alpine, signs immediately.

1 August 2022: Aston Martin announce that Fernando Alonso will join the team from 2023.

Either 1 August 2022 or 2 August 2022: Otmar Szafnauer corners Oscar in the simulator, in front of several other Alpine staff, and informs him he has the Alpine drive in 2023. Oscar is aware that if he challenges Szafnauer he will make a scene and does not say anything.

2 August 2022: Alpine announce that their 2023 driver lineup will consist of Esteban Ocon and Oscar Piastri. Eagle-eyed fans note that there are no quotes from Oscar in the press release, which has a very strange vibe. They are right, because...

A few hours later, Oscar sends The Tweet. There is immediate uproar.

August 2022: Otmar Szafnauer and Laurent Rossi proceed to go on a smear campaign against Oscar, calling him disloyal and questioning his integrity. Even other team principals (unwisely) get involved, despite not knowing the full story. Alpine is threatening court action, and the matter is scheduled for a Contract Recognition Board hearing. Oscar and Mark do not say a word, and nor do McLaren, who everyone assumes is the team that got him.

24 August 2022: McLaren announce that they have agreed with Daniel to part ways for the 2023 season. They do not announce his replacement and Daniel does not have a drive for 2023 arranged.

2 September 2022: The Contracts Recognition Board hearing takes place. Alpine are savagely humiliated as the full extent of their incompetence is laid bare. The mediators express their clear disdain for Alpine's actions, including their incredulousness that a lawyer possibly thought it acceptable to write "legally binding" on a terms sheet, the fact that the lawyer had pleaded with Laurent Rossi for more help several times and Alpine's "shilly-shallying" over even getting Oscar his reserve contract, let alone a race one. They find that the only valid contract Oscar had for 2023 was the one with McLaren, and Alpine are ordered to pay Oscar's, Mark's, and McLaren's costs.

After all of their bluster and slander, it turns out that Otmar Szafnauer and Laurent Rossi genuinely believed the terms sheet was a contract that entitled them to Oscar's services for 2023.

Alpine fire the lawyer. (So I guess nobody is in their legal department, now?)

[mariacallous]

In mid-January, Phil Gordon visited Guatemala to hand deliver a letter from Kamala Harris to a man who very likely owed his presidency to U.S. diplomatic intervention.

Bernardo Arévalo de León had just been inaugurated as Guatemala’s new leader, despite efforts by the country’s outgoing government over months to derail a democratic transition of power. Gordon, the U.S. vice president’s national security advisor, was in Guatemala to attend Arévalo’s inauguration with a delegation of other high-level Biden administration officials.

The letter congratulated him on his victory and invited him to Washington for a meeting with Harris, according to a copy reviewed by Foreign Policy. But its real significance was spelled out between the lines. A senior administration official involved in the discussions said the letter was a “signal that the U.S. gives full-throated support to Arévalo and Guatemala’s democratic transition of power.”

The inauguration itself took place after midnight on Jan. 15, following a dramatic final effort by members of Guatemala’s outgoing government to halt the proceedings. Gordon and other members of the U.S. delegation were instrumental in ensuring the transition of power took place, having imposed sanctions and visa restrictions, and back channeled with other embassies to pressure Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei to accept the election results and step aside.

The democratic transition in Guatemala represents one of the clearest victories of U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda to promote democracy worldwide, as well as a rare example of Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security team playing a distinct and direct role in shepherding it through, according to interviews with multiple administration insiders and Central America experts. The episode provides possible insights into how Harris’s foreign-policy team would work should she win the presidential election in November.

While it went relatively unnoticed in Washington, where people are largely focused on wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the U.S. maneuver to bolster democracy in Guatemala was a policy win—in stark contrast to some of the administration’s endeavors in other parts of the world. The Biden administration has faced criticism for embracing autocrats in ways that undermined his stated goals of promoting global democracy. Across West Africa, the United States has failed to stem an “epidemic” of coups that dealt a heavy blow to U.S. interests. In Afghanistan, which the United States withdrew from chaotically three years ago, democracy is more distant than ever.

“Probably the most key player for securing this transition for Arévalo was the international community and specifically the United States,” said Marielos Chang, a Guatemalan political consultant and professor at the Universidad del Valle in Guatemala.

When Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race last month and endorsed Harris, one of the many questions posed about the vice president was: What role had she played on foreign-policy issues? Many current and former U.S. national security officials say it is hard to discern where Harris and her small national security team have made a mark—but Guatemala stands as an exception.

Harris became the administration’s point person on Central America’s Northern Triangle region to tackle the root causes of migration, an assignment that later became a point of controversy on the campaign trail—and a source of criticism from Republicans. Migration encounters at the U.S. southern border hit a record high at the end of 2023, and border security and migration remains a major issue for both parties on the campaign trail, particularly for Republicans.

“President Biden gave Vice President Harris one job—‘border czar’—and she failed miserably,” Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said last month, echoing similar charges across the board from Republicans that the Harris campaign has sought to push back on.

Throughout her time as vice president, Harris and her national security team worked closely with Giammattei’s government to try to tackle the root causes of migration from the source, even before Guatemala’s transition crisis.

Guatemala is Central America’s most populous country and a key hub for the flow of migrants north toward the U.S. southern border.

One key initiative Harris’s team and other National Security Council (NSC) officials worked on with Giammattei was the “safe mobility office” initiative, to try to establish offices in the region where people could apply for asylum in the United States from afar or learn about the convoluted U.S. migration system before ever reaching the U.S. border.

Gordon met with Giammattei for over nine hours in one of his numerous trips to Guatemala as they hashed out these proposals, according to a senior administration official familiar with the matter. This official and others spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on the record about internal government deliberations.

The National Immigration Forum, a nonprofit organization that tracks migration issues, has said that “much remains unclear about the offices’ operational realities” but that it is aimed at lessening the burden on immigration systems at the border and deterring people from trying to venture there in the first place.

Arévalo won Guatemala’s presidential election in August 2023 by a comfortable margin on a campaign of anti-corruption reforms. In the wake of the election, “we were starting to see signs that Giammattei’s administration was seeking to block the outcome of the free and fair elections and prevent a peaceful transfer of power,” said Katie Tobin, the former top Biden migration advisor at the NSC.

From there, Harris’s team was well placed to launch the pressure campaign on the outgoing government to accept the election results. It was also coordinated by the top U.S. diplomat at the time in Guatemala, Patrick Ventrell, and other State Department and Treasury Department officials, according to the officials familiar with the matter.

In October, the administration announced sanctions on Guatemalan officials linked to corruption. In November, Gordon traveled again to Guatemala to meet with both Giammattei and Arévalo separately to “reinforc[e] the importance of the peaceful democratic transfer of power,” according to a White House readout of the meetings at the time. Days after his visit, the Biden administration sanctioned another former top Guatemalan official for his role in “ongoing efforts to undermine the democratic transfer of power.”

Then, on Dec. 11, the State Department announced visa restrictions on nearly 300 Guatemalans, including over 100 Guatemalan members of Congress and other business elites, for “ongoing anti-democratic actions” that sought to interrupt the transition of power.

“That sent a really strong message to all politicians, that the United States was not going to be just waiting to see what happens,” Chang said. Chang said that Guatemalans paid close attention to the diplomatic campaign by the United States, and in particular the top U.S. diplomat there, Ventrell. Harris’s personal role, Chang said, wasn’t visible in Guatemala in the same way it was back in Washington in internal government deliberations.

The pressure appeared to be working, and Giammattei and his proxies began backing down. But there would be one last dramatic political battle, and members of Harris’s national security team would find themselves at the center of it.

Biden in January announced he was sending a delegation of eight senior U.S. officials to Guatemala for Arévalo’s inauguration, led by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power. The delegation also included Gordon and Tobin, as well as Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Lawmakers who opposed Arévalo threw up more roadblocks, delaying the special session of Congress to finish the inauguration and sparking fears of a last-minute coup. Arévalo’s supporters rallying to celebrate his inauguration grew increasingly restive and impatient as the hours dragged on, eventually clashing with riot police and gathering outside the congressional building.

The showdown also intersected with the U.S. election campaign, as one of former President Donald Trump’s top confidants, Ric Grenell, traveled to Guatemala in the days leading up to the inauguration and threw his support behind the efforts to derail Arévalo’s ascent to the presidency, as the Washington Post reported. Grenell reportedly backed hard-line conservatives who sought to block the transition and alleged that the U.S. foreign-policy establishment was trying to “intimidate conservatives” in the country. Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, has emerged as one of the most influential voices in the MAGA movement advising Trump on his 2024 run.

On the day of the planned inauguration, Biden’s delegation went into crisis mode. “We were at the [U.S.] ambassador’s residence during this, for nine hours,” Tobin recalled. “The [USAID] administrator, Phil [Gordon], our charges d’affaires [Ventrell] were all making tons of calls to the outgoing government and incoming administration” and “coordinating with foreign delegations” in response to the eleventh-hour crisis, she said.

“We worked out a unified message as the international community there that we were expecting the Guatemalan government to do the right thing and uphold democratic values,” she added. They weren’t alone. Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president, who was also in Guatemala for the inauguration and has outsized political influence in the region, vowed not to leave until Arévalo was inaugurated.

In the end, the pressure from Guatemalan protesters and the international community worked. Arévalo was sworn in shortly after midnight on Jan. 15. “That transition almost didn’t happen, until it finally did,” Tobin said.

Shortly after the inauguration, Harris issued a statement “commend[ing] the people of Guatemala for making their voices heard and this important transition.” Her team has maintained close contact with Arévalo in the months since; Gordon met him along the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February and Arévalo took Harris up on her offer for a White House meeting, visiting Washington in March. Giammattei, meanwhile, has been barred from entering the United States over U.S. allegations of “his involvement in significant corruption,” according to the State Department.

“A lot of people have critical views of the United States as not always a good player regarding their actions in Latin America,” Chang said, citing Guatemala among other cases. “With this specific example, however, you can see how the United States can actually help in countries that are struggling with democratic transitions.”

[todayontumblr]

Thursday February 2.

Tumblr Woman Election 2023 *race intensifies*

A Tumblr titan faces off against a new kid on the block. Just days after Cecil Palmer's thrilling election victory, the engine of Tumblr's democratic process is once again charging full steam ahead with the #tumblrwoman election 2023. This year provided a vintage electoral contest between two political heavyweights: Vriska Serket, of #homestuck, and the elusive Katya, of the greatest movie (n)ever made, #goncharov. This particular battle for the hearts and minds of the dashboard pitted a long-time community favorite against the hot new thing on the electoral scene; albeit, as new as a rediscovered character from 1973 can really be, anyway. 

For all the election latest, see #tumblrwoman election 2023 on the dashboard. Vriska fans can celebrate this impressive victory over at #homestuck. To Katya, her voters, and her fandom, we offer condolences and all the very best for future votes. You've got a bright future, and 1974 will be here before you know it. 

For now, onto the next round. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Pizzaburger Presidency

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The corporate wing of the Democrats has objectively terrible political instincts, because the corporate wing of the Dems wants things that are very unpopular with the electorate (this is a trait they share with the Republican establishment).

Remember Hillary Clinton's unimaginably terrible campaign slogan, "America is already great?" In other words, "Vote for me if you believe that nothing needs to change":

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/758501814945869824

Biden picked up the "This is fine" messaging where Clinton left off, promising that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he became president:

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/

Biden didn't so much win that election as Trump lost it, by doing extremely unpopular things, including badly bungling the American covid response and killing about a million people.

Biden's 2020 election victory was a squeaker, and it was absolutely dependent on compromising with the party's left wing, embodied by the Warren and Sanders campaigns. The Unity Task Force promised – and delivered – key appointments and policies that represented serious and powerful change for the better:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation

Despite these excellent appointments and policies, the Biden administration has remained unpopular and is heading into the 2024 election with worryingly poor numbers. There is a lot of debate about why this might be. It's undeniable that every leader who has presided over a period of inflation, irrespective of political tendency, is facing extreme defenstration, from Rishi Sunak, the far-right prime minister of the UK, to the relentlessly centrist Justin Trudeau in Canada:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-three-barriers-biden-reelection/

It's also true that Biden has presided over a genocide, which he has been proudly and significantly complicit in. That Trump would have done the same or worse is beside the point. A political leader who does things that the voters deplore can't expect to become more popular, though perhaps they can pull off less unpopular:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-left-is-not-joe-bidens-problem

Biden may be attracting unfair blame for inflation, and totally fair blame for genocide, but in addition to those problems, there's this: Biden hasn't gotten credit for the actual good things he's done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoflHnGrCpM

Writing in his newsletter, Matt Stoller offers an explanation for this lack of credit: the Biden White House almost never talks about any of these triumphs, even the bold, generational ones that will significantly alter the political landscape no matter who wins the next election:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-does-the-biden-white-house-hate

Biden's antitrust enforcers have gone after price-fixing in oil, food and rent – the three largest sources of voter cost-of-living concern. They've done more on these three kinds of crime than all of their predecessors over the past forty years, combined. And yet, Stoller finds example after example of White House press secretaries being lobbed softballs by the press and refusing to even try to swing at them. When asked about any of this stuff, the White House demurs, refusing to comment.

The reasons they give for this is that they don't want to mess up an active case while it's before the courts. But that's not how this works. Yes, misstatements about active cases can do serious damage, but not talking about cases extinguishes the political will needed to carry them out. That's why a competent press secretary excellent briefings and training, because they must talk about these cases.

Think for a moment about the fact that the US government is – at this very moment – trying to break up Google, the largest tech company in the history of the world, and there has been virtually no press about it. This is a gigantic story. It's literally the biggest business story ever. It's practically a secret.

Why doesn't the Biden admin want to talk about this very small number of very good things it's doing? To understand that, you have to understand the hollowness of "centrist" politics as practiced in the Democratic Party.

The Democrats, like all political parties, are a coalition. Now, there are lots of ways to keep a coalition together. Parties who detest one another can stay in coalition provided that each partner is getting something they want out of it – even if one partner is bitterly unhappy about everything else happening in the coalition. That's the present-day Democratic approach: arrest students, bomb Gaza, but promise to do something about abortion and a few other issues while gesturing with real and justified alarm at Trump's open fascism, and hope that the party's left turns out at the polls this fall.

Leaders who play this game can't announce that they are deliberately making a vital coalition partner miserable and furious. Instead, they insist that they are "compromising" and point to the fact that "everyone is equally unhappy" with the way things are going.

This school of politics – "Everyone is angry at me, therefore I am doing something right" – has a name, courtesy of Anat Shenker-Osorio: "Pizzaburger politics." Say half your family wants burgers for dinner and the other half wants pizza: make a pizzaburger and disappoint all of them, and declare yourself to be a politics genius:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/

But Biden's Pizzaburger Presidency doesn't disappoint everyone equally. Sure, Biden appointed some brilliant antitrust enforcers to begin the long project of smashing the corporate juggernauts built through forty years of Reaganomics (including the Reganomics of Bill Clinton and Obama). But his lifetime federal judicial appointments are drawn heavily from the corporate wing of the party's darlings, and those judges will spend the rest of their lives ruling against the kinds of enforcers Biden put in charge of the FTC and DoJ antitrust division:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

So that's one reason that Biden's comms team won't talk about his most successful and popular policies. But there's another reason: schismogenesis.

"Schismogenesis" is a anthropological concept describing how groups define themselves in opposition to their opponents (if they're for it, we're against it). Think of the liberals who became cheerleaders for the "intelligence community" (you know the CIA spies who organized murderous coups against a dozen Latin American democracies, and the FBI agents who tried to get MLK to kill himself) as soon as Trump and his allies began to rail against them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Part of Trump's takeover of conservativism is a revival of "the paranoid style" of the American right – the conspiratorial, unhinged apocalyptic rhetoric that the movement's leaders are no longer capable of keeping a lid on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

This stuff – the lizard-people/Bilderberg/blood libel/antisemitic/Great Replacement/race realist/gender critical whackadoodlery – was always in conservative rhetoric, but it was reserved for internal communications, a way to talk to low-information voters in private forums. It wasn't supposed to make it into your campaign ads:

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/27/texas-republicans-adopts-conservative-wish-list-for-the-2024-platform/73858798007/

Today's conservative vibe is all about saying the quiet part aloud. Historian Rick Perlstein calls this the "authoritarian ratchet": conservativism promises a return to a "prelapsarian" state, before the country lost its way:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-my-political-depression-problem/

This is presented as imperative: unless we restore that mythical order, the country is doomed. We might just be the last generation of free Americans!

But that state never existed, and can never be recovered, but it doesn't matter. When conservatives lose a fight they declare to be existential (say, trans bathroom bans), they just pretend they never cared about it and move on to the next panic.

It's actually worse for them when they win. When the GOP repeals Roe, or takes the Presidency, the Senate and Congress, and still fails to restore that lost glory, then they have to find someone or something to blame. They turn on themselves, purging their ranks, promise ever-more-unhinged policies that will finally restore the state that never existed.

This is where schismogenesis comes in. If the GOP is making big, bold promises, then a shismogenesis-poisoned liberal will insist that the Dems must be "the party of normal." If the GOP's radical wing is taking the upper hand, then the Dems must be the party whose radical wing is marginalized (see also: UK Labour).

This is the trap of schismogenesis. It's possible for the things your opponents do to be wrong, but tactically sound (like promising the big changes that voters want). The difference you should seek to establish between yourself and your enemies isn't in promising to maintaining the status quo – it's in promising to make better, big muscular changes, and keeping those promises.

It's possible to acknowledge that an odious institution to do something good – like the CIA and FBI trying to wrongfoot Trump's most unhinged policies – without becoming a stan for that institution, and without abandoning your stance that the institution should either be root-and-branch reformed or abolished altogether.

The mere fact that your enemy uses a sound tactic to do something bad doesn't make that tactic invalid. As Naomi Klein writes in her magnificent Doppelganger, the right's genius is in co-opting progressive rhetoric and making it mean the opposite: think of their ownership of "fake news" or the equivalence of transphobia with feminism, of opposition to genocide with antisemitism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Promising bold policies and then talking about them in plain language at every opportunity is something demagogues do, but having bold policies and talking about them doesn't make you a demagogue.

The reason demagogues talk that way is that it works. It captures the interest of potential followers, and keeps existing followers excited about the project.

Choosing not to do these things is political suicide. Good politics aren't boring. They're exciting. The fact that Republicans use eschatological rhetoric to motivate crazed insurrectionists who think they're the last hope for a good future doesn't change the fact that we are at a critical juncture for a survivable future.

If the GOP wins this coming election – or when Pierre Poilievre's petro-tories win the next Canadian election – they will do everything they can to set the planet on fire and render it permanently uninhabitable by humans and other animals. We are running out of time.

We can't afford to cede this ground to the right. Remember the clickbait wars? Low-quality websites and Facebook accounts got really good at ginning up misleading, compelling headlines that attracted a lot of monetizable clicks.

For a certain kind of online scolding centrist, the lesson from this era was that headlines should a) be boring and b) not leave out any salient fact. This is very bad headline-writing advice. While it claims to be in service to thoughtfulness and nuance, it misses out on the most important nuance of all: there's a difference between a misleading headline and a headline that calls out the most salient element of the story and then fleshes that out with more detail in the body of the article. If a headline completely summarizes the article, it's not a headline, it's an abstract.

Biden's comms team isn't bragging about the administration's accomplishments, because the senior partners in this coalition oppose those accomplishments. They don't want to win an election based on the promise to prosecute and anti-corporate revolution, because they are counter-revolutionaries.

The Democratic coalition has some irredeemably terrible elements. It also has elements that I would march into the sun for. The party itself is a very weak institution that's bad at resolving the tension between both groups:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

Pizzaburgers don't make anyone happy and they're not supposed to. They're a convenient cover for the winners of intraparty struggles to keep the losers from staying home on election day. I don't know how Biden can win this coming election, but I know how he can lose it: keep on reminding us that all the good things about his administration were undertaken reluctantly and could be jettisoned in a second Biden administration.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/29/sub-bushel-comms-strategy/#nothing-would-fundamentally-change

[the-cimmerians]

At midnight on Saturday, more than 20 anti-LGBTQ+ bills died in West Virginia after the legislature adjourned sine die. Bills that did not pass included the misleadingly named "Women’s Bill of Rights," which would have ended legal recognition for transgender people in the state, as well as a bill that would have prohibited gender-affirming care for all transgender youth. West Virginia is the second state in a week hinting that anti-transgender legislative attacks are encountering resistance. Last week, Florida's legislature also adjourned, effectively killing dozens of anti-transgender bills.

One bill that failed to pass as the West Virginia legislature adjourned was House Bill 5243, also known as the misleadingly-named "Women’s Bill of Rights" by its proponents. The bill primarily aimed to exclude transgender individuals from all legal gender protections in the state. Riley Gaines, who heavily promoted the bill, joined Governor Jim Justice at a press conference where it was announced as a major policy priority. The proposed legislation would have led to bathroom restrictions, prohibitions on driver's license and ID changes, and the elimination of legal recognition for transgender people's gender identities. Despite frantic, last-minute efforts by some Republicans to pass it, Democratic lawmakers countered by proposing dozens of amendments for debate. As a result, Republicans placed it at the bottom of the calendar.

“HB 5243 offered no real tangible protections for cisgender women, all while punching down on another marginalized community, and sought to erase protections for transgender West Virginians,” says Ash Orr, a trans organizer in West Virginia, “Essentially, it amounted to yet another culture war bill designed to divert attention from genuine issues affecting all residents of West Virginia.”

Another bill that did not pass in West Virginia was House Bill 5297, which sought to entirely prohibit gender-affirming care for all transgender youth. The state had previously enacted a ban on gender-affirming care, but it included an exception for transgender youth experiencing "severe dysphoria." HB 5297 aimed to eliminate that exception. More than 400 health care providers signed a letter opposing the bill, describing gender-affirming care as lifesaving and urging the legislature to reject it. The bill failed to pass before the legislature adjourned, meaning that at least some transgender youth in the state will continue to be able to receive care, making it one of the few red states where this is still the case.

The state is the latest in a series of developments suggesting that the anti-transgender panic gripping the GOP may be diminishing in the lead-up to the 2024 elections. Florida also recently adjourned without passing numerous anti-transgender and anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Recent elections have raised questions about the effectiveness of anti-transgender policies in driving voter turnout. In 2023, more than 70% of Moms for Liberty candidates were defeated. The Virginia legislature shifted to Democratic control, despite Governor Youngkin's efforts to campaign for Republicans by emphasizing anti-transgender politics as a policy priority. Governor Andy Beshear was reelected in Kentucky despite substantial ad expenditures attacking him for vetoing anti-transgender legislation.

When asked about the failure of these to pass, Orr stated, “The truth is, transgender people of all ages are living happy, complete, and beautiful lives - this contradicts the false narrative created around our community by anti-transgender politicians.”

The only bill that did pass in the state was a bill that would stop non-binary gender markers on birth certificates, though it is unclear what effect the legislation would have given that the state did not have a history of issuing such birth certificates.

Although these bills are failing to pass in states that have historically targeted transgender individuals, it remains unclear whether their failure signifies a genuine shift away from targeting LGBTQ+ people or merely a pause in anticipation of the 2024 election outcomes. The threat remains significant in many areas, with a few extreme bills being enacted this year, including a gender-affirming care ban in Wyoming and an adult bathroom ban in Utah. Additionally, some new states have witnessed the successful advancement of anti-trans legislation, such as a "Parents Rights in Education" bill in Washington, which could lead to forced outings, and a bill in New Hampshire that permits sports and bathroom bans. The national budget debate also includes anti-trans provisions that are still under negotiation.

Nevertheless, activists in states that have experienced the most severe attacks see reasons for celebration and hope. The failure of dozens of bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community means that residents in these states will have another year to prepare and strategize. If the 2024 elections yield unfavorable results for Republicans who have advocated anti-transgender legislation, similar to the outcomes in 2022 and 2023, it could further argue against the political viability of making these bills a policy priority. Most importantly, transgender individuals in these states are granted the valuable gift of time to catch their breath following the relentless barrage of legislative efforts that have dominated political discourse over the past five years.