#i do agree that not voting for harris 'supports' trump in that it benefits him overall

[britneyshakespeare]

Had the extremely upsetting experience of a mutual of like 6 years going off on me for occasionally making posts about supporting Harris because apparently that makes me a g n cide denier who refuses to learn and grow, with all of my views just being assumed not even from what I've told them I believe or what I've posted before, but just because I DON'T post particularly the kind of things they THINK I should be. When I pointed out how much they were just completely assuming about stuff I'd never talked to them about, I was told it doesn't matter what I do in real life or "care" about if I simply disagree with their conclusion and vote for her anyway. Like they were absolutely not sorry for the level of maliciousness they not just assumed of my character, but for some reason thought appropriate to bring directly to me before unfollowing me. No apology whatsoever for how discomforting or upsetting that might be and certainly no acknowledgment that I could disagree with them and still be a good person. I just got another even longer rant about how they fundamentally can't fuck with me because of this one thing, no matter WHAT else I do in my real life (which I pointed out that they do not know), and how I'm directly supporting fascism.

Like seriously what is it about Tumblr that makes people think they know someone based off of occasional posts? There were just such DEEP assumptions they were making of me and going off of very little or absolutely nothing. Around the time I first became mutuals with that person I used to express my personality and beliefs and talk about what was going on in my life a lot more openly, but I've significantly scaled back on doing that in many ways for many reasons. One of my major ones is privacy and the way I've had strangers outside my followers and following circles just find random things I say and dogpile me for it. I was fundamentally changed after some T Fs did that to me like 3 years ago. I also just didn't have many conversations w that person anymore (I message people in general on here like 10x less than I did circa 2018-2019, which I'm somewhat sorry about!). My point is to say I think this person felt comfortable assuming that they knew me, especially who I am in 2024 at the age of 25, much better than they actually did.

One of the specific things they accused me of was being afraid of learning and growing (because I don't perform social media activism on here like they think I should). Like AFRAID to take criticism. When again I've never received criticism from them or had to respond to any criticism on here before as pertaining to my views on... well, absolutely any of the issues they accused me of not caring about. They essentially treated it as if the only thing in the world I cared about was the US election and characterized me as the most out-of-touch liberal they could possibly imagine, because I'm not "pushing" Kamala Harris to be better (Oh?? Should I do that on here?? Does she read my blog??).

And most hypocritically what they said was that I only *sometimes* *vaguely* post pro-Harris things (I often post like 5 or fewer things in a day though?). But here's the kicker. "Because I know I'll get shit for it. And rightfully so."

Really????? Not a single person, anon or not, in my messages or in a tagged post or anything, has ever given me shit before for saying who I'm voting for. I'm actually NOT afraid of "getting shit" for that opinion, I just don't start fights with people who are anti-voting. And why should I??? I genuinely don't believe in trying to change the minds of strangers on the internet about that sort of thing. I'm just not confrontational about it; that is so not the same thing as being "afraid of getting shit." I'm not posting ENOUGH about my support for Harris, therefore I'm afraid. But therefore they can also make all these assumptions about me being their strawman for an ignorant Harris supporter.

I'm afraid of getting shit but I still post anyway? But if I weren't afraid of getting shit I'd be posting a lot more?? This is ALL based on their assumptions of what my blog *should* look like, based on what I really and truly believe. My level of posting every now and then is an accurate gauge of my feelings on complex, sensitive, global issues. Because I'm voting for the Democratic presidential candidate and I'm ok sharing pretty much just that little glimpse of myself.

I really don't think that person knows just how inappropriate and insulting that is to just say all of that to me. Like they really know what's going on in my head. Their first message began and ended with like "I'm sorry I love you I just can't take it anymore" but they clearly weren't sorry enough to try and be more respectful to me, and they didn't love me enough not to default to extremely ungenerous assumptions and attacking me based off of those instead of any actual words I've said that they take issue with.

Online radicalization is real and it's not necessarily bad because your political views can start to fall well out of the contemporary Overton window. The way you find it appropriate to treat people whose views, however common, seem to fundamentally misalign with yours... that does matter. You can't just assume the worst of everyone and then act on that in how you approach them as individuals. And then be shocked that you don't stay friends with them. You can't be confrontational with someone about an issue you've never had an honest conversation about, and then expect them to take your bad faith in them as reasonable well-meaning criticism.

I'm afraid of criticism??? I'm afraid of criticism. No I'm not. This person and I have never had an issue before where they criticized me and I got harshly defensive. It was ALL projection. The entire tone of their messages was as if all their anti-voting posts recently were somehow in communication with the occasional go-vote-for-Harris posts that I make. That's not a conversation. I don't post for your satisfaction. I don't post in "response" to my mutuals I disagree with. I just post what's on my mind, sometimes, about some things. I really again can't stress enough how baffled I am by this

[pettytiredandjewish]

Damn the genocidal warmonger who would benefit me more personally didn't win :(

Not quite sure if this is sarcasm or not (I’m too tired to figure it out) but let me explain some things to you and others.

- The majority of politicians (not all) are “warmongers”. This includes presidents. I have my own opinions about the US involving themselves in wars (but is another long discussion for another day).

- I am not a huge fan of Harris. I don’t fully agree with her views. BUT I still voted for her and Waltz (I also am not a big fan of him too but for different reasons).

- I voted for her because I know out of all of them, she was going to be the better choice for all of us. I know a lot of yall don’t like that way of thinking but let me give you some advice. Our country has 2 major parties (democrats and republicans) and we also have Green Party and independent. When it’s time to vote for your final choice- I don’t look at third party and that’s because I know there is a very low chance that they will get electoral votes. (I have my opinions ons on electoral votes). I focus on the democrat and republican candidates. I am not a republican. I do not agree with a lot of their views and policies. But I’m also not a democrat too. I’ve shifted from them due to the fact that the majority of them thinks that Jews/Israelis are monsters. I can’t stand by a party that supports that harmful and hateful view point. When it came time for me to vote I knew I had to pick the person that would be better for all of us. Harris was the better option. When voting don’t just think about yourself but think about the ones whose lives and rights are at stake.

- I remember Trumps first term. It was scary. Me and my family were making plans to leave the country (in case we had to). I was afraid for my and my loved ones safety.

- Trump winning this election is bad for all of us. This is why voting is fucking important y’all. If you are eligible to vote- then fucking VOTE. Stop telling people to not vote because “my vote won’t make a difference” (you don’t know that) or “I don’t like either of them so I’m not voting” (guess what I and many others don’t like them either but we still voted) or my new favorite “I hate that genocidal Harris so I’m not voting or I’ll vote for trump or third party to punish her”… well congratulations ass hats! Trump is the new president.

- say goodbye to your rights because a lot of us (including me) is gonna be screwed big time.

-There will be no more reproductive rights. If you need an abortion or have a miscarriage, you are screwed. You won’t be able to get the abortion and if someone finds out that you were looking into getting one, that person could report you and you might get arrested. If you are having a miscarriage, you still have to carry it to full term or you may get arrested (or you may also die)…

- LGBTQ rights, say goodbye to those. Same sex marriage will be back on debate and possibly will be banned. Want to adopt kids? Well you won’t be able to anymore because you’re not straight or cis. You want to start transitioning, well you won’t be able to because that’s illegal…

- I can keep going. That is how fucked we are. We are so fucked it’s not even funny. I knew trump was gonna get votes from his cult- i mean supporters. I also knew that Harris was gonna get her votes too. But those who refused to vote or voted third party to punish Harris, you guys played a factor in trump winning. You are ONE OF THE REASONS why he won. So congrats! Y’all didn’t want a “genocidal” woman to be president. You just wanted someone far worser than her.

- also just so you know, Harris supported and was pushing for a ceasefire. Y’all are just mad that she wanted the hostages to be freed and that she called you guys out (pro Palestine and anti zionist) for how y’all were behaving and acting. (I won’t even go there cuz that’s a whole ass story).

- so to the pro Palestine and anti zionist groups: did you free Palestine? Did electing a monster (who is a raging racist/sextist/islamophobic/Antitsemitic/homophobic/transphobic/the list goes on…) save Palestine? Is he gonna do it? The answer to that is NO. You fucked up.

- also remember that i/p conflict is not the only thing that is going to be affected when trump takes office. The Ukraine/Russian war? Ukraine is screwed. Remember that.

[eye-in-hand]

Not voting because of one issue is a privilege.

Also way to lump all muslim/arab Americans together assuming they all agree w you on i/p?

"I didn't know being against genocide was such a bad thing" is the argument I hear a lot, one it isn't. Most people are not pro-genocide. But what's happening in Gaza isn't a genocide and why do you have to throw millions of marginalized people into the fire over a centuries long conflict?

Netanyahu and Hamas have no reason to stop fighting based on a US election. It really isn't about us lmfao will Netanyahu get more support if Trump wins? Yes. But he's not going to stop the conflict just because Harris told him to lmfao

Why don't ya'll start pressuring Hamas to release the hostages considering they're the ones that keep breaking the ceasefires? Oh right because you hate Jews I forgot.

Throwing trans and poc americans under the bus because you support terrorists? How leftist of you lmfao

A lot of Americans have been tired of elections running on foreign policy for a while now. Not just because of I/P. Were tired of being involved in the ME. And we're tired of our government caring more about the ME than its own citizens. Making this entire election based off your misconceptions of I/P is contributing to that.

Gazans are not in a genocide. America is likely never going to stop being Israel's ally for reasons that have nothing to do with Jews or Arabs or racism they both face here in this country. And equating Harris to Trump is Russian propaganda. You are throwing away trans peoples lives, hispanic peoples lives, and womens lives under the bus for a conflict you aren't involved in and know nothing about - have fun with that but the rest of us aren't playing.

I shouldn't even bother saying this because convincing hamasniks that they've been duped is like telling a flat earther the world is round and none of you fucking actually care about anything other than your fandom war terrorist stans but at least I'll die knowing I didn't support Trump by falling for Russian psyops telling me not to vote.

You know who will benefit from another trump presidency? Christian Fascists and Putin. But y'all don't care about anything other than your racist characterization of the poor noble Palestinian. Ya'll got mad when America gave support to Ukrainians who ARE in a genocide. Sick of all of you fucking idiots honestly.

while i completely agree with your assessment of realistically what a trump vs harris presidency will look like, i think the issue me and a lot of other leftists have is that there is no need to tell people (and effectively tell harris) that oh ofc we are gna vote for her despite these issues because trump is THAT bad and if you say you don't want to vote for her because her party is pro-war, pro-genocide, then you are condemning americans to a trump presidency. we know trump is worse! i don't want him to win AT ALL, but why would harris even consider even changing the language she is using (i'm looking at the absolutely stupid speech she was giving in michigan, given the large arab & muslim-american population there and given its a battleground state) if she thinks she is going to win on a not-trump basis? i know who i'm voting for on nov 5th if it comes down to it, but we need the democrats to THINK they are going to lose until the very last minute, we need them to feel like they can't just rely on being the lesser of two evils if we want any chance of a shift on palestine. because they very well might lose, for this exact reason (and i'm speaking again more to the votes of the arab & muslim-american population which is far more demographically meaningful than the votes of leftists) and if that happens, they have no one to blame but themselves.

So I'm going to tell you something important: You don't have the leverage you think you have.

Political campaigns are a machine that's been operating the same way for a long time on the Democratic side. The Republicans may have abandoned a lot of the old ways of doing things, but the Democratic party hasn't. And you've got people running these campaigns who are steeped in the "wisdom" of how you win.

And when a block of voters says they're not going to vote for their candidate, they tend to believe them. So they decide to go court the people who they think will vote for them. That's why you've seen the Harris campaign trying to court moderate Republicans who might be iffy on voting for Trump a third time.

Right now one of the reasons Netanyahu is refusing to commit to a cease fire is because he thinks Trump can win. If Trump wins, he has no reason to ever agree to one. One of the reasons he thinks Trump can win is because the polling is so close.

If you want to know why they've gone to the right recently, it's because they think they've lost the left. And since a lot of those leftists are claiming there's a line in the sand that they don't have the power to appease (because -- again -- they can't get Netanyahu to do shit right now), they're going to go for the centrist Republicans.

Also, there seems to be this weird notion that the only way to move the Democrats is during the election. That's not how you move people. You keep pressuring them during their term and it works. Like Biden is continuing to work on forgiving student debt even though he doesn't have an election ahead of him. Because they know that what he does reflects on the future of the party. Voting doesn't end this game, it's the start of it.

But none of it will matter if Trump wins.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Editor’s note: This story includes a historical quote that uses a racial slur.

Election Day 1981 was ugly in some largely Black and Hispanic districts of Trenton, New Jersey. Ominous signs hung outside several polling places:

WARNING

THIS AREA IS BEING PATROLLED BY THE NATIONAL BALLOT SECURITY TASK FORCE.

IT IS A CRIME TO FALSIFY A BALLOT OR TO VIOLATE ELECTION LAWS.

That National Ballot Security Task Force was made up of county deputy sheriffs and local police who patrolled the polling sites with guns in full view. A court complaint later lodged by the Democratic Party described the members of the task force “harassing poll workers, stopping and questioning prospective voters … and forcibly restraining poll workers from assisting, as permitted by state law, voters to cast their ballots.”

The National Ballot Security Task Force was not some rogue enterprise, or an ill-conceived product of a few extremist thinkers. It was funded by the Republican Party.

While the group’s goals were ostensibly to prevent illegal voting, it was difficult to take that at face value — it looked a lot more like a coordinated intimidation effort. Republicans hadn’t been afraid to say publicly that they didn’t want certain people to vote, after all. Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said in a speech in 1980: “I don’t want everybody to vote. … our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

It wasn’t just Weyrich, either. During the 1971 Supreme Court confirmation hearing of future Chief Justice William Rehnquist, civil rights activists testified that he had run “ballot security” operations in Arizona and had personally administered literacy tests to Black and Hispanic voters at Phoenix polling places. Nor are these sentiments just a relic of a bygone era: In March of this year, President Donald Trump dismissed out of hand Democratic-backed measures that called for vote-by-mail and same-day registration to help ensure people could vote amid the COVID-19 pandemic: “They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

The political wisdom is ingrained at this point: Black and brown people don’t vote for Republicans.

From that principle flows all manner of Republican strategy. Sometimes the efforts are less legalistic and more shock jock — in 2016, the Trump campaign described “suppression efforts” aimed at Black voters, which included placing ads on radio stations popular with African Americans that played up Hillary Clinton’s 1996 comments about “superpredators.” More often, though, these moves by Republicans involve accusations of widespread voter fraud, battles over voter registration, and court challenges to laws meant to protect the franchise of America’s minorities. Talk of “election integrity” by the Grand Old Party is inextricably intertwined with its modern history of pandering to racist elements of American life; any attempt to disentangle these stories and tell them separately is disingenuous, even if it angers partisans.

Voting in person during the COVID-19 pandemic has raised safety concerns and intensified the push for vote-by-mail, a measure President Trump has derided.

JESSICA KOURKOUNIS / GETTY IMAGES

Efforts to tamp down the number of minority voters will likely continue this election. Following the abuses in Trenton in 1981, the Republican National Committee entered into a court-enforced consent agreement that it would not engage in voter intimidation efforts like the ones seen in Trenton — efforts the court deemed racially motivated. In 2018, the RNC was released from that consent agreement, and in May 2020, the RNC and the Trump campaign announced that they would spend $20 million to litigate initiatives like vote-by-mail and that they would recruit 50,000 poll watchers across 15 states. ”The RNC does not want to see any voter disenfranchised. We do not. We want every voter who is legally able to vote to be able to vote,” said RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel on a call with members of the press in May. “But a national vote-by-mail system would open the door to a new set of problems such as potential election fraud.” All this effort despite little conclusive evidence that voting by mail benefits one party over the other.

But it wasn’t always the case that the GOP looked to suppress the franchise, and with it minority-voter turnout. In 1977, when President Jimmy Carter introduced a package of electoral reforms, the chair of the RNC supported it and called universal, same-day registration “a Republican concept.” President Dwight D. Eisenhower won nearly 40 percent of the Black vote in 1956, and President George W. Bush secured about the same share of Hispanic votes in 2004.

Yet in 2016, Trump won just 28 percent of the Hispanic vote and 8 percent of the Black vote.

The GOP’s whitewashed political reality is no accident — the party has repeatedly chosen to pursue white voters at the cost of others decade after decade. Since the mid-20th century, the Republican Party has flirted with both the morality of greater racial inclusion and its strategic benefits. But time and again, the party’s appeals to white voters have overridden voices calling for a more racially diverse coalition, and Republicans’ relative indifference to the interests of voters of color evolved into outright antagonism.

When I asked Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s chief strategist, how he thought the current GOP could go about appealing to minority groups, he declined to take the bait. “Thanks for trying to get me into the here and now, but I’m not going to get in there.”

I tried again. Bypassing Trump, did a Republican Party eight or 10 years into the future have a chance with minority voters?

“They’d better wake up to the necessity of doing it,” Rove said. “It’s a lost opportunity if we don’t.”

It’s not the first time Republicans have heard that sort of thing. But apparently it’s hard advice to take.

Michigan Gov. George Romney, a moderate Republican, lost out on the 1968 GOP presidential nomination but warned of the divisions that the “Southern strategy” would create in the party.

PICTORIAL PARADE / ARCHIVE PHOTOS / GETTY IMAGES

1968 The moderates’ last stand

Conservative Barry Goldwater’s decisive presidential loss in 1964 led to a bevy of Republican primary candidates in 1968. Everyone wanted to save the party from ruin. Michigan Gov. George Romney emerged as the golden boy — the media golden boy — of the group, a successful Republican in a Democratic state who championed civil rights for Black Americans and opposed the war in Vietnam. Talking about the latter quickly got him into trouble, though, as he was a foreign policy neophyte and almost-debilitatingly earnest. While explaining his former support for the war during a 1967 interview, Romney said: “When I came back from Vietnam [in 1965], I just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get.”

Claiming the American military and diplomatic establishment brainwashed you wasn’t a particularly welcome thing to say back then. (Or now.) Historians mark this blunder as the beginning of the end of Romney’s chance to become the Republican candidate in 1968. And looking back, it was the beginning of the end of any liberal Republican standing a chance at winning the party’s nomination. (When Romney’s son Mitt ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, he called himself “severely conservative.” In the general election, he got 6 percent of the Black vote and 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.)

Romney fell from great heights. In 1966, Time magazine put him on its cover under the tagline “Republican Resurgence,” along with Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the country’s first Black senator since the Reconstruction Era, California Gov. Ronald Reagan and three other rising stars. Running on a strategy of courting the South, Goldwater had been flattened by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 general election, and more moderate candidates like Romney and New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller were seen as the plausible Republican future. The promising candidates were, by and large, Time wrote, “moderates with immoderate ambitions.” But Romney was the man who got the most early attention. In a 1966 Harris Poll that asked who voters wanted to see as the Republican nominee in 1968, Romney beat out former Vice President Richard Nixon by 6 percentage points, Reagan by 14 and fellow moderate (and eventual vice president under a President Nixon) Rockefeller by 13.

Romney had pushed for the adoption of a civil rights plank to the 1964 Republican platform, but his efforts failed miserably. Instead, Goldwater’s nomination marked a full embrace of a strategy that sought to win the votes of white Southern Democrats disillusioned by their party’s embrace of reforms aimed at racial equity. Today’s GOP is still informed by this “Southern strategy.”

In her book, “The Loneliness of the Black Republican,” Harvard professor Leah Wright Rigueur describes the treatment of the few Black delegates at the 1964 convention, several of whom were detained by security for talking to the press about their anti-Goldwater sentiments. One man’s suit was set on fire, and another “ran sobbing from the convention floor, crying that he was sick of being abused by Goldwater supporters. ‘They call you “nigger,” push you and step on your feet,’ he muttered to reporters, wiping tears from his eyes. ‘I had to leave to keep my self-respect.’”

Gov. Romney’s embrace of the civil rights movement would eventually put him at odds with Richard Nixon-era Republicans.

ARCHIVE PHOTOS / GETTY IMAGES

Romney, for his part, was disgusted by the nominee and his stance on race. His moral high ground was notorious — years later, when his son Mitt ran for president, a former aide to George Romney told New York magazine that the elder Romney was “messianic,” adding “This guy was John Brown.”

Black voters might have been more circumspect. When violence broke out in a Black area of Detroit in 1967, Romney and Johnson each had a role to play, with Romney as governor and Johnson as president. They circled each other as they considered the response. “Neither wanted to take responsibility for installing martial law in an American city,” historian Rick Perlstein wrote in his book “Nixonland.” And Detroit was a heavily Black city, no less. Romney lost the game of chicken and eventually sent in the National Guard. Later in the campaign he toured the Watts neighborhood of Detroit and asked his driver what the word was that everyone kept calling him. “Motherfucker, sir,” he was told.

Romney, despite his best intentions, was part of a political party that had been slowly losing Black support for decades. While African Americans had long felt a sense of comity with the party of Lincoln, Republicans had been trying their patience for much of the 20th century. In 1940, Black party identification was split evenly at 42 percent. Eisenhower received a large share of the Black vote, in part because of voters’ disillusionment with Southern Democrats’ anti-civil rights beliefs.

But even those inside Eisenhower’s administration knew something was off about the GOP’s relationship with Black voters. His adviser E. Frederick Morrow, the first African American to serve in an executive staff position at the White House, was frustrated with the GOP’s often-indifferent efforts to court Black constituencies. In 1959 he gave a speech that decried the party’s apathy toward Black voters: “Republicans could not expect Negroes to be extremely grateful for what Lincoln did, since in effect he had merely returned to them their God-given rights of freedom and personal dignity.”

In 1962, Nixon told Ebony magazine that he owed his 1960 loss of the presidency to this kind of complacency: “I needed only five per cent more votes in the Negro areas. I could have gotten them if I had campaigned harder.” The African American vote was still a bloc that Republicans saw as gettable — Martin Luther King Jr.’s father was going to vote for Nixon until his opponent, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy, called King while he was detained in an Atlanta jail.

Romney’s disastrous “brainwashing” quote exposed the weakness of his campaign, and Nixon acted swiftly to shiv Romney’s underbelly of naivete. Nixon had long understood that the racist forces in the Republican Party that brought Goldwater the nomination remained a center of power despite Goldwater’s defeat. Nixon acted quickly to play to them, tying Romney to the violence in Detroit — he was governor after all. Nixon went further, arguing that “the primary civil right” in America was “to be protected from domestic violence.” White voters’ fears of Black Americans’ demands for civil rights made them uncomfortable with politicians who might support those rights — politicians like Romney. As Time had pointed out in 1966, the Democratic Party’s FDR-era coalition was fragmenting: “Negro militancy has siphoned off much support from urban Italians, Irish and Slavs.” Nixon, who would famously run as a “law and order” candidate, wanted those white votes.

Delegates at the 1968 Republican National Convention show their support for Nixon, who went on to secure the party’s nomination with the help of avowed segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.

BETTMANN / GETTY IMAGES

Nixon got the nomination after a contentious convention, one fought over how tightly the party should be tied to its Southern base. Reagan led a last-minute push for the nomination that was quashed only when South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond stepped in on Nixon’s behalf, while moderate delegates tried to make Romney, not the South-approved Spiro Agnew, vice president. Reflecting on the party’s turmoil, Romney deployed a graphic metaphor for the GOP, warning that, “to prevent this abscess from re-forming [Nixon and Agnew] must make the party leaders from the states that must win the election for them at least as important as Mr. Nixon made the leaders of the South and Southwest in winning the nomination.”

More than half a century later, the abscess is still there. Over and over again, Republicans have faced the choice between a big-tent strategy and specific appeals to white voters — appeals that over time have become tantamount to bigotry.

And it wasn’t as if people weren’t pleading for Republican racial attitudes to change.

THE LATE 1970s “The Republican Party needs 
black people”

In 1978, Republican party chairman Bill Brock invited Jesse Jackson to talk to party notables in Washington, D.C. An intimate of King’s, Jackson was a political whirlwind who had proved to be a dynamic civil rights organizer. “He is one of the few militant blacks who is preaching racial reconciliation,” New York Times reporter John Herbers had written of Jackson in 1969. His address trafficked in the language of incremental advantage so beloved by electorally avaricious political strategists. Seven million unregistered Black voters were waiting to be wooed by the GOP, Jackson said. “The Republican Party needs black people if it is to ever compete for national office — or, in fact, to keep it from becoming an extinct party.” The New York Times wrote that “Jackson’s proposition seems realistic enough” given that “thirty percent of Northern and 20 percent of Southern blacks already consider themselves independents.”

Jackson got a standing ovation from the crowd, and the good feelings of the day prompted Brock to say that the “right” 1980 presidential candidate “could hope for anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of the Black vote.”

Reagan would go on to win only 14 percent.

For a fleeting political moment in the wreckage of Watergate, the GOP seemed to be open (once again) to the idea that their future could lie with voters of color. The conventional wisdom of that brief period, Perlstein told me in an email, “was that the Republicans would go the way of the Whigs unless they recouped their appeal to blacks.” (Perlstein has a forthcoming book that covers this period. Called “Reaganland,” it’s the latest volume in his multipart history of modern American conservatism.)

Jesse Jackson, in the Oval Office with President Jimmy Carter, ran for president as a Democrat in 1988 but worried for years that the party took the Black vote for granted.

AFRO AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS / GADO / GETTY IMAGES

In the late 1970s, Jackson made the argument that Black voters should want the two parties to compete for their votes to attain greater political leverage. He worried that the Democratic Party would come to take Black voters for granted. (More than 40 years later, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden would tell a Black radio host, “I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.”) Jackson’s own personal conservatism could be seen as emblematic of that of Black Americans, ones who could be potentially courted by the GOP. A 1979 profile of Jackson by the journalist Paul Cowan described him at an anti-abortion rally: “[He] denounced abortion as ‘murder,’ he insisted that ‘when prayers leave the schools the guns come in’ … he suggested that, while he supported women’s liberation, his wife at least should stay in her place — his home.”

But the good vibes after Jackson’s speech in 1978 did not last long. Republican bureaucrats in the Reagan era coalesced around the idea that minority voters were unwinnable.

A few months before Jackson’s speech in Washington, President Carter had introduced electoral reforms — an end to the Electoral College and same-day universal voter registration — that were met with praise from Brock, the RNC chair. But an essay that soon appeared in the conservative publication Human Events expressed an opposing view in the party. Writer Kevin Phillips said that Carter’s proposal “could blow the Republican Party sky-high” given that most of the new voters in a higher-turnout election would be Democratic.

Phillips, who worked for Nixon’s 1968 campaign, was the author of the 1969 book “The Emerging Republican Majority,” which articulated a road map for the GOP to sweep up white voters. Or as a 1970 New York Times profile of the Bronx native with “a visage that looked half scholar and half black-Irishman” put it: “Political success goes to the party that can cohesively hold together the largest number of ethnic prejudices, a circumstance which at last favors the Republicans.”

Phillips was one of many loud, young voices on the “New Right” that saw Reagan as the Republican future. Reagan said the Carter proposal might as well be called “The Universal Voter Fraud Bill,” and pressured Brock into reneging on his support for it, which he did. (Google NGram mentions of the term “voter fraud” spike starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s.)

“The Republican Party needs black people,” Jackson said in 1978. Two years later, Ronald Reagan would go on to win only 14 percent of their votes.

BETTMANN / GETTY IMAGES

Brock’s flip-flop embodies a contradiction inherent in many of the internal GOP struggles of the past few decades, and ones that continue today: Should the party invest in appeals to new voters or pluck racism’s low-hanging electoral fruit? Brock availed himself of the latter in his 1970 Tennessee Senate race. His “victory could be credited almost entirely to his sophisticated attempts to play on Tennessean’s [sic] racial fears and animosities,” according to the Almanac of American Politics. Often, the party has attempted to play both strategies, though the racial one usually seems to blot out the more ecumenical approach.

By the time Reagan appeared at a 1980 campaign stop at the National Urban League, the prominent civil rights organization, his appearance wasn’t to win over Black voters so much as to “show moderates and liberals that Reagan wasn’t anti-black,” one aide later said.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush ran for president as a “compassionate conservative,” and reached out to constituencies beyond those traditional to the Republican Party.

MATT CAMPBELL / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

THE 2000s Double-talk

In 2005, RNC chair Ken Mehlman appeared at the NAACP national convention to formally apologize for the GOP’s Southern strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”

It seemed an act befitting a party whose sitting president, George W. Bush, had run for office as a “compassionate conservative.” The branding was no accident. In 2018, Bush articulated why he felt the need to convey a more explicitly empathetic message. “I felt compelled to phrase it this way, because people hear ‘conservative’ and they think heartless. And my belief then and now is that the right conservative philosophies are compassionate and help people.” Rove put it a bit more bluntly when he explained that “compassionate conservatism” helped Bush “indicate that he was different from the previous Republicans.”

It was an extension of Bush’s past success with people outside the party’s usual base. When he was governor of Texas, he won more than 50 percent of the Mexican American vote. “He was comfortable with Hispanic culture. His kids went to a large public high school in Austin that was very Hispanic,” former adviser Stuart Stevens said. “Much of his appeal among Hispanics in Texas was attributed to his personal charm and charisma,” Geraldo Cadava, a professor of history at Northwestern University, writes of Bush in his book, “The Hispanic Republican.” “He spoke Spanish, ate Mexican sweetbreads in border cities, and for Christmas he made enchiladas and tamales that he, unlike President Ford, shucked before eating.” Rove said the Hispanic population in Texas was “highly entrepreneurial,” signed up for the military at high rates, and was religious, “so they tend to have socially traditional values,” particularly on the abortion issue. “What’s not to like about that profile if you’re a Republican?”

Bush’s focus on reforming education and immigration was key to his “compassionate conservative” appeal.

BROOKS KRAFT LLC / CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Bush’s platform aimed to be inclusive. Stevens pointed to the potential of No Child Left Behind as one example, an education program that increased funds for low-income schools, many of them home to Black and Hispanic students. Bush signed the program into law with the support of liberal icon Ted Kennedy — there’s a picture of Kennedy standing behind Bush as he puts pen to paper. Two Black children stand directly behind the president. “This is the kind of thing that the current Republican Party would present at a war crimes trial,” Stevens said of the show of bipartisanship. These days Stevens, who also served as Mitt Romney’s chief strategist during the 2012 presidential campaign, is disillusioned with the Republican Party and has a book (his eighth) all about it, “It Was All a Lie,” due out in August.

Progress with new, diverse coalitions could have been possible, Stevens said, but “you need to have changed the substance.”

But for many in the Black community, the substance boiled down to what Kanye West said during a live 2005 telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief: “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”

Despite the compassionate conservatism rhetoric, the GOP of the Bush era continued to pursue policies hostile to Americans of color. The party deployed a warm and fuzzy message that belied the actions it took on voting rights. It tried to turn out Hispanic voters while tapping into efficient ways to shut down minority voting under the “voter fraud” umbrella. The abscess that George Romney had warned about not only had re-formed, it had grown.

“The first stirrings of a new movement to restrict voting came after the 2000 Florida election fiasco, which taught the unfortunate lesson that even small manipulations of election procedures could affect outcomes in close races,” Wendy Weiser, head of the Democracy Program at the left-leaning advocacy group the Brennan Center, wrote in 2014. As Carol Anderson of Emory University writes in “One Person, No Vote,” during the Bush years and beyond, Republicans who were “respectable members of society leveled the charges [of voter fraud] — U.S. senators, attorneys with law degrees from the Ivy League.”

The 2000 election, which brought Bush to office, marked a new era of focus on ballot rules.

ROBERT KING / NEWSMAKERS

John Ashcroft led a Department of Justice that took up a full-throated rallying cry against voter fraud. He had some of his own skin in the game — Ashcroft lost a 2000 Senate election in Missouri in which Republicans alleged mass voter fraud in Black precincts of St. Louis. A newspaper investigation later found the claims to be all but nonexistent. The Bush-era Civil Rights Division had the distinction of filing the first voting-discrimination suit on behalf of white voters in the history of the Voting Rights Act.

Perhaps no figure from the Bush Civil Rights Division emerged who was more controversial and long-lasting than Hans von Spakovsky. He promoted voter ID laws in his home state of Georgia starting in the 1990s, and gained infamy once he landed at the Justice Department for pseudonymously writing a law review paper under the name “Publius,” which promoted voter ID laws. Later, his identity revealed, he refused to recuse himself from a controversial case involving voter ID in Georgia. The case, which was handled under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act, led career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division to resign and, as journalist Ari Berman writes, “VRA enforcement came to a standstill. From 2001 to 2005 the DOJ objected to only forty-eight changes out of eighty-one thousand submitted, ten times fewer than during the first four years of the Reagan administration.”

Von Spakovsky has proved a durable advocate for his cause. Now the head of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, he served on Trump’s now-disbanded Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The commission was created to investigate whether Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because of widespread voter fraud. No evidence for the claim has yet to be produced.

When I spoke with von Spakovsky, I asked him if it disturbed him that so-called voter fraud protection efforts disproportionately affect minorities — academic studies in various states have shown this, as has a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. He told me my assumption was wrong, and said there were studies on voter ID and election turnout that found ID requirements had had no adverse effect. He also pointed to the greater number of VRA cases brought by the Bush administration compared with the number undertaken during the administration of Barack Obama.

But Democrats don’t see it as quite that simple. “Counting up the number of cases isn’t really meaningful,” Justin Levitt, who worked in the Civil Rights Division during Obama’s presidency, wrote in an email when I asked him about von Spakovsky’s claim. “It’s a little bit like counting up the number of reps in a workout at the gym to try to figure out who’s more physically fit, without asking which exercises, which weights, which degree of difficulty. Or counting up the number of words in a piece to try to figure out which is the best reporting.”

The movement to require an ID at the ballot box began in earnest during the Bush administration. Voting rights activists have long called the laws racially biased and unnecessary.

JOHN FITZHUGH / BILOXI SUN HERALD / TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Testing claims about the effect that voter ID laws have on election turnout is tricky. Findings about their effect have varied from state to state, which likely has to do with the nature of state laws and their voting populations. But a measure like turnout also doesn’t take into account how the laws push some people to go through greater effort to cast a ballot successfully.

Levitt, who is now a constitutional law scholar at Loyola Marymount University, did an investigation into cases of election fraud that could have been stopped by the use of voter ID, and found, out of about a billion ballots cast, only 31 instances from the period of 2000 to 2014. The analysis and its results prompt an obvious question: If fraud is so rare, what’s the actual purpose of ID laws?

Attacks on voter franchise are more broad than voter ID laws, of course. Voter roll purges have moved front and center in recent years thanks to events like the controversial 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election. And last year, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found that the closure of polling places across the state had made it more difficult for Black voters to cast their ballots.

In 2005, after Mehlman’s mea culpa to the NAACP, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote that he found the RNC chair’s remarks disingenuous: “My guess is that Mr. Mehlman’s apology was less about starting a stampede of blacks into the G.O.P. than about softening the party���s image in the eyes of moderate white voters.” For all of Bush’s campaign rhetoric about compassionate conservatism and his focus on Hispanic outreach, his Republican Party had remained as devoted as ever to the cause of suppressing the franchise of people of color.

“If the apology was serious, it would mean the Southern strategy was kaput,” Herbert wrote. “And we know that’s not true.”

Donald Trump’s election came only three years after an RNC-commissioned report called for a new, more welcoming approach to immigration from the party.

ADRIA MALCOLM / BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

THE 2010s Self-reflection

The loss of the 2012 election prompted a crisis of confidence among GOP leadership.

“I was close to RNC chairman Reince Priebus. He came to me right after the election and was like, ‘We need to do some soul-searching,’” Henry Barbour, a Mississippi political strategist, told me recently. Along with four others, he would go on to author what became glibly known as the 2012 Republican autopsy report — officially the “Growth and Opportunity Project” — that placed the GOP’s institutional problems in stark terms: “Many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.”

Yet three years after the report’s publication, the GOP nominated Donald Trump, an anti-immigrant, race-baiting candidate. “How did people abandon deeply held beliefs in four years? I think the only conclusion is they don’t. They didn’t deeply hold them. They were just marketing slogans,” Stuart Stevens said. “I feel like the guy working for Bernie Madoff who thought we were beating the market.”

Priebus, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, did not respond to my requests to talk about the report he commissioned, and what has happened in the party since.

What has happened is a circling of the wagons around Trump and his race-baiting rhetoric and policies. Gone are the days of articulated philosophies like “compassionate conservatism.” Now, the GOP relies on contrarianism to distinguish itself and stoke good feelings among its core members. Just look at the ease with which ideologically driven leaders like former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney have been cast aside. Romney called Russia “our number-one geopolitical foe,” yet the party is now led by a president who repeatedly heaps praise on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

The one thing that the party has stayed true to is its reliance on the politics of race and racism. While membership in the party wanes and America grows more diverse, the GOP has become practiced at speaking to its core members’ desire to maintain a white-centric American society. Trump’s appeal relies heavily on attacks against the media and “PC culture,” the medium and mode of expression, respectively, of a diversifying country.

Republicans know the bargain they’ve made. A 2007 Vanity Fair profile of Arizona Sen. John McCain during his presidential run speaks to an acute awareness that the short-term strategy of placating a white base would be damaging to the GOP’s long-term demographic expansion. In the story, McCain is asked about the political ramifications of the immigration debate: “‘In the short term, it probably galvanizes our base,’ he said. ‘In the long term, if you alienate the Hispanics, you’ll pay a heavy price.’ Then he added, unable to help himself, ‘By the way, I think the fence is least effective. But I’ll build the goddamned fence if they want it.’”

During his 2010 Senate reelection campaign at the height of the Tea Party movement, McCain cut a TV spot meant to annihilate any ambiguity over immigration that he might have expressed during his presidential run. In the ad, McCain strolls along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying “Complete the dang fence,” to which a white sheriff responds, “Senator, you’re one of us.” It is perhaps the least subtle advertisement involving a politician since Bob Dole and Britney Spears appeared in that 2001 Pepsi commercial.

The post-2012 election report urged Republicans to return to what sounded a lot like Bush-era immigration stances and semantics: “We are not a policy committee, but … we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.”

The strategist types I spoke with all seemed in agreement on the wisdom of this: “You grow a party with addition,” Barbour told me. “Politics is ultimately about addition, not subtraction,” Stevens said. “It’s completely dumb and destructive for their interests every time you say you’re going to target a smaller and smaller pool of voters to win,” was former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd’s take. Both he and Rove seemed irritated at what they thought was a popular misrepresentation of their infamous “base strategy” that used issues like same-sex marriage to generate the high turnout of core Republican constituencies, like evangelical voters. “You win an election by having enthusiastic turnout in your base, by swiping people from the opposition and doing well among the independents,” Rove said. To suggest otherwise was “ridiculous.”

So, had other Republicans misinterpreted that strategy as an excuse not to go after voters outside the traditional GOP core? “Oh, yeah, absolutely.” Rove answered. “Look, we lost the popular vote in 2000. What were we going to do, win again that way?” Trump had, I pointed out. “Yeah, well, and look, it’s happened five times in American history,” Rove said, reeling off the dates from memory. I asked whether he was saying it’s a fluke of history. “Oh, yeah,” he replied. So, Trump would need to win the popular vote in order to win this time around, I asked, knowing I’d pushed a little too close to the present day.

“Look, stop it, stop it, stop it,” Rove said. The conversation ended soon afterward.

In the midst of racial unrest following the police killing of George Floyd, Trump has called protesters “thugs” and provoked rebukes from a small number of Republicans.

JOSE LUIS MAGANA / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Republicans with more immigrant-friendly views remain on the outs in an era when the party has focused on things like a family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. There are reports that Bush won’t vote for Trump in the fall. It feels as if a breaking point has been reached, given the pandemic and the paroxysms of protests and violence following the police killing of George Floyd. Trump’s leadership has been called into question, especially on race: 58 percent of Americans in a recent poll said they disapproved of how Trump was handling race relations in the country. The number is remarkable, if only for the fact that these days it’s difficult to get 58 percent of Americans to agree on anything except perhaps distaste for airline travel and love of Dolly Parton.

As the booming economy crumbled in the midst of the pandemic, so did many more moderate Republicans’ support for the president. As Trump tweeted about “thugs” and dispersed peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the move wasn’t reflective of “the America that I know,” while Bush issued a rare public statement sympathizing with the plight of Black Americans: “Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions.”

The country has taken note, and Trump’s poll numbers — for the time being — remain consistently below Biden’s, sometimes showing the Democrat with a double-digit lead. But there’s no sure thing in American politics these days. The election itself could be a chaotic, unpredictable enterprise.

The unprecedented circumstances of November’s election have prompted widespread concern that millions of Americans could be disenfranchised. Long lines at voting sites during primary voting in some states only exacerbated those fears.

SCOTT OLSON / GETTY IMAGES

2020 Crisis

The potential for disenfranchisement is very real in the upcoming presidential vote. The pandemic has given experts real concern that a poorly administered election could see thousands who want to vote essentially denied the right to do so. With that, seeds of distrust will be sown in the outcome. Just this week, Trump tweeted: “RIGGED ELECTION 2020: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!”

“I am most worried in places that have had the lowest levels of mail voting, where the election officials are least prepared, where they don’t have the resources and where the rules are also hotly contested. So, states like Wisconsin, states like Georgia, where the political culture has been voting in person, there have been a lot of fights over voting access, where the rules need a lot of adjustment in order to have fair access to mail voting,” Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center told me.

Democrats and Republicans are currently locked in legal battles in various states over the rules that will govern November’s election, which could largely take place by mail. It is a fractured process and the types of cases litigated cover mail ballot deadlines, early voting access, ballot collection, prepaid postage and a host of other issues. So many separate litigations are underway that each side has their own website with clickable maps showing what fight is happening in each state. “Across the country we’ve seen Democrats under the guise of [the] COVID-19 crisis in a wholesale way try to change the election to fit their election agenda items that have existed long before this crisis,” RNC Chair McDaniel said. “We believe that many of the lawsuits they have initiated would destroy the integrity of our elections, so we’re fighting back.”

One complication of mail-in ballots could arise during their validation, which often requires a signature. Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center told me that young and Black voters tend to experience higher rates of ballot rejection based on that requirement. “Young people and minorities are less likely to have a signature on file with the state,” he said. Plus, young people might have not developed a good cursive signature, and there might be an implicit bias on the part of poll workers if an African American or Hispanic name is less familiar to them. Marc Elias, who got his start as a recount lawyer and is now directing the Democrats’ broad expanse of election-related litigation, told me that differential rejection rates on ballot signatures “has always been the silent epidemic of American voting.” The COVID-19 pandemic just helped make more people aware of it.

Von Spakovsky, for his part, told me that concerns for voting in person were overblown this year. “I think you can safely hold an election under these circumstances,” he said, pointing to the precautions taken in places like grocery stores, as well as for a recent election in South Korea.

But not all Republicans share that sentiment. “I think our messaging is all wrong, frankly,” Barbour said. There are legitimate concerns being expressed by Republicans over a largely vote-by-mail election, he said. But in the midst of a pandemic, people’s fears of infection should be taken into account. “Forget the political angle, eligible voters must be able to vote.”

Some Republicans do try to intimidate people at the voting booth, Barbour said. He recounted his own experience in the 2014 primary race between Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel.

“There was this runoff — we knew we were probably going to lose if we didn’t treat it like a general election,” he said of the Cochran campaign. They courted all voters, Black, white, and Democratic. “People were furious. ‘How dare y’all?’” Barbour said of the reaction to the strategy. “All these people came out from Georgia, saying, ‘We’re going to be at these polling places, and if you show up, you’re not going to be able to vote.’ I will say, as a Republican, I was embarrassed.”

“I kind of got a taste of what it’s like to be on the other side, seeing that happen, and I found it offensive and clearly wrong.”

[nikkoliferous]

This week, in one of his first in-person appearances since the pandemic started, Joe Biden made some Pennsylvania voters a promise.

“I’m not banning fracking. No matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me,” the Democratic presidential nominee said at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where much of the nearby industry relies on the controversial technique for extracting natural gas.

It was a move meant to clarify his position and extend an olive branch to workers who rely on the fossil fuel industry after he reiterated his commitment to combating climate change in recent weeks.

But for a different section of voters, it was another nail in the coffin.

“I don’t want to vote for Joe Biden and I don’t want to vote for Trump,” said Jason Kishineff, who is running for city council in American Canyon, California. “I think either choice is going to lead to human extinction.”

Kishineff is part of a progressive, far-left group of voters who say they will not vote for Biden, even if it means a Trump victory, largely because of the candidate’s failure to adopt a progressive agenda on healthcare, mass incarceration, the environment and policing.

In 2016, this group was part of the estimated 5 million Americans who voted for third-party candidates, including hundreds of thousands of voters in swing states like Florida and Michigan.

But two months ahead of the presidential election – and after fours years of Trump – experts say the group is less of a factor for Democrats than it was in 2016. That shrinking power could serve either to further alienate progressive voters, or coax them into an eventual vote for Biden, especially if he chooses to adopt more leftist policies.

“That group is smaller,” said Rashawn Ray, a political sociologist and fellow at the Brookings Institution. “There have been deliberate decisions made with people saying ‘we cannot make this mistake’ again, knowing they played a role – even if it’s a small role – in Trump getting elected.”

Nick Cruse, a 29-year-old in Kansas City, Missouri, said it wasn’t that simple for him. “There’s no one who has done more damage to the Black community in the last 40 years than Biden,” he said.

Cruse, who is Black, cited Biden’s authorship of the 1994 crime bill, which contributed to mass incarceration rates, and his 2005 bankruptcy bill, which made it more difficult for people with limited income to pay off their debts. While Cruse is staunchly against Trump and the Republican party, he said Biden represents many of the same ideals as the current president when it comes to corporate politics.

Angelica Whipple agreed that avoiding a Trump re-election was not enough reason to vote for Biden.

The 29-year-old moved from Puerto Rico to Massachusetts as a child and has been a resident there since. A few years ago she left her job of 11 years as a personal care assistant for the elderly because of a disability. But trying to get disability benefits was difficult, she said, and she went months without health insurance, delaying surgery for ovarian cysts in the interim.

Whipple had voted for Barack Obama in previous elections but said that her political views changed in 2016, when Sanders ran for president. The Medicare for All platform, and legalization of marijuana, became non-negotiable to her. Biden has not committed to either of those policies, though he supports a public option health plan.

“He’s very steadfast in not doing anything for progressives,” Whipple said. “I don’t see how he’s that much better than Trump. At least with Trump we see it out front.”

Both Cruse and Whipple said that Biden’s vice-presidential pick, Kamala Harris, was another drawback for progressives, mostly due to her past role as a prosecutor. That has become an even more pointed issue during the past months of police brutality protests, since neither Biden nor Harris has explicitly condemned far-right agitators, or committed to defunding police departments.

“He’s been doing all of these horrendously centrist things and surrendering to the Republican narrative of protesters being rioters,” said Matt Myers, a software engineer in Seattle. “Making the false equivalence … it’s just not acceptable. He’s basically kicking the left in the teeth.”

Even so, several of the progressive voters said they would consider voting for Biden if he were to adopt some of their key platforms, such as Medicare for All, which has widespread support among Democrats. So far, they said, that hasn’t come to fruition. “If Biden is willing to support [those policies] I will sacrifice my own integrity and vote for him,” Kishineff said.

Cruse also said he would vote for Biden if he were to adopt Medicare for All and legalization of marijuana. But, he said, that would still be a “huge compromise”. And Jessica, a voter in Texas that the Guardian spoke to earlier this year said she still plans to vote for the Green party.

Myers is hoping Biden will also reform student debt, which left him bankrupt after he went to college for the first time. While he is already planning to vote for Biden, he continues to be a vocal critic to help try to push the platform left, which he said is not only ideological but a better strategy for Democrats.

“I kind of feel that the Democrats have been throwing easy elections because they keep running boring centrists who don’t excite anyone,” he said. “But my bigger fear is that Biden is going to represent four more years of a weak and useless Democrat party that … just sets up the conditions for someone worse than Trump.”

Meanwhile, the fact that Sanders had come out to actively endorse Biden in a way that he didn’t with Hillary Clinton didn’t seem to resonate with his own supporters. “I think it has split the Sanders movement into pieces,” Kishineff said. “A lot of us are not sure whether he came into this race compromised.”

Ray pointed out that Biden had adopted some of the progressive agenda, though not always explicitly. He noted that the candidate has had public conversations with Sanders supporters, like Cardi B, and that he chose a Black woman as running mate, even if Harris wasn’t the group’s chosen candidate.

He also thought Biden would end up reaching out to progressive voters in the days leading up to the election. “Part of what’s happening with Biden is he hasn’t had to do that yet,” Ray said. “He doesn’t want to pull those cards out too soon.”

But for some of the #BernieorBust crowd, voting for a third-party candidate or withholding their vote is not only about Trump and Biden. It’s about trying to diminish the country’s two-party system, in which Democrats and Republicans both have compromised on what they care about the most.

Until then, and perhaps in spite of that, this group of voters have no plans to lend their support to what they see as an establishment candidate. Kishineff said he will vote for Gloria La Riva, from the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Cruse plans to vote Green party, he said, to send a message to the Democrats. Whipple plans to write in Bernie Sanders.

“We keep shaming progressives but maybe it’s time to look at Biden and push him left,” Whipple said. “Let that be the change.”

Just your periodic reminder that many of the people you’re calling “privileged” for refusing to vote for Joe Biden are doing so because their lives have been directly impacted for the worse by his 40+ year career of screwing regular people over.

[madwomanthinkingoutloud]

It’s embarrassing to admit that I grew up in an environment where the citizens did not care about voting, because “all politicians lie”, “all politicians are corrupt” or “it won’t make a difference”, so I did not vote until I became an adult and understood the importance of doing so. I can also admit that Biden was not my choice for the Democratic Presidential nominee. He is too old and inarticulate (sounds familiar?), but if Trump can be President, then anyone can! If we accepted Biden as Obama’s Vice President, then I can accept him as President. Apart from his political track record, it is very disheartening when Biden’s personality is brought into question, when we have the most misogynistic, narcissistic, racist as President, which we knew or were warned about, but still did nothing about it. The Biden-Harris ticket is not perfect, but I think we can all agree that NO ONE is perfect, so let’s go with the option that’s in our best interest. For me it is: To defend women's rights to choose and make decisions regarding their bodies (I don’t have to tell you what to do with your guns, don’t tell me what to do with my body!); To protect us from climate change and pandemics; To protect our family and friends in the LGBTQ+ community; To stop the normalization of white supremacy and prejudice; For Dreamers and illegal immigrants, already working here, to get a path to citizenship and pay their share of taxes; For affordable – NOT FREE - health insurance; And last, but not least, Free higher education for those that want to go to college, so America can be first in education and innovation again. We seemed to have regressed to the Middle Ages. Luckily, my family has not been affected by the economy or the pandemic, but it amazes me how the citizens that get the most, and take advantage, out of democratic policies, choose not to vote to protect their rights. The current Presidency reminds me of those of third world countries where a lot of our parents escaped from, in which the family and supporters of the President are protected and can get away with anything like an authoritarian regime. This is not the America we know or want. If YOU sit this one out, YOU will regret it one day. If you don’t want to vote for yourself, then do it for someone you know will benefit from it or for future generations. If you can’t vote by mail, put on your mask, gloves, social distance and go out and VOTE!

[morningsound15]

I agree with you that the whole political system in the US is rotten to its core. I don't know what it is, but it's not a democracy. And yes, Biden won't bring the structural change that's needed. However, don't you think it'll be easier to get any change at all if after the election we get a blue house, senate and president? (Not to mention the supreme court seats won't fall into Republican's hands.) I mean, at least this way there's a chance progressives can get some of their causes through.

okay, so this is like the only ask i’m going to answer about this because i do NOT want this page to turn into this, this blog is the only part of the entire internet for me that isn’t entirely devoted to politics, organizing, radical education, theory, community-building, mutual aid, agitation, etc. i do that on literally every other social media platform and i do not want to do it here. that said i will answer this ask, i guess, though not exactly in the way you asked it i’m just gonna dump my thoughts on electoralism & this election here and i apologize in advance for how long this is going to be

to your general ask: yes, some people believe that. that is a reason many people are participating in this election (i go into that further down). my objection is not to the idea of participating in this election, the idea of voting, or the idea of voting for joe biden. it’s the entire framing of the situation & it’s the complete disregard for any people who have decided not to participate in this election, or who have decided to participate in this election & not vote for joe biden (i am NOT talking about republicans or trump supporters, that is a party of fascists & white supremacists & i am NOT talking about them, i’m talking about young people and the disaffected left). i’ll explain (under the cut so it doesn’t clutter y’alls feeds & so hopefully i won’t get as much hate because if there’s one thing i know it’s that no one on the internet reads)

what i object to is the framing of joe biden as anything less than an active enemy of the left & progressives. (the left & progressives are not the same thing, but they are both to the left of the dem party so i am putting them together for the sake of this argument but progressives are not leftists, though some leftists do describe themselves as progressives & vice versa, just want to put that out there to start.)

what i object to is the framing of joe biden as an ally. this kind of “at least he is willing to be pushed” “at least he’s already been pushed to the left by progressives” “at least he’s willing to listen & maybe with enough pressure we can get him where he needs to be!” “at least maybe a biden administration will support the policies we want them to!” because he’s not willing to learn, he’s not willing to help, he’s not willing to listen, he’s not willing to support progressive policies to tackle the healthcare/climate/war/imperialism crises or do any of that stuff. his policy goals, his entire campaign is basically to figure out what is the absolute bare MINIMUM thing he needs to do in order to say that he’s “moving the country in the right direction” so he can get elected & so he can get political cover from well-meaning but ultimately extremely sheltered dem figureheads while at the same time actively standing in the way of any real reform, progress, change, abolition, justice, etc. that’s his goal, he’s been very clear about that fact, i do not need to go into all the ways he’s already said & proved that! it’s obvious in his speeches, in the entire dnc (i watched every night of the dnc hoping for someone to lay out a good reason for me to vote for biden & i came up with 0 thanks democratic party), the people he has running his campaign, the donors he has, the lobbyists he hires to write his policy platform, the way he cozies up to billionaires, racists, segregationists, war criminals, and the way he always has in order to ‘maintain the order of politics’ & it’s gross & we don’t really need to go into it. he’s a capitalist, he’s a corporatist, he takes $$ from pharmaceutical companies and oil lobbyists and he is not a good person. BUT! many progressives know this and believe this, & still are voting for him. that is fine.

but we have to remember that joe biden is not our friend, he is not our ally, he is an enemy of the left, he is an active obstacle stopping us from achieving what we want to achieve (liberation, equality, justice, the dismantling of capitalism). so let’s not get it fucking twisted, like we need to be clear about that from the jump. we shouldn’t talk about him like he wants those things, like he’ll help us achieve those things, because he doesn’t, and he won’t, so we do not need to talk about him like he does. it is damaging to the progressive left of the democratic party to talk about biden like he’ll help us achieve any of our goals, because he won’t. we will need to fight just as hard if not HARDER under a biden administration to get the things we want, because we’ll be fighting with the people supposedly in our own party too, and they (along with the political machine they worship & kill themselves to support) are going to do everything they can to demonize and push out the young progressive diverse left, to break their spirits & destroy the political potential of the few politicians they actually do like, because that’s what they’ve always done, because the progressive left represents a threat to institutional capitalist white supremacist power. so our job would not be EASIER under a biden administration. it will just be different. we have to be very clear about that when we talk about what might happen in november.

now, that’s NOT TO SAY that there are not good reasons people have for voting for joe biden. i’m not telling people not to vote for joe biden and i am not telling people not to vote. that’s not what i’m saying. you just have to understand what this country is, what these politicians are, what they want, and what they are going to do to achieve what they want. just don’t lie about it. and only when you understand all of that can you make a truly informed decision about this upcoming election.

you can support joe biden for a lot of reasons. there are a lot of people whose politics don’t align with mine who want me to vote for joe biden, and there are people whose politics do align with mine who are making the choice to vote for joe biden. and the things that the latter group says, stuff that i find persuasive, is stuff like “joe biden is an enemy. donald trump is also an enemy. putting joe biden into office is better for the cause of liberation/leftists/revolution because he is a weaker enemy. he is a weaker opponent. we might be able to do things with him in office to help us tinker with the way our system is structured that will ultimately be for the benefit of the true left wing of this country, which will help future political actors survive in our rigged electoral system and maybe actually gain & maintain political power.” (stuff like abolishing the filibuster, getting rid of the electoral college, packing the courts, systemic changes that we need to make if we want to wrest control of this broken political system from the hands of fascists and white supremacists - many of whom sit inside the democratic party too, so let’s not get that twisted. all of these proposed changes, by the way, it’s important to note (unless i’m incorrect which i don’t think i am) joe biden doesn’t openly support or advocate for ANY of them, so let’s not get THAT twisted either.)

here’s the argument i think you’re making anon, from the mouth of comrade Angela Davis (libs love to weaponize angela davis’ words on biden without comprehending any of her politics or supporting her abolitionist policy positions, also there are other abolitionists who do not agree with davis here but i digress):

“In our electoral system as it exists, neither party represents the future that we need in this country. Both parties remain connected to corporate capitalism. But the election will not be so much about who gets to lead the country to a better future, but rather how we can support ourselves and our ability to continue to organize and place pressure on those in power. And I don’t think there’s a question about which candidate would allow that process to unfold… if we want to continue this work, we certainly need a person in office who will be more amenable to our mass pressure. And to me, that is the only thing that someone like Joe Biden represents.”

i don’t know if i fully agree with that argument per se! but i understand it, and i think it’s valid and valuable, and i understand arguments like that, and they are persuasive to me in many ways. because the republican party maintaining power is the way we slow-march into fascism, but also the democratic party getting/maintaining power is the way that we continue to slow-march to neoliberal destruction of the planet. so they’re both bad, obviously. but there are people who think (maybe they’re right! i’m swayed by this argument) that the biden administration would be easier to manipulate, easier to transform, than a trump administration.

(the counter-argument would maybe be that there are a lot of fucking liberals paying attention & even showing up in the streets right now because donald trump is the president, and if donald trump is no longer the president they’re gonna go home and be quiet and go back to brunch and close their eyes and plug their ears like they did with obama, just like they did during standing rock and ferguson and occupy, and be like “oh kamala harris wore CHUCKS on an AIRPLANE look at how COOL she is don’t you remember when there was a COOL war criminal in the white house?” there are people who are going to do that if biden/harris win, and that’s risky to me! like that is a risk we need to be talking about. i see that as dangerous. now, that’s not to say that’s more or less dangerous than what we currently have, it’s just a different kind of danger we need to be cognizant & wary of. and it’s people who post statuses like “fuck you all if you don’t vote for biden you privileged snowflake how dare you look at everything biden’s ever said done or promised he will do and decide that you don’t like that and you don’t want a part of it how dare you you fucking cuck you fucking idiot you support fucking fascists you fucking idiot” who make me lose my mind because like shut up! you don’t know what you’re talking about. there are people who know what they’re talking about who have decided they’re going to vote for joe biden and there’s people who know what they’re talking about who have decided they are not going to vote for joe biden, and you know what they don’t do? they don’t fucking fight each other, they don’t attack each other, they understand & support the reasons their comrades have for taking the action they are taking. and that is just what this is about. stop yelling at people that you don’t know who are making choices you don’t understand just because you don’t understand their choices.)

(this is even assuming biden will win, which is unlikely, or that trump will relinquish power, which is unlikely, or that there will be a peaceful transference of power and not a full-scale right-wing armed militia explosion of violence on american streets after november 3rd, so let’s all really be prepared for what might be coming in the next couple months!!!! all of these arguments mean next to nothing when we don’t even know what kind of violence awaits us in november)

it’s just psycho to think that joe biden is anything but an enemy. he is an enemy. and you can vote for an enemy and you can have your reasons for voting for an enemy, but don’t sell me shit and tell me it’s gourmet.

that’s mostly what i object to. the framing of this. and i’m not telling people not to vote for joe biden i’m not telling people not to vote. i think people should vote, because for those of us who are able & haven’t had that right stripped away from us or stolen from us by our own government, voting is easy, it’s literally the easiest thing that you can do because it’s also the LEAST politically effective thing that you can do. it’s like step fucking 1 because its impact is so low. that’s not a reason not to do it! that is not a reason not to do it. voting is important because any functioning society needs to have an engaged citizenry and an engaged electorate. now we don’t have that here, but you know what i’m saying. electoralism is a conditionally useful tool of enacting change and what we choose to do with that tool is an individual choice and there are people who are making different calculations than you, and they’re coming to different answers. and those people are often radicals, they’re often poor, they’re often black, or indigenous, or undocumented, or incarcerated. they’re often the most marginalized people in this society who are making these kinds of non-voting decisions, and it’s racist and misogynistic to assume that it’s all privileged white kids who are making that choice, because it isn’t, okay? it fucking isn’t.

and it’s so crazy because it’s always white cis libs who are talking about how important it is to get out and vote and to vote for people who aren’t like you and to vote for someone who isn’t you and it’s like, the black radicals i know are not voting for biden! they just aren’t. they do not see the electoral system or the fucking presidency as the thing that’s going to help & protect their communities. so instead they’re organizing on the ground, they’re distributing food & funds & housing comrades & fighting the police & helping elders shop and pick up medicine & making sure kids have internet access so they can go to school and that is what people are doing on the ground. they aren’t all up on instagram or tumblr sharing voting memes & telling people to hold their nose & “just vote for biden he’s the best choice we have” because they understand that for their communities, that’s not what liberation looks like. that’s y’all doing that goofy social media shit.

political power lies with the people always. the people collectively will prove whether or not the biden electoral strategy (of appealing to older, conservative/moderate, white voters in the midwest instead of young voters, poor voters, and voters of color all over the country, but i digress) is successful. whether or not his strategy is successful, the responsibility for the outcome of this election lies SOLELY with the biden campaign, capitalism, voter suppression, white supremacy, and our undemocratic election system — NOT the individual voters. know your enemy & know which system you need to fight. hint: it’s not apathetic or disengaged voters.

vote for whoever you want to vote for. don’t vote for trump, obviously, he’s a fascist do not vote for him. but for people who are not fascists or white supremacists, just try to understand what you’re doing and your position in the world & in this political system & act accordingly. not voting is not an excuse to do nothing; if you are choosing not to engage in electoral politics the expectation is you should be working twice as hard to make sustained impacts and improvements in your community. and if you ARE choosing to engage in electoral politics, the expectation is you should be working twice as hard to make sustained impacts and improvements in your community.

if what you think the liberation fight is is making sure you turn out at the ballot box on november 3rd, if that’s how you think you are being the most helpful, it isn’t and you’re not. you’re doing something, sure, and it’s not bad. like i did this, this was my job for a year, my job was to register voters and get young people to vote. i don’t have that job any more because i don’t believe that’s the solution. i just don’t believe it’s the solution. i don’t believe we should be talking about this upcoming election like it’s a solution, because it’s really just another problem we’re going to have to face and tackle, and we can’t talk about this election like anything is going to be solved if joe biden is president instead of trump because it’s not, and it won’t be, and these people are all our enemies, and we have to treat them like they are. that’s not to say don’t vote for them, if you understand all that & that is the decision you come to! just know what you’re voting for, and know what it means.

whatever, i’m not gonna keep going on this, rant over forever just had to spit that out somewhere and if i put that shit on my Facebook i would get unfriended by every white lib i went to high school with so fucking quick…

[molly-writes]

Cory Booker

I'm going to start with it's good to see that all the candidates and not old straight white guys.

Opposed Brett Kavanaugh. That earns him major brownie points with me.

Criminal justice positions:

Abolish death penalty. End cash bail. Remove the sentencing differences between powder and crystal cocaine sentences. Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences. Eliminate private prisons. No bad here. I'll agree to all of it.

Election security:

Go back to paper. While I question Andrew Yang's idea to go to block chain, I don't see this as being much better. (I already vote on paper but it's counted electronically). Back tracking to lower grade tech is only going to make this take longer.

Economy:

Affordable housing:

EW says subsidize construction. Kamala and Andrew say subsidize the end user: renters and home owners.

Cory(and Julián Castro, but he's not going to November as yet) says do both.

Income inequality:

Raise taxes on wealthy and create new social programs. Along with Bern and EW, this is only trumped by Andrew Yang's UBI for this item. Kamala Harris says expand tax benefits for middle/lower class, but taxes for that bracket are already so hopelessly complex that most of them end up paying for someone to help them with it.

Minimum wage:

Andrew Yang is "leave it up to the states, and Tom Sayer is unalligned (big surprise), everyone else is "yeah let's raise it." But can we talk about a maximum wage?

Paid leave:

Most everyone is on board with a broad paid leave initiative. Andrew Yang has only stated support for leave with new parents, and Joe and Tom (big surprise) haven't made a position on known.

Reparations:

With the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of slaves here, this is a big issue. Tom Steyer has not made a position known, every one else says let's study this.

College debt:

There are a lot of positions here. Tom has avoided all of them. They range from "college should be free"(Bern, EW) to "college shouldn't be free"(Andrew Yang) with Biden opting for two years free ride, and the somewhat more ambiguous "students should not have to take on debt to go to school," that Cory, Kamala and Pete share.

He's also onboard to fix or expand current college debt relief.

Campaign finance reform:

Everyone BUT Tom has signed on for campaign finance reform. Front runners are refusing PAC donations. These guys are limiting their spending (although it's still a multi million dollar Enterprise)

Climate:

Supports nuclear power. End drilling off shore and on government land.

Farming:

Bern and EW are going for breaking up the agribusinesses. Cory and Joe are less forceful with "tighten enforcement of current laws" every one else has not given a position.

Guns:

Mandatory buyback. Universal background check. Federal gun licences. All in all, not a position of trust. I don't like it, and I don't think it will help anything.

Healthcare:

Abortion: few if any limits.

ACA: rethink the system

Medicare for all:if we can, but expanding current coverage would be ok if we can't.

Drug costs: international reference pricing!?!

DACA: citizenship for dreamers, repeal the statue that makes it illegal to cross the border without the government check in.

Marijuana:

Legalize. Joe said "decriminalize" and Tom (no surprise) has not given an opinion. Everyone else is for it.

Military:

Expand spending. Keep troops deployed.

Taxes:

Increase capital gains tax. reverse 2017 corporate tax rate cut. Expand EITC. Increase wealth taxes. All point that desperately need to happen.

In conclusion I would support Cory Booker except for his position on guns. I think it's a step too far. 4/8

[relationshipsandpolitics]

I suppose it’s worthwhile to share who I’m supporting in the upcoming Democratic Primary for President. After all, what better way to make people who mostly agree with me to suddenly hate me than to stan for some deeply flawed elected official or deeply flawed Andrew Yang?

But before I get into narrowing down the field, I want to briefly mention something I’m going to talk about in more depth later: electability.  It’s not entirely unimportant to use this unquantifiable metric when picking a candidate.  I would just caution against it, and I’m not going to use it in mine.  Simply put, I think this election is a referendum on Trump, and there will be enough wiggle room in the electorate to support a candidate who objectively would do worse against Trump and win than the best candidate. Candidate A might beat him by 10 points, but Candidate Z will still beat him and carry the down-ticket races, too. You might as well just vote for the candidate you believe in.  A crazy concept, I know.

For the record, I’d willingly vote for any Democratic candidate over Donald Trump.  I just want to get that out of the way.  People feel the need to caveat their choice in this way, as though anyone is really arguing otherwise.   There is some truth that in 2016, Bernie voters switched to Trump at rates that helped tip the election to the Republican.  But it’s also true that more Hillary Clinton voters in 2008 switched to McCain than Bernie voters switched to Trump in 2016.  The fact is it is incredibly common for supporters of a primary candidate to wind up voting for the opposition party’s nominee. These are often called swing voters or independents.  They sometimes gravitate to a candidate simply because of that candidate and not because of party or policy.   We need to stop with this type of criticism of supporters who don’t support your preferred candidate.

Personally, I’m still voting Democrat no matter who is the nominee. But I’d be very unhappy to vote for a lot of these candidates.  

Here is the list of current candidates in an order that means nothing, but one might think has a hidden meaning:

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Steve Bullock, Michael Bennet, Joe Sestak, Wayne Messam, John Delaney, Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Pete Buttigieg

Let’s begin by just lopping off a bunch of these names who even I have barely heard of and have less than zero chance of being the nominee.  Keep in mind that some candidates I’m keeping on, I only do so because I wish to make fun of them.  Otherwise they would fully belong in this category of early dismissals. Here’s the new list:

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Pete Buttigieg

 That was fun.  Ok, let’s get into it.  When judging who my savior will be, I consider a multitude of categories.  But the first category I consider is one that won’t personally affect me at all.  I want to know if any of the candidates’ position will grossly discriminate against traditionally-disadvantaged groups.  As a straight white male, I have the benefit of not being directly impacted by even the worst Republican social policies.  All I really need to care about is taxes and getting more vacation. That’s my privilege.  But it’s also what’s so fucked up about Americans as a people.  We are entirely out for ourselves, and this is most evident in how we vote.  We need to look out for everyone, especially groups that regularly see their most basic rights challenged.  I think this is the first bar any candidate must overcome.

So any candidate that supports restricting women’s reproductive rights, supports policies that make it easier to be fired for being LGTQ, or supports banning Muslims from entering this country is gone.  Now, most of the candidates have said some questionable thins in the past.  Bernie Sanders wrote a weird column about sexual assault, Joe Biden pushed a shitty crime bill that disproportionately hurt African-Americans and was down with segregated busing, and I’m pretty sure Marianne Williamson’s only black friend is Oprah (but she’ll definitely mention it all the time).  But when it comes to actual policy, I honestly don’t believe any of the candidates running will actively seek to harm minority groups. Except Tulsi Gabbard, who has a history of saying some anti-gay shit.  I’m not trying to wade into this whole Hillary Clinton/Russia/Third-Party run controversy involving Gabbard, so I’m going to cut her off now because I don’t think she has the backs of the LGBTQ community, but I really don’t want to write about her.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke,  Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Tom Steyer, Andre Yang, Marianne Williamson, Pete Buttigieg

The next crucial category is competence.  Do these candidates have the basic competence and intelligence needed to be president? It doesn’t matter if they have strong policy proposals or are skilled orators. Can they do the job?  As we can see with Trump, a complete lack of experience as a legislator, coupled with a complete lack of intelligence and basic human decency make for a bad time.  In fact, never holding elected office alone is a disqualifier for me and it should be for everyone. Based on these criteria, the following candidates get the axe:

Andrew Yang - Yang is the type of candidate who randomly makes news for a common-sense plan and gets you thinking that maybe this outsider is what we need.  Then you learn he’s a Silicon Valley tech bro supported by other tech bros and pseudo-libertarian types and he never held public office but now thinks he can be president. That is the most damning critique.  This man knows literally nothing about government and how to govern/legislate. Instead of running for city council or the school board like a normal person, he decides to run for fucking president like an ego-maniacal psycho.   In other words, fuck Andrew Yang and his supporters.  Here’s a good article on why he sucks.   And here’s another.

Marianne Williamson – Candidate moonbeam had her moment in the sun during one debate where she had a couple decent soundbites.  She’s also batshit crazy, believes in anti-vax and anti-science ideas, and is friends with similarly-out of touch rich celebrities and SoCal types.  Never trust anyone who self-identifies and makes a living as a spiritual guru. Some of the worst people in the world are rich white women from Los Angeles who are really into spirituality and New Age medicines. They are the type of liberals who post online about how much they support gay people and the environment, but god forbid they want to put affordable housing in their neighborhood. Every positive thing they do for society is clouded in narcissism.  It’s an attempt to absolve themselves of their wealth with vacuous good deeds that don’t require any actual sacrifice.  People like Williamson protest polluting the oceans because they enjoy their Malibu beaches, and then happily get in their Range Rover to go to the movies down the street.  Williamson simply adds a layer of bullshit with her spiritualism.  If having a personal shaman is a status symbol; being the personal shaman to Oprah is the ultimate status symbol.  Like Yang, Williamson is an egomaniac as only someone from California can be, and she thinks the presidency is her God-given right. Fuck having to actually learn about public service by serving your town first when you can name drop Oprah and Gwyneth and immediately raise enough money to get a national audience to spew your garbage.

Tom Steyer - I could go on about how out of touch his policies are, but no one should be forced to read more than two sentences about this guy.  He is a hedge fund billionaire who doesn’t want everyone to have health insurance and thinks being rich makes him qualified to be president.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, TKamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar,  John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg

Alright, let’s pause and congratulate ourselves for easily dismissing half the field. Yay for us!  This will mark the end of part 1, aka Super Fun Party Time #1.   Part 2 will be up shortly, I hope, as we start discussing the serious contenders.  Remember, my opinion matters more than anyone else’s so it’s extremely important you read this and ultimately vote the way I want you to vote.  

[patriotsnet]

How Many Republicans Are In America

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-in-america/

How Many Republicans Are In America

Democrats Return The Favor: Republicans Uninformed Or Self

Rep. Schiff: Only Question Is How Many In GOP Will Support Impeachment | Morning Joe | MSNBC

The 429 Democratic voters in our sample returned the favor and raised many of the same themes. Democrats inferred that Republicans must be VERY ill-informed, or that Fox news told me to vote for Republicans.;;Or that Republicans are uneducated and misguided people guided by what the media is feeding them.

Many also attributed votes to individual self-interest whereas GOP voters feel Democrats want free stuff, many Democrats believe Republicans think that I got mine and dont want the libs to take it away, or that some day I will be rich and then I can get the benefits that rich people get now.

Many used the question to express their anger and outrage at the other side.;;Rather than really try to take the position of their opponents, they said things like, I like a dictatorial system of Government, Im a racist, I hate non-whites.;

Where Do Trump And Biden Stand On Key Issues

Reuters: Brian Snyder/AP: Julio Cortez

The key issues grappling the country can be broken down into five main categories: coronavirus, health care, foreign policy, immigration and criminal justice.

This year, a big focus of the election has been the coronavirus pandemic, which could be a deciding factor in how people vote, as the countryâs contentious healthcare system struggles to cope.

Recommended Reading: Why Are Republicans Wearing Blue Ties

Donald Trump: Impeached In 2019 And 2021

On October 9, 2019 in Washington, D.C., President Trump answers questions on a pending impeachment inquiry.

On September 24, 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump regarding his alleged efforts to pressure the President of Ukraine to investigate possible wrongdoings by his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

The decision to authorize the impeachment inquiry came after a leaked whistleblower complaint detailed a July phone conversation between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump allegedly tied Ukrainian military aid to personal political favors. The White House later released a reconstructed transcript of the phone call, which many Democrats argued demonstrated that Trump had violated the Constitution.

On December 18, 2019, President Trump became the third U.S. president in history to be impeached as the House of Representatives voted nearly along party lines to impeach him over abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. No Republicans voted in favor of either article of impeachment, while three Democrats voted against one or both.;On February 5, 2020, the Senate voted largely along party lines to acquit Trump on both charges.

Don’t Miss: When Did The Political Parties Switch Platforms

How Is Senate Majority Chosen

The Senate Republican and Democratic floor leaders are elected by the members of their party in the Senate at the beginning of each Congress. Depending on which party is in power, one serves as majority leader and the other as minority leader. The leaders serve as spokespersons for their partys positions on issues.

The Institute Of Politics At Harvard University

A national poll of Americas 18-to-29 year olds released today by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School shows that despite the state of our politics, hope for America among young people is rising dramatically, especially among people of color. As more young Americans are likely to be politically engaged than they were a decade ago, they overwhelmingly approve of the job President Biden is doing, favor progressive policies, and have faith in their fellow Americans.

In the March 9-22 survey of 2,513 young Americans, the Harvard Youth Poll looked at views regarding the Biden administrations first 100 days, the future of the Republican Party, mental health, and the impacts of social media.

As millennials and Gen Z become the largest voting bloc, their values and participation provide hope for the future and also a sense of urgency that our country must address the pressing issues that concern them, said , Director, Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.

What we see in this years Harvard Youth Poll is how great the power of politics really is, said John Della Volpe, the Director of Polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. With a new president and the temperature of politics turned down after the election, young Americans are more hopeful, more politically active, and they have more faith in their fellow Americans.

Top findings of this survey, the 41st in a biannual series, include the following:

Recommended Reading: Are There More Rich Republicans Or Democrats

Do The Parties Have To Negotiate On The Rules

No. With Harris vote, Democrats could threaten to ram through a Democratic-written organizational plan that severely disadvantages the Republicans.

But Democrats may prefer negotiation to a solely Democratic plan because they may not be able to keep their own caucus in line to enact that option. Theres a long history of bipartisan gangs of institutional-minded senators who sought to play a role in shaping how the chambers rules are formed, and those senators would not support a Democratic-only plan.

Before there can be a vote No. 51, there must be votes 50, 49 and 48, said Richard Cohen, chief author of the Almanac of American Politics and a longtime congressional correspondent. Democratic senators who might have reservations about supporting the most liberal proposals, such as Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly of Arizona, wont want to be taken for granted by others in the Democratic conference.

Also Check: What Is The Principle Of Republicanism

Other Presidents Threatened With Impeachment

A significant number of U.S. presidents have faced calls for impeachment, including five of the past six Republican presidents. But few of those accusations were taken seriously by Congress.

There were even rumblings about impeaching the nation’s first president, George Washington, by those who opposed his policies. Those calls, however, did not reach the point of becoming formal resolutions or charges.;

John Tyler was the first president to face impeachment charges. Nicknamed His Accidency for assuming the presidency after William Henry Harrison died after just 30 days in office, Tyler was wildly unpopular with his own Whig party. A House representative from Virginia submitted a petition for Tylers impeachment, but it was never taken up by the House for a vote.

Between 1932 and 1933, a congressman introduced two impeachment resolutions against;Herbert Hoover. Both were eventually tabled by large margins.;

More recently, both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were the subject of impeachment resolutions submitted by Henry B. Gonzales, a Democratic representative from Texas, but none of the resolutions were taken up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

Recommended Reading: Who Lies More Democrats Or Republicans

A Plurality Believe History Will Judge Trump As A The Worst President Ever; Less Than A Quarter Of Young Americans Want Trump To Play A Key Role In The Future Of Republican Politics; Young Republicans Are Divided

Thirty percent of young Americans believe that history will judge Donald Trump as the worst president ever. Overall, 26% give the 45th president positive marks , while 54% give Trump negative marks ; 11% believe he will go down as an average president.

Twenty-two percent of young Americans surveyed agree with the statement, I want Donald Trump to play a key role in the future of Republican politics, 58% disagreed, and 19% neither agreed nor disagreed. Among young Republicans, 56% agreed while 22% disagreed, and 21% were neutral. Only 61% of those who voted for Trump in the 2020 general indicated their desire for him to remain active in the GOP.

If they had to choose, 42% of young Republicans consider themselves supporters of the Republican party, and not Donald Trump. A quarter indicated they are Trump supporters first, 24% said they support both.

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Election Results : Veto

Republicans on track to keep U.S. Senate majority

See also: State government trifectas

Two state legislatures saw changes in their veto-proof majority statusâtypically when one party controls either three-fifths or two-thirds of both chambersâas a result of the 2020 elections. Democrats gained veto-proof majorities in Delaware and New York, bringing the number of state legislatures with a veto-proof majority in both chambers to 24: 16 held by Republicans and eight held by Democrats.

Forty-four states held regularly-scheduled state legislative elections on November 3. Heading into the election, there were 22 state legislatures where one party had a veto-proof majority in both chambers; 16 held by Republicans and six held by Democrats. Twenty of those states held legislative elections in 2020.

The veto override power can play a role in conflicts between state legislatures and governors. Conflict can occur when legislatures vote to override gubernatorial vetoes or in court cases related to vetoes and the override power.

Although it has the potential to create conflict, the veto override power is rarely used. According to political scientists Peverill Squire and Gary Moncrief in 2010, only about five percent of vetoes are overridden.

Changes in state legislative veto-proof majorites State

The laws largely focus on tightening voter ID requirements, purging voter rolls and restricting absentee and mail-in ballots.

Texas

Also Check: How Many States Are Republican

How Many Us Presidents Have Faced Impeachment

Only three U.S. presidents have been formally impeached by CongressAndrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. One of those presidents, Donald Trump, was impeached twice during his single term. No U.S. president has ever been removed from office through impeachment.

In addition to Johnson, Clinton and Trump, only one other U.S. president has faced formal impeachment inquiries in the House of Representatives: Richard Nixon. Many other presidents have been threatened with impeachment by political foes without gaining any real traction in Congress.;

The framers of the Constitution intentionally made it difficult for Congress to remove a sitting president. The impeachment process starts in the House of Representatives with a formal impeachment inquiry. If the House Judiciary Committee finds sufficient grounds, its members write and pass articles of impeachment, which then go to the full House for a vote.

A simple majority in the House is all thats needed to formally impeach a president. But that doesnt mean he or she is out of a job. The final stage is the Senate impeachment trial. Only if two-thirds of the Senate find the president guilty of the crimes laid out in the articles of impeachment is the POTUS removed from office.

Although Congress has impeached and removed eight federal officialsall federal judgesno president has ever been found guilty during a Senate impeachment trial. Andrew Johnson came awfully close, though; he barely escaped a guilty verdict .

Are Canadian Senators Appointed For Life

Unlike the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, the 105 senators are appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the prime minister. Senators originally held their seats for life; however, under the British North America Act, 1965, members may not sit in the Senate after reaching the age of 75.

Also Check: Donald Trump People Magazine Quote 1998

% Of Delta Variant Cases Are In The Non

CBS News reported, The Delta variant now accounts for more than half of the new coronavirus cases in the United States 52%. Almost all of the new cases 99.7% are among people who have not been vaccinatedThe effort comes as cases are rising in 26 states. Hospitalization rates are up in 17 states 27% in Florida, almost exclusively among the unvaccinated.

States like Florida, Mississippi, Utah, and Kentucky are already being hit hard. All of those states voted for Donald Trump.

Biden Administration: Heres Who Has Been Named So Far

Return of the bipartisan gangs

After months of stalemate over the size and scope of a coronavirus relief package in the closing weeks of the last Congress, a group of centrists from both parties, led by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, unveiled a $900 billion compromise plan that became the basis for the legislation that ultimately was approved by the House and Senate and signed by President Trump.

Manchin has said he hopes that model can translate into efforts in 2021.

Other Republican moderates such as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who helped on the COVID-19 aid package could also serve as powerful players if they decide to work across the aisle.

Progressives push for Senate rule changes

Liberal Democrats have pressed to get rid of the legislative filibuster so that they can pass major health care or environmental bills with a simple majority.

Biden has sidestepped questions about whether he supports doing away with keeping the 60-vote threshold, but several top Senate Democrats have signaled they back changing a rule that many of them once insisted was essential to the institution. There will be intense pressure on Biden and Democratic leaders to show they can pass some bills with GOP support, but if Senate Republicans stay largely unified to thwart the new administrations agenda, calls to eliminate the filibuster will increase.

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Poring Over Party Registration

This is not the best of times for the Democratic Party. No White House; no Senate; no House of Representatives; and a clear minority of governorships and state legislatures in their possession. Yet the Democrats approach this falls midterm elections with an advantage in one key aspect of the political process their strength in states where voters register by party.

Altogether, there are 31 states with party registration; in the others, such as Virginia, voters register without reference to party. Among the party registration states are some of the nations most populous: California, New York, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona, and Massachusetts.

The basic facts: In 19 states and the District, there are more registered Democrats than Republicans. In 12 states, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. In aggregate, 40% of all voters in party registration states are Democrats, 29% are Republicans, and 28% are independents. Nationally, the Democratic advantage in the party registration states approaches 12 million.

Still, Republican Donald Trump found a route to victory in 2016 that went through the party registration states. He scored a near sweep of those where there were more Republicans than Democrats, winning 11 of the 12, while also taking six of the 19 states where there were more Democrats than Republicans a group that included the pivotal battleground states of Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

Argument No : Biden Is Responsible For This

Republicans have an opportunity to turn Americas longest war into something Democrats own. They are saying and probably will be saying for a long time that Biden owns the fall of Afghanistan.

Biden defends himself by saying that the 20-year war came under four presidents, two of them Republican. George W. Bush started it , and Biden said it was Trump who negotiated a peace deal with the Taliban that Biden argues left it stronger.

But Biden was the president who decided to officially end the war, Republicans counter. Heres the top House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy , saying that whats happening falls squarely on shoulders.

Trump, who is considering a 2024 challenge to Biden, said in a statement that Biden surrendered to the Taliban.

Also Check: Trump On Oprah Saying Republicans Are Stupid

List Of Republican Presidents

The Republican Party is one of the two most successful political parties in the United States . Since 1868 to date, the presidency has been shared between the two major political parties. There have been 19 Republican presidents in the United States. Here are some of the Republican presidents in the history of the United States.

Which Party Is The Party Of The 1 Percent

How Evangelicals became Republicans

First, both parties receive substantial support. Much of it comes from registered voters who make $100K+ annually. However, Democrats actually come out ahead when it comes to fundraising for campaigns. In many cases, Democrats have been able to raise twice as much in private political contributions. But what about outside of politicians? Does that mean Democrats are the wealthier party? Which American families are wealthier? Republicans or Democrats?

Honestly, it is probably Republicans. When it comes down to it, the richest families in America tend to donate to Republican candidates. Forbes reported out of the 50 richest families in the United States, 28 donate to Republican candidates. Another seven donate to Democrats. Additionally, 15 of the richest families in the U.S. donate to both parties.

Recommended Reading: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

Personnel Mail And Office Expenses

House members are eligible for a Members Representational Allowance to support them in their official and representational duties to their district. The MRA is calculated based on three components: one for personnel, one for official office expenses and one for official or franked mail. The personnel allowance is the same for all members; the office and mail allowances vary based on the members districts distance from Washington, D.C., the cost of office space in the members district, and the number of non-business addresses in their district. These three components are used to calculate a single MRA that can fund any expenseâeven though each component is calculated individually, the franking allowance can be used to pay for personnel expenses if the member so chooses. In 2011 this allowance averaged $1.4 million per member, and ranged from $1.35 to $1.67 million.

The Personnel allowance was $944,671 per member in 2010. Each member may employ no more than 18 permanent employees. Members employees salary is capped at $168,411 as of 2009.

Republicans Are Stopping Biden By Not Getting Vaccinated They Are Wiping Themselves Out

The Republican refusal to get vaccinated is not going to politically stop President Biden or put Donald Trump back into office. If anything, an ongoing pandemic crisis will give Biden even more motivation to push for the implementation of his agenda.

When Republicans cheer for not getting vaccinated, they are rooting for more death among their own.; Donald Trump sowed these seeds with his COVID disinformation, and the Delta variant is poised to wipe out Republicans who have chosen to listen to Trump instead of science.

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[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Black voters effectively delivered Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. She and Sen. Bernie Sanders ran about evenly among white voters, but black voters overwhelmingly backed Clinton. So did the Democratic establishment.

That team-up — black voters and the more establishment candidate — is not unusual.

We don’t have detailed exit polls of Democratic primaries for most other offices, but according to pre-election polls and precinct results in a number of high-profile House and gubernatorial primaries since 2016, black voters have tended to back the candidate from the party’s establishment wing over a more liberal alternative. And at least for now, we’re seeing the same pattern in the 2020 Democratic presidential race: Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Sanders are fairly competitive with Joe Biden among white Democrats, but trail the former vice president substantially among black Democrats.

Why, though? After all, African Americans have dramatically less income and wealth than white Americans, so messages of “big, structural change” (Warren) or a “political revolution” (Sanders) should, in theory, be particularly appealing. Because a higher percentage of black Americans than white Americans don’t have health insurance, a program like Medicare for All, for example, would disproportionately benefit black people.

So what gives? I’m going to offer some potential answers to that question, but let’s first get a couple caveats and complications out of the way.

First, it’s hard to come up with a definitive explanation for the establishment-black voter alliance because the “establishment” is a fuzzy concept. Exactly which candidate is a center-left, establishment Democrat and which is anti-establishment or “the liberal alternative” is all a bit subjective.

Second — and this is important — black Democrats are not a monolith and are divided in some of the same ways white Democrats are divided. Young black voters are less supportive of Biden (and were less supportive of Clinton in 2016) compared to older black voters. Similarly, black voters without college degrees are more supportive of Biden than those with degrees.

That said, blacks of all demographics are more supportive of Biden than their white counterparts, according to Morning Consult polling data. Young black voters are more supportive of Biden (and were more supportive of Clinton) than young white voters. Older black voters were more supportive of Clinton than older white ones in 2016 and now are strongly behind Biden. Black college graduates are more supportive of Biden than white college graduates. Nuances aside, the weakness of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party with black voters is a well-known phenomenon that people in the Warren and Sanders camps and anti-establishment liberal activist groups are openly grappling with.

So here are a few explanations for why black voters have tended to side with the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. I have tried to order these explanations from strongest to weakest (in my view, at least):

Establishment candidates typically have existing ties to the black community

This will sound tautological, but an establishment candidate is … well … established. A candidate who is part of the establishment wing of the Democratic Party likely has fairly strong ties to major constituencies in the party, such as labor unions, women’s rights groups and, of course, black leaders and voters. So when black voters backed Gov. Andrew Cuomo over Cynthia Nixon in New York’s Democratic gubernatorial primary last year, or Andy Beshear over Adam Edelen in Kentucky’s Democratic gubernatorial primary earlier this year, that was not shocking. Not only did Beshear and Cuomo spend years developing their own ties with the black communities in their states, but their fathers did, too. (Steve Beshear was governor of Kentucky, Mario Cuomo the governor of New York.)

Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020 similarly entered the primaries with longstanding ties to black voters. It’s worth considering if the story here is not that establishment candidates are smarter in appealing and connecting with black voters during the campaign, compared to anti-establishment candidates. Maybe it’s that the establishment candidate in a race is likely to be the person who enters the campaign with the strongest support among black voters.

Black voters are pragmatic

White Democrats are significantly more likely than black Democrats to describe themselves as liberal. Perhap that’s the simple explanation for why most black voters eschew more liberal candidates. But scholars of black voters argue that the liberal-moderate-conservative framework does not apply well to predicting the actual policy positions and voting behavior of black Americans.

In other words, it’s not clear that “moderate” black Democrats are moderate in the way that the word is most often invoked in white-dominated, elite settings, such ascable news and Twitter. They’re not demanding David Brooks-style centrism on economic and cultural policy. If, for instance, Biden endorsed Medicare for All and the elimination of most private insurance plans — the position of Sanders and Warren — I think it’s likely that black voters who like Biden would begin to feel more favorable about Medicare for All rather than breaking with Biden to find an anti-Medicare-for All candidate. Similarly, if Biden were out of the race, I’m skeptical that much of his support among black voters would go to Mayor Pete Buttigieg or Sen. Amy Klobuchar who are also positioning themselves as centrists on policy issues.

“The fact that blacks describe themselves as moderate or conservative on these measures is virtually meaningless, and results mostly from the fact that these ideological labels carry such little currency among black voters,” Hakeem Jefferson, a political scientist at Stanford University who studies black political attitudes, told me.

Instead, in interviews with black Democrats in 2016 and 2020, I’ve seen more pragmatism than moderation. In 2016, black primary voters were very fearful of Trump getting elected and felt Clinton was the best person to face him in a general election. They were skeptical that the broader electorate would like Sanders’s farther-reaching ideas, and even more doubtful Sanders could execute them if elected. During the 2020 cycle, black voters have regularly told reporters that they like Sen. Kamala Harris and other Democratic candidates but view Biden as the person most likely to defeat Trump.

Why would black Democrats be more pragmatic than white Democratic voters? In interviews, black voters often suggest they have a lot to lose if a Republican takes office. They don’t necessarily say this explicitly, but the implication is that they have more to lose than white voters, making them more risk-averse. That’s at least partially true. A higher percentage of black Americans (compared to white Americans) use government programs like Medicaid, for example, so cuts to those programs by Republicans are more likely to affect blacks than whites.

“On doorsteps in South Carolina, black voters sensibly asked me why I thought Bernie Sanders could accomplish more than Obama, whom the Republicans had done everything they could to stop,” wrote Ted Fertik, in a study of the Vermont senator’s campaign.1

“They saw no reason to believe that Sanders would be more effective, and given the fulminating racism of so many leading Republicans, they sensibly felt that the costs of a Republican presidency would fall more heavily on them,” he added. “They were therefore not inclined to take a risk on Bernie Sanders … even when they agreed with his proposals.”

Black leaders are part of the establishment and support its candidates

This is a slightly different point than No. 1, above. It’s not just that Sanders in 2016 and Warren in 2020 entered those races with weaker connections to black leaders than Clinton or Biden. During the primary process, black leaders weighed in — on the side of the establishment candidate.

In February 2016, fairly early in the primary season, the Congressional Black Caucus’s PAC formally endorsed Clinton. Eight black caucus members have endorsed Biden this year. None are behind Warren or Sanders. You might say that politicians just like to endorse front-runners, so they can be on the side of the winner. Not quite. Ten black caucus members have backed Harris, another candidate whose politics are best described as center-left establishment. (More on her in a bit.) And Biden and Harris are also getting the vast majority of endorsements from other high-profile black figures, such as state representatives and prominent mayors.

Why are elected black officials more likely to side with establishment candidates? Many of these candidates have long courted black community leaders, including elected officials, as I mentioned in No. 1. But I also think it’s the case that many black Democratic elites spent much of the last several decades courting the establishment, and are thus tied to it. You see this on Capitol Hill, where black House members are among the strongest defenders of Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her internal battles with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the progressive wing of the House. Black elites also express the same pragmatism that black voters do and are wary of pushing forward candidates they view as unable to win a general election.

It’s not clear that black voters follow high-profile endorsers. That said, the lack of high-profile black support for Sanders, Warren and other anti-establishment Democrats creates a self-reinforcing problem. They don’t have much support among black voters or black elites, so the press covers their lack of black support. A candidate defined by the press as lacking black support is going to have a hard time getting black voters to support her or black elites to endorse her.

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party appeals to the well-educated more than other groups, and the vast majority of black Democrats don’t have college degrees

Education has become an increasingly powerful predictor of voting behavior in U.S. politics in recent years. That’s proving true in 2020 as well. Warren, in particular, has significantly more support among Democrats with college degrees than those without them. But if education is a dividing line, it’s likely to divide white and black Democrats. Only about 24 percent of black Democrats have college degrees, compared to about 42 percent of white Democrats, according to Gallup data.

In other words, the alliance between black voters and establishment candidates may be partly about education, not race. Perhaps Warren’s limited support among black Americans is simply indicative of her broader challenge with people without college degrees.

We don’t have great data about how Sanders or other liberal Democrats did among black college graduates compared to non-college educated black voters, so I’m reluctant to emphasize this point too much. But there is a lot of evidence that the activist left wing of the Democratic Party is more educated than the rest of the party and perhaps is not connecting with voters — both black and non-black — who don’t have degrees.

The left wing isn’t running enough black candidates

There is some evidence that African Americans are more likely to turn out to vote if there is a black candidate. (These studies are generally of general elections of congressional races, so they’re not perfectly analogous to a presidential primary.) In recent Democratic primaries, the candidate who is well-liked by the white liberal activist wing of the Democratic Party has struggled with black voters (Bill Bradley in 2000, Howard Dean in 2004, Sanders in 2016, Sanders and Warren in 2020.) The exceptions were two black candidates: Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Barack Obama in 2008.2

So it would probably be helpful if the liberal wing of the Democratic Party was running more black candidates. It’s not that the liberal bloc of the party has no prominent black voices. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts is a part of the Ocasio-Cortez bloc on Capitol Hill. Andrew Gillum ran to the left and defeated a more establishment candidate in last year’s Democratic primary for governor in Florida, with black voters playing a key role in his victory.

But aspiring black politicians often need to downplay their liberalism to advance in elected office so that they can seem “electable” in a general election. This probably rules out some black candidates — Sens. Cory Booker and Harris, potentially — from becoming “liberal alternatives.” You might say that’s a problem for Booker and Harris, who are trailing Warren and Sanders in most polls. But it’s a problem for the anti-establishment wing of the Democratic Party, too. If the anti-establishment wing of the party were backing a black candidate in 2020, that person would likely present a stronger challenge to Biden, because he or she could more easily cut into his advantage among black voters.

We could come up with some other explanations, but I think those are the strongest. And this analysis points to a blueprint for the left wing of the Democratic Party if it wants to win more black votes:

Align with black candidates or non-black candidates with strong ties to black voters and leaders

Aggressively court black leaders for endorsements

Directly address black voters’ concerns that more liberal candidates have a greater chance of losing races to Republicans

And target black voters under 45 and those with college degrees, who might be less inclined to vote for establishment candidates.

So could that approach work for Sanders and Warren against Biden? Maybe. You could imagine Warren in particular getting endorsements from younger liberal black figures like Gillum or Pressley (particularly if Warren wins one of the early primary states and Harris finishes far behind and is no longer viable). And maybe those endorsements and Warren’s campaigning then lead her to become the candidate of black voters under 45 and those with college degrees, even if Biden still gets most votes from older and less educated black voters.

Remember, Sanders or Warren don’t necessarily have to win the black vote to become the Democratic nominee — they just can’t lose it by 60 percentage points, as Sanders did in 2016. (Biden is getting between 40 and 50 percent of the black vote in most polls now, so nowhere near Clinton 2016 levels. But Clinton was in a two-candidate field, and I would expect Biden’s support among black voters to go up as this gigantic field shrinks.)

But even if Sanders or Warren gets more support among black voters in 2020 than the Vermont senator did in 2016, I tend to think Biden will remain fairly popular with black voters overall — because of his ties to Obama and other black leaders and the perception that he can defeat Trump. So there is a very real possibility that black voters will play the same role in the 2020 presidential primary that they have played in Democratic politics over much of the last four years: blocking the path of the liberal left as it attempts to dethrone the party’s establishment.

[caroltheman]

Read at your own risk. These are MY thoughts and MY feelings and they do not cater to the leftist idealism, so if you are afraid of getting your feelings hurt, STOP HERE.

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Today is a big day. I’ve never been so involved with politics EVER in my life than this year. In 2016, I was with the Democrats, the left, and whatever ideas were pushed towards me to stop Donald Trump from winning. I hated him. I hated the way he spoke. I was against my husband’s political stance (yes, the hubby and I can have different opinions and get along PERFECTLY). I thought he was a terrible example of what our nations leader should resemble. I was ANTI-Trump. 

When he won, I didn’t care too much. I got over it. But... I kept an eye out on events after his election. I never really understood what was happening but I did hear whispers of what was going on in the white house every so often. As issues kept coming up... Build the Wall, ending of DACA, Large amounts of people running from other countries (mainly Latin American countries) trying to get into our southern border, Individuals from the cabinet slowly being replaced or resigning, impeachment, school shootings, banning of firearms, court cases (don’t really know much of that, but now I know its about individuals getting seats on the Supreme Court), etc. etc. etc. BLM, Antifa, more civil unrest, shooting of cops, burning of poor democratic cities, etc etc etc.. I started to wonder.... WTF is going on?? And demos still crying about the same shit...

I started to do research. I don’t really care to listen to local news and big news stations like Fox or CNN or whatever. Yes, sometimes I tune in to both sides, but seriously, I was sick of watching things set on fire. American flags burning. Looting. Violence. I was searching for perspectives outside of my overly democratic run social media feed. I’ve watched probably hundreds of videos of different people of all different walks of life. I started discourse with more right-winged individuals. I started to become more open minded about things on the right. And when I think about my only personal values, I kept finding myself more and more on the right side of things. 

Today, this is where I stand:

1. I stand for strong border protection. I do not support shouting “Build the Wall” out loud, but I do support what that message means. To me, the wall is analogous to our house door. For all the people against strong borders, I challenge you to keep your door unlocked at night. Would you feel safe knowing that anyone can come in at any time? Anyone, as in people we don’t know. Any sane person with rationale would say NO. We must lock our doors at night. We must secure our house (just think of all the tech we buy to keep out houses secure) to keep people outside and keep our families safe. An open border sounds like chaos and the most unsafe place to stay. People are confused that building a wall means no immigration. That’s not what that means. It means that we are against ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. I am an immigrant for heavens sake. I naturalized. I was not born an American Citizen and in order for me to receive benefits of an American Citizen, first, my dad served 12 years of his life in the United States Navy. He brought over my mom, my kuya, and myself to start a new life in a country with opportunity. I am thankful for his service and my moms sacrifice and bravery for leaving everything she knows and loves behind in order for my siblings and I have to an opportunity to be successful. People don’t understand that you cannot have a country as successful as the U.S. without protecting our land from outside forces. I do believe that we desperately need immigration reform. I would like all people of all different backgrounds and economic status to have a chance at being able to immigrate to our land, but I believe there is a right way to do it... and it definitely isn’t let everyone in anytime they want. I have kept my mouth shut about my stance on border protection because I am aware of my audience. I know that I have hundreds of students watching me. I know that a lot of them are low income. I know some of them are illegal. But as a teacher, it was never my mission to out undocumented students or families. I sympathize with my students who’s families face deportation, but I stand my ground that illegally penetrating our borders is not the way to do things. I don’t have a full on answer on how the country should handle it (obviously, I have my own life and I am not a politician - although I do have some ideas) but I know the difference between wrong and right. Entering this country illegally, to me, is not the right way... AND ESPECIALLY with the thought of my own family in the Philippines who also face the same struggles that others who flee their country face. It is unfair that due to physical proximity, some can just come through while others from PI and countries from all over the world are waiting for their turn. To me, that is unfair. Moving to Hawaii and having spoke to Aunties who have immigrated from PI has added even more support to my stance. I spoke to an Auntie that said she waiting 21 years to get her Visa. She is petitioning over her son who may wait about a decade before being looked at. I stand my ground on illegal immigration for people who are in line waiting patiently, yet desperately, to come here for their opportunity. I stand my ground for all the other people in the world who are also waiting for a way in to this country the legal way.

2. Law and Order. I mean, how is this even a topic of confusion? like WTF? This is one of the reasons that literally pushed me away from the left. You’ve got Antifa and BLM rioters burning cities and businesses down. (and yes, I know, I know.. the response is, “but that’s not ALL of BLM” or “those people are not even BLM”, or blah blah blah. BULLfuckingSHIT. They are all ANTI-trump and some of them (actually most that I’ve seen) do wear BLM shit. They tag BLM shit everywhere and they don’t care about who they hurt or what they bring down with their anger.) I’ve seen videos of these groups harassing people who are minding their own business and eating lunch as protestors are yelling in their faces and forcing them to leave. They surround elderly who are merely walking down the street by blocking their way and yelling at their faces. I’ve watched countless videos of small business owners trying to protect their property and life’s work by getting jumped or die trying to protect their store fronts. And you know what gets me ever more riled up, SOME (if not most) OF THOSE PEOPLE ARE BLACK!!!!!!! Black owned business burned down. Black business owners crying about their life’s work totally gone at the expense of the anger of the wrongful death of another black person (who happens to be criminal). I empathize with the anger and sadness of the wrongful death of George Floyd. I agree that justice for his life should be served. I agree that Police Brutality needs to be addressed and police accountability and training needs reform... but how the left handles their emotions of anger is un-excusable. I’ve seen posts from my liberal friends, “Let them show their anger the way they want.” WTF? Seriously? So, if I’m mad, I can just go burn shit down? go beat somebody up? Go shoot cops? Like every field, I believe there are bad apples. Any one who denies that, I’d be very cautious to believe, but I have faith that the majority of our police officers are not racist. I believe that the majority of them are trying to do the right thing. I hate to admit that police presence is probably more prevalent in communities with higher numbers of people of color, but I’m curious to know WHY are communities with high numbers of POC are more prone to gangs, violence, drugs, and inevitably higher presence of law enforcement. I wonder why? ...and that leads me to the next reason:

3. Accountability. Leaders like Candice Owens, the Real MAGA Hulk, Kingface, and many many many many many many more Black Americans talk about it all the time. They talk about why nothing has changed in our Black American Communities. They have been voting Democrat for YEARS... and its still the same! Biden and Kamala Harris have been in politics for soooo long, but whats going on in these democratic cities? More tents of homelessness. More criminal activity. More drugs. More human trafficking. But instead of acknowledging the issues that minorities face and holding ourselves accountable for the changes we want to see, what do we do? BLAME TRUMP. The guy has been in office for less than 4 years and everything is his fault. Trump this, Trump that. Trump is the reason everything is going wrong. Trump divides us. Trump makes me mad. Trump, Trump, Trump. Jesus Fuck. Sooo OVER IT. People want to blame him for their shortcomings, for the racial tension, for every single challenge we face as a nation. As an individual I hold myself accountable for where I am today. Every accomplishment I’ve successfully completed has all been to holding myself accountable for making goals, whether for my career or for romantic relationships, and making sure I make no excuse to meet these goals. Yes, I grew up disadvantaged! I’m a victim of living in low-income housing and a victim of an unstable household to include divorce, domestic violence, and exposure to gang life. Yes, we had Section 8. Yes, my mom used food stamps when we were young. Yes, my dad was not around due to the military and my mom practically having to hold shit down with three children in a country she knows nothing about with a language she barely knew with NO HELP as all her family is in the PI and my paternal side being pretty much evil and hated her. Yes, we moved a million times as a child -  from an apartment near Kimball Park... to Meadow Brook Apartments... to my uncle’s house... to my other uncle’s garage...to the same uncles house... to a rent a room near where Joann/Erika used to live... to a house on M street... to the apartment on 2nd street (in the front)... to the same apartment complex but another apartment in the back... to an apartment behind Suhi... to an apartment on Highland Ave bordering Chula Vista... to the apartment on 1st Street... with pockets of staying in Welfare housing to staying at Rvy’s house to staying at Apryl’s house to staying at Josie’s house. Schools: from Kimball to John Otis to Daniel Boone to Las Palmas to El Toyon and finally, Granger Jr. High and Sweetwater. I remember having to use candles because we had no electricity. I remember no christmas tree during the holidays and instead using a sorry ass fake plant to replace it. I remember going on our show choir weekend trip to SF where my kuya and I literally exchanged looks as we decided which meal at McDonald’s we should share keeping in mind we have to budget for the rest of the meals we have to pay because thats all the money my mom gave us - while everyone around us could order much more than what we had. I remember hanging out with gang affiliated individuals and realizing how lucky I am to have separated from that lifestyle. Recently, I’ve been challenged to remember my upbringing, yes, my dear friend, I remember. I remember sitting outside your front door, peeking into the black metal screen door as my siblings and I watched you play the coolest and latest console gaming. I remember you hanging out after school at the Boys and Girls club while I hung out with the Mexicans and Samoans and the other crips whom were my neighbors. We can sit here and compare our sad stories and struggles but for people to ask me to reflect on the shit I’ve been through, brother you have no fucking clue. Have you watched your mom beat to colors black and blue? And I whole-heartedly am not trying to discount the struggles you’ve faced, but please don’t lecture me on why I should be angry or sad about my upbringing, because you have no clue what I’ve had to endure. My story is sad. If I had let that this shit bring me down and cry “Woe is me,” I have no doubt I wouldn’t be where I am today. Ever since I can remember, I’ve volunteered to be part of the change. Any positive change. I’ve dedicated my high school career trying to make school life as enjoyable as possible - but what happens? - the majority is still upset and hated the ASB (People have NO idea how many hours I’ve spent on the Suhi campus as a student trying to make things better). I’ve dedicated my post secondary life to become a teacher in the community I grew up in to affect change for the future generations. I stand as living proof that despite all the shit we all go through in life, we can be successful. WHY? Because we live in the land of opportunity. America is probably one of the only places (I can’t think of no other, but sure, lets pretend there are other countries like ours), where you can be poor and go through tons of shit and despite all of it, can still come out and be successful. But blaming others and being upset is not the key. It’s about HARD WORK and PERSEVERANCE, not blame or bull shit. This is the same kind of accountability that haunts communities with majority POC and I will not support the “Woe is me” or the “Endless Circles of Victimhood” mindset. I want out of that shit and into something better. 

4. National Security and all its benefits. This is the only country that I’ve seen where there are people who hate it and refuse to leave. Like damn, you hate our country so much, you want to burn it down, and you REFUSE to get the fuck out. Must not be that bad? Our borders are closed for random people to be able to come in without a Visa or Citizenship, yet we do not stop people from leaving this country if they really wanted to. The fact that everyone is trying to come in proves that people would die to be here. The scariest part of this election (to me) is losing our freedoms. I’ve watched a video of a testimony from a Cuban guy who risked his life to wind surf from Cuba to land on the Keys of Miami to seek asylum. Thats how great Socialism is. He says, socialism sounds great in text book. It may even feel great the first few years, but after a while, it starts to suck when you realize the government controls what you eat, when you eat, when to shop, where to shop, where to go for medical, etc. etc. He says, he wakes up very early in the morning to line up for food for his family to receive some mediocre bread, rice, and beans or whatever he said was the glamorous meal of the day. He says, when he finally got to America, he cried at the sight of being able to eat steak because he never had an opportunity to do so in his home country. He says medical attention sucks because since everyone gets treated the same, everyone must wait in line. Anyway, if socialism was so great, why’d he risk his life to leave it? They say Socialism is the step before Communism (places like China). You’ll never find anyone in China burning Chinese flags because if you do, you’re dead. I think at this point in the election, everyone has already chosen their sides. You’re either left or right. I don’t care to change Leftist perspectives but this is the side I chose for myself. Trump didn’t need to become president. Why the fuck would he want to do that? He had it all. He doesn’t even take a salary. He’s been attacked for the last 3-4 years, event after event. He’s attacked for being a racist, yet Dems support Joe Biden who LITERALLY said, “If you don’t know who you are voting for, me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.” That is literally the most racist shit I’ve ever heard and if we flip the script and Trump was the one who said that exact same line, the media will be having a field day!!!! But it was Biden who said it, so let’s forgive him, blame trump, and sweep it under the rug. Trump is not the best speaker, I’ll give you that. I can barely stand his voice sometimes. I too, need to take a break from his rallies of screaming and shit lol, but I admire that the guy is NOT a politician. He doesn’t need to listen to lobbyists who want him to do things because he doesn’t need money. He cannot be bought. On the other hand you have long time politicians like Biden and his family who have made money through and through by running for political spots promising things he’s never delivered. Black people look to him for some deranged idea of “hope” like he’s going to affect change when he himself wrote the 1994 Crime Bill which incriminated many people for petty crimes, primarily POC. Kamala Harris did the same thing according to many black testimonies I’ve seen - they are LITERALLY running away from her. Trump stands for America and its values. As a so-called racist, he signed a bill giving Historic Black Universities funding for not one year, but many years! I think 10, is it? (i’ll leave the dems to fact check it). He has created opportunity zones in democratically ran cities. He has pardoned POC to finally escape from prison for non-violent crimes. I mean, you have to wonder.. yes there are black people that hate him in the spark of BLM when they come out, but there are a lot of black people who love him too. Trump stands up to other nations and his “bad-ass” attitude may not be attractive to our soft demo’s who prefer to vote personality over policy, but it’s the same attitude that demands more from other countries in terms of financials and their fair share in world-wide peace. Trump is not a political puppet that can be swayed and pressured into selling out our country’s soul at the hands of other countries who are so called out performing us in every possible way - military strength, education, and financials. No one wants to talk about Biden’s ties with China but that shit is literally scary. It’s not that “impossible” to believe that we could be attacked at anytime (Hawaii and SD would be huge targets). Trump expects more from other countries and only makes deals that will benefit our country, not theirs. As the demos look up to Biden/Harris for whatever they are crying about, others are looking to Trump/Pence to literally MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. I have never been so proud and patriotic as a proud Republican Female Immigrant voting for Donald Trump. A long time ago, I let my teacher know (Mrs. Hall or Mrs. Rose) know that I was agnostic and asked, "Will I ever find my reasoning to believe?”. She said, “One day, you will find one. Some day. Just Wait.” I think it’s today, lol. If Biden wins, I’ll start praying our nation doesn’t get sold along with it. I thank my husband and Josie for helping me keep it together through this ever emotional year of 2020. I pray that all this is in my head. I look to House of Cards for a reminder that maybe... all this political shit is exactly that - just politics. I pray there is nothing to fear and that our national security is at no risk if Biden wins. I pray that if Biden wins, my  demo friends or ex-friends are right - that he’s gonna do the right thing for the our nation and it’s citizens. 

5. Hatred FROM the left. Honestly, I started to secretly doubt the left, but kept my mouth shut about it especially on social media - knowing that more than 90% of my feed were leftists. I only spoke to people I trusted who would help me create logical thought processes on how to absorb the things I was seeing realtime. Little did I know that my social media silence bothered a black person and he called me out for not saying anything. So I pursued research. I watched videos of the cries of BLM and found that besides George Floyd’s death (and a few others), I don’t see the same things other Demos see in these cases. Breonna Taylor died in the hallway of her own home, not in her bed when she was sleeping, unless she sleeps in the hallway, but idk her so who really knows? Coming to find that her bf is the one that shot at the cops first and shot a cop in the leg to be answered my gun shots leading to Breonna Taylors death but not the BF who hid behind her. Ya’ll want to protest that?? What about the cops that are trying to do their jobs? They were there due to continuous investigations of drugs that BT’s bf was involved in. What about the families of the cops? Are they expected to just come home dead? I would NEVER allow my husband to be a police officer. It is a bad time to be one. They risk their lives everyday to do what’s right and yet they get shit thrown at them, deal with rioters that hate them, etc etc. If my husband had to chokehold someone (IDGAF if he or she was white, black, asian, mexican, WHATEVER race bait you want to bring up), I authorize my husband to throw it down however the fuck he felt necessary to come back home to me and my future family. I stand with the spouses and families of all service members that sacrifice everything for the common good and safety for the people and their communities. AND I KNOW, that there are BAD COPS out there. I agree with you that they should be addressed and be pushed to resign, but I believe that the majority of our service men and women are here to do the job the right way. I back the blue 100%. If you don’t, I better not hear or see of any demos calling cops when you need help. I hope you win your battles with your pitchforks cause ya’ll won’t even have weapons to defend yourself if ever you had to because Demos are trying to take your guns away. lol Yea yea, pretty dramatic, but not “impossible” in my eyes. *DEEP BREATH* After sporadic days of emotional wreck, I made a decision on where I stand, I posted, “TRUMP 2020″ and here they come!!!! “If you vote for Trump, you are a racist” Really bro? All of a sudden, I’m a racist? “How can you vote for him? You are a female, asian immigrant!” What does that even mean???? Because I am a female, or because I am Asian, or because I am an immigrant, are you telling me that I only have ONE WAY TO VOTE?! That is the most UN-FREE-ING thing anyone has every told me. There’s only one way. Sounds like a fucking trap. The left made it clear to me - that is not the side I want to be on. Easy choice. AND EVEN THEN... My black ex-friend, says... “Ohhhh, your husband is white and in the miltary. Makes sense.” MOTTTHEEERRRRFUCCCKKKERRR. Did you just discredit my position because my husband is a white man in the Navy? Pffft. I’ve walked away from the left with no intent to return. I’ve learned that I need to have thicker skin when it comes to losing friends because we can’t see eye to eye with politics. I won’t initiate separation but I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about the kinds of people and ideology I’m leaving behind in 2020 and looking forward to cultivating relationships with those who still accept me despite our differences and especially those who share the same ideology. 

6. Hate for America and Disrespect for our Armed Forces. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I see American flags burning or football/basketball players kneeling during our National Anthem, it doesn’t make me want to join you. I asked my husband, “How do you feel when people kneel during the National Anthem?” He said, “I joined the military so they have the freedom to do what they want.” WTF?! My dearest hubby, I love you for your humble stance because you are right.. Americans are free to do what they want... and this freedom is protected by the men and women who sacrifice their lives to defend this country from outside forces! Don’t you guys fucking remember World War II??? We barely won this war. Some say by luck of the creation of the atomic bomb from someone from our side. If we had lost that war, we would probably be owned by Japan? maybe Germany? (Seriously, I wished I paid more attention when I was enrolled in history classes. lol) In my eyes, we wouldn’t have our current freedoms or our current lives if the brave men and women of our armed forces didn’t sacrifice their lives to preserve it... and ya’ll have the balls to kneel for what???? racial injustice for criminals?? GET. THE. FUCK. OUT. OF. HERE. There are plenty of mothers who give birth to babies who’s dads can’t be there because they are overseas. We’ve got people crying about COVID? << (don’t even get me started on that shit) Countless fathers miss their babies births, birthdays, graduations, weddings, etc. etc. to protect our great nation so that you can, in turn, burn the flag and disrespect what it stands for. People can’t be with their friends and families during COVID?? I sympathize with you but now you’ve had a small  taste of what military families go through. Then you got people who respond with, “But that’s your choice. Your choice to join the military. Your choice to marry someone in the military.” FUCK YOU. Are you telling me that people like my husband don’t deserve to be loved and supported in fear that we will be separated for months at a time while he is over seas?? Fuck you. I’m actually VERY LUCKY that I met a man that has worked his way up that I didn’t have to feel ALL the sacrifices that other families have made. Do you know what military families have to go through to keep their families together?? There are plenty of families broken because spouses are not together, and to say - “oh that’s their choice” is the most selfish thing EVER... and I don’t (completely) blame the family members that are left behind when they can’t hack it, because seriously, it’s hard. Countless nights alone and separated from loved ones. Trying to do a two person job alone ALL THE TIME, not just a couple days, but MONTHS. Sometimes YEARS altogether. My husband may not care about the donk donks that disrespect our military and everything they’ve done and to all the lives sacrificed, and to all the service members who come back with no families, no love, and no one to support them, I STAND WITH YOU. Oh! Oh! Don’t even get me started with the VA and the medical that is provided to our service members. People want Free Healthcare?! Veterans have Free HealthCare and its one of the worst! We provide our service members with maybe “par” sometimes SUBPAR healthcare. I technically have free healthcare, but in fear that I won’t be seen on time or seen with proper care when I get pregnant, we have opted to pay the extra fees for better care.

7. Personal Health and Sanity. To discuss all the controversial things that the right vs left argue about sounds mundane and tiresome. It really is. I’ve invested so much time and emotions deciphering where I stand to include conversations with handfuls of people who say, “I respect your opinion and I’ve always respected you as a person and am curious to know why you’re voting for Trump.” I’ve questioned my position many times. I’ve watched and read (although, I’ll admit, I hate reading and it was never something I was strong in. I am a visual person and I prefer to hear and watch videos of other’s personal thoughts and experiences.”  I appreciate my friend, Cassie, who reminded me, it doesn’t always have to be about policies. It is okay to vote for Trump based on my own experiences - just like how she see’s things. She a Mexican trump supporter who legally immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico and attended SYH. She watched her school cater to undocumented students putting their needs before hers when she is an Mexican-American who’s single mom pays taxes and wanted to learn curriculum in English, not Spanish, but was taught in Spanish because the other kids didn’t know English. Cassie, you literally lifted tons of weight off my shoulders. Thank you! I thank my long time friend Paulos, who responded to my recent post of me wearing a Trump hat with, “You’re about to piss off ALL your friends. Good job though. Fuck em lol” I responded with, “I fucking love you!!” Always have and always will. I’ve never in my life felt like I couldn’t be myself out loud until 2020, a time where leftists shame you for having a different opinion and basically delete you if you support Trump. But I thought to myself, this is the WORST TIME to stay quiet. I am worried that our youngsters who live in democratic cities like National City are only exposed to what the left exposes them to, triggering hate and fear that may or may not be real, and despite my very democratic social media feed, I figured, I’ll be the first to stand for what I believe in with pride and without shame. I have always done what I believe is right, even if its not the most popular opinion, and even if that meant standing my ground against people I thought loved me - especially coming from California, and especially coming from National City. I have ALWAYS told the hubby that after he retires from the Navy, I only see us living in SD. This is the first time in my life where I did not want to come back to CA. In fact, CA was third on my list after Texas and Tennessee. I want to thank my bf Jo, for reminding me of why I should reconsider and remember where my roots are. To remember our upbringing and remember that the people we are most close with today are those in proximity to us. Thank you for taking me out of my very emotional mental state and bringing me back to rationale about why it is important to me to live near my closest friends and family and I truly thank you for investing time to make sure I am always considering all my options rationally and not emotionally. I thank my family, although we are 3vs2 lol we still love each other despite what we value politically. I thank my husband who protects me, my thoughts, and my values. I thank you for being patient with ALL my emotions throughout this year. You have NEVER EVER EVER pushed me to be one way or another. You have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS let me decide things on my own and in my own time, including the move to Hawaii and my recent change in political views. You truly are the BEST person I know and I will love you FOREVER!!!!! Lastly, Thank You Donald J. Trump for ruffling feathers everywhere and shedding light on the bull shit going on with politicians. Thank you for sacrificing your life as well as your families’ lives and businesses for the sake of preserving American values and American Life. GOD BLESS AMERICA. 

[patriotsnet]

How Many Republicans In The House Voted For Impeachment

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How Many Republicans In The House Voted For Impeachment

Overview Of Impeachment Process

Several House Republicans to vote to impeach President Trump

See also: Impeachment of federal officials

The United States Congress has the constitutional authority to impeach and remove a federal official from officeincluding the presidentif he or she has committed an impeachable offense. Impeaching and removing an official has two stages. First, articles of impeachment against the official must be passed by a majority vote of the U.S. House of Representatives. Then, a trial is conducted in the United States Senate potentially leading to the conviction and removal of the official.

In most impeachment trials, the vice president presides over the trial. However, in impeachment trials of the president, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court presides. In order to remove the person from office, two-thirds of senators that are present to vote must vote to convict on the articles of impeachment.

One Voted Last Week Against Certifying Electoral College Results

Bridget BowmanStephanie AkinKate Ackley

Ten Republicans voted Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump, exactly one week after a violent attack on the Capitol by the presidents supporters. 

The Democrat-led House voted 232-197 to approve one article of impeachment against Trump, charging the president with incitement of insurrection. 

The GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach the president from their own party included Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House. Cheneys vote has prompted House Republicans to call on her to step down as conference chairwoman.

While many in the group have a history of breaking with their party, the yes votes included several with a strong record of supporting Trump and one, South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice, who voted last week against certifying President-elect Joe Bidens Electoral College victory in two states. 

Most Republicans in the House opposed impeachment, with many arguing the hurried process would further divide the country. But for these 10 Republicans who supported impeachment, the fact that Trump incited the riot at the Capitol was indisputable. 

Four Republicans did not vote on impeachment, including Texas Rep. Kay Granger, who recently tested positive for COVID-19. The others were Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland, Greg Murphy of North Carolina and Daniel Webster of Florida.

Here are the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump: 

Invoking The 25th Amendment

PencePelosi25th AmendmentTrumppowers

On the evening of January 6, CBS News reported that Cabinet members were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment. The ten Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by U.S. Representative David Cicilline, sent a letter to Pence to “emphatically urge” him to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare Trump “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”, claiming that he incited and condoned the riots. For invocation, Pence and at least eight Cabinet members, forming a simple majority, would have to consent. Additionally, if challenged by Trump, the second invocation would maintain Pence as acting president, subject to a vote of approval in both houses of Congress, with a two-thirds supermajority necessary in each chamber to sustain. However, Congress would not have needed to act before January 20 for Pence to remain acting president until Biden was inaugurated, per the timeline described in Section 4.

On the same day, the House of Representatives voted to call for Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. The resolution passed with 223 in favor, 205 against, and 5 not voting; Adam Kinzinger was the only Republican to join a unified Democratic Caucus.

Standing United: Not One Republican Voted In Favor Of Impeachment Inquiry

The Democratic controlled House of Representatives voted on Thursday morning in favor of formally beginning the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump by a vote of 232-196.

The move is no surprise and comes after Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced earlier in the week that she would hold a vote in the House to formalize an impeachment inquiry against the President.

One of the most shocking revelations of the vote is how many Republicans voted in favor of the impeachment inquiry ZERO! This revelation goes against many recent reports that suggest many Republicans in the House as well as Senate would vote against President Trump, in favor of impeachment.

The Senate is likelier to remove Trump after impeachment than you think, wrote a bogus Washington Post article earlier in the month. The article did however mention that getting 20 out of 53 Republican senators to agree to boot him from office wont be easy under any circumstances.

For President Trump to be successfully impeached, there would need to be 67 Senators to vote in favor of impeachment and with a majority Republican Senate, this would be highly unlikely.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham recently spoke out on the ongoing impeachment inquiry, stating that not a single Republican in the Senate would vote to impeach the President.

You have to accept that President Trump is president, Graham said on Tuesday during an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News.

Heres A Look At How The House Voted On The Trump Impeachment

Amanda Kaufman View Comments

President Trump on Wednesday became the first president in United States history to be impeached twice when the House voted to charge him with incitement of insurrection.

The chamber needed a simple majority, or 217 votes, to impeach Trump. Two House seats are vacant.

The measure passed easily. There was widespread support among House Democrats to impeach the president, and Representative David Cicilline, an impeachment manager who helped draft the article, said on Twitter Tuesday that 217 House members sponsored the bill.

A number of Republican representatives, including Liz Cheney, the third-highest ranking GOP House member, also came out in support of impeachment. In all, 10 House Republicans voted to impeach Trump.

The article charges Trump with inciting violence against the government of the United States. It was voted on in the House one week after a mob of Trumps supporters stormed the Capitol as lawmakers convened to confirm President-elect Joe Bidens Electoral College victory following a rally in which Trump encouraged the group to fight like hell and continued to falsely assert he won the election. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died as a result of the riot.

House members who voted in favor:

Adams

Nixon’s Support In Congress Deteriorates

Despite “a triple whammy” of events in late Julythe widely covered Judiciary Committee hearings, the Supreme Court’s order to surrender the tapes, and six Republican defectionsNixon, according to White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig, had not “changed one iota his sense of selfconfidence and sense of determination to see this thing through.” He was closely studying the possible vote counts that impeachment in the House or trial in the Senate would get; Henry Kissinger later sympathetically described the president at this time as “a man awake in his own nightmare.” Republican leaders in Congress were also estimating vote counts. During a July 29 meeting between House Minority Leader John Rhodes and Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, Rhodes estimated that impeachment in the House would get as many as 300 votes and Scott surmised that there were 60 votes for conviction in the Senate . Both felt that the situation was deteriorating for the president.

Public support for the president was also deteriorating. A Harris Poll completed August 3 found that twothirds of the American public “believe that President Nixon should be impeached over Watergate scandals and tried.” The “proimpeachment” total had increased by 13 percentage points during the course of the Judiciary Committee’s televised debate and votes on the articles of impeachment.

Second Impeachment Of Donald Trump

Second impeachment of Donald Trump The House of Representatives votes to adopt the article of impeachment Accused January 13, 2021  February 13, 2021  Acquitted by the U.S. Senate Charges

Accused incitement of the 2021 United States Capitol attack

Congressional votes Voting in the U.S. Senate Accusation

The second impeachment of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, occurred on January 13, 2021, one week before his term expired. It was the fourth impeachment of a U.S. president, and the second for Trump after his first impeachment in December 2019. Ten Republican representatives voted for the second impeachment, the most pro-impeachment votes ever from a president’s party. This was also the first presidential impeachment in which all majority caucus members voted unanimously for impeachment.

Rep Dan Newhouse Washington

Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washingtons 4th Congressional District on Wednesday voted to impeach Trump shortly after announcing his decision to do so on the House floor.

These articles of impeachment are flawed, but I will not use process as an excuse for President Trumps actions, Newhouse said.

The president took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Last week there was a domestic threat at the door of the Capitol and he did nothing to stop it.

In a separate statement released the same day, Newhouse said Trump did not strongly condemn the attack nor did he call in reinforcements when our officers were overwhelmed. Our country needed a leader, and President Trump failed to fulfill his oath of office.

How The Impeachment Vote Could Benefit Trump Gop

Rep. Schiff: Only Question Is How Many In GOP Will Support Impeachment | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Final votes on the articles are expected in the full House next week after they were passed in a party-line vote by the House Judiciary Committee Friday morning.

Slotkin said shes been lobbied by Republicans on the House floor.

I had a Republican colleague who Ive worked with before on a bunch of issues come up and give me a very detailed, thoughtful explanation of why I should vote against articles of impeachment, Slotkin told NBC News last week.

And the across-the-aisle personal lobbying in the Capitol is being reinforced with an aggressive, multi-million dollar political effort in their home districts.

For example, the American Action Network, an outside political group that works to elect Republicans to the House, has spent more than $1.5 million on campaign ads focused on impeachment since December 10 in those districts as well as the districts represented by Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Susie Lee of Nevada and Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico. Those ads are slated to run through the votes in the full House of Representatives next week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is a vote of conscience and maintains that Democrats aren’t pressuring their members on which way to vote.

“We are not whipping this legislation,” Pelosi told reporters on Thursday. “People have to come to their own conclusions.”

David Valadao Of California

David ValadaoRep. David Valadao, right, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Valadao is the second freshman GOP member of the House to vote to impeach Trump. He was elected to represent Californias 21st District in November, replacing Democrat TJ Cox, and reclaiming a seat he had previously held from 2013 to 2019.

Valadao said in a statement, President Trump was, without question, a driving force in the catastrophic events that took place on January 6 by encouraging masses of rioters to incite violence on elected officials, staff members, and our representative democracy as a whole.

He added, Speaker Pelosi has thrown precedent and process out the window by turning what should be a thorough investigation into a rushed political stunt. I wish, more than anything, that we had more time to hold hearings to ensure due process. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi did not afford us that option. Based on the facts before me, I have to go with my gut and vote my conscience. I voted to impeach President Trump. His inciting rhetoric was un-American, abhorrent, and absolutely an impeachable offense. Its time to put country over politics.

Wyoming Rep Liz Cheney

Cheney has had a changeable relationship with Trump throughout her rapid ascension through the ranks of House leadership. But in recent months she has been among his chief critics within the party, and she led the GOP call to impeach him after the riots. In a statement Tuesday night, she said Trump summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.

First elected to Wyomings sole House seat in 2016, Cheney became the Republican conference chairwoman three years later, calling for a fundamental overhaul of the partys messaging operation. For the former Fox News pundit and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, that meant amped-up attacks on Democrats as socialists whose ideas she sees as an assault to American freedoms, rhetoric that has been adopted by Trumps most ardent supporters.

During Trumps four years in office, Cheney has voted with the president 93 percent of the time, according to CQ Vote Watch, above the GOP average score of 92 percent. But she has broadsided him on core policy issues in recent months, unmoved by her states 70 percent vote for Trump in November. 

House Republicans Join Democrats In Voting To Impeach Trump

January 13, 2021 / 4:53 PM / CBS News

Washington Ten Republican members of the House, including one of its highest-ranking leaders, joined Democrats in voting to impeach President Trump for inciting the deadly attack on the Capitol last week by a violent mob of his supporters. 

The final vote was 232 to 197, as the 10 Republicans joined all 222 Democrats in voting in favor of the impeachment resolution. 

The article of impeachment will next be delivered to the Senate, where Mr. Trump will be placed on trial. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said after the House vote that there is “simply no chance that a fair or serious trial could conclude before President-elect Biden is sworn in next week.”

Mr. Trump is the first president to be impeached twice. When he was impeached in 2019 over his attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden, no House Republicans voted in favor of impeaching him. But this time, 10 members of his own party determined his actions warranted impeachment.

Here are the Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump:

Liz Cheney of Wyoming

Tom Rice of South Carolina

Fred Upton of Michigan

David Valadao of California

Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House, said in a statement on Tuesday that she would vote to impeach Mr. Trump after he whipped up his supporters Wednesday at a rally not far from the Capitol.

Letters To The Editor Aug 20 2021

Ten House Republicans crossed party lines on Wednesday and voted to impeach President Trump which is 10 more than the amount to go against him the first time around.

The GOP lawmakers aligned with Democrats to formally charge the outgoing commander-in-chief with inciting violence against the government of the United States in last weeks storming of the Capitol by supporters he had addressed during a rally near the White House.

No Republicans voted in 2019 to impeach Trump the first time.

Here are the 10 GOP members who voted to impeach on Wednesday:

Peter Meijer Of Michigan

GettyRep. Peter Meijer.

Meijer is a freshman member of Congress, voting to impeach Trump just weeks after he was sworn into office. Meijer made his announcement on January 12 shortly before the vote.

President Trump betrayed his oath of office by seeking to undermine our constitutional process, and he bears responsibility for inciting the insurrection we suffered last week. With a heavy heart, I will vote to impeach President Donald J. Trump.

Rep. Peter Meijer January 13, 2021

Meijer wrote on Facebook, President Trump betrayed his oath of office by seeking to undermine our constitutional process, and he bears responsibility for inciting the insurrection we suffered last week. With a heavy heart, I will vote to impeach President Donald J. Trump.

Article Of Impeachment Introduced

Wikisource has original text related to this article:Article of Impeachment against Donald J. Trump

On January 11, 2021, U.S. Representatives David Cicilline, along with Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu, introduced an article of impeachment against Trump, charging Trump with “incitement of insurrection” in urging his supporters to march on the Capitol building. The article contended that Trump made several statements that “encouragedand foreseeably resulted inlawless action” that interfered with Congress’ constitutional duty to certify the election. It argued that by his actions, Trump “threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government,” doing so in a way that rendered him “a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution” if he were allowed to complete his term. By the time it was introduced, 218 of the 222 House Democrats had signed on as cosponsors, assuring its passage. Trump was impeached in a vote on January 13, 2021; ten Republicans, including House Republican Conference chairwoman Liz Cheney, joined all of the Democrats in supporting the article.

Impasse And Final Vote

Prior to the House impeachment vote, McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham expressed their intentions not to be impartial jurors, contrary to the oath they must take. McConnell said, “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision.” Graham said, “I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here … I will do everything I can to make die quickly.”

On January 14, 2020, Pelosi announced the House managers who would prosecute the case in the Senate. On January 15, the House voted on Resolution 798, which appointed the impeachment managers and approved the articles of impeachment to be sent to the Senate. Later that afternoon, Pelosi held a rare public engrossment ceremony, followed by a stately procession of the managers and other House officers across the Capitol building, where the third impeachment of a U.S. president was announced to the senate. With the exception of the managers, who would conduct the trial, the House’s involvement in the impeachment process came to an end.

Voting results on House Resolution 798 Party

Majority Of House Republicans Who Voted To Impeach Trump Will Face America First Primary Challengers

President Trump faces Senate trial after historic House vote on impeachment

Nine out of ten House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump over the incident in the US capital on January 6 are facing primary challenges from America First candidates.

Reps. Liz Cheney , Tom Rice , Jaime Herrera Beutler , Adam Kinzinger , Dan Newhouse , Anthony Gonzalez , Fred Upton , Peter Meijer , and David Valadao are all expecting primary challenges from Republicans.

Trump vows to work against those Republicans as they run for reelection in 2022, and has already endorsed one primary challenger and signaled there are more to come,Fox News reported.

Instead of attacking me and, more importantly, the voters of our movement, top establishment Republicans in Washington should be spending their energy in opposing Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and the Democrats, Trump said in his February CPAC speech, Get rid of them all, he said of the Republicans who voted to impeach him, the outlet wrote.

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Rep. John Katko is the only Republican who has yet to encounter an America First challenger despite his support for impeachment. In May, Katko collaborated with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to create a commission to investigate the January 6 incidents. In the end, the commission failed in the Senate.

Rep. Madeleine Dean said she is focused on substantive issues. Not just retribution for a failed, corrupt president.

Rep John Katko New York

To impeach a sitting president is a decision I do not take lightly, Rep. John Katko of New Yorks 24th Congressional District said in a statement Tuesday.

As a former federal prosecutor, I approach the question of impeachment by reviewing the facts at hand, he said. To allow the President of the United States to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy. For that reason, I cannot sit by without taking action. I will vote to impeach this President.

House Votes To Impeach Trump But Senate Trial Unlikely Before Biden’s Inauguration

9. Rep. John Katko, New York’s 24th: Katko is a moderate from an evenly divided moderate district. A former federal prosecutor, he said of Trump: “It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection.” He also noted that as the riot was happening, Trump “refused to call it off, putting countless lives in danger.”

10. Rep. David Valadao, California’s 21st: The Southern California congressman represents a majority-Latino district Biden won 54% to 44%. Valadao won election to this seat in 2012 before losing it in 2018 and winning it back in the fall. He’s the rare case of a member of Congress who touts his willingness to work with the other party. Of his vote for impeachment, he said: “President Trump was, without question, a driving force in the catastrophic events that took place on January 6.” He added, “His inciting rhetoric was un-American, abhorrent, and absolutely an impeachable offense.”

Richard Burr North Carolina

Burr, who has said he will not seek re-election, had previously voted to dismiss the impeachment trial on constitutional grounds. Burr’s term expires in 2022.

“I have listened to the arguments presented by both sides and considered the facts. The facts are clear,” explained Burr in a statement.

“By what he did and by what he did not do, President Trump violated his oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States,” he explained, adding that he didn’t come to “this decision lightly.”

Impeachment Of Donald Trump 2019

Cabinet White House staff Transition team Policy positions

Donald Trump was impeached twice. This page covers the first impeachment. , which took place in 2021.

On February 5, 2020, President Donald Trump was acquitted of abuse of power by a vote of 52-48 and obstruction of Congress by a vote of 53-47.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first announced the House would pursue an inquiry into Trump on September 24, 2019, following allegations that Trump requested the Ukrainian government investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, in exchange for aid.

Trump denied the allegations and called the inquiry “the worst witch hunt in political history.”

Following weeks of public hearings, the House voted to impeach Trump on December 18, 2019, charging him with abuse of power by a vote of 230-197 and obstruction of Congress by a vote of 229-198. For a breakdown of the U.S. House votes by representative and party, .

The trial began on January 16, 2020, after seven impeachment managers from the U.S. House of Representatives presented the two articles of impeachment to the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Mitt Romney was the only Republican to vote guilty on the abuse of power charge, becoming the first senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a president from his own party in an impeachment trial. The vote on obstruction of Congress ran along party lines.

For an overview and timeline of the impeachment trial proceedings, .

See also: Impeachment of federal officials