#supreme court recruitment personal assistant

[seemabhatnagar]

SC allows pension benefits for ex-Central Govt. employee who joined State Govt. later

Vinod Kanjibhai Bhagora v. State of Gujrat & Another

SLP 16030/218

Before Supreme Court of India

Order:  

Appeal was allowed on 02.02.2024 by the bench comprising Hon’ble Mr. Justice Vikram Nath J & Hon’ble Mr. Justice Satish Chandra Sharma J.

Apex Court set aside the order of the High Court  & directed State to consider the service rendered by the Appellant to the Central Government in his capacity as Postal Assistant to be considered as qualifying service.

Fact:

Appellant was engaged as postal assistant on 12.08.83 at Gandhinagar Postal Division of the Central Government & he served in the aforesaid role till 16.07.1993.

Later an invitation by the Ste Government of Gujrat was issued for the post of Senior Assistant.

Appellant after obtaining NOC from the Superintendent of Post Office Gandhinagar Division on 18.06.93 and participated in the selection process.

He was selected and he joined as Sr. Assistant on 18.08.93 and served for a period of 23 years.

State Government paid terminal benefit only for the period appellant was on their role as Sr Assistant.

Terminal benefit for the period of 10 years which he served with Central Government was not included.

Aggrieved with the non - inclusion of terminal benefit which he served with Central Government, appellant moved Representation before Chief Post Master General, Gujrat Division Rule 25 of the Gujarat Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2022.

The representation was rejected.

Against the rejection of his representation, appellant filed Writ Petition before Gujrat High Court.

The Writ Petition was rejected by the High Court observing Rule 25 doesn’t apply on the appellant.

Submission of the Counsel of the Appellant

The Appellant was absorbed by the State Government and consequently, in terms of Rule 25(ix) of the Pension Rules, the Appellants’ terminal benefits could not be limited to the Period of 23 years only but must also include 10 years of service which Appellant had rendered to the Central Government.

Submission of the Counsel of the Respondent State

Appellant was not entitled to seek the benefit of Rule 25(ix) of the Pension Rules as the Appellant was appointed in the State Government emanating from a fresh recruitment.

Observation of the Supreme Court

Qualifying service for the purpose of calculating terminal benefits would include prior services rendered by such a person under inter alia the Central Government provided that (i) the employment of such person under the Central Government encompassed an underlying pension scheme; and (ii) such person came to be absorbed by the State Government.

The prior employment of the Appellant under the Central Government provides for pension scheme.

Argument of the State is petitioner joined State Government as fresh appointee and his previous employment with Central Government could not be considered to have been absorbed by the State Government.

Interpretation by the State Counsel is narrow and restrictive so as to limit the benefit of Rule 25(ix). Benefit extended to such person(s) who have been explicitly absorbed by the State Government.

Pension scheme(s) floated by the State Government form a part of delegated beneficial legislation and ought to be interpreted widely.

The Appellants’ participation in the selection process was preceded by an NOC from the Central Government and subsequently was followed by the tender of a technical resignation to the Central Government upon securing employment with the State Government.

High Court erred in interpreting of Rule 25(ix) of the Pension Rules.

Seema Bhatnagar

[india-times]

Balaji case: Supreme Court tells TN to finish probe by September 30

The court said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) will be formed if the state government fails to complete the probe by the deadline.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave Tamil Nadu time till September 30, 2023, to complete the investigation in the alleged cash-for-jobs scam case filed against minister V Senthil Balaji. The court said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) will be formed if the state government fails to complete the probe by the deadline.

Calling the state’s request for six months time to complete the probe as “unreasonable”, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said it would not entertain any application regarding an extension of time. The case pertains to illegalities in the appointment of employees in state transport corporations during Senthil Balaji’s tenure as transport minister under the AIADMK government between 2011 and 2015. On May 16, the top court, while paving the way for the crime branch to continue its investigation and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to commence a money laundering probe in the case, directed the Investigating Officer to include offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

“We had expressed our displeasure to Mr Gupta (the state’s counsel) that asking for six months time was totally unreasonable. In the original order itself, only two months’ time had been granted. Considering the facts and circumstances of the case and the submissions made, we extend the time granted by this court by judgment dated May 16, 2023, till September 30, 2023. No further application for extension of time will be entertained and if it is brought to this court that the directions have not been complied with, the SIT would be constituted,” the bench said in its order.

ED continues questioning Senthil Balaji for second day

The allegations pertain to five categories of posts — — junior engineer/assistant engineer/junior tradesman/ driver and conductor. Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta in a brief hearing before the bench on Tuesday said the final report was filed in respect of junior engineer posts before the competent trial court. Investigation is also complete in respect of assistant engineers and appropriate authorities have been approached for grant of sanction for prosecution.

The final report will be filed before the court pursuant to the receipt of sanction for prosecution from competent authorities. Gupta said, “The recruitment involves five categories of posts. One category is complete. In the second one, it is ready and sanction is awaited. The minister is in jail and it’s not as if he is roaming free. With respect to the other three, there is voluminous material and we have prepared a chart also,” Gupta said.

Expressing difficulties being faced by the IO in examining the witnesses regarding the investigation for the three posts, Gupta said, “A total of 37 lists containing the names of 2,794 persons were taken into account by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai, and appointment orders were issued to them for the posts of junior tradesmen, drivers and conductors. These figures have to be verified by conducting an investigation, which is a time-consuming process.”

Pointing out the tardy and lethargic investigation being carried out by the state, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Prashant Bhushan said six months of time was excessive.

It was also stated that the police are scrutinising the documents extracted by the forensic sciences department from hard disks and pen drives seized from the minister and his associates’ houses.

Meanwhile, the ED continued questioning the minister in Chennai for the second day on Tuesday. The agency took him under its custody on Monday evening after the SC allowed his questioning till August 12. Official sources were tight-lipped about whether the minister will be flown to New Delhi for further interrogation or if the ED would seek an extension of his custody.

[freegovtjobalertdaily]

Supreme Court of India Recruitment 2022 Apply Online For Junior Court Assistant Vacancies

Supreme Court of India Recruitment 2022 Apply Online For Junior Court Assistant Vacancies

Supreme Court of India has Released Junior Court Assistant Vacancies. Detailed Supreme court junior assistant notification 2022 PDF has been Published. Online applications are invited from Indian citizens who fulfill the following essential qualifications and other eligibility conditions. http://www.sci.gov.in recruitment 2022 Details Are Given Below. Supreme Court of India Recruitment 2022 Job…

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[bumirang]

Turtle, Duck, Dragon, Horse: Ch. 8 excerpt

It’s a chilly afternoon when Bumi sits in on Hana’s worst training session since she arrived at Air Temple Island.

Under Jinora’s supervision, she and six other novitiates were walking the circle in a coordinated effort to create a sphere of solid wind nearly twice her height. Intimidating, but she’d managed it before. She actually wasn’t doing too terribly, until she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. Maybe it was excitement or performance anxiety or just the distraction, but that’s when it all went wrong. She immediately fell out of step with the others, but the more she tried to correct for it, the more unstable their formation became, until the sphere was a roiling squall-ball they were struggling just to contain.

Master Jinora stepped forward and summoned a gust with thought alone. “That’s, uh, impressive, but if you’ll slow down and back away, I can safely disper—”

Then it exploded, with a roar like a thunderclap in reverse. Thankfully, they were shielded from the worst of it by a barrier whipped up by their teacher, but it was a close thing.

Hana’s ears are still ringing when she makes in Bumi’s direction, ignoring the accusatory glances from her fellow novitiates. It’s obvious to all of them who messed things up, but they can’t prove anything, so whatever. Bumi, in contrast, just waves happily, absentmindedly petting Bum-Ju on his shoulder.

She stops five feet away from him and plants her hands on her hips. “What’re you doing here?”

“Hi to you, too,” he replies, slightly offended.

“Sorry, that sounded… I mean, did you need me for something?”

“Nope.”

“So, what, you popped by to watch me be a screw-up?”

“Well, I like to get a feel for where the newbies’re at. Didn’t think you’d be out with ‘em.”

She deflates a bit. “You saw how hopeless I am. I’ll be stuck with the newbies forever at this rate.”

“Nooo, no… Your bending’s just, uh, chaotic.” His smile is wide but not very convincing. Oh no. He’s trying to be nice. Her face burns at the realization. Pity is the last thing she wants from him, of all people.

He continues, “Form was great, though. Right, buddy?” He glances at the dragonfly-bunny, who shrugs. “Yeah, he thinks so, too.”

“…Thanks.” She stares past him, at the ground, wishing she were anywhere else. At the same time, Bumi’s easily her favorite person on Air Temple Island, and it’s usually such a treat being the focus of his attention. If only she could be anything other than a pathetic misfit in his eyes.

He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, kid, don’t get hung up on it. We’ll figure it out.” His voice has gone all serious, worried.

“You don’t have to… be nice to me.”

“…Huh?”

“Because you feel sorry for me. I don’t want…” She feels her eyes flood with hot tears. In a panic, she slaps a hand over her face, harder than she intended. “Ow.”

Bumi clears his throat and calls over her head, across the courtyard, “Hey, Jinora, gonna steal Hana for a bit!”

“Oh, we’re all done!” she calls back, sounding less rattled than she probably feels. “No theft required.”

“Great! Seeya at dinner!” His hand slides down to Hana’s arm, sending a wave of goosebumps shivering along her shoulders and neck. She almost jumps when he mutters into her ear, “I know a good place to talk. No lookie-loos.”

Then they’re hurtling through the air, and she forgets about her shame for a sweet thirty seconds. His grip on her arm is firm, but she latches onto him anyway. Just survival instinct, she reminds herself, as she hears him laugh with her ear against his chest. He wraps an arm around her then, and she feels safer than she ever did on the ground.

Bumi sets them down in a little grassy clearing on the eastern edge of the island. It’s not far from one of his favorite places to have class, but without any obvious paths to it, you’d have to survey the island from the air to even know it exists. Or just know its layout like the back of your hand. It’s late afternoon, leaving most of it in the shade from nearby trees. What sunlight there is glows gold on dead grass. Framed by two stunted trees jutting from the cliff’s edge is the skyline of Republic City, painted gold as the grass. Bumi pulls a little ta-dah pose in front of it, which gets a smile out of her.

“That’s more like it,” he says, wearing his own smug grin. “Now what was that about you not wanting me to be nice?”

“I just meant…” She grasps at the air, like the words she needs to complete her thought are buzzing around her. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to go out of your way. For me.” It seems like a moot point now.

“Why not you?”

“I’m not cut out for this. You’re wasting your time.”

He laughs softly to himself and crosses his arms. For a moment, Hana’s terrified that he might be mocking her, but when he looks back up at her, his eyes are kind, and a little sad. “I know how ya feel,” he says with a shrug.

“How could you poss—”

Bumi just raises an eyebrow at her, and she slaps her hand over her face again. It stings worse than the first time, but she figures she deserves that.

“Fu— Nngh! I’m such an—” Hana drops down onto her haunches, holding her throbbing face in both hands. Maybe with enough pressure, she can shove the tears and snot back where they belong. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad.”

She hears him sit down across from her. “M’not mad, kid. Like I said, I’ve been where you are. More or less.” She steals a glance at him, seated maybe a foot away and wearing the city itself like his own personal aura. “I see you busting your ass to do what comes so easy to others, and I know what that does to ya. Shame and doubt. Anger. A lot of anger. It can make ya feel worthless…”

She nods and eases into a cross-legged sit, mirroring him.

“S’not true, though. Everyone’s worth something. You’re worth a lot. Trust me, I’ve got an eye for talent.” Bum-Ju, who’s been hovering at a respectful distance, picks that moment to park himself on her head. “See? So does he.”

Hana wipes her runny nose, trying to hide it at first, but Bumi’s expression is so genuinely affable that she feels silly for thinking he might judge her. He’s on her side. A goopy face won’t change that. For lack of better options, she wipes up with a sleeve.

Hands dry, she reaches up, tentatively, to pet the dragonfly-bunny. “Is it okay if I…?”

“That’s up to him.”

The spirit doesn’t flee at her touch. In fact, he leans into it. She gasps as she runs her fingers through his fur, which is easily the softest, silkiest texture she’s ever felt, like yarn spun from cloudstuff. To her surprise, he gives a happy little chirrup and plops into her lap, landing on his back.

“He says to tell you he wants belly rubs.”

“Heh. Okay.” Petting Bum-Ju is supremely soothing, like lemonade on a summer’s day. His quiet little chirps merge and blend into a purr, and she smiles again. How could she not?

“It… It’s humiliating. I knew training wasn’t gonna be easy, but this is like being a little kid all over again.” She runs a finger along the edge of one of the spirit’s strange insectoid wings. Like the fur, it doesn’t feel entirely substantial. “I was supposed to be an earthbender, y’know.”

“Yeah? Says who?”

“…My dad.”

“Hah! Ain’t that always the way?”

“Heh…”

“You don’t give me earthbender vibes at all. You’re too… squishy.”

Her head shoots up to glare at him, and she notices how the sunlight’s shifted since they arrived. Twilight’s creeping up fast. “Did you just call me squishy?”

She’s caught him off-guard, and he blushes at the unflattering implications of such a word choice. “That’s to say… Well, the way rocks aren’t, right? Does that make sense?”

“No…?”

“You’re, I dunno, airy.”

“So I’m squishy like air…?”

Bumi runs a hand through his hair in actual frustration. “Forget I said you were squishy!” He looks relieved when she giggles and clues him into her teasing.

“My point being,” she continues blithely, “I may be the worst airbender here, but I had no earth talent whatsoever. Dad was not pleased. I never even wanted to do it, except to please him.”

“Sorry.”

“I have a little brother, though, and he’s brilliant with earth. Stone, glass, metal. You name it. Guess it worked out for Dad in the end, but I always… Even though it was crazy, I always wanted to fly. Not in an airship, but like the birds do. It never seemed fair.” She winces at how naive that sounds. “After Harmonic Convergence, I thought, y’know, finally. This is who I’m supposed to be.” Sympathy fills the lines around Bumi’s eyes and mouth, and she looks back down at the fuzzy spirit in her lap. She gives him some experimental chin scritches, which seem to go over well. “But it’s been more than three months now, and I’m still… I’m just a screw-up.”

“You’re the best teaching assistant I’ve ever had.”

Hana blinks. “Aren’t I the only one you’ve ever had?”

“Nah, I used to spend summers teaching new recruits arts ‘n’ crafts.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Says somebody who has no idea how boring it can get on a tour of duty! Keeping your hands busy staves off Sea Madness. And fistfights… Well, that is until somebody badmouths another guy’s macramé. I’ve been called as a witness at some crazy court martials, lemme tell ya.”

“I… Wow, okay. I guess you’d know.”

“And before I forget, let’s get one thing clear,” says Bumi, leaning forward and pointing right in her face. “I like being around you. Aren’t we friends?”

What’s the appropriate response to that? “You… friend… with me?” Well, it’s definitely not that. “I guess I didn’t… I thought you were just trying to figure me out. What’s wrong with me, I mean.”

“That, too, but hey! We have fun, right?”

“Yeah?”

“There ya go! Friends!”

She laughs. She can’t help it. Seeing the way Bumi’s face lights up only makes her laugh harder. Bum-Ju launches clear of her lap as she doubles over. Collapsed on the grass, she finally admits, “Okay! We’re friends! I guess!”

“So…” Only when she sees his shoulders relax does Hana realize how tense he’s been this whole time. “You always wanted to fly, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. More than anything. Thought I could grow up to be a bird if I put in the effort, but I was forced to develop an overactive imagination instead.”

“Sounds like a fun story.”

She pushes herself back into a sitting position and picks bits of grass out of her hair. She could do with a trim, now that she’s thinking about it. “Not a whole lot to tell. I was basically a toddler, and I don’t remember much.”

“Yeah?” Bumi’s grinning at her. He grins a lot, to be fair, but he has a different style for every occasion. Goofball, smart-ass, encouraging, nervous, and so on. This is a pure look of amused contentment, just for her. It makes her feel all gooey inside, but in a nice way, no snot involved.

“Hm. Well, okay. Mom did tell me about one time she found me eating worms out of the garden.”

“Hah! What’d it taste like?”

“Slimy dirt, probably? I only know it happened from Mom. Like I said, toddler.”

Bumi scratches his neck and looks off to the side, like he’s debating something with himself, then says, “I jumped off cliffs a lot.”

“Wow. Dark.”

“Into the water! Got pretty good at climbing. Diving, too, but that’s just, y’know, falling with style.”

“Umbrellas.” He looks at her expectantly, eyes glittering like chips of ice. They might be the palest she’s ever seen, and if they aren’t the most beautiful, they’re definitely in the top five. That’s a strange thought. Despite his age, he’s actually quite handsome. In fact, the wrinkles themselves emphasize his features in a way she didn’t realize she appreciated until just now. They tell a story of a life well-lived.

A quirk of his eyebrows reminds her that she’s in the middle of a conversation, during which she’s just said “umbrellas” and stared at him for ten seconds.

“W-well. Um. I saw this character in a storybook who flew around with an umbrella, so I found the biggest one I could and ran down the street, screaming my head off the whole time.” Hana feels herself blush at the admission. “That part seemed important for some reason. I was, like, five.”

“How’d that go?”

“As I recall, I broke the umbrella, and several people called the cops. They thought I was escaping from a murderer or something. Can’t imagine why.”

Bumi just laughs. Hana revels in it until he quiets enough to keep telling him embarrassing things about herself.

“Then there was the time I spent a month collecting loose feathers around my neighborhood and stuffed them all in my shirt,” she says, with a bit of added pantomime. “Was gonna jump out the apartment window, but I chickened out.”

“So… it worked?”

“Shut up. You are horrible, and I hate you now.”

“Minus 57 points for disrespecting your elder.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault they dress me like a giant baby.” She tugs at a corner of the scarlet shawl sewn around the shoulders of her standard-issue Air Nomad pajamas. They both snicker.

Then Bumi sits up straight like he’s been struck by lightning. “I got it!”

“Hm?”

“A wingsuit. Try one on!”

“That’s not really allowed unless you’ve qualified, though.”

“Eh, if you get in trouble, I’ll smooth it over,” he says with a little hand wave. “It could be just the confidence boost you need to get over whatever mental block is tripping you up.” He gestures at his own outfit. “Think about it. The right uniform can totally change how you see yourself. And I should know.”

“That’s a good point, but…” Hana shrugs and makes various non-committal noises. What she doesn’t mention is her discomfort at the snugness of the wingsuit’s fit. As ridiculous as the pajamas look on her, they’re at least loose and comfortable. Squeezing into a skintight flight suit to practice—probably clumsily as ever—is just another humiliation waiting to happen. It does give her an idea, though.

“Remember when I told you how I’ve had a bit of Kyoshi Warrior training?” she asks with a little smirk.

“I remember you not flipping me, even after I asked nicely.”

“Well, I might still have my fan lying around somewhere…”

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[creepingsharia]

Muslim cleric extradited from Jamaica to NYC, held without bail for ‘trying to recruit NYPD cop’ to ISIS

Pictured: A still image from one of the defendant’s online lectures, in which the defendant declares, “The way forward is not the ballot. The way forward is the bullet.”

Designated Global Terrorist Shaikh Faisal Arraigned on Conspiracy and Terrorism Charges Following Extradition from Jamaica

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr., and New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea today announced the extradition from Jamaica and arraignment of TREVOR WILLIAM FORREST, a/k/a “SHAIKH ABDULLAH FAISAL,” a/k/a “SHAIKH FAISAL,” 56, a citizen of Jamaica, for using his public profile and personal network to recruit and provide support to those seeking to commit acts of violence and terrorism against others. FAISAL, who in 2017 was named a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, was previously convicted in the United Kingdom of crimes related to inciting murder and using racially charged, hateful rhetoric in furtherance of terrorist ideologies. FAISAL has publicly supported the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State, a/k/a “ISIS” or “ISIL,” and called for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate through violent acts encouraged by the defendant’s online lectures and militant propaganda. FAISAL is charged in a New York State Supreme Court indictment with Soliciting or Providing Support for an Act of Terrorism in the First Degree as a Crime of Terrorism, among other charges.

“The indictment and arrest of Shaikh Faisal nearly three years ago put a stop to the prolific, radical Islamic propaganda and terror recruitment alleged in this case – delivering a major blow to ISIS’ overall recruitment capabilities,” said District Attorney Vance. “Now, Shaikh Faisal has finally appeared in a Manhattan courtroom to face justice under due process for the crimes of terrorism he is charged with in our indictment. In addition to shutting down Faisal’s dangerous rhetoric and his recruitment of new terrorists, the effects of his arrest have been felt across the counterterrorism community worldwide, which has gained actionable intelligence thanks to our seizure of numerous electronics from his home.

...

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said: “Abdullah El Faisal has spent two decades inspiring the terrorists behind plots and attacks in London, New York, and onboard airplanes in flight. As outlined in these charges, Faisal actively encouraged and facilitated the recruitment of an NYPD undercover officer into ISIS, a terrorist organization behind murder and bloodshed in this city. I want to thank District Attorney Cy Vance and his team for their relentless support of this case and the prosecution of Sheikh Faisal.”

On August 25, 2017, FAISAL was arrested outside his home in St. James, Jamaica by Jamaican authorities based on a provisional arrest warrant issued at the request of the United States. Arresting officers seized numerous cell phones, laptops, thumb drives, external hard drives, cameras, and other electronics from his home during the arrest. Officers also recovered $524,000 in Jamaican currency (approximately $3,500 USD) and £1,850 pounds (approximately $2,400 USD) from the defendant’s home. On August 13, 2020 FAISAL was extradited from Jamaica to New York City and he was arraigned on August 14, 2020.

...

District Attorney Vance thanked the following individuals and agencies for their assistance with the investigation: the NYPD, and in particular, Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller, Chief of Intelligence Thomas Galati, Assistant Commissioner of Intelligence Analysis Rebecca Weiner, Inspector Robert Rios, Deputy Chief Paul Ciorra, Inspector Paul Mauro, Deputy Inspector Joseph Seminara, Lieutenant Robert Nicholson, Sergeant Kevin Thacke, Detective Sherif Moussa, Detective Newaz Mohammad, Deputy Director of Intelligence Analysis Ravi Satkalmi, Intelligence Research Specialist Krisztina Johnson, and former Intelligence Research Specialist Jacques Singer-Emery; the U.S. Department of Justice Office of International Affairs, Criminal Division; the United States Marshals Service in particular, Henry Geberth and Christopher Felix; and the Jamaica Constabulatory Force.

Defendant Information:

TREVOR WILLIAM FORREST, a/k/a “SHAIKH ABDULLAH FAISAL”, a/k/a “SHAIKH FAISAL”, D.O.B. 9/10/1963

St. James, Jamaica

Charged:

Soliciting or Providing Support for an Act of Terrorism in the First Degree as a Crime of Terrorism, a class B violent felony, 1 count

Soliciting or Providing Support for an Act of Terrorism in the First Degree, a class C violent felony, 1 count

Attempted Soliciting or Providing Support for an Act of Terrorism in the First Degree as a Crime of Terrorism, a class C violent felony, 1 count

Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree as a Crime of Terrorism, a class D violent felony, 1 count

Attempted Soliciting or Providing Support for an Act of Terrorism in the Frist Degree, a class D violent felony, 1 count

--------------------------------------------------

More via NY Post: Radical cleric held without bail in Manhattan for ‘trying to recruit NYPD cop’

Shaikh Abdullah Faisal, 56, pleaded not guilty to five counts — including conspiracy as a crime of terrorism, soliciting or providing support for an act of terrorism and other raps.

At the prosecution’s request, Justice Maxwell Wiley ordered Faisal held in custody without bail.

Faisal was previously convicted of similar charges in England for inciting murder and using inflammatory language “in furtherance of terrorist ideologies,” according to prosecutors.

He’s due back in Manhattan Supreme Court on Oct. 7.

[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.”

[mizukixtsukiyomi]

first off: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I HOPE ITS A GOOD DAY FOR YOU!! TY FOR OPENING REQUESTS!!! you're literally the coolest person ever UWU. second: someone before requested free x knb with Kagome as a manager of a swim team and one of of KnB teams wanted her to be their manager? Smth like that, but I thought it was super cool and wanted to request it in case the original asker didn't send it again. Please and thank you so much!!

At the blow of the whistle, eyes on the bleachers followed the swimmers dive into the clear water to run their laps. Back and forth, water splashed as they raced against the clock. Gleeful cheers from female college students could be heard as they saw the Hidaka University swim team showcase their skill in water. 

A tired sigh escaped the blonde’s lips, as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Phew, I don’t think I could survive doing that many laps in water! I mean,” he winked at his college basketball friends from the corner of his eyes, “we can all admit I would look good!” 

“Shut it, Kise.” Aomine huffed, sheathing his annoyance from the boredom he felt watching the swimmers. “Why are we even here, Akashi?” 

The rest of the Generation of Miracles turned their gazes onto their former basketball captain who sat one bleacher below theirs. All of them had been called for a “reunion”; a get-together as college students. All of them had entered Hidaka University, with the exception of Kagami. All of them held a basketball scholarship to their name and it was one they held with pride. They were becoming Hidaka’s supreme team in years. 

But Akashi felt the team incomplete. 

“Akashi-kun,” Kuroko spoke, having been the only one to sit beside the emperor of the court, “why did you bring us to watch the swim team?” 

“My question is the same.” Midorima sighed, crossing his arms. 

A stretched out yawn echoed as long legs rested on the bleachers Akashi sat on and long arms stretched above Murasakibara’s head. “Maybe Akachin wants to change sports.” 

A scoff blew from Aomine’s lips. “Like we could switch sports; we’ve been doing basketball for so long, idiot.” 

Ruby tint eyes followed the movements of the team member near the edge of the pool as they spoke to one of the swimmers. The swimmer himself was presented with a clipboard and was skimming through the notes that had been taken. Akashi chuckled under his breath. “I didn’t bring you here to see the swimmers; I brought you to observe the one who is in charge of their growth.” 

“Huh?” All of them whispered, following their line of sight. 

The group blinked watching as the female smiled at the dark-blue haired swimmer who had just finished his last lap. His breathing slowly regulating to a normal pace as he heard what they presumed to be the swim team’s manager. She had her long black hair held in a high ponytail wearing sport running shorts and a regular navy blue t-shirt. 

“Isn’t that Nanase Haruka?” Kuroko asked. 

“He became a star right away when he entered the university.” Midorima added, eyes narrowing on the duo. “The swim team has high hopes going far into their own tournament with him as the addition this year.” 

“But it’s also her.” Akashi smiled, eyes still glued on the girl. “She was recruited to become the swim team’s manager.” 

Aomine’s brow crooked up, “so?” 

“The coach himself,” Akashi turned his focus onto Haruka’s personal trainer - the tall and handsome brunette male - to see him standing next to the girl, “Azuma Ryuji asked for her to assist with Nanase’s training.” 

“Hm?” Kise titled his head to the side. “She’s cute, but is she that important?” 

“Azuma Ryuji is known to only work with those who have potential.” Midorima pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Akashi, are you saying he asked a university student to assist him training Nanase?” 

Akashi’s lips curved upwards as he saw Kagome squat down to speak with the said swimmer. A tender look in her eyes made his own expression narrow on her. “Apparently, she has an eye for athletes. Especially special ones. She watches very carefully how they move and comes up with regimes to improve their physique.” 

A scoff from Aomine was released as he rest his hands behind his head. “Sounds like Satsuki. We could just get Satsuki to work with us.” 

“True,” Akashi agreed, crossing his arms. And that was definitely true. Satsuki had the same skill with her observation skills, but, “she has close ties with the Taisho Corporation.” 

Eyes bulged at the name. 

“Say what?!” Aomine shouted, voice echoing inside the pool vicinity. 

Eyes of the public, swimmers and coaches included, were pulled to the Generation of Miracles. Whispers from the bleachers scattered. 

“Aominecchi! Keep your voice down!” Kise immediately slammed his hand over Aomine’s mouth. 

“Aomine-kun,” Kuroko blinked, looking at the former Touou ace over his shoulder, “learn to not attract attention.” 

A vein throbbed over his forehead. The hell?! 

“Ah~,” Murasakibara’s attention peaked, “she’s looking. That chick you’re curious about Akachin.” 

Their focus shifted over to the edge of the pool once again to see the pair of cerulean eyes on the girl glued on them. She blinked a few times before turning her attention to Azuma. He said something, inaudible to them, before giving out a grumpy look and her attention was back on them. 

Akashi stood from his seat, “I’ll go talk to her.” 

“E-Eh?!” Kise’s eyes flickered. “About what?!” 

Akashi made his way to the end of his row before stepping on the stairs leading down to the pool area. “About her becoming our manager; we need someone like her.” 

The five of them gave a round of perplexed wide looks when Akashi’s smirk stretched and he continued his way down. Wait...was he serious?! He was going to try to steal a team member onto their side?! 

Heavy hands clapped down onto knees; heads turned to see Murasakibara standing from his spot. Tall and proud made the others around shudder. 

“Alright, then I’ll use my height to intimidate her into the team.” 

“The hell!” Kise quickly sprung to try and pull him back down on this seat. “Did no one ever teach you not to intimidate a girl!?” 

Midorima crossed his arms, sighing as he felt all his energy being drained from the circus before him. Akashi was being serious, was he? Who were they to underestimate his plans? When he sought to do something or get something, he would do it. 

[coursesafterxiith]

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