Continuing my 'deep dive' into US politics mostly via brilliant CNN coverage, I was particularly struck by something a Republican said during his recent two minute rant against Trump's impeachment in the House.
As a long-term veteran of helping to administer Polling Stations here in the UK, my ears pricked-up at hearing an allegation of there being "200 illegal Polling Stations" in one State apparently. That's crazy I initially thought, but then I remembered two things. Firstly, elections are run by each State, so there's 50-odd different sets of procedures. Secondly, I recalled a Ch 4 scoop and investigation last year regarding a most distasteful Republican initiative called 'voter suppression'. Basically, if you can't win the political argument, just find as many ways as you can to stop your opponents from voting. This from the FT last September explains:-
Voter suppression: America must end this shame
Decentralisation in the federal system plays a key part in preventing certain people from casting their ballots
With this year’s US presidential race entering its final leg, a formidable obstacle to the revolutionary idea of self-governance is rearing its ugly head: voter suppression. As current polls suggest a tight contest between incumbent Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden in many swing states, this shameful practice could determine the outcome of the election.
The decentralisation inherent in the federal system plays a key part in the persistence of efforts to prevent certain people from casting their ballots. The US constitution grants states the responsibility to administer elections. Local jurisdictions take over from there to manage the nuts and bolts of executing an election.
The scale of decentralisation has created more than 10,000 voting jurisdictions of varying sizes, shapes, and styles. If that sounds overwhelming, it’s because it is. And it’s partly why US policy leaders have, over the years, amended the 233-year-old constitution to provide a handful of federal standards on voting processes. The 15th amendment, for instance, prohibits federal and state governments from denying citizens the right to vote based on race and colour. The 19th amendment does the same thing on the basis of gender.
But despite these attempts to foster free and fair elections, turnout at US presidential elections is low for a western democracy — 56 per cent in 2016, compared with 87 per cent in Sweden’s 2018 general election and 76 per cent in Germany in 2017. Indeed, the US political system has over time invented alternative measures — such as literacy tests and poll taxes — to disenfranchise “undesirable” (mainly non-white) voters.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act sought to end such backdoor discrimination practices by mandating federal oversight of electoral processes in jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting practices. And it succeeded mightily. Between 1964 and 1969, black voter turnout rose from 6 per cent to 59 per cent in the state of Mississippi alone.
This act was so successful that in 2013 the US Supreme Court decided it was no longer necessary to enforce it, so they gutted it. The ruling in Shelby County vs Holder, rendered the “most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress”, toothless. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who died this month — described the decision as “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet”.
Her imagery was spot on. Hours after the ruling was finalised, a fresh wave of voter suppression tactics began sweeping the US. Four years after the ruling, black Americans were four times as likely as white Americans to report facing racial discrimination during the electoral process. Latinos were three times as likely and Native Americans twice as likely to report the same.
Among the most detrimental suppression measures are voter purging, strict identification requirements, and felony disenfranchisement. Some jurisdictions remove people from voter registration lists in the name of “list hygiene”: between 2014 and 2016, more than 17m voters were deleted from registration lists because they had not voted for several years or their names did not exactly match other government records.
Then there are strict ID requirements, enforced by 36 per cent of states. These sound reasonable to prevent voter fraud, but fail to take account of the 25 per cent of black citizens (against 8 per cent of whites) who don’t have a government-issued photo ID.
Black people also disproportionately lose their right to vote because they are more likely to be arrested and jailed, and more than 95 per cent of states restrict the right to vote for convicted felons. As a result, 7.7 per cent of black Americans against 1.8 per cent of non-blacks have lost their vote.
While these tactics give the impression of electoral integrity, that is all they provide: a veneer of decency over a racially divided democracy. The great experiment of American democracy, once a glimmer of hope in a world of authoritarian states, is veering towards tyranny. Today, the land of the free ranks 25 out of 165 on the global Democracy Index — a ranking that feeds into a larger global trend. In 2019, the Democracy Index recorded the lowest aggregate score since its inception in 2006.
The US is 35 days away from a historic presidential election. It has faced trials before and risen to the occasion. Now is the moment for Americans to call on their better angels to bend the arc of history towards inclusion. The world is watching.
--oo00oo--
Of course we know what happened. Turnout was at an historic high, probably due to Covid related measures being introduced that encouraged 'early' voting and postal ballots. In the case of Georgia and that State's historic 'flip' it was also a result of a long campaign of voter enrolment by the black community thus confirming nation-wide demographic changes. Essentially the Republican Party that mostly represents the white rural population is under increasing pressure from a growing and ethnically diverse urban population. If you can't win the political argument, you either find as many ways as possible to stop them voting, or de-legitimise the whole process and energise a white supremacist mob.
As a footnote and for those who recall our own difficulties regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the BBC have just concluded serialising extracts from a fascinating book 'How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future' about the history of trying to manipulate elections by using data and it goes back further than you might think. There's a long article by the author Jill Lepore published in the New Yorker last August.
Ahh, so that now explains why the Republican votes were legal but the Democrat votes were illegal. So Trump *did* win by a landslide. Thank you, JB.
ReplyDeleteThere are mounting concerns that there could be a final deportation flight to Africa as late as Tuesday – the day before Biden takes office – as part of a systematic effort by Ice to move as many African asylum seekers as possible out of the country before the end of the zealously anti-immigrant Trump administration.
ReplyDelete"The last few months of 2020 saw a rise in deportations of African nationals, despite ongoing political and sectarian violence in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries to which deportees were returned.
DeleteSome of the deportees had open legal cases while others, according to their lawyers and immigrant advocacy groups, had not been given a fair hearing by immigration judges appointed by the justice department.
With each deportation to Africa, Ice and Omni take more steps to hide their flights. This time it was under the cover of night,” Tom Cartwright, who tracks flights for Witness at the Border, said. “The other steps Ice and Omni have taken to make these flights as opaque as possible is that they now do not file a public flight plan, not even in the US. They mask the flight number and plane number from public view. All to hide their shame.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/ice-african-deportation-flight-asylum-seekers-nairobi
It does go on to some extent in UK with arrangements over voter registration and getting electors to sign up for postal votes.
ReplyDeleteThere have been prosecutions, some in areas of higher than normal non proficient English language speakers.
It was the feelings of disenfranchisement that came partly from the criteria imposed on what allowed people to vote in Northern Ireland, (employment, housing and the payment of rates) , that put wind in the sails of the civil rights movements there, which in turn fed significantly into "the troubles" of the 60s and 70s.
ReplyDeleteFraudulent voting and voter suppression is neither a new phenomenon nor a localised one.
I think Mark Twain was wrong when he said,
"If voting changed anything, they wouldn't let us do it."
Voting does change things, and that's why regimes around the globe create so many obstacles,give misinformation, and useslight of hand tactics to skew the vote in a particular way.
'Getafix
Yes Getafix is correct at 13.16.
DeleteWhat changes things is organised dissatisfaction with how things are - unless folk are sufficiently satisfied with what the system gives them - once they have survived - they than unite with others and where possible take action - Northern Ireland is indeed a good example.
We are mostly restricted to our own memories or the memories of others who have passed on their experiences to us.
I certainly remember news reports in the 1960s of dissatisfaction in Northern Ireland about jobs and housing - but never having been to the place or taught about it at school in West Essex had just a vague notion of what it was about & what it had to do with me.
Hence the media is vital and that is why those close to power or in power inevitably use whatever influence they have to steer the loudest voices in their direction.
Then we the masses - vote on how it feels to us - social media is adding a new dimension - in 2008 Obama captured it - from about 2015 and since Trump and the EU leavers mostly have (Probation restructuring in England & Wales in 2014 - barely got a look in) - hence Brexit is unravelling as the initial disaster many of us feared - the question will ultimately be how it ends up - with in the interim the economically and politically weakest most likely to get hurt - like those Catholics in Northern Ireland in the 1960s.
They were then blamed because they failed to co-operate with the existing powers & when that did not quieten them some took up guerrilla warfare - I experienced some of the consequences of that in my earliest probation days in Liverpool - when Ferries from Belfast still arrived carrying on the same ships off-duty soldiers going or returning from leave with disaffected combatants - travelling alongside.
All fuelled in Liverpool by the established "Proddy" and "Katerlick" areas - which came to a head once a year on July the 12th - also affecting us as court workers.
I was actually first employed by Merseyside Probation Service in July 1975 - based in Liverpool - when the procedures of the recently amalgamated (April 1974) Liverpool Probation Service were still being adjusted - I heard of there being a balance in staff on recruitment of those identifying as either Catholic or Protestant - with cases being allocated accordingly.
I doubt that memories of such behaviours and attitudes seriously affects many nowadays - but those of us who “felt” the effects from the 1960s and before cannot but help be still affected today - as am I by memories of both world wars due to what I learned from my parents and grandparents generations.
Speaking of frauds, absolutely EVERYTHING trump has done during his time in office has been vindictive, loaded with hatred:
ReplyDelete"Dustin Higgs, an inmate on death row in Indiana, has died in the final federal execution of the Trump presidency just days before he leaves office.
His execution is the 13th carried out since July when the US government ended a 17-year hiatus on federal executions.
There has been criticism of the Trump administration's rush to carry out the sentences - breaking with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions during a presidential transition."
Want more proof of the racist hate-pig that is trump?
Delete"As one of its last acts, the Trump administration has set in motion the transfer of sacred Native American lands to a pair of Anglo-Australian mining conglomerates.
The 2,422-acre Arizona parcel called Oak Flat is of enormous significance to the Western Apache and is now on track for destruction by what is slated to be one of the largest copper mining operations in the United States.
Steps for the controversial land transfer from the US government, which owns the land, to the miners were completed on Friday morning, when a final environmental assessment was published. The government must soon transfer title to the land.
Oak Flat is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its spiritual and cultural significance to at least a dozen south-west Native American tribes. It contains hundreds of indigenous archaeological sites dating back 1,500 years and is a place where Apache tribes have performed ceremonies for centuries.
The recipient of the land is a firm called Resolution Copper, which was set up by the miners Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton."
Brexit means Brexit means we're all fucked, unless you're a wealthy right-leaning, not-too-bothered-by-injustice self-interested individual.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ft.com/content/55588f86-a4f8-4cf3-aecb-38723b787569
UK workers’ rights at risk in plans to rip up EU labour market rules
(firewall)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/15/government-uk-workers-power-conservatives-britain-rights
"This, after all, is the deregulated race to the bottom of which they have long dreamed. The new business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, even co-wrote a whole pamphlet proposing to exempt startup firms from employment legislation, moving away from a national minimum wage so it could be lower in some areas of the country. Elsewhere he co-authored a book that memorably claimed that the British are “among the worst idlers in the world”. The government has failed to bring in the employment bill that it promised would protect and enhance workers’ rights, and Boris Johnson himself flippantly explained just at the end of last year that maintaining workers’ rights really just means not sending children back up the chimneys."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/15/leaveeu-has-domain-name-temporarily-suspended
DeleteAs predicted, and just like the cowardly Republicans, the insurrectionist piggys are now squealing for clemency:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/us-capitol-rioters-donald-trump-pardons
Jenna Ryan, a Texas real estate broker who took a private jet to Washington to join the attack on the US Capitol, has pleaded with Donald Trump to pardon her after she was arrested by federal authorities.
After surrendering to the FBI on Friday, Ryan said: “We all deserve a pardon.”
“I’m facing a prison sentence,” she told CBS11 at her home. “I think I do not deserve that.”
Turning to look into the camera, she said: “I would ask the president of the United States to give me a pardon.”
Ryan said she had been “displaying my patriotism”, adding: “I listen to my president who told me to go to the Capitol.”
A lawyer for Jacob Chansley, an Arizona man who wore horns, animal skin and face paint while carrying a spear and entering the Senate chamber, said Trump should do the “honourable thing and pardon those of his peaceful followers who accepted the president’s invitation”.
DeleteAlbert Watkins said his client had no criminal history and was an “active practitioner of yoga”. He also mentioned Chansley’s diet, which has caused him to reject non-organic meals in federal custody.
This is an example of what I was trying to predict in an earlier blog post. I'm sure no pardon will be given.
ReplyDeleteThe eventual Court cases could cause some difficult political fall out for those that haven't denounced Trump or who went along with his rigged election rethoric.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/us-capitol-rioters-donald-trump-pardons
'Getafix
great minds, etc etc etc :)
Deletehttps://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/16/if-trump-looks-like-a-fascist-and-acts-like-a-fascist-then-maybe-he-is-one
ReplyDeleteBluff, bluff, double-bluff??? There is no truth anymore
ReplyDelete"Posts on The Donald [wonder who that references?], a website full of extreme, violent content and pro-Trump conspiracy theories, have urged people not to attend rallies, describing them as "a set up… by those trying to destroy us."
On messaging platform Telegram, the far-right, anti-immigrant Proud Boys group, some of whose members were identified among the crowd at the Capitol riot, issued a similar warning.
"If you see anyone dressed as a Proud Boy out at one of [the protests]," one post read. "They're either a fed [FBI] or Antifa."
Many of Trump's extreme supporters are convinced that the Capitol protests were staged by militant left-wing Antifa protesters
Believers of the theory are still convinced that something big will happen on inauguration day that will overturn the election and allow Donald Trump to stay in power and to vanquish his enemies in the "deep state".
Users [on tiktok] have been sharing footage of members preparing firearms, and promoting false claims that President Trump has activated the Insurrection Act, a rarely used 1807 law that allows the president to deploy military forces inside the US. Extremist supporters have been taking advantage of TikTok's slow moderation process, which means that videos can stay online for long periods of time before they are deleted"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-55679813
It's gone a long way from politics. It's become a delusional cult. La La land.
DeleteTruth is, that mindset is capable of absolutely anything.
Oh! Look! No shit!?!
Delete"At least 14 Conservative MPs, including several ministers, cabinet minister Michael Gove and a number of prominent Tory commentators joined Parler, the social media platform favoured by the far right that was forced offline last week for hosting threats of violence and racist slurs."
Thousands of workers feel pressured to return to their jobs when they still risk spreading coronavirus, and employers who breach Covid guidelines are avoiding serious punishment, according to evidence of major weaknesses in England’s lockdown measures. One in 10 of those doing insecure work, such as zero-hours contracts and agency or gig economy jobs, said they had been to work within 10 days of a positive Covid test, according to research seen by the Observer. For workers overall the proportion is around one in 25.
ReplyDeleteMore than one in nine workers said they had been ordered back to their workplace when they could have worked from home, according to the survey, carried out for the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
But MOST importantly, of course:
ReplyDeleteRobert Jenrick: statues must be protected from 'baying mob'
Communities secretary plans legal changes to require local consultation before monuments are removed
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/17/the-same-tories-who-once-held-life-sacrosanct-at-all-costs-now-rush-to-assist-the-dying
ReplyDeleteworth a read
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9156431/amp/Tory-rebels-demand-clear-road-map-ease-lockdown-March-8.html
Delete