This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020.
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Of all the things that dismayed us during Donald Trump’s four years of non-governance, especially disheartening was the lying. The number of untruths was staggering. The Washington Post documented 30,573 lies, and CNN underscored the most notable. Small lies and misrepresentations turned into huge ones, as Trump claimed Obama’s veterans’ health choice reforms, inflated the too high trade deficit with China, said for four years that his health care bill was about to be released, and falsely accused others to protect Putin. No crowd was ever small, no opponent noble, and no autocrat unimpressive.
It is no surprise that the small lies turned into big lies that have killed people. The insurrection of January 6 would never have happened without the election fraud Trump started perpetrating months before the election and continued until officer Brian Sicknick lay dying after the assault. Trump quietly received the vaccine, but he intentionally created the climate in which millions of Americans refused to receive it. Thus, he bears responsibility for those who will no longer be on the face of the earth.
Getting Pinocchio to recognize his nose is a lost cause. It is even a possibility that the Twitter-less Trump will continue to fade. Whatever level of super-spreading his serial untruths generate, we can battle back against the related made-up stories of Trumpian Republican Senators. Someone should tell Mike Pence that as insurrectionists screamed “hang Mike Pence” Ron Johnson was not worried about safety, since those invading the Capitol were not from Black Lives Matter or Antifa. Strangely Johnson had said in a previous statement that some of the insurrectionists were Antifa, wearing MAGA hats to blend in. He needs to settle on a single untruth, rather than trying out multiple stories.
The newest intentional prevarications have to do with Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Republicans deployed Senator John Barasso of Wyoming to say that only 9% of the package is devoted to “defeating the virus.” The artful wording leaves out efforts to revive the economy and help people whom the pandemic has crushed, bringing us to a total of 85% of the package. We can surmise that Barasso knows that already.
Looming over all this obfuscation is Trump’s big lie of election fraud. Even those Republicans who are ashamed of the events of January 6 are trying to breathe life into the fraudulent fraud claims being made in state legislatures across the country. In nearly every state, the Republican dream is for fewer people to vote! The sweeping Democratic response is HR 1, the For the People Act, which has passed the House. It will not get the necessary 60 votes to move forward in the Senate. It is a strong bill in its restoration of voting rights guarantees and its important tackling of campaign funding. It is not without its flaws, because it affords the federal government preeminence in matters of voter registration and the casting of ballots that heretofore have been left to the states. How would that have turned out when Donald Trump was president?
In the absence of a new federal law, there are wars being fought over voting in every state capital. The greatest Republican emphasis is on restricting mail in balloting, requiring further signature checks and limiting when and where polls are open. The number of separate proposals that would suppress voting is frightening. The outstanding Brennan Center is tracking them all.
It is good to remember that the threats to us differ greatly depending upon the state. Thus, understanding which states to prioritize is an important part of this battle. For instance, some of these anti-democratic proposals outlined by the Brennan Center are in states where we have no chance of electing a Senator or President, such as Wyoming or Idaho. Even in these states we shouldn’t forget that local candidates or even Congressional candidates can be hampered by the suppressive actions.
Happily, scores of these proposals are in states with Democratic governors who will veto them if they make their way to her or his desk. The especially good news is this protection is available to us in battleground states, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Virginia. The first three of these are providing us juicy opportunities to flip Senate seats in 2022.
Alas, there are 23 states where the vote-suppression can accelerate because suppressors control both branches of the state legislature and the Governor’s office.
Of these, eight are especially significant in the voting rights battle. This is where our greatest immediate efforts should be directed. In these cases, Republicans who control the state capital are trying to restrict voting to give them a better chance of defending or picking up seats in the United States Senate to make Mitch McConnell majority leader once again. It is difficult to fathom anyone wanting such a thing.
These states include Ohio and Iowa, where Republican Senators Rob Portman and Charles Grassley will retire; Florida, Missouri, and South Dakota, where Donald Trump might intervene with his own candidate and provide us an opening; and, Arizona, Georgia, and New Hampshire, where we must defend the seats of Mark Kelley, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Maggie Hassan.
As the Brennan Center emphasizes the suppression strategies are many. They include but are not limited to eliminating “no excuse” mail in voting, eliminating or reducing ballot collection sites, expanding signature verification, reducing early voting (including after church on Sundays in Georgia), and expanding purging of the voter list. This is what you do when you are worried that you cannot win a free and fair election.
We can do these three things right now to fight back against these injustices.
| 1) Be Guided by the Best | |
 | There is no one in the country who is doing better work to protect the right to vote than the Brennan Center for Justice. They have a range of e-newsletters that will keep you abreast of the challenges we must confront. And, there is no one doing better on the work on the ground than Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight, battling against “Jim Crow in a suit and tie” in Georgia. They have expanded to Texas and are national leaders in the articulation of what ought to be done. It is easy to get their action alerts. For those who have it to give, these are both good places to send money. |
2) Find Your Ideal State Partner | |
 | It is always good to understand what is going on in your own state, so chicanery can be stopped. It is not as easy to identify the best partner in fighting suppression in Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Missouri, South Dakota, Arizona and New Hampshire (with Georgia well covered by Fair Fight. Among the promising suspects are Indivisible chapters, League of Women Voters chapters, and state Democratic Party organizations. Among the national organizations, All Voting is Local is worthy of examination. |
3) Expand Corporate Support | |
 | With Stacey Abrams’ pointed encouragement, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce has discouraged the Georgia State Legislature’s voter suppression proposals. The two key companies in that effort are Coca Cola and Home Depot, both interested in their own economic prospects and neither wanting to see Georgia continue its 150-year path of suppression. Thank the Georgia chamber by emailing their governmental affairs manager Lisa Sherman lsherman@gachamber.com In addition to commending her, you can beseech her to tell her story to other state Chambers. |
White males comprise a lower percentage of voters than at any time in our nation’s history. Celebrate and defend the still growing diversity of our country!
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
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