A Roundup: Navalny, Munich Security Conference, Israel-Gaza, Voting Rights, and "gendering" in Austria

Alexej Navalny is dead

Most of the world presumably believes he was killed on orders of Vladimir Putin. The evidence for it is circumstantial but for most people it's probably an open-and-shut assumption. "Navalny's fate is part of a long series of political murders. Anyone who messes with Vladimir Putin risks their life. This is the cruel message that the Kremlin wants to send, and it is paralyzing resistance in Russian society," writes Christian Ultsch. (1)

Vadim Nikitin writes about Navalny in The Nation:

Though they are separated by decades and railed against two very different regimes, [nuclear physicist and Soviet dissident Andrei] Sakharov and Navalny had much in common. Both possessed extraordinary charisma, courage, doggedness, and moral purpose. And despite being feted in the West in quasi-messianic terms, neither quite managed to articulate a coherent political program or reach a mass domestic audience outside the tight-knit circles of the Soviet intelligentsia or the urban middle classes, respectively.

In the end, Sakharov’s inspiring but vague vision of a democracy built on pluralism and human rights could not survive contact with the mobster capitalism of the 1990s. Navalny’s dream of a “beautiful Russia of the future” based on individual liberty and rule of law crumbled in the face of violent irredentism abroad and heightened repression at home.

From Washington to Moscow, Navalny’s death was immediately exploited by the usual suspects for their own ends. Russophobes like Anne Applebaum took the opportunity to blame both Russia’s leadership and its people, as well as taking a veiled swipe at Trump supporters: “Putin killed him—because of his political success, because of his ability to reach people with the truth, and because of his talent forbreaking through the fog of propaganda that now blinds his countrymen, and some of ours as well,” Applebaum wrote in The Atlantic.

Bill Browder, a former Kremlin cheerleader turned anti-Putin crusader, used the tragedy to boast about his own prescience: “Three years ago I said President Putin was carrying out a slow motion assassination of Russia’s leading dissident Alexei Navalny,” he wrote in the Daily Mail on February 16. “Today, my worst fears were realised.” (2) [my emphasis]

Fun fact about investment banker Bill Browder, one of the most high-profile Western critics of Putin’s government: he is the grandson of Earl Browder, who was General Secretary of the US Communist Party from 1930 to 1945. (3)

Annual Munich Security Conference (MSC)

News of Navalny's untimely passing came during the annual Munich Security Conference, to which Putin was not invited this year. This may not have been entirely coincidental.

Vice President Kamala Harris was there, delivering standard platitudes with her trademark brand of “I’m-from-the-corporate-personnel-department” charisma. (4) To be fair, her presentation style is more appealing than that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But it’s always recommended to have a cup of coffee, or two, before listening to a Harris presentation.




 “Harris seemed dedicated to keeping to the administration’s recent script, which is warning against heralding in a new era of ‘isolationism,’ reports Marc Martorell Junyent. (5)

Not everyone is suffering from the Israel-Gaza War

Netanyahu’s war on the Gaza Palestinians, which now features US military attacks on several different countries in support of Netanyahu’s war does have beneficiaries. Netanyahu himself can’t be prosecuted on pending corruption charges as long as he is Prime Minister. Oh, there’s also Israel’s military-industrial complex, which profits nicely along with the American one (6):




Republicans really, really don’t want Democratic constituencies to vote

We badly need an effective new Voting Rights Act in the US. Because the Republicans just aren’t on their own going to stop trying to suppress voting by groups they think may lean Democratic. And the equal right to vote is not something they want Americans to have:

The Brennan Center just published a report, intimidation of State and Local Officeholders: The Threat to Democracy. (7)

With an companion video (8):




Austria’s conservative Chancellor can’t get his head around this whole gender thing

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer of the conservative/Christian Democratic Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) tries to appeal to the voters who don’t have their own lobbyists by promising things like: I’ll protect the Wiener Schnitzel! (This has something to do with the idea that environmentalists are all vegan hippies who want to ban meat, or something.) I’ll defend gasoline motors! (What, the Greens think that cars can run on batteries?!)

He’s also bothered by this whole newfangled thing of gender-inclusive language. By gum, if my great-great-grandpappy called it a “cell phone,” then that’s good enough for me! He wants to do away with “gendering,” by which he means gender-inclusive words. Although isn’t using non-inclusive words more “gendering”? (No, it’s not some quirk of the German word meanings; it sounds just as dumb in German.)

The Austrian news weekly Profil did a fact-check on Nehammer’s claim, “From a biological point of view, there are only two genders.”

Their conclusion? Sorry, Herr Chancellor: “From a biological point of view, there are more than two genders. Intersexuality is a reality, according to clear medical evidence. The statement of Nehammer’s is therefore false.” (9)

Notes:

(1) Ultsch, Christian (2024): Die Botschaft, die nach Nawalnys Tod weiterlebt. Die Presse am Sonntag 17.02.2024 (Accessed: 2024-20-02). My translation from German.

(2) Nikitin, Vadim (2024): Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Was Brave, Authentic, Funny, Larger Than Life. Will His Movement Survive Him? The Nation 02/20/2024. < https://www.thenation.com/article/world/russia-navalny-death-putin-liberalism/>> (Accessed: 2024-20-02).

(3) Earl Browder. Wikipedia 02/20/2024. (Accessed: 2024-20-02).

(4) Kamala Harris Promotes U.S. Leadership In The World At Munich Security Conference. Forbes Breaking News YouTube channel 02/16/2024. (Accessed: 2024-20-02).

(5) Junyent, Marc Martorell (2024): Dispatch from Munich: VP Harris warns against 'isolationism'. Responsible Statecraft 02/16/2024. (Accessed: 2024-20-02).

6) How is Israel's arms industry profiting from the war on Gaza? The Stream. Al Jazeera YouTube channel 02/20/2024. (Accessed: 2024-20-02).

(7) Ramachandran, Gowri, et. al. (2024): Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders: The Threat to Democracy (Accessed: 2024-20-02).

Introductory article: Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders 01/25/2024. (Accessed: 2024-20-02).

(8) Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders: A Threat to Democracy. Brennan Center for Justice YouTube channel 01/30/2024. (Accessed: 2024-20-02).

(9) Dzugan, Franziska (2024): Das Kanzler-Märchen von Mann und Frau. Profil 19.02.2024. (Accessed: 2024-20-02). My translation from German.

Voting Rights and Build Back Better: two 2021 priorities headed for an early showdown in the new year

The Democratic leadership is making of show of going on the offensive to pressure coal baron Joe Manchin into supporting some half-decent version of the Build Back Better plan: Alexander Bolton, Democrats set to play hardball with Manchin The Hill 12/21/21 06:00 AM EST

The fact that the Democrats are reacting publicly this way after Manchin seemingly delivered a final "no" on the BBB "reconciliation" plan, which basically involves most of Biden's first year legislative agenda, shows at a minimum they think they need to demonstrate to the Democratic base that they're actually making some effort to fight for their own side.

One result of the process we've seen of Manchinema dragging out the finalization of the BBB bill since the summer is that it sends a grim message to potential Democratic voters in 2022:

• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own programs passed.
• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own programs passed.
• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own programs passed.

The corporate media love to focus on "horse race" issues and political strategy at the expense of substantive treatment of the real interests at stake. But there are substantive interests at stake in the two major issues Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is saying he is going to force all Senators to vote on: BBB and voting rights. If the former is passed via reconciliation, it requires only a majority on the Senate. The filibuster rule will have to be amended for voting rights to pass. (In both cases, the basic assumption is that all Senate Democrats will have to vote in favor for those two sets of measures to go into effect.)

Voting rights: preserving democratic elections

For voting rights, the stakes are preserving democracy and defeating the massive Republican voting-suppression efforts that broadly follow the model of the post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow voter-suppression laws in the state of the former Confederacy.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has set a vote on exempting voting rights legislation from the filibuster rule for January 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. West Virginia coal baron Joe Manchin is still holding out at this point on not changing the filibuster rule without support from Republicans. This claim is a bad joke. Manchin knows very well Republican Senators are not going to allow voting rights legislation to pass if they can stop it

This is an interview with Chuck Schumer in which Joý Ried asks some unusually tough questions about whether he can deliver on the filibuster change: Sen. Schumer On Manchin, Sinema: We've Got To Keep Pressing Them On Voting Rights Action MSNBC 01/04/2021.

President Biden this year has defined the situation is very dramatic terms. ""It's the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history," he said in July. More recently, he declared in a commemoration speech in South Carolina (Remarks by President Biden 12/19/2021):

I’ve never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote. Never. I don’t think any of you have, on this stage, ever seen it. Not a joke.

And, folks, you know, as John Lewis said, it is the only — without the right to vote, there is no democracy. It’s not just about who gets to vote or making it easier, as we used to try to do, to make people eligible be able to vote. It’s about who gets to count the vote or whether your vote counts at all. ...

[T]his new sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion: it’s un-American, it’s undemocratic,

But this battle is not over. We must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We must. ...

And finally, we continue to confront the oldest and darkest forces in this nation: hate and racism. ...

I’ve known every major world leader in the last 40 years. I’ve spoken to over 140 heads of state since I’ve become President.

Do you know what they all ask me? “Is America going to be all right?” What about democracy in America? Did you ever think you’d be asked that question by another leader? I’m not exaggerating ...

Despite all the laws enacted through the struggles we know, we knew we could make progress. But one of things I thought and Jim [Congressman James Clyburn] probably didn’t — but I thought, Jim — I thought when we had some of those major victories, we’d finally crossed a threshold. But what I didn’t realize is you can defeat hate, but you can’t eliminate it. It just slides back under a rock. And when given oxygen by political leaders, it comes out ugly and mean as it was before.

We can’t give it any oxygen. We have to step on it. We have to respond to it. (Applause.) It’s not who we are. It’s a minority. But if the majority doesn’t speak up, it has a profound impact.

And that’s what we’ve seen the last few years. We cannot, we must not give hate any safe harbor. We have to shine the brightest light as we can on it. That’s the ultimate disinfectant: Call it out. [my emphasis]

I can remember feeling some of that exaggerated optimism in the 1990s, when I thought that for all the very obvious racism and regressive politics that were already on the national agenda, that the Southern states would not be willing to go back to Jim Crow type segregation. And while no Members of Congress that I've heard of are currently advocating segregated drinking fountains, the old "states rights" segregation of the 1960s and 1960s is obviously still alive and well and has been passed on to significant segments of subsequent generations of white people.

Nobody but corporate lobbyists and opponents of voting rights actually care about the filibuster. It's an undemocratic rule that the radicalized Republican Party now routinely uses to block Democratic-sponsored legislation. So it's good that Schumer has set a deadline for a vote. However, in practice that also makes it a make-or-break date. If that effort fails, the Democrats will keep voting rights legislation on the list of issues they include in their fundraising emails and recite in campaign speeches. But we need new federal voting rights legislation in 2021 and the Democrats failed to pass it. We can insert all the ifs, ands, and buts that we want after that. But it didn't pass. If the Jan. 17 gambit fails, in practice that will mean that voting rights legislation is dead in 2022, as well.

People can follow developments in the voting rights fight at Democracy Docket, the website of Marc Elias, who is heading the current court fights for the Democrats in the states. The Brennan Center has a great deal of information on voting rights issues, including this online petition to Senators. It's important to remember that enacting any substantive federal voting rights act right now requires changing the Senate filibuster rule. All Democratic Senators including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema support two major bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. But the Republicans are filibuster it, and there is no remotely likely scenario in which enough Republicans would agree to end debate under the filibuster rule so the laws could be sent to Biden's desk for signature.

Build Back Better: green infrastructure and rebuilding the social state

Unlike the two voting rights bills just mentioned, the BBB ("reconciliation") package has been more of a moving target since Congress began debating it. So if it does pass in something like the current form, we basically won't know which parts of the package actually made the cut. This CNN report gives some basic facts on the version of BBB that Joe Manchin recently dead last weekend: Tami Luhby and Katie Lobosco, Biden's Build Back Better plan is on ice. Here's what that means for you 12/20/2021.

It includes important (though sadly insufficient) steps toward more actively countering climate change. But it also includes other labor and social provisions that constitute a large part of Biden's own legislative agenda: guaranteed paid sick leave and family leave, continuation of child tax credits, a universal pre-K program, and others.

The "bipartisan" infrastructure bill (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, IIJA) is essentially a glorified highway bill. As David Dayen notes, " it’s one of those pieces of legislation that can simultaneously be called the biggest boost to infrastructure in U.S. history and a modest effort at the same time." The Build Back Better "reconciliation" bill is qualitatively different and includes significant elements of social infrastructure and economic policy. As Dayen puts it, "A one-time boost of investment in physical infrastructure is welcome and should be cherished. But many of the ambitions President Biden had in his initial infrastructure proposal cannot be realized through this effort." (Infrastructure Summer: The Bipartisan Bill Is Step One of Many The American Prospect 08/10/2021)

It's also worth noting that the "bipartisan" IIJA bill, also referred to as the $1 trillion bill, But only roughly half of it can be considered new spending, but does include "nearly $550 billion in new spending above what Congress was already planning to allocate for infrastructure over the next eight years." (Barbara Sprunt et al, Biden says final passage of $1 trillion infrastructure plan is a big step forward NPR 11/06/2021)

Since a significant portion of the IIJA deals with familiar kinds of physical infrastructure and is a multiple-year bill, how much the public will be able to associate obvious benefits from IIJA projects with the Biden Administration's passage of the bill during the 2022 election year. Adie Tomer et al note that while "over half of new spending is transportation-focused," it also includes "[e]ntirely new programs have been authorized to address essential gaps in our nation’s current infrastructure funding, like resilience." (America has an infrastructure bill. What happens next? Brookings 11/09/2021)

AOC on dealing with Manchin-style good-ole-boy politics

Good segment from last week with AOC telling the Senate and the President that they need to stop playing good-ole-boy games and get serious about enacting voting-rights legislation and the Build Back Better program. And she's right. : We Are Beyond The Time For Something On Voting Rights To Pass 12/20/2021

Lisa Hagen describes the status of the fight for voting rights legislation in The Democrats’ Never-Ending Battle on Voting Rights U.S. News 12/23/2021

Without Republican support, Democrats’ best shot at getting legislation through the upper chamber is to lower the threshold to overcome filibusters from 60 to 51 votes – a tactic that requires a rules change. No small feat in itself, their biggest obstacle to making the change may be presented by their own members who don’t support such a move, dimming the prospects for passage.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York is vowing that Democrats will press forward on voting rights early next year, even if they have to change the rules on their own. If all 50 Democrats can get behind a substantive rules change – support they currently don’t have – they significantly raise their chances of pushing through voting reforms.

That remains the biggest open question for the party and one they discussed as a caucus during a virtual meeting on Tuesday night. On it, Schumer said the Senate will vote on a rules change regarding the filibuster if Republicans still block voting rights legislation in January.

And in a Wednesday night interview with ABC News, Biden went further than he has before, definitively saying he supports making an “exception” to nix the 60 votes to break a filibuster for voting rights. [my emphasis]

A tense and disappointing week for Democrats and supporters of democracy

"It's the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history." - Joe Biden 07/13/2021 on the widespread Republican voter-suppression legislation in 2020.

This has not been an inspiring week for Democratic Sen. Angus King talked about Republican obstructionism and how toxic the always-bad filibuster rule in the Senate has became in the hands of a radicalized Republican Party in an interview with Rachel Maddow, Continued Republican Abuse Of Filibuster Begins To Change Minds On Reform In Senate MSNBC 10/21/2021

On Wednesday, the Republicans used the filibuster rule to black a vote on the For the People Act, the version of voting-rights legislation sponsored by West Virginia coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin, who claimed he could get enough Republicans to vote for it to pass it without changing the filibuster rule. (Thje Brennen Center has a helpful summary of the current varieties voting rights legislation being blocked by Republicans and by Democrats who refuse to exempt them from the filibuster rule: Key Differences Between the For the People Act and the Freedom to Vote Act 10/14/2021.

At this point, Biden is specifying a variety of program reductions in his §3 trillion (over 10 years) "reconciliation bill" - without any clear indication that the main Democratic obstructionist, coal baron Manchin and professional weirdo Kyrsten Sinema, are willing to accept them and support Biden's infrastructure bill (Biden abruptly accelerates his involvement in agenda talks Washington Post 10/20/2021)

... those working closely with Biden or familiar with his meetings say that the president is now more clearly setting guidelines for what should stay in his social-safety-net bill and what will have to go as it gets whittled down from $3.5 trillion to $1.9 trillion or less. These guidelines do not carry an ideological cast, the people said, but rather seem aimed at shaping a deal that can pass.

The part about no "ideological cast" is a telling bit of stenography. The article continues:

In some recent meetings, Biden has acknowledged that the Clean Electricity Performance Plan, an ambitious but controversial part of his climate change agenda, probably will not be in the final bill. He noted that the child tax credit, which has nearly halved child poverty this year, will probably be extended only for one year.

In Washington Beltway-Speak there is nothing "ideological" about neglecting to fight the climate catastrophe or keeping child poverty higher than it needs to be. Those are just practical measures that are part of the political horse-race competition.

The article indicates that Biden and the Democratic Congressional leaders are pushing for a decision this month. I hope they stick to it. At this point, Biden and the leadership are looking like they're just getting slapped around in the negotiations by Manchinema. We're at the point where the leadership needs to give Manchinema a final take-it-or-leave-it offer that provides clear and immediate tangible benefits to ordinary voters. Then Manchin and Sinema will have to decide whether they want to keep functioning as Democratic legislators or become the villains of the year for all other Democrats.

According to The Hill, Democrats are putting a hopeful spin on this. (Mike Lillis, Democrats see light at end of tunnel on Biden agenda 10/21/2021)

David Dayen is much more cautiously optimistic. (Democrats Abandon Middle Class on Build Back Better Resolution The American Prospect 10/20/2021) But he has a very good explanation of the political risks of setting up popular programs but with long phase-ins and also of means-testing on them. Anything that is means-tested is something the Republicans will attempt to stigmatize as "welfare." Because Social Security and Medicare are set up as universal programs, they avoid that label. The means-tested Medicaid program, Medicaid, on the other hand, has to constantly struggle with it.

But one way or the other, the Democrats have to bring this phase on infrastructure and voting rights to an end.

If Biden is not going to be able to get any more of his programmatic legislation enacted in 2021-2, he and the Dems will need to take a new approach and rely much more heavily on Executive actions and building up for the 2022 campaigns to mobilize a Democratic electorate to whom they can't deliver either the Build Back Better program of even minimal substantive legislation to protect voting rights.

And that makes it even more important for the Justice Department to proceed unhindered by political considerations, or by some assumption of impunity for Republican criminals, against the organizers and participants in the January 6 insurrection and the various other crimes of which he know during the Trump Administration. Joe Conason has concerns even on that score: What Merrick Garland Must Do Now National Memo 10/17/2021

The Democrats have to pass the voting rights bill

Tom Sullivan has an important warning for Biden and the Democrats (What Biden must unlearn Hullabaloo 07/26/2021):

Biden spent decades as a senator. But he is not a legislator anymore. He is a chief executive. He must unlearn some of what he learned in the Senate to do the job he has now. He has convinced himself his reelection and Democrats’ fortunes in 2022 depend on enacting a massive infrastructure bill. But he has to engage on voting rights before his lack of attention loses him the support of the base that won him election in 2020 and enables lasting damage to the republic. His new job requires more than bringing home the bacon.

Democrats lost 948 state legislative seats during the last Democratic presidency after Obama abandoned both Dean’s 50-state strategy and dismantled his own juggernaut of a campaign organization, as some believe, to keep organized lefties from interfering with his personal legislative priorities. Biden seems not to have learned from that.

The Democrats have to pass a robust bill to defend voting rights, i.e., the For The People Act. And they have to do it this year. They can't afford to screw this one up.

My response to a DNC fundraising e-mail

I got a fundraising e-mail today from "act.democrats.org" (Democratic National Committee) bragging about the child payments that just began, "This is the American Rescue Plan at work, no thanks to a single Republican in Congress."

My response back to them:

Your fundraising e-mail says this is "no thanks to a single Republican in Congress." But the Democratic President doesn't seem to be willing to say it. And he's obviously not willing to fight against the filibuster to pass the For The People Act in the face of what he himself calls "the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history."

So what are you raising money for? To get even bigger majorities in the House and Senate so they can keep surrendering to Republicans even on "the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history"?

I encourage people to donate to the Democratic Party and I do so myself.

But I'm interested in getting constructive policies accomplished, not in supporting a protection-in-office racket for lazy encumbents who won't fight for their own side.

I would encurage people to support local and state Democratic Party organizations if you see they are doing something constructive for Democratic policies.

There are also activists groups, including those fighting for children's right and voting rights, who actually are pushing for results. Much better to support those than rote fundraising appeals from the Democratic National Committee at this point. There are plenty of corporate donors willing to do that. An d why not? The DNC actually listens to them.

Biden, the Democrats, and voting rights in 2021-2 Is this what surrender looks like?

President Joe Biden gave a speech yesterday evening that he probably hopes will be remembered as one of his most important and effective, Biden speaks on voting rights,

A PBS Newshour report on the speech is here, :PBS post-speech report: Biden calls GOP state voting restrictions ‘un-American’ 07/ 13/2021.

The official text of Biden's speech is here, Remarks by President Biden on Protecting the Sacred, Constitutional Right to Vote.

Here are some of the things that the President of the United States said about the ongoing and fast-moving voter suppression laws the Republicans are passing across the country:

• "[T]he For The People Act [is] a national imperative."
• The GOP is engaged nationwide in "election subversion" embodied in "odious laws."
• "It’s the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history."
• Georgia just passed a "vicious anti-voting law" that is " racially discriminatory."
• "Are you on the side of truth or lies; fact or fiction; justice or injustice; democracy or autocracy? That’s what it’s coming down to."

But do a quick search and see if you can find the word "filibuster" in it.

And that's the problem. Unless the filibuster rule is abolished or adjusted in a way that allows a vote on the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the two laws which Biden is nominally supporting in this speech, they won't pass.

That's why my first reaction to the speech is that it sounds like a de facto surrender in the face of what the President calls "the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history."

But it is full of phrases and clips that can be used in campaign ads and fundraising letters and pitches to sell voting-rights merch.

VP Kamala Harris offered this bland snippet of text on Twitter:

In 2020, more voters cast a ballot than ever before. Now, there are some pushing new laws across the country to make it harder to vote.

We are fighting back against these efforts.

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 13, 2021

I just don't believe this is serious.

The Democrats control the White House and both Houses of Congress. If Biden and Harris and the Congressional Democrats are serious about blocking what Biden calls "election subversion" in that speech, they will pass those two pieces of legislation. Otherwise, we're stuck with the reality that the Democrats control the White House and both Houses of Congress and can't pass their own legislation. Even legislation as critical as this.

How serious is the Biden-Harris Administration about its own agenda, especially on voting rights?

What the Biden-Harris Administration will turn out to be is obviously still an open question. There have a been some very constructive moves, like the COVID relief and stimulus bills. Having foreign policy run by a President who is not primarily focused on benefitting his own private businesses thereby is a good thing, by definition.

But At Least They Are Better Than Trump is way too low a standard for any Presidential administration, and certainly for a Democratic one.

"LBJ didn't give up. He famously told his old friend & mentor Richard Russell...who was deeply hostile to civil rights...that he planned to pass the thing & break a filibuster 'without changing so much as a comma.'"@ryangrim on what we need from Biden.https://t.co/krm5SOxKZ8

— Kai Newkirk #EndTheFilibuster (@kai_newkirk) July 12, 2021

This AP report gives a strong hint that Biden and Harris may have abandoned the idea of a new voting right law this year, As Frustration Mounts, a White House Push on Voting Rights 07/09/2021:

President Joe Biden met with civil rights leaders Thursday in the West Wing, while Vice President Kamala Harris announced $25 million in new spending by the Democratic National Committee on actions to protect voting access ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Biden and his team stress ongoing legal efforts to safeguard voting rights. They’ve also promised a major legislative push after Senate Republicans blocked a sweeping election overhaul last month. The president has told reporters he plans on “speaking extensively” on voting rights and that he would be “going on the road on this issue.”

Friday, the White House announced that Biden would travel to Philadelphia on Tuesday to discuss “actions to protect the sacred, constitutional right to vote.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president will “go to the birthplace of democracy to make the case for the moral imperative of making voting more accessible to people across the country.”

He goes into more detail in this video, Ryan Grim: Registering Voters Is NOT A RESPONSE To Voter Suppression The Hill 07/12/2021:

The segment includes this observation:

.@ryangrim:"Compare LBJ's approach to Biden's. When LBJ was being counseled to just drop the issue by his advisors...he shot back, 'well what the hell is the presidency for?' Biden’s answer so far is that the presidency is for selling voting rights merch." https://t.co/Mxf05MgipH pic.twitter.com/c07seyzl4M

— Halalflow (@halalflow) July 12, 2021

There are other critical priorities for legislation, including a substantive infrastruture bill and a real beginning on a Green New Deal infrastructure effort.

But voting rights legislation is critical. And ConservaDems are quick to start mocking demands to fight for legislation that may not be a sure thing as "Green Lantern" fantasy. But if the President isn't willing to fight for legislation to prevent the most widespread attempt at racist voter suppression since the 1870s, then he's just not serious about it.

Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina recently told Mehdi Hasan that he was hopeful that substantive voting-rights legislation would pass. But in the same interview, he went on to make the bizarre statement that the defund-the-police notion has a "chokehold" (?!?) on the Democratic Party. Jim Clyburn: “Defund The Police” Has “Chokehold” On Democrats 07/09/2021:

The combination of not being serious about passing voting rights legislation and sneering at activists protesting against police murdering people is a bad one. The political danger is not that constituencies like African-Americans who currently lean Democratic will suddenly take a liking to Republican that are babbling in a cult-like way about "critical race theory." The danger is they will be discouraged or disgusted enough that they won't vote in their usual numbers. And in 2022, the Democrats seriously need their voters to turn out in number higher than the usual rate for midterm elections.
Mark Elias is leading the legal effort that is at least nominally supported by establishment Democrats to counter Republican voter-suppression laws in the courts. But it doesn't replace a voting right law. You can follow his Twitter feed for updates:

If you want to know what Congress can do to prevent the GOP from rigging process of certifying elections, here you go.https://t.co/r9uEXlvwPC

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) July 13, 2021

In the article linked there, he emphasizes how important and urgent new legislation is:

Though Congress has taken notice, progress has been difficult. While the House of Representatives passed the For the People Act (H.R. 1), which would preempt many of the worst of these new state laws, passing it in the closely divided Senate has so far proved more difficult. Additional legislation is also in the works — including the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore a critical portion of the Voting Rights Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court.

While most of the legislative focus has been on the registration and voting process, significantly less attention has been paid to another point of vulnerability in our election system — the rules for tabulating and certifying elections. The right to vote is hollow if it does not include the right to have your vote counted and, if your candidate receives the highest number of votes, to have her assume the office to which she was elected. Republicans are taking aim at this vulnerability. [emphasis in original]

Democrats, voting rights, corruption, and stepping on their own message

The Young Turks made a good report and discussion on an important case in which the Democratic House took the unusual-for-them step of passing a bill that is both substantively good and excellent for them politially, an voting and ethics reform package that would counter Republican voter-suppression tactics and put some new limits on corruption through campaign donations. As they explain, all Republicans voted against it. So it gives the Democrats an obvious win by getting the House Republicans on record as being pro-corrupütion and against protecting elections, right?

Mitch McConnell Admits Defeat 03/08/2019:

Ana Kasparian notes that "the media doesn't care" about policy issues. But the panel goes on to discuss the ways that Democrats could use this bill as a way to generate controversy against the Republicans. Because, as Cenk Uygur notes, "if the media doesn't like policy, which it doesn't, they love controversy."

But not only did Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic establishment not take an aggressive strategy for promoting the controversy of Repüublicans being pro-corruption and anti-clean elections. They gave the Republicans and the media the Ilhan Omar flap to crowd out the message the Democrats should have been emphasizing.

The Democrats do something that's not only right but that the Democratic base finds attractive and exciting. But not only to they stumble in setting up the issue against the Republicans. They went did one more favor for the Republicans by publicly bashing Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with concocted outrage over her mild public criticism of the Israel lobby. Which was a controversy against a Democrat which the Democratic establishmenbt in the House leadership headed by Pelosi generated themselves. And, of course, that gave the media a controversy to bloviate over, one that worked against the Democrats.

The wonder is not that the Democratic Party loses so often despite its (official) policies being more popular than those of the Republicans. The wonder is that this Democratic Party ever wins anything at all.

Cenk Uygur also did this interview with Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies on the Omar flap, Ilhan Omar Controversy Getting Out Of Control 03/08/2019:

My favorite weekly political commentary segment to take measure of the state of conventional political wisdom of the moment, the PBS Newshour Political Wrap, illustrates how badly the Democrats fumbled with their mini-jihad against Ilhan Omar, Shields and Gerson on Democrats’ bigotry resolution, Trump investigations 03/08/2019 (transcript here):

They talked about the Omar controversy, Trump's whining over Congressional investigations, and whether Joe Biden would run for President again. The Democrats' impressive bill to protect elections and reduce corruption didn't come up.

Michael Gerson, sitting in for Bobo in this segment, seemed unusually agitated, often speaking in such a weepy-sounding voice that I thought he might go all Meghan McCain on us.

Mark Shields could have been better on the Omar issue. But he was more good than bad, saying things like this:

Well, I guess I think the speaker had a — didn't seek this fight, didn't want it.

And, certainly, it's not something the Democrats — the Democrats had to confront it. There's no question about it. But, I mean, we're talking about a president, Judy — let's be very blunt about it — who, when the white supremacists marched through the streets of Charlotte with torches, saying, "Jews will not replace us," said there's good people on both sides.

I mean, so this is — if you want to see anti-Semitism ...