November 12, 2018
Since Democrats’ decisive victories on Tuesday, Trump has responded by waging a non-stop assault on decency and the Rule of Law. He began with a frontal attack on the First Amendment, revoking the credentials of a Latino journalist and hurling racist invective at three esteemed Black women journalists. As the Democrats racked up more Congressional victories, Trump ratcheted up the vitriol— proving that he is nothing more than a rotting mass of ignorance and acrimony, displaying both bottomless cruelty and a basic lack of knowledge in a tweet about the devastating California wildfires. Trump then proceeded to embarrass us on the world stage by being a no-show at the commemorative ceremony at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery on 100th Anniversary of the Armistice because of rain, (Source: “Critics pile on after Trump cancels visit to U.S. military cemetery outside Paris, citing weather,” by David Nakamura, Seung Min Kim and James McAuley, The Washington Post, 11/10/18).
Candidly, embarrassment on the world stage is the least of our problems. On Saturday, the race was called for Harley Rouda, who defeated Putin’s puppet Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher. Kyrsten Sinema has opened up an insurmountable lead over Martha McSally and the margin continues to narrow in the Georgia gubernatorial race. As Democratic victories continue to mount, Republicans have waged an all-out effort to keep every vote from being counted, showing their contempt for the Constitutional principle of “One person, one vote.”
But nothing has provoked Republican ire more than Florida. In both the Senate and Governor’s races, as the count continued, the gap narrowed enough to trigger mandatory recounts in both races. Particularly in the Rick Scott/Bill Nelson matchup, given that the gap is .15%, there is the very real possibility that when Democratic Broward and Palm Beach Counties are tallied, Nelson will emerge the winner, holding Republican Senate pickups to one, down from the 4 they thought they had Tuesday night.
As a result, Republicans are running scared, and as we all know, cornered animals are the most dangerous ones. Scott is abusing power with abandon, first calling in law enforcement, who found no evidence of violations of the law (Source: “After Scott requested investigation, law enforcement says no voter fraud allegations found,” by Matt Dixon, Politico.com, 11/9/18). Never one to be deterred by the facts, Scott threw around wild accusations of voter fraud and an attempt to “steal” the election, conjuring up racist stereotypes of corrupt Black politicians straight out of “Birth of A Nation.” These charges were quickly echoed by the likes of Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, and amplified uncritically by journalists like Chuck Todd.
The result has been a predictable clusterf—k, with Republican operatives and opportunistic racists like Matt Gaetz descending on Broward County, hoping to intimidate the County election officials into stopping the count, in a repeat of the Brooks Brother Riots of 2000, (Source: “The state that brought you the Presidential recount in 2000 will try to outdo itself in 2018,” by David Smiley and Alex Harris, The Miami Herald, 11/8/18).
In both Georgia and Florida, backed by the President and the national Republican Party, elected officials are stopping at nothing to suppress Democratic votes in general and Black votes in particular. Any doubt that Republicans view the Black exercise of political power as per se illegitimate, and seek nothing less than to establish Jim Crow 2.0, should be dispelled by the ugly remarks made by Mississippi Senate candidate (and incumbent Senator) Cindy Hyde-Smith. At a campaign event in Tupelo, Mississippi, Hyde-Smith “joked” that if a supporter, “invited me to a public hanging, I’d be in the front row.” Given that her opponent is Black former Congressman and Clinton administration official, Mike Espy, the implication was unmistakable, (Source: “A Senator from Mississippi joked about ‘public hanging.’ Her black opponent called it ‘reprehensible,’” by Michael Brice-Saddler,The Washington Post, 11/11/18). Given that Mississippi had the highest rate of lynchings of any state, the threat was anything but veiled.
It is long past time for those of us not directly affected by this blatant voter suppression (and those in the media covering it) to stop treating it like a partisan sideshow where “both sides” are merely jockeying for position. We’d better wake up to the fact that this attack on Black people’s civil rights is a frontal assault on democracy that endangers all Americans. I, for one, am not going to wait until they bring out the rope.
#ONEPERSONONEVOTE
#COUNTEVERYVOTE
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