July 19, 2018
The rot is obvious now. After the events of the last week, anyone with a pulse knows that from Trump down to the lowliest precinct captain, the Republican Party is nothing more than a collection of corrupt, sleazy racists happy to sell our sovereignty out to Russia. We have known for more than a year that the Russians actively interfered in our electoral process in 2016 and we know that, in the estimation of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, they are continuing to do so. As spelled out in the Special Counsel’s 11 count indictment last Friday, Russian interference went beyond misleading social media ads and theft of DNC e-mails, and extended to theft of voter files and attempts to breach state level voting infrastructure.
Republicans in Congress have refused to lift a finger to safeguard our election systems because they too, were beneficiaries of Russian cyberattacks. Although Trump was shown definitive evidence that Putin and the Russian government were behind the attacks two weeks before the Inauguration, he has consistently lied and said that Russia was not behind them (Source: “From the Start, Trump Has Muddied a Clear Message: Putin Interfered,” by David E. Sanger and Matthew Rosenberg, The New York Times, 7/18/18).
We have seen the damage that an unfettered gang of greedy fascists can wreak in a mere 18 months. The Republicans in power will not be dissuaded by decorum or appeals to fairness. Those who support them will not be convinced to abandon that support no matter how many earnest profiles of racists in the heartland The New York Times publishes. We need to be clear eyed and unsentimental about who these people are, and willing to be both dogged and relentless in our strategy.
We know that ensuring a Democratic victory in the midterms is critical and we also know that rampant voter suppression and vulnerable state voting infrastructure raises the possibility that we could lose, despite the widespread unpopularity of the Republican agenda. Therefore, we need to be surgical in our approach. Swingleft.org has identified 78 competitive House districts and we only need to take 24 in order to win the House. 16 of those districts are in New York, New Jersey and California alone. Thanks to a state Supreme Court decision which threw out their severely gerrymandered district map, Pennsylvania has 3 additional swing districts and one additional Democratic one (Source: “What Pennsylvania’s New Congressional map means for 2018, by Andrew Prokop, Vox.com, 3/19/18). Every one of us must commit to adopting the closest swing district and working every week to flip it from red to blue. That can be canvassing, phone calls or cash, but doing nothing is not an option.
Outside of states controlled by Democrats, we know that voter suppression is an acute problem. Since the Supreme Court neutered the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v. Holder and eliminated the pre-clearance requirement, Republican dominated states have enacted a dizzying array of measures designed explicitly to disenfranchise black, Latino and college student voters. Voteriders.org is a non-profit organization designed to combat voter suppression on the ground. They partner with local organizations around the country to help voters comply with onerous i.d. requirements to ensure that they can be properly registered. Go to their site to donate or volunteer.
Of course, all of these efforts will be futile if Russia hacks electronic voting machines to alter vote tallies. The best defense against this is to insist on paper ballots. Lobby your state legislators to mandate the use of paper ballots. A list of methods in use on a state by state basis is available at Ballotpedia.
Although everything listed above is painstaking, laborious work, we have no choice but to do it. After all, it’s only our autonomy, equality and prosperity at stake.
#Swingleft
#Paperballots
#Vote