The people rose up and took power back for themselves

Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community and independent pundit posed a thought experiment. If you were hired by Putin or billionaires and your job was make the country vulnerable to takeover, what steps would you take? I’ve heard a variation of that question: Would you do anything different from what the nasty guy is doing now? Hartmann gives a twelve step program to accomplish that task (quite different from the programs to treat addiction). I’ll list some of them and let you read his article for the rest. The whole list is painfully familiar – we’re living through the takeover. 1. Turn America from “Out of Many, One” into warring factions. 2. Create a huge pool of mostly white men who are mad because they feel locked out of the American Dream. Destroy unions. Gut the social safety net. Ship manufacturing overseas. Demonize “the other.” Ban books on diversity. 3. Destroy people’s faith in the news. Loudly proclaim “leftwing bias.” 4. Shatter faith in reality. Challenge science. Spread conspiracy theories. 6. Shatter faith in elected officials by legalizing the buying of legislators. 11. Seize control of legislative and judicial branches so a tyrant’s corruption and election rigging is never held to account.

All of these twelve simple steps have been used by every despot in history, from the ancient Roman Empire through the kings of the Dark Ages to the fascists of early 20th century Europe to today’s strongmen including Orbán, Putin, Erdoğon, El-Sisi, Maduro, Netanyahu, and Modi. ... The good news is that multiple countries have elected men to leadership who tried to run through this list and were stopped before they could finish the job. Instead of letting their leaders turn their nations into permanent autocracies, the people rose up and took the power back for themselves and their democracies. They include Ukraine, the Philippines, Brazil, Poland, Zambia, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Peru, South Korea, Romania, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Gambia, Malawi, Moldova, and South Africa.

We can look away or we can act. Lisa Needham of Kos reported that even though the government is shut down the construction of the ballroom for the White House continues. The reason is it isn’t funded by the government, but by private donations (also known as bribes). Critics, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, see this as a bad public relations blunder, cutting support for the poor while building a playground for the rich. Newsom tweeted an image of the nasty guy as Marie Antoinette with the words, “NO HEALTH CARE FOR YOU PEASANTS, BUT A BALLROOM FOR THE QUEEN!” Kos of Kos noted this government shutdown is because Republicans need Democrats to vote for it – they need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Then Kos lists several recent cases in which the filibuster was, for a specific situation, eliminated. Both parties did it. Republicans aren’t talking about doing it now. If the filibuster was gone they would have enough votes. That means Republicans want the shutdown. Alex Samuels of Kos reported that the nasty guy is threatening Republican governors who don’t redraw Congressional districts to give Republicans more seats. The threat is he will back primary challengers when they’re next up for reelection. Those threatened include governors of New Hampshire, Indiana, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, and Florida. Missouri is already somewhere in the process. Some Republicans fear the backlash from independents isn’t worth the potential gain of new seats. They cite polls in Texas showing a majority of independents oppose the redrawn maps there. Adelita Grijalva, Democrat, won a special election to fill a Congressional seat for Arizona. Needham reports that Speaker Johnson is delaying her swearing in, giving reasons that didn’t apply when Republicans won special elections. The reason appears to be simple. Hers would be the last signature needed on a petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. I had written about younger Democrats challenging the party elite. Here’s another story like that. Alix Breeden of Kos wrote about Saikat Chakrabarti. He had been chief of staff for Alexandria Ocsaio-Cortez among other important jobs. The person he is challenging is a big one – Nancy Pelosi. Chakrabarti sees Democrats who are “doing stuff” and others “doing nothing.” That second group appears to find security in doing as little as possible and with plans to win off the backlash against the nasty guy and Republicans. He sees Pelosi in the “doing nothing” category. Chakrabarti recognizes that if Democrats don’t offer a compelling vision many people won’t vote at all. He wanted to explore why Democrats lost in 2024, what they did wrong, and how could they change. Helplessness can’t be the message. And that is a challenge to the “do nothing” camp. Pelosi was first elected to Congress when Chakrabarti was a year old. He’s 39 now. His parents were extremely poor. He grew up middle class. He got a job in Silicon Valley and says he got rich because the company he worked for did extremely well. He says it is like winning the lottery. Business Insider did an article on him and he says that exposed him as a class traitor. He knows teachers and firefighters work harder than he ever did without making the money he has. They can’t afford a home in San Francisco and won’t have a secure retirement. He sees the system is rigged against them. Breeden did a lengthy interview with Chakrabarti. He sounds like a fine candidate. And it sounds like Pelosi, who has done many fine things in her decades in Congress, has reached the end of her time. Jen Fifield and Carter Walker, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos discussed the debate over clean voter rolls. The voter rolls of a city need to be updated because citizens move and die. The question is “how to ensure that only eligible voters are registered without endangering voting rights.” The article was prompted because the Department of Justice has sent letters to states asking for their voter lists and how they maintain them. The DoJ wants to enforce the parts of the federal law the nasty guy wants to prioritize. We can guess what his priorities are. States are pushing back. This is the core of the matter:

House Republicans claimed dirty voter rolls enable fraud, and said ensuring that only eligible voters are on the list increases election security and voter confidence. They dismissed the idea that their efforts are meant to purge certain types of eligible voters from the rolls, such as people of color.

Though the policies they propose very much show they intend to purge certain types of eligible voters.

House Democrats made it clear that they, too, don’t want ineligible voters, such as dead people or noncitizens, on the list. But they questioned why Republicans would want to take any actions that could potentially disenfranchise eligible people, citing recent incidents of state list maintenance actions that led to eligible voters being removed.

Maintaining rolls is difficult because our voting is decentralized. It’s run by states, townships, and cities. There is no national database, though states have databases. Cities must rely on official notices of death. But moves to another state are difficult to track. Even if rolls are poorly maintained, fraud is still quite rare. The effort to purify the voter rolls has come to Michigan. Back in 2000 we passed a voter bill of rights, allowing vote by mail, early voting, and registering through election day. Naturally, Republicans are outraged that voting was made easier. There is an effort right now to gather signatures to put a proposal on the ballot that would do such things as require a birth certificate when registering to vote. Of course, the ballot summary is misleading. If you’re in Michigan, please decline to sign that one (but please do sign the proposal to get money out of politics). Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos titled Fighting for Democracy. It shows unafraid Dems, cartoonists, late night hosts, never Trump Republicans, uncowed journalists, and everyday Americans. Randy Bish posted a cartoon showing a military general with a chest full of insignia. He says, “Am I insulted? A drunk and a draft dodger just told me that I need to do better.”