Without Clean Elections There Is No America
By Thom Hartmann A...
The polls all show that Joe Biden is winning the presidential race in a landslide, but Americans are worried that Donald Trump will nonetheless steal this election.Americans have been told to tolerate the fact that a man who lost an election by 3 million votes sits in the White House.
It's astonishing that we treat as normal the possibility that massive voter suppression in a couple of states can lead to the loser of an election becoming president.
It's bizarre how little value our news media assigns to democracy itself.
Americans tolerate the Republican Party engaging in voter caging, throwing people off the voting rolls because they didn't send back a postcard.
Americans tolerate the Republican Party making the very process of voting long, tortured, and difficult, particularly for working people paid by the hour.
Americans tolerate the Republican Party sending armed gunmen with swastikas and confederate flags to intimidate people at polling places.
Americans tolerate an administration that has destroyed over 600 multi-million-dollar high-speed mail sorting machines so mail-in ballots won't arrive in time to be counted.
The Trump administration and the Republican Party have committed a number of horrible acts.
They've put refugee children in cages, and kept them there for years. They've minimized an infectious disease that has killed over 200,000 Americans. They've gutted funding for the environment and and worker safety. They're destroying our national parks and selling off our public lands to frackers, drillers, and miners. The list goes on and on.
But none of this is as destructive to this nation as ripping apart our elections.
The Republicans on the Supreme Court just made it much harder for mail-in ballots to be counted in South Carolina. In Texas, the governor has ordered that there can only be one, single ballot drop box for a city of over 4 million people. And Trump is constantly telling us that the election is rigged and the vote can't be trusted, a naked attempt to demoralize voters and diminish faith in America.
We live in a democratic republic. For such a form of government to work, elections must be fair and accurate.
The GOP's Jim Crow efforts to suppress the vote in dozens of Republican-controlled states from Florida to South Carolina to Wisconsin to Texas are all, in actuality, efforts to suppress democracy.
Trump's Republican party today is threatening the very core of American values and the American way of life.
Without a functioning democracy, nations inevitably spiral downwards into autocracy and authoritarianism, and eventually into tyranny. We've seen this in country after country, as strongman dictators rise around the globe to destroy democracies.
This year, it's not just Republicans, Democrats and third parties on the ballot. It's the fate and future of democracy and a republican form of government itself.
-Thom
Comments
#2
The extreme right is sick of what they perceive to be our sanctimony on the left. Well there has been some truth to that in past elections, but this go 'round it is on them for the actions Thom has illustrated so well. It's Un-American to suppress the vote, lie about everything, deny the depth of the racism, reject our allies while embracing dictators, and watch your own citizens suffer from the climate and Covid-19 crises without acting in their interest. What they have done is personal, and if we act, they will pay at the polls and maybe in court.
The people worldwide have decided to rise-up. Let's see where it takes us if we help to pilot this ship of dreams. Calmer seas and better days may be possible by using our intellect, promoting collaboration, and doing so through truth and love where it is accepted. I do not plan on wasting time on trying to convince those who choose ignorance and hate. However, one must listen and observe to be able to fight their agenda.
#3
The list of injustices is simply amazing. Just a raw grab for power. Fck everything else. What a country.
The big money is on the fewest voters in the fewest precincts in the fewest states as possible. They get to decide the presidential election and the control of Congress, especially the Senate and therefore the Supreme Court. Yup, that pretty much covers all bases. It doesn't matter how the rest of America votes.
Even if Democrats pull off landslide victories on all fronts this time, how in hell are they going to fix decades of damage in four short years given the seemingly hopeless political divide? Maybe their real power only lasts two years. Everything will be painted as the DemocRATs' fault just in time for the next midterm. And the war against democracy will march onward to the inevitable end, the final step to fascism.
You'd think that the top priorities of Democratic Party leadership should be to get big money out of politics as fast as possible, end the Electoral College for good, and completely reform the election-process infrastructure from top to bottom -- at the national, state, and county levels -- to make it easier to vote, not harder. More people need to vote, not fewer. Demographics are changing fast.
Oh yeah, and stack the Supreme Court to their heart's content! That seems like a no-brainer. The more the merrier, at least four more, and pick 'em young and healthy. A liberal "7-6" decision has a nice solid ring to it.
Riiight... good luck with all of that. And be gentle -- our winger neighbors with coronary issues might pop veins. And those private-contractor ambulances are really spendy! Socialized healthcare wouldn't be so bad, eh? Please don't bleed on the carpet.
#4
26 days until the election day and the counting begins. Hold on to your saddle. This will be beyond yours and mine imagination. No telling what is going to unfold. Then we have the election results. If we actually get to that without Marshall Law or something worse. If Trump wins, Democracy or anything remotely similar is over. He has his family to follow. If Biden wins we have until January 20th to live with Trump. Congress changes on January 3rd. That is 2 months. Trump is 2 months 20 days. So the next 26 days + 2 months + 20 days are going to be one hell of a ride. At this point it is beyond me how anybody with warm blood in their body could vote for Trump. How many top name Republicans that are now supporting Biden does it take to make people realize this quy is a con man? How many books does it take? I still see lots of Trump signs in yards. In my neighborhood more Trump signs than Biden signs. No matter what the polls say this election is not in the bag. Vote!
Trump’s antibody treatment was tested using cells from an abortion
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/07/1009664/trumps-antibody-treatment-was-tested-using-cells-from-an-abortion/
I wonder how his Supreme Court Justice pick feels about this?
#5
Our neighborhood is wingers two-to-one. Vote!
#6
Pelosi is holding a fiery press conference about the Republicans' miserable failures on COVID and stimulus negotiations.
#7
Has the White House done Contact tracing? They will not even release the date of his last negative test.
#8
Like I said beyond our imagination:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/08/feds-th...
#9
Adam Fox? If it was a cast for a B-rated fiction, even that name would be too obvious.
#10
"martial"
#11
This just happened in Baldwin Park in Los Angeles County: Fire intentionally set inside Ballot Box in Baldwin Park, officials say. This happened in Monday. I'm sure many of you remember Donald Trump said about throwing mail-in-ballots and our votes into the river to suppress our votes to win the election. On Monday (19th), somebody intentionally set the fire inside the Ballot Box to make this election more scary and untrustworthy. I'm sure Donald Trump will point to democrats again and make more conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and his people. Only thing left is "mail-in voting" (not mail-in ballots) to secure our votes and our democracy once for all.
#12
A Democratic conspiracy theory would be more believeable - they told Republicans to use the fake Repubican ballot boxes, so that the real box would be mostly Democratic ballots, and set fire to them.
Or maybe somebody just wanted to 'own the libs' by scaring them into risking their lives by voting in person. Not nice at all, somebody could get killed.
Or maybe it was just kids messing around.
I should imagine if there's only one box per county, it would be worth putting a camera on it.
May be better to hand your vote in early in person, at a time when there won;t be lines.
Let's hope the dems get in and put an end to all this nonsense.
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