Personal Commentary ~
I highly recommend the Featured Read, in its entirety, for two reasons:
1.) We have to know what we are up against and 2.) This piece provides some great insight into this...The Democratic Party has struggled to win in recent years but it is not solely the Party or the Party's candidates who are to blame -- it's GOP (and Russia!)
Systems are only as good as those who are run them and in the case of our government, our election process that would be us, i.e. the citizens, the voters who have given the GOP the power to rig our elections.
No judgments, but consider reflecting and recalibrating...
TY!
Focused Read in 3-4 minutes,
more if you hit the link
"How the GOP Rigs Elections
With a combination of
gerrymandering, voter-ID laws and dark money, Republicans have tipped
the political scales in their favor. Will it be enough to keep
Democrats from claiming victory in 2018?
(By Ari Berman)
… Two houses to the
south, (Sen. Van)Wanggaard's state Senate district – the 21st –
abruptly cuts off to exclude the rest of the largely Democratic
neighborhood. This used to be one of the state's most competitive
Senate districts, encompassing all of rectangular-shaped Racine
County, a 50/50 mix of urban and rural communities in southeast
Wisconsin.
But since the GOP gained control of the state's government
in 2010, and redrew the legislative maps, the district is now shaped
like a horseshoe, pulling in the Republican countryside of Racine and
Kenosha counties while excluding heavily Democratic areas – except
for the block where Wanggaard lives.
"It's a prime example of
how a party in power chose a district for their guy," says John
Lehman, a Democrat who represented the 21st before Wanggaard.
To say that Republicans
are facing a toxic political environment heading into the 2018
midterm elections would be a massive understatement. Donald
Trump is the most unpopular president at this stage of his term in
modern American history. Just three in 10 Americans have a favorable
view of the Republican Party, and Democratic voters' enthusiasm to
vote in 2018 tops Republican voters' by 17 points.
But because of
sophisticated gerrymandering, Republicans who should be vulnerable,
like Wanggaard, have been seen as untouchable.
"It's more
challenging than it should be because of the way the districts are
drawn," says Jenni Dye, who works for Democrats in Wisconsin's
state Senate. Wanggaard is among 11 Republican state senators up for
re-election in 2018, but no one has stepped forward to challenge him
yet.
The gerrymandering in
Wisconsin, which experts call among the most extreme in U.S. history,
is but one part of Republicans' stealth plan to stay in office.
Since
Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature took power, they've
also introduced some of the country's harshest voting restrictions,
passing laws that make it harder for Democratic-leaning
constituencies to register to vote and cast ballots.
At the same
time, the state has become the "Wild West of dark money,"
according to Lisa Graves, a senior fellow at the Madison-based Center
for Media and Democracy, with Republican politicians like Walker
raising unprecedented sums from billionaire donors to finance their
campaigns.
"All three of these
things have to be seen as part of a whole," says Eric Holder,
Barack Obama's attorney general, who founded the National Democratic
Redistricting Committee in 2016 to challenge Republican
gerrymandering efforts.
"Unregulated dark money combined with
these voter-ID laws combined with gerrymandering is inconsistent with
how our nation's system is supposed to be set up. American citizens
ought to be concerned about the state of our democracy. We could end
up with a system where a well-financed minority that has views
inconsistent with the vast majority of the American people runs this
country."
More immediately, a
beleaguered Republican Party tainted by Trump could still retain
majorities in 2018 and 2020. "It's not a level playing field,"
says Tom Perez, head of the Democratic National Committee. "There
are millions of people whose votes effectively don't count."
And
as a measure of the GOP's ability to maintain a political advantage,
despite widespread public opposition to its policies, look no further
than Wisconsin. "We've been under a counterrevolution here for
the past six years," says Matt Rothschild, executive director of
the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks the influence of money
in politics. "Walker has urged other states to follow his model.
Reactionary politics is a big Wisconsin export now."
In the summer of 2011...The GOP was in control of the state's redistricting
process for the first time since the 1950s, and Republicans were
shown to the "map room," where their aides were drawing new
political districts in secret following the 2010 census.
The
legislators signed confidentiality agreements, pledging not to
discuss the work with anyone, even though the redistricting was
financed with taxpayer funds. "Public comments on this map may
be different than what you hear in this room," read the talking
points distributed to GOP legislators.
"Ignore the public
comments."
… This isn't just a
problem in Wisconsin. Following the 2010 elections, Republicans had
full control of the redistricting process for state legislative and
U.S. House seats in 21 states, compared with eight states for
Democrats.
Republicans now hold as many as 22 additional House seats
because of gerrymandering, according to an analysis by the Associated
Press – nearly the same margin as the 24 seats Democrats need in
order to take back the House.
During the 2012 elections, Democratic
House candidates won 1.4 million more votes nationally than
Republicans, but the GOP won 33 more seats.
Of course, Democrats have
also employed gerrymandering to gain partisan advantage, including in
blue states like Illinois and Maryland. But in the past decade
Republicans have turned the manipulation of political lines into an
art form.
Gerrymandering the state's
political boundaries isn't the only method Republicans in
Wisconsin use to prevent Democrats from winning elections.
On
Election Day 2016, Charisma Townsend, a 24-year-old massage
therapist, went to cast her ballot at a library in Milwaukee's
Washington Park, a working-class, predominantly African-American
neighborhood northwest of downtown. Voting was important to Townsend.
"I try my hardest to make change where I can, and I feel like
voting is one of those things that helps you make a change," she
says. And she was eager to vote against Trump, whom she calls "a
waste of space for our country."
But this was Wisconsin's
first major election that required people to show government-issued
photo ID to vote. Townsend, who was registered in Wisconsin, had
misplaced her driver's license before the election; she brought her
student ID from Milwaukee Area Technical College, a copy of her
energy bill and a picture of her driver's license on her phone. None
were accepted as a valid voting ID under the law.
Instead, poll workers gave
her a provisional ballot.
It would only count if she went to the DMV
to get a new license and then to the board of elections to confirm
her vote within 72 hours of Election Day. But Townsend worked
full-time and couldn't get away.
Having voted for Obama in 2012, she
found herself unable to cast a ballot in 2016. "I showed them so
many different versions of me," she says. "I felt like they
were trying their hardest for me to not vote."
… The Republican
strategy worked as intended. Wisconsin ranked second in the nation in
voter participation in 2008 and 2012, but in 2016 saw a 3.3 percent
drop in turnout, the largest decrease in voting of any state other
than Mississippi. Roughly half of it occurred in Milwaukee.
(Emphasis is mine!)
In black
neighborhoods, which heavily favored Clinton, turnout decreased by 23
percent. Overall, black turnout dropped by 19 percent in Wisconsin in
2016 compared with 2012, more than four times the national decline
among black voters, according to a report by the Center for American
Progress.
(Emphasis is mine!)
… Since Trump's election, Republicans have accelerated their efforts to make it harder to vote.
(Emphasis is mine!)
… Trump's Justice
Department has reversed the Obama administration's opposition to
voter-ID laws and voter purging. And Republican-controlled
statehouses have passed more new voting restrictions in 2017 than in
2016 and 2015 combined.
"It's not a coincidence that states that
were badly gerrymandered during the last round of redistricting, like
Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, also passed some of
the most oppressive voter-ID laws," says Holder. "They are
two parts of the same attack by the Republicans: They have
systematically attacked Americans' right to vote."
In January 2010, a
conservative majority on the Supreme Court radically rewrote
America's campaign-finance laws to allow mega-donors and corporations
to contribute unlimited sums, often in secret, to political action
committees. The Citizens United v. FEC decision gave
wealthy donors unprecedented influence to buy elections, which
Republicans quickly used to their political advantage.
… Nationally, $3 billion
in outside money has been spent since the Citizens
United decision, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics, with at least $800 million of it from entities that don't
have to disclose their donors (hence the term "dark money").
In 2017, Walker was head of the Republican Governors Association,
which can accept unlimited contributions. In the first half of that
year, the organization brought in a record haul of $36 million, $15
million more than Democrats. The Koch brothers have already pledged
to spend $400 million on 2018 races.
… Despite these
Republican advantages, the end of 2017 brought good news for
Democrats. In November, the party won the Virginia governor's race
and picked up a surprising 15 seats in the state's House of
Delegates. A month later, Democrat Doug Jones won a shocking upset
over Roy Moore in a special election for the U.S. Senate in Alabama.
Democrats are now favored to win control of the House in 2018 and
have a shot at taking back the Senate.
The tide is even turning in
Wisconsin, where in early January 2018 Democrats won a special
election by 10 points for a state Senate district that Trump won by
17 points and Republicans had held since 2000. It was the Democrats'
34th pickup of the 2018 cycle.
… Nationally, Democrats
must win the popular vote for the House of Representatives by eight
points to get a bare majority of seats.
(Emphasis is mine!)
That might be doable given
the unpopularity of Trump, but Democrats still worry about facing a
rigged system.
"If you have a wave election in 2018, it's
entirely possible Democrats could win a significantly greater number
of votes and not have the Congress that reflects that wave,"
says Holder.
And that's not how democracy is supposed to work.
Hanging in the balance are basic rights for millions of Americans –
the right to vote, the right to fair representation, the right to not
have elections auctioned to the highest bidder. Welcome to the 2018
election season."
You
can read more here
Focused Thought in 30 seconds
( Meme, courtesy of Move On.Org )
Focused Action in 30 seconds
You can share Maddow's Tweet here
Focused Point of Interest in 3-4 minutes
📎 Note:
I don't normally share material that omits the context of civics illiteracy in
America, failed media, voter suppression and Russia but, in this
case, I am going to bend to the need for simplicity in promoting a
Democratic organization that is taking on very important work to share Symone Sanders making a pitch for “Forward Majority, a movement preparing to "retake state
legislatures for Democrats before it's too late."
Hit the link ➨ here
(Courtesy of NowThis @nowthisnews )
“Sanders is a strategist for communications and political outreach at Priorities USA and a principal of the 360 Group. Formerly, the national press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, she has been featured on NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, BET, TV One and can be seen regularly on CNN where she is a political commentator.”
( You can learn more about "Forward Majority" here )
.
.
.
→ Direct sources for Democrats:
* ( Personal favored and most informative follows are shared here with the understanding that readers will always apply their own critical thinking to any information provided anywhere by anyone. #StrongerTogether does not share sources of information lightly but -- no one is perfect! -- so always #DistrustAndVerify I am using a star rating that is strictly based on my situational experience with the work of the media personality specifically in relation to issues of interest to me. )
The Democratic Party Website
Also
C-SPAN (a good place for speeches & hearings direct source (s))
→ Fact checking organizations courtesy of the Society of Professional Journalists
in alphabetical order...
→ Some of my favorite, most informative
follows on Twitter include:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ US Intelligence | Author | Navy Senior Chief | NBC/MSNBC
⭐⭐⭐ Federal Government Operations | Vanity Fair | Newsweek | MSNBC Contributor | Author
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Voting Rights/Voter Suppression | Author | Mother Jones
→ Some of the most credible media -- at the moment:
📰📰📰 Mother Jones
→ Some of the most credible Talking Heads -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
( 📎 Interesting to note: Wallace, a Republican (an inactive Republican I believe she calls herself) is new to the job but for right now she has clearly put country over party and her work on Trump GOP has been credible, IMO... )
...for Networking for Democrats today!
g. (Unapologetic Democrat)
g. (Unapologetic Democrat)
📎 Note: I rarely get involved in primary races -- outside of those in my own area. And, unless there is a glaring reason that can not be ignored, I support Democratic Party nominees winning in general elections.
.
.
.
(Linked) "...is our 2016 platform...a declaration of how we plan to move America forward. Democrats believe that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.
It’s a simple but powerful idea: We are stronger together."
*
Curated by Gail Mountain, with occasional personal commentary, Network For #StrongerTogether ! is not affiliated with The Democratic Party in any capacity. This is an independent blog and the hope is you will, at a glance, learn more about the Party and you will, with a click or two, also take action on its behalf as it is provided!
( You can also find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GKMTNtwits )
*
See the League of Women Voters website:
Vote411 here
Thank you for focusing!
g., aka Focused Democrat
✊ Resisting "Fake News"
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