Stand up to the bully

Before we get to the serious stuff: If you’re like me and saw the video of AOC talking intently with Republican congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ), purveyor of the big lie, on the first day of failed voting to select a new speaker of the House, you may have wondered what they were discussing so seriously. Now we get a delightfully bad take on what that conversation was about.

Bad Lip Reading @BadLipReading

They don't always discuss politics #aoc #118thCongress

Trump ended 2022 in a considerably worse position than he started in. After pro-MAGA candidates, some that he’d handpicked, lost in the 2022 elections (notable: Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, senatorial candidates Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania), his star is finally dimming. There was dissension in the ranks following those failures, with some saying it was time for the Republican Party to move on.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—who has personal experience with the former president as a result of Trump’s effort to flatter and bully him into manufacturing the 11,780 votes Trump needed to win the state—had already weighed in. In a transcript of his November 2021 testimony, he called out Trump’s behavior.

It is, of course, an understatement. Trump tells bald lies and repeats them shamelessly, persistently. Some of his lies are so outrageous that he practically dares people to call him on them. Like George Santos, the disavowed New York congressman-elect who faked virtually every aspect of his personal life to win the election, Trump tells tales everyone knows are false, but his bully personality takes in the gullible who wish they too could succeed (who could forget his whopper about the size of the crowd at his inauguration?).

And then there’s the current debacle in the House. After 10 ballots (possibly more by the time you’re reading this), Kevin McCarthy, who Trump stalled on and then endorsed for Speaker after he ran into trouble the first day of voting, can’t pull off the win. Trump referred to McCarthy as “my Kevin” in a speech just days before his inauguration, and despite his outrage on January 6, McCarthy compliantly returned to the fold after a visit to Mar-a-Lago shortly thereafter. Trump’s inability to persuade the fringiest of the right-wing fringe of his own party, some suggest, should be the final nail in the former president’s political coffin.

I think not. It would be a mistake to ignore the success Republicans enjoyed on social agenda issues with Trump. In essence, leaders like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell made a calculated decision that it was worth enduring Trump to achieve objectives on issues including judges, guns, and abortion, where the party made generational “advances” that will live on long beyond Trump. If they think they can do more under Trump’s banner, I they’ll unite behind him again. There are always vacancies to fill on the federal bench. And even on the evening of the second anniversary of January 6, many people outside of the Beltway still believe in the former president and his lies. If you doubt that, take a moment to read this piece the Washington Post ran Thursday morning, on a convicted January 6 defendant who still enjoys the support of his Utah community, where the fake voting-fraud narrative is still widely subscribed to.

I can remember being annoyed a time or two by politicians who admonished voters, seemingly before every election, that it was the most important election of their lives. But increasingly, I’ve come to believe that’s true. The next election is always the most important one because it determines what our future will look like. In other words, this is no time for us to breathe a sigh of relief because the Democrats prevailed in more races than expected in the midterms, and think that democracy is comfortably on the mend.

There is the ongoing challenge of convincing Democrats that the Supreme Court is critically important when it comes to deciding whether and who to vote for in presidential races. This is a fundamental truth Republicans convinced their voters of many years ago. Democrats had not focused on the issue with that same laser-like precision, at least not with success until the midterm elections in 2022, and we see the results of that failure now. Trump filled three Supreme Court seats using malicious shenanigans overseen by McConnell, who viewed confirming judges, especially to the Supreme Court, as one of his most important priorities.

That should pop the importance of the 2024 election into focus. Democrats must win that year if they wish to restore some sense of balance to the Court, let alone avoid further gains by Republicans beyond the 6-3 conservative majority they now hold. Clarence Thomas is the oldest Justice at 74, followed by Samuel Alito, who is 72. Sonia Sotomayor is 68, Chief Justice John Roberts is 67, Elena Kagan is 62, Brett Kavanaugh is 57, Neil Gorsuch is 55, Ketanji Brown Jackson is 52, and Amy Coney Barrett is 50.

We have our work cut out for us. The time to persuade people of the importance of voting and of this vote in particular, no matter who the Republican nominee turns out to be, is now. It should be done patiently and repetitiously. If Republicans believe they can win with Trump, they will back him again, which means this is no time to take your foot off the gas pedal. We have to continue to work for the right of all eligible Americans to vote and continue having those conversations with people around us, like so many of you did in the run-up to the midterms, to make sure that in 2024 Americans are educated about the issues and highly motivated to vote.

What motivates you to make sure, as much as we all dread the early onslaught of the presidential election cycle, that Democrats are prepared?

For me, it’s the stories about pregnant women who are unable to obtain medical care following a miscarriage and who must wait to become septic, endangering their lives, before they can receive what should be routine medical care. This NPR report from Louisiana is an example. I wonder how conservatives fail to see the hypocrisy of refusing to wear a mask to protect others but requiring someone who is pregnant to carry a fetus to term, or are comfortable tolerating it if they can see it. As the mother of a daughter of childbearing age, the fear is acute—to the point of discouraging her from coming home for graduate school. Nothing motivates me towards activism more than the future of my children and other young people I care about.

So it’s not too early to think about voting in and protecting the integrity of upcoming elections. Among the ironies of the moment is that as Trump clings to the big lie, his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, received a pass from state prosecutors in North Carolina after he registered to vote using the address of a mobile home he’d never lived in and had no claim to. North Carolina’s attorney general, Josh Stein, a Democrat, concluded that Meadows was “explicitly excepted from certain residency requirements as a result of his service to the federal government.” But if that were true, Meadows would not have needed to lie when he registered, and even if that’s the law, it does not excuse the lie itself.

The result abolishes any sense of fair play. Under Jeff Sessions, federal prosecutions in North Carolina pursued a string of cases against legal immigrants, many of whom believed they were entitled to vote but who were not qualified on technicalities. And, Contrast Meadows’s treatment with the far more rigid stance North Carolina state prosecutors took in cases involving Black voters who, characterized as “unwittingly” by advocates, violated rules about voting while on parole. What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander in North Carolina. If average Americans are going to face consequences for their errors, Meadows should too.

Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance

2/ And, North Carolina state prosecutors took a very different stance when Black Voters were involved, again with violations that were de minimis compared to Meadow's knowing use of an address he'd never lived at to register after he sold his NC home.

nytimes.comArrested, Jailed and Charged With a Felony. For Voting. (Published 2018)Twelve people in a North Carolina county have been charged with voting illegally in the 2016 election. They face up to two years in prison.

Trump also continued his attack on Fulton County, Georgia, election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, taking to social media, even though he is on notice at this point that his attacks can lead to action by his followers. The mother and daughter endured fear and disruption in their lives following the 2020 election and Trump’s original, demonstrably false allegations that they committed voter fraud. Their testimony before the January 6 committee was painful and powerful. It is inexcusable for Trump to expose them again and unacceptable for his party to fail to condemn the attack. In short, we have work to do.

Never back down from a bully, because if you do, it never stops. We have to stay standing, proudly, because of how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved in the face of the last six year’s challenges, with our eyes firmly on what comes next.

We’re in this together,

Joyce