Stephan: It is clear to me, and perhaps to you, that Donald Trump and the Trumplicans, are going full White supremacy and christofascist. I get that. what concerns me is that they know it won't be enough, and so we are going to see a truly despicable effort to rig and suppress the vote. Nothing will stop this except citizen mass protests. What are you prepared to do to protect American democracy?
Shutterstock/The Atlantic
On june 9, primary day, hundreds of people surrounded Park Tavern, a sprawling brewery and restaurant in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park. They queued in six-foot increments, and the line wrapped around the parking lot. Two nearby polling locations were closed, so this was where 16,000 Atlantans were slated to cast their ballots. Across the metro area, more than 80 voting locations had been closed or consolidated over concerns about the coronavirus. What’s worse: The new state-ordered voting machines had stopped working.
Some people waited for more than three hours to vote; others left before casting their ballots. Georgia’s meltdown was not an anomaly. The 2020 primary began with a malfunctioning app in the Iowa caucus, rendering the first-in-the-nation contest moot. One month later, on Super Tuesday, voters met hours-long waits in Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and Sacramento. Another month passed, thousands of Americans were dying of the coronavirus, and state officials began canceling primaries. Wisconsin’s state legislature forced its April primary through anyway. Milwaukee voters stood masked in a hailstorm, waiting to vote at one of just five polling places. Any […]
Stephan: We now have a Supreme Court in which four justices make their decisions on the basis of their prejudices and ideology rather than on the basis of the Constitution and the laws. This is what the vile Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have been working for these past four years. The Republican Party has become a White christofascist cult, and they know they are increasingly outnumbered which is why they have been working so hard to rig the judiciary and accomplish voter suppression.
Activists in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Credit: Getty
The Supreme Court handed down two brief, unsigned orders on Friday concerning what restrictions states may place on absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic. Though neither order is a final judgment — one grants a temporary stay of a lower court decision, the other denies expedited review of an important voting rights case — the practical impact of both orders is that voters in Alabama and Texas will find it harder to cast a ballot during the pandemic.
The Texas order is particularly ominous because it suggests that Texas will be able to apply election rules that ensure that older, Republican-leaning voters have an easy time casting a ballot — while younger voters could be forced to risk infection in order to vote.
Stephan: Here is a somewhat more hopeful take on the current judiciary situation. May it be so.
President Trump shakes hands with Judge Neil M. Gorsuch in the White House East Room on Jan. 31, 2017, during an event to announce Trump’s nomination of Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
President Trump has retained support from many Republicans and conservatives thanks to a Faustian bargain: So long as he stacks the judiciary with friendly judges, they’ll look the other way when he pushes trade protectionism, ditches entitlement reform or woos Russian President Vladimir Putin — positions out of step with recent conservative orthodoxy.
Former George W. Bush administration lawyer John Yoo said that he had deeply conservative friends “who would normally be utterly turned off by a guy like Trump,” yet supported him “only because of [the] appointment to Justice [Antonin] Scalia’s vacancy” on the Supreme Court. Conservative fixation with judges goes beyond the Supreme Court, including the lower courts as well. Noting that the Supreme Court hears a tiny fraction of the cases decided by appellate judges, Washington Post contributing columnist Hugh Hewitt challenged Trump’s conservative critics to “reconcile their vehement […]
Stephan: This is what all the previous stories are really about. This is why Trump is going full racist. This is why the Republican Party has become a White supremacist cult working on dismantling our democracy. This is what all the voter suppression is about. America sometime in the next 25 years will become a majority-minority nation, and the 250 plus year old White "get out of jail card" will be rescinded. It is freaking a lot of people out.
Credit: Win McNamee/Getty
U.S. racial and ethnic minorities accounted for all of the nation’s population growth during the last decade, according to new Census Bureau estimates.
The data underscore the nation’s growing diversity and suggest that the trend will continue as the White population ages and low birth rates translate to a declining share. Non-Hispanic Whites declined to 60.1% of the populace in 2019 and their number shrank by about 9,000 from the 2010 Census to slightly more than 197 million.
Over the same period, the U.S. added 10.1 million people identified as Hispanic. The median age for White non-Hispanics rose to 43.7 years — more than a decade older than the median Hispanic of any race — with Black and Asian American residents in between.
“The declining White population share is pervasive across the nation,” according to a report by William Frey, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. The decline was “accentuated in the past few years by a reduction of births among young adult White women and an uptick in deaths, […]
Stephan: If Joe Biden wins the presidency and the Senate flips to Democratic, from what I read, and learn from talking to people close to Biden's, campaign, I think there is a real chance America will do what is necessary to transform the country so it can survive in the age of climate change. It is up to us, you and me, to make that happen.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Joe Biden’s campaign is unveiling a “Climate Engagement Advisory Council” this morning aimed at “mobilizing” voters who prioritize climate change and environmental justice.
Why it matters: November’s election is a stark contrast between Biden, whose platform goes much further than Obama-era policies, and President Trump, who largely dismisses the problem and is rolling back his predecessor’s initiatives.
And activism stemming from the police killing of George Floyd is putting fresh focus on environmental justice — that is, addressing the disproportionate pollution burdens facing people of color and poor communities.
How it works: Members of the newly unveiled council named this morning are…
Tom Steyer, the billionaire activist and donor
Dr. Cecilia Martinez, executive director of the Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy
Lonnie R. Stephenson, head of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Deb Haaland, a Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico
Carol Browner, a top climate official in the Obama years and current board chair of the League of Conservation Voters
Harold Mitchell, Jr., a former South Carolina state representative and founder of the ReGenesis Community Development Corporation
