Progressives Every Day: Unjust Hugs, Troubling Statistics Abound
Argh.
Welcome to the Thursday night edition of Progressives Everywhere.
I am not happy.
As I made clear on Monday, I didn’t think Democrats should have participated in and legitimized the Amy Coney Barrett hearings. They legitimized the Republicans’ hijacking of the Supreme Court and, by extension, all of our lives to some degree or another. And while I saw some silver linings in some of the Democrats’ performances on Tuesday, what happened today reinforced the fecklessness and cluelessness of the party’s leadership.
I’m sure you’ve seen this by now, but it’s worth rewatching, to really absorb the full impact of Dianne Feinstein’s words (and, later, hug):
We can debate whether Democrats could have ultimately stopped Amy Coney Barrett’s ascent to the Supreme Court, but what Feinstein makes clear here is that they didn’t really even try. They asked some tough questions that got them some nice coverage on MSNBC, sure, but they didn’t actually use whatever power they had available to them.
I’m not just speculating, either. Look at the statement put out by the liberal group We Demand Justice (which is run by a former Kerry, Menendez, Clinton guy, making it as DC as it gets):
In fact, Democrats already knew Feinstein shouldn’t have been in charge of the situation, but they were too married to process and tradition and seniority and their own archaic rules to do anything about it. They won’t even go public now. And while I know they don’t want to embarrass a colleague, much less one they respect like Feinstein, they can’t just continue this horrible charade.
Democrats’ abject and unjustifiable fear of actually taking a stand, rooted in the politics of the Reagan and W. Bush eras, has become untenable.
Look at this enraging quote:
Democrats defended their strategy and said their cautious tactic this week was deliberate. They were eager to avoid giving Republicans any additional ammunition in the final stretch of a campaign that polls show favors them winning both the White House and even the Senate.
In the end, Democrats argued, they made their case effectively.
"I think we raised all of the tough issues, and we raised them in a pretty hard-hitting way, but we didn't shout and pound the table," said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. "What's the point?"
What’s the point?
Stuff like this makes me believe that a lot of them just don’t care.
The party has taken in an ungodly amount of money from desperate voters during the worst economic depression in a century — my ActBlue pages alone take in $50-75K per day for Democrats, which is just a tiny, tiny fraction of their daily haul. This cash not only guarantees that their candidates can stay on the offensive for the rest of this election, but also makes it glaringly obvious that a vast majority of Americans are looking to them to actually put up a fight.
And yet, they failed the SCOTUS test, refuse to even give any hint that they might expand the court or enact truly transformational progressive policy, and protect the worst of their own (Henry Cuellar and Eliot Engel, anyone?). Even their candidates are face-planting at every opportunity:
There is no indication that Democratic Party leadership believes it owes anything to any of us. Not for the infinite sums of cash, not for standing in line for 11 hours to vote for them, not for suffering through four years of misery that resulted from their 2016 failures.
Meanwhile, I didn’t even want to write tonight but felt too guilty to take the night off, since I promised members here a nightly newsletter.
To be clear, this isn’t an across the board damnation of Democrats. I still think Elizabeth Warren is one of the smartest, most empathetic, and kick-ass people in the world. Some of her Senate colleagues are pretty cool, too. There’s a whole host of young people in the House (and more joining them) that I love. And all the Democrats I’ve interviewed for this newsletter this year have been super impressive and inspiring.
But after Election Day, we are going to have to push even harder to enact change within the leadership ranks of the Democratic Party. Otherwise, nothing else is really going to change — or at least change enough to make a difference in our current dystopia.
(I will say this: I was pretty impressed with what I saw of Joe Biden’s town hall on ABC. He was thoughtful and clear and his answer on transgender rights, though clearly lacking the most modern terminology, showed that he is listening and trying to learn. So that’s all good!)
Important News You Need to Know
Texas: Hey, it’s more updates from Texas! We’ve got yet another legal twist, poll numbers, and early voting updates.
This morning, a District Judge ruled that despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s orders, county election officials could put up ballot drop boxes in multiple locations. As you probably guessed, indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately appealed the decision.
It’s unclear what’s going to happen — this decision was based on state law, while the previous ruling that upheld Abbott’s order came from a federal judge.
Here’s more solid good news: A new poll finds that Texas State House candidate Akilah Bacy, one of our first endorsees of 2020, is up seven points on her Republican opponent. Bacy is a civil rights lawyer and activist for imprisoned immigrants running in a district right outside Houston.
Texas now has 17 million registered voters and a whopping 1.1 million of them voted on the first day of early voting alone.
Voting Rights: Not all the news about the state of the ballot is rosy (or even murky) tonight.
First, this analysis of the Trump campaign’s efforts to cut short absentee ballot return time is a concise look at many of the cases we’ve been covering. As you know, Republicans are winning most of them thanks to their control of the judiciary. Seeing it all in one place really makes it hit home.
A new study from the Sentencing Project reveals that 5.2 million people will be disenfranchised this year due to a felony conviction. This in particular is devastating:
“One in 16 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate 3.7 times greater than that of non-African Americans. Over 6.2 percent of the adult African American population is disenfranchised compared to 1.7 percent of the non-African American population.”
More Polls: We’re seeing some wild fluctuations in swing states. Depending on the pollster, Democratic candidates are either winning by statistically significant numbers or down a few points against their Republican opponents.
Remember a few days ago when a Quinnipiac poll made it seem like Jon Ossoff was pulling away in the full-term Georgia Senate race? A new SurveyUSA poll now has him down three points to Sen. David Purdue. It has Biden up two points on Trump in the state.
In North Carolina, Cal Cunningham is up six points in Civis/DailyKos poll, but up just one point in an Emerson College poll. Biden is tied with Trump in that poll, which is a far cry from every other poll we’re seeing.
In Arizona, Mark Kelly is up a whopping 10 points against Sen. Martha McSally in the latest Monmouth poll. Damn.
And over in Florida, a new poll from Clearview Research has Biden up seven (!) points there. The revolution is overtaking The Villages!
Georgia: Lost amidst all the disastrous early voting lines is the fact that Gov. Brian Kemp, who only won the election due to voter suppression, just got approval to wreck Medicaid and the state insurance market.
The Trump administration gave the green-light to the state’s plan to expand Medicaid with onerous work requirements and further privatize the Obamacare market — instead of the normal exchanges, users will be rerouted to private insurance brokers.
The state estimates that about 50,000 people will enroll in Medicaid in the next few years… while more than 350,000 very poor Georgians probably will probably continue to be ineligible due to the requirements. This includes people who are mentally ill and do not complete the process as well as people who are taking care of sick loved ones.
Oh, want to read something laughably dumb? Check this out:
“Federal courts have held that work requirements don’t advance Congress’s objective with Medicaid, which was to cover people with health insurance. Kemp’s office says it’s not imposing a work requirement, but a qualification, and the timing of his proposals makes all the difference.”
Copycats: A few Democratic senators just came up with a brilliant idea (three years after I came up with it):
No, I’m not bitter or anything…
Actually, I did tweet about it, which got some acknowledgment from Sen. Schatz. I guess they’re worried that if they just hired me, they’d have to listen to rants about how they have no courage.
What I’m Reading
New York Magazine, which is part of Vox, just absorbed the very readable city-centric real-estate website Curbed. This story about the trouble experienced by skyscraper and office tower developers right now is fascinating; Eliot Spitzer plays a prominent part (he’s no longer an anti-Wall Street crusader, FYI) and it seems like the people who have run NYC for a long time really are worried. Just wait until they see what happens to the City Council by this time year.
On the complete opposite (but ultimately related) end of the spectrum is this study of school inequality in Georgia, with a focus on the state’s Black Belt. Did you know that Georgia is just one of nine states that do not provide more money to school districts with higher percentages of kids in poverty? I bet you can’t guess the others!
This is more me writing than me reading, but I started another newsletter! This one is a weekly digest of job and gig listings for creative (and nerdy) people. I’m hoping to help out writers, designers, artists, editors, video producers, and social media pros who are having a tough time finding work right now. It’s 100% free, so if you know anyone searching for work in those fields, definitely send the newsletter their way.
Wait, before you go!
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