The Republican War on Freedom

I should probably trademark that

Welcome to a Friday evening edition of Progress Report.

Tonight we’ll look at some major political battles happening around the country and why — assuming that they actually want to win in November — they provide an opportunity for Democrats to make some unexpected rhetorical and electoral advances while actually winning back some of the rights that are under relentless attack.

---

---

The most frustrating part of this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee grilling of Ketanji Brown Jackson wasn’t the way that Republicans peppered the Supreme Court nominee with lies about her distinguished record and cynical, QAnon-inflected questions about child porn. They were infuriating, yes, but they were sadly to be expected — that’s just who Republicans are at this point. What really drove me crazy was how Democrats didn’t just fail to stand up for Judge Jackson as she was being attacked, but also legitimized the GOP’s asinine framing with many of their own questions.

(That Republicans were doing this to an ethical nominee right as the blockbuster Clarence Thomas corruption news was about to break shows just how shameless they are, but I’ll save the Thomas analysis for Sunday.)

Democrats will never win news cycles or votes by focusing on disproving Republican lies, because there will always be more of them. It’s like playing whack-a-mole on an ever-expanding arcade cabinet while surrounded by people who are rooting for the moles to eat your face. Right-wing conspiracies are the kind of lies that people choose to believe, consciously or not, because they affirm their worldview. The facts are irrelevant.

Unfortunately, Democrats don’t exactly have any big legislative accomplishments they can really market, so that avenue is unlikely to work, either. At this point, the party’s only viable option is to go on the offensive and beat Republicans at their own game — and as I’ll outline tonight, they have a chance to do just that, without even having to invent lies and conspiracies to do so.

A Political Vibe Shift

After some 70 years of culture war, red-baiting, flag-flogging, and branding the word on to everything from think tanks and congressional caucuses to french fries, Republicans have wrangled full ownership over the word “freedom.”

More than just a public brand, “freedom” serves as an ideological unifier and shared code word for the party’s three main blocs: Big business “libertarians” who want the freedom to manipulate markets, neoconservative military hawks who “protect” freedom with invasions and plundering, and the right-wing megachurch crowd that seeks the freedom to force their beliefs on others. Each constituency sees the GOP as the bulwark against an overbearing Big Government intent on taking away their privilege.

The past few years, however, have scrambled the equation.

Covid compelled most Americans to seek help and guidance from the government, which stepped in when the private sector offered only layoffs and furloughs. From emergency services to unemployment and Medicaid benefits, the federal government provided a new and unprecedented backstop from early 2020 through mid-to-late 2021.

With those pandemic-related measures largely phased out and national Democrats blocked from passing any of the expansive and high-polling federal programs that they’d promised, the demand for further help has now largely fallen to state and local governments.

This is not to say that Americans suddenly have a newfound trust in government — polls still find broad skepticism of the state, but that’s in large part due to the deep animosity for political leaders, not the institution itself. As we’ve highlighted over the past five months, there are a growing number of grassroots movements organizing to push back against bad state laws and enact more progressive policies.

Republicans have responded with a full-on assault on the popular will, often on behalf of their biggest donors. It’s dispiriting, but there’s a way to use it against them….

The Republican War on Freedom

Republicans have spent the past 15 months largely trying to hype up their ever-more-extremist primary base, which has led to the passage of a relentlessly cruel parade of new laws that ban abortion, kill off free speech, and torture trans children.

In some states, their bet may well pay off, with these draconian attacks on women and children proving popular with a majority of voters. A majority of voters in Idaho, for example, may embrace their brand new anti-abortion bounty hunter law, which largely mirrors the one in Texas that the Supreme Court refuses to rule on or pause. I’d hope that the clause allowing a rapist to sue his victim for aborting the fetus he forced on her doesn’t prove a big hit with voters in Idaho, but I’m not going to speculate.

What I am willing to wager is that these sorts of barbarous laws may not prove such winners in rapidly diversifying states such as Florida, Arizona, and Georgia. In each of those states, Republicans now own inhumane restrictions on reproductive rights, classroom conversations, and the health of trans kids. (Arizona passed both of those things this week.)

Every time one of these laws pass, they make national news and contribute to the narrative that the GOP has become more interested in fascism than freedom. They also raise the specter of Republicans passing similar legislation in more blue-leaning swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania should they win key races there this coming fall.

The blitz on economic freedoms and local self-determination has been just as pronounced, if not heavily covered.

On Sunday, we reported on the growing housing price crisis that is making it virtually impossible for long-time residents to continue living in large swaths of Florida. The working- and middle-class uprisings taking place in cities such as Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Miami have drawn in a bipartisan mix of residents fed up with luxury condos, sweetheart deals for developers, record prices on home sales, and the pure avarice of the landlords that are increasing rents by exponential figures.

These activists have won some concessions such as tenants’ bills of rights and small increases in affordable housing funding. What they really want, however, is for local governments to pass rent control laws, which would limit the percentage by which landlords could increase rents. City lawmakers have a convenient excuse for not pursuing those regulations: Florida state law almost forbids municipalities from enacting ordinances like rent control.

Florida’s legal system is actually littered with so-called preemption laws, covering just about any kind of significant law that a city could enact to benefit its residents.

Last year saw Gov. Ron DeSantis sign a flurry of new preemption laws that ran the gamut from housing to free speech.

A pair of laws banned towns from regulating, limiting, inspecting, or licensing vacation rentals, which invited corporations to buy up huge swaths of homes and turn them into timeshares and Airbnbs. The laws are expected to further squeeze residents out of their communities. Another preemption passed last year criminalized peaceful protest and granted local police departments the ability to challenge city budgets, essentially handcuffing local decision-makers.

This year, Republicans passed a law that permits a business to sue any municipality that passes a new ordinance that said business claims cost them 15% in revenue. Experts say it could cost local governments nearly $1 billion per year. The legislature also passed a law, as we’ve covered here before, that bans residents with solar panels from selling back excess energy to the utility company, effectively killing that industry.

While voters in Florida elected to raise the minimum wage with a successful constitutional amendment in 2020, a law passed in 2013 bans city councils from doing the same. Democrats continue to introduce bills to repeal it, but to no avail.

Arizona, the Florida of the Southwest, is now seeking to place the same kind of stranglehold on local economies. After voters in Tucson approved a $15 minimum wage via ballot initiative last November, Republicans were quick to propose a law that would strip away cities’ rights to change the minimum wage or force employers to provide certain basic benefits like paid family leave. The legislation was debated in the legislature this week, so we’ll keep an eye out for developments there.

While there aren’t preemptions on housing laws in Arizona, the Republican legislature does refuse to consider any Democratic rent control proposals, even as housing prices have spiked by more than 30% and institutional investors hoovering up single-family homes at a record clip. Another popular policy essentially blocked.

In 2020, voters across Arizona voted overwhelmingly to approve a ballot initiative that placed a surtax on the wealthy in order to generate sorely needed education funding in a state that still pays teachers very, very little. But earlier this month, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled the initiative unconstitutional because the state has long had a cap on how much it can spend on schools.

That’s $800 million in revenue down the drain, defying popular will, robbing kids of educational opportunities, and striking another blow to democracy in a state where Republicans have desperately tried to overturn the 2020 election altogether.

Direct democracy has been a popular target for Republicans all over the country. In Florida, Republicans have proven resilient after a judge tossed out their very targeted and unfair restrictions on fundraising for initiatives last year — instead of giving up, they just passed a slightly different version of it this past month. Expect them to pursue further restrictions if they stay in power next year.

Arkansas, meanwhile, is now going ahead with pursuing big restrictions to ballot initiatives. Lawmakers have put forward an amendment that would shift the requirement for passage to two-thirds of voters, which would virtually assure the death of direct democracy in the state. That’d put them almost on par with Mississippi, where the Supreme Court just threw out the process altogether after voters there succeeded in a campaign to legalize medical marijuana.

Each of these policies plays into one of the major issues looming over the coming election. There are local solutions for inflation, affordable housing, direct democracy, and stagnant wages. Most of them have support from a vast majority of local residents, too.

No one’s looking at party affiliation when a neighborhood comes together to stop a behemoth Amazon warehouse from moving in. Huge utility bill rate increases impact Democrats and Republicans equally. Being able to stay in one’s home is a nonpartisan issue. Everyone wants to be able to vote early by mail, especially in Arizona and Florida, where it’s long been a staple of the election process.

Democrats need to seize on these fights and cast themselves as the populist advocates and rebels trying to win these battles for communities. That goes especially for municipal and state legislative races where hot provincial issues often do decide elections. Lead the charge for rent control, for increased education funding, for the preservation of ballot initiatives, even if — especially if — they’re not winnable right this moment.

These Republican blockades on popular policies and popular will offer Democrats the opportunity to stake their claim on being the party of freedom. These chances don’t come around often.

---

Help Us Fight

Over the last three years, Progress Report has raised over $6.3 million for dozens and dozens of grassroots activists, civil rights groups, and progressive candidates.

And yet, there is so much work left to do. The goal is to continue to help these grassroots activists and organizers, support progressive candidates, and interview the experts and leaders so we can amplify their messages.

But none of the money we raise goes toward producing this newsletter or all of the related projects we put out there. Not a dime! Only paid subscribers and donations allow me to keep this newsletter going, hire writers, commission stories, and expand our work.