GOT I.D.? Now that the racist activist GOP SCOTUS majority have turned back time toward a new Jim Crow era, we need a new civil rights movement in response. Much as Get Out The Vote (GOTV) was used so successfully in 2012, it's time to Get Out The I.D. (GOT-ID, or #GotID) -- except in this case, year-round.
Much as the Freedom Riders rode the segregated buses and countless other civil rights activists helped get African Americans registered and voting in Jim Crow South in the years after the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, and before the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), it's time to energize a new generation of civil rights activists of all stripes.
This campaign will both shut down one of the most wide-spread and virulent racist Republican voter suppression tactics, and act as a rallying point -- a mobilizing and educational effort for to put a stop to these and other atrocities against democracy, and help build a year-round activist network in the process.
FYI, this diary came out of StellaRay's outstanding and currently rec-listed diary,
Beware Texas Democrats. Wisconsin was there once too., and a discussion she, high uintas, I, and others had in it about how to get people motivated in places where the GOP is marching with hob-nailed jack boots all over democracy, women's and minority rights, and civilization in general. Below is a brief list of reasons this could work.
We need to mobilize Democrats around the country to contribute money, resources, and their time to get those would-be voters without state photo identification, in GOP-run states that enact such laws, to the appropriate locations to get the I.D.s. This is exactly the type of backlash that made possible the tremendous minority voter turnout in 2012 in response to the Republican voter suppression. Now we need to use that momentum, and the new VRA gutting SCOTUS gambit, to say fuck you to the Republican Party once and for all. Let's drive home the last nails in their coffins, folks!
No, this is not the only issue/problem, but its a big one, and rallying around it would have benefits well beyond the specific voter I.D. effort
UPDATE: Thanks to those who put this on the Community Spotlight!
Some GREAT ideas from folks below. Too many to mention all, but the jist of them is that we should take a multipronged approach to this, and try to work through coalitions that empower local and state organizations. Some of us will be working to followup on the ideas and try to get some momentum. Please join us in hanging heads on best strategies, and figuring out how we can help where needed!
Among the great ideas:
* Targeting areas most likely to suffer losses from the voter ID efforts (blue in nc) or where such efforts might flip to Dem if voter outreach and I.D.s can increase turnout (mimikatz and others).
* Fundraising through ActBlue or other sites to enable a variety of activities, and to pay for I.D.s in states such as Florida, where Rick Scott's racist government is making people pay $25 for government I.D. (OleHippieChick and others)
* Promote viral #GotID (thanks to BadKitties for the TwitterID) memes on various social networking sites, such as people posting online photos of themselves with their new voter IDs on Twitter, FB, tumblr, etc. "Can you imagine thousands of pictures of people holding up their IDs? It could be a powerful statement if it caught on!" (Tar and Feathers)
* "Set it up to where people can donate money to the cause as a 'sponsorship'. For example if it costs $18 dollars to get the ID, then an $18 donation will cover the cost of one person's ID. This would really help to underscore the 'poll tax' aspect." (Tar and Feathers)
* Working with local and state groups already doing such work, and/or those able to use their current activism to promote the GotID/GOT-ID campaign: e.g. NAACP (MrJayTee, StellaRay, etc.) and North Carolina's Moral Mondays movement (blue in nc, etc.)
* Getting prominent public media figures such as Rev. Al Sharpton in on it, especially once things get off the ground.
* And, most ambitious of all, but no doubt others are already thinking of this, so a GotID/GOT-ID movement can piggyback off of it: "A new civil rights march on Washington is what we need to call attention to this even more, and it is the 50th anniversary." (titotitotito). Indeed, next year, 2014, is the anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Cry freedom!
Let's keep to mo going, ya?
***
Reasons why this is a strategy that should be tried, and could work:
#1. Voter I.D. laws are legal:
Among the time-tested tactics of the old Jim Crow as well as the New Jim Crow is the passage of partisan and deliberately racist GOP vote I.D. laws in dozens of states. As we all know, this is often presented as an effort to reduce voter fraud, which is barely existent, but in reality is aimed at disenfranchising often low-income, and significantly minority voters who inevitably heavily vote Democratic.
Problem is, the court system has ruled that such laws are legal. Before repeal of the Voting Rights Act provisions, at least there was the ability to rein in the old list of 9 states covered by the pre-approval (by the DoJ -- in states like TX and much of the old Confederacy/deep South) provision, even though many of the GOP-led efforts were of course in places like Pennsylvania and elsewhere outside of that realm. But the bottom line is that the Department of Justice now will have to sue in each an every case of suspected racial discrimination, and they simply do not have the resources to do that -- nor will it be easy or quick. Which means as Texas and other states rush to enact new voter impediments, there's little chance they will be successfully opposed by the feds in time for 2014 OR even 2016, even, at this rate.
There's only so much we can do about gerrymandering of Congressional districts. But what we CAN do something about is getting valid government photo I.D.s into the hands of those who will be most anxious to tell the GOP to go fuck their fascist racist selves. Get Out The I.D.
#2. An Outlet for Our Rage
This will allow an emotional and political outlet for outrage against the GOP's last ditch efforts to prevent their demographic and ideological demise. It will be something we can start doing NOW -- rather than waiting until the next election cycle kicks in, and waiting with baited breath for election results. Slow and steady will win this race, and the same brilliant data collection and management techniques that so stood the Obama campaign and the Dem Party in good stead during 2008 and 2012 can be used to identify and track likely voters, counties, cities, etc. that would benefit from such a campaign. People can contribute money for resources and to pay for the I.D.s, or their time to work the phones, drive people to the local Dept. of Motor Vehicles, police station (or whereever they have to go). Let's blow off some angry, frustrated steam! Let's ask folks if they've #GotID, and then do something about it!
#3. Political Mobilization Benefits Even Beyond the Issue Itself
Let's face it: How many times have racist, sexist, bigoted, religio-fascist GOP voters turned out in droves because of some wedge issue that Karl Rove, Fox "News," The Koch Bros and Co. used to mobilize them? Opposition and scare-mongering related to gay rights, immigrants, minority voting, Obamacare (in 2010) and countless other GOP wedge issues have cost us over the years. Now it's time to use our own wedge issue, and to create a new civil rights era, to put these bastards to historical bed.
This is a tangible, easily recognizable FU to the GOP, and it will create downstream benefits that will both play off of other areas, and benefit many of our other progressive agenda issues. Mobilizing around this issue will further advertise to idealistic people -- young and old -- that the "good guys" are still here and fighting back.
But it will also drive home vividly the same type of images we all saw leading up to and after 2012, such as the story of Desiline Victor, the 102-year old African American lady who waited in line for hours in racist Florida on election day because of Rick Scott's voter suppression efforts.
Meet the 102-Year-Old Face of Voter Suppression
Fox News Mocks 102-Year Old Voter
youtube=
http://youtu.be/...
Voter Story: Ms. Desiline Victor
http://youtu.be/...
Let's make sure that the millions of Desiline Victors in this country can get to the polls to vote in 2014 and 2016, and thereafter. Let's find out if they've got I.D., and Get Out The I.D.s for them NOW
#4. GOT-ID will Help GOTV in 2012/14, and Allow Us to Take Back The House
This will, as noted above, create the ability to mobilize existing and past activists, and to recruit new citizen activists to the overall cause of fighting back against the Rick Scotts, Scott Walkers, Koch Bros/ALEC-led efforts to gut democracy and crap on the 99% of Americans who are getting our asses kicked by the racist plutocrats.
By mobilizing young Americans and old to give time and money, remotely or by going to GOT-ID related rallies and campaign -- just like the Southern voter registration drives Dr. King and others pushed from 1961 on, including the 1964 Freedom Summer, we can galvanize a year-round army of activists to take on not just the fundamental right to vote for all Americans, but the many related social and economic justice issues the GOP radicals, including the Supreme Court, are trying to roll back to the 1950s -- when women and minorities and the poor knew their place. Get Out The I.D./GOT-ID will payoff huge downstream benefits, I believe, if it could get some momentum.
What to DO?...
Sooo... I'm pretty new to the Dkos mobilization thing, and don't know anyone on the Front Page, but it seems to me, high uintas, StellaRay, and others, that this might be exactly the kind of effort that could begin from Daily Kos, using its awesome organizing capabilities.
And it seems to me/us that the time is now, while the anger and resolve is at its highest. This will take some time, but there are more than 17 months to go before the 2014 election, and more than three years before 2016.
GOT-ID (#gotID), shall we?
p.s. Could seem to get the Youtube Fox mocking Desiline Victor video to embed. Oh well. Linked, at least.