Carson Brown at The New Republic writes—Beware the “black voters are superheroes” narrative from Alabama’s election:
Charles M. Blow at The New York Times writes—The Omen of Alabama:
Yes, Roy Moore was defeated, but it can never be fully erased from history or memory that he was endorsed by this president and supported by the Republican National Committee. All of Roy Moore’s sins are their sins, and they will wear that scarlet R straight into the midterms.
We should also note that Jones didn’t win by a landslide. The margin was thin as a rail. Moore still won the Republican vote and the white vote and, yes, the “white born-again Christian” vote. These people contorted their faith to support a man accused of unthinkable transgressions. [...]
It demonstrated once again that black voters, particularly black women, have been summoned to save America from its worst impulses and to establish that they are the most loyal and crucial constituency of a Democratic Party that still doesn’t grant them enough respect or deference, instead often pleading in the final hours after efforts to win more white voters fall short.
The election demonstrated that for many college-educated, suburban conservatives, there is a limit to their tolerance for regression, fallaciousness, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia and anti-scientific, ahistoric, truth-hostile positioning.
It demonstrated that the South is not necessarily solid. The Resistance has its own Southern Strategy.
John Cassidy at The New Yorker writes—In Alabama, a Victory for Decency and a Loss for Trump:
There is no doubt that Moore was an embarrassment to many Alabama residents, including a significant number of Republicans. In the affluent Birmingham neighborhood of Mountain Brook, people who normally vote Republican festooned their gardens with signs for Jones, who lives nearby. The former N.B.A. player Charles Barkley, who grew up outside Birmingham, spoke for many Alabamians when he described the election as “a referendum” on the state’s identity. And yet, for all this, Moore received 48.4 per cent of the vote. According to an exit poll, sixty-eight per cent of white voters supported him, and he won the vote of nearly eighty per cent of whites without college degrees. He had fifty-seven per cent of the white-college-graduate vote, and fifty-two per cent of the white-female-college-gradate vote.
These figures confirm that the white identity politics that propelled Donald Trump to the White House in 2016 remain a potent force. But the over-all result showed how, even in places as seemingly inhospitable for Democrats as Alabama, the Trump-Moore style of politics can be challenged and defeated. Even allowing for the fact that Moore was a highly toxic candidate, Jones’s victory has big implications for politics across the country.
Republicans didn’t reject Moore en masse. But the outcome shows Democrats that they don’t need Republicans to reject Trump or the G.O.P. to win in 2018 and 2020. In a country as evenly divided as this one, differential turnout and marginal changes in voting patterns are often decisive.
Jamelle Bouie at Slate writes—What Black Voters Won: Alabama is proof that they can deliver elections for Democrats—but only if the party delivers for them:
National and statewide organizations like the NAACP
worked in concert with churches, fraternities, sororities, and activist groups like the Ordinary People Society to register black Alabamians, get them proper identification, and bring them to the polls. It’s an effort that should stand as a model for other states, which should begin organizing posthaste to build durable ties with these voters. (By the same token, Jones should demonstrate the importance of recruiting good candidates for every race, even ones that seem hopeless at the start.)
Jones also saw improved margins with younger whites, winning voters under 45 with nearly two-thirds of the vote and contributing to his 30 percent share of the white vote overall. But the extent to which black voters were critical to Jones’ victory—voting for him by a margin of more than 20 to 1—has led some liberal observers to say that they “saved” the Democratic Party in the state. This is a mistake. Black Alabamians were voting their interests; voting because they saw a chance to move the needle just a little in their direction. If they demonstrated anything beyond that, it was continued commitment to equality and rule of law, core principles of American democracy that were realized with blood and struggle in the not-so-distant past by black Alabamians that still live and breathe.
What these voters are still waiting for, and what many Democrats are still hesitant to argue for, are policies that speak directly to the unique nature of black poverty and disadvantage.
Brittany Packnett at New York magazine’s “The Cut” writes—Black Women Kept Roy Moore Out of Office. Here’s How to Actually Thank Them:
On Wednesday morning, the media erupted with calls of “Thank you!” to Black women for showing up. But as Kamala Harris said, we need to do more than congratulate them. “Let’s address issues that disproportionately affect Black women—like pay disparity, housing & under-representation in elected office,” she tweeted. ‘Tis the season, after all, and supporting black women should be at the top of your list. There are many organizations and causes that could use our support. Give because our power has been proven time and again—despite movements silencing us, funders forgetting us, and voter suppression restricting us. Give because Black women show up to save the country time and again. Here are a few ways you can help.
Donate to CollectivePAC [...] Support Higher Heights [...] Support Black Women Candidates [...] Give to Woke Vote [...] Donate Petitions to Restore Florida Voting Rights [...] Color of Change PAC.
Joan Walsh at The Nation writes—Black Voters, Mothers, and Millennials Carried Doug Jones to Victory: Can they make the difference in other red states in 2018?
Progressives rarely get so much to savor, literally or symbolically. The bottom line is that black voters saved the country once again. And they did it on the first night of Hanukkah — a sad blow to Moore’s “Jew” lawyer, as the Republican’s bigoted wife Kayla Moore put it, at a disastrous Monday night rally that is more likely to have cost Moore votes than won them. [...]
We will be examining exactly how Jones won in the next few weeks, but we know a few things already. There was an unprecedented voter turnout operation in this red state, with contributions from new groups as well as the Democratic National Committee. But as Jones consultant Joe Trippi told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, they had no idea how it would work, since it had never been used before. Apparently, it worked well. A roster of groups devoted to black turnout, from Black PAC to #BlackVotersMatter to the NAACP, plus a web of small Alabama groups, pioneered new approaches that will be studied and possibly replicated in 50 states come November 2018. Once again, though, let’s take a moment to thank black women, who supported Jones 98-2.
The main takeaway is what we learned last month in Virginia: You can’t win if you don’t play.
David A. Love at The Grio writes—Doug Jones owes Black Alabamans BIG time:
Some pundits have urged the newly-minted senator to go the moderate-to-conservative route, and play nice with Trump and the Republicans if he wants to get reelected. But that is a tactic in the old failed Democratic Party playbook of ignoring the base, especially voters of color, for the purposes of chasing after the elusive white Republican votes.
An autopsy of the 2016 election cited Dems for its self-inflicted wounds, of not addressing the needs of voters of color, turning off Black women, and not standing up against institutionalized racism and economic injustice because “they’re afraid to alienate big funders or to harm future job or consulting prospects.”
This mentality gave Trump an opening in 2016 with his fake economic populism. [...]
The Doug Jones victory was not supposed to happen in the reddest of red states, and yet here we are. Black voters brought him to this place, and he can’t forget how he got here.
Paul Krugman at The New York Times writes—Scam I Am: Why Is the G.O.P. Rushing This Tax Abomination?
So, it seems that Republicans are responding to the devastating defeat in Alabama – which is part of a sustained pattern of underperformance in special elections, demonstrating that bad polls reflect reality, not bad polling, by … doubling down on a massively unpopular tax plan, whose main focus is on cutting corporate taxes.
In fact, they’re rushing to jam the thing through before Doug Jones can be certified, in a stunning act of hypocrisy from the same people who demanded that Obamacare wait until Scott Brown was seated and held up a Supreme Court seat for a year. It’s outrageous. But it also looks like really bad politics, especially given what we know is coming: calls next year for cuts in popular social programs, because of a deficit Republicans just voted to explode. So what are they thinking? [...]
And while Democrats should and will fight this attempt to ram tax cuts through with the vote of a lame-duck Senator, if I were a Dem strategist looking toward next November I’d be looking at current GOP moves and thinking, “Make my day.”
Frank Rich at New York magazine’s “The Daily Intelligencer” writes—The GOP Is About to Tumble Into Full-scale Panic:
I am one of those pessimists who thought Moore would eke it out in Alabama. How happy I am to be wrong! I am also one of those optimists who firmly believes that Donald Trump will look for a White House exit before the end of his first term — whether he’s done in by the Robert Mueller investigation, a desire to rescue his family business and the two relatives in gravest legal jeopardy (son Fredo and son-in-law Jared), or his diet of junk food and Diet Coke. That optimism is bolstered by yesterday’s Alabama vote. Jones’s victory will further destabilize Trump both psychologically and politically. Psychologically because he hates being seen as a loser, and his futile all-in endorsement of an alleged child molester for the U.S. Senate implants a big L on his chest that no Twitter rant can erase. This scarlet letter will drive him crazy — or, perhaps one should say, crazier. Meanwhile, he will be imprisoned in political gridlock. The GOP, having lost a safe Senate seat in one of the nation’s reddest states, is about to tumble into full-scale panic as it tries to ward off the erosion and possibly the evisceration of its Congressional majorities in 2018. It will not even pretend to do Trump’s bidding while swing voters are watching closely.
The Republicans have a lot to fear. As the Washington Post put it, the only achievement they have to run on next year is “a tax-cut bill that has polled poorly and delivers most of its direct benefit to corporations and the wealthy.”
Eric Alterman at The Nation writes—The Media Must Stop Normalizing Nazis: When one side is fascist, there’s no reason to show “both sides.”
It’s déjà vu all over again. Every column I write in the Trump era somehow needs to begin with some version of the question “Can this really be happening?” It’s only the “this” that keeps changing. One minute, it’s collusion with Putin to undermine the integrity of our election; the next, it’s being cool with child molestation; after that, it’s taxing grad students to pay for private jets. It’s hard to tell if we’re living in a science-fiction movie or a nightmare reality show.
Even so, I thought we were at least done with coddling Nazis. And yet there is the already infamous New York Times profile of one Tony Hovater, which seeks to illustrate the point that Nazis are people, too. They eat boneless wings, wear T-shirts, register for wedding gifts, and—get this—appreciate “mid-90s, Jewish, New York, observational” humor. Isn’t that adorable? [...]
That the Times, the networks, and other mainstream media outlets have been unable to communicate the degree to which our institutions are threatened by this Nazi-friendly administration is part of the reason that Trump and company can get away with what they do—aided by their own media cheerleaders at Breitbart, the Rupert Murdoch empire, and elsewhere. Where did the Nazi-admiring Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka go after he was forced out of the administration? To Fox News and the Heritage Foundation. Where did Trump go to get the racist (doctored) videos of alleged Muslim violence against Christians that he recently retweeted? From the deputy leader of a fascist political party in Britain.
Times executive editor Dean Baquet blithely dismisses criticism of the paper’s Nazi profile as “the most ridiculous overreaction” from people “who have never actually done much journalism.” Even as the Times genuflects to right-wing attacks, this condescension is typical of the paper’s treatment of criticism from its left. Baquet has the problem exactly wrong: The problem is a frightful under-reaction from people who have spent too much time doing journalism from a mindless “both sides do it” perspective to recognize the evil staring them in the face.
Paul Street at TruthDig writes—Magical Thinking Is Stopping Us From Taking to the Streets:
The archplutocratic tax cut Washington politicians are working on this holiday season ought to be a call to arms for the United States’ populace. The nation’s economy is already so savagely unequal that the top 10th of its upper 1 percent owns as much wealth as its bottom 90 percent. Its corporations are raking in record profits. Half of its citizens have no savings. Half its population lives in or near poverty. Twenty-one percent of its children are growing up at less than the federal government’s notoriously inadequate poverty level, and 41 million Americans—12.3 percent of the population—are “food insecure.” [...]
So why don’t we see millions of Americans in the streets protesting the brazenly oligarchic tax heist being perpetrated in the name of “fairness,” “simplicity” and even “democracy”? I can’t answer that question in full here. The forces and factors that have turned tens of millions of Americans into an inert mass are numerous and complex. [...]
Part of the answer lies in the pervasively disseminated belief that we the people get meaningful say on the making of U.S. policy by participating in the “competitive” biennial major-party and candidate-centered elections that are sold to us as “politics”—the only politics that matter. [...]
A second populace-demobilizing form of n thinking that is keeping people quiescent in the face of abject racist, sexist, ecocidal and classist-plutocratic outrage is the belief or dream that Russiagate special prosecutor Robert Mueller will save us and our supposed democracy by putting together a slam-dunk case for impeachment and removal on grounds of collusion with Russia and/or obstruction of justice.
Martin Longman at The Washington Monthly writes—GOP Will Try to Pass the Tax Bill Because They Don’t Know What Else to Do:
If the Republicans do manage to pass a tax bill, it won’t be because 16 percent of the public thinks it will benefit them. It won’t be because 55 percent of the people oppose the bill. It won’t be because a president with a 32 percent approval rating is demanding it. And it won’t really be because of that 15 percent deficit the GOP is suffering in the generic congressional ballot. It will be because they have no idea what else to do.
And it will be because the Republican donors will close their checkbooks if they don’t give them a trillion and a half dollars in tax breaks. [...]
An interesting thing about these kinds of donations is that they’re basically investments. The donors give money expecting to get more money in return. This is quite different from the kinds of donations I occasionally give to political candidates. I do it because I have policies that I’d like to see pursued that will be advantageous to the country or to people in need. I don’t expect to ever see my money returned to me by the IRS with a huge interest payment attached. I think most people who give money to political causes are in the same category. Greed has nothing to do with it, and whatever self-interest there might be is broad enough to be of benefit to lots of people, not just the donor or the donor’s business.
The Republicans get a lot of these types of donations, but they’re ultimately beholden only to the folks that cut the large checks. That’s why they feel compelled to pass a huge corporate tax cut even though the people clearly think it’s bad policy and reject it.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the creator of the Broadway musicals “Hamilton” and “In the Heights.” At The Washington Post, he writes—This is what Puerto Ricans need from the government. Right now:
Since Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico 84 days ago, my Uncle Elvin hasn’t had electricity. You read that right. Eighty-four days without being able to turn on a light, or stock a refrigerator, or take a hot shower. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans on the island cannot do the simple things we all take for granted. Add to this lack of power the destruction of thousands of homes, rural areas still isolated, small businesses not operating and an ever-increasing migration of Puerto Ricans to the U.S. mainland. It will take a long time for Puerto Rico to be totally functional again under the best of circumstances.
The federal government’s response to the disaster in Puerto Rico has been painfully slow and not commensurate with the hurricane response in Texas and Florida. It reminds me of Ricky Martin’s 1995 song “María.” He sang, “un pasito pa’lante María, un dos tres, un pasito pa’tras.” That’s the reality in Puerto Rico — one step forward, one step backward. We rejoiced when the first package of $5 billion in aid was approved by Congress. But then the House included a 20 percent import tax on products manufactured in foreign jurisdictions in the tax-reform bill it passed in November. Because Puerto Rico would be considered a “foreign jurisdiction” under the bill, this tax would deal a mortal blow to the island’s fragile economy, costing up to 250,000 jobs.
Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and so many of my friends in the artistic community can continue to do fundraising activities. We can march on Washington. I can
write music and dedicate proceeds to Puerto Rico; Americans from all walks of life can continue to donate, following the examples of the 150,000 who already donated $22 million to the
Hispanic Federation relief fund. There’s no shortage of compassion and goodwill for Puerto Rico among the American people. But it must be matched by the recognition of our government that the American citizens of Puerto Rico need, demand and require equal treatment.