Today’s Good News: Children’s vax in arms, ages 5-11. Youngkin’s Day One Game Plan for VA has good mixed in with the viciousness. $130 trillion in assets pledged to the Global Warming fight. More than 40 countries agree to phase out coal-fired power. And most of all, how to save Democracy.
Oh, yeah, and Murphy won in NJ, breaking a 30-year-old curse, of which more below. NBC called it at the very end of Chris Hayes’s show, and Rachel picked up on it and brought Steve Kornacki back to go through the results in more detail.
And we got an amazing list of firsts in mayoral races.
Our Founders’ Advice for Saving Democracy, Which Our Schools Ignored
Our Founders gave us plenty of advice for what we need to do to keep our republic, but it wasn’t taught in my schools, except voting and a need for education. However, voting is NEVER enough, so what do we have to do to keep our republic?
At the end of this article is an Appendix of quotes and context as proof of what I summarized in a bulleted list telling us what we had to do to save democracy.
Let’s start here, with what many of you have said you need.
Saving the Republic
The Challenge
We know what Republicans want: Tear down the Constitution, destroy all rights for those whom they despise, cut taxes and regulations for the rich, White Supremacy today, White Supremacy tomorrow, White Supremacy forever!
- Lies
- Damned lies
- The Big Lie
More specifically
- No abortions
- No contraception
- No immigration
- No citizenship for immigrants
- Guns anywhere, anytime
- Unlimited military spending
- No environmental protections
- No criticism of Whites about anything, ever
- No actions whatever against systemic racism
- Religious freedom only for racist, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ pseudo-Christians and Israelis
We know that outnumbering them is not enough, given the gerrymanders built into the Constitution, and their bag of ever-morphing dirty tricks. But it will do to begin with.
The Remedies
Thomas Jefferson’s set of remedies consisted largely of education and the free press. Nobody has said it better, although we have updated them many times.
It is true that if our schools could break through entrenched prejudice, science denial, and bogus culture war panics, we would be a long way further forward. That is why the Wrong-Wingers are so desperate to prevent all of that. Nevertheless, more information than disinformation has been getting out, with some exceptions on the most bogus social media. Thus millions of the children of the fearful and hateful fall away every year.
It is true that if we could get the media and the Web, not just newspapers, to devote themselves to countering disinformation, we would be much further forward. But we have Fox, Newsmax, Sinclair, OAN, Breatbart, Infowars, and the other usual suspects going all-in against us, with funding from some of the most noxious billionaires.
Jefferson said we had to do at least six things:
- Educate the masses; it’s the foundation of democracy
- Vote (and get as many people possible to vote as possible, having educated them on how this will help them)
- Control corruption (which means we must have accountability)
- Control wealth accumulation, so it didn’t become a danger to the State and topple democracy, like now (This goes along with Adams’s advice on counterbalancing oligarchic power)
- Maintain a free press
- Have a “little rebellion” (his words) every generation to keep the country moving toward the ideals. We need to think of this as “good trouble.” Get out in the streets; strike or support strikes by not purchasing products from a company with workers on strike; boycott; unionize; organize; unite in solidarity to take some action, including informing others.
So:
- Break the filibuster enough to get comprehensive voting rights legislation passed and signed into law soon enough for it all to take full effect for the 2022 midterms
- Get moral panic out of our schools yet again, and support teaching of anything factual in our standard subjects, and more. We did segregation and Creationism and LGBTQs and reproduction, even if not completely, and a lot more, but they keep inventing excuses.
- Let’s make voting as easy as possible—mail-in, a holiday—and perhaps mandatory (but let those who utterly refuse mandates go, perhaps with just an automatic fine.)
- Prosecute the paskudnyaks all the time, and without such intolerable delays: politicians, banksters, corporate liars and fraudsters…
- Get clear and complete precedents on Congressional subpoenas
- Tax wealth, as recommended by Adam Smith, and close the loopholes
- Bring back the Fairness Doctrine, and establish Net Neutrality
- Teach and encourage critical thinking and breaking down myths
- Teach real history, and how to research more of it
- Bust disinformation at every opportunity
- Bring back the full range of union rights
- Don’t let Israel demonize BDS and Palestinian human rights organizations
- Support democracy, human rights, and truth around the world
- Give all immigrants a path to citizenship
- Open up immigration enough to fill all necessary jobs until we can fix education
- Give politicians and public servants civics and authoritarianism tests, and call them out if they won’t answer
- The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to fix the EC gerrymander in the Constitution
- Statehood for DC to start tackling the Senate gerrymander in the Constitution
- Fix SCOTUS
- Your additional remedies in the comments
None of these ideas are news to any of you. I just wanted to have the list in one place.
In 1782, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson said,
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree … The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth.
Jefferson did not actually mean letting propertyless people and women vote. He greatly mistrusted corporations, but did not foresee the entire cotton and tobacco wealth of the South being turned against the North, much less our modern billionaires, going back to Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust and forward to trillion-dollar companies. But we have expanded the vote very broadly, at least in principle, and we are at a tipping point toward making it reality. Taxing billionaires and restraining Dark Money, too.
Jefferson’s letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 November 1787, Jefferson wrote,
God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
The Bonus Army, FDR, Truman desegregating the Military (1948-1953, not just the mythic Stroke of the Pen), the Civil Rights era, Vietnam, Nixon’s crimes, Iran-Contra, Bush v. Gore, the initial Women’s March against TFG, Black Lives Matter, yup, 20 years or less. We’re on it, Tom. Thanks.
And the other side has gotten its licks in, too, from Jim Crow to today’s Big Lie.
In Thomas Jefferson’s letter to George Wythe, 13 August 1786, Jefferson wrote,
I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
Not just schools, but Wikipedia and a multitude of other Web sites, including social media sites when they accept and act on their responsibilities. Twitter, for example, says that it will offer pre-bunking of climate denialism starting on Monday. My bit is the Truth Brigade, currently taking on Facebook’s deliberate stoking of disinformation. Many others are of course also doing so.
What’s yours?
Your Regularly Scheduled Good News
The Governors’ Curse
Rachel Maddow told the story last night of how for three decades, ever since Poppy Bush, in the year after every Presidential election, the President’s party has lost the elections for Governor in Virginia and New Jersey. Every time. Both of them. Until now, when Biden is in charge, and we only lost Virginia. New Jersey was very close, but we pulled it out with mail-in ballot results from late reporting precincts.
In a rational world, this would not be a cause for Democratic panic. Quite the contrary. Democrats have beaten the odds!
Take that! Gloomsters and Doomsters, Handwringers, Naysayers, Debbies-Downer, Party Poopers, and everybody else trying to tell us what we have to think in whatever media.
BTW, Steve Kornacki reports that dozens of voting machines in Essex County (very Blue) where I grew up are tied up in a court case of which we have no details, so that election workers have not been able to get their counts. So Murphy won by more than has been reported so far.
Remember, however, that the Dark Side is in a blind, raging, screaming, existential panic that is making almost everything even worse for them.
Republicans have decided to take their win in Virginia as the pattern for all of 2022, with no changes. This was reported last night by Alayne Treene of Axios, calling this “The Republican do-nothing strategy”. Treene reports
I spoke to both the House and Senate campaign arms for Republicans, and both of them told me that they see what happened on Tuesday as a validation of their strategy so far.
They will focus on
- Inflation/the rising cost of living
- Immigration/border security
- Crime/calls to defund the police
- President Biden’s handling of Afghanistan
- Ds siding with teachers’ unions over families/school mask mandates
Please proceed, Rs.
What do you think, shall we go flip Texas next year?
Vaccines for Kids
The vaccines are going into arms today. Many school districts will mandate them. But
Kaiser Family Foundation poll, Oct. 2021
Parents on getting kids age 5-11 vaccinated
Right away |
27% |
wait and see |
33% |
definitely not |
30% |
Now, we have seen this movie before. When it comes down to it, when it is a question of the children going to school or not, only a few, we can confidently predict, will totally refuse, and send their children to those few private schools where vaccinations are not permitted. It will be just like police and fire departments and major corporations where thousands blustered, but only a few dozen actually quit.
WaPo (paywalled, but freely readable this early in the month)
See also preachers fulminating against Benjamin Franklin’s supposedly blasphemous lightning rods until only churches were burning down.
IN GOOD OLD COLONY TIMES Days Lyrics Words text folk music song THREE JOLLY ROGUES
or, as I learned it in childhood,
The little tailor went skipping away
With the broadcloth under his arm.
and finally
The little tailor went skipping through Hell
With the broadcloth under his arm.
Glenn Youngkin
Youngkin’s Day One Game Plan
Yes, wrecking schools, unions, public health, but also
- Eliminating Virginia’s Grocery Tax
- Providing a One Time Tax Rebate of $600 for Joint Filers and $300 for Individuals
- Cutting Income Taxes by Doubling the Standard Deduction & Cutting Taxes on Veteran Retirement Pay
- Fixing Our Broken Mental Health System
- Getting Every Student College or Career Ready
- Rebuilding Crumbling Schools, Raising Teacher Pay, & Investing in Special Education Programs
- Investing More Money in Roads & Highways
- Completing Long-Delayed Environmental Projects
That’s how far we, and they, have moved the Overton Window in Virginia, apart from Culture War topics and taxes.
So we get to install a new one, a beautiful, energy-efficient picture window with no more distortions. On every major issue, a majority favors progressive measures, but we have been held back by electoral shenanigans. No more.
But for the filibuster, which we are closing in on.
Mayors
First or second black mayor, first woman as mayor, first Asian mayor...You know, I’m looking forward to when all of our politicians are no longer firsts and seconds, just people. I don’t expect to see it myself, but I’m glad it’s coming. BTW, everybody says that Boston has never had a minority mayor. That’s completely untrue. Irish Catholics were among the most despised minorities until civil service rules let them into the police and everywhere else in local government, and they became White. But OK, first woman, first Asian. Go, Boston, and all of the others.
Wonderful victory speeches.
Mommy, can boys be Mayor of Boston?
There is also a wacko Black Republican woman elected Lt. Gov. of VA. These are her campaign photos.
She refuses to disclose her vaccination status.
Now, back to reality.
Science! Animals! Weirdness!
Sometimes all three at once!
Long-imperiled birds offer scientific breakthrough after genetic testing highlights rare phenomenon
Strange radio signals detected from new alien planets, says new study
Maybe. We’re going to put some effort into falsifying that idea first.
Imagine if you could ignore and thus turn off gravity or electricity or mass from the Higgs field or the quantum effects that hold atoms together and allow us to see and…
Funny or Cry