I wrote this post for facebook. I don’t post there a lot. A long time ago ( about sixteen years ago), I left fundamentalism and became an independent and then a Democrat while I was in graduate school. Prior to then, my entire circle of friends was a large group of fundamentalists like me. I still have many people who are in my feed from that time in my life. I am simply putting this there as a witness to truth.
Republicans keep losing elections. They have huge demographic problems which will only get worse. The nation is diversifying even faster than predicted .
The new estimates show that nearly four of 10 Americans identify with a race or ethnic group other than white, and suggest that the 2010 to 2020 decade will be the first in the nation’s history in which the white population declined in numbers. The new data shows that, by 2019, the white population share declined nearly nine more percentage points, to 60.1%. The Latino or Hispanic and Asian American population shares showed the most marked gains, at 18.5% and nearly 6%, respectively. While these groups fluctuated over the past 40 years, either upward (for Latinos or Hispanics and Asian Americans) or downward (for whites), the Black share of the population remained relatively constant. A MODEST BUT UNPRECEDENTED DECLINE IN THE NATION’S WHITE POPULATION
The Wall Street Journal gives Republicans the mostly very bad news
White Americans voted for Trump 55 to 43 (74% of US population)
African Americans voted for Biden 91 to 8 (11% of US population)
Hispanics or Latinos voted for Biden 63 to 31 * (Cuban voters went for Trump 51 to 47 — so outside of Cubans, the numbers are even better for Biden) (10% of US population)
Asian Americans voted for Biden 70 to 29 (2% of US population)
18 to 29 year old voters voted for Biden 61 to 36 (13% of US population)
30 to 44 year old voters voted for Biden 55 to 43 (23% of US population)
45 to 64 year old voters voted for Trump 51 to 48 (28% of US population )
65 year old voters and older voted for Trump 51 to 48 (28% of US population)
High School or less voted for Trump 52 to 47 (27% of US population)
Some college voted for Trump 50 to 48 (34% of US population)
college graduates voted for Biden 56 to 42 (25% of US population)
postgraduates voted for Biden 59 to 39 (15% of US population)
Men without a college degree voted for Trump 55 to 44 (26% of US population)
Women without a college degree voted for Biden 50 to 49 (34% of US population)
Men with a college degree voted for Biden 50 to 47 (21% population)
Women with a college degree voted for Biden 65 to 34 (19% of US population)
Small town or rural voters voted for Trump 55 to 43 (17% of US population)
Suburban voters voted for Biden 54 to 45 (45% of US population)
Urban voters voted for Biden 66 to 33 (21% of US population)
Men voted for Trump 51 to 47 (47% of US population)
Women voted for Biden 55 to 43 (53% of US population)
Suburban men voted for Biden 49 to 48 (21% of US population)
Suburban women voted for Biden 59 to 40 (24% of US population)
Voters who did not vote in 2016 voted for Biden 57 to 41 (15% of US population)
Voters who voted on Election Day voted for Trump 65 to 34 (29% of US population)
Voters who voted early in person voted for Trump 51 to 48 (30% of US population)
Voters who voted by mail voted for Biden 67 to 32 (41% of US population)
The only bad news for the Democratic Party is that we lost 17% of the population, the small town or rural voted by a dozen points. This is a serious problem for several reasons. First, this makes it easier for republican presidential candidates to win the electoral college. Second, this makes it easier for republicans to control the US House of Representatives. Third, this makes it easier for republicans to control state legislatures which means that they can pass voter suppression and other odious bills. These clearly are serious issues. Yet, they pale in comparison to the demographic issues that the Republican Party faces. They are losing all ethnic groups other than whites by 2 to 1 or worse (except Cuban Americans) and the white population is declining while the other ethnic groups are growing rapidly. Within 20 years, this country will have more people who are not white than people who are white. It will take a little bit longer than this for the country to have more voters who are not white than who are white. *Note I suspect that WSJ % of the population is referring only to voters. Otherwise, their numbers are clearly wrong based upon the new census information. Since men with a college degree only went for Biden 51% to 47%, then Trump likely won white men with a college degree by 5 to 10 percentage points. That’s disappointing although I suppose it should not be surprising. It is just that one would hope that one would have learned to reject conspiracy theories and other nonsense when one earned a college degree. On the other hand, I would strongly suspect that more white men with a graduate degree voted for Biden than voted for Trump.
The Republican Party has only won the popular vote in a presidential election one time since and including 1992. A quick point for the the conspiracy theorists who believe Trump’s big lie: the vast majority of Republicans in Congress (and in the population ) have generally not asserted that previous presidential elections were stolen. Given that you all have lost the popular vote every single other presidential election besides 2004, isn’t it far more consistent based upon the historical record for the Democratic Party nominee for president to have won more votes than the Republican Party’s nominee ? If that is true and it undoubtedly is, then isn’t it more likely that the Democratic Party’s nominee won the electoral college as well ? The Republican Party’s nominee for president lost Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania every election but one since 1988 and that one election is one when we nominated a candidate who had historically high unfavorables .
After the republicans lost the presidential election even in states like Arizona and Georgia which had not gone blue in a while, the Republican Party was alarmed. Of course, the reason why they lost Georgia was because the party supported QAnon and other conspiracy theories as while as White Supremacists and pushed bigoted policies. They denied the reality of a pandemic which took hundreds of thousands of lives because their president denied it, they opposed mask wearing because he did, and his decisions directly led to the unnecessary loss of life (notice this was in October- so the unnecessary loss of life was even greater than listed in the link). 27 million more people voted for Democratic Party candidates for US Senate in the general elections in all cohorts cumulatively than Republican Party candidates. Despite that, due to the structural advantage in which regardless of population 2 US Senators represent each state, the Republican Party had a 52-48 member advantage in the US Senate going into Georgia. They thought that because they had just lost the presidential election and it was Georgia and so much was on the line that they would win the two US Senate run off elections in Georgia. However, due to what I wrote above, they lost those two US Senate seats and with it control of the US Senate. The Republican Party lost the suburban vote and lost suburban women badly in the last election and in the Georgia US Senate run off elections. When that happened, the Republican Party faced facts and realized that they needed to make a change.
No, they didn’t stop supporting white supremacy or engaging in and promoting conspiracy theories and anti science nonsense which killed hundreds of thousands of lives or pushing bigotry or extremist policies. They just needed to stop people of color and especially African Americans from voting. They took advantage of the emphasis upon geography over people in the US Constitution and wrote and either passed or got ready to pass all manner of voter suppression bills. Right now, they have 389 voter suppression bills either ready to be passed or others which have become laws.
How do we know that this was their intent ? First, we know this because voter fraud is extremely rare. We have no examples of widespread voter fraud. So, they are not trying to solve a problem since the problem doesn’t actually exist. Second, where did they start first ? In Georgia where they lost in the presidential election and both US Senate run-off elections. Now, if they are not trying to solve a problem that actually exists, then what does that say about their intent and their actions ? It could only be to win elections by making it much more difficult or impossible for voters of color and, especially, African American voters from voting. Now what is that other than Jim Crow 2 ? If you are going to intentionally make it more difficult for voters of color and, especially, African American voters from voting because it is politically advantageous to you, then you are the worst scum of the Earth.
Here I will quote myself and the law showing Georgia’s new law is indeed an example of the voter suppression (Of course it had to be since their motive is to win elections and there is no such thing as widespread voter fraud ):
Here is the quote from the law itself:
Page 73: No person shall solicit votes in any manner or by any means or method, nor shall any person distribute or display any campaign material, nor shall any person give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector, nor shall any person solicit signatures for any petition, nor shall any person, other than election officials discharging their duties, establish or set up any tables or booths on any day in which ballots are being cast: (1) Within 150 feet of the outer edge of any building within which a polling place is established; (2) Within any polling place; or (3) Within 25 feet of any voter standing in line to vote at any polling place.
Gabriel Sterling wrote that rewarding somebody for voting has long been a crime in Georgia. However, he intentionally tries to obscure the real point. Food and drink is not a reward for voters in populous counties with long lines, especially Democratic Party leaning counties, because (1) most people can eat and drink at home (2) it is idiotic to think that a person would vote in order to get a sandwich and bottled water (3) Because these lines have historically lasted up to eight hours in many diverse communities, people need this to avoid negative health consequences (4) it is not a reward for voting for a particular candidate or party (4) the new law specifically mentions food and water (5) the new law makes clear now that giving voters in long lines bottled water to prevent dehydration will be interpreted as a reward. It’s one thing to have it be illegal to give voters something of substantial and lasting value in exchange for voting for a particular party or a particular candidate, but this is completely different and Gabriel Sterling knows that.
2010 Georgia Code
TITLE 21 - ELECTIONS
CHAPTER 2 - ELECTIONS AND PRIMARIES GENERALLY
ARTICLE 15 - MISCELLANEOUS OFFENSES
§ 21-2-570 - Giving or receiving, offering to give or receive, or participating in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate
O.C.G.A. 21-2-570 (2010)
21-2-570. Giving or receiving, offering to give or receive, or participating in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate
Any person who gives or receives, offers to give or receive, or participates in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for the purpose of registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate in any primary or election shall be guilty of a felony.
Where is the mention of food and water ? It is completely absent. And that is important because most people would not believe that food and water while standing in a long line is a reward for voting. Why did groups provide food and water previously ? Because voters were in very long lines (usually in diverse communities) and could become dehydrated or could see other adverse health consequences. We are not talking about caviar or some fancy meal here or an expensive glass of wine. Food and drink only would last until they vote most likely: it has a very limited pecuniary value for a limited time. Virtually nobody is going to get in a long line so that they can get a bottle of water; they very likely could get that elsewhere much quicker. Who in theory would be induced to get into a long line to vote in order to get a bottle of water when they otherwise would not do so ? Only the poorest of the poor, perhaps hurt by the pandemic. So, they would be penalizing the poorest of the poor. This law unlike past law, then, makes it clear that providing food and drink including water would be interpreted as providing a reward for voters for voting (although not for a specific political party or candidate).
I will present a number of links documenting the situation. Here, Hunter points out the situation in Texas where they spent 22,000 hours searching high and low for widespread voter fraud and found nothing at all. Here was Paxton’s motive:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton remains indicted for securities fraud, a status he has held since 2015 as everyone in the state apparently conspires to slow walk his trial into the next millennium. He has evidently been using the time gained to commit other alleged crimes; as attorney general, his own subordinates have accused him of bribery and other criminal acts, and his own attempts to delegitimize the 2020 elections appear to have been motivated at least in part by Paxton fishing for a Trump pardon for those crimes.
The Houston Chronicle is reporting the latest numbers from Paxton's aggressive search for "voter fraud" in the state, and the numbers are about what you'd expect for an indicted ultrapartisan casting lines everywhere in search of justifications for his party's attacks on voting rights. Paxton's office logged "more than 22,000 staff hours" working on voter fraud cases in the last year, roughly doubling both the law enforcement officers and prosecutors already assigned to those cases. All 22,000 hours were paid for by Texas voters.
How much fraud did Texas Ahab's team find in those 22,000 hours? Sixteen cases. The team closed out 16 cases, all of them for Houston-area residents who wrote "false addresses" on voter registration forms. None of the 16 went to jail for it.
No widespread voter fraud. 22,000 hours and not even one case per thousand hours. This is disgusting. Here is the Brennan Center in their analysis of voter fraud.
The Myth of Voter Fraud
Extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare. Yet repeated, false allegations of fraud can make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to participate in elections
It is important to protect the integrity of our elections. But we must be careful not to undermine free and fair access to the ballot in the name of preventing phantom voter fraud.
Politicians at all levels of government have repeatedly, and falsely, claimed the 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections were marred by large numbers of people voting illegally. However, extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent, and many instances of alleged fraud are, in fact, mistakes by voters or administrators. The same is true for mail ballots, which are secure and essential to holding a safe election amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Brennan Center’s seminal report The Truth About Voter Fraud conclusively demonstrated that most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless and that most of the few remaining allegations reveal irregularities and other forms of election misconduct. Numerous other studies, including one commissioned by the Trump administration, have reached the same conclusion.
Even the Trump administration concluded that there is no widespread voter fraud. When even Trump’s own administration concludes the same thing as everybody else, then we can be pretty certain of the state of the case. Or are you going to argue that Trump’s own administration is actually liberal and in on the conspiracy ?
Here the Brennan Center gives a fact sheet which debunks the myth. Courts and numerous studies by a wide variety of organizations concluded that the percentage of votes which were cast fraudulently was zero.
Then the Brennan Center refuted the myth again.
What can we make of Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud?
The president’s claims of widespread voter fraud are not just unsubstantiated — they are flat-out false, and have been repeatedly and definitively debunked by scores of the nation’s leading election administrators, national security leaders, political leaders, and election experts. Indeed, the top federal agencies in charge of election security issued a joint statement declaring that the November 3 election was “the most secure in American history” and that there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
Trump’s own administration stated that the November 3 election was the most secure in American history. And where did they aim their claims at ?
Those efforts, which frequently singled out areas with large numbers of Black or brown voters, have been rebuked by federal government agencies, scores of state and local Republican election officials, and dozens of courts (including Trump-appointed judges).
Here they debunk 10 lies about voter fraud.
As if on cue, President Trump and his surrogates have claimed that mail voting is rife with fraud, and that efforts to expand access to mail voting — like Michigan's, for example — are illegitimate. That is incorrect: as the Brennan Center has explained, fraud in mail voting remains extremely rare, and none of the states that hold their elections primarily by mail have had voter fraud scandals since implementing the systems.
It should be apparent to republicans that they are being lied to. A great many republican voters believe QAnon is true. However, they were told that on January 20, Joe Biden would not be inaugurated but rather handcuffed and Trump would be inaugurated. This didn’t happen. Then they were told that on March 4, Trump would return to office. That didn’t happen. Now Trump has been saying that he will return to office. Now since it is undeniable that republicans are being repeatedly lied to by their party and their president, we have to wonder why they believe anything that their party leaders tell them. Again, a member of Trump’s own administration stated that the election was secure. A conservative republican debunked the baseless claims of widespread voter fraud one by one. Here I document the republicans who debunked and disputed claims of widespread voter fraud. These include Trump’s former personal attorney (he certainly acted more like Trump’s personal attorney than the Attorney General of the United States) Bill Barr and Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Chris Krebs who served in the Trump administration and Chris Christie who voted for Trump twice and republican Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling and Mitch McConnell and the previous republican nominee for president Mitt Romney and numerous judges and justices who were appointed by either a republican president or by Trump himself and they ruled against Trump on the merits as well as on standing. By the way, Five states, both red and blue, have all vote by mail elections.
No organization has been able to document widespread voter fraud in our modern federal elections. Numerous republican organizations and even the Trump administration itself found that there was no widespread voter fraud. This has been shown and proven numerous times by people and organizations of both political parties. Therefore, it is indisputable that widespread voter fraud is not an actual thing that exists. “Well some people are concerned and don’t trust our elections. “ Yeah and why is that ? Because Donald Trump lied to his voters and told them something plainly untrue. And why did he do that ? Because he is too insecure to allow his voters to know that he lost an election. That’s not just a conclusion from me. That’s what Mitch McConnell said shortly after the impeachment trial was over. And republicans in Congress are afraid to stand up to Donald Trump because they know that if they do, then Donald Trump will tell his voters to vote for their primary opponent. Since republican voters are conspiracy theorists and think the whole world is lying to them and out to get them, then they only listen to republicans and Trump. So if Trump had not lied to them and republicans in Congress had not been afraid of Trump and had actually told his voters the truth, then the concern would not exist.
This can only mean that there is no reason for these bills other than to start a second era of Jim Crow 2 and discriminate against Black and Brown voters and make it much harder or even impossible to vote so that they will win elections. Nobody who has any character or integrity or moral decency or a working moral compass will stick with the Republican Party knowing this. This is clearly morally wrong. Fundamentalist Christians who claim that they are born again and have the Holy Spirit in them and are on the side of right already lost all credibility by backing the most immoral and bigoted and evil person in the whole country, but they continue to prove that their religion is false by sticking with the Republican Party while the party pushes Jim Crow 2 through after their party’s president incited the insurrection and their party refused to even investigate it.
Bigotry is wrong. White Supremacy is wrong. I can say without any fear of contradiction that any religion that is okay with pushing through Jim Crow 2 and suppressing the vote of Black and Brown voters in addition to all the evil that came from Donald Trump is false. 80% of fundamentalists voted for Donald Trump even in 2020. Am I to believe that 80% of fundamentalists misunderstood their own religion ? My own former pastor backed Trump and if anybody understands the Bible and Christianity, it is him. Am I to believe that he has misunderstood the Bible and Christianity ?
I don’t post a lot on facebook. However, I once read somebody post who somehow was in my feed that nobody could name a reason that they did not approve of Donald Trump and that it was only because of hate. Frankly, I was shocked. I gave out a list.
This won’t be anywhere near a complete list. It can’t be. I will only explain that which appears to need explanation. Unprecedented lying. Children in Cages. Bigotry against Transgender people serving in the military. Bigotry against Hispanic judge. Good people on both sides of KKK and KKK protesters. Worship of Putin and other strong men dictators. Left Paris Accords. Left Iran treaty. Damaged relationships with allies. $2Trillion for corporations and the wealthy, refusal to read PDB, Bountygate, Ten instances of Obstruction of Justice listed by Robert Mueller who is not a liberal, Attempted Quid pro Quo for opposition research as Donald Trump jr met with Natalia Veselnitskaya a Russian lawyer close to Putin on the third floor of Trump Tower, Campaign finance law violations for which his fixer went to jail — payments to porn stars to be silent made 3 weeks prior to the election for far more than the legal amount that can be donated to a candidate and Donald Trump repaid the fixer showing he know and was part of it, Congress alone has the power of the purse and they approved aid to Ukraine but Trump illegally delayed it (no power to do so exists for the president) and then finally in a telephone conversation the Ukrainian president brought it up and Trump immediately said But I need a favor first and asked not for an investigation into Hunter Biden but rather an announcement of an investigation of the son of a political opponent. This shows that Trump was putting a condition upon the Ukrainian president for receiving aid that had already been approved by Congress by according to the Constitution the president has no authority to put such a condition upon aid already approved by Congress. This was both Trump going far outside of the powers given to a president but also part of a quid pro quo with a foreign country which is a violation of Campaign finance law. Then we have ten instances where Donald Trump made decisions based upon what he thought would benefit him at the moment which cost a huge number of Americans their lives. Calling the pandemic a hoax. Failure to call for a national shutdown early, refusal to promote mask-wearing, minimizing it because it was thought to only be in blue states, forcing governors to bid for supplies and equipment, pushing rally goers to be closer to each other to make his rally look larger, live speech at RNC with people close together and not wearing masks, attacks on people wearing a mask, attacks on Dr. Fauci, promotion of anti scientific methods of treating the novel coronavirus such as hydroxychloroquine, pushing a UV light up your … , mainline Clorox, then we have the fact that Trump incited the insurrection. Even Mitch McConnell acknowledged that Trump was practically and morally responsible for the insurrection. 7 Republican Senators voted to convict Trump which in this partisan age shows where the truth lies.
One more point. Since it has been made indisputable that there was no voter fraud, then what does that make the insurrection and the votes by 147 House Republicans and 8 Senate Republicans to object to the electoral college vote ? It makes it an attempt at a coup. It makes it an attempt to hold the White House and have the powers and office of president without having won the electoral college vote. Had it succeeded then it would have meant the end of our democracy.
Anybody who had voted republican in the past who sees that the fact is that there was no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and cares about our democracy at all can’t continue to support the Republican Party because the only possible conclusion if there was no widespread voter fraud is that Trump and the republicans attempted a coup. If you care at all about living in a democracy, then you cannot support the Republican Party.
Because of the voter suppression bills and historical trends and structural advantages, republicans have at least a 50% probability of winning control of both chambers in the 2022 elections. If they do, then the Senate Republicans will join House Republicans and a majority of the members of both chambers will sign onto the objection to the electoral college vote count so that even though the republican nominee for president will have lost the electoral college according to the vote count, the republican nominee will become president. The Senate Republicans didn’t sign on this past time because they knew that the US House of Representatives was controlled by the Democratic Party and so the attempted coup could not work. It is very hard for an incumbent president to lose re-election. Trump is the only president to have done so since 1992. Based upon the extremism of the Republican Party and the way that they turned off the Suburban vote as well as demographic trends and the fact that only once since after 1988 have republicans won Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, it is likely that either President Biden or our next nominee will have won the electoral college vote according to the vote. However, the electoral college vote will always be relatively close even if the popular vote is not.
Perhaps a republican thinks well at least a liberal won’t be in charge of the federal government. The problem is that while you may think you like this “conservative” being in charge, once you lose democracy, then eventually they will ignore what anybody else wants, even republicans, and you will have lost any and all recourse.
Democracy allows people to practice whatever religion they want (within reasonable limits ). It is incumbent upon religious people to also be responsible by making sure that we don’t lose our democracy.
Perhaps republicans were told that democrats have done the same thing and so what happened was not dangerous. They were lied to. The only other time in modern presidential election history that this happened was in 2004. 2004 was won by one state, Ohio. Not 3 states, one. Now John Kerry conceded within 24 hours of the election being called. That means that he was no longer trying to win the office. Trump NEVER CONCEDED. So, Trump was still trying to win the election. There was exactly one Senate Democrat who signed on to the written objection to the electoral college, Senator Barbara Boxer. She said that she was not challenging the accuracy of the electoral college vote, but rather objecting to vote suppression. The House and Senate Republicans were challenging the accuracy of the electoral college vote and the result would have been different since Donald Trump never conceded. John Kerry did not support the action of Senator Boxer. Trump encouraged House and Senate Republicans to object to the electoral college vote. Donald Trump filed and lost 100 court cases. John Kerry didn’t file a single court case. Thus, what republicans attempted to do was a real attempted coup as was the insurrection and it had no precedent at all, least of all 2004.
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Thursday, Jun 3, 2021 · 11:01:17 PM +00:00
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Dem
I found this article on this topic written by Reverend Jesse Jackson and I emailed him and asked him to read it if he would and share his thoughts. It will probably be ignored. However, I took the chance just in case.