The west coast is on fire. A presidential election is in just a few weeks. QAnon is attempting to erase all sense of reality. Did I miss anything? Well in case you did, I’ve got you covered.
Are you sick and tired of Republican gerrymandering? This right here is how we fight it
By David Nir
This is it. This is our last, best chance to stop Republicans nationwide from gerrymandering themselves into power for another 10 years. It all depends on winning a broad swath of crucial elections this fall for state legislatures across the country.
If we prevail, we can finally unwind the distorted maps that have allowed Republicans to lock in minority rule for too long. If we don’t, we face another decade of watching GOP politicians choose their voters rather than the other way around.
That’s why Daily Kos is going all-in to support a massive, diverse slate of fantastic Democratic candidates running to flip 47 Republican legislative seats in eight chambers that we can wrest from the GOP in November. Will you join us?
Daily Kos is proud to announce its biggest-ever slate of endorsements: 47 candidates running to flip seats from red to blue in eight legislative chambers across six states.
Pennsylvania teacher who voted for Trump in 2016 takes her regrets very public
By Laura Clawson
In 2016, Pennsylvania special education teacher Jane Scilovati voted for Donald Trump, because “I thought he was going to shake up the system.” In 2020, she’s so committed to not voting for Trump that she appears in an American Federation of Teachers ad against Trump.
The AFT is putting six figures into a digital ad campaign featuring the ad. “Pennsylvania voters know that Trump has failed to work for their families because his Administration has prioritized politics and enriching himself and his cronies over responding to a global pandemic,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “Make no mistake,” she added, “there are more teachers like Jane who recognize how dangerous a second Trump presidency would pose for both education and for our kids' future.”
We need to turn out Democratic voters to defeat Trump in November, even during a pandemic. You can help out from home, no matter where you live, by writing personalized letters to infrequent, but Democratic-leaning, voters in swing states. ✉️ Click here to set up an account with Vote Forward, the most popular get-out-the-vote activity among Daily Kos activists.
Three reasons why Woodward's revelations about Trump and COVID-19 are so devastating for him
By Kos
Set aside the ethics of Woodward sitting on that information in order to sell books six months later, after hundreds of thousands had died, and focus instead on the consequences of the revelations themselves. Because unlike almost anything else we’ve seen lately, this has a real chance of further damaging Trump among his dwindling base, and for sure, it puts a serious damper on his reelection efforts. Here are three reasons why that’s the case:
1. Nothing has moved Trump’s job approval numbers in the last year except one thing: his COVID response
Take a look at our Civiqs daily tracker for Trump’s job approvals over the past year:
So much has happened this past year, including scandal after shocking revelation after unbelievable actions by Trump and his merry band of felons and eventual felons. And yet there is only one thing that has moved his number: COVID.
You can see a slight uptick in March, after Trump declared a coronavirus national emergency, as he enjoyed a tiny rally-around-the-flag effect, but that quickly faded as the public realized that Trump wasn’t actually going to do anything about it. There may or may not have been a multiplier effect after the start of the national Black Lives Matter protests (the little bullet point after “Senate coronavirus hearing that may be hidden depending on your browser settings), but it’s hard to say. My guess would be it didn’t, and the movement around that time was pandemic-related.
Now take stock of that movement: Trump went from 43-54 prior to the national emergency announcement, to 41-56 today—a net four-point shift. That’s it! Four freakin’ points. 200,000 dead, and it cost Trump FOUR points. It’s unfathomable!
How many points did calling veterans and our wounded and fallen troops “suckers” and “losers” cost Trump? Zero points. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.
The Woodward revelations should be enough to ensure that this man never leads anything ever again. Unfortunately, that was already the case four years ago. We have to make sure that we turn out others to vote so that we never have to see his face again.
If anything, Trump's 'law and order' fearmongering is backfiring
By Kerry Eleveld
But the CBS polling also showed Trump's continued “law and order” appeals, particularly to suburban voters, to be a total flop with voters overall. Nationally and in Wisconsin, registered voters give Biden higher marks for his handling of the recent protests, particularly striking given Trump's focus on the recent unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the brutal police shooting of Jacob Blake.
| APPROVAL |
BIDEN |
TRUMP |
| NATIONALLY |
51% |
44% |
| WISCONSIN |
51% |
45% |
A strong plurality of voters also view Trump as purposely pouring gasoline on the fire.
REGARDING RECENT PROTESTS, ARE THEY TRYING TO...?
|
BIDEN |
TRUMP |
| CALM THE SITUATION |
49% |
39% |
| ENCOURAGE FIGHTING |
30% |
47% |
More generally, voters nationwide also say Biden would make them feel more safe as president than Trump, 48%-43%.
The CBS polling reinforced surveys from last week showing similar trends, including an ABC/Ipsos poll released Friday also finding that voters view Trump's rhetoric on the protests as more harmful.
| TRUMP |
|
| MAKES THE SITUATION WORSE |
55% |
| MAKES THE SITUATION BETTER |
13% |
By comparison, just 26% of respondents thought Biden was making things worse, while 22% said he made it better. A plurality of 49% said Biden wasn't having much of an effect one way or the other.
But Biden also posted double-digit margins of 20 points or more over Trump on who would do better at unifying the country while quelling unrest.
Would do better uniting Americans rather than dividing them?
Would do a better job handling the protests?
Would do a better job reducing violence in the country?
None of this means Trump's going to stop driving his twisted “law and order” message—he delights in blood and gore and has little if anything left to run on besides the protests. The same message was flopping a month ago, and that hasn't deterred Trump from continuing to drive it into the ground.
"If Biden gets in, this violence is ‘coming to the Suburbs', and FAST,” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. “You could say goodbye to your American Dream!"
But if anything, Trump seems to be reminding voters what an absolute menace he is.
A few weeks back I did an explainer video on the Daily Kos YouTube channel about the history and coded-racism behind the phrase “law and order” that I recommend you watch. It’s important to know the full weight of that phrase and how unbelievably harmful it is.
'Antifa arson' hoax rumors spread faster than wildfires in besieged West Coast rural areas
By David Neiwert
Among the leading spreaders of the false rumors is a right-wing online publication catering to police officers, Law Enforcement Today, which posted an article claiming that the “wildfires on the West Coast may be a ‘coordinated and planned’ attack.”
“Law enforcement throughout the west coast is reportedly being put on alert to look out for ‘opportunists’ and those who may have more sinister motives,” the article claimed. It then went on to list six arson incidents either related to the fires or in their general vicinity, but offered no evidence that they were coordinated in any fashion.
Nonetheless, it claimed to have a warning from a federal law-enforcement source:
“We are reacting to a coordinated series of attempts to start fires anywhere and everywhere in Oregon. Public and Private lands, incorporated and unincorporated areas.
“By all indications so far in the preliminary stages of these investigations there is a coordinated effort on the part of these individuals to start fires in areas that are the least protected and most vulnerable then slowing working their way into more populated areas and neighborhoods.”
The article adds a caveat at the end: “There are current concerns and allegations that many of these people who have started fires may be related to Antifa. However, these allegations have not be confirmed.”
The claims spread faster than the fires themselves on social media—and so did calls to rural police departments. In Molalla, Oregon—which is surrounded by the fires and was given Stage 3 evacuation orders Thursday—the police department posted a plea for people to call 911 and report “any suspicious activity (strange people walking around/looking into cars and houses/vehicles driving through neighborhoods that don’t belong there),” because “a lot of rumors and posts are going around about looters.”
This plea was promptly interpreted by right-wing conspiracists as the work of antifa. Far-right provocateur Katie Daviscourt retweeted the police bulletin with a message of her own: “WARNING: Multiple sources in Emergency Response have confirmed that the fires along the West Coast are caused by dozens of arsonists,” she wrote. “These fires are allegedly linked to Antifa and the Riots.”
I’ve gone on the record saying that everything David writes should be mandatory reading and every day I believe that more and more.
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Let me know in the comments: What story did you think deserved more coverage this week?
Looking forward to chatting with you all below!
