Transcripts

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JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left Podcast. It's said that we live in a melting pot here in the US. Perhaps it's more of a salad bar, who knows. In any case, there are a lot of people coming from a lot of different backgrounds, cultures, histories, and geographies, all about to vote in a few weeks. Today, we try to understand at least roughly how people's backgrounds influence their vote.

Sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today, include the NPR Politics Podcast, What A Day, The Wall Street Journal State of the Stat, AJ+, Brown University, and Vox. Then, in the additional deeper dives half the show, there'll be more on three cohorts, or give or take. Section A is a bit of a mixed bag actually, including discussions on LGBTQ, Muslim, Jewish, and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters. Section B [00:01:00] is on Latino and Black voters, and section C is White and rural voters.

A conversation about how demographic changes could impact the 2024 election - The NPR Politics Podcast - Air Date 9-3-24

SARAH MCCAMMON - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Let's start with a group we hear a lot about, white voters without college degrees. Domenico, they're a key group because they're just a really big group in this country, right? How have their numbers changed?

DOMENICO MONTANARO - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Yeah, they are a big group in the country. In fact, in all of the seven swing states that we're paying attention to—the three blue-wall states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, the four sunbelt states: North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada—they are the largest, single group, but they're on the decline everywhere, which makes the job for Trump and his campaign to turn out these voters a lot more difficult.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: They're a key group for Trump, and they're a shrinking share of the electorate, essentially, right?

DOMENICO MONTANARO - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Yeah, they are. And when you look at all the seven states, they've gone down a couple points just since 2020, and if you zoom out and go back to, 2008, [00:02:00] take Wisconsin, for example, was 66 percent non college, white voters. Now it's only down to about 58-59%. So that's a big shift. And you're also seeing an increase in those blue-wall states of white voters with college degrees, which is a group that's now moved more heavily toward Democrats, a group that had been pretty heavily Republican in years past. And now Trump has really traded out those white college educated voters, who tend to vote in higher numbers, for these lower propensity voters. And that is a big warning sign potentially for his team, especially when their turnout operation is also a big question mark.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: But one interesting and important thing about this group, the white, non college voters, these voters are actually quite different depending on where in the country you're talking about.

DOMENICO MONTANARO - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Yeah, that's absolutely true. Voters without college degrees who are white in the blue-wall states, for example, vote very differently than those same [00:03:00] voters in North Carolina and Georgia, the two Southern states that are part of this group of swing states.

When you look at the voters in North Carolina and Georgia, they voted something like 78-79% for Trump in 2020. When you look at the blue-wall states, they're only about the high 50s 60% for Trump, and that really makes a big difference. And that's something that Kamala Harris is continuing to try and do, which is reduce the margins with some of these heavy Trump groups.

ASHLEY LOPEZ - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: What I find most interesting about all this is yes, college educated voters are more likely to vote, so therefore this is a net positive for Democrats, but I would argue this does present a optics challenge for Democrats, right? The party has long promoted itself as the party on the side of the working man, so to speak, so it's not surprising that there is some concern that non-college, white voters having slipping support there is a problem. That's why you see so much jockeying for the union vote, for example. But I think this [00:04:00] concentration of college educated folks in the party is going to present an interesting issue as the party tries to tackle its elitism problem.

I think overall it is going to be interesting to see if this is a high turnout election or a low turnout election, because what we've seen is because so many higher education white voters are concentrated in the Democratic Party, it has been easier for Democrats to overperform in low turnout like special elections, but if this is a high turnout election, I'm curious to see what this would mean.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: And Domenico, when it comes to the white voters with college degrees, I think I heard you say they're becoming higher propensity voters. What's happening with that group?

DOMENICO MONTANARO - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: White college educated voters are among the highest propensity voters, about eight in ten of them vote in every election, as compared to white voters without college degrees, only about six in ten of them vote in these elections. The Trump folks see that as an opportunity, but in an election like this one, when turnout experts say it's going to be lower turnout than 2020 because of the lack of mail in [00:05:00] voting everywhere in the same way that it was during the pandemic, that these lower propensity voters tend to then go on the decline in those lower turnout elections.

But what we're seeing is in the blue-wall states in particular, the white population in those states is more educated than at any other time. Whites with degrees are up eight points in Pennsylvania, six points in Wisconsin, five points in Michigan since 2008. In Wisconsin alone, they're up four points just since 2020. And this really has to do with sort of the reshaping of the rust belt, where the jobs are.

There was a time, obviously, when people could have jobs in factories, have two cars, own a home, maybe even have a vacation house somewhere. That's no longer the case, and the younger population knows that they need to get college degrees, and we're seeing that. Help increase the college educated white population in those states and that's helping Democrats.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: So interesting. How does that translate into messaging from the campaigns and a turnout strategy? I'm thinking back to 2016 when we [00:06:00] heard Trump talk about I'm for the educated and the not so educated. He clearly knew who some of his constituency was, but what does it look like now?

DOMENICO MONTANARO - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: The fact is, when we're talking about who these groups are appealing to with Democrats appealing more to white college, educated voters, and Republicans and Trump specifically appealing to white voters without college degrees, that means it's going to be a lot harder work for the Trump campaign to turn out their voters. And generally, now that we're past Labor Day, this is the time for mobilization. And the Trump folks have had a real question mark around their turnout operation.

The Democrats have way more staffers on the ground. They have more volunteers that more offices. Of course Trump bucked those trends in 2016 as well, so we'll see what happens cause he has a very devoted and loyal base.

ASHLEY LOPEZ - CO-HOST, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: This is also why they're trying to increase support among groups that Trump has been doing a little better with compared to Republicans in the past, like Latino men and Black men in particular, because [00:07:00] there's only so much electorally you can draw from with just white, non-college educated.

The Gender Gap Is Widening In The 2024 Election - What A Day - Air Date 9-4-24

Juanita Tolliver: There is a growing gender divide among voters who support Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and a lot of the movement is happening among white voters. According to a recent ABC Washington Post Ipsos poll, Vice President Harris has a 13 point advantage among women voters, and Trump has a five point advantage among men, and that’s an 18 point gap between the two groups.

Priyanka Aribindi: Wow. Okay. Very stark here. You mentioned that most of the movement has been happening with white voters. So how have they been shifting?

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah, the biggest change since the Democratic convention has been among white women, as Trump dropped from a plus 13 advantage among white women pre convention to now only plus two, which is within the margin of error for this poll. And then there are the white men who are flocking to Trump as his numbers jumped from plus [00:08:00] 13 to plus 21 in the same time period.

Priyanka Aribindi: Wow.

Juanita Tolliver: Now, when we consider these numbers, we have to keep in mind the reality that according to the US Bureau of the census, current population reports, women have registered and voted at higher rates than men since 1980. So when it comes to voter power, it’s important to watch how women move.

Priyanka Aribindi: Listen, based on what you’ve told me, that sounds A-okay to me, but really, such a divide here. How much weight should we give this gender gap as we get closer and closer to November?

Juanita Tolliver: Like I always tell you, with every poll, this is merely a snapshot of the current moment. But there are reasonable questions to ask about the gender gap in the context of which issues motivate these splits, like the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs that overturned the right to abortion access. Also, how the divide is impacted when you consider race, age, and more.

To dig into all of this. I spoke with Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent for Vox, covering challenges to democracy and [00:09:00] author of the book The Reactionary Spirit: How America’s Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World. Here’s our conversation.

So you wrote a piece back in March where you questioned the idea of a growing political divide between men and women, but given the recent polling that shows the gender gap growing between Harris and Trump voters, do you still think that divide’s overstated, at least when we’re talking specifically about American voters?

Zack Beauchamp: The honest answer to that question is I don’t know. I don’t know because pre-election polling when it comes to demographic subgroups it can often be very unreliable. Right now, men and women are a sort of different case because they’re pretty large sample sizes. But also when you look at the attempts to try to figure out where this gender divide is coming from, you often end up looking at really small demographic sub slices like Gen Z men and women. There you’re going to run into significant sample size problems, and there’s going to be a lot of variation in each individual poll. And so you end up getting these polls, you’ve seen them a lot in this cycle, that showed Trump getting an [00:10:00] improbably large percentage of Black voters, for example, one that would defy anything close yeah–

Juanita Tolliver: Cough cough. Yes. Yes. I see that all the time.

Zack Beauchamp: Some of those things are just not happening, and they’re probably a result of there being statistical noise in the sample randomness can generate random stuff, that’s how it works. That’s all a big caveat, though. It’s entirely possible that there is a growing gender divide in American politics. And when I wrote that article that you talked about a second ago, my conclusion wasn’t, this isn’t happening, it’s we don’t have enough evidence to know for sure that it’s happening. There’s some evidence. It’s very preliminary, it’s very new, and we don’t know how durable these patterns are. We don’t know how significant they are, and we know, based on past elections that the gender gap is typically overstated and, generally speaking, dwarfed by gaps inside of genders.

White women and Black women vote much more differently than men and women do. Same thing with white men and Black men. We could go on down the list— race, [00:11:00] religion, sexual orientation, age, all of these tend to be more important than gender, historically. Again, that might change, and there’s some reasons to think it may in fact be changing, but I’m still on the cautious side, just because of how often this kind of thing gets overstated.

Juanita Tolliver: I appreciate the caution, but I do want to focus on the evidence around this election in which gender has become a major issue. Polls show Harris has increased her margin over Trump with women voters by about 13 points, but that divide was there when President Biden was the presumptive nominee. So, we know reproductive rights has been a big issue driving women to Democrats in particular. But what else is pushing women voters to the left right now?

Zack Beauchamp: A few of the plausible guesses include first, there’s a growing educational gap among women and men. Women are increasingly more likely to enroll in and graduate from college than men are. And we know that education tends to make people... well, I should be cautious about that. We know that people who have college degrees are [00:12:00] more likely to be Democrats. We don’t really know why. That’s another one of those fun puzzles that we’ve got in American politics. Where you look at these things and you have a bunch of different theories, you don’t really know why it’s true. But if it’s the case that women are increasingly making up the ranks of college graduates, men are less likely to graduate. That means that women are probably more likely to become Democrats disproportionately.

Another theory is that it’s generational. Like Dobbs is part of it, maybe a really big part. But another part would be that a lot of women who are younger now were socialized in a moment where gender politics and conflict over gender became really salient, a really important part of their experience. I’m talking Donald Trump running for president after the grab them by the pussy comments, the MeToo movement that came after that, the rise of a lot of young men paying attention to misogynist influencers, people like Andrew Tate.

If you’re a young woman in high school and the men are listening to a guy who is, there’s a lot of very good evidence that he’s an actual sex trafficker, and [00:13:00] that’s who they’re looking to for dating advice and advice about how to be a man in the modern world, it would make sense that a lot of women would come to see politics through the lens of gender. And that’s why a lot of the arguments about this, they tend to focus on younger women, because the divide is not very evident in older generations. But there’s some preliminary polling that you pointed to that tends to suggest a massive divide between young men and young women in political preferences. Again, we’ll see if that’s borne out in November. It may or may not be.

Juanita Tolliver: I do want to go to the flip side of that and hear your theories as it relates to men, because American men have been riding with Trump and Republicans.

Zack Beauchamp: But the thing I want to add, this is like a little fun wrinkle, is that it’s actually not that young men are more conservative than older generations. There is some evidence that a fringe of young men listen to these Andrew Tate type figures, but actually, on average, a Gen Z man is more likely to be left leaning than someone in older generations. Maybe not [00:14:00] millennials, but certainly older than that. But what’s really happened is that young women have swung really hard to the left. So a lot of the explanation is less what happened to men then what’s going on with women and why again if the state is right, why are women so left wing. That’s one of the things that we have to puzzle through right now.

Juanita Tolliver: Let’s start to dig into it, because you mentioned a couple of things already. You mentioned the recording where Trump talked about grabbing women by their genitals. We talked MeToo movement. There’s Dobbs that we’ve already discussed as well, and a lot of that came up after Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. So how do you see these kinds of events exacerbating, gender divide in American politics?

Zack Beauchamp: There is a sense that the feminist movement and its gains are under attack in a way that they haven’t been in a really long time. And it’s not just a sense. Dobbs wasn’t just one political development among many. A lot of people treated it like that at the time, that it was just one [00:15:00] of those things that’ll happen and then people forget about it by November. We know that’s not what happened. We know it was one of probably the two most decisive issues, maybe the single most decisive issue in Democrats well overperforming in the midterm elections.

This was an epical event for the way that a lot of Americans see their politics. And before that, abortion politics weren’t actually that polarized on gender lines. Men and women were similar when it came to abortion. But I have this theory, and I feel like it’s been borne out by a lot of recent events, that people don’t really appreciate something when it’s going to happen, it’s only when it actually happens that it changes the way they think about politics.

Juanita Tolliver: Oh come on. I feel like Trump’s full administration was a case study in that reality check. Yeah.

Zack Beauchamp: Yeah. It’s like people were like, "okay, maybe this bad thing could happen, but you know, that’s could. That’s that’s a future problem. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t." But once the constitutional right to abortion was gone, and [00:16:00] you started getting states banning abortion altogether pretty much, or doing six week bans that were functionally the same thing, people really changed the way they thought about this, and it wouldn’t surprise me if a gender gap emerged as a consequence, a durable and consistent gender gap, because it’s women whose rights are being taken away. Of course, like historically, people would puzzle why don’t women care more about this? And I think the answer we may have is they didn’t think that it was going to be under threat in the way that it is

Why So Many Young Men Are Leaving Democrats for Republicans in 2024 - WSJ State of the Stat - Air Date 8-19-24

NARRATOR: In 2008, 58% of young people lean Democratic. 2012, 53%. And in the last two major election years, that percentage held steady at 55%. But in 2023, that number dipped below 50% for the first time since 2005. And you'll notice right here, they've started to lean more Republican. And that's partly because of one specific group, young men.

Young men have increased their support of the Republican Party from 35% to [00:17:00] 48%, a 13 percentage point increase in just seven years, and this is a new trend. While 2020 exit polls show that young men backed Biden by 15 percentage points, a February 2024 Wall Street Journal poll found they favored Trump by 14 percentage points. And this loss of young male voters is a major issue for the Democratic Party going into November. The question now, can Kamala Harris bring some back?

Here's what's driving young men to support Republicans and what it could mean for the presidential election to come.

AARON ZITNER - WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER: When we ask young voters, "what issue is most important to you when you go to cast a vote?" Among young men, it's the economy. Among young women, it's abortion.

NARRATOR: 17% of men say the economy is the most important issue, followed by democracy and immigration, whereas for young women, the top issue is abortion, by a lot.

AARON ZITNER - WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER: Why is this happening? Well, we put the reasons [00:18:00] into two different buckets. One is the life experiences that young men and young women are having. Those life experiences are diverging.

NARRATOR: Young men without a college degree have seen the greatest decline in labor force participation. Meanwhile, a record 87% of college educated women are in the workforce. And today, women make up 60% of college graduates.

AARON ZITNER - WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER: This division that we're seeing between young men and young women, it goes beyond who they're going to vote for for Congress or President. It goes to a range of policy issues. So then let's look at what is offering. The Biden administration has moved to forgive federally funded student loans. That affects young women more than young men.

NARRATOR: During the 2019 2020 school year, 49% of female undergraduate students took out loans, compared to only 42% of male undergraduates. And 66% of all student debt is carried by women.

AARON ZITNER - WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER: The young women favored forgiving student loans by [00:19:00] 45 percentage points. The young men were about equally divided. That's a big difference.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, young men support extending Trump's tax cuts by 23 percentage points, which cut the corporate tax rate and reduced some individual income tax.

DONALD TRUMP: And now because of our tax cuts, you can keep more of your hard earned money.

NARRATOR: But women oppose the proposed extension by 20 percentage points, a full 43 point difference.

AARON ZITNER - WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER: That's data that goes like this. Young men headed in one direction and young women in the other. That's a big difference. Data does not usually segment young voters that remarkably. This is something new.

NARRATOR: Which brings us back to this chart. 22% of young female voters say abortion is their number one issue in this election, a key aspect of Harris' campaign.

KAMALA HARRIS: We trust women to make decisions about their own body.

NARRATOR: Only 3% of young male voters said the same. And young men and women stacked up differently on other issues [00:20:00] as well. With immigration, Trump's policies are much more likely to be supported by men than women. Men support deploying troops at the border by 10 percentage points, whereas women oppose this policy by 15 points. And when it comes to building the wall, one of Trump's key immigration policies, men are only slightly leaning towards opposition, but women overwhelmingly oppose it.

These gaps are hard to explain just by differences in lived experience, which brings us to the second thing that explains the gap between young men and women.

AARON ZITNER - WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER: What are the candidates and what are the parties saying to young voters? Donald Trump and the Republican Party are putting out a lot of messages expressly intended to appeal to young men. Donald Trump has gone to ultimate fighting championship matches. He recently appeared on the podcast of Logan Paul. He went to a sneaker convention to sell his own brand of sneakers.

DONALD TRUMP: We gotta get young people out to vote.

AARON ZITNER - WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER: These are audiences that are overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly filled with young men. And it's a way that [00:21:00] Donald Trump and his campaign have been saying, "Hey, young men, I'm with you. I'm on the same page as you. I understand you."

A lot of the messaging from the Democratic Party has been towards issues that are more salient for women.

KAMALA HARRIS: When I am President of the United States, I will sign into law. the protections for reproductive freedom.

NARRATOR: So what does this mean for November? Young women historically vote at higher rates than young men, but experts say that with a tight election, the Democratic Party will need to draw in as many votes as possible. The next challenge for the Republican Party will be figuring out how to turn these young male supporters into actual

What Will Black Male Voters Do In 2024? - AJ+ - Air Date 7-7-24

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: The US's next president may be chosen inside sanctuaries like this. Detroit's Bethel AME Church is the largest precinct in Michigan. It had the highest number of voters registered and the highest number of ballots 2022 midterms. This year, Michigan is one of the most [00:22:00] important states in the election.

CHAD KING: Say hello to Coretta.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Is that the name of your gun?

CHAD KING: Yes, Coretta.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Coretta. As in the civil rights activist?

CHAD KING: As in Coretta Scott King, yes. I name all of my guns after historic Black women.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Gun rights are central to Chad's political views.

CHAD KING: They always say you vote with your heart in the primaries, but in the general election, you vote with your brain. I haven't gotten to a point where I feel like I can confidently say, yes, Joe Biden is the person I should vote for.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: What are you iffy on him about?

CHAD KING: I'm iffy about him, certainly on the firearms issue.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Gun ownership is almost universally seen as an issue for conservatives, white conservatives. It's a tenet of the Republican platform.

CHAD KING: I think that gun rights are just as important as voting rights in my opinion. In fact, I think they're inextricably linked.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: But Chad, who is the legacy of Black people's historic relationship with gun ownership, is no Republican. He's a self described moderate voter who never views his ballot solely through the lens of gun rights.

CHAD KING: The [00:23:00] economy is a significant issue for Black men because without economic sustainability for themselves, they cannot sustain a family. If they can't sustain a family, they can't build communities.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Chad's focus on the economy echoed what I'd hear from so many Black male voters I spoke with in Michigan.

BLACK MALE VOTER: We need economic balance amongst us.

The economy, obviously.

Economy.

Just talked to a brother the other day and he said, I can't hear anything that a politician Is saying with the echoes in my pocket.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: This reflects Black voters concerns nationally. The economy has ato, their list of priorities along with improving education, reducing healthcare costs, and dealing with problems in impoverished communities.

CHAD KING: We aren't being heard about what the issues are that are important to us as Black men. The ad is that what one won't do another will. That may be, some of the cause for a small migration over to another party.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Who do you plan to support this year?

CHAD KING: I have no clue yet. I know I can't, in good conscience, support Donald [00:24:00] Trump. That's a non starter.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: US establishment news media continually has said Republicans are successfully courting large numbers of Black male voters.

NEWS REPORT: The recent New York Times Siena poll shows 23% support among Black voters for former President Trump. That's up 19 points. I think that what you see is a decline, especially Black men, in support for President Biden.

Basically, it's Black men under 30 that are moving towards the Republican Party.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: The reality is, Black people, including Black men, are the Democratic Party's most loyal voting bloc. In a May 2024 poll of registered Black voters, 83% were Democrats, or leaned that way. Here's the caveat. US citizens actually vote for the Electoral College, and then it votes for the President. The Electoral College distorts the vote because it's disproportionately weighted, and it lets a winner of a state take all of its votes. Only six states effectively will decide this year's election. This is [00:25:00] why who turns out to vote is so important.

Kermit Williams is a progressive organizer canvassing a Detroit neighborhood.

KERMIT WILLIAMS - CO-DIRECTOR OF OAKLAND FORWARD: So I used to tell people if they didn't vote, shut up, you don't have anything to say, because I thought that it was laziness, really. But I had to realize that not voting is just as much of a choice as voting. I think that a lot of people are making that choice right now, not if they're going to vote Republican or Democrat. What I'm concerned about mostly is that there's a number of Black men that won't vote.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Kermit says he's seen Black men targeted on social media with specific talking points.

KERMIT WILLIAMS - CO-DIRECTOR OF OAKLAND FORWARD: And so I started noticing that the algorithm and their YouTube clips or everything else used to have a commercial that was really leaning toward that conservative or culture war thing to say that Black men don't have a place.

They had one social media influencer going so far to say, "Oh, the president doesn't make any difference in your life. So you should just vote for your state representatives and others."

SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT: Black people, pull, pull your minds out of the [00:26:00] presidential election. Don't entertain that president talk. That's a distraction because you don't pick it.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: This is an example of what Kermit says Black men are seeing online. He sent it to me. He also sent me this as an example of social media parroting conservative talking points to Black people.

SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT: We're giving one party our vote because they've successfully gone about the business of convincing our community that the other party, the Republican party, is completely against the interest of the Black community.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: What do you think the GOP and Republicans are doing to woo Black men?

KERMIT WILLIAMS - CO-DIRECTOR OF OAKLAND FORWARD: They're spending the money, and they're paying attention to Black men, and I think their messaging is working with some, because they've been intentional in spending dollars.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Trump supporters have even doctored and shared fake AI images online. None of these Black people exist because they aren't real.

NEWS REPORT: There's at least a dozen images like this going around on social media. They found it's been dating back at least since back in October.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: [00:27:00] Then there's the fact. Trump debuted $400 sneakers at Sneaker Con in February, 2024.

NEWS REPORT: This is connecting with Black America because they love sneakers or into sneakers.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Many viewed it as a racist trope.

KERMIT WILLIAMS - CO-DIRECTOR OF OAKLAND FORWARD: At the end of the day, offering tennis shoes with a sprinkle of racism is not the way to get people out and encouraged to vote.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: Trump even uses his criminal indictments as an anecdote to relate to Black voters.

DONALD TRUMP: And then I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that's why the Black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: One thing that I've consistently heard from Black men who plan to support Donald Trump is that their primary issue is the border.

KERMIT WILLIAMS - CO-DIRECTOR OF OAKLAND FORWARD: And that's because they've been targeted with it. I've got at least 17 social media videos sent to me about the border, but I don't really believe that that is a major issue.

IMAEYEN IBANGA - HOST, AJ+: All this targeting is important because voters of color make up a third of the electorate, though [00:28:00] they only cast 22% of the ballots. You'd think any increase in their participation would be influential, but that's not exactly accurate. More than half of Black people live in the South, but thanks to policies like gerrymandering, voter restrictions, and the Electoral College, the presidential voting power of a Southern Black voter is diluted. It's far less influential than that of a in a Midwestern battleground state like Michigan.

Ian Haney López, "Dog Whistle Politics: Coded Racism and Inequality for All" - Brown University - Air Date 8-23-17

Ian Haney López: So, here's Mitt Romney. 2012, here are the campaign themes, he's saying, "Vote against Barack Obama, he's all about welfare and giveaways," even if it's not true. "Vote for me, I don't care about half the country, but I do plan to cut taxes for the very rich, allow corporations the freedom to write their own regulations, and slash social services that might help anybody who's poor, or at least in the bottom half."

And how'd he do? Now, most of you know. [00:29:00] He lost. How about among whites?

This is what the electoral map would look like if you only counted white votes in 2012. Mitt Romney won three out of five white votes across the country. It wasn't just old white men. He won among white women as well. He won among every age cohort of whites. Three out of five whites voted for a candidate who warned them, who lied to them about Barack Obama and welfare, and who promised to give control of the government over to the very rich.

And this is where we are today. This is a sort of dog whistle politics. A couple of points. This is not a story of race declining in influence since 1964. If you want to find [00:30:00] presidents who've done better than Mitt Romney among whites, than Mitt Romney did, you have to look to Reagan's re-election in 84, or Nixon's re-election in 72.

Mitt Romney won 59 percent of the white vote. 62 percent of whites voted Republican in 2014. We are deep in the heart of dog whistle politics. A politics that is wrecking the middle class through racial themes.

Okay, I'm out of here. Oh, no, wait. I guess we should talk about what to do, maybe. Okay, let's talk about what to do, and this is where I'm gonna wrap up.

First, demography will not save us. Listen, you know how I was saying the Democrats have said we should stay silent? They're saying we should stay silent again, right? They're saying, don't talk about race in politics, don't worry about it. Why not? Because, take heart, America, whites will soon be a minority.

Right? So the Democrats are saying to themselves, hey, you know, whites are 65 [00:31:00] percent of the country now, but by 2043 they will be a minority and dog whistle politics will stop working then. And there's two reasons why that's ludicrous. Reason number one, it turns out when you tell white people that are declining share of the population, they don't get more liberal and they don't get more racially tolerant.

They go the opposite direction. Levels of racial anxiety among whites goes up, and conservatism among whites goes up. It is not helping for Democrats to be saying, we're not worried about this sort of politics because whites, your time has passed. Right that's not helping.

Second, the idea that whites are going to be a minority in 2043 depends on the white category remaining stable. And indeed, more than that, it depends on the white category remaining the white non Hispanic category. But [00:32:00] already, half of all Latinos think of themselves as white. Now, that's different from how many whites think Latinos are white, but half of all Latinos think they're white. And when you look at the census numbers, and if the census includes among whites, not just non Hispanic whites, but Hispanic whites, Then in 2043, what will be the percentage of the white population in the country?

We're 65 percent now. What will it be in 2043 if you include Latinos? 72%. If, over the next 30 years, a significant segment of the Latino population comes to be accepted as whites, we may be in the midst of a historic expansion of white identity, not a move to whites as a minority in this country. And believe me, The Republicans/Ted Cruz/Marco Rubio understand this, right?

And this is why it's so important to understand this is not [00:33:00] about racism. They don't care if they win votes by bringing in Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Herman Cain. They don't care. They care about winning. They care about power. And if dog whistle politics can succeed by wrapping in new groups who can be made racially anxious, that's exactly what it'll do.

And at least within, among Latinos, and also among certain Asian communities, East Asian communities especially, but I think also South Asian communities, there is a receptivity to the idea that a chance of racial upward mobility is possible, and that they are under racial threat from poorer and darker and more recent immigrants.

This sort of politics will remain available couched primarily in terms of immigration and darkness, in terms of language [00:34:00] proficiency, in terms of professional credentials, this sort of dog whistling will continue. So what are we to do? Three quick things. We need to reclaim government. And this is just so foundational, and yet so many people have given up on government.

So I attend sort of progressive social justice conferences. I love all the conversation about creativity, and social media, and volunteerism, and new NGOs, and sharing. I got that. In our society, we will not have a broad, fair, and inclusive society. Unless government's on our side. If government remains on the side of the 1%, we're doomed.

All the volunteerism and creative NGOs and whatever, notwithstanding, we need government on our side. We're not going to win government on our side in the last two weeks of a campaign, right? We need a broad social movement that demands that government return, that government help everybody. So that's number one.

Number two. We need to reject racism. The minute we [00:35:00] begin to talk about government that helps everybody, we're going to be met with dog whistle narratives that say, "Don't you just mean give away stuff to minorities?" Because that's exactly how conservatives have been fighting, and Democrats themselves have been fighting this effort to make government meaningful for all of us.

So we need to reject that sort of racism. We need to surface dog whistling, we need to call it out, we need to repudiate it. This is just an aside. Think about what has happened with Indiana and Arkansas in the last week. That was dog whistling, right? Those states said, hey, religious freedom as code for homophobia.

And they got hammered, and they're backing up, right? This is what we need to do around race. I'm happy to talk about why it's much more difficult around race. I'll do that during Q& A. This is the sort of thing we need to do.

Third, take pride. Democrats, progressives, for the [00:36:00] last 50 years have been saying, "Hey, people are being bamboozled by these identity issues. We just need to talk to them about how important this is to their checkbook, to their retirement, to their children's future. Let's talk to them about the hard reality of finances."

And how's that worked? Because people, they think in different terms. They think about their pocketbook. They do. But they also think about themselves, their sense of self, their sense of social position, who they are, whether the work that they've dedicated their life to is esteemed, whether their values are respected.

People think in those terms, and that means we need to respond in those terms. We need to respond in terms that give people pride in who they are when they resist divisive dog whistle politics. What would that look like? I think a campaign that focuses on Americans as hard working, [00:37:00] Americans as patriotic, Americans as generous, most importantly, tolerant.

Right? 90 plus percent of Americans identify tolerance as a quintessential American value. Now, I know, in lefty circles, "tolerance" is not such a great word. We would much rather "esteem" or sort of "inclusion," because tolerance implies this sort of mental reservation. I'll tolerate you, but the truth is I don't really like your kind.

I got that. But people don't need to like everybody. They need to tolerate them, and they specifically need to tolerate them in the sense that they need to refuse to be divided by dog whistling. By this sort of coded demagoguery that is so constant.

Last point. I like the phrase "take pride" because take pride also has this sort of activist element and also this sense that we're taking it from someone, that we're taking it in opposition to someone. It's just not enough to [00:38:00] tell people let's hold hands and feel good about ourselves. You also need to tell people, especially people in crisis, who did this?

Who's doing this to you? Who is the threat in your lives? Because clearly things aren't going right. Who's doing this? And so take pride, not only in the sense of collaborative, shared effort, but also in the sense of who's not generous, who's not tolerant, who isn't hard working. Who are these people, the Koch brothers, who are doing this to us, right? We need that affirmative sense.

Last, and here's where I'll end. Maybe this seems like it's at this sort of high level of abstraction, and in a sense it is, 40 year, 50 year phenomenon and how are we going to respond, broad social mobilization that reclaims government, rejects racism, takes pride. I get that that's abstract.

What does that mean for you as individuals? Dog whistling has skewed just about every area of American life. [00:39:00] Education, immigration, welfare, incarceration, the environment, the infrastructure. Every area. Pick an area. Whatever area you care deeply about. Get involved. Join an organization. Commit to shared mobilization and commit to building bridges.

To helping others in your area see that this is part of a larger practice, a larger pattern, in which government has been hijacked by the very rich through manipulations of status.

How Michigan explains American politics - Vox - Air Date 1-11-24

Adam Freelander: This chart shows how many people voted in Detroit in different elections over the years. You can see that turnout in presidential elections is typically higher than turnout in midterm elections, and that's true pretty much everywhere. But, look at the turnout in 2016. It's almost as low as, for example, the midterm election of 2006.

Now, two things are happening here. Detroit is getting smaller during this time. Its population is shrinking, so [00:40:00] fewer voters. But Trump had a role here, too.

DONALD TRUMP: "Look how much African American communities have suffered under Democratic control."

Unknown Speaker #1: The thing that I think Trump did effectively as far as interacting with African American voters is not getting them to become Republicans or switch their vote to the Republican Party. It's to get them to not be comfortable voting for anyone.

DONALD TRUMP: America must reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton, who sees communities of color only as votes, not as human beings.

Unnamed Vox Interviewee: Republicans don't have to move the needle that much in those communities to, to have a incredible impact on election outcomes.

Unnamed, WXYZ: I'm not convinced African Americans like Hillary Rodham Clinton as much as they liked Barack Obama.

Unnamed, Detroit Public TV: No one in this race, on either side, has that same pull.

Adam Freelander: If you don't like either side, maybe you don't vote. Now, there are of course other factors, [00:41:00] too. That outcome is just one more of many that take us from blue Michigan to red Michigan.

But remember, after 2016 is when Michigan starts to swing back. In 2018, the state elected a Democratic governor by a big margin. In 2020, it voted for Biden. And to see how we got there, we have to talk about white women.

This chart comes from exit polls of white women in Michigan over 10 years of presidential and gubernatorial elections, and it shows us in the early 2010s, including 2016, white women in Michigan were voting more for Republicans.

Unnamed Vox Interviewee: In 2016, white women across urban, rural, suburban, educational level gave Trump a chance.

Adam Freelander: But after 2016, something changes, a big swing among that demographic towards Democrats. Now this chart doesn't tell us the reason for that, but there was something big [00:42:00] happening around that time. A kind of adjustment in the way that many women in the US were participating in politics.

Demonstrators: "I'm Vice President! I'm Vice President! We will not be ignored!"

Unnamed News Anchor: Millions of people around the world marching for women's rights today.

Adam Freelander: One part of Michigan was particularly energized during this period.

Unnamed News Anchor: The largest of all was in Washington, D. C.

Kimberly Gill: Everywhere we turned, we ran into somebody. From Michigan.

Various Demonstrators: "I'm from Huntington Woods."

"Michigan."

"Waterford, Michigan."

"Franklin."

"We're from Ferndale!"

Adam Freelander: Huntington Woods, Waterford, Franklin, Ferndale. All in Oakland County. Women, especially white women in places like Oakland, were a big part of what drove the Democrats to their victory in 2018 and led to Trump losing the state in 2020.

Oakland County Voter 1: I didn't think I'd ever have to worry about whether or not the president of the United States was a good [00:43:00] role model, and I do now.

Oakland County Voter 2: I spent every day from 2016 through now, making sure I did everything that I could to make sure he's not re elected.

Unnamed Vox Interviewee: In some ways, Oakland is the mirror image, or maybe a 180 from Macomb County.

Adam Freelander: Oakland is the wealthiest county in Michigan and the second most well educated. And at one time, those things made Oakland a very Republican county. But those types of voters,wealthy, well educated, they vote differently than they once did. And you see that in exit polls, too. This one shows how college educated voters across Michigan have voted over the past few elections.

They've been trending heavily towards Democrats. You can really see the backlash to Trump in the raw voter turnout numbers in Oakland County. Turnout in 2016 was kind of unremarkable, basically in line with earlier years, but look at how many people voted in the first election after Trump won, the midterm election of 2018.

Almost as many as in a presidential election. And the 2020 count [00:44:00] was unprecedented.

Okay, we finally made it to 2022. Democrats win it all. Okay, so sorry, one more thing.

News Anchor 2: Proposal 2, the anti gerrymandering proposal.

News Anchor 3: The state overwhelmingly passed Proposal 2.

Adam Freelander: In 2018, by a big margin, Michigan voters approved an anti gerrymandering measure that took redistricting out of the hands of the legislature and gave it to an independent commission.

Over the next three years, that commission would replace these maps with new maps. And the first year that these maps would be in effect was 2022. In 2022, if you added up all the elections for Michigan state representatives, Democrats won every 51 percent of that vote. And under the new district alliance, they won 56 out of 110 seats, which is 51%.

Unnamed Vox Interviewee: Michigan's independent redistricting commission gave Michigan Democrats the [00:45:00] opportunity to finally have maps that weren't overly biased to Republicans.

Adam Freelander: Redistricting unlocks a big part of how this happened. But there was more going on here. To really understand 2022. We have to look at these two stories.

One started with the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June of 2022. In Michigan, activists responded to that by putting Proposal 3 on the ballot that year, a measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. The measure was really popular and passed easily by more than 10 percentage points.

The other big thing was something happening in the Michigan Republican Party.

Unnamed Vox Interviewee: By the time 2022 gets around, the Trump wing of the Republican Party had taken over entirely.

Adam Freelander: These are photos from a Stop the Steal protest at the Michigan State Capitol just after the 2020 election. By May of 2022, a poll found that a majority of Michigan [00:46:00] Republicans supported overturning the 2020 presidential election.

Among Michigan voters as a whole, though, only around a quarter agreed with that. But Republicans running for statewide office in 2022 largely endorsed that idea.

Ralph Rebandt: How many of you believe that the widespread election fraud was enough to swing the election toward Biden? Raise your hand with me.

Adam Freelander: That is Tudor Dixon, who Michigan Republicans nominated for governor in 2022.

Kristina Karamo: The city of Detroit has been plagued with election corruption for years.

Adam Freelander: And that is Kristina Karamo, the Republican who ran to be in charge of Michigan's elections. Both Dixon and Karamo would lose to Democrats by more than 10 percentage points. One place you could really see the reaction to abortion rights on the ballot and to the Republican focus on election fraud was the Michigan suburbs, which exit polls tell us had historically voted Republican until 2022. And the next year, Michigan Republicans met at their convention and they [00:47:00] chose Kristina Karamo as their new party leader.

Kristina Karamo: We have to fight to secure our elections. It's the reason I did not concede after the 2022 election.

Unnamed Vox Interviewee: It's almost like that's all you hear from them.

Adam Freelander: It's tempting to think that Michigan is just a blue state now, but it won't take much to make it swing back. For example, Michigan is about 3 percent Middle Eastern, North African, doesn't sound like much, but that actually makes it the most Arab American state in the country by far. And that would be worth paying attention to if, for example, something were to happen that made Arab American support for Joe Biden go way down.

News Anchor 4: President Biden shows unwavering support for Israel with the civilian death toll in Gaza rising.

Wayne County Voter: I did vote for Joe Biden in

CNN Reporter: Do you plan to vote for him in 2024?

Wayne County Voter: I do not.

Adam Freelander: Still, if we look back at some of the big moments in this story. You might notice two things. First, it's Donald Trump who's actually [00:48:00] been the main character in Michigan politics going back almost a decade now.

And second, you probably saw some of these things happen outside of Michigan, too. This chart shows how every state voted in the most recent presidential election, 2020. If you put how the whole US voted onto this chart, it would go here. And here is Michigan. In other words, by at least one measure, Michigan is the state closest to the country as a whole.

Redistricting battles like Michigan's are happening all over the country. National exit polls show that college educated Americans everywhere have been voting more Democratic, just like in Michigan. And that non college educated Americans are doing the opposite. That's pretty indicative of where the parties are headed.

Unnamed Vox Interviewee: I do think that you're seeing party coalitions shift.

Adam Freelander: There's also evidence that the overturning of Roe v. Wade has been a powerful motivator everywhere, not just in Michigan, with voters rejecting abortion bans in surprising places like Kentucky, Montana, Kansas, Ohio. [00:49:00] So, you know, Michigan can make or break a whole national election.

But, there's a better reason for Americans to be watching Michigan really closely. And it's that when we do, we're looking at ourselves.

Note from the Editor on the nature of demographic cohorts and the movement of the Democratic Party

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with the NPR Politics Podcast, breaking down college versus non college educated voters. What a Day look at the growing gender divide among white voters. The Wall Street Journal State of the Stat zeroed in on the gender divide among the youth. AJ+ focused on how Black men are being targeted to either vote Republican or stay at home. Brown University featured a lecture explaining dog whistle politics and VOX focused in on what can be learned from Michigan.

And those were just the top takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive section. But first, a reminder that this show is supported by [00:50:00] members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring the production crew here, discussing all manner of important and interesting topics, often making each other laugh in the process. Sometimes just trying to make each other laugh.

To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.com/support. There's a link in the show notes. Through our Patreon page or from right inside the Apple Podcast app.

If regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now, before we continue onto the Deeper Dives half of the show, I have a couple of thoughts. The first came to me as we were putting this episode together. Breaking down the United States population into all of these different cohorts and trying to understand where everyone is coming from, this is a perfect example of exactly what Republicans try to criticize about the left. Right? Why talk about all of our [00:51:00] differences. It's part of their sort of mirror world vision of how racism works. They argue that acknowledging differences actually exacerbates them. And therefore the left are the real racists in the country, trying to drive people apart. As with all of the best propaganda talking points, there could be a kernel of truth in that, but in this case only if you take that logic to absolutely absurd lengths. You know, they say the left recognizes differences between groups of people, and so did the Nazis, right?

But just because taking this idea of dividing and categorizing people can be taken too far, even catastrophic, dangerously too far. Doesn't mean that the best path forward is to attempt to paper over or ignore differences either. If we do that, we end up not being able to actually see people for their full selves. There's a huge amount that all people have in common. But it's often the [00:52:00] small differences in background geography, gender, race, and all the other factors we're talking about today, that help define our personal and collective culture, helps define how we think. It sort of makes us who we are.

So seeing the differences in people, whether it be individuals or large demographic groups and trying to understand how all of these factors play into how people think, what they value and then ultimately how they vote. Isn't patronizing or insincere. It's a genuine attempt to see people more fully.

Republicans by the way are completely full of shit about this. They'd like to claim that the only honest political message is one size fits all because we're all the same and you shouldn't divide us. But they obviously target different demographics with different messages as we're hearing about in the show today, even. So I'm giving this argument more credence than it really deserves, but sometimes it's nice to explain ourselves more fully, even if we shouldn't have to.

The [00:53:00] second thing I wanted to mention today is about another cohort of voters, but a political rather than demographic cohort. Progressive's like me. There was this article that I came across as part of our research, "Bernie’s DNC Speech Sounded Like Everyone Else’s. That’s Astonishing." And it reads in part, "When on Tuesday night, Sanders said his vision was not a radical agenda. He was absolutely right. Much of it has become the actual agenda of the democratic party. There were very few themes in Sanders' speech that other democratic speakers hadn't already covered on Monday and Tuesday. Senators and governors and members of Congress alike made explicit mentions of class driven policy designs to help the working and middle class." And then the article goes on to describe a few more details and policies of the democratic party that are clearly Bernie influenced. And then it goes on , "It's an astonishing amount of influence for a man who [00:54:00] has never won the Democratic presidential nomination and doesn't possess once in a generation or a torical skills still in the eight years in Sanders failed to become the nominee the first time and the four years since he failed the second time he has managed to push the party toward dramatic policy and rhetorical changes. The substance of the 2024 DNC is a testament as much to his political legacy as to the party's actual presidents."

Now, I don't want to dampen the mood too much. I want Bernie to get his due. I'll just also mention that what's being described here. Is also evidence of the macro shift in the culture, moving us slowly away from the failure of neo-liberalism into a new, as yet not fully defined form of economic populism that people are clamoring for across the political spectrum. Just coming at it from very different angles. So, Bernie didn't do it all on his [00:55:00] own, but he certainly helped push that change along.

And it is his vision much more than, you know, Trump's bullshit vision. We did a whole episode about this recently. Go check out "Republican Nonsense, Populism" episode about JD Vance for more details. So clearly Bernie's vision is the one that we need to be sort of following the path on. But it is very exciting that this change is happening. I am very grateful to Bernie and the degree to which he helped bring it about. And for this entire confluence of events, we should all be happy.

SECTION A - THE MIXED BAG

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper in three sections. Next up, Section A, is the Mixed Bag, including LGBTQ, Muslim, Jewish and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters. Section B is about Latino and Black voters. And Section C, White and rural voters.

'Impossible to be biracial in America'- Harris nomination shines light on mixed-race Americans - Morning Joe - Air Date 8-30-24

This was a fascinating conversation, just to [00:56:00] say the least. We talked to six people across a range of different racial, ethnic, and political backgrounds in my home state, the swing state of North Carolina, and many of them said that, look, the census forms and the boxes on polls, they give them pause, sometimes even panic because of the choices that those boxes force them to make.

But even though they said those boxes are getting better and a little bit more inclusive over time, people's perceptions politically can still be pretty narrow. Take a look. Identify as Indian American and white, Hispanic, Haitian. They're the face of a changing nation. When anybody asks, I just say I'm black and Puerto Rican.

All my grandparents are from a different ethnic background. Multiracial Americans are now the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the country over the last decade. And their voting power will be significant. In six battleground States, the population with two or more races has surged by more than 200%.

Including here in North Carolina's Mecklenburg County. Can you raise your hand if you are a Republican, [00:57:00] Democrat, Independent? Does the way that you identify racially impact your politics or specifically how you plan to vote this election? Absolutely. How so? I'm not going to lend my support behind someone.

Who does not support people who look like me. I don't think he sees me as a who I am. Former President Donald Trump. Yes. What about the rest of you? I just don't think that Kamala Harris has anything vested in the air finger quote black or hispanic experience in so much as it would be identified by anybody that lives in those communities.

You're saying you don't think that she can help black or brown people. No, I mean going to Howard don't make you black. A conversation that quickly turned to this moment in a July interview at the National Association of Black Journalists. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black.

So I don't know, is she Indian or is she black? What did you think when you heard those [00:58:00] comments? Highly offensive. I mean, I think Probably every multiracial mixed race biracial person has had the experience of someone else telling them that they are not something enough. I think it's kind of triggering, right?

I think it is. impossible to be biracial in America. And I think that it requires that you're covering all bases at all times. And um, it requires constant recognition of both identities. And I think when Donald Trump says stuff like that about Kamala Harris and implies that she's like picking a race for political advantage, it's tapping into an incredibly familiar sentiment that I think everyone on this panel can understand.

Lemarie and Adul, as Trump supporters, when you heard that comment, As mixed people, how did it register with you? Well, my first thought was, no, that wasn't very well thought out. At the same time, though, when I heard it, I didn't hear it as an attack on blacks or Indians. I heard it more so of him commenting towards [00:59:00] identity politics and the appeal that some take.

to play up one side of their race over the other. Adol, I see you nodding your head. I agree with him. I didn't know, I didn't know she identified as black because everything I saw was first South Asian, first Indian, there's none of that identified as black. Regardless of her parents, I mean She was born in this country, and she identifies as a black person in this country in an American way, in a uniquely American context.

I've never heard her identify herself as a black woman. She said multiple times she's a black woman. I've never heard it. But I'm black. Yes. And I'm proud of being black. Politics sometimes becoming personal this year, with mixed race Americans having representation on both tickets. I don't agree with anything J.

D. Vance has to say. I mean, almost nothing. But, um, I think it's incredible that we've gotten to a point where The vice president of the United States can have a wife named Usha Chilakari and a son named Vivek. That doesn't mean I won't vote against him in November. Even though you disagree with Kamala Harris politically, do [01:00:00] you feel some kinship towards her as a mixed person?

Not personally. I find a lot of her trajectory to not be my brand of woman, leader. We've got three major international crises going on and someone applying to be commander in chief. As a woman. I want to see you do more than, you know, appeal to giggling and having a girl moment on the stage. Was there ever a moment that sort of forced you to confront the concept of race?

For me, it's more about ethnicity. As you guys can see, I have an accent, right? And I speak with an accent. I don't think when an accent, you just learn to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. A conversation with implications beyond the ballot box. I think every time we see polling, it's about race.

Um, and, you know, as a candidate of color, you put a lot of, uh, stake into how this candidate represents, say, the black experience or the indian american experience. I think we will never ask Donald trump or joe biden. [01:01:00] Clinton or George Bush to do the same thing. I think white people are expected and people of color aren't.

To do what? To be in the highest office in the United States.

Plugged In: How LGBTQ voters could shape the upcoming presidential election - WABE - Air Date 6-21-24

You spent some time looking at how the presidential campaigns are engaging LGBTQ voters. But before we get there, can you tell me a little bit about what we know about this voter demographic in Georgia? Sure, Sam. So LGBTQ voters are a highly engaged and a growing voting bloc in Georgia as they are nationally.

They're reliable Democratic supporters, so much so that they might have made the difference for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Nearly 90 percent of LGBTQ voters in Georgia voted for Biden in the 2020 election. That's according to an analysis of AP voter data. And of course the state was decided by less than 12, 000 votes that year.

So getting those voters to come out again and force [01:02:00] this year, as they did four years ago, will be a key to Biden repeating his success in Georgia. And that's what Georgia Equality Executive Director Jeff Graham reiterated to me in an interview. There's been so much talk about people just being dissatisfied with the status quo, being dissatisfied with, um, the choices that they have before them, and they're just going to sit this election out.

We want people to understand that that too has very serious implications for the LGBTQ community. And, you know, LGBTQ voters, of course, care about a lot of the same issues as other voters. You know, cost of living, housing, healthcare, but maybe could you talk to me about a couple of specific policy issues that touch the LGBTQ community really directly?

So, LGBTQ people are strongly affected by non discrimination laws, and that's especially as it relates to housing, employment, and public accommodations. There's a long [01:03:00] history of LGBTQ people being discriminated against in those areas, whether it's getting evicted, or fired, or refused service because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

And there's been a movement in recent years by local cities and counties in Georgia to pass such a non discrimination law, as Gwinnett County did earlier this month. Thank you. But there are no statewide non discrimination protections in Georgia, which is something that LGBTQ advocates and groups like Georgia Equality have been really been pushing for recently.

Another issue is protecting and empowering LGBTQ youth. Now, here we're talking about anti bullying measures. There's also been a growing number of restrictions or bans on books in school libraries that feature LGBTQ people or themes, and transgender youth have been targeted by policies when it comes to playing in a sport that matches their gender or getting gender affirming medical care.

Okay, so let's stick with healthcare for a minute, Patrick. Tell me more about that. Yeah, I mean, taking a look at the HIV epidemic, you know, getting [01:04:00] access and funding for prevention, testing and treatment of the virus, you know, this is something that heavily affects LGBTQ folks, gay men and trans women in particular.

And it's an issue that's not gone away, Sam. It's still a major pain point, you know, and Atlanta has the third highest number of new HIV infections of any city in the US and while it might be hard to imagine since this has been law for nearly a decade, uh, Uh, same sex marriage rights is another, uh, big issue.

We have a very conservative US supreme Court now. And after the fall of Roe v. Wade, uh, LGBTQ folks are very nervous about a similar fate for the Obergefell decision that legalized gay marriage. Patrick, before we get to Washington, D. C., many of these policies that we're talking about are shaped under the gold dome at the state capitol here in Atlanta, where Republicans currently control the levers of power.

What have we seen pass in this space in recent sessions? Sure. So in 2022, as you and I closely followed, Sam, the legislature passed a law that empowered the Georgia High [01:05:00] School Association to ban transgender boys and girls from playing on the school sports team that matches their gender. And shortly after Governor Kemp signed into law, that's exactly what the GHSA voted to do.

Um, in 2023, the following year, the legislature passed a ban on most gender affirming healthcare for transgender children. And in this year's session, uh, Republicans in the legislature tried to expand that to a ban on puberty blockers for transgender kids. But that measure failed, and in fact, In fact, all the proposed measures that caused alarm among LGBTQ advocates in Georgia this session failed to pass, which was surprising considering the ramping up of such measures targeting LGBTQ folks in recent years.

All right, so let's extend that to Washington DC. What are some of the ways that control of the White House, of Congress and the US Supreme Court shape life for LGBT people and communities? Yeah, let me count the ways. So with presidency, a lot of [01:06:00] that power to shape life for LGBTQ people comes from their decision whether to sign or veto legislation passed by Congress.

A president can also throw their weight around in Congress as a measure is making its way through the process, either to help it pass or squash it. An example of that is a hate crimes measure that President Obama signed into law that protected LGBTQ people and ban on the don't ask, don't tell policy that prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the military.

Um, there's also executive orders. The president can also enact a slew of executive orders, protecting LGBTQ employees and protecting LGBTQ kids in schools, and they can appoint pro or anti. LGBTQ federal judges who have lifetime appointments to the courts. And the Supreme Court's actions are, of course, huge.

As I mentioned, the same sex marriage ruling in 2015, the concern over that being stripped away, and in recent years, the court passed landmark protections for LGBTQ workers. And you know, Patrick, I think you're [01:07:00] right. The court's ability to shape American life in fundamental ways is so huge. I was actually a Supreme Court runner for a network news correspondent on the day that the Supreme Court handed down that decision on same sex marriage in 2015.

And the crowds that were gathered outside and around the country, as I'm sure you covered here in Atlanta, Patrick, reacting to that decision and such a sea change in American life in a snap was Pretty striking to

How could Arab and Muslim voters' disaffection with Democrats impact the US election? - DW News - Air Date 7-23-24

Beyond campus protests, how big an issue is the Gaza war amongst voters? I think it's one of the main primary issues, um, that for Muslim American voters, um, on their current like agenda.

But I will start by saying that the concept of the Muslim American vote is a bit reductive, um, considering that it's a very diverse community in the United States. Both in terms of racially, economically, with regards to foreign [01:08:00] policy, and with regards to domestic policy. Um, just to give an example, to a study that was done in 2017, about a fourth of the Muslim American community identified as Black and African American, a fourth identified as White, where White has been conflated with many different groups like Arab, Persian, North African, and so on.

About a fifth identified as Asian, a fifth identified as Arab, and like, The remaining were mixed across the board for Hispanic and Indigenous American as well as other groups. So it's difficult to pinpoint a single Muslim voice on Harris as a presidential candidate. Um, but also with the issue of Gaza, um, that is still one of the main concerns for the Muslim American community.

Okay, so, I take your point about we're not dealing with a monolithic block here. Talk to us about How disaffection with the US position on this Gaza war has affected or has [01:09:00] swayed Arab or Muslim voters? And how that might affect November's outcome? Yeah, um, so based on what I'm hearing on the ground, um, there are four major perspectives with, um, Harris as a candidate, which this is only unfolding in the last couple of days, but, um, the first perspective I've heard the most commonly is this sense of apathy because Harris is viewed as basically an extension of Biden.

Um, and this segment is mixed across those. across the board wanting to vote third party or independent. Some of them are hoping for another Democrat to run against her. And in some cases, some people are choosing to be rational non voters. Um, and, you know, keeping in mind the Abandon Biden campaign that was taking place.

Um, so in order to win this group's, uh, vote, Harris really needs to showcase that her policies are her own and not Biden's, particularly with regards to race. Um, [01:10:00] so back in March, that was quoted earlier, she had called for an immediate temporary ceasefire on the one hand, while at the same time declared that Israel had a right to defend itself.

And for many Muslim Americans, this would be considering, like, batting for both sides of the team, or for, you know opposing sides of the team in that it will be difficult for Harris to win this group over as someone who was in the room during the Biden administration. But in order to do so, she'd have to have a clearer policy agenda with advancements made immediately moving towards peace with regards to Gaza.

Right. Okay. I know you had a list of, forgive me, right? Yeah, that's quite a long list. But let's stick with some of the points that you made there. Um, If her problem, if, um, Harris problem is that she's effectively more of Biden, if the, if, when it comes to a choice of more of Biden or Trump, [01:11:00] what's, what are people telling you?

Yeah, so that was actually the second main group that I've been hearing on the ground and this idea of like, pardon the way I say this, but this lesser of two evils or this rhetoric of that she's better than Trump. Um, so some people, um, this is a smaller group, but some people see Harris As a solid replacement for Biden, given the abandoned Biden campaign, um, as a vote against Trump, um, in the upcoming elections, um, it's a kind of cut your losses type of mentality because people are seeing it, uh, the presidential race as exclusively two party, um, rather than, you know, viewing third parties or independents as having a potential to win.

And so in this case, if the Democratic Party wants to win this group's vote. Um, they'd have to be really strategic in selecting Harris's running mate, um, and her policy platform. Um, but again, like was [01:12:00] noted, Harris is already on the campaign trail, and I listened to her, um, virtually deliver her speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin earlier today, and she's contrasting herself with Donald Trump, um, using her record as an attorney general, juxtaposed to Trump as a criminal or a felon.

And this positioning may be effective for the second segment of the Muslim American population. Um, but, um, again, I think the first group, um, still does not see her. As a viable candidate until she can clearly state her policy platforms, particularly on the issue of Gaza, as well on mass incarceration within the prison system.

Okay, they want to hear more definite policies from her. And given the US's long history of siding with Israel, when do you think that the Biden administration Um, realized, uh, the potential for a backlash from Muslim and [01:13:00] Arab voters, uh, over Gaza. Um, I would say that the Biden administration probably started to feel, um, the backlash when mainstream media started to cover the Abandon Biden campaign.

Um, I don't, Michigan is a swing state and And really, there was a poll that was done. Um, I can't remember who conducted the poll, but there's a stronger leaning towards, uh, Trump in the Republican party currently, and that was done at the end of June. Um, so I'm not 100 percent sure, but what I'll say is that, um, for Biden, And for many Muslim Americans, they see that Biden stepping down isn't only about what the media has talked about with regards to his age and his health, but also a response to the mounting pressure through the Abandon Biden

Trump Trashes Jewish Voters During Unhinged Speech - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 8-4-24

[01:14:00] I've seen some, leftists for Trump, supposedly, uh, claim that Donald Trump has really stuck it.

To Netanyahu versus Kamala stuck it, you mean stuck his tongue in his mouth? I mean, pretty close. Here is, uh, President Trump. Now you may have seen footage or heard audio of Donald Trump six to eight months ago, pre Miriam Adelson basically giving him money. To annex the West Bank. And saying, uh, annex the West Bank for this hundred million dollars pack, money.

Here is president Trump after that fact meeting with Israeli prime minister in Florida I guess in a, in the, the, uh, study room at Mar a Lago or somewhere. I don't know where it is cut. And, uh, I think her remarks were disrespectful. They weren't very nice. Can you pause it? Can you pause it?

We should say he's, he's referring to Kamala [01:15:00] Harris's uh, remarks that were, from our perspective didn't go nearly far enough but, uh, Donald Trump is going to characterize them as having gone too far. I wonder how much BB agrees with that. Probably a lot. That's what he told Axios.

Apparently, uh, they were very unhappy with how cold Harris was in comparison to Biden in that meeting. Probably because the bear hug Netanyahu strategy has been a disaster. Yeah, and from a policy standpoint, Trita Parsi pointed out, like, I think the rhetoric may get overplayed, but she did point out to Netanyahu as the impediment to the ceasefire talks, which is different than Biden.

Exactly. And, uh, I think her remarks were disrespectful. They weren't very nice pertaining to Israel. I actually don't know how a person who's Jewish can vote for her, but that's up to them. But she was certainly disrespectful to Israel, in my opinion. Mr. Trump has your relationship with the prime minister repaired [01:16:00] at all?

It was never bad. We was, uh, I would say it was over president is never bad. Oh, that's good. He was a little bit upset that Netanyahu recognized Biden as the president in 2020. Yeah, it took him a while to get over that. I cannot tell you how sick I am of other Jews or Gentiles, uh, explaining to me, uh, whether I'm a good Jew or not.

I saw somebody say this about like, if you're against Shapiro as the VP to pick, it's anti Semitism. But I didn't know that. Honestly, like it was the first time I even contemplated swearing on uh, on Twitter in years. I think I, that what I was going to quote tweet, it was like a pardon, fucking me. But uh, I didn't, but here is Donald Trump going even further.

I'm going to tell you something 65 to 75 percent of Jews in this country vote for the Democratic presidential nominee. That is both a historical fact. [01:17:00] And I get, I get some very bad news for Donald Trump. It is also a fact in November. It is not going to change. It is not going to change. Wait, let's hear about it.

But let's hear what he's got to say. I mean, maybe this pitch will work. The Democrats hate Israel. The Democrats largely hate the Jewish people. It's time for the Jewish people to stop. Step up and vote for Republicans and vote for Donald Trump. Savior you. We love you, Stanley. We love you Stanley. Thank you.

will you be the Jew that steps up, Sam? I gotta get my Coones go and, or my, uh, my, I gotta get my matza balls in order and step up and, uh, vote for, uh, Donald Trump. Now Kanye will be looking as someone that saved the Jews. the idea that this is going to motivate any Jews to vote for Donald Trump, I think it's really just [01:18:00] honestly about Miriam Adelson and a couple other maybe like a right wing Israeli supporters.

Yeah. Trump giving it to Netanyahu, is that, does he mean, they mean like giving the embassy to where he wants it, Jerusalem? That's what. Adelson's ask was last time. And Trump meeting with Netanyahu, I know no one cares about the Logan Act and it's vi it's invi it's violated all the time, I mean, including, I guess, a few weeks ago by Donald Trump meeting with Viktor Orban, but.

If you're not in government, you're not supposed to be doing any kind of meetings with foreign dignitaries that would approach some sort of official promises as it relates to United States foreign policy. Especially once taking a massive outlays from our military industrial complex.

Yeah. Some sort of top recipient of our military aid. It's technically against the law, but I guess maybe that's why the lighting in the room was so damn dim in that clip. It's under the cloak of

What Matters to AAPI Voters? - Woke AF Daily - Air Date 5-21-24

[01:19:00] You know, with such a vast and rich community, how do you go about, and I know that I ask you this, but particularly as we're heading towards, you know, the most consequential election I think of our lifetimes, how do you part and parcel out what issues Are most affecting this very diverse population and how your community kind of measures against with what let's say the larger democratic priorities, values and such are for this term, it's so important that you're bringing this up because it certainly requires research and polling, right?

Which is which is done in politics every single day. Our community doesn't have the robust Yeah. Amount of polling as say mainstream politics. But that being said, when, when we are able to get access to research and data on what is moving the AAPI electorate, and frankly, and [01:20:00] frankly, we really have to segment it by the ethnicity to know because, uh, certain ethnicities feel stronger or weaker on, on issues.

But I'll give you one example. Gun violence, which is one of the key issues that we're working on in our community has risen to the top. Some polls have it number one as the number one issue going into this election. So think about it for a second. This is not an issue that was even in the top 10 three years ago, four years ago.

And now it's risen to number one. And we believe we have a little bit of data to, uh, to back this up, but the numbers started to really move in terms of the importance of this issue after Uvalde. In Texas, you know, two and a half years ago. And it was the intersection of historically important, uh, theme and issue education and schools.

Right. And the, the fact that this was a shooting in an elementary school, it [01:21:00] really was the, I would say the nexus point for when the numbers started to rise in terms of issue of importance. And we've seen similar parallels in the Latino community as well. And, and that's not something you hear about. I would say.

When you, if you're reading political news or you're reading about, you know, Biden, Trump, or, or the fall matchup is how far this issue has come. Now, reproductive freedom is going to be front and center, part and parcel, like central to this election. And a sleeper issue, I believe is it's going to be gun violence and these issues, they don't get talked about.

In an election without an impetus, without a push, just like the crime narrative is being pushed very hard on the other side right now that, you know, Democrats and the left are weak on, on crime, frankly, they're making that up, but the core of the issue for our community is gun violence. And if we decide to [01:22:00] put some money behind this messaging and this narrative.

I think that we can win on this issue as well. And I believe once again, that this is a once in a 50 year, once in a hundred year opportunity when you have two very galvanizing issues, like the, the, the basic rights that women have had in this country for 50 years, just taken away as well as You know, gun violence.

And I think a lot of API's view, view gun violence in the frame of crime. And so it may not be the winner issue that the Republicans are, I think, really trying to hit us on. They're going to view it in the issue in the framework of gun violence, and they're losing on that issue. And I like this issue specifically because the Republicans don't have a message.

Right now they don't even have a response. They decided that they don't even want to respond at least on reproductive freedoms. They're kind of trying to figure out what the magic number of weeks that might be palatable to restrict abortions, right? It's like pick a dart [01:23:00] and choose on, on gun violence.

They've chose to unilaterally disarm. And I, I like that political equation from, uh, from a math perspective. I wonder, too, as it pertains to gun violence, I mean, the, you know, community was visited upon, right, by a mass shooting, you know, God, what was it, maybe three or four years ago at this point, and I wonder that since that time, coupled with Uvalde, um, and that being a, you know, children being targeted, You know, has there also been a rise, or would your polling show, in gun ownership?

Like, because, you know, on both sides, as violence, you know, escalates when it is directed towards a particular community, like the AAPI community, both people want gun reform. Right, but then they also tend to actually go ahead and purchase guns. So what is, what does that look like for you all? What have you seen in, in your research?

So we went from [01:24:00] being the demographic with the least amount of gun ownership to now on a per capita basis, one of the fastest growing communities of guns. And it all started, frankly, with this cycle that really started with Donald Trump and his. Um, spewing of vicious rhetoric and hatred that led to sort of the next, you know, part of this was that it led to, you know, mass acts of hate and violence all across the nation.

And correspondingly, it led to the direct marketing by the NRA. Uh, because they saw their gun sales starting to flatten in the latter half of the Trump years and they were looking for new markets. They said, Hey, the Asian American community, they've got high net worth income. They've got high incomes, they're low ownership, and they started marketing.

In all their magazines and doing some advertisements, uh, centrally [01:25:00] towards the API community. So we responded in kind by buying guns now at very high rates. And now where we are, and everyone knew this was going to happen, that we have some of the highest suicide by gun rates in the country. 60, 60 percent of all the suicides that happened in the API community are suicide by gun.

Right. So we also know that by any measure that when a gun is in the home, that it leads to a number of negative consequences, intentional homicide, accidental death, accidental injury, intimate partner violence, all of that. And, and so this is what it's. Led to, and it started with the vicious rhetoric and I would say sort of the white supremacist, frankly, the white supremacist elements of not only the NRA, but I would say the gun industry, they, they use this and they capitalize on this fear and we respond because we think this is the only way [01:26:00] we're going to be able to protect ourselves and our protector

SECTION B - LATINO AND BLACK VOTERS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Latino and Black Voters

Why Are More Latino Voters Supporting Trump? - The New Yorker Radio Hour - Air Date 8-16-24

Back in 2013, after Mitt Romney's loss to Barack Obama, a Republican autopsy of the campaign said that Latino voters were being turned off by the party's hardline stance on immigration. The report said, if Hispanic Americans hear that the GOP doesn't want them in the United States, they won't pay attention to our next sentence.

Well, that turned out to be wrong. Since 2015, Donald Trump has said any number of false, misleading, and racist things about people from Mexico and Central America. He put in place policies like child separation at the border. And yet, his share of the Latino vote increased in 2020, and the trend continues.

Comparing Trump and Biden back in July, Latino voters were split evenly. All [01:27:00] of this was on Geraldo Cadava's mind when he covered the Republican National Convention for the New Yorker. That sound you hear is Maracas for Trump and people at this Hispanic leadership coalition event have been instructed to shake them on the convention floor tonight.

This is a subject very close to Cadava's heart. He's the author of a book called the Hispanic Republican. Jerry, there have been a lot of headlines about Donald Trump's support among Latino voters, that it's increasing. And that's a phenomenon that Democrats, a lot of them find utterly baffling. And we'll get to that.

But before we get into the whys and hows, what's the scale of this? What do we know about the numbers and how the vote has shifted? What we know for sure is that Donald Trump increased his share of Latino support between 2016 and 2020 by about eight points. That's [01:28:00] the consensus view. And that was surprising to many because of everything that Donald Trump had said and done, especially in the arena of immigration, all of his anti immigrant policies that were seen to be a real turnoff for Latinos.

I think there's a real debate about how much Latinos are becoming conservative or whether that lower share of Democratic support had to do with Latino dissatisfaction with the candidates. Now, you went to talk to Latinos at the convention, the Republican convention in Milwaukee. Now, these are not your average voters.

They're very engaged political people, and some are truly liberal. Trump supporters, like a guy named Bob Unanwe, who's the CEO of Goya Foods. Why did you want to talk with him specifically? I wanted to talk to him specifically because I wanted to ask him directly about his experience of giving that talk in the Rose Garden at the White House in [01:29:00] the summer of 2020 because he said that we are blessed to have Donald Trump as our president.

First of all, I never knew Donald Trump until July 9th, 2020, when I was in the Rose Garden. I was appointed by him to be a commissioner on the White House Commission on Hispanic prosperity. He was very concerned. about prosperity for Americans and Hispanics. So he appointed a group of commissioners. After he said that we were blessed to have Donald Trump as a president, there were just widespread calls to boycott Goya beans.

And I really thought that Democrats, by going down the rabbit hole of boycotting Goya, really took their eye off the ball. What the event at the White House was about was about Donald Trump announcing new initiatives, including investments in Hispanic serving institutions. And those kinds of things are Core elements of his appeal to Latinos.

Meanwhile, Democrats just got [01:30:00] carried away with this story about boycotting Goya foods. When I said we were blessed, I'd hit home as, as a positive who were offended by that was, uh, Alexander Ocasio Cortez, Julian Castro, Lin Manuel Miranda, you know, the elites who are not, if you ask me, not, not truly Latino, because they, they have a privileged life.

Whoa. He said that Castro and Lin Manuel Miranda and AOC are not really Latino. Why not? Yeah, I should first say that I'm not really comfortable with the language of who is and is not a real Latino because I think, you know, there are 65 million Latinos in the United States and all of them have different ways of relating to their Latino identity, whether it's about family traditions or language or music or anything like that.

So I think that. It doesn't make sense really to talk about who is or is not a real Latino. And it's something you see the Republican party [01:31:00] doing right now. You know, not too long ago, Donald Trump also, uh, said that Kamala Harris was Indian before she was black and she might not be a real black woman.

And I think the Republican party is trying to scramble our concepts about ethnic and racial identity. This question about what people mean in the words they use came up in another conversation that you had with a woman named Betty Cardenas. Now, tell us who she is before we listen to her. Yeah, I find Betty Cardenas fascinating.

First of all, she is part of this kind of, power family in Latino Republican politics because her son is named Abraham Enriquez, and he's the founder of a group called Bienvenido US, but she has also served as national chairwoman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly. And now she's also the president of the Bienvenidos Action Group.

Let's listen to your conversation with her. As you see Trump coming in, you see a message of more diverse, a little bit more [01:32:00] inclusive in the, in the platform. You even see it. Um, I think there's a, there's still a lot of work to do within the history. I mean, you see Trump, I think he will do a phenomenal, I hope he does a phenomenal job for the America First agenda that, that President Trump has, which America First means it has so much inclusivity and a lot of stuff.

I had never seen these signs. I mean, I'd seen build the wall, things like that. I had never seen a sign that said mass deportation. Now, how do you feel about those signs? Um, I can tell you, I mean, as a, as a, you know, coming from immigrant parents, I think when you see mass deportation, like I think you would, you won't see me raising one of those massive because there's so much significance behind there.

And I know where Trump's policies. That I know the policy makers behind that are going to be behind. And I know what mass deportation he's talking about. He's talking about [01:33:00] the criminals, you know, deport those criminal, those high risk criminals. And I think that's what's missing if they could specify, but also, I mean, it's a message of the, of the campaign.

I know in my heart what it means. I know who's going to be sitting down doing the policy, so it doesn't, I see it and I know it. It would be more like, Oh, mass deportation. Everybody, you know, even the students, the DACA students, everybody that here, I mean, it wouldn't be possible. And you and I know that it's not, it's not true.

So here she gets to a very crucial slogan of the Trump campaign, mass deportation now, which is a sign that you saw at the RNC quite a lot. And she says it just means deporting some criminals. How accurate is that where the Trump campaign is concerned? Well, I don't think it's very accurate if you take him at his word in terms of what he said publicly.

I mean, they're talking about deporting 15 million to 20 million people, which he [01:34:00] believes is the true number of undocumented immigrants in the United States. And it, and it has, it has echoes of, 1954, right? What happened? That's right. Well, it has echoes of 1954 when there was an operation called Operation Wetback that deported some 1.

3 million Mexicans from the United States. And now Stephen Miller and Trump together are calling for mass deportations that would be something like 10 times that, more than 10 million, 12 million deportations. I got this a lot from a lot of different people is that they think, first of all, that we are taking Trump's comments out of context, that what he really means is he's not talking about all Mexicans.

He's only talking about high risk, high threat criminals. And if you think about it, that's not all that different than what Obama was advocating to when he talked about like selective prosecution, he was going to go for the criminals. He wasn't going to prosecute the [01:35:00] people who'd been here for a long time and were just trying to make a better lives for themselves.

So when it gets down to it, I don't know that her vision of how this is going to work and Obama's are all that different, but she says that she has been in rooms with Donald Trump where he has talked to her about his views of immigration. And she knows that mass deportation is not in his heart. It's not what he means.

And she even brought out her phone. She had captured screenshots of old tweets that Donald Trump had sent that were in support of the dreamers. And she thinks that Donald Trump would still like to find a pathway for undocumented citizens, including dreamers. He would still like to fix things for them.

Well, it's striking. It's striking that she mentions the word diversity and inclusiveness as aspects of the Republican party. Those are usually Democratic Party buzzwords. And I almost wondered if she were, um, trolling you in a way, although she doesn't seem to have that kind of [01:36:00] personality. She means something different?

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's what all, you know, not only Latinos, but I saw many Asian American Trump supporters, many Black Trump supporters, Native American Trump supporters there. They really want to believe that because the Republican Party, um, Aligns with their values that it is a truly inclusive message.

And in fact, they will say that Democrats are the ones that like to kind of divide and conquer all Americans by appealing to particular ethnic groups by having messaging that appeals to, you know, divides up the electorate and, uh, sees us all as a compilation of various interest groups. So I think she thinks that her message, the Republican message is more kind of all encompassing and all American

What the Harris campaign is doing to earn the support of Latino voters - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 8-20-24

AMNA NAWAZ: there's been a little bit of a reset with Latino voters in just the last month.

And your own polling from Voto Latino shows that Kamala Harris has 60 percent support in polls.

That's up from Biden's [01:37:00] 47 percent in April.

There's another Equis poll that shows that Harris is up 19 points in battleground states, when Biden led by just five.

What are you attributing that shift to?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: One is, is that she has been cultivating a lot of young Latinos since her president -- she ascended into her vice presidency.

So people are very familiar with who she is.

The biggest challenge, though, is that they like her, but they want to get to know her better.

But the poll -- what was really fascinating to us, the poll was with GQR.

It was 2,000 Latino voters in key battleground states.

And the biggest takeaway was not only was Kamala leading among the Democrats, but she was taking away roughly 17 points away from Kennedy.

And believe it or not, she was also taking away from Trump.

He is now -- so if you -- a head-to-head today, Trump right now is at 29 percent versus, with Biden, he was at 38 percent.

GEOFF BENNETT: And it's the younger voters, the younger Latino voters that account for that?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: Disproportionally, yes, [01:38:00] and Latino women.

GEOFF BENNETT: Wow.

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: So, to give you an idea, since he was -- since there was a changing of the guard, at Voto Latino, we had registered 36,000 individual voters.

As of today, we have registered over 100,000.

We're -- 65 percent of them are under the age of 25.

I have been doing this, Amna, for 20 -- Amna and Geoff, for 25 -- 20 years.

I have never seen anything like it.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, she -- we should also note, she's at 60 percent in your latest poll, right?

But Biden in the last election was at 65 percent.

So she's still polling behind where he was.

Where is the gap?

Why are Dems having trouble shoring that up?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: Because we haven't had the convention.

I will tell you... AMNA NAWAZ: This is going to be the difference maker?

Because, in August of 2020, Biden was at 50.

So we don't see the surge of enthusiasm until post-convention, after Labor Day, when all of a sudden Americans are going back to school, going really back to work, paying attention.

And for whatever reason, she has captured our imagination.

There is an opportunity for the Democrats to [01:39:00] cement states, even like Arizona, where Biden went by 10,000 registered voters.

Kamala Harris has the opportunity to capture the 163,000 Latino youth that have turned 18 since Biden was elected.

GEOFF BENNETT: There was a pretty significant ad buy we saw from the Harris campaign a couple of weeks ago that was focused on Latino voters.

And she really leaned into her personal story, talking about the fact that she is the daughter of immigrants and really trying to make inroads with that community based on her identity and personal story.

How resonant is that?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: When Biden -- joined the Biden campaign last time, she gave him a 15-point lift just on that story alone.

And because she was the mother -- she was the daughter of an immigrant single mother, it's really resonates.

What they're going to ask her next, though, is, what are you going to do differently than Biden did for us?

The biggest challenge Biden has had with the Latino community is communicating how he has changed their everyday.

They were [01:40:00] skeptical.

With her on top of the ticket now, they're very open to what is the possibility for an extended - - possibility with an extended four-year term.

AMNA NAWAZ: There has been this sort of long-term trend, though, weakening of enthusiasm among Latino voters, who we should underscore here are not a monolith, right?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: Right.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

But there has been really since Obama a weakening presidential election by election.

What do you attribute that to?

And what do you want to see from Harris and Walz that could possibly reverse that trend?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: So what we have found is that the way Latinos vote isn't that they're trending to the Republicans, is that they're not enthusiastic necessarily, so they stay home.

So what they want to be able to demonstrate is that not only is there a vision for the present, but also for the future.

The more that the Harris, the Harris/Walz campaign can talk about economy, small business, that she, yes, is for small business capitalism, because there's so many young Latinos and Latinos in general that are [01:41:00] entrepreneurs, that will penetrate in action, sound, letter, because the Republicans have been trying to pick people off and say, well, the Democrats are anti-business.

She says, no, I'm small business capitalist.

That will all of a sudden open up a whole different conversation.

GEOFF BENNETT: We should say the convention has gaveled into session, and we should apologize for talking through the national anthem, but this timing is sort of out of our control.

The Harris/Walz campaign has said that they see multiple paths to election through the blue-wall, but also through the Sun Belt states, Arizona, Nevada in large part because of the large number of Latino voters.

Are there other states where -- other states that might now be in play because of a similar population?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: I would say that there is an opportunity even in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but perhaps not for the top of the ticket, but in growing the electoral base.

You have the potential Senate pickup in a place like Texas because of the volume of young people that are anxious now to jump in the game, but there has to be a real strategic investment there.

AMNA NAWAZ: [01:42:00] There is, of course, the key issue of immigration that we know is really resonant, particularly with some majority Latino populations in border communities, where we saw many of them actually go for Trump in the last election.

How should this ticket message on this issue that has bedeviled the Biden/Harris administration?

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: Well, I think we saw it when the vice president went down to Central America and convinced business to go to the root of the problem and start creating investments.

The more that she couches what is happening at the border as a Western Hemispheric issue and that we need more people involved, not just government, but our Canadian friends, our Mexican friends, our Colombian friends, for example, and great business, then we could have a conversation with the American people of, how do you actually talk about the undocumented people that have been here for 20, 30 years?

What the president did in June, where he provided and granted authority to stay for spouses of undocumented immigrants goes a long way.

That was roughly two million family households that were impacted.[01:43:00]

There is now a narrative of, we have to fix the border, we have to be tough on it, but we do have pathways to safeguard the folks that are already here.

AMNA NAWAZ: Maria Teresa Kumar... GEOFF BENNETT:

‘¡Sí, se puede!’- Latino voter enthusiasm for Harris skyrockets over issues like housing - The ReidOut - Air Date 8-30-24

It is kind of one of the puzzles that this is the largest nonwhite group in America, full stop, more than black voters. But the voting turnout is really low. It's almost like half their voting strength. Why? Yeah. I mean, even looking at 2022 now, there was this real sentiment of disillusionment among a lot of Latinos, right?

There was a lot of skepticism towards president Biden and a lot of that had to do and was rooted in this idea that. But according to many, there were a lot of broken immigration promises. And then suddenly, in the last two weeks, I've started to hear the si se puede again. And that is once again this idea that perhaps what was missing, the yes we can, but the si se puede in Spanish is so intentional.

And it points to this idea that it wasn't that the Democratic Party was fractured. You know, it was [01:44:00] at what was missing was injecting the inspiration, you know, the hope and change that Barack Obama did. And it is working. Now you do see Latinos being mobilized. That's sort of the messaging standpoint. And then on the other flip side, it's Republicans.

The moment that this country turned into majority minority. Majority minority, no? The understanding that Latinos are at the heart of the multi ethnic coalition that is leading to that change. There is a concerted effort to stop that growth and all of that is also being fueled by this conspiracy theory that is overshadowing everything.

Which is this idea that non citizens Exactly. Great replacement theory in this idea that non citizens are voting and you put those things together And the thing about it is, and let me actually get Mike Madrid in here, because some of it is, is people believe, misunderstand the demographics of Latinos.

They assume that most, I remember a poll back in many, many years ago that showed that Americans believe that like 75 percent of Latinos are undocumented, which is [01:45:00] insane. It's literally like 80 percent are citizens, right? And, and, and so there is this misunderstanding of who this constituency are and assuming, well, they're all undocumented because they may speak Spanish at home.

And so can you give us the real numbers and the real stats on this constituency and also how different it is across the country? Cause it's regionally very different. Yeah, it's it's actually not as different as we think it is. What is happening? This latinization of America is an extraordinary demographic transformation.

That's what I try to explore in the book here. You actually mentioned a lot of it in your intro with this 7 percent growth over just the past decade. It's overwhelmingly US board. right? A lot of this is what is happening with this balancing between the two parties. It's there's a demographic explanation for it as much as there is a political explanation for it.

So I think you accurately pointed out this is the largest ethnic group in America at this point. Yes, our voter participation is lagging every other [01:46:00] racial and ethnic group. I believe that there are strong demographic reasons for that. The fact that we're so young, by the way, is one of the main reasons.

Younger voters have a less propensity, regardless of race or ethnicity, to vote. We're working on that. Uh, Maria Teresa's group specifically has been working to address that for many years successfully. It is happening. The trajectory is on the right path. There's a lot of people who argue that simply by aging into the, into the, um, And to the electorate, Latinos will start to grow into greater numbers.

But of course, with so many eligible citizen eligible folks, we want to make sure that there are people not only registered, but mobilized and showing up to demonstrate that strength. But again, there's a lot of, there's also this endemic poverty problem that we have to recognize, which is also a function of youth, poor people, it doesn't matter whether you're black in the deep south or white in Appalachia or Latino in East LA.

If you're poor and young, you don't vote. They don't vote. Fair return. We've got to look for those policy [01:47:00] explanations as much as looking for these political solutions because it's pretty widespread. It's pretty deep. There's over 70 years of census data telling us that a lot of this is demographic.

Absolutely. And MTK, you've been in votes. I want to bring you in here because you've been working on this project of Increasing that both strength because again, you know, I, we had a guy on, uh, you know, earlier this year who made a really great point that America sort of styles itself as like a quasi European country, but we're really much more a Latin American country.

Our history, our demographics, a lot of it is much more like Brazil, right? That it is like England. And, and, but we just don't, we try to fool ourselves into saying that's not the case, but it kind of is right. And so how do you break that, that cycle? Because part of it is age and part of it is that people aren't voting.

But how do you bring more Latino voters online? So I think it's all it's all intentional. I mean, you cited what happened in 2022. I'll tell you that from 2022 compared to the 2018 midterm election, Latino vote participation [01:48:00] down was 37 percent down 37%. But if you look at who turned out in 2022, it was people over the age of 40 years old, and it was disproportionately Latino voters.

Individuals that were Republican, because what the Republicans did was invest in older Latino voters for turnout. However, when it came down to young voters under the age of 40, turnout was abysmal 24%. And that was because the Democrats read the headline, internalized it and said, Oh my gosh, Latinos, maybe they are going, they're fleeing Republican.

So there was a major lack of investment. When it came to communicating to young Latinos that the issues that they cared about in 2022 were on the ballot, and I think what we're seeing now with Kamala Harris is that she's meeting voters where they are. I can tell you anecdotally just from our work since the moment she came on the ballot, we have registered over 110, 000 registered voters.

But the key is, is that 65 percent of them joy are under the age of 25. I've been doing this for a minute. [01:49:00] I have never seen that type of enthusiasm. But it's not just because of what she represents. It's to Mike Madryn's point is that she's talking about policy they care about. The number one issue for 18 to 29 year olds in this country who are Latino in North Carolina, in Georgia, in Texas, in Arizona, The number one issue is housing.

It's rent. And so when she came out with a policy just last week, meeting people where they are, talking to them about providing affordable rent, affordable mortgages, that all of a sudden perked their interest because like, wait a second, she's someone who identifies me as an immigrant, you know, a child of immigrant experiences, but at the same time understands that what's making me struggle is whether or not I can balance the budget to feed myself or make them or make my ends meet at the end of the month.

And that is transformational

I spent a week with Black Republicans - Mother Jones - Air Date 8-13-24

In talking to Black Republicans, I found that their most consistent ideological North Star was an emphasis on personal responsibility. For those I spoke to, there was a real [01:50:00] value for rigid individualism as opposed to collective progress and identity. Take Topher, for example. He's a Christian rapper, has millions of followers online, and believes, according to him, in an individualistic approach to progress.

And that's one reason why I'm pro Trump and I'm a conservative is because I truly believe in the individualistic approach to the problems that we see within the black community or in America. As a whole, and you can think about it, black Wall Street, Harlem, Renaissance, all that time we was doing great, but when the policies came in and started destroying the black community slowly and slowly.

Matter of fact, it was supposed to get rid of poverty or at least lessen it. But we have more poverty now than we had back then. I think you'll notice a theme of dissonance present in these interviews. On the one hand, for example, Topher endorses and individualistic approach to solving the problems we face as a community.

But on the other hand, he points to Black Wall Street or the Harlem Renaissance. Communities that I would consider on the Mount Rushmore of black collective power, and he points to them as times we should look back on with [01:51:00] admiration. The question is, which one is it? Is it rigid individualism where we get it out of the mud on our own?

Or is it about creating communities where we work together to build our collective resources? What's also interesting is that somehow for him, these communities no longer exist because of liberal or progressive. Policy decisions when the policies came in and started destroying the black community slowly and slowly.

Matter of fact, it was supposed to get rid of poverty or at least lessen it, but we have more poverty now than we had back then. I think it's worth pointing out that this more poverty now than back then line is verifiably false. It falls in line with a theme that people like Byron Donalds have advanced continuously throughout this election cycle.

The idea that we were better off in any way during the Jim Crow era. During Jim Crow. The black family was together during Jim Crow, more black people were not just conservative, because black people always have been conservative minded, but more black people voted [01:52:00] conservatively. It's worth noting that the black poverty rate Has been falling ever since black people started receiving civil rights protections.

It's almost as if these progressive policies worked. Now, you mentioned Black Wall Street, brother, and I want to be very real with you. Yeah. Black Wall Street was Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Greenwood District, where black people built their own community. Right. Had their own self sustained community. Beautiful economy making it for themselves and white people destroyed it.

Yeah, it wasn't policy. It was white people Well white people it was no. No, no, let's be very let's be very clear. It was white people. Let's be but let's no No, no, it was those white people. It was white people in that community. Absolutely And you know, let me just say this Elaine, Arkansas, Rosewood in Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Sweet Auburn District, North Nashville in Nashville, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Each one of these communities were booming black economies where white people, not in the same place, but it was, it was the same group of people every time destroyed those communities. So you can't say it's policy when these booming, when [01:53:00] black people do what they need to do and build for themselves and white people destroy it.

So why is it that you would frame it as a policy thing? I didn't, I didn't frame it as a policy thing. We can rewind it, but you said it was white people. You meant something. I said it wasn't white people, it was those white people. And the reason why I'm saying that is because now we're trying to categorize all white people as evil.

No. And what I'm trying to say is back then, because a lot of people don't know this, I'm gonna put this on record. Black Wall Street, we built themselves out of that. Four years after that, Black Wall Street, we built everything they had and they paid for it. Process for the next 40 years until policy came in and destroyed it because they decided to build a freeway over the town and that destroyed.

So what I'm saying is if we look at policy and, and the cultural essence of most things, right? It's not just policy, it's culture. I was trying to draw a distinction between the nature of progressive policy, like. The Civil Rights Act or Supreme Court decisions to overturn segregation and white supremacist policy like destroying black communities.

But the subject kept changing. Lucky for you. I actually made a video about [01:54:00] Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood district was definitely white racism that destroyed black Wall Street and other black communities through explicitly racist acts of state sanctioned violence. This is why an accurate full telling of history is so important.

Black oppression and black. Progress have always had a collective quality to the black people have been throughout American history targeted As a group from slavery to black codes to Jim Crow to mass incarceration to anti inclusion efforts today. But we've also made progress by harnessing the power of collective action during reconstruction and the civil rights movement.

And even today, during the black owned business boom, LBJ, that's why you say we have the Negroes voting Democrat for the next 200 years, but all those policies have not done what they promised. Would you agree? I would not agree. So you think we're better off as black people now than we were before LBJ passed those policies?

Yes, brother. We, we can vote without the threat of violence. Are you [01:55:00] talking about the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Is that what you're describing as, as, as a negative thing? I'm not saying the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was, I'm talking about That's LBJ, I just want to be clear. That's LBJ who you said, were we better off before LBJ?

LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I'm talking about the War on Poverty. I just want to answer that one. I want to answer that specific one first. Was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a bad thing? I agree with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thank you. But at the same time, I'm also I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

I don't know what that means. Explain more. What it means is I would rather, given the fact that even back then we still had our families together, communities were stronger back then, I would rather deal with the dangerous freedom of not knowing and controlling people with policies as much as possible, versus the peaceful slavery of being married and tied to the government.

Um, given Trump's well documented history of saying and doing racist things, I wanted to know how these black people could be drawn into Trump's political orbit. So I talked to Pastor Lorenzo Sewell. Yeah, so [01:56:00] anyone that wants to come to church, they're able to come. So when President Trump called, I thought about it like you calling me and saying, Pastor, I want to invite a friend to church who has 34 felonies.

Hey, Pastor, I want to invite a friend to church who is a womanizer. Hey, Pastor, I want to invite a friend to church who could be a racist. He's the lead pastor at a black church in Detroit that Trump visited earlier this year. And he was also a featured speaker at the RNC. To all my friends back in Detroit who are Democrats, I want to ask you just one simple question.

You can't deny the power of God on this man's life. You can't deny that God protected him. Could it be that Jesus Christ preserved him for such a time as this? Could it be?

Why should black people support the Republican ticket and Donald Trump specifically? That's a good question. You know, what I would say to any black person is this, specifically about the Republican platform. I would say, look, do your research, right? I would say, look [01:57:00] back. 270 years ago in this state, where a group of patriots stood up and they started that grand old party to stop the expansion of slavery.

If a black person said, well, Pastor, Donald Trump is racist, the Republican Party is racist. Well, let's play that theme out throughout history. Let's look at who was the party of slavery. Who was the party of Jim Crow, right? Who's the party of, um, you know, the slave codes? Well, well, you know, Those are Democrats.

Let's have that conversation. And when you look at when the Senate was integrated, those were black Republicans. When we look at Frederick Douglass, black Republican. So that's on the political side. Why believe that a black American should be willing to look at the Republican platform in terms of my convict my political conventions as a pastor, my conviction in my heart.

A black woman's womb is the most dangerous place for a black child to be. So, if a black American, specifically a [01:58:00] black woman, my conversation would be, give our black babies a chance. Look at the Republican Party in terms of President Donald J. Trump. This is what I would say. Don't look at the container, look at the content.

Right? Don't look at the man, look at the mission. Right? Don't look at his past. Look at what your agenda is for your community in the future. Conservatives are leading the charge to remove protections for voting rights, protections for maternal mortality, um, interventions in California, affirmative action, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

These are all issues that pertain directly to the people that I know that you serve as your community. Why should they support the party behind the hindrance, the advancement of the very things that I know you stand for? Sure. Black people that I know, that I represent, that I've had these conversations with, they don't want to be put in a position because they're black.

There's not one black person I know that, that will say to me, Lorenzo, I deserve this [01:59:00] position because I'm black. But, but, but I want to, you, you, you know that that's not what DEI is. DEI is about fair, fair hiring practices, opening up opportunity, like creating pathways, like. But you're smart. You're, you're an intelligent man.

And those that would say this, I believe they're very intelligent. It costs more money not to hire the person who's the best than to be racist. It actually costs more money. So if you're the best at what you do, right. And I, let's just say I'm a racist. So I'm, let's just say that let's play that out. Right.

And let's just say, Hey, there are 20 white guys that are not as competent as you, but I'm not going to pick you. Because you're black. It's going to cost me more money. They don't even know that this qualified person exists, right? Sure, I hear you. The pathways are the problem. And a lot of what diversity, equity, and inclusion is doing is creating those and helping to clarify those pathways.

And so framing it as an unqualified person getting the job when we know, you and I both know, that there are [02:00:00] plenty of qualified black people or Latino people or women who don't end up with jobs. 100%. 100%. And I agree with you. I do think relationships and proximity matter. In his book, The Grift, Clay Cain details the history of how Black conservatives have thrown Black people under the bus to get ahead personally.

From Black Republicans like Isaiah Montgomery and Booker T. Washington, to modern Black Republicans like Clarence Thomas. Clay Cain makes the case that the modern Black Republican is likely, if not assuredly, a grifter. A person who is doing that which is politically. Expedient rather than doing what is right, doing whatever they need to do to get that all expenses paid trip to fancy places.

I couldn't help but wonder if some of the folks I was talking to fit that description

SECTION C - WHITE AND RURAL VOTERS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally Section C: White and rural voters.

Keith Boykin on Why White Voters Stick with Trump - Miss Jones Inc - Air Date 8-30-24

The overwhelming majority of black people. are not going to vote for Donald Trump. They're definitely 90 [02:01:00] percent of black people are not going to vote for Donald Trump. Uh, and, and the real issue, I think we should be asking, instead of pointing the finger at black people, why aren't we doing this or that we should be pointing the finger at white people.

Why is it that the majority of white people plan to vote for Donald Trump? Why is it that the majority of white people voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and they didn't vote for Barack Obama in any of his elections? Why is it the majority of white people voted for Donald Trump again in 2020 after all the chaos he created?

Well, what I say is why do birds suddenly appear? What? Because the thing is is like why the rainbows? Why is water wet? Like you understand what I'm saying? Like they Why does everything have to be about race? It's exactly right. Why, why, why? It's, it's, it's like white people are invested in protecting whiteness.

And that, and that's the thing we need to be focused on. Everybody's, everybody's focused on Joe Biden, not getting Muslim support or black support. Yeah, I get that. But you know what, the real [02:02:00] question we should be asking is why is it that white people continue to support Donald Trump? Why is it after, after being twice impeached, quadruple indicted, after having 91 charges against him, after six bankruptcies, after being convicted, after having his company convicted of fraud, after his, two of, three of his lawyers have been, have been convicted, after, Several of his top aides have been convicted after he's run a country for four years with chaos after everything he said about creating a dictatorship, pulling out of NATO, not willing to support our allies.

After all of this stuff that white people Who've been lecturing black people and Brown people for years about what we should be doing and how we should be respectful of our country. And we should be electing serious leaders. Why is it the majority of white people still want to vote for this guy? And that's the real issue that America's facing.

It's not about black and Brown people, not showing up for Joe Biden. It's about white people, racist, white people showing up to support Donald Trump. That's the [02:03:00] problem that America's facing. At the end of the day, they're, they're literally still the majority that gets to decide which way this thing tilts.

Well, yes, and, and, and that's, and that's part of the problem because there has, there has, there's not all white people who feel this way, fortunately, because there has to be some critical mass of white people who don't. That's the reason why Barack Obama was able to get elected because even though he didn't win the white vote, he got enough white votes to be able to support him.

But Donald Trump won the white vote in both of his elections. Barack Obama lost the white vote in both of his elections. What does that say about white people in America? White people in America. I think that you keep asking very rhetorical questions. Because it's all about race. White people are invested in protecting racist white supremacist policies.

That's the reason why they are voting for Donald Trump. That's the reason why they voted for Donald Trump in the past. That is, ladies and gentlemen, that [02:04:00] is the answer. But the reality is we're going to all continue to be gaslit. That that is not what we're talking. That's not the situation. So when we talk about voting, it's always protected in this thing of a civil duty that we don't talk about because it's my right to vote and I, you know, I vote personally and you don't have to discuss it and blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, you're living next door. To a Trump supporter and don't even know it. And they're going to blame us and say, well, black people, we only voted 85 percent for Biden instead of 88%. You know what, that's, that's, what the hell, that's how a lot of people are voting for him. But they're not, they're not, they're not pointing the finger at white people who are voting overwhelmingly for Donald Trump.

That is, that is, that is some twisted logic to make us to blame. We are the ones that have to rescue the country from white people who are ruining the country by supporting Donald Trump

How can Democrats win back rural voters? - The 21st Show - Air Date 8-22-24

A highlight. If you want to stay focused on rural America for a moment is Tim walls.

[02:05:00] A little background on my relationship with him. I was first elected to Congress in 2012. I live in Moline, Illinois. The district I represented was until last until a year ago. January included the Quad Cities, the only Quad Cities, Peoria and Rockford, but any in between there, 85 percent of the towns had 5000 people or fewer living in them.

And 60 percent have a 1000 people or fewer living in them. So a very rural district. So I'm elected in 2012. and at the time leader Pelosi had this mentor program where she would look at sitting members of Congress who had similar politics. Or similar districts to the new brand new members coming in. So she assigned Tim walls to me.

And so we started our relationship in 2012 before I was even sworn in in January of 2013 as my mentor in Congress. And so his district, as I [02:06:00] just described the 1 in Illinois that I represented, his district was similar. We have in the 17th congressional district that I serve, we have close to 10, 000 family farms.

He has family farms throughout the district he represented and obviously throughout the state of Minnesota that he served is serving as governor and a lot of manufacturing, not as many college educated voters as many other congressional districts. And so, um, when you saw the video about him leading into it, talked about him growing up on a, on a farm, um, signing up for the military right after he turned 17 and Glenn, you know, this as well, but, um, the military is represented in larger numbers percentage wise by people from rural America than urban America.

And so I think that people all over America could watch that and listen to Tim Walz's speech last night and say, you know what, I get this guy and I think he's going to get people like me. Well, Glenn Bouchard, same question to you and take it where you will. What do [02:07:00] you think about how the Democratic National Convention has been going so far, I guess, in terms of appealing to those rural voters?

Brian, I think this is my convention that I've attended over the years. And this is by far the best organized enthousiastic crowd that I've ever been to. Uh, the people are enthused, particularly the young people. There's a lot of young people here as delegates. And so I'm, I'm very pleased with the way things have turned around.

Uh, I think it's good that we've applauded the courage of President Biden. And, uh, giving up the presidency so that, uh, he could make way for Kamala Harris, who I think is very intelligent, very articulate, uh, is going to make a great president of this country. And I think she's going to get elected. And I think everybody at this convention thinks we got a great shot at this.

Let me, let's, let's now dive into then some of the, [02:08:00] uh, the issues that, that have, or what has changed, I guess, in, in rural and downstate Illinois in the past decades, Sherry Bustos, you are one of a relatively small number of legislators in both parties who won a congressional district that the other party's presidential candidate had won.

You were a Democrat elected in the Trump majority district. How did that inform your approach to politics? Well, in Brian, if I can offer a little more perspective to on the congressional district that I represented, um, it was 1 of the biggest swings in the entire country from Obama to Trump at congressional district.

The 1 I just described that goes. Up to the Wisconsin state line, the Mississippi River on the Western border of the congressional district, and then goes into central Illinois into Peoria. 711, 000 people I already described. It's very agricultural John Deere's world headquarters is in Illinois. So we do have a lot of manufacturing that supports that [02:09:00] caterpillars world headquarters had been in Peoria.

Um, we have a major UAW plant right outside of the district in Belvedere, Illinois. So many of the people in the Rockford area work there. So that's a that's a description, but it swung 17 points. From when Barack Obama won in his 2nd reelect. So, in the 2012 election to then when Donald Trump won in 2016, it was a 17 point swing.

So, um, I could feel it on the ground and Glenn, you can talk a little bit about what you were seeing in more Southern Illinois. Um, I'm a downstater, but you are in southern Illinois, but but I can feel it on the ground. And interestingly, that election that Donald Trump 1, our congressional district that I represented, I want it by 20 points.

So, what that means is about 1 in every 5 voters. That went into the, the voting booth that on that election day, um, 1 [02:10:00] in 5 voted for Donald Trump and then went down ballot a little bit farther and voted for me. Um, and so what what did okay so back to your question. I mean, you, if you, if you're representing a district like this.

That is truly a swing district. Um, you bet you better not be extreme. And, um, because that is not what the, a swing district is looking for. Um, we can talk a little bit about what I think was what proved to be successful for me. Um, but, um, you know, I'm a moderate Democrat, but that's, that's how I, how I was raised.

I come from a long line of family farmers. And teachers, and, you know, we're just we're pretty regular middle class folks. Um, but, um, I, I'm a moderate and that my politics. I don't know if they're always in style. I would say if you fast forwarded to 2018, being a moderate Democrat probably wasn't exactly in style.

I think is. Maybe back in style now, [02:11:00] because I see us as the pragmatists, the, the folks who, while we can always shoot for major change, it is really, really difficult, uh, legislatively to, to have major change. So, I do believe in, in order to make changes that are necessary, sometimes that does have to happen incrementally.

And over

Crossing the Rural-Urban Divide (with Governor Tim Walz) - In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt - Air Date 1-11-23

Minnesota for people who aren't familiar with the state, like a lot of Midwestern states has a lot of democrats and a lot of republicans. That's right. It's got an urban urban center with a lot of, you Democrats, it's got a lot of rural communities with, with, that are with fair amount of Republicans.

You represented in the US congress, a very rural area with, of course, with some nice cities in it too. And, and, you know, you ran against someone who, uh, Scott Jensen, who is sort of out of MAGA central casting. That's right. Yet, The election wasn't, to be honest, it wasn't close and not only that, but you flip the Senate blue.

And for the first time in a decade, [02:12:00] you've got a full democratic governing coalition across the legislature and the governor's office. What happened? Tell us what this tells you about the state of the electorate . Yeah. It's a big deal. And Andy knows Minnesota well. And I think you're right. The one thing in there too, Andy, there is a big chunk of, you know, capital I independence, you know, Jesse Ventura's people, some of those are still there.

So right. Minnesota kind of represents that, that quintessential purple state out in the Midwest. You're right. I represented a district that when I won my last congressional race in 2016, Donald Trump won by 20 percent there. But I think it was the Minnesota, again, it's not, You know, Minnesota exceptionalism, but I think there was just a more grounded focus that the issues of the day coming out of a pandemic, the way we handled it, you know, that was the debate home to the Mayo Clinic, home to the, you know, the heart of the medical research and medical device industry.

And we had folks that were blatantly telling people this was a hoax and things like that. And as you said, you know, my opponent being a [02:13:00] medical doctor of all things and, and falling into that, I think that was. Well, you know, for what it's worth, my pro tip of the day was don't run on that. People were relatively happy.

We had pretty low death rates and things. And then I do think the, uh, the decision on row that came, um, it, there was an energized, you could feel it. You know, it's not, again, you, if you're counting on young voters to win for you, we've always been, all of us have been through this. It's hard to get them to the polls for different reasons.

They showed up this time and, and women again, we're speaking. And so I think what it was is there was a. Uh, basics about, you know what, we handled COVID the best we could. We're coming out of this thing pretty well, you know, focusing on that issue around on women's rights and reproductive rights. And then here in Minnesota, again, one of the things we're very proud of, and we rank very near the top on public education was a full frontal attack from the other side on, on the, just the whole concept of public education, that, that we should just quit funding them.

Right. That we should defund it and that we should go to vouchers for parents. So I think it was a [02:14:00] combination on this. You know, I, it's not the campaign that I would have run against me, um, if I was doing it. But I, I, I think in this, that both the mood out here. The general nature of, of the electorate, it did split on those things that you talked about, Andy, I run on one Minnesota and I, it breaks my heart to see our state so polarized, but you can take our state, just like you can the map of the United States.

And it's, you know, that red and blue as a geographer, there's been no bigger damage done to this country, but my, whoever put that on TV the first time showing these splotches of red and these splotches of blue, when we know that it is not that uniform, you know, right. The city of Rochester, Mankato in the middle, or sure.

So I think it was just voters knew they were there and then I do think it came to this that the candidates I, I think I got a pretty good draw on the candidate that I had, but I'd also like to think we did a pretty good job during covid we listened to experts. Um, we listened to the folks who cared and then I think we tackled head on a generational [02:15:00] reckoning on race after the murder of George Floyd.

So it was a, well, I'll tell you if, if, if you put a list of things together in a first term and thought that you were going to get reelected by a fairly comfortable. Well, margin, I would have bet against us. I think, yeah, that's a lot of challenges. I do want to go back to talk about some of the things that unite us because, because I think you make a really important point, you know, I think all of us are used to seeing elections where people have policy differences, you know, you're, you're used to running against people who you just adamantly disagree with from a policy standpoint, yet at some level.

It's okay because you know, they're being truthful with the public. That's right. What felt new and what feels like a new phenomenon is this cycle. You and a number of other, you know, national candidates for governor and for Congress were running against people who basically premised a lot of they're willing to premise a lot of their campaign on a lie.

That's right. Whether it's the lie of the 2020 election, whether it's just boldface, um, lying and telling [02:16:00] mistruths that worries a lot of us. I don't know how much it worries you. It was, it's, it's certainly confirming to see people like you who play it straight, whether the truth is good or whether the truth is bad, win against someone like that.

But how do you run against somebody who just is willing to invent their own playbook like that? Yeah, it was hard because I say this, I've run against really good people and I would have to say this. My, my first term for governor in 2018, I ran against a man who honorable, good guy, good father. I mean, lives up just, I think tells the truth every day, you know, kind of lives the life you'd like to see.

We just disagreed on tax policy, disagreed on some of those things, and we had a good spirited campaign on the issues. This one was just. You know, just wild out of nowhere, accusations, you know, I don't know if you followed it asking how you run against it. You have a good team around you to keep you from losing your mind on some of this because it was just, you know, I'm in a debate arguing that it wasn't COVID that killed [02:17:00] people.

It was the ventilators, you know, it was the vaccine and things. But I also was getting, I did 24 years in the military and someone who didn't do time, they came right at you that I somehow. Quit and deserted my people type of thing. You know, I don't know where it comes from. And now you're in the public who is predisposed for these massive attacks and massive lies.

We needed to be talking about how are we going to, in Minnesota and aging population,

And so what I said is how you run on this is, is my team did a great job of staying focused on the issues. What are we going to do to improve the lives of Minnesotans? I think, you know, the thing that my team and I remind myself is talking about the issues and talking about solving them and being as honest as you could with the public is That

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The additional sections of the show included clips from Morning Joe, WABE, DW News, The Majority Report, The New Yorker Radio Hour, Woke AF Daily, The PBS NewsHour, The Reid Out, Mother Jones, Ms. Jones incorporated. The takeaway the 21st show and in the bubble further details are in the show notes. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Aaron Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet, Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work, helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member [02:19:00] or purchasing gift memberships.

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#1653 Money-N-Politics: SuperPACS, Crypto, Billionaires, and Public Funding of Elections (Transcript)

Posted by · September 06, 2024 12:02 PM

Air Date 9/6/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. We're living in a world that dark money in politics and Citizens United built. But since that Supreme court ruling in 2010, we've also invented cryptocurrency. That promises to be a brand new source of opacity and financial power built on smoke and mirrors.

Sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes CounterSpin, Robert Reich, The PBS NewsHour, The Brian Lehrer Show, The Majority Report, Democracy Now!, CounterSpin, and Bernie Sanders. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more on four topics:

Section A: The System,

Section B: Funding Republicans,

Section C: Funding Democrats, and

Section D: Solutions.

Steve Macek on Dark Money - CounterSpin - Air Date 8-23-24

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Let's start with some definition. Dark money doesn't mean funding for candidates or campaigns I don't like, or from groups I don't like. In your June piece for The Progressive, [00:01:00] you spell out what it is and in terms of where it can come from and what we can know about it. Help us, if you would, understand just the rules around dark money.

STEVE MACEK: Sure. So dark money -- and I think Anna Massaglia of Open Secrets gave me, I think, a really nice, concise definition of dark money in the interview I did with her for this article. She called it funding from undisclosed sources that goes to influence political outcomes such as elections.

Now, thanks to the Supreme Court case in Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission in 2010 and some other cases, it is now completely legal for corporations and very wealthy individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence the outcomes of elections. Not all of that independent expenditure on elections [00:02:00] is dark money. Dark money is spending that comes from organizations that do not have to disclose their donors. One sort of organization, I'm sure your listeners are really familiar with, are super PACs, or what they're more technically known as IRS Code 527 organizations. It can take unlimited contributions and spend unlimited amounts on influencing elections, but they have to disclose the names of their donors.

There is this other sort of organization, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which is sometimes known as a social welfare nonprofit, who can raise huge amounts of money, but they do not have to disclose the names of their donors. But they are prevented from spending the majority of their budget on political activity, which means that a lot of these 501(c)(4) organizations spend [00:03:00] 49.999 percent of their budget attempting to influence the outcomes of elections, and the rest of it is spent on things like general political education or research that might in turn guide the creation of political ads and so on.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: When we talk about influencing the outcome of elections, it's not that they are taking out an ad for or against a particular candidate; that doesn't have to be involved at all.

STEVE MACEK: Right. So they can sometimes run issue ads. Sometimes these dark money groups, as long as they're working within the parameters of the law, will run ads for or against a particular candidate.

But take, for example, Citizens for Sanity, the group that I talked about at the beginning of my Progressive article. This is a group that nobody knows very much about. It showed up back in 2022 and ran $40 million worth of ads in four battleground [00:04:00] states. Many of the ads were general ads attacking the Democrats for wanting to erase the border or for over kind of woke culture war themes. But they're spending 40 plus million dollars on ads, according to one estimate. What we do know is the officials of the group are almost identical to America First Legal, which was made up by former Trump administration officials. America First Legal was founded by Stephen Miller, that xenophobic former advisor, and sometimes speechwriter to Donald Trump. No one really knows exactly who is funding this organization because it is a 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit, and so is not required by the IRS to disclose its donors. It has been running this year in Ohio and elsewhere, a whole bunch of digital ads and putting up billboards, for example, attacking [00:05:00] Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown for his stance on immigration policies, basically saying he wants to protect criminal illegals, and also running these general anti-woke -- they're very snarky, kind of anti-woke ads saying basically Democrats used to care about the middle class, now they only care about race and gender and DEI.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Right. Well, I think rich people influence policy. It's almost like dog bites man at this point, right? Yeah, it's bad, but that's how the system works. And I think it's important to lift up If it didn't matter for donors to obscure their support for this or that, well then they wouldn't be trying to obscure it.

And the thing you're writing about, these are down ballot issues where you might believe that Citizens for Sanity, in this case, any other organization, you might think of this as like a grassroots group that scrabbled together some money to take out ads. And so it is meaningful to know, [00:06:00] to connect these financial dots.

STEVE MACEK: Absolutely. It is meaningful. And since you made reference to down ballot races, one of the things that I think is so nefarious about dark money and these dark money organizations is that they are spending a lot on races for things like school board, or, as I discussed in the article, state Attorney General's races, right?

There is this organization that was founded in 2014 called the Republican Attorney General's Association or RAGA, which is a beautiful acronym. And they have been trying to elect extremely reactionary Republicans to the top law enforcement position in state after state. And in 2022, they spent something like $8.9 million trying to defeat Democratic State Attorney General's candidates [00:07:00] in the 2022 elections.

Now they are a PAC of a kind. They're a 527, so they have the same legal status as a super PAC, so they have to disclose their donors. But the fact is, one of the major donors is the group called the Concord Fund, which has given them $17 million. Concord Fund is a 501(c)(4) that was founded by Leonard Leo, the judicial activist affiliated with the Federalist Society, who is basically Donald Trump's Supreme Court whisperer, who is largely responsible for the conservative takeover of the federal court.

His organization, this fund that he controls gave $17 million to RAGA, and we have no idea who contributed that money to the fund. We can make some educated guesses, but nobody really knows who's funneling that money into trying to influence the election of the top law enforcement official in state after state around this country. That's alarming. [00:08:00] Because of course, some of these right wing billionaires and corporations have issues, have a vested interest in who is sitting in that position, because if it comes to enforcement of antitrust laws or corruption laws, if they have a more friendly Attorney General in that position, State Attorney General in that position, it could mean millions of dollars for their bottom line.

Why Big Money Supports Trump -Robert Reich - Air Date 8-27-24

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: Fascism, backed by big money, is one of the most dangerous of all political alliances. We saw it in 1930s Germany, when industrial giants bailed out a cash strapped Nazi party right before Hitler's election, thinking that Hitler would protect their money and power. We're seeing something similar now.

Earlier this year, the GOP was running out of money. So, Trump turned to his wealthy backers for help. Many super rich donors, who once criticized Trump for stoking the violence of January 6th, have since had a change of heart, deciding their profits are worth more than our democracy. Trump has promised them that if [00:09:00] elected, he'll extend his 2017 tax cuts that went mainly to the wealthy, beyond 2025, when they're scheduled to expire.

And he's hinted at even more.

DONALD TRUMP: The rich as hell, we're gonna give you tax cuts?

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: He promised oil executives he would scrap regulations favoring electric vehicles and wind energy if they would give his campaign $1 billion.

The Trump White House is for sale. And the wealthy are buying. 50 billionaire families gave at least $600 million in political donations as of May, with over two thirds going to support GOP candidates and conservative causes.

Elon Musk, one of the world's richest men, who also controls and manipulates one of the world's largest communications platforms, has committed to spending millions of dollars a month to elect Trump, and Trump has promised to make it worth Musk's while.

DONALD TRUMP: We have to make life good for our smart people, and he's as smart as you get.

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: In previous [00:10:00] videos, I've highlighted alarming similarities between fascist regimes of the past and Trumpism. The alignment of American billionaires with Trump's anti-democracy movement. is one of the most dangerous parallels.

The billionaires want the rest of us to fight each other so we don't look up and see where all the wealth and power have gone, so we don't join together and raise taxes on the super rich to finance childcare, better schools, our healthcare system, everything else we need.

They fear democracy because there are far more of us than there are of them. We need to see through their fear tactics, and vote in overwhelming numbers this November.

We can learn from history and spot the danger. We are not doomed to repeat it.

Trump shifts stance on cryptocurrency to win over new bloc of voters and mega-donors - PBS Newshour - Air Date 7-29-24

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: The incredible rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have created a new block of megadonors that voters and presidential candidates are now trying to win over. Former President Trump, who initially denounced cryptocurrency as [00:11:00] "highly volatile and based on thin air" back in 2019, reversed himself in his speech to the conference last Saturday by promising to make the US the crypto capital of the world,

DONALD TRUMP: if crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted, and made in the USA. It's going to be. It's not going to be made anywhere else. And if Bitcoin is going to the moon, as we say, it's going to the moon, I want America to be the nation that leads the way. And that's what's going to happen. No, you're going to be very happy with me.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: Joining me now to discuss the ramifications of all of this is David Yaffe-Bellany from the New York Times. David, thank you so much for being here. Help set the table for us for people who have not been following this that closely. Remind us of where crypto was after its big fall, and now it's sort of resurged in the marketplace.

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: The last time most ordinary people tuned into the crypto industry, you know, top [00:12:00] executives were going to prison, the market was in free fall, and a lot of these kind of risky investments had been widely dismissed as worthless or scams. But a lot has changed since then. In January, the federal government approved a new investment product that's tied to the price of Bitcoin. And when that product started trading, it kind of opened up access to the crypto market to a whole lot of people who hadn't invested in it before. And as a result, the price of Bitcoin surged. It reached its record high a few months ago, and the prices of some of the other big crypto tokens have followed suit. And so the industry is in a much healthier state today than it has been for the last couple of years.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: So, as we just heard, the former President Trump made this very explicit pitch to the crypto world, saying, I might have been a skeptic before, but now I'm in full bore. What is his pitch, and why is this happening now?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: Look, the crypto industry is furious about the way that it's been treated by the federal government. The Securities and Exchange Commission has [00:13:00] embarked on a pretty aggressive crackdown on crypto companies, a crackdown so severe that it's essentially an existential threat. It could drive the industry out of the United States if it's successful. And so the embrace of Trump is really a response to that. And, you know, a cynical reading of this is that Trump is kind of opportunistically seizing on what's happening, you know, under the current administration. Seeing an opportunity to attract donor dollars from the crypto industry, and that's why he's making this pitch, promising that he's going to turn the US into a kind of inviting sort of capital for crypto companies, rather than the sort of aggressive cop on the beat that it's been over the last couple of years.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: Let's talk about that 'cop on the beat'. Currently, that's the Biden administration's cop on the beat. What is it that they're doing, and what is their argument about why they need to be such a tough cop?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: Sure. So, the leader of this push is the chair of the SEC, Gary Gensler, and the argument that he has made over and over is that most [00:14:00] cryptocurrencies are essentially securities, which is to say that they're just like stocks and bonds that are traded on Wall Street and that they ought to be regulated as such and that crypto companies should have to make all the sorts of disclosures and follow all the same rules as people do, people who offer those traditional investment products. That is a legal argument that the crypto industry hates. You know, they're fighting back against it saying that if the SEC beats them in the courts on this issue, then they'll be driven out of the United States. So, that's sort of the crux of the debate. And, you know, Trump went in front of a crowd of Bitcoin supporters over the weekend and said, one of my first acts as president will be to fire Gary Gensler. And it got probably the biggest cheer of the day.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: So, do we know what vice president Kamala Harris might do if she were elected? Is it safe to say she would just continue the Biden administration's current approach?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: It's hard to say for sure. She hasn't said a ton publicly about her views on crypto, but obviously she's part of the current administration and so a lot of crypto [00:15:00] insiders are kind of assuming that if she wins, it'll be more of the same that they saw under the Biden administration. With that said, both the Biden campaign and now the Harris campaign have extended something of an olive branch to crypto companies, sort of invited them to come to the table and sort of talk about the policy changes they would like to see. But, the reaction among crypto executives has been pretty skeptical. Essentially it's been 'your talk means nothing to us, we've seen what you've done over the last four years and, frankly, we don't trust you'.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: We're talking about crypto here, but there has been in the broader tech world, as well as in the VC world—the venture capital world—this seeming move towards Trump and supporting Republican candidates. Is that all about this concern over too-strict enforcement as they see it?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: That's really probably the key part of this. You know, even tech people who aren't directly involved in the crypto industry or see what's going on and say, you know, this is an administration that's cracking down on [00:16:00] innovation and there's a fear that there might be a crackdown on the AI companies that are proliferating now. And so that's a lot of what's driving the kind of rightward shift of the Silicon Valley elite toward Trump, but there are other factors as well. A lot of these top figures in the tech world have kind of bought into concerns about cancel culture and wokeness run amok. And so there are some of those kind of cultural issues at play here as well.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: And I'm sure it's also true that billionaires like tax cuts, which Donald Trump is promising more of as well.

Silicon Valley's Impact on the 2024 Elections - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 7-31-24

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Erin, you used this term before the break that I loved. You said 'liberaltarian' was a good way to describe the folks in the tech industry. And, you know, the splintering that we see in Silicon Valley right now has a lot of people speculating on why a powerful liberal, sometimes libertarian, group has gone so far right.

Recently, US secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who's stumping for Vice President Harris, weighed in. We've got a clip that I want to share with [00:17:00] you. Let's take a listen to what Buttigieg said on Real Time with Bill Maher earlier this month.

PETE BUTTIGIEG: I know there are a lot of folks who say, What's going on with some of these Silicon Valley folks veering into Trump world with JD Vance and backing Trump? What are they thinking? Silicon Valley is supposed to be, you know, they're supposed to care about climate. They're supposed to be, you know, pro science and rational and libertarians. Normally libertarians don't like authoritarians. What's up with that? I think it's actually, we've made it way too complicated. It's super simple. These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican Party that tends to do good things for very rich men.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: A lot of texts are coming in saying basically the same thing. That it all kind of comes down to money. So, Erin, what are your thoughts on what Buttigieg is saying? It's to what extent is this just all about money?

ERIN GRIFFITH: I mean, I don't think, I'm not going to argue with that. That's a very, first of all, it's a great message, political message for him to be putting out there on the left. [00:18:00] And I think it's hard to argue with that. And one point that I'll just add to that is that if you look at Marc Andreessen's comments about his political journey and how he switched from having supported almost every Democratic candidate for president over the last couple decades to now supporting Trump. He pointed to this journey that people tend to go on in his industry where you make a lot of money, you're very successful in business, you're mostly left alone by regulators, and then you become a philanthropist. And he even made the point that, like, then you get a lot of praise for giving a lot of your money away. And he was really struck by the fact that philanthropists started getting criticized. And he even pointed out that when Mark Zuckerberg announced his Chan Zuckerberg [00:19:00] Initiative, there was some criticism around it and he was just like really taken aback by that. And so part of it is, I think these guys are surprised to find themselves as the villain and kind of bristling at this criticism.

And so I think there's a little bit of almost sensitivity or 'how dare you' kind of about it, too. And so, I think that's just worth playing into this, that it's not just money, but it's also like they're kind of like ego a little bit. I found that really striking.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: So, it is not just about money, maybe legacy? Is that fair? Maybe about the ego, the point that they're making in the world. Once you make enough money, what else can you do? So they start looking at politics. Is that kind of what you're suggesting?

ERIN GRIFFITH: Well, yeah. And if you just think more broadly, the tech industry has been really villainized in the media and by politicians on both sides over the last few years. You know, even Trump is calling for breaking up big [00:20:00] tech and putting Mark Zuckerberg in jail, and so I think that kind of villainization is also playing into this a little bit. And I'm not, you know, weighing in on whether or not this is deserved or good, bad, whatever, but I'm just saying this is what I've observed when I talk to people, is that they take it a little bit personally, like, We're innovators, we're building the future for society. And they're a little bit dismayed at the fact that there's this aggressive regulation, there's lawsuits, there's some villainizing going on. So, I think that does play into it a little bit too.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: And it makes sense timeline-wise, right? Because if you go back, you know, 10, 15 years ago, back to 2010, tech was kind of, in many circles, seen as a panacea, almost. You could fix it if you lathered tech on top of whatever you were talking about. I'm sure moving on from there, 10, 15 years later, it's kind of a little bit of a 180 with AI, crypto, all of these things kind of seen as taking away from society. [00:21:00] Does that timeline make sense there?

ERIN GRIFFITH: Well, yeah. I mean. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had very cozy relationships with the tech industry. And it wasn't seen as, you know, politically toxic in some ways that it is a little bit now, taking tech money. But that's, I think, partly because of how powerful the tech industry has become. It used to be this kind of quirky thing that happened over on the West Coast. And now it is, you know, a part of every single industry in our economy. It's these companies are among... the top five most valuable companies in the world are tech companies, mostly, and, you know, the tech industry is extremely powerful. And so it has become, you know... there's been a lot of criticism around the tech industry and a lot of scrutiny and a lot of regulatory scrutiny. And so all of that is a part of this.

Dem Donors Want Harris To Bail On Biden's Best Decision - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-29-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Harris is getting pushed [00:22:00] by folks who are against genocide, who are against a, open air prisons and ethnic cleansing and killing of tens of thousands of children. On one side she's getting pressure in that way, on another side, on a big money and corporations and donors, she's getting pressured to roll back and undermine the antitrust gains that have been made at the FTC with Lena Kahn.

Here is from yesterday, CNN's Matt Egan on with Reid Hoffman, who is the LinkedIn co founder, apparently giving $7 million to Harris.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And there was one donor who was quoted in the New York Times piece about this who said that they think essentially she'll dump Lena Khan, and the source was one major Democratic donor

I don't know this for a [00:23:00] fact...

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: This is the point We don't know what she's gonna do.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: We don't know, but it could be him.

REID HOFFMAN: Trump wants tariffs, which is anti business. Makes this a very strange election indeed, because I think actually vice president Harris is much more of the pro-business candidate than Trump and Vance.

CNN ANCHOR: But vice president Harris wants to raise the corporate tax rate. The, Biden Harris administration has imposed tariffs, so aren't there some anti-business concerns there as well.

REID HOFFMAN: I think what's most important for business is stability of a country, unity, rule of law, and a percent difference in corporate tax, or two percent or three percent difference in corporate tax, is far less important.

CNN ANCHOR: Now the Trump campaign of course has argued otherwise, saying that Former President Trump is the one that's going to put more money in the pockets of American families and blaming the Biden Harris administration for the high cost of living.

Now, even Reid Hoffman conceded that he's not thrilled with [00:24:00] all parts of the Biden administration. In particular, he strongly criticized Lena Khan, the FTC chair. He said that Lena Khan is "waging war on American business," and he went so far as to say that he hopes that a President Harris would replace Lena Kahn at the FTC.

Now, the agency pushed back, telling CNN in a statement that Chair Kahn is honored to work in this administration where she has worked to protect consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs from corporate abuses. And it's worth remembering that Lena Kahn, she's won some fans on the left for her efforts to fight monopolies, to try to Push back against big oil and big tech.

And interestingly enough, she even has a fan on the,

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: on the Republican side. I think he was about to say. This is an attempt, by the corporate interests on the Democratic side of things [00:25:00] to influence Harris and lay down a gauntlet, do these sort of like vague, passive, aggressive threats on some level tied him with somebody who's got the 7 million and whatnot, and we'll see what happens here.

They know, or they think that they know that she's pushable on this. Does that mean that they're gonna succeed? No. This is the same dynamic I think that we're in terms of Gaza and the Biden administration's policies. In fact, I'm not convinced that Elizabeth Warren's coming early in this process and endorsing her, when there was still talk of some type of mini primary wasn't a function of her trying to get there first and make sure that she's in Harris's ear, and maintaining if not building upon the gains that Warren part of the party looking for antitrust is not carried forward.

Here's IAC Chairman Barry Diller [00:26:00] talking to Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC, this all come from the business press, as to what he would do in terms of lobbying Harris.

DILLAR: Everybody flip flops because conditions change. You run in the primary to the left or to the right in order to get it. Then when you get the nomination, you cove towards the center, which is sensible to do. It's all pragmatic.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Let me also just weigh in on this. This is not so, so relevant to this, but this conventional wisdom, it's not really the case as much as it used to be. Joe Biden, when he was in trouble, when he was facing calls to be pushed out, he did not tack to the center folks. He came out and said 5% a cap on rent. He came out and said, expansion of, Medicaid and Medicare. He came out and said...

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: ...canceling medical debt...

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: ...canceling medical debt. These are tacks to the left, not tacks to the center. And [00:27:00] clearly this was him in the general election mode, although it turned out he wasn't in any mode.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: That's what we were saying, is part of the frustration was he was in a fight for his life for the Democratic nomination, and that's why he was pulling all that out. Harris now is actually in the general election, so it'll be fascinating to see without abilities to influence her throughout a long protracted primary process, who gets their way.

DILLAR: When you get the nomination, you cove towards the center, which is sensible to do. It's all pragmatic. Let's not talk about honesty in these contexts.

CNBC ANCHOR: But there have been reports that a number of prominent Democrats have been lobbying Harris to drop people like Lena Kahn. Do you think that it's going to happen? And would you lobby? Yeah, I would. You would? Yeah, I think she's a dope.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Of course you do. And to your point about Warren, Lena Kahn is the chair of the FTC because of Elizabeth Warren, because Elizabeth [00:28:00] Warren endorsed Biden and dropped out, and was a part of that coalescence of candidates that dropped out to defeat Bernie Sanders. I think those were some of her asks, right?

So if she's as close with Harris as she says she is, perhaps she's an influence on the other side, but the stuff about Harris that's going to be the most, I think, problematic and stuff to watch for is her relationship to antitrust. She's going to be a bit more of an Obama type, closer with Silicon Valley than perhaps Biden is, maybe less willing to be an antitrust, break up big business type of person. And, she's probably closer with Wall Street than Biden has been, at least over the past four years.

So those are the pressure points they're gonna try to push, but it remains to be seen what the end result is of that pushing, in the same way with the Gaza policy as well.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: We'll [00:29:00] see.

Andy Levin, Pushed Out of Congress by AIPAC, Calls for Change in U.S.-Israel Policy - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-21-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency: Breaking with Convention.” I’m Amy Goodman, here in Chicago with Juan González.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We turn now to look at how AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has spent millions targeting Democrats who have criticized U.S. support of Israel. In June, AIPAC and the affiliated super PAC spent almost $15 million to defeat New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman. And then, two weeks ago, Missouri Congressmember Cori Bush lost her seat after AIPAC spent $8 million to defeat her.

We’re joined now in Chicago by former Democratic Congressmember Andy Levin of Michigan. In 2022, he lost his House seat after AIPAC spent millions in dark money to defeat him. Levin is a former synagogue president and self-described Zionist. Despite this, AIPAC labeled him as, “arguably the most corrosive member of Congress [00:30:00] to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Andy Levin is a former Democratic congressmember from Michigan. He’s part of a political dynasty. We thank you so much for being with us.

If you could start off by talking about— when we hear about Bowman, we hear about Bush, you came before them. And talk about the race that unseated you—might surprise many that you were a synagogue president and a congressmember—and how you were driven out.

ANDY LEVIN: Had been a synagogue president until I went to Congress, and I felt I should stop doing that, because you have to devote all your time to Congress. And I had, mezuzahs, the little things that Jewish people hang on their doors, on all my doors in Congress. I’m a really joyous Jewish person.

And, I think they felt particularly threatened [00:31:00] by that, Amy and Juan. The idea—and plus, my dad and my uncle had served in Congress before me—my dad in the House, my uncle in the Senate. My dad was the president of the high school class of 1949 at Central High School in Detroit, right? They were from the bosom of the Jewish community there. And I think that these right-wing-on-Israel people can’t stand the idea that a Jewish person like me, who is fully for self-determination for my people in the Holy Land, was the loudest voice in Congress saying, “Well, that’s not going to be sustainable, and we’re not going to have peace there, until and unless we fully realize the human rights and the political rights of the Palestinian people, too.”

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I just want to talk about your family dynasty, the political dynasty.

ANDY LEVIN: We don’t talk about it like that. Yes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Your father, Sander Levin, the congressmember; your uncle, Carl Levin, head of Armed Services in the Senate —

ANDY LEVIN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: —at the same time your [00:32:00] father was head of Ways and Means Committee?

ANDY LEVIN: Yeah, my—these two Jewish boys from Detroit. And my uncle, who passed away, never left the city of Detroit. They each served 36 years in Congress. They served 32 years together. In the 235-year history of our elected democracy in the United States, they are by far the longest-serving siblings, and even more than three Kennedy brothers, more than anybody. And I’m so proud of them and, their contributions to our democracy.

But, Uncle Carl got crosswise with AIPAC in the '90s, when Yitzhak Shamir was, I think, the secondly couped prime minister of Israel, and he said, “Land for peace? We're not doing land for peace.” And Carl, it may feel naive today, but he was like, “Oh my gosh! That’s the basis for any hope of peace.” And he wrote a letter to Secretary of State George Shultz, I think it was at the time. And he got [00:33:00] 30—on a Friday afternoon, he got, I think, 30 senators to sign this letter. It was supposed to be private. And they sent it to him, saying, “We have to have land for peace. Do something about this,” something like that. And one of the other senators or their staff made it public. Carl had shown the text to AIPAC beforehand. But when it went public, AIPAC went crazy, said, “This can’t be Carl Levin’s letter.” They demanded he retract it. They said, “It must have been the work of some staffer.” Uncle Carl totally stood by his staffer, who helped him write the letter. He said, “No, that’s my letter.” And anybody who knew Uncle Carl knew he went over every line, himself before they sent the letter.

And this is—look, if you are a Jewish person and you really want to be true to your faith, you have to treat the other as yourself. You have to love your—you the stranger, the neighbor. The most oft-repeated mitzvah, or requirement, [00:34:00] in the Torah, I think 36 times, which is a very significant number for Jews, is some version of that. Who is the most important other for us, honestly, if not—OK, a homeless person, someone who looks different than you, yes, treat them well. But, really, I think the acid test for Jewish people is how do we treat our Palestinian cousins. And so, we have to treat them as we would want to be treated. They are from the land. They’re there on the land. And if you come from Michigan, you know so many amazing Palestinian Americans who are your neighbors, your colleagues, your doctor, your friend, and we need to all get along there, and we need to work together here to make that happen.

And I don’t care what AIPAC does. The fact—it’s outrageous that they’re using money from Republican billionaires to decide who wins Democratic primaries. [00:35:00] That’s a problem for democracy, and it’s a threat to the soul of the Democratic Party, even from a kind of a dry political science point of view, right? If you are in a political science class and your professor says, “Well, there’s multiple parties, right? And they each have to choose their candidate that represents that party’s values or beliefs, to go up against some other party, right?”—if any party lets a different party, interest groups from a different party, billionaires from a different party, come and choose its candidates, it’s finished.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I wanted to ask you—you mentioned, obviously, Michigan, where you’re from. Talk about the rise of the “uncommitted” movement and what kind of impact it’s had on the Democratic Party and on the process of choosing a president.

ANDY LEVIN: Juan, I am so proud of this movement. These are young people. This is a true grassroots movement. I remember when I went to a phone bank that they had during the Michigan primary, which [00:36:00] our primary for president was way back on February 27th. The energy in that room, the beautiful rainbow of people in that room, the food that someone had cooked, you know—if you’re an organizer in the social movements of this country, when you walk into a situation like that, you know if something has life, is authentic, has power. And not only did they get over 100,000 people to vote uncommitted in just a few weeks in Michigan to say to President Biden, “We want to vote for you in November, but you’ve got to change course on Gaza to help us do that,” it obviously went national, too.

And I’m so proud of these young people, because I don’t want Donald Trump to get anywhere near the White House ever again, but even now, in late August, I feel like Vice President Harris—I hope that she can reach out more. And it’s difficult as a vice president, right? But I think she has plenty of space to say, “Look, under a [00:37:00] Harris administration, we’re going to follow U.S. and international law on military aid to Israel and all of any other military aid,” right? And she could say—she has a lot of room to say different things that would win the support of the uncommitted movement, which I think it would be very helpful to win Michigan, which is necessary.

Steven Rosenfeld on Election Transparency, Ian Vandewalker on Small Donors - CounterSpin - Air Date 5-17-24

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, I will say when I first saw the headline of your report, Do Small Donors Cause Political Dysfunction? I thought, Huh, who would say that? It turns out it's a number of folks, including author and New York Times writer Thomas Edsel, who wrote, "for 200, a person can fuel the decline of our major parties." And then David Beiler at the Washington Post wrote, "small dollar donors didn't save democracy, they made it worse." So this is not a subreddit, obscure line of thought, so before I ask you to engage it, putting the best face [00:38:00] on it, what is the argument here?

IAN VANDEWALKER: The argument is this contrarian line that you think small donors are democratizing because anybody can be one, but if you look at who gets a lot of small money, it tends to be people who engage in disruptive antics like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gates. People who try to attract a lot of attention with whether extremist rhetoric or polarizing rhetoric. And so the argument is what small donors are really doing is they're encouraging these people who are showboating and not engaged in serious moderation or governance.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: So the idea, is it that these small donors aren't real, that they're orchestrated, that these, folks are trying to get folks to just give $12 to make some kind of point, and it's not that actually it's people who can only give $12?

IAN VANDEWALKER: I think there's something here in that the media ecosystem that we live in, both the mainstream [00:39:00] media and social media click bait does gravitate towards outrage and controversy and people screaming at each other. We all get these fundraising emails with all caps, the world's going to come crashing down if you don't send me $12. So I think there are incentives in the media system that say to certain people, I can engage a national small donor fundraising base by saying crazy things. That exists.

Now, one of the critiques is that most small donors don't actually respond to that. Small donors tend to give to competitive races where they think they can help their party win control of a chamber of Congress or the White House.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: So first of all, I like how you're go right to the media ecosystem. I think a lot of folks won't. There's a political system and there's a media system and they're different. You're already saying, no, these things are intimately integrated.

IAN VANDEWALKER: Yes, campaign fundraising doesn't happen in a vacuum. The internet has been a [00:40:00] huge Beneficial force for fundraising and allows people to connect across the nation to things that they believe in, but one of the other effects of that has been this click bait world of say, the most outrageous thing in order to get the clicks and get the small dollar fundraising. There's a question whether these candidates that engage in this kind of extremist rhetoric, are they doing it for the small dollar fundraising or would they be doing it anyway, given who votes in their district, I think is a question we should also look into.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: There is a reality, there is a foot we can keep on base, and so what do you say in this piece about when you actually investigate, are small donors causing political dysfunction? What did you find?

IAN VANDEWALKER: So first of all, there's lots of reasons for polarization, people moving farther to the right and left and other kinds of dysfunction. They have to do with gerrymandering and the media ecosystem and the parties making strategic choices about how they're going to engage their [00:41:00] voter bases and things that have nothing to do with campaign finance. As I said, small donors, they give to people they've heard of. So one way to get heard of is to say crazy things, but it's certainly not the only way. Some candidates are trying to find, policy solutions to the problems that face us. And the other thing we haven't mentioned yet is big donors.

Even though the amount of small money in the system has dramatically increased, the money from big, the biggest donors, people who give millions, 10 million, has increased even faster. So that's actually the biggest part of the campaign finance system. It's this big money and those people give to extremists as well. So it's hard to say, when you look at all those facts together, that small donors are causing dysfunction or polarization, even though there are these notorious examples of extremists who raise lots of small money.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: It just sounds weird to say that people who can give less, people who don't have a million dollars, they're throwing in their [00:42:00] money wherever they throw it, is throwing off the system. It makes you ask what's the system? Is the system that only people who can afford to give tens of thousands of dollars should be included? It just sounds weird.

IAN VANDEWALKER: Yeah, that's right. I think one of the things, the thought experiment I like to do with these arguments is replace small donor with voter, right? If small donors give a lot of money to a candidate because they believe in that candidate, that's just like voters voting for a candidate because they believe in that candidate, and it's hard to say that that's, as you say, a problem with the system itself.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Obviously every election year is important, but who, boy 2024. Thoughts for reporters who are gonna be engaging this?

IAN VANDEWALKER: Yeah, I think for reporters it's important to get away from the high profile anecdotes. It's easy to say, oh, Marjorie Taylor Greene raised a bunch of small money, but there's data out there that can show you what are small donors actually doing across the entire system and that's a very different story.

And it's for reforms. The [00:43:00] Brennan center supports a small donor public financing system that matches donations so it amplifies those amounts from regular people to make them competitive with the big donors, and that changes the way the candidates fundraise and makes them fundraise by essentially asking people in their communities for votes. And so it amplifies those regular people's voices and engages a kind of connection between elected representative and constituent that's good for representative democracy because politicians are listening to the voters in another way.

We need to move to the public funding of elections - Bernie Sanders - Air Date 8-29-24

HASAN MINHAJ: I believe at times you've been framed in the media as this kind of radical person.

BERNIE SANDERS: Good point.

HASAN MINHAJ: But I want to talk about your Guardian article. Because what you did is you conducted your own research and you showed that these progressive policies are actually super popular, ten toes on the ground. This is not a Twitter position. This is not an Instagram stories position. Real IRL Americans care about these issues.

BERNIE SANDERS: What we did is we said, look, I'm called a far left guy, right? [00:44:00] Trump has decided that Kamala Harris is a communist. I mean, totally insane. So we asked the American people a lot of simple questions about some of the major issues facing this country. Republicans, Democrats, Independents.

So we said, Do you think that the wealthy and large corporations should pay more in taxes? Shock of all shocks, over 70 percent of the American people said yes, including a majority of Republicans. Should we be surprised? No. No. All right. Yeah, of course.

Question: Should we raise Social Security benefits by lifting the cap on taxable income and extend life by 75 years? In other words, asking the wealthy to contribute more to Social Security. Over 70 percent of the people said yes.

Should we raise the minimum wage to a living wage? American people overwhelmingly said yes.

Should [00:45:00] we expand Medicare? Right now, Medicare is a good program. It doesn't cover dental, hearing, and vision. Should we expand it over 70%? In all these instances, a majority of Republicans.

So your question, I think is, if the American people feel that way, , why a haven't we done it? Why?

HASAN MINHAJ: Yeah. Why haven't they been implemented?

BERNIE SANDERS: And the answer, gets back to what I said a moment ago: it's money. The insurance companies don't like the idea. The rich don't like the idea of paying more in taxes. The insurance companies don't like the idea of expanding Medicare.

HASAN MINHAJ: Is there a realistic path for my generation to remove money from politics? Is this something --

BERNIE SANDERS: God damn right there is.

HASAN MINHAJ: You think so?

BERNIE SANDERS: Yeah. Yeah.

HASAN MINHAJ: I'm 30. I have, hopefully I have a long way to go.

BERNIE SANDERS: Alright. The answer, of course there is. Money has always played a role in politics. But it was greatly accentuated by this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. So we need legislation to get rid of Citizens United, and to move to public funding of elections.

If you do that, there will no more be super PACs, [00:46:00] billionaires will not be able to play the role they're playing right now. And again, not a radical idea. This exists in many other countries around the world.

Note from the Editor on the changing sense of urgency to address money in politics

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with counter spin, breaking down. Super packs. 5 0 1. And so on Robert Reisch looked at big money supporting Trump. The PBS news hour explained to Trump's embrace of crypto. The Brian Lehrer show discussed to the libertarian strain of Silicon valley. The majority report looked at pro democratic yet antibusiness regulation, mega donors. Democracy now explain to the role of AIPAC, the rabidly pro Israel at any cost organization. Counter spin discuss the media's perception of political influence.

And Bernie Sanders laid out the importance of publicly funded elections. And those were just the top takes. There's more in the deeper dive sections, but first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring the production crew here, discussing all manner of interesting topics, often making each other, laugh in the process to support our work and [00:47:00] have all those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members.

Only podcast feed that you'll receive sign up to support. The [email protected] slash support. There's a link in the show notes through our Patrion page or from right inside the apple podcast app.

If regular membership isn't in the cards for you. Shoot me an email request. Any financial hardship membership. Because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information. Now, before we continue onto the deeper dives half, I have just quick thought, we're keeping this episode a little tight and I'll follow that trend. I've just been thinking about the nature of the discussion of money in politics. From the time I started paying attention just after the turn of the century, around the, uh, Iraq war invasion. And back then, I was able to feel pretty cutting edge to be able to identify big money in politics as one of the major sources of our political discontent.

Then the 2010 citizens United Supreme court decision brought that perspective more into the mainstream.

There was a [00:48:00] major backlash for the ruling and much hand ringing about the inevitable conservative tilt our politics would take after unleashing billionaires, who themselves tends to be more conservative, to pour effectively unlimited amounts of money into supporting Republican candidates. But with the rise of Trump things. I didn't go exactly.

As we thought they would not quite as smoothly towards traditional Republican politics. Uh, , or even for the fight against big money from the opposition, but just didn't go that way. And I realized that one of the many casualties of the Trump show has been. A concerted opposition to money and politics.

It's just sort of fallen off a lot of people's radar.

Not because people stopped believing that it was an important problem, but because the emergency of Trump was just more pressing. Then the emergency of big money, swamping democracy, something that would have been nearly impossible to imagine in the early 20 teens, before Trump came on the [00:49:00] scene. And the biggest irony of course, is that as we're hearing in the show today, Trump actually used the public's anger at the corrupting power of money. To ingratiate himself with voters claiming to be self-funding his campaign and therefore immune to corruption himself. In order to get elected in the first place. And. What turned out to be laying the initial foundation that would become the cultish belief among his followers, That he is the only person in politics working selflessly on their behalf. And now he'd like to offer you a worthless NFT trading card for a hundred dollars.

SECTION A - THE SYSTEM

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to the Deeper Dive, on four topics. Next up Section A: The System; Section B: Funding Republicans; Section C: Funding Democrats;, and Section D: Solutions.

Trump and the Billionaires Part 2 - The Socialist Program with Brian Becker - Air Date 7-16-24

NICOLE ROUSSELL - CO-HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: I want to bring up. One other thing that I think is another piece of evidence for your argument, essentially, that these are new capitalists funding Trump versus, you know, some of the old capitalists who are [00:50:00] mostly funding the Democratic Party, although I think there's a mix of both, but Project 2025, I think, is another example for me.

This is a right wing elite political program headed by the Heritage Foundation, Which is a very entrenched Washington, D. C. far right think tank. They've been around and they've been supporting, you know, the capitalist elite now for a very long time and we're on the Republican side of things. But different, different parts of the Republican side of things.

And Heritage has put out something like this, something like Project 2025 before every presidential election. But because Trump is so extreme in his willingness to smash people's rights, These, you know, disgusting, repulsive measures that Project 2025 is proposing are getting much more coverage and taking on much more significance.

And, again, just to connect this to what you're saying, some of the measures that they are proposing include abolishing the Department of Education, abolishing the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, getting rid of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, essentially tearing apart [00:51:00] any of the checks on corporate capitalist greed.

And the fact that this, you know, platform is supported by, and you know, Trump has disavowed it publicly, but it's very clear, you know, there's a lot of His former advisors, his former staff who are working at the Heritage Foundation or who are working with Project 2025, you know, it's very clear that they're, that they're tied.

So this seems to me like yet another piece of evidence. But these new capitalists, these billionaires, these venture capitalists, these investors where all the capital is now moving are doing this because it is in their economic favor and that is all they're thinking about.

RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, I think also, if I may, encourage people beyond getting caught up in the horror of all of this, which is so easy to do, is to take a step back and to ask yourself, Every person listening to this, thinking about the important issues your, your program brings up every week, in any case, take a step back and ask, why would this be happening?

[00:52:00] Why would we be seeing, in 2024, the United States hitting out like an angry bear at China, at the rest of the world, punishing big countries, little countries, or at least trying to?

Why is this happening? Why is the United States isolating itself from the rest of the world more and more? The rest of the world is currently trading electric vehicles, mostly made in China, because they're the best vehicles at the lowest price, but not in the United States, which has closed itself off and not permitted them to come.

And the same is true with solar panels. And the same is true with all kinds of micro chips and on and on more and more each day. Why are we making statements that insult our allies? It's driving what remains of the NATO alliance closer and closer to [00:53:00] breaking up. The elections in England last month are frightening not only Mr.

Vance, but are underscoring they don't want to go in the direction of the United States. The British just voted the other way, and even more so the French, whose second round of their election on the 7th of July has placed into the governance of France. The most left wing socialists. That's who runs France from now on.

You know, they voted against the direction the United States is taking. We're becoming more and more isolated. What is going on? And the answer, I think, is that we are living through, and we ought to start facing it, we are living through the decline of the American empire. [00:54:00] That which began when World War I destroyed all the other countries and World War II finished the job.

And after that, starting in 1945, the United States was king of the hill. The rest of the world recovering from a war that did not happen on the soil of the United States after the initial bombing. Pearl Harbor. The United States came out on top. That was an anomalous historical situation. Couldn't possibly survive.

It never has in the history of the human race. The dominant position then had to be one that declined sooner or later. And sooner or later has now arrived. We are in decline, and instead of facing it and trying to come to some accommodations with [00:55:00] the rising part of the world, and in case anyone is wondering, the rising part is called the BRICS.

It's India, it's China, it's Brazil, it's all of those places that are now demanding their places in the sun. Or, in terms of the history of human civilizations, they are returning to positions of power and influence they once had and then lost for a while. It's not fun to be in a declining position, but you don't help it by pretending you're not.

By talking as if you were what you once were, but you aren't anymore, and it is shifting from scaring people to becoming laughable. These gestures are the gestures of a declining power. Yeah, you could hurt China if you do that, but it's [00:56:00] gonna cost you as well. That's what an out of control declining situation often gets people to do.

Busy holding on at their own expense without understanding it. I'm pleading here, for the kind of understanding that you get if you take a step back and ask why this theater at this time. You know, we are losing the protections that we spent the last century and a half putting into place. OSHA.

Protections against child labor, protections against extreme inequality, protections against spreading homelessness. We're losing them all because those at the top, who know that the system is declining, are using their wealth and their power to hold on. to the wealth they accumulated. Well, if you're holding on to the wealth and [00:57:00] power of the top, as the whole society goes down, you know who feels the going down the most?

The middle and the bottom. That's what's happening to us. And that's why the vast majority of Americans, in their interest, we should be sitting down with China and India and the others to work out a livable planet. So, they have their room to grow, and we have our space in which to decline without tearing ourselves apart.

If we don't do that, we will decline, we will tear ourselves apart, and the rich who hold on will be holding on to a ship that is sinking. The first class of the Titanic is sinking. also went down when that ship hit the iceberg. We are hitting an incomparable iceberg, and the crazy [00:58:00] thing is that those at the top want to pretend that nothing happened.

They're driving the rest of the people to anger and bitterness. Nothing that Trump and Vance administration proposes can solve the problems of the United States. In fact, things like a 60 percent tariff against the Chinese will make life harder in the United States. It will make the inflation much worse, and they all know it.

And that's gonna make the mass of people realize that going to the right, because this country is floundering, is not a solution. However full the symbolism might make you feel. And then they will discover what that they better find a solution on the left. Because the right has none. And I'm confident in that because that's exactly what just happened in Britain and France.

Steve Macek on Dark Money Part 2 - CounterSpin - Air Date 8-23-24

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: so here come [00:59:00] media.

And we know that lots of people, including reporters, still imagine the U. S. Press Corps as kind of like an old movie, you know, with, you know, the, Press cards in their hat band or, or, you know, Woodward and Bernstein, connecting dots, holding the powerful to account and the chips are just falling where they may.

And you make the point in the progressive piece that there has been excellent news media, corporate news media, you know, exposés of the influence of dark money connecting those dots. But you write that news media have. Missed or minimized as many stories about dark money as they have covered. What are you getting at there?

STEVE MACEK: I absolutely believe that so it is true as I say that there have been some excellent reports about dark money Here in chicago. We had this reclusive billionaire industrialist barry side who made What was most people say is the largest? [01:00:00] political contribution in American history. He donated his company to a fund, Marble Freedom Fund, run by Leonard Leo.

Again, conservative judicial activist. The Marble Freedom Fund sold the company for 1. 6 billion dollars. It's hard for the corporate media to ignore Political contribution of 1. 6 billion. That's a 1. 6 billion trust fund that Leonard Leo, who engineered the conservative takeover of the U S Supreme court is going to be able to use.

He's a very right wing conservative Catholic to put his particular ideological stamp on American elections and on American culture. And so that got reported. Okay. And in fact, there have been some really excellent follow up reports by ProPublica, among others, about how various Leonard Leo affiliated organizations have influenced judicial [01:01:00] appointments and have influenced judicial elections.

So you have to give credit where credit's due. But the problem is That there are so many other cases where dark money is in play, whether or not you can say it's determining the outcome of elections or not is another story, but where dark money is playing a role, and it is simply not being talked about.

Think about the last month of this pandemic. Current presidential election. There hasn't been much discussion about the influence of dark money and yet open secrets just came out with an analysis where they say that contributions from dark money groups and shell organizations are outpacing all prior elections in this year and might surpass the uh, 660 million in contributions from dark money sources that flooded the 2020 elections.

So they're projecting that could be as much as a billion. billion dollars. We haven't heard very much [01:02:00] about this. I don't think necessarily dark money is going to make a huge difference one way or the other in the presidential race, but certainly can make a difference in congressional races, attorney general's races, school board races, city council races.

That's where it can make a huge difference. And I do know that Open secrets, among others, have done research and they found that like there were cases where over 100 different congressional races, more money, there was more outside spending on those races than were spent by either of the candidates, which is a scandal that outside forces, in some cases, do not have to disclose the source of their funding, can spend more on a race than the candidates themselves.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And it's It's disheartening that the idea that, well, you're swimming in it, like it's too big of an issue to even lift out. It is. And I think

STEVE MACEK: that's also part of the reason why it's sort of accepted, sort of like the weather. And I think that's part of the reason why. There isn't as much reporting in the corporate media as there ought to be [01:03:00] about legal struggles over the regulation of dark money.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: That's exactly where I was going to lead you for a final question, just because that we know that reporters will say, well, they can't cover what isn't happening. But it is happening that legal and community and policy. pushback on this influence is happening. And so finally, what should we know about that?

STEVE MACEK: State level Republican lawmakers and state legislatures across the country are pushing legislation that would prohibit state officials and agencies from collecting or disclosing information about donors to nonprofits, including donors to those 501c4 social welfare organizations that I spoke about that spend money on politics.

So they're trying to pass laws to make dark money even darker, to make this obscure money influencing our elections even harder to track. And I will say there are Republicans in Congress who have [01:04:00] introduced Federal legislation that would do the same thing. Now, the bills that are being pushed through state legislatures, not probably going to be a surprise to anybody who follows this are based on a model bill that was developed by the American legislative exchange council or Alex, which is a policy development organization that is funded by the Coke network of right wing foundations, millionaires, and billionaires, and they need every year to develop.

Model kind of right wing libertarian legislation that then is dutifully introduced into state legislatures around the country. And since 2018, a number of states, including Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia have all adopted some version of this Alec legislation that criminalizes disclosing [01:05:00] donors Two nonprofits that engage in political activity and In Arizona, where this conservative legislation was made into law, in 2022, there was a ballot referendum by the voters on the Voters Right to Know Act, Proposition 2011, that would basically reverse The ALEC attempt to criminalize the disclosure of the names of donors, it would require PACs spending at least 50, 000 on statewide campaigns to disclose all donors who had given more than 5, 000, a direct reversal of the ALEC inspired law.

Conservative dark money groups spent a lot of money trying to defeat this, and yet they lost, and then they Spent a lot of money challenging the new law in court, Proposition 2011 in court, and it has gone to trial, I think, three times and been defeated each time. Now, the [01:06:00] initial battle over Proposition 211 was covered.

To some degree in the corporate media, the New York Times, Jane Meyer in the New Yorker, who does excellent reporting on dark money issues, discussed it. But since then, we have gotten very little coverage of the court battles that continue to this day over this attempt to bring more transparency to campaign spending in the state of Arizona.

SECTION B - FUNDING REPUBLICANS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Funding Republicans.

Silicon Valley's Impact on the 2024 Elections Part 2 - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 7-31-24

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: So Aaron, the wealthy group of tech executives who are splintering along the political divide, the folks that you write about are sometimes called the PayPal mafia. Can you tell us more about who they are, how they know one another?

ERIN GRIFFITH: Sure, and those are certainly some of the most prominent people that are kind of involved in this political infighting, and it has expanded to encompass many others, but the PayPal Mafia is kind of this iconic group of tech founders and [01:07:00] investors who all work with each other.

together at PayPal, you know, formed some very deep and lasting bonds there. And then they all went on to create very successful companies and firms. And they, they're kind of known for investing in each other's businesses. And you know, many of them are ones that you've heard of. I mean, Reid Hoffman is the co founder of LinkedIn.

Um, Elon Musk, obviously. He has created SpaceX, Tesla several other, uh, very successful companies. David Sachs founded a couple of companies that sold for billions of dollars and is now an investor. Peter Thiel very well known in political circles as well, but he, you know, is a founder of Founders Fund, which is a very successful venture capital firm.

And there are many, uh, that you know, Rulof Botha is the head of Sequoia Capital, which is one of the most well known venture capital firms. So it's this very interconnected network, and they've always had, divergent political views, but they still, come together around business and have [01:08:00] supported each other's businesses for many years.

And so, it's kind of crazy to watch them really fighting and their relationship starting to kind of unravel in public as they have around this upcoming election.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: There are some names that a lot of people will probably recognize that you just said, there's Musk, Teal, Sax. There's that second part of the moniker mafia.

Where does that come from? Can you unpackage that a little bit?

ERIN GRIFFITH: I mean, I think this is a term that is now kind of common in Silicon Valley where when you're the alumni of one company all go out and end up starting their own companies and invest in each other. We call it, you know, the Uber Mafia or the Twitch Mafia, which is a company that sold to Amazon that, several of their, uh, founders and alumni have started another successful companies, and so and they all kind of invest in each other, and it's kind of like all interconnected may hire from each other and and it's kind of the way Silicon Valley works.

It's this interconnected ecosystem where they're all helping each other with talent [01:09:00] and money and strategy. And you know, that's part of the magic of this place, so in a way. And so, the mafias are certainly you know, numerous now, but PayPal is the original one.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: And you write kind of about the splintering that you were referring to before you've written that quote.

Quote, while tech leaders often criticize one another in private, they rarely do so publicly for fear of upsetting a potential deal partner or future job prospect. Erin, can you talk a little bit about some of the higher profile public battles happening? Some things that we could actually point to?

ERIN GRIFFITH: Yeah.

And a lot of this is playing out on X formerly known as Twitter, but, but yeah, the industry is, Has always been sort of insular where it's like, okay, well, we can, you know, privately have our little debates about business and strategy and we can disagree on things but outwardly, we're going to present a united front because especially in the startup world, it's like we're the underdogs and it's us against the world.

We're disruptors. We're the pirate ship, et cetera. [01:10:00] Um, but, you know, we've seen like the node Kostla, who's, This very famous and successful investor and entrepreneur has been bickering on Twitter with Elon Musk, Kosell is, Democrat or a liberal and has been supporting Biden and now Harris.

And Elon has been arguing with him over the reasons of that. Roger McNamee, who's a well known investor and also has been a very vocal critic of Facebook over recent years came out and criticized Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who are the founders of Andreessen Horowitz a very well known venture capital firm.

And, Ben Horowitz kind of slapped back on Twitter and was like, We've known each other for 25 years and we disagree on this and you're gonna take to Twitter, you know, instead of instead of calling me and David Sachs and Elon Musk have been attacking Reid Hoffman their former colleague and Over his support of Harris and [01:11:00] previously Biden you know, Hoffman and Peter Thiel got into a little spat apparently on stage at Sun Valley, which is the kind of elite gathering of, dealmakers that happened in Idaho recently where, they were accusing Hoffman of, uh, Essentially causing the assassination attack on Trump.

You know, it's it's been kind of ugly

'The White House is for sale' Mega-rich donors race to back Trump - MSNBC - Air Date 6-8-24

STEPHANIE RUHLE - ANCHOR, MSNBC: In the week since Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts in a New York courtroom, some of the wealthiest Americans have come out to announce their support for him. Steve, I really, really want to talk about this because just in the last week, Donald Trump has this new crop of not even your average Wall Street business guys.

I mean, The top of the top, most successful coming out, throwing parties for him, supporting him. And they're even making arguments that aren't true, right? In the last 24 hours, I've heard some of these guys say, well, when Joe Biden passed that last COVID relief, which, you know, killed us in terms of inflation.

[01:12:00] Unemployment had already completely recovered. Right. That's a lie. It's a lie. And an uninformed voter might not realize that. Right. But I'm talking about the most successful guys in business, are pushing Trump lies on their, in a field that's their own expertise. Why is that?

STEVE LIESMAN: It's quite extraordinary.

I mean, in the most cynical answer, you say they're protecting their tax cuts, right? The corporate tax cuts are going to be on the table in 2025. If you end up supporting Trump, you're most likely to keep those corporate tax cuts and lower tax brackets, because, by the way, I don't think Trump is going to address the deficit at all, either.

The record shows that Perhaps some of the fiscal spending had a part in the inflation, but it was more about supply shocks. The inability to get stuff into the country. The, uh, reduction in the ability to spend on services. So we all this money to buy patio furniture and barbecues and stuff like that.

All of a sudden that shot up and then we had problems with some of the food distribution and that's come off in a very big weight has been extraordinary progress. On the [01:13:00] inflation rate, but not brought down the inflation level. Um, by the way, don't overstate it a little bit step because Biden has plenty of very, very wealthy supporters in the business community, but you're right to point out how extraordinary it is that some of these folks, especially in tech land, are the ones who are out there saying, I'm going to vote for, for Trump or support Trump.

And to read like, for example, David Sachs, uh, tweet today on the economy is just to be, um, amazed that a guy with that much money, uh, is so ill informed.

STEPHANIE RUHLE - ANCHOR, MSNBC: But here's the thing. I get that inflation is difficult. These people who are now supporting Donald Trump. Have had extraordinary, extraordinary last years.

I mean, Bill Ackman this week, what was it announced? He's worth 8 billion. Sure. Everything president Biden has done for electric vehicles, a huge win for, for, for Elon Musk yet they're railing against this disastrous economy when it's been a perfect one for them.

PABLO TORRE: Yeah. I think first off like taxes, let's start with that.

And then get to realizing that for these [01:14:00] guys in Silicon Valley, especially, um, shame feels like a market. Inefficiency, right? Like, yo, wait, hold on. If I don't have to care about the judgments of people who are paying attention to the news, maybe I can do the thing that Donald Trump offers uniquely in my memory of American presidents, which is the ability to dictate actual policy, the ability to get favors.

I feel like this is the other part of the Trump administration that goes underrated because we're talking about the bed of nails that is every single scandal. He is for sale. Yeah. Look at the Adelson family. Look at what, I mean, go down the list of donors and what you get. And so if you're a tech billionaire, CEO, philosopher, king, right, that's what these guys really want to be.

They know better. They may think Trump is an idiot, and I think they do, but they also think they can puppeteer him in ways and they can help run the country. And that is something that Joe Biden does not offer them.

STEPHANIE RUHLE - ANCHOR, MSNBC: The White House is for sale. Then in some way, is this like recreating Putin's oligarchs, [01:15:00] but here?

TOURE: Oh God, you know, I, I'm listening to you and I'm like, I can't believe we're here again talking about Trump again and again chance that he might win. And it reminds me of something I read that criminologists talk about the reason why jail does not work as a deterrent. Because a lot of people do a stint in prison and they come out and they go, Oh, I can do that.

I have, you know, so now I'm going to go back to the street cause like that wasn't that bad. And it's like, for a lot of people, they're like, we survived Trump. Like it wasn't that bad. Like the COVID does not count on his record for some reason. And they're like, we could do this again. And, and it doesn't make any sense.

Can

STEVE LIESMAN: I give a footnote to the oligarch story? A lot of those guys ended up exiled and dead. And I don't know that all of the people who are supporting Trump understand the, uh, final end result of kleptocracy.

Faux Populist Trump Promises Rich Donors He'll Cut Their Taxes at Private Fundraiser A Closer Look - Late Night Podcast - Air Date 4-9-24

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: Throughout his political career, Donald Trump has tried to cast himself as some sort of anti establishment, populist outsider, but this weekend, he held a fundraiser with a bunch of rich Wall Street [01:16:00] donors where he promised to cut their taxes. For more on this, it's time for A Closer Look.

When he first launched his campaign in 2015, one of Trump's big talking points was that he was unlike because he could use his own money to fund his campaign, so he would never owe anyone else any favors.

DONALD TRUMP: Here's the good news. I'm very rich. I don't need anybody's money. It's nice. I don't need anybody's money.

I'm using my own money. I'm not using the lobbyists. I'm not using donors. I don't care. I don't want their money. I don't need their money. I'm turning down millions of dollars for the campaign. Millions. Everybody's offering me money, and I don't want it. So I'm turning down millions of dollars.

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: I'm sure I've said this before, but really rich guys don't walk around telling people they're really rich.

They say things like, Look Seth, you're not good in sketches. Also, there's no way Donald Trump has ever turned down millions of dollars in his life. If you tied a 5 bill to a Roomba and let it loose in Mar a Lago, it would keep him preoccupied for the [01:17:00] rest of his life. Also, he'd get stuck in a corner. Of course, even back then, it was obvious that Trump's act was all bulls t.

He was a billionaire serving the interests of billionaires who had spent decades immersed in the grimy back rooms of Wall Street and Washington politics. Sadly, the only people who were willing to say that back in 2016 were far left, woke, America haters like this guy.

TED CRUZ: Donald Trump is not an outsider. He is pretending to be an outsider.

Donald Trump has been supporting the Washington establishment, the Washington corruption. So to all the folks at home who are Donald Trump supporters, who are furious with Washington, I get that. But Donald has been funding and supporting everything you're furious about. Donald is going to cut a deal that favors Wall Street and big business and leaves the working man out in the cold.

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: Whoa, I don't have my glasses on. Is that Chris Hayes or Rachel Maddow? Ted Cruz looked so much younger when his conscience [01:18:00] was clean. The second he endorsed Donald Trump, he aged like the picture of Dorian Gray. The point is Donald Trump is a creature of the establishment and always has been. He's a billionaire serving the interests of other billionaires.

After he won in 2016, one of the first things he did as president elect Was make a surprise appearance at a fancy Manhattan restaurant where he promised the wealthy patrons he would cut their taxes.

NEWS CLIP: President-elect Donald Trump seen here alongside his family at his gilded apartment in Trump Tower last night, ditched the press to head to the Opulent 21 Club restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.

Keep going.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you. Have a good meal. Thank you. Thank you, sir. President-elect. Thank you. Thank you, sir. We'll get your taxes down.

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: Oh, look at that down and dirty populist out there shaking hands with the common clay of America, people who eat 100 steaks on a weeknight with cufflinks on. The only way Trump could have been any happier is if he went table to table and took a bite of everyone's meal.

We'll get your taxes down, hopefully to as low as 5%, which, [01:19:00] incidentally, is the same amount of your cheeseburger I'm now gonna eat. Trump's anti establishment schtick was a scam back then. It's even more of a scam now. Over the weekend, Trump rubbed elbows with some of the richest people in the country at a Palm Beach fundraiser, where he took in 50 million of that money he claimed he would never accept.

NEWS CLIP: Billionaires flocked to Florida last night for a glitzy fundraiser to bolster Trump's campaign coffers. Donors were invited to give upwards of 824, 600 per person. Trump's campaign said it raised a whopping 50. 5 million last night alone. Now, no reporters were allowed and Trump didn't take any questions, but he did address the media before heading in.

DONALD TRUMP: People are just wanting change. Rich people want it, poor people want it. Everybody wants change. Our country is really doing poorly. We're a laughingstock all over the world, and we're gonna get that change very quickly. And this has been some, uh, incredible evening before it even starts.

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: It's been an incredible evening.

Just look at how thrilled Melania [01:20:00] is to be here. I know she looks super bummed, but trust me, that's her in a good mood. What's a 3 out of 10 happy face for most of us is a 9, 9. 5 for Mel here. Show us a smile, Mel.

I was worried that was going to happen. Also, can we go back to this? People are just wanting change. Rich people want it, poor people want it. I love Trump's little shout out to poor people. Like, he knows he's at an elite fundraiser with millionaires and billionaires, so he throws a little sop to the rest of his supporters.

Let's not forget the poor, especially the mouth breathers who come to my rallies. They could be here, but unfortunately the dress code says flip flops and American flag shorts are not allowed. Trump continued to drone on about the fundraiser.

DONALD TRUMP: The election is going to be in now a little more than six months, and it's going to be the most important, I believe, election we've ever had.

I think it's going to go down as The most important date in the [01:21:00] history of our country, that's November 5th, will be the most important date in the history of our country.

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: I think he's saying it's the most important date in our history because he doesn't know any other dates in our history. If you asked him what happened on the 4th of July, there's a good chance he'd say, that's when Tom Cruise was born.

And just to give you an idea of how elite this fundraiser was, check out the food they serve. The evening's menu included an endive and frisee salad. Filet a poivre and pavlova with fresh berries for dessert. That menu had so many foreign words, I'm surprised he didn't have it deported. There's also nothing on that menu Donald Trump would ever actually eat.

Or maybe those are secretly his favorite meals and his love of fast food is just a ruse for his supporters. After all, we've never seen him eat fast food. He just takes pictures with it, like some kind of reverse Instagram influencer.

And just as he did in 2016, Trump once again promised behind closed doors that his real priority was making sure his wealthy donors could keep more of their money.

NEWS CLIP: The former president made a policy promise to his donors [01:22:00] last night, tax cuts. But what else? Yeah, tax cuts among other things, Allie. It was a big night for the former president.

Off the campaign trail and into a big night of fundraising in Palm Beach, down the street from his Mar a Lago golf course. He did speak with some of the nation's wealthiest donors, around a hundred of them, saying that he's going to extend these tax cuts.

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: Of course he did. When he's talking to his supporters at rallies, he's ranting about bull like voter fraud or windmills killing birds or woke libs turning Christmas gay.

But when he's behind closed doors, with his rich buddies, he knows what they really want to hear. What happened to, uh, I don't want their money, I don't need their money? Trump's gonna have to go back and edit some of those old clips to make them more accurate.

DONALD TRUMP: Everybody's offering me money. I want their money, I need their money.

SECTION C - FUNDING DEMOCRATS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C, with one clip on Funding Democrats.

AIPAC Spending Truckloads Of Money To Replace Katie Porter - The Majority Report - Air Date 3-6-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Other big stories, obviously California, we've talked about that, uh, shift got protested twice. It's a, it's a big loss to both lose Porter and Lee in the house [01:23:00] and to not have them in the primary. Because they need to step down because of California law, but in that Orange County district running to replace Katie Porter, talk about this AIPAC dynamic because AIPAC is going to be the big story in a lot of these primaries.

They dumped like something like four or 5 million into that race. You wrote a piece about

DAVE WEIGEL: 5 million. Yeah.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Wondering why? I mean, I. I think there is, they, they do stuff to set an example in many respects. And I suspect they chose this one because even though Andy Min didn't necessarily show that he was, uh, Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib about this, they want to like set an example.

We'll come after you. If we even get a whiff that you could potentially be in, in some way, uh, a dissenting view on Israel, but he still won.

DAVE WEIGEL: He still won. It hasn't been called yet.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Dave Meads, sorry I said Andy. Yeah, Paul. Dave,

DAVE WEIGEL: oh yeah, I [01:24:00] know who you're talking about, yeah. Yeah, but I was in the district, uh, a week ago, really, with, with Mead and with Joanna Weiss.

And. Min said to me, I, I, I'm not entirely sure why, why he, why they did this. I asked him, what would you say to apac? I said, my first question, why'd you do this? The backstory as I know it is that yes, Minh did not call for a ceasefire. No one did Min's position on the war is basically identical to the Biden position of two weeks ago.

So I would say he's not, he, he might be to. Even talking less about the need for a ceasefire than Biden is right now. But, candidates have questionnaires, they have policy papers and position papers, and AIPAC asked for them, DMFI asked for them, J Street asked for them. My impression is that what Min said about his Israel positions did not check every box for AIPAC, and that worried them.

And that is how, that is how they prefer to operate, is by saying you, you need to, you need to be loyal, on these sets of issues you need to be [01:25:00] completely trustworthy. You're not going to bend on israel to get this kind of pressure So he wasn't out there endorsing bds or anything or you know putting up a leila khaled monument or something he just wasn't as adamant that he was going to support Israel in every decision that the current government made.

And based on that, based on their lack of confidence, they said, well, we have a candidate who is, and they went all in. They also had in that district, uh, Emily's List was supporting Joanna Weiss. So they had a credible Democratic candidate who agreed with them a hundred percent and also had a different story to tell.

Also, Min was, uh, vulnerable on the fact that he got a DUI during the campaign which he was telling me the fact that they spent 5 million mostly on that, on that attack. he thinks maybe inoculated him. He's apologized many, many times for it. He quit drinking after it. Voters have been forgiving of some things, not of others, but his thought was that, yeah, this was crazy that they were doing this, but it might help him.

But the reason AIPAC, etc. targeted him is that he just didn't, he was there on 90 percent of things, not [01:26:00] 100%, and they didn't like that he was. He's also, talking to him, he's a very confident guy. He doesn't genuflect. He might've come off as the sort of person who might, could be independent minded at some point down the line.

And they don't want that.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Okay. Here's the most important part of this though. How many losses does APAC have to have until their ability to raise this kind of money? You know, when you've got a hundred million dollars to drop 5 million in one of these races, because the person's a little bit iffy. You're doing that so that you don't impart so that there are other races in the future that you don't have to drop money into because you are disciplining lawmakers in that way.

But the question becomes when they start losing some of these races where they put five million dollars in, I'm thinking, you know, Summer Lee in the last cycle, but if there are three or four or five or six, you know, six Dave Mins out there. Where they lose their ability to [01:27:00] go back to their funders and say, Hey, we need to do this is going to be diminished because people are going to lose faith in them.

Do you have a sense of what that figure is and you know, where the other big races for AIPAC are going to be?

DAVE WEIGEL: Well, yeah. And you mentioned Summer Lee. She lost, uh, they lost to her last cycle twice, lost in the primary, lost in the general. And she's still being targeted this year. She's actually, if she backed out of a care event.

In part because of pressure from APAC and from local Jewish leaders Saying that that we were they were worried their congressman wasn't was embracing people who'd said crazy things about october 7th so they When I talked to and you talked to the same same folks when I talked to activists on the other side of this They just assume there will be a cornucopia of money that never stops that there's never going to be a point where APAC, DMFI, etc.

Say You Oh, we're tapped out and we look kind of embarrassed because of this, this one loss this cycle. They're not saying they're going to beat everyone who has called for a ceasefire [01:28:00] taking out one or two members of Congress and Jim Bowman, Jamal Bowman in New York, uh, inquiry Bush in Missouri.

It looked like the most vulnerable for again, external reasons. These are both people who, um, have had. You know, in bonus case, the fire alarm story and Bush's case, you know, spending money on, on, on their family and security. These are stories that have hurt them locally, kind of like what happened with Dave Mint.

So they, they look for the member that is beatable for other reasons. With a credible candidate in the district. They've got that in new york, too They've um, it's it's debatable if they have that with with summerly I don't think that if they're lost if their win record is three for a hundred that's still three people that they took out.

I mean the justice democrat Not to make a i'm not making a one to one comparison obviously, but justice democrats lost most of its races in 2018 but It elected four squad members and it beat Joe Crowley and it beat Mike Capuano. You don't need to have that many shots connect.

And I, so I've not detected and talking to Mark Melman of DMFI and people over in this orbit, they're not [01:29:00] worried. If they, if they put money in a race and lose, that people know, look how much money we can, we can burn on a race without winning. It doesn't mean we're going to stop. You can, you can not stop.

This strategy so yeah, it's a good question. I don't I don't think they are actually looking at their budget and looking at their win loss record Will we notice a win loss record certainly, but if you're a member of congress just in a vacuum Would you prefer to have five million dollars spent against you or not have five million dollars to spend against you prefer to not?

Have it at all and just the threat of it remains really potent Even if they don't win everything

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: on some level losing and then being able to continue to spend is is almost more terrifying than winning in a couple instances

SECTION D - SOLUTIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally Section D: Solutions.

How Citizens United Got Us Trump - Robert Reich - Air Date 12-30-2019

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: We're coming to the end of what might be called the anti democracy decade. It began January 21st, 2010, with the Supreme Court's shameful decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, opening the floodgates to big money in politics, with the absurd claim that the First Amendment [01:30:00] protects corporate speech.

It ends with with Donald Trump in the White House, filling his administration with corporate shills and inviting foreign powers to interfere in American elections. Trump is the consequence, rather than the cause, of the anti democratic surge. By the 2016 election, the richest one hundredth of one percent of Americans 24, 949 extremely wealthy people accounted for a record breaking 40 percent of all campaign contributions.

That same year, corporations flooded the presidential, senate, and house elections with 3. 4 billion of donations. Labor unions no longer provided any countervailing power, contributing only 213 million. That's 16 corporate dollars for every 1. Big corporations and the super wealthy lavished their donations on the Republican Party because Republicans promised them a giant tax [01:31:00] cut if they won.

As Lindsey Graham warned his Republican colleagues, financial contributions will stop if the GOP didn't come through. The political investments paid off big. For instance, groups supported by Charles and the late David Koch and their Koch Industries spent over 20 million promoting Trump's tax cut. which will save them and their heirs between 1 billion and 1.

4 billion every year. And courtesy of the tax cut, the number of companies paying 0 in federal taxes doubled in 2018. Corporate profits are now at an all time high, but almost Nothing has trickled down. Companies have spent most of their extra cash on stock buybacks and dividends. Stock buybacks alone hit a record breaking 1.

1 trillion in 2018. This has given the stock market a sugar high, but left little for workers. Not even a sizzling [01:32:00] economy could match these returns. The anti democracy decade has been hard on American workers. Despite the longest economic expansion in modern history, real wages have barely risen. The share of corporate workers Corporate profits going to workers still isn't back to where it was before the 2008 financial crisis.

Never in the history of economic data have corporate profits outgrown employee compensation so clearly and for so long. The so called free market has been taken over by crony capitalism, corporate bailouts, and corporate welfare. No wonder confidence in political institutions has plummeted. In 1964, just 29 percent of voters believed the government was run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.

But by 2013, 79 percent of Americans believed it. Enter Donald Trump. Big business, elite [01:33:00] media, and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent, Because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. That was what Trump proclaimed in his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention in 2016.

And then he rode the rigging all the way into the Oval Office. It doesn't have to be this way. Even if Citizens United isn't reversed by the Supreme Court or defanged by constitutional amendment, a principled Congress and decent president could still rescue our democracy. House Democrats have already begun with their For the People Act, the first legislation introduced when they gained a majority.

It expands voting rights, stops partisan gerrymandering, strengthens ethics rules, and limits the influence of private donor money by providing 6 of public financing for every [01:34:00] 1 of small donations, up to 200, raised by participating candidates. A new Senate And a new president could make these reforms law.

On the other hand, a second Trump term could make the anti democracy decade a mere prelude to the wholesale destruction of American democracy. Trump himself couldn't care less. As he said in 2016, I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.

And that's a broken system. These might have been the most honest words ever to come out of his mouth.

Credits

The additional sections of the show included clips from The Socialist Program, [01:35:00] CounterSpin, The Brian Lehrer Show, MSNBC, Late Night with Seth Myers, The Majority Report, and Robert Reisch further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks Judy, on Clark and Aaron Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet to Ken Brian, Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work, helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app.

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So, coming to from far [01:36:00] outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay! and this has been the Best of the Left Podcast coming to twice weekly thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.com.

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#1652 Denial, Delusion, and Devastation: Israeli genocide made possible by a nurtured ignorance and deft dehumanization (Transcript)

Posted by · August 30, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 8/30/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

Israel's assault on Gaza is fueled by pain. Rage. Trauma. A desire for safety. A desire for revenge. The hope for the safe return of hostages. It's a complicated mix of all of the above and more, and it will be different for each person. However, there's also a deep well of denial and delusion about the decades-old status quo between Israel and Palestine that made the current conflict all but inevitable, and the pursuit of genocide by some in the Israeli government, as well as the support of the US and other governments, possible.

Sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today include The Intercept, Citations Needed, Zeteo, This Is Hell, Double Down News, and Democracy Now!. After those first clips, I will have some thoughts on the nature of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, going back to the founding. Mostly though [00:01:00] I'll be sharing insights from an excellent long form piece that thoughtfully and empathetically explains why the project of Zionism can only be undertaken with a heavy dose of denial about the harms caused. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half the show, there'll be more on four topics: Section A. The Uncommitted; Section B. Torture; Section C. Arms Embargo; and Section D. Journalism.

Kamala Harris Mentioned Palestinian Suffering — in the Passive Voice - The Intercept - Air Date 8-26-24

AKELA LACY, THE INTERCEPT: It's been just a little bit over a month since Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee for the party. It's been 10 months since October 7th, and there have been tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza with weapons that the US is continuing to send to Israel.

Just the week before the convention, the US approved [00:02:00] another $20 billion weapons sale to Israel. And ahead of the convention, organizers and protesters were planning demonstrations in Chicago, which is home to the largest Palestinian population in the country. Delegates who pledged to be uncommitted rather than support Harris and her role in the Biden administration's arming of Israel planned to pressure the DNC to let them host events at the convention, but also to have a Palestinian American speaker on the main stage.

ALI GHARIB, THE INTERCEPT: You wrote a little bit about some of these protests, both inside and out. And with regards to the uncommitted movement, there's the organized campaign for uncommitted delegates who are demanding a change in US Gaza policy before they would commit to any Democratic candidate.

But there are delegates who are committed to support Harris, who also were protesting. And can you tell us just a little bit about the protests that you covered inside where a banner was [00:03:00] unfurled and the kind of assumptions that were made about the uncommitted delegate who actually is an avowed Harris supporter.

AKELA LACY, THE INTERCEPT: So I went into the United Center on Monday night, against my better judgment. But it was good because I was there to capture the moment when a Florida delegate named Nadia Ahmad unfurled a banner that read, "Stop Arming Israel" a few minutes into Biden's speech that night. Ahmad and several other delegates held the banner together. Another Michigan superdelegate named Leanna Sharon and several other folks. And almost immediately I saw other delegates in their section and other people in the section behind them, both stand up to use the We Heart Joe signs that everyone had that night to block the sign, and then to start hitting Nadia and several of the other people who were holding the banner using the signs [00:04:00] to hit the banner itself.

Ahmad is a Harris delegate who has been pushing her for a ceasefire, one of around 200 or so delegates who are pledged to support Harris in November, who are pushing Harris and the Biden administration to secure a permanent ceasefire and an arms embargo.

That demonstration on Monday was notable because Nadia is a Harris delegate. She's not part of the uncommitted movement. And the narrative around a lot of the work that uncommitted has been doing is that they are undermining Democrats' chances of beating Trump in November by withholding their support for Harris. And that is the primary source of the opposition to the Biden administration's policy towards Israel. When the reality is that many of these calls are coming from within the party, from folks who are committed to helping Democrats win the White House, and that the [00:05:00] position against the current administration's policy towards Israel is the position of a majority of Democratic voters.

ALI GHARIB, THE INTERCEPT: The kind of backdrop for all of this is that progressives have really come under attack from groups like AIPAC. You've done a ton of reporting about this. AIPAC has become the biggest player in Democratic primaries. And they actually took down a couple of incumbent Democrats, Cory Bush and Jamal Bowman in the House. And it's become this real rift within the Democratic party, which was reflected in the tensions around the convention, the protesters outside.

So it was even part of the rift between members of the Squad, which is the progressive group of members of Congress that Bowman and Bush were both part of. And your reporting this week touched on that. You contributed some reporting to a story by Aida Chavez, where you recorded Ilhan Omar making a remark about what was before Kamala Harris's speech, one of the only mentions of Gaza from the main stage, [00:06:00] which was by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but it was very much in the frame of cheerleading Kamala Harris's role in dealing with the Gaza crisis. Can you talk a little bit about what AOC said, and what you reported on Ilhan Omar, the progressive representative from Minnesota, saying about effectively about her remarks. I mean, it was a little bit veiled because she was addressing the Biden administration, but she actually quoted AOC directly.

AKELA LACY, THE INTERCEPT: Sure. So in Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's speech on Monday, she said that Harris had been working, quote, "tirelessly for a ceasefire in Gaza."

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: And she is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.

AKELA LACY, THE INTERCEPT: During a press conference the next day with uncommitted folks and Rep. Bush, Rep. Omar spoke about how she has been watching her colleagues in the Biden administration for the last [00:07:00] 10 months sweeping aside what the US has been doing to allow Israel to continue executing civilians in Gaza, and she said that "working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire" doesn't really mean anything when we're continuing to supply weapons to Israel.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: It's been unconscionable for me in the last 10 months to witness my colleagues in this administration refusing to recognize the genocidal war that is taking place in Gaza. To not see the mothers with lost, helpless children, the babies whose dead bodies are being dug out. I do not understand that "working tirelessly for a ceasefire" is really not a thing and they should be ashamed of themselves.

AKELA LACY, THE INTERCEPT: That was the [00:08:00] exact phrase that Ocasio-Cortez used on Monday. I don't know that Omar herself would characterize it as a direct attack on her, but that's certainly how many observers read it. We reported on that. And this has been part of the analysis of the evolving role in the Squad, both in Congress and in Democratic politics writ large. What, if any power they have been able to build, given that two of their members have been knocked out, that other progressives have been knocked out by the pro-Israel lobby in previous cycles, and what the strategy will look like as they wrestle with those attacks and those losses. There are people who say that AOC is the example of what progressive should be doing: building power within the administration, creating a space to be on the main stage at the DNC, just after several years after first being elected to Congress as this very much this progressive upstart who [00:09:00] was antagonizing, in a positive way, the administration to acknowledge what progressives wanted to see.

And the criticism from folks who don't necessarily see that strategy as being an effective one is that what is all of that worth if, when you do get that opportunity beyond the main stage, you conceal and hold water for what the administration is allowing to happen in Gaza.

Substance vs Vibes in VP Kamala Harris' Gaza PR Reboot - Citations Needed - Air Date 8-2-24

NIMA SHIRAZI - COHOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: The White House, as we've talked about on this show, since the Michigan primary, rather in anticipation and immediately after the Michigan primary, when the uncommitted movement was gaining steam, switched the definition of ceasefire to mean something completely different than what activists, what Oxfam, what Amnesty International, what UN agencies and the hundreds of ex-Biden alum and Nobel laureates who signed petitions calling for a ceasefire. They completely switched the definition of ceasefire to mean something else. And the question became -- and this bought them time, I wrote for my SubStack, this was a very successful PR effort. It took a lot of the heat off in conjunction with college campuses shutting [00:10:00] down for the summer and police crackdowns -- but this really helped contribute to a vibe shift away from blaming Biden because they could point to these nebulous ceasefire negotiations.

So what does that mean? I'll do a quick, brief recap of what that means. So in October, November, December, calls for a ceasefire had a very clear historical precedent based on previous conflicts. 2008, 2009, Cast Lead, 2014, Protective Edge, 2018, 2021. There was a precedent for what ceasefire meant, which means the US uses its dispositive leverage to compel Israel to stop bombing and invading Gaza, and then Hamas will stop as well. Typically, Hamas is the one that wants a ceasefire since they are a sub state actor. And they don't have an air force, so they benefit far more from that. And Israel, of course, has these bunker busters, these 2000 pound bombs, F-35s, F-16s, F-22s.

So there's a historical precedent for what that means. Everybody knows what it means. Everybody, at least for the first few months, didn't act like they didn't know what it meant.

But then when the uncommitted movement picked up [00:11:00] steam in February and March, and this is after the White House issued a memo in October 20th, rather the State Department issued a memo on October 20th, preventing all State Department employees, White House employees from using the word "ceasefire." So they initially rejected it because they knew what it meant, right? It had a very specific contextual meaning. In the context of Gaza, everybody knew what it meant.

But then they realized they were getting hammered on this issue. This was right before the college campus protests really caught fire, but there were protests every day. And there was of course the uncommitted movement, which was leading to some embarrassing headlines, and delegitimizing the Biden 2024 run. So then they decided to do, again, if you paid me $700,000 and I worked for the White House and I had a soul lobotomy, this is what I would have suggested, which is to just say you're supporting a ceasefire, but just change the definition of ceasefire, right? This is kind of PR 101. Which is exactly what they did. Now it means temporary pause. It doesn't mean that actual cessation of killing people. It's just a temporary pause.

ADAM JOHNSON - COHOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Well, it's a temporary pause for the purposes of hostage exchanges, immediately followed [00:12:00] by a firm commitment by Israel to continue the destruction of Gaza for quote unquote, "years if necessary."

And so people say, well, they wanted a temporary pause because it could lead to a longer. But that's actually not true. In fact, the second, then of course, on May 31st, Biden gave his deeply cynical speech where he calls for a quote unquote, "end to the war" that gave people some brief hope, until it was followed up by Matt Miller and others at the State Department who clarified that no, they support Israel's goal of quote unquote, "eliminating Hamas," a goal that is not possible by definition, even according to Tony Blinken, who told Netanyahu that behind closed doors in January, according to NBC's Andrea Mitchell.

So they have a pretextual, and by definition, unachievable goal of eliminating basically an ideology or pretty much anyone with a gun fighting back, which, good luck with that. We saw how that worked out for the US in Afghanistan. And that is, of course, not really their goal. Their goal is to displace, to force emigration out of Gaza, to kill, to make life a living hell, as part of a very open policy of collective punishment. And so they want this to go on for as long as it needs to go [00:13:00] on.

Former Israeli Spy Chief- If I Was A Palestinian, I Would Fight Against Israel’s Occupation - Zeteo - Air Date 8-19-24

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: Early in the war, you co-authored a piece for foreign affairs titled "Why Netanyahu Must Go". As the former head of Israel's security service, what made you want to make such a provocative intervention so early on?

AMI AYALON: Well, when it comes to Netanyahu, I'm saying it for the last more than 18 months: since he created this very extreme right-wing coalition and he let Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, to lead Israeli policy. So, it's not new. I didn't say it only after the 7th of October. I think that, first of all, he himself, he's, in a conflict of interest. He's on trial and, the way it seems to me, he prefer his own future [over] the future of the state of Israel.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: Just on Netanyahu and Hamas, pre-October the 7th, do you believe Netanyahu was deliberately propping up Hamas in Gaza as a [00:14:00] way of dividing Palestinians and preventing a two state solution?

AMI AYALON: Well, his policy, and he didn't hide it, he's totally against a reality in which there is a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He said it. His policy, the way he explained it, is divide and control to make sure that Palestinians will not have a unified government. And the only way to do it is to do everything in order to maintain Hamas in power. Even, if it was necessary to approve sending more than probably 1. 5 billion dollars from Qatar and every time when security leaders, military, and the Shin Bet came to him and told him, Look, Hamas, will not control his violence. And the moment that he believes that he can launch a war or a battle, he will do it.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: Yes.

AMI AYALON: So he did not approve it. So, uh, [00:15:00] it's not a secret. Yes, this was his formal policy. He did everything in order to increase the power of Hamas and to make sure that, Abu Mazen and the Palestinian Authority will not be able to create a unified government.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: So, isn't the problem, Ami Ayalon, that even if Benjamin Netanyahu were to listen to you and quit and resign in shame, the problem goes way beyond Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. According to Gallup, 65 percent of Israeli adults are currently against a two state solution. So, Netanyahu disappears tomorrow, Israeli society has still moved over the last decade or two since you started campaigning for a two state solution way to the right. What do you do in a society like that when your fellow Israelis are not interested in the kind of deal you're pitching, they don't agree with you?

AMI AYALON: I present a political horizon. I can give you... the most important example during the... if you would ask Israelis during the first intifada, whether [00:16:00] they agree to negotiate with Palestinians, we would tell you that you are crazy, a lunatic, or whatever, because we hated them and we were sure that they will do everything in order to destroy Israel and we did not understand why they are doing it. But this is history. The moment that a new horizon and Oslo process was presented, it was a dramatic change in the Israeli street and among Palestinians.

So, I believe in presenting new ideas. I see that Israelis and Palestinians, today, we hate each other. We are confused. We are humiliated. Both sides and, nothing good will come from Israeli leadership and Palestinian leadership. Most Israelis believe that all Palestinians are Hamas, and most Palestinians believe that all Israelis are Smotrich and Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu. And it is all totally wrong. Seventy five—by the way, you, you said something about [00:17:00] polls—seventy five percent of the Israelis, —and the question is, how do you present the question?—seventy five percent of Israelis will agree to stop the war and to create what we call the a regional coalition that will face Iran. We understand that the condition, in order to ignite this process, will present a future policy for a Palestinian state but we support it on the condition that all our hostages will be back and this coalition will be created with the support of America, of course, the [inaudible], the Saudi Arabia, et cetera, et cetera.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: Okay.

AMI AYALON: So, polls are very, very tricky.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: Fair enough. You mentioned Iran. Last week, Israel not only killed the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, while he was in Iran, but they also killed the top Hezbollah commander in Beirut. As the former head of the Israeli Security Service, as a [00:18:00] former Israeli Navy chief, tell me, in your view, Ami Ayalon, have those actions made Israel safer?

AMI AYALON: They are not making Israel safer. In certain cases, and I was in the Israeli Shin Bet and what we call targeted killing was based on a condition in which we know that a terrorist is going to attack, many Israelis will die, and there is no other option to stop him. We cannot arrest him. We don't have the operational capability to do it. Today, of course, Israel is taking a totally different type of policy. I think that too many Israelis and too many politicians believe that by killing leaders, you know, uh, the ideology will be evaporated. It's nonsense. Yes, you said something very, very true, by killing the leader, in our case, ideology even will be deeper rooted [00:19:00] within the Palestinian and Arab society.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: So, it's made Israel less safe from what you're saying.

AMI AYALON: I think that it is a mistake.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: Has it made Israel less safe, those killings?

AMI AYALON: Right, exactly. Exactly.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, ZETEO: So let me ask you this...

AMI AYALON: And the only way to do it is to create this coalition and to present a different political horizon and there is a huge opportunity ahead of us on that note After the 7th of October, it is not a conflict only between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a conflict, a regional conflict, shaking the stability in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and with a global impact.

Torture Is Systemic in Israel's Prisons / Shai Parnes - This Is Hell! - Air Date 8-21-22

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: Welcome to Hell also states the logic of the base of the incarceration project is the same followed by the Israeli apartheid regime elsewhere. The differentiation between Palestinian prisoners from Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel, and the varying laws and practices applied to them interchangeably, demonstrate how the Israeli regime tears apart and reconstructs the Palestinian [00:20:00] collective to fit its needs. Shai, what are the needs of the Israeli regime? If Palestinians are not allowed to democratically choose their government, what will whoever controls Palestinian lives in Gaza and the West Bank look like? What are the needs of Israel and Gaza?

SHAI PARNES: It's not the needs, it's what Israel believes or wants to believe are their needs. And again, it's been true for decades, Israel wants as much territory as possible with as less, uh, Palestinians as possible. And the means, the tools are changeable. Sometimes it's war, and sometimes it's incarceration, and sometimes it's taking their lands. But the framework, the policy, the goal, the Israel regime and all governments is [00:21:00] practically the same goal: to take as much land and with as few as possible Palestinians living in it.

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: The report states that the testimonies reveal the policy implemented in these facilities since the declaration of a prison state of emergency and the pursuant enactment of a temporary order in keeping with the stated agenda of Minister Ben-Gvir. They indicate that this policy, which entails violation of the basic human rights, is targeted at members of a specific ethnic national group, Palestinians. As part of this new policy, Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are stripped of the basic package of rights to which they are entitled under Israeli and international law, as well as other universal rights. Was their debate over implementing the temporary order and... Shai, to what degree do you think the likelihood is that this temporary order will in fact be temporary?

SHAI PARNES: We [00:22:00] do have kind of a semi-joke, but, you know, as jokes are, that in the Middle East the temporary is the most certain thing. There was not any debate about this legal framework because it was the first days after October 7th and that's what I've said before. Ben-Gvir and the rest of this government took advantage, cynically, of what the public, the Israeli public really felt, and they did that to act out their own sadistic and racist agenda. What was worrying [was] that the entire system, the Israeli prison system or the entire legal system, [00:23:00] sometimes cooperate [with] and sometimes crumbled to this agenda and procedures.

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: Just a few more questions for you. The report states that the High Court of Justice has thereby green-lighted the denial of Palestinians prisoners' basic rights. Meanwhile, judicial or administrative review of the arrests themselves has been suspended de facto for weeks or even months. The court's abstention from intervening in this matter too and the fact that it has knowingly allowed prisoners to be almost completely isolated, underscores the court's rule in lending the gross violation of prisoners' human rights a facade of legality. How long do you think they can keep that facade of legality up, Shai?

SHAI PARNES: I don't know, because it depends [on] who's the observer. If you followed the ICC warrants requests, and if you followed the ICJ, they [00:24:00] already indicate that the Israeli Supreme Court or the legal system is just a whitewash mechanism. We at B'Tselem say that for many years now, the entire legal system or investigation system—and it doesn't even matter if that's the military police, Attorney General, or with the Supreme Court—they're all in power, part of different branches of the aparthheid regime and used as a whitewash mechanism. And for the last month, it's not just B'Tselem saying and reporting and publishing reports about that. It's the most respected legal tribunals in the world. It's the ICC and the ICJ. So, uh, it's very hard to [00:25:00] see it differently as long as your eyes are open.

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: Israel is not only violating international humanitarian law, it's violating its own laws, as your report points out. What happens to any state when it not only violates global legal norms, but their own legal norms? What happens when a government decides to pick and choose which legal obligations to fulfill and which to ignore? What kind of government, to you, would that define?

SHAI PARNES: Uh, I have to say again that it's not a new practice. Let's take what they called the illegal outposts versus the settlements. They're all illegal under the international law. But the Israeli governments—and again, not just the current real extreme government, but also the previous ones—say, Yeah, there is a problem with the illegal outposts. [00:26:00] Okay, but if you tour in the West Bank, you see that these outposts are defended by the military, getting electricity and water from the Israeli infrastructure systems. So, don't tell me they are illegal if you're building them. It was always the case, what's going on with the current government, I would say, as it's nothing hidden anymore. We don't play the game anymore that Israel used to do, like Saudi negotiating with the Palestinians and keep expanding the Palestinians. That is the real change. It's not hidden anymore.

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: Has the Israeli system made Palestinian lives, and lifestyles, cultures, and traditions, crimes? Is the intended goal to make Gaza a place where the people do [00:27:00] not have a representative government? In Gaza, has Israel made democracy a punishable, detainable, torturable offense? Has Israel made Palestinian culture and Palestinian democracy, a crime?

SHAI PARNES: As you've seen in the report, you can conclude that the only "crime" is detainees [being] charged of being a Palestinian.

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: Do you think that the goal of Ben-Gvir is to provoke Palestinians, even his policies prior to October 7th, into doing something? And if so, what are people like Ben-Gvir trying to provoke Palestinians into doing by employing strategies meant to humiliate torment and dehumanize Palestinians?

SHAI PARNES: As I just said a couple of minutes ago, what's, I would say, good [00:28:00] about Ben-Gvir and Smotrich and this government: you don't have to guess. They just say out loud [that] they want to resell the Gaza Strip, they want to make changes to Al Haram Ash Sharif / Har Habayit status quo, they want to annex the West Bank, they're not hiding it. They say it on their own, and in the Israeli press and also outside. One [doesn't] have to speculate anymore.

EXPOSED- Netanyahu's Plan to Set World on Fire - Double Down News - Air Date 8-23-24

DAVID HEARST: A war against Hezbollah is regarded as a matter of when, not if. If Israel has failed in its primary objective to dismantle Hamas after 10 months of unleashing more bombs on Gaza than the Allies dropped on Dresden and Hamburg in the Second World War, how on earth does it think it will unseat or push Hezbollah back? Hezbollah is much better armed than Hamas, with very [00:29:00] accurate missiles that can sneak under The Iron Dome system. So the whole of Israel is vulnerable to a regional war on five fronts.

This is fundamentally against all Western interests, particularly after a series of defeats for Western policy in Iraq, in Yemen, in Syria, in Libya. American foreign policy has basically labored under a huge self-imposed burden: They have been trying to persuade Netanyahu to stop the war, but they provided no incentive for Netanyahu to stop the war.

And it still remains a bipartisan policy of whatever happens in the Middle East, however badly Israel has behaved, we are going to support Israel. Which not even Ronald Reagan or H. W. Bush, the two Republican presidents, allowed themselves to work under.

If you remember, Reagan stopped Yitzhak [00:30:00] Shamir from bombing West Beirut in 1982. Because the scenes of the nightly bombing were so grim on CNN that Reagan, as the sort of consummate television frontman, said, No, I don't want it. Stop it. And he stopped it. He stopped the shelling within 20 minutes. H. W. Bush threatened to cut aid off for every settlement that was announced.

So now you've got a president in Joe Biden, who is an instinctive Zionist, a generational Zionist, who has given far more leeway to Israel, committing far more barbaric crimes over a much longer period of time and just giving it the green light for Biden now to say, stop, stop, stop is also an incredibly weak position because he could have said everything he's saying 10 months ago. Nothing has been achieved except the deaths of 40,000 Palestinians, 100,000 wounded. And even that could be a huge underestimate. [00:31:00] And it is in US policy's interest to deconflict the Middle East, their interest is in withdrawal to confront China in the China Sea. So all of this is absolutely against America's interest, and yet its default position is we've got to protect Israel. Israel has to have the arms it needs. So it is fighting against its own policy. There's no coherence in American foreign policy.

The one obstacle to the deal is not the Israeli negotiators, not the Israeli deep state, not even the Israeli army. It's Netanyahu himself, because he fears his government could break up. As soon as the war ends, this king risks being deposed.

After 10 long months, we've had some quite threatening and key statements from Netanyahu's point of view. The first was his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, saying that Israel could not achieve its objectives militarily. That's his own defense minister.

And now you've got Biden himself and the US saying Hamas can't be defeated militarily. Its tunnel network was much more [00:32:00] extensive than they thought. The only way of getting the remaining 115 live hostages out is through negotiation. And he doesn't have any trophies for this war.

Mohamed Dief is still alive, according to top Hamas officials. He's directly responsible for the October 7th attack. And he hasn't killed Yahya Sinwar, who is now the new leader of Hamas. Gaza and Hamas and the resistance movement are very, very much alive, and still capable of firing missiles at Tel Aviv after 10 months.

The one senior figure in Hamas that Israel has killed is Ismail Haniyeh. Ismail Haniyeh wasn't hiding in any tunnel. He was openly operating in Tehran as a spokesman and as a diplomat for Hamas. And it was the clearest indication that Israel was not interested in real peace talks and negotiations by basically killing the chief negotiator. And they didn't just kill Haniyeh. Before that, they had killed 60 members of his family, his sons and grandsons. [00:33:00] That act basically tore up negotiations and any thought of returning the hostages alive. Because one of the big, big tensions in Israel is that, incredulously, Netanyahu's policy on the hostages was that it is only because of our military pressure that Hamas will surrender the hostages. It's exactly the opposite way around. The main killer of hostages by far has been the Israeli army bombing itself. Even three hostages which were trying to surrender got gunned down by Israeli soldiers.

But the only way of getting the remaining hostages back is through peace and through negotiations with Hamas.

It basically demonstrates the total folly, stupidity of Netanyahu's thinking, which is all about tactical strikes. It's not about the day after. Firstly, you can't decapitate an organization like Hamas or Hezbollah. So every time you kill one person, two or three people will step up. It's a proven system that [00:34:00] keeps the organization funding. If you take out the leader, you do not take out the organization. So that's mistake number one.

Mistake number two, it is an open provocation and an escalation, and they know that. So, Israel escalates and then the rest of the world says, Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't reply to it. The chief of staff of Hassan Nasrallah was also killed in a related attack. Iran and Hezbollah have both said they will avenge the deaths. I think Iran has got Israel over a barrel because it has vowed revenge. Israel doesn't know where that wave of missiles is going to come from. Is it going to come from all five fronts simultaneously? And you've got this enormous pressure on Netanyahu himself now from a Western alliance that backed him, but now has basically had enough and wants the whole thing to come to an end tomorrow.

And also, most importantly, one of the war aims was to push Palestinians into the sea. If the war has been won by anyone, it's been won by the people of Gaza, not Hamas, but the people of Gaza, saying, [00:35:00] yeah, we're going to die here, rather than repeat the mistakes of 1948 or 1967.

Netanyahu had a plan to thin out the population of Gaza and tasked his right hand man, Ron Dermer, with a plan for executing that. And it's clear from the bombing and from the pattern of strikes that the target wasn't Hamas, it was all the people of Gaza. And that was a fundamental strategic error. And it made the war an existential war for all Palestinians everywhere, not just in Gaza, but in the West Bank too.

Israel has really damaged itself in this war. It's under huge pressure now, basically just to wave the white flag.

Well, I would argue that Netanyahu isn't just a threat to the region, but he's a threat to Israel itself. Before this war, Israel had and has total dominance between the river and the sea. But Netanyahu wanted it all. This is the classic mistake of all colonial powers. Napoleon made [00:36:00] it, Hitler made it as well. Both thought that they could crown their military dominance of Western Europe by attacking Russia. And this is a classic case of colonial imperial overreach.

The clearest historical precedent to what he is doing in Israel is Algeria under French colonial rule. They were the dominant power, the Colon, and they went too far. So in trying to seize all, France lost Algeria in its entirety, and this could be the position of Netanyahu in Israel today.

Another example is South Africa, before the apartheid regime made its peace with the African National Congress and realized that they had to fundamentally undo everything they were trying to do. They were busy setting fire to the whole region.

Rami Khouri on Latest Israel-Hezbollah Escalation & Stalled Ceasefire Talks - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-26-24

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this escalation of violence. I mean, we haven’t seen anything like this on the northern [00:37:00] border between Israel and Lebanon in many months.

RAMI KHOURI: It’s an escalation of aggression by Israel and resistance by Hezbollah. And the mutual attacks back and forth have been going on for probably the last 16, 18 years, since the 2006 war between them. But this is significant for several reasons. First, it’s a much higher level of attack in the number of fighter jets from the Israeli side, and sites attacked and the number of rockets and drones sent by Hezbollah. Both sides are claiming things that we can’t verify, so we just have to wait a little bit, a couple days more, for the actual factual evidence to come out.

But what’s significant from the Hezbollah side is that they used Katyusha rockets mostly, which are old-fashioned, [00:38:00] limited-capability rockets, not very good in terms of hitting — being aimed, etc. And then they used some drones. And their focus was to detract the defense system in Israel, the air defense system, with the rockets, and then get the drones in to attack some military sites. They’re clearly targeting military sites. And the Israelis say everything is fine. Hezbollah says they hit some of their targets, but they’re assessing the situation now.

But the more sophisticated weapons that Hezbollah has, with much better guidance systems, much more accurate and can evade the Israeli defense systems, haven’t been used yet. So, this is a sign from Hezbollah that they’re going to attack, to avenge the killing of their commander in Beirut about a month ago, and [00:39:00] they are going to do it with increasingly sophisticated weapons system down the road.

Their aim is to do psychological warfare, as well as actual damage. They want the whole country to remain on edge. They want the army to be preoccupied in the north. They want the 70,000, 80,000 civilians who were evacuated from north Israel to remain evacuated and annoyed and angry, disruption to businesses, to tourism, to all kinds of investments, and to keep the military guessing what’s going to come next. So, this is an escalation of a pattern that’s been really the norm for many, many years.

And both sides, remarkably, but expectedly, said earlier today that they have finished this phase, and therefore, they’re not going to continue large-scale attacks today or tomorrow, it seems, that [00:40:00] they’ve done what they did. And this is the pattern that one side does something, the other does something of equal magnitude.

And it’s going to go on until two things happen: The Israelis get out of Gaza, and Palestinians can rebuild their lives there, and, second of all, some signs of action or movement towards resolving the overall Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflict, some signs of that materialize, because, until then, this is going to continue. There will continue to be this antagonism by the Hezbollah and Lebanese and Syrians and Palestinians and others and Yemenis towards Israel for what it’s done in Palestine. And this has to be resolved politically. It can’t be resolved militarily.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Israeli army spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, speaking Sunday.

HASSAN NASRALLAH: [translated] We look around the state of Israel all the time, also at [00:41:00] Yemen, also at Iran. I remind you that Hezbollah is an extension of the Iranians. They are financed, armed, targeted by the Iranians. And I am convinced that this widespread shooting is also directed by Iran, also under Iranian responsibility. And we will attack and remove threats wherever necessary.

AMY GOODMAN: You can respond, Rami Khouri.

RAMI KHOURI: This is a typical Israeli Zionist propaganda message that has been going on for years and years. They will always — and with the U.S. close behind them, following their lead -- they’ll always find some threat in the Middle East. Before, it used to be Saddam Hussein. It was al-Qaeda. It was the Russians. It was the PLO. Now it’s Iran is behind everything bad. And they will focus a lot of attention on addressing that issue, trying to evade the central reality that the Palestine-Israel conflict, the conflict between Zionism and [00:42:00] Arabism in Palestine, which has been going on for a hundred years, that’s the real core of the problem. So, these are evasive tactics, diversionary tactics.

Iran is a very close ally of Hezbollah. They’re deeply involved in increasing its technical and military capabilities, as they are with Hamas and the Ansar Allah in Yemen, the Houthis. But to say that Iran directs them and tells them what to do, I believe, is a bit of a stretch.

So, it’s like the relationship between Israel and the United States. They’re very close in armaments and strategy, and the US now is actively, almost enthusiastically, supporting the Israeli genocide in Gaza. But Israel does what it feels it needs to do, and the US doesn’t seem to be able or willing to stop it. And I think we have a similar relationship between [00:43:00] Hezbollah and Iran. They’re very close, but Iran doesn’t command, direct Hezbollah in telling it what to do.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about what’s happening right now, this whole — the Gaza ceasefire negotiations? Hamas sent representatives to Cairo. Israel had their delegation. Egypt and Qatar are involved. But it looks like they broke down once again, though they say they’re continuing.

RAMI KHOURI: Well, they had reached an agreement in early July, when Biden announced his so-called plan for a ceasefire. And Hamas accepted it. Biden said this came from the Israelis. And then, when Hamas accepted it, the Israelis, Netanyahu came back and added more conditions. And this has been the pattern ever since. And whenever Hamas accepts it, they add more conditions, suggesting that Netanyahu doesn’t really want a ceasefire. He wants to just keep negotiating.

And I think it’s [00:44:00] pretty clear now that the ceasefire negotiations today are the equivalent of the so-called peace process in the bigger Arab-Israeli conflict over the last 40 years, which also was under US management or direction. And the ceasefire talks seem to be, in the eyes of most analysts and observers in the Middle East, seem to be a mechanism just to delay anything serious from happening, to allow Israel to continue with its genocidal killing of — the figures, the official figures, are over 40,000. Most people say it’s closer to 150,000 dead, but we’ll find that out in the future.

So, the ceasefire talks are a fictitious political dynamic. And the reason they’re fictitious is because the United States is trying to be the main driver of the peace process, to the point where Biden announced [00:45:00] an agreement back in early July, but the US is also the main funder, arms supplier and political cover provider, diplomatic protector of Israel in the U.N. and other places. So, you can’t have the one party that is the major force for letting the genocide happen, technically and politically, and at the same time claim to be a mediator that’s trying to mediate between Israel and Hamas. This is the kind of fiction and fantasy that comes out of the State Department and the White House, and most of the world just watches this on TV, thinking, “Oh, something might happen.”

The important point is the Hamas — and you see it in Hezbollah — is that they have taken a much harder position. They say, “We accepted the ceasefire that Biden provided, that came from Israel. What more do you want from us? We are ready to [00:46:00] stop the fighting, exchange prisoners and hostages,” etc., etc. But they have certain hardcore demands. And what’s obvious now is that both Hezbollah and Hamas refuse to play the game that all the Arab governments, and Fatah under Arafat and now under Abu Mazen, the Palestinian leadership, played for so many years, which is to make concession after concession after concession, rely on Western or other international intervention, and then expect something to happen.

We’ve realized — everybody in the Arab region has realized that this is not a serious process. This is the latest manifestation of a colonial process managed by white, Northern, racist, militant groups, countries — it used to be England, now it’s the United States — that keeps playing games with the people of the region for [00:47:00] the benefits of either the Western powers or, today, for Israel.

Note from the Editor on the deep denial at the heart of Zionism

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with The Intercept, analyzing the Democrats approach to addressing the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Citations Needed looked into the rhetoric of a ceasefire. Mehdi Hassan on Zedio talked with a former Israeli spy chief who spoke with clarity about the disaster of Israeli policy against Palestinians. This is Hell discussed the systematic abuse and brutality in Israel's prisons. Double Down News discussed Israel's expansion of the conflict to Hezbollah. And Democracy Now! also looked at the dynamics and rhetoric of the expanding conflict.

And those were just the top takes, theres a a lot more in the deeper dive section, but first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes featuring the production crew here discussing all manner of important and interesting topics, often trying to make each other laugh in the process.

To support our work and get all those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to [00:48:00] support the show at BestOfTheLeft.com/support—there's a link in the show notes. —through our Patreon page, if you prefer, or from right inside the Apple Podcasts app.

If regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now, before we continue on to the deeper dives half of the show, we're I want to share a bit of a really good long form piece from New York Magazine titled My Father and the Withering of Liberal Zionism. So, the writer's father was part of the early days of settling Israel for Jewish people in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. he was part of the kibbutz movement based on what is generally described as secular socialism. So, like a hippie commune movement, if hippies had to fight battles with the native peoples in order to occupy the land. And if the idea of lefty hippies having to fight battles to take over a land feels like a bit of a [00:49:00] contradiction in political terms, that's exactly the right conflict to zero in on.

From the article, quote:

But this dream of a leftist version of Zionism, the dream my father nurtured for his entire life, cannot exist without denial of the crimes and atrocities committed both during the founding of the state and after. My father's fantasy of his war years and of the years on kibbutz is one all but devoid of Arabs. In his letters, he writes little of the Palestinians who were displaced, and only then with a casual racism that jars me, referring to them derisively as "Abdullah." He does not acknowledge that "the rocky spot south of Haifa" where he and the members of his garin learned how to farm was Kabara, once a Palestinian village of over 117 homes. He makes no mention of the village of Al-Zraiye, 2. 2 kilometers from Kissufim: 4,790 people [00:50:00] driven from their homes in 1948.

Don't mean to single my father out in this. Israeli society as a whole has conspired to eradicate the memory of the more than 500 Palestinian villages depopulated and destroyed in 1948, the three quarters of a million people expelled, despite attempts by some Jewish Israeli historians starting in the late 1980s to more accurately rewrite the narrative of the Nakba. This denial continues to this day.

And then the article makes the connection from the past to the present, describing the media blackout that helps preserve this ignorance. It says, quote:

Very few Israeli Jews even talk about what is happening in Gaza. When I asked why, I was told again and again that the Israeli media do not cover events on the ground. The public does not see images or hear stories of dead Palestinian children or devastated communities. Al Jazeera, the only network to reliably report on the horrors ongoing in Gaza, was recently banned in Israel. Yet we live in [00:51:00] an interconnected world; we live online. Though it's true that our social media and news silos can isolate us from the views and opinions of others, it's hard to imagine that anything but a concerted effort could keep a person from knowing the toll the war has taken on Palestinian civilians.

This carefully nurtured ignorance reminds me of my father and his stories about kibbutz life in the 1940s, which never included raids across the border into Gaza, the driving out of villages full of people, the murder of civilians. It reminds me of another saying we learned in Hebrew school: "A land without a people for a people without a land."

And this is what I really appreciate about this piece, connecting the dots between the past and the present that show how the pattern of denial runs like a straight line from the founding of Israel to the present. But, on top of the carefully nurtured ignorance, as the writer puts it, it's also important to recognize the dehumanizing propaganda that compounds the issue. For many, it is simple ignorance of the [00:52:00] destructive nature of the history of Israel, but for others, it's clear that incontrovertible evidence of atrocities would not be enough because they would always be able to simply fall back on the denial of the full humanity of Palestinian victims. Or, in the most extreme cases, they'll deny the existence of Palestinians as a people altogether.

But there's more denial to be had. The article tells the story from the father's perspective of claiming that Arab militants in the 1940s were cowards, easily defeated. It's made blatantly clear in the article that this was a bald faced lie, but it's possible that myth of Arab cowardice influenced the thinking that led to the propping up of Hamas by Netanyahu as a political strategy.

So back to the article, it says, quote:

"It was an enormous fuckup," Yosi says of Netanyahu's attempts to prop up Hamas, believing the group had lost the will to fight and could be isolated from the broader Palestinian [00:53:00] cause. "We were completely betrayed."

Only a country in deep denial could believe the Palestinians and Gaza would live in perpetually abject, but passive misery. It is a denial so ingrained that Jewish Israelis extend it even to Palestinians who live outside the occupation in Israel proper.

Now, before I get to the closing section, it's important to strive for an understanding of where these layers upon layers of denial come from. Maybe not to excuse, but to understand. This next quote is about the aftermath of October 7th, but it could just as easily be about the aftermath of the Holocaust. In short, hurt people, hurt people. And here's why. Quote:

Roni Aboulafia, a filmmaker and peace activist who believes a negotiated two state solution is the only way forward, has a compassionate explanation for why even liberals who consider themselves humanists in Israel are not [00:54:00] focused on the suffering of the people of Gaza. "We are all living through trauma," she said. "Every day brings new stories of the horrors that survivors went through and are still going through. The hostage situation is a very, very painful open wound." She added, "We are in a collective state of processing that limits our capacity to absorb Gazan pain and accept our accountability for it."

Just as there's a difference between explaining and excusing, it's then perfectly possible to have compassion without acting as an accomplice or enabler of destructive reactions.

The events of October 7th were obviously traumatizing—they were intended to be—but that doesn't mean that any response by the victims becomes justified. Nor does it mean that allies of that victimized country then must support whatever retaliatory action is taken. In fact, it's the best friends who hold their friends back from their worst instincts in their darkest moments. [00:55:00] It's a poor friend who says, "Oh, you want revenge? Great, I'll get you some weapons and drive the getaway car."

Now, I have one last excerpt for you and I know it's been a lot already, but there's so much more that's worth reading if you have the time. The last segment discusses the idea of sobering up, something many supporters of Israel have claimed to have done since last October. But, with just a little bit of clarity, it becomes obvious that sobering up from the defensive Israeli perspective is to dig deeper into a psychologically protective cocoon of denial and delusion.

The writer starts the section by telling a story of an Arab woman living in Hafe on the outskirts of Tel Aviv in Israel. She grew up going to Israeli school and struggles with her identity and existence within a society that does not openly welcome her. And she concludes with this comment. Quote:

"I don't want to be in partnership. I don't want to be in a place where I always have to convince the [00:56:00] other side that I'm human and my kids are worth living." Maybe, she said, she has also sobered up.

Her use of that phrase, of course, is spiked with an irony entirely missing when it is spoken by left and center-left Jewish Israelis for whom to sober up means to reject the possibility of coexistence, to embrace the canard that Israel has no partner in peace among a Palestinian community of more than three million people. By the upside-down, looking-glass logic of modern liberal Zionism, a person of conscience and principle becomes "sober" by embracing a willed oblivion, remembering only incidents of Palestinian terrorism, and forgetting the generations of Palestinians who have sought redress through myriad legal and non violent ways. This "sobering up" is to focus on incidents of antisemitism on American college campuses, which are [00:57:00] analyzed in excruciating detail in the Israeli and U.S. media. It is to embrace the balm of victimhood, to wrap ourselves in the mantle of an age-old hatred that led to the murder of six million—victimhood that has now been transferred to October 7, which is referred to again and again, including by Netanyahu and President Biden, as the worst tragedy the Jews have experienced since the Holocaust, in order to expiate the shame of the war in Gaza.

To "sober up" it is to forget the 750,000 Palestinians expelled and the 500 villages destroyed in 1948, and the massacres and abuses since. It is to mourn the 1,139 murdered in the horrific massacre by Hamas on October 7th, the 240 taken hostage, 70 of whom are believed to still be alive, while ignoring the tens of thousands killed in Gaza, among [00:58:00] them aid workers and physicians, the elderly, and women and children dismembered and burned alive.

So if you continue to deny or even attempt to justify the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the decades of injustice that preceded it, then the only explanation is denial. However, there are several levels of denial to choose from, so, from which are you, your loved ones, or members of your community suffering? I'll go back to what I've said before, Israel doesn't need shipments of weapons, or even, in the long run, peace negotiators. What they need, for both Israelis and Palestinians above all, is therapy.

SECTION A - UNCOMMITTED

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, we'll continue a deeper dive on four topics. Next up, Section A, the Uncommitted; Section B, Torture; Section C, Arms embargo; and Section D, Journalism.

Palestinian-American lawmaker denied opportunity to speak at DNC shares what she would've said - All In With Chris Hayes - Air Date 8-23-24

CHRIS HAYES: This week we saw a really well produced Democratic Convention, which clearly was seeking to, and I think successfully, sought to construct this [00:59:00] big tent, right, that welcomes as broad a political coalition as possible. So for example, we saw Senator Bernie Sanders rallying against the ruling class, followed by Illinois Governor J.

B. Pritzker boasting the fact that he is a billionaire. We saw the exonerated Central Park Five on the need for criminal justice reform, followed by prosecutors selling Kamala Harris as the tough on crime candidate, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Senator Elizabeth Warren rallying the progressive base, and former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan, former Congressman Adam Kinzinger welcoming Republicans in the fold.

There's one glaring exception this week, which was on the issue of Israel and Gaza and the ongoing war there. The convention heard incredibly moving, searing, compassionate words from the parents of Hirsch Goldberg Polen, who's one of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7th.

We've met with President Biden and Vice President Harris numerous times at the White House.

They're both working tirelessly for a [01:00:00] hostage and ceasefire deal That will bring our precious children, mothers, fathers, spouses, grandparents, and grandchildren home, and will stop the despair in Gaza

CHRIS HAYES: and Harris herself brought the crowd to its feet with a condemnation of Hamas' brutality. Paired with a call for Palestinian self-determination.

KAMALA HARRIS: President Biden and I are working to end this war. Such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self determination. But

CHRIS HAYES: absent from the stage on any day across the four days were any Palestinian American voices.

The uncommitted [01:01:00] delegates attempted to negotiate a speaking slot with the DNC, but their efforts were ultimately rebuffed. So joining me now is one of the Palestinian Americans who requested to submit a speech to the DNC for vetting to deliver. Georgia State Representative Rua Roman, who attended the convention and intended to endorse Kamala Harris, but was not granted permission to speak.

Representative, it's great to have you. And I guess what I want to hear from you and Is what you wanted to say, what you would have told folks, uh, had you had the opportunity to, to get up there.

REP. RUWA ROMMAN: Yeah. Thank you for having me. And I want to be clear, although I'm not an uncommitted delegate, um, I wasn't even a convention attendee.

I was there for a different panel with our American Institute. Um, I was asked by uncommitted, Um, I would help push for a speaker, and, um, that's sort of how the conversation about a speech even started. Uh, some members of Congress wanted to be able to vouch for a potential speaker, asked for some sample language, and we provided it.

And The language that we wrote was [01:02:00] meant to be in good faith. It included an endorsement. Um, it included a call for unity. Um, it included a personal story. Um, the reality is anyone who knows me knows I'm incredibly passionate about this issue. I am Palestinian. I have a responsibility for this. And so even though it doesn't call for an arms embargo, those are things we do work for.

Even though it doesn't call it a genocide, we still try to capture the massacres that are happening. But at the same time, we understood that this was going to be a moment to show some good faith. And so that is what we were going to talk about.

CHRIS HAYES: Um, yeah, that, that, that, that point of the good faith, because I think a lot of the, the discussion about it I saw was about, well, you know, you don't know what they'll say.

And, um, and, and, and I think one argument which seemed legitimate to me is like, if a person's not going to endorse the candidate or they're going to trash the nominee, like we're not going to give them a slot. That seems reasonable. But I think the point that I'm hearing from you is like, You were willing to go up there.

I want to just read from the part of the speech that's okay with you because, um, you said this in the speech that you [01:03:00] released. You said, Let's commit to each other to electing Vice President Harris and defeating Donald Trump, who used my identity as a Palestinian as a slur. Let's fight for the policies long overdue from restoring access to abortions, to ensuring a living wage, to demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza.

Did you think there was a chance that this would happen?

REP. RUWA ROMMAN: Yeah, I mean, um, from my understanding, uncommitted was told that as long as they were not told, no, there was a good chance this was going to happen. And so they were asked to submit names and this has been going on for a while. This did not start, you know, this week, this, these negotiations had been ongoing.

And from my understanding, I was basically myself and actually representative Abdel Nasser, who's also a Palestinian in Illinois. Um, we were kind of pushed as, okay, you're elected officials, you're Palestinian, surely, surely. We can at least focus on the two of you out of the list of many people that were already submitted, and we were already on that list to begin with, but it was just one of those, let's [01:04:00] focus on them, and we still don't understand why there wasn't a speaking slot for any Palestinian.

To be clear, it didn't have to be me. It didn't have to be Representative Abdel Nasser. It could have been, you know, Any Palestinian, and there wasn't a single one.

CHRIS HAYES: One of the aspects of this that I found a little confounding about that, too, and again, like, conventions and candidates are going to enforce the discipline of what they want to say, and that is how this all works.

But, at this point, it does seem to me that, um, both the bulk of the hostages families, both American and Israeli, The bulk of, the bulk of the Israeli public, if you believe polling, the bulk of the Israeli security establishment, according to much reporting in Haaretz and other places, the bulk of Palestinian Americans all kind of want the same thing, which is the levers to produce a ceasefire.

REP. RUWA ROMMAN: Yeah, we had organizations. I mean, so many organizations from Ben, the arc to, um, you know, obviously uncommitted was pushing for this. We also had members [01:05:00] of Congress request this publicly and privately, including representative Richard at the representative Corey Bush representative Ilhan Omar. But also, um, you know, we had folks like, um, AOC and others who were pushing and saying, why is there not a single Palestinian speaker?

And again, Yeah. The ask wasn't sort of we want anything special or different. The idea was if this is going to be a big tent, can we please make sure it includes everybody that we are trying to reach this year?

The Young Person's Illustrated Guide to American Fascism + DNC Vibes - Refuse Fascism Podcast - Air Date 8-25-24

Listen to the doctors who went to the DNC to testify on this war on children in Gaza.

I'm fueled by a lot of rage. I was in Gaza, uh, working in the ICO, accession to the hospital for about three weeks. I have been to Gaza twice, uh, since the assault began in October. Went to Gaza in January. And was turned away in May after the border was stormed. I was in Gaza earlier this year and multiple times over the past [01:06:00] decade.

As a physician and as a witness on the ground, as one of the few international eyes allowed in Gaza by design, what I saw was indescribable with any other word other than I, as a doctor, cannot do my job if my elected leaders and my politicians are making it literally impossible for me to treat patients.

I can't save lives if you keep sending weapons. And it's really tough to reconcile with the fact that you're in the hospitals, you're watching people suffer and die, and to know that overhead there are fighter jets that came from America. They're making Gaza unlivable. They've destroyed the water infrastructure.

And so we were seeing kids die of diarrheal illness. They prevented all medical supplies in, and I can tell that by first hand witness, not by hearsay. They refused me the medical supplies that I was able to gather over months from wonderful people in Arkansas. Things like endotracheal tubes and Foley catheters, things like antibiotics and sedative medications that were [01:07:00] denied at the border.

First hand experience. They do not allow medical supplies in to treat children that are dying. You heard my colleagues speak just now at the press conference. The fact that. Uh, these children haunt us in our dreams, the fact that their parents come to us in our dreams, uh, asking us why we didn't save their children.

There's definitely a cognitive dissonance that's required to go from a place where you see children die every day from bombs dropped with a Made in USA sign on them, uh, then to come, to come here to the DNC and see almost a party like atmosphere, ignoring the fact that every day I was in Gaza, I heard children crying for their parents that were gone.

I saw the reality on the ground. I saw the product of our policies. I saw the product of the Biden administration's policies here. And for anybody to suggest that this is just a one issue, or we don't want to make this a one issue voter, uh, I'm offended by that, and I think most people who recognize the tragedy of what's taking place in Gaza, [01:08:00] they're offended by that.

And I think all of us are here not because, uh, we want to be, uh, we're here because we feel like it's important. It's our responsibility, uh, and we feel like we're, we're accountable, we're accountable to all the civilians who were killed, who were injured, who are killed today, who will be killed tomorrow, unless the U.

S. stops funding this. We are enabling a genocide, and that's what we're doing. That should be front and center stage, uh, at a convention of, uh, one of the main two parties, uh, of a country's political system. I know, that's, yeah, I don't, I don't have any capacity to give anybody excuses anymore. I, I literally can't, like, there's no excuse.

There's, yeah.

Uncommitted Delegate Details His DNC Experience - Daniel Denvir - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 8-22-24

I've got to say it was a spectacular act of anti Palestinian Racism to allow the family of israeli hostages an israeli hostage who obviously are going through hell But there are 40 [01:09:00] 000 plus palestinians dead in gaza since israel's begun this genocide and to refuse Any sort of palestinian presence on the stage, even though the uncommitted leadership is absolutely Open to negotiating on who that speaker is all the speeches here are very heavily vetted The same would be true for any palestinian who went up there And spoke but the fact that any palestinian saying anything at all the mere presence of a palestinian human being on the stage at the dnc Is on that that's impossible.

That's a spectacular spectacular spectacular evidence of anti Palestinian racism. Trump has been using the very identity of Palestinian, the national identity of Palestinian, as an epithet. It's clear at this point that many in Democratic Party leadership believe that being, being Palestinian is. is an epithet, is an ugly thing, is synonymous with terrorism, it's spectacular anti Palestinian racism.

And as we know with any form of racism, and Abbas said this last night, I believe when [01:10:00] Summer Lee was visiting the sit in, as Abbas, one of our leaders in Uncommitted said, um, racism is a, is a, uh, is a politics that legitimates Violence against the people who are subject to that racism and we're seeing that violence unfold right now with U.

s bombs being used to commit this genocide in gaza it is um notable to me that the president of the united states in my view is one of the Most rabid, uh, anti Palestinian and racist that I can remember in the Democratic Party, um, and seemingly is, is continuing to triple, quadruple down on this notion about a ceasefire being around the corner, um, and the, the necessity to negotiate a ceasefire.

The thing is, is that if it's so necessary, then you need to do the steps to make that necessary action happen. Um, and as we have seen. It's [01:11:00] not happening with the current strategy that Biden is employing, uh, arms, the arms embargo, which is a key demand, uh, or ask from the uncommitted movement doesn't seem to be breaking through with Biden.

Um, how have, uh, you and the fellow uncommitted delegates, uh, balanced trying to uh, Deal with the biden administration or biden himself and his team currently I think mostly across uh these negotiations Versus harris and putting that in the context of electoral politics as you're at the convention, right?

I mean, it's definitely like a series of balancing acts. We're inside the convention representing democratic primary Uncommitted voters, hundreds of thousands, over 700, 000, and those are only in the states that had an uncommitted option. Uh, far more than 700, 000, uh, Democratic voters in this country want an arms embargo on Israel and want the genocide to stop.

But obviously this is a, this is a, a tyrant act because we're representing this [01:12:00] within a Democratic party whose current President is sending the bombs to Israel that are being used to commit the genocide. I think everyone. Um, you know All sorts of democrats including those who very much including those who want an end to the genocide Which is a majority of democrats majority democrats want an arms embargo polls are clear on this um I think thinks that there's a better shot at getting a better solution under Harris. Biden has a deep sort of romantic, gentile, Zionist like attachment to Israel, that there's no limit to what Israel can do, clearly no limit that would cause him to actually put an end to this.

I don't think Harris and Walz have that kind of ideological commitment to Israel, but obviously this isn't just about the ideology of one president, this is a deep, structural, systematic Um piece of of how u. s imperialism And that and also american domestic politics function this attachment to israel And so changing out biden, we know is not gonna is not [01:13:00] gonna.

Uh, um, you know lead to you know Harris or walls taking office and and supporting our vision of of palestinian Liberation and, and, and freedom and equality and, you know, in the entirety of Palestine, you know, but there is, I think there is some grounds for hope of some kind of change from this and that's why we're inside making this fight and making this appeal that listen, we, none of us want Trump to win.

You know trump is a would would be monstrous on this issue and so many other issues But you know, I think some people in the democratic party leadership accuse uncommitted leaders of dividing the party It is we are the messengers of democratic voters who have been profoundly alienated from the party by President biden's support for the israeli genocide.

So for us the key it's not only a moral urgency To stop the bombs You It's key to ensuring that Harris can win against Trump. And it seems pretty obvious to me that that's necessary. That was the whole idea of Listen to Michigan, [01:14:00] which began the whole Uncommitted movement. You know, that like these, you know, in a state like Michigan, which was won by what?

I think it was like 10, 000? Votes last time that they're right. It's a low number. I don't have it off the top of my head, but yeah, there are a hundred thousand people who there, you know, and there's who voted uncommitted and there are tons and tons and tons of Arabs, Muslims, progressive black people, Latino people in Michigan.

And all across this country, who need to see a change to feel good about voting for Harris in November. This is a fact we're not create as on committed delegates. We're not creating that fact. We're not out there telling people, How to vote. We are messengers from those voters. Right. And, and I, I couldn't agree with the way that you've characterized Biden, um, more.

I mean, we, I quote this all the time, but we had Peter Beinart on this program. Um, and our listeners will probably have heard this for the 20th time, but it just stuck with me to such a degree. Um, where [01:15:00] People who believe and buy into the myth of America as a promised land on a hostile frontier also buy into the myth of Israel as a promised land on a hostile frontier, and it's the romanticism of colonialism that Biden Biden.

Has bought into, and from my view, his brain has ossified to the point where he's not able to change his racism and his view of this issue. Um, I read an interview, actually very good profile, uh, thankfully, um, of, uh, Abbas, uh, uh, Alawiyah, um, the, uh, one of the uncommitted, uh, movement leaders in the Washington Post.

That's very good. Uh, I'm glad that they gave, uh, him a voice in a way that wasn't, uh, you know, condescending in any manner, and it was good because he clarifies for that readership that he's going to vote for Harris in the fall, right? And it's the kind of thing where A lot of, some Democrats would just excommunicate you and not listen to you at all, if [01:16:00] you didn't bring that point up first.

I'm sure you've dealt with that, uh, a lot, but, uh, also seems to say that he feels like there has been a little bit more oxygen and more receptiveness, slightly, even if it's just lip service, like, is there hope there? Do you, do you feel, or is there an understanding among the rest of the uncommitted delegates that There's at least a crack in the door where it was a bit where it wasn't back the way it wasn't that way under Biden.

I, I certainly feel more hopeful now that Biden is not at the top of the ticket, but, you know, hope, hope is just not, not enough. The bombs raining down on Gaza, we need to have an indication and people will say, you know, that there'll be an actual substantive policy shift. And that substantive policy shift has to be to stop sending bombs.

Um, and I think, you know, we get pressure from, uh, you know, various, you know, [01:17:00] with the response we get from, from Democrats here who are, who are more, you know, protective or, uh, of, of Biden, um, I'm sorry, of Harris is, you know, what do you want her to do? She's the VP to the sitting president. And obviously, yes, there are complications there, but there are things she could say, like under my administration, U.

S. military aid will. Yeah. Uh, be governed by domestic and international law. That that would that would say a lot. That would say a lot but they're not saying that. And you'd think that would be easy enough to say that the law will be followed. But it's not easy because the law is clearly not being followed right now.

All these weapons transfers in Israel under current domestic and international law are illegal. Israel's using them to Commit atrocities that's illegal. It's a violation of the Leahy law.

Omar Calls Out DNC’s Refusal To Acknowledge Israel’s Ongoing Genocide In Gaza - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 8-22-24

As we see Alexandria Ocasio Cortez begin to, to shift, honestly, her rhetoric in a way that I, I'm disappointed about.

Um, Months ago, she was on the House floor calling it a genocide. And then she [01:18:00] did her convention speech as there were major protests outside. And she repeated the State Department Biden administration line about a ceasefire and hostages. That is not happening. Um, It's now quite clear that Benjamin Netanyahu will not agree to a ceasefire and it needs to be imposed upon them in the form of sanctioning Israel and doing an arms embargo.

These are the things that are going to be necessary because if the war Genocide stops. Netanyahu is both going to be under criminal prosecution, will be out of power, and the messianic freaks that are a part of his majority coalition government won't stop until they kill every Palestinian that they can, and also may, maybe, attempt to spark a regional war to drag the United States into it.

Um, we're, like, the, the amount of people that are dead in Gaza, We have no clue. Um, [01:19:00] a week or two ago, there was a letter written by American doctors working in Gaza that put that number over 90, 000. There are other estimates that put it in the hundreds of thousands. They've killed all the journalists and the record keepers.

So we're not, that's another part of why They aren't interested in ceasing fire because war crimes investigations will happen and will know the true death toll. If you're alive, but everyone you loved has been killed, um, or you are so emaciated that you'll never retain like your full health again. Like that doesn't count towards the, uh, conservative death tolls that we are talking about right now, which are on their own, uh, horrific or your limbs are gone.

I mean, the trauma that, that, that the people in Gaza. We'll live with, who survive for the rest of their lives. We saw so many Zionists talk about decapitated babies, I just saw the, another, and I retweeted it, another image of a kid's head splayed open because of a bombing. [01:20:00] A little boy, it seemed like, being held up by somebody.

I've seen a flesh of children that is so torn apart that it almost, it looks like, um, putty. Um, so with that said, uh, these protests are righteous, they're necessary, and I'm encouraged to see Ilhan Omar, who I gotta say is probably my favorite member of Congress because she both stands on her, on, on her principles and plays the inside game as like the progressive caucus whip, uh, really well.

She deserves more credit for her political shrewdness as well as her principles. So, And her ability to win in Minnesota, which I, yeah, like the people always want to suggest like, that's like a majority Somalian migrant immigrant. Uh, district. It is not. I would recommend looking into the demographics.

That is a single digit minority in Minnesota, if I'm not mistaken. That's just white supremacist, minnesomalia sort of talking point. [01:21:00] And and and so that's I'm I love that efficacy and I made this point the other week, but Corey Bush and Jebal Bowman lost, and I hate that they lost. Um, but In part because I think the members that staved off AIPAC from either, you know, not pouring a ton of resources in or staying away entirely, it was Summer Lee, it was Ilhan Omar, it was Rashida Tlaib, they were all state representatives before They got into Congress.

So they had this kind of like infrastructural support more of a machine then, you know, inquiry Bush just didn't have that Jamal Bowman had the Democratic Party that was actively hostile to him in New York State. So these are things that we just should flag. Uh, and now that Ilhan Omar has survived her primary, she's still keeping up the good fight.

This is what she had to say at, um, the uncommitted rally outside of the Democratic National Convention. Uh, just, you know, about an hour ago. Palestinians. [01:22:00] It has been unconscionable for me in the last 10 months to witness my colleagues in this administration refusing to recognize the genocidal war that is taking place in Gaza.

To not see the mothers with lost helpless children, the babies whose dead bodies are being dumped out. I do not understand that working tirelessly for a ceasefire is really not a thing, and they should be ashamed of themselves for saying such Palestinians. No. Yes. And by the way, that is a split from Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and almost seems like, um, I don't know.

Direct reference. A direct reference. Which, I mean, I don't know, it's unclear to me, but just to say what she says there, um, uh, calling for a ceasefire is not really a thing and shame on the people who are [01:23:00] doing so. Now, I'd be curious what she said directly after that, but, I am, If it's not a shot directly at AOC it should be because AOC did do that That's what she did on the very first night of the election as people who helped the DNC Helped to get her elected were protesting that trying to get the more buy in for the uncommitted movement to get some movement on the Embargo if you know, I guess aid is maybe the where they're The Split the baby thing, but um Yeah, I mean good for Ilhan and shame on AOC is right And I think you know look AOC seems to have larger ambitions whether it's for Schumer Senate seat in In four or six years, I forget exactly when or whether it's to primary Kathy Hockel for governor.

And I hope she beats both of those people if she runs. She'd be better than both. But if the price is you have to lie about a genocide, [01:24:00] um, and about a party's complicity in doing so that we have to name that price. We have to be very clear about it. This, we need marketplace , transparency when it comes to the cost of doing business in the democratic party here.

SECTION B - TORTURE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Torture.

Palestinian Healthcare Workers Chained, Starved, Sexually Abused- New HRW Report on Israeli Prisons - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-27-24

MILENA ANSARI: The report on the torture and detention of Palestinian healthcare workers includes eight testimonies of Palestinian paramedics, nurses, doctors and surgeons who currently have been working in Gaza and living in Gaza for the past 10 months during the current hostilities. Many of the doctors and the nurses — six of them — were detained and arrested when they were actually in the hospital doing their duties and whatever they can to make sure Palestinians who are injured and Palestinians who need the medical care for their own survival are granted this humanitarian medical need. So, six of the doctors were detained during a siege on the hospitals, [01:25:00] as well as during coordinated evacuation missions from the hospitals that are in the northern area of Gaza to hospitals in the southern areas. So, what I’m trying to say is, clearly, these healthcare workers were detained while they were doing their job, tasked and in a situation where Palestinians in Gaza are urgently needing medical care and medical assistance.

The testimonies, as you mentioned, are consistent with many other testimonies gathered by OHCHR, for example, Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, where it gives us a window into how Israeli authorities are treating Palestinians in detention. We were able to speak to eight healthcare workers in order to really connect and better understand the health infrastructure in Gaza. So, the detention and torture of healthcare workers at this current [01:26:00] moment in Gaza is only exaggerating and worsening the conditions of the catastrophic health infrastructure in Gaza.

So, the testimonies are of torture, beatings, punches, kicks with steel-toed boots by Israeli soldiers, using military dogs to attack and intimidate detainees, but as well as using stress positions for prolonged period of times while being blindfolded and cuffed by the hands and feet. Many of the healthcare workers we spoke to, as healthcare workers being experts in medical knowledge, testified to us and reported seeing and witnessing and being themselves subjected to medical neglect, where they have seen detainees with visible trauma and blunt trauma on their bodies, visible bites of dogs on their bodies, as well. [01:27:00] They told us, as well, from their wounds during their detention and arrest, they were not given any proper medical treatment. And when I talk about medical treatment inside detention, this is the bare minimum that’s guaranteed under international humanitarian law, where the Geneva Conventions require the detaining authority to provide proper medical healthcare, proper monitoring of the conditions. But then we have testimonies and we have reports that talk about amputation of Palestinian limbs, including hands and feet, from prolonged cuffings, and amputations without anesthesia, as well.

So, sadly, this is, honestly, just a small example of what Human Rights Watch was able to document. But we’re talking about hundreds of other cases of testimonies from either U.N. or Israeli human rights organizations that talk about some kind of a systematic [01:28:00] pattern of ill-treatment and abuse in detention.

And really important to highlight that when we talk about these eight healthcare workers, for example, for specific, they were not charged with any offenses. They were not brought before trial. So this is why we concluded that the detention was unlawful. They were either detained from seven weeks up to five months, none of them being informed why they are being detained or for how long they are being detained. They’re just experiencing ill-treatment and torture at the hands of the Israeli authorities, which is, again, only a window into the general detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. And currently, we’re talking about 9,000 Palestinians who are in Israeli custody. Three thousand of them are under administrative detention, which is detaining a person without trial, without charge, for an indefinite [01:29:00] time. And this includes hundreds of children, dozens of women, as well, elderly, journalists and human rights defenders.

So we’re really ringing the alarm about the situation inside the Israeli custody and detention facilities. And again, when we talk about military bases or detention facilities where Palestinians are detained, these cases are of Palestinians who were taken outside of Gaza. So they were forcibly deported from Gaza into detention facilities and detention military bases inside Israel. And this is considered a war crime under international humanitarian law, of forcible deportation. And for those Palestinians who were detained inside the occupied West Bank or inside the Occupied Palestinian Territory, have been forcibly transferred outside of their occupied territory, which is also a war crime under international [01:30:00] humanitarian law.

So, the alarms are ringing. And this is why Human Rights Watch is calling for the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor to ensure including the treatment of Palestinian detainees and prisoners in their open investigation into the situation in Palestine. We know that the prosecutor at the ICC requested arrest warrants for two Israeli senior officials, as well as Hamas officials. So, for the Israeli officials, they are being — the arrest warrants are for war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, we did not notice that the ill-treatment, the detention and the torture of Palestinians inside Israeli detention was included during the calls or applications for arrest warrant. And we really sincerely put pressure on states and governments to also make sure that there is genuine [01:31:00] accountability for the treatment of Palestinians inside Israeli detention.

As you may know, or to really highlight this information, that the International Committee for the Red Cross, that’s mandated to monitor detention conditions in order to make sure they comply with international standards, has been banned, since the start of the hostilities, from monitoring Israeli prisons and detention centers, which rings the alarm and the bells even higher with regards to what exactly is happening inside detention and inside Israeli custody, because we are hearing about reports of Palestinian deaths in custody. According to Haaretz, there are 48 cases of deaths in custody since the beginning of the hostilities, of Palestinians who were declared dead or have been killed inside detention. And there is no clarity to the reasons or the circumstances that [01:32:00] led to their deaths. Physicians for Human Rights Israel was able to participate in the autopsy of five cases of Palestinian detainees who were pronounced dead inside Israeli detention. And some of the cases included clear medical neglect, and others included that the deaths was a cause of torture and ill-treatment. And I would just highlight that two cases of these deaths in custody were of Palestinian healthcare workers, like Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, who was declared by the Israeli Prison Services back in April killed, and as well as Dr. Eyad al-Rantisi, who was also killed during detention.

So, again, the bells are ringing. And there needs to be better clarity and understanding to what’s happening inside detention, but also to be confident in asking the question of “Why are these Palestinians inside detention, when they’re [01:33:00] being detained for prolonged periods of time without being brought before a judge or even without any charges presented against them?” So, there’s a lot of questions that should be asked.

Israel Accused of Running “Torture Camps” as Video Emerges of Soldiers Raping Palestinian Prisoner - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-8-24

ASHRAF AL-MUHTASEB: In another interview conducted by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, 50-year-old Firas Hassan, an official in the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, describes not only being beaten by prison guards while in detention, but hearing that their brutal attack is being live-streamed for Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security of Israel, to watch.

FIRAS HASSAN: [translated] On November 9th, 2023, two prison forces, the District Unit and the Initial Response Force, came into cell 14 we were in, on wing 28. We were 10 Palestinians [01:34:00] in the cell. The forces came in masked and beat us for 50 minutes. They laughed while they hit us and live-streamed it all. I understand Hebrew, and I heard one say, “We’re live-streaming for Ben-Gvir, directly to Ben-Gvir.” They beat us in various ways, with their hands and feet, and then brought in police dogs, after they tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us.

AMY GOODMAN: B’Tselem also spoke to Sari Huriyyah. He’s a 53-year-old real estate lawyer and an Israeli citizen. He was arrested and detained over a Facebook post November 4th last year. [01:35:00] In this clip, Sari describes 'Abd a-Rahman Mar'i, a 23-year-old man in the isolation cell next to him, screaming in pain and later being brought out in a body bag.

SARI HURIYYAH: [translated] He screamed in pain constantly, begging for the doctor. The guard would come now and then and swear at him and tell him to shut up. In the morning, the guards came to count us. One said, “Get up, you animal. Get up, you dog.” They checked him, and the whole place went silent. Finally, the doctor said, “There’s nothing to be done.” One of the guards said to them, “My condolences.” And they all started laughing. They put him in a black body bag and carried him out like trash.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by Sarit Michaeli, international advocacy lead for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. The group’s new report [01:36:00] is titled “Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps.”

Sarit, thanks so much for being with us. Just as we listen to these horrifying accounts, please lay out your findings.

SARIT MICHAELI: I think on a very fundamental level, Amy, our findings look at the systemic, ongoing and state-sanctioned, government-sanctioned use of torture and abuse in the Israeli prison system vis-à-vis Palestinians, Palestinians who Israel considers to be — views as security prisoners.

Now, this is something that we have discussed in the past. I mean, torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees in detention and interrogations have occurred. They have been documented. But the level, the degree, the scope, the scale of this phenomenon since October 7th [01:37:00] are simply unrelated to anything we’ve seen in the past.

And when we look at the way these people are treated — you showed some of the testimonies. Some of the — many more testimonies are actually available on our website, and we are sharing them online. You see that, clearly, this isn’t the actions of any sort of rogue element of the Israeli prison system. It’s a government-sanctioned and also government-supported, government-mandated policy. And that’s the central conclusion that we have from all of the information that we’ve collected in recent months.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about Firas, who was describing not only being beaten by the Israeli soldiers, but also the fact [01:38:00] that this beating was being live-streamed for the national security minister of Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to watch?

SARIT MICHAELI: So, I just want to clarify: We know that the police say — or, sorry, the prison guards were discussing this. Certainly, we have not — you know, we clarified in our communications that we don’t know whether this was indeed, like, literally live-streamed for Itamar Ben-Gvir or whether it was more about the spirit of Itamar Ben-Gvir, because a lot of the things we see on the ground today in the Israeli prison system are directly related to the influence, to the spirit of Minister Ben-Gvir.

I think it’s certainly not the case that Minister Ben-Gvir is the only person responsible. Absolutely, the prime minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who gave him all of [01:39:00] his authority, is absolutely responsible and culpable for this reality. But the Israeli government and Ben-Gvir have shown again and again, since October 7th but also before October 7th, that they are hell-bent, that their intention is to cause this deterioration to increase the pressure on Palestinian prisoners.

And this was — this has been done, and we saw these kinds of developments even prior to October 7th. From the beginning of the tenure of Minister Ben-Gvir as minister of national security, he has been imposing his racist, his Kahanist agenda, both on the Israeli police, with great success, unfortunately, and also on the Israeli Prison Service. October 7th, the horror, the crimes committed against Israelis on October 7th, served as a golden [01:40:00] opportunity for Ben-Gvir to continue to cynically manipulate the Israeli trauma, the Israeli fear and anger, in order to push forward this agenda that he has been promoting even beforehand.

So, I think one of the clear things that we’ve seen on the ground and in the system since October 7th was that much of this Israeli policy, at least the parts about starving prisoners, about cramping them all together in large numbers in cells, canceling any possibility for them to have any sort of sustenance, to buy additional food, for example, all of these policies have been declared. They’ve been stated by the Israeli government. They haven’t hid this. Ben-Gvir himself has been on the media promoting these policies and showing — you know, having these, [01:41:00] like, show visits to visit prisoners that he claims are Nukhba — right? — are Palestinian, are Hamas fighters from Gaza.

But what we have seen again and again, based on the testimonies that we’ve taken, is that the Israeli policy wasn’t just applied Palestinian Hamas suspects. We would argue, by the way, that this is absolutely, categorically prohibited regardless of the crimes people have been — have committed. Torture and this type of treatment is absolutely prohibited. But Israel is claiming, and in some cases showing — right? — performing, in a way. And this is — I think the incident that was described in this testimony seems very much an example of this, not just the kind of actual violence and ill-treatment and humiliation, but making it very, very public. And this is something that [01:42:00] is simply chilling and is part of the really deep moral abyss that this report exposes, I think, within our society today.

Francesca Albanese on Gaza and the Anatomy of a Genocide - The InnerView - TRT World - Air Date 8-26-24

What I've seen after the submission of my report, um, confirms my. My reading, my understanding, and I'm glad, very glad to see that exposing what I've called in the report the humanitarian camouflage, meaning Israel's use of international humanitarian law jargon and categories, like evacuation, safe zones, evacuation orders, or military objectives, uh, collateral damage.

This is, this is justified in Israel's view, um, the violence that Israel has unleashed against the Palestinians. So by doing so, Israel has capsized. The value, the protective function of international law. I'm glad to see that this is shaping a little bit the [01:43:00] mindset of a number of observers who do see this pattern, which was already present prior to this, uh, this assault.

The third element is how my report was received. I, look, there is no much to celebrate with the genocide ongoing, but I do think that the report has made a huge impact in, um, at the, at the level of public conscience. And it has contributed to, uh, to the awakening and the conscientization around what Israel is doing.

Nothing, nothing of what I've said has been proven, has been proven wrong. Uh, rather the contrary it has been further corroborated by the massacres and the arbitrary killings and destruction of Of everything that is necessary to to live in gaza and unfortunately It's expanding beyond gaza. [01:44:00] Yeah, when you say it's expanding beyond gaza.

It's an interesting Opportunity for me to ask you technically when we look at the fact that it's not just gaza. We also have You Uh, a lot of conflict, a lot of violence happening in Northern Israel, Southern Lebanon. So the Israelis see themselves as fighting Hamas and Hezbollah on two fronts. So, you know, everything is interrelated here.

When it comes to that aspect of the conflict, are there limits to, to what you can analyze, what you can report on? Do you have to stay away from what's happening in, in Northern Israel, for example? Well, yes, there are limits, because my mandate only, uh, covers the occupied Palestinian territory, meaning the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

Uh, I do refer to Um, to facts or legal implications that are relevant to the occupied Palestinian territory. But for example, in this specific case you are mentioning, I [01:45:00] cannot start an investigation on what's happening in, in Lebanon or in Syria or in Iraq or in Iran, which Israel has been bombing. Uh, so yes, the conflict is expanding, but what I, what I was referring to Imran is something else.

The threat against the Palestinians. The violence against the Palestinians that puts an obligation to prevent genocide on international community might be expanding to the West Bank, because the few that I see and other observers, like just today, B'Tselem published a report commenting on the systematic, uh, deprivation of liberty and abuses against the Palestinians in Israeli custody.

This gives a sense of how. How grave, how serious and perilous for the Palestinians the situation is in, uh, including in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, [01:46:00] which poses, as I said, an obligation on the international community, on member states, especially those who have influence on Israel, to intervene And, uh, uh, and, and stop the violence.

Right. It's interesting that you mention that, because a lot of, uh, experts have been pointing out the fact that perhaps the West Bank and East Jerusalem are, in a way, being ignored while the catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza, and it's worth people focusing their attention on the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

As well you speak of international intervention and in the recommendation Portion of your report you talk of an arms embargo you talk of sanctions Who's going to impose that when we have the security council as it is when we have the united states as it is How does this actually happen? How would you like to see it play out downstream?

Look at what ordinary citizens, especially in the West, are doing, uh, [01:47:00] through the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement. They are taking the situation into their hands and they are, um, activating in within the realm, of course, of their possibilities. Adherence with the International Court of Justice, uh, recommendations and, and provisions.

So each, each member state has the opportunity to impose sanctions on, on Israel. Of course, ideally it would be better if it were done by the security council, but With impasse that is registered owing to the persisting, persisting U. S. veto, it's more likely that individual member states would, uh, put an, uh, impose an arms embargo on, on Israel, cartel the economic ties, both the imports and exports and other forms of partnerships, including with the academia.

Which [01:48:00] has been supporting the, the legal endeavor that Israel has established to the detriment of the Palestinian people for decades, if not now, when? I want us to have a little watch and listen to something from three to four months ago, you had a q and a session at the UN Human Rights Council. There was a question asked to you by, I think a German journalist.

I want, I wanna play that and I wanna talk about it afterwards. Let's have a little watch and listen. I would like to ask you, do you have a written document by the government, which a cl with a clear intent to commit genocide?

Do you think that in Rwanda. And in Bosnia Herzegovina, any government officials wrote a document saying I want to commit genocide? [01:49:00] Have you seen anything like that? I'll answer this for you. No. It doesn't work like that. There is, those statements are just the tip of the iceberg because I have a word limit in, uh, in my reports.

Which is quite strict. Otherwise, we could write an encyclopedia with what has been said and done. And I said it, and I mean it. If the International Criminal Court is serious about investigating what Israel has done in Gaza, as of the 7th of October, only as of the 7th of October, it will be busy for decades.

I had to watch that a few times, and it felt like it was an onion clip. You know, it felt like satire for a for a second there at the beginning. Tell me what was going through your mind When you were asked that question And without wanting to sort of pinpoint too much on on this journalist and so on that's not the point But tell me about some of the frustrations [01:50:00] involved When you have to field questions such as that Um Look, I remember what I felt.

I that day I felt completely sick Which added to the dramatic reaction with the posing I, I had, I was really sick in my stomach from the very morning. And this is also because that it was, uh, it took a huge, uh, toll on me to investigate, uh, for that report and write that report. It was really painful. And probably after that, I felt as a sort of, uh, Relaxation.

So the day after when I had the press conference, I was not in the best of shape. At the same time, I had to pause and think how to answer that question, because it was very embarrassing. It was, again, I'm, I'm sorry for the journalist who has been vilified so much, but probably he embodied [01:51:00] a, a genuine spirit that many in Germany have.

They think that every, in order to have genocide, you need to have the written down, industrialized the policy of extermination that you had with the Holocaust of the Jewish people and the Roma and Sinti and others. Uh, and it doesn't work like that. This is not written in the genocide. So this is what I, this is what I thought and this is what I tried to say.

SECTION C - ARMS EMBARGO

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C: Arms embargo.

The US is allowing Israel to get away with genocide- Marwan Bishara - Al Jazeera English - Air Date 8-14-24

Going through the statements that we've heard before from the U. S. about the concern that they have for the number of casualties, particularly in Gaza, and she did say that Israel has a right to respond to threats, but how it does it matters.

Nevertheless, It seems as though she was, again, reiterating the U. S. line that any fault, any delay when it comes to negotiations lies with Hamas rather than with the Israeli government. And it seems to [01:52:00] be an encouragement to try to get Hamas to the negotiations, but of course, that may prove difficult.

Well, I tell you, I actually envy you for the capacity to repeat all of that. Uh, when we all know it's Groundhog Day. Every time the U. N. Security Council convenes and the Americans repeat more of the same. The same thing for the English. The same thing for the Algerians. They all seem to be, you know, um, basically political commentators rather than, uh, diplomats representing states.

With the exception, perhaps, of the Americans. And the American ambassador basically read the same soundbites, the same lines she did in previous speeches, with one difference. I'm not sure you've noticed, uh, perhaps our viewers around the world did. The United States is not just concerned now. The United States is deeply concerned.

That's the difference. Deeply concerned. I'm sure the people in Gaza, the children of [01:53:00] Gaza, are going to sleep better tonight because the United States is deeply concerned. While, of course, repeating more of the same mantras, it's very Orwellian for the United States to continue to talk about the United States.

defense and stability and peace and ceasefire and so on and so forth, while it's edging on financing, arming Israel. And here I'm repeating myself, shielding Israel at the United Nations, supplying it with all the arms it needs to carry its genocide and to carry violations of international law against Lebanon and Iran.

and to defend it when those countries would want to retaliate. This is basically, as I said, groundhog day every day, the past 24 times, as, uh, as Gabrielle told us earlier, since The Algerian representative, Amar Benjama, when he was speaking, and as I mentioned, it was Algeria who called this emergency meeting, was talking at [01:54:00] one point about the attacks that have been going on in the West Bank, but also particularly in Gaza.

He made the point that the attacks would not be possible without the generous support that Israel gets. Now, I'm paraphrasing what he was saying, but that was essentially what he was meaning. And As I was discussing with Gabriel Elizondo, a correspondent, almost at this exact moment, the notification started to come out on the wires that the U.

S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has just approved 20 billion worth of U. S. military equipment to be delivered to Israel. And this is really where we see, as you were just talking about, the heart, the split, if you like, in the situation that we find ourselves, because on the one hand, the U. S. is Saying that it's concerned about the number of casualties that Israel has to the right to respond, but how it does it matters.

But at the same time, of course, it does not stop the flow of military aid to Israel. It's truly unprecedented audacity in international relations when it comes [01:55:00] to the United States justifying, um, Israel's crimes and supporting Israel's crimes. and arming and financing Israel as it carries its crimes, all the while talking about peace, stability, ceasefire, and the concern over it, the deep concern for casualties in Gaza.

It's an unprecedented, uh, audacity. It's, it's Orwellian in every possible way. But what, what is happening in the meanwhile? I mean, I'm not here. None of us is trying to be clever about this. At the end of the day, You can't really clever out, uh, death, right, and destruction and genocide, I should say. Because what is happening is through, through these 24 type meetings at the UN Secret Council and through the very support that you just spoke about from Antony Blinken on the lives, America sends its diplomats to the region.

Now, I [01:56:00] think three or four of them are going to show up. MacGurk, Antony, Blinken and, uh, and the CIA director, Bill Burns, and perhaps the UN, the US National Security Advisor, they will all be in the Middle East. All the while, it's sending armadas, strike forces, the most powerful armadas in the world, the biggest aircraft carriers the United States has, the Lincoln, right?

So it sends the diplomats, but it also sends the armadas. It talks about diplomacy. But it's really more or less like gunboat diplomacy, right? It's just sends in the armadas and threatens everyone around as if the Middle East is its background, back, backyard. The Middle East is two oceans away from the United States, but it behaves like it's the Gulf of Mexico.

It is not the Gulf of Mexico. The Middle East is the Middle East. American or North America is two oceans away. But anyway, be that as it may, and this is my real, you know, my essential point here. The United States is allowing Israel to get away from [01:57:00] with genocide by arming it, financing it, and shielding it at the United Nations.

The United States is enabling Israel's genocide and allowing Israel to get away with genocide. Not only that, now it's allowing both the Israeli government and its prime minister, to get away with their war crimes by shielding it by shielding them from the ICC and the ICJ and the riots. And even giving them all kinds of guarantees so that if they do reach a ceasefire, their government will not implode because secretly the United States is guaranteeing that Israel can go back to the war after phase one of phase three of three phases of the ceasefire, according to Israeli media reports.

So really, all in all, it is tragic. That we sit here and we try to analyze just to find any light in the end of the tunnel. And we find the word [01:58:00] deeply concerned instead of just concerned. While the United States, once again, is enabling genocide in Palestine. Marmon, we're waiting to hear from the Russian representative to the UN Security Council.

So I just want to keep asking you some questions until we get to that point. Forgive me if I have to break away if you're giving me an answer. But I want to widen this out a little bit and just talk about the negotiations themselves. Two things. Absolutely evident. Um, Hamas now has a leader, uh, Yael Sumwar, who is in Gaza.

Ismail Khaneo, when he was alive, uh, was the political head of Hamas, and he traveled the world as part of these talks in order to be part of the negotiations. Sumwar is in Gaza. He is very unlikely to leave Gaza. That's going to slow things down. any process down. Now, uh, Linda Thomas Greenfield saying, no, Hamas has to be at the table in these talks.

They have to be represented. Qatar says there will be some sort of representation. What kind of impact do you think this is going to have on the effectiveness of whatever talks we're going to see on Thursday? [01:59:00] Uh, I'm actually pretty sure, analytically and from the various sources and reports that I've seen.

That nothing changes with Sanwar being in Gaza and Ismail Haniyeh being assassinated. In terms of the logistics and in terms of who makes a decision and how collective is a decision and how it's consensual and institutional within Hamas and why Hamas is in fact a very disciplined group regardless of who's on the head and regardless the geography of where is the person who hits it.

And I think they already said that, uh, that that issue is not going to be a problem and they've already made some proposal towards. How they see this thing needs to move forward in order to end as quickly as possible. Now having said that, let me remind our viewers around the world and let me tell you about the New York Times Report today.

It's a exclusive report in the New York Times, and I bet you anything you want that the American Ambassador already, just like the English [02:00:00] ambassador and the other ambassadors, they read it because it's a very important report in the New York Times that basically says that they got the documents. From the various ceasefire, uh, negotiations, from the various, uh, roundtables, you know, what went on and so on and so forth, what were the documents.

And the New York Times concluded that it was Netanyahu, Netanyahu, Netanyahu that obstructed the progress towards the ceasefire. That each and every time he either underlined, expanded, His conditions or added new conditions for why, at least since May, when the UN Security Council adopted that it's region 2735 for the worst, for the ceasefire, Israel has been obstructing its own or its American version of its own ceasefire proposal because Netanyahu does not want a ceasefire.

He didn't want the ceasefire. I'm not sure if he's going to be pushed in the top [02:01:00] corner now with Biden basically saying, If you're going to continue to obstruct as the New York Times reports, we're going to have to call you out on it this time because Biden basically is not running for re election and there's a good chance, according to at least a number of his reports, that Biden might Call him out on it this time around.

Israeli Holocaust Scholar- Why Gaza Is Genocide - w-. Prof. Omer Bartov - Owen Jones - Air Date 8-21-24

Following a visit to Israel, and it should be noted, I should make it clear, of course, you're an Israeli American, um, you've been convinced that it's no longer possible to deny.

Israels engage in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal ideations. And I think the key central point here is where you write, it is also clearly indicated the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable and debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out, or seek all possible options to flee the territory.

That brought to mind, to me, Giora Ireland, an Israeli [02:02:00] general who wrote a piece for Fathom, which is a journal, I should say, is affiliated to BICOM, the main pro Israel lobbying organization in Britain, which was cited in South Africa's case, alleging genocide, in which he set that out as a strategy, starve, stay and starve, or, um, and die or leave.

Um, and he's an advisor to Yov Galan. The defense minister. Is that I mean, is your do you think basically that now that's been the strategy from day one that the starting point is the entire population. We don't want them there. And how we get from them being there to not being there. That's where you know, the questions emerge.

What do you think? Well, you know, I mean, this is really the question, and I'm not sure we'll ever know for certain, uh, what the plans were and if there were any clear plans at the beginning, my own sense is that judging [02:03:00] by the general incompetence of army planning for this operation and the various voices that were raised, I think that there were pressures in one way or another.

I think there were people Meaning, I don't think that there was a clear plan from the beginning that everybody agreed on, but rather that there were various, uh, pressures, including, of course, the ideas by Giora Eiland. Um, the, the general idea, I think, was a combination of the goals that they had, uh, declared at the beginning, that they wanted to destroy Hamas and to free the hostages.

And that they wanted revenge and they wanted to flatten as much as Gaza as they could. This is, I think, the general outline that they had, but the operations, as they started rolling them out, and I think we talked about it last time, there was a certain [02:04:00] tactics, uh, that the IDF had used already in 2014.

That was scaled up to the whole of Gaza rather than to these more limited operation of 2014. And that means that in the areas in which you operate, you first of all destroy them. You destroy them by air bombardment, by shelling, by tank fire, by bulldozers, and then you move in. the infantry. So if you scale that up, uh, to saying I'm going to destroy Hamas entirely, then you are assuming already that you're going to destroy much of the area.

Now, as they were failing to do that, and as Hamas continued to fight, uh, I think increasingly the, those who were talking about taking over the whole thing, um, got the upper hand because had the army been more effective. And if, had it been able to, and I'm not sure it [02:05:00] was, but had it been more effective in, uh, accomplishing its goals, maybe there would have been fewer pressures.

But since, um, this was not going well, Uh, very slowly. Uh, I think those pressures built up and you can see that in the kind of policies that are being carried out right now. So a few weeks ago, there was a report that the whole northern third of Gaza. And this was a very detailed report with aerial photography and so forth.

That whole area has been flattened. Now there, there seem to be about 300, 000 people there, so most of the people have been kicked out, and most of the buildings have been destroyed, universities, houses, schools, uh, a new road has been paved, and army camps have been built there. Israeli army camps. Uh, now, whether this was the plan at the beginning, I'm not sure, but [02:06:00] as it is rolling out, this appears to be the case.

So if you try to connect this to the notion of, is it, uh, a, a premeditated genocidal plan or not, um, My own sense is that the whole thing was not premeditated, uh, but that it has become that. And so, in that sense, my evolving thinking has to do also with the evolving policy on the ground, and that by now, uh, conditions are such that if you look back at what has happened, you can see that over time, Um, this is what the IDF has accomplished.

And at some point, and I don't know that we'll ever know at which point, uh, this became, by and large, the strategy. Now, can it work? And I'm, I'm not sure. Uh, but it depends very much, uh, on outside [02:07:00] pressures. Um, as well as to some extent on internal Israeli politics, but internal Israeli politics right now is at a stalemate and Netanyahu has probably more power now than he did several months ago.

What you wrote actually made, it brought to mind what the International Criminal Court's Chief Prosecutor wrote in his application, um, for arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Galant for crimes against humanity and war crimes, um, in which he set out. in detail. Um, well, he, he partly explained what the war crimes and crimes humanity alleged were in service of.

Uh, one of them was to collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza, whom they perceived as a threat to Israel. And I mean, if we go back to what, um, on the 9th of October, 2023, major general Gassan Alyan said, Israeli army coordinated government activities and territories. He [02:08:00] said, that Hamas became ISIS and the citizens of Gaza are celebrating instead of being horrified.

Human animals are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade in Gaza. No electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you'll get hell. Clearly no demarcation there. He means the entire civilian population. That's what he's talking about. Do you think that's what, you know, I mean, could you say whether or not there's a blueprint or not?

I mean, and, and lots of genocide throughout history clearly didn't have blueprints at all at the beginning. That's, I mean, we'll talk about that, but it was that this idea that the population, the civilian population collectively is held actually to be a threat that you can't demarcate, the enemy, military enemy, and the civilian population.

And that's where Israel starts with and then works backwards. Yeah. So, so first of all, um, there were many statements, um, not only by Hassan Ali and, but many others, of course, at the beginning, uh, that we should wipe them out, that there are [02:09:00] no uninvolved people, that everybody is involved somehow. Um, you add to that, the sort of rationale that the IDF is trying to sell that, well, they're using the civilian population as human shields.

Of course, if you operate in Gaza, there is no other way but to operate from within populated areas because it's a very small area, very densely populated. So anywhere you operate, there are civilians there. Uh, and so if you connect the Statements that were being made at the time. and the policies that have gradually rolled out, you see a logic there.

Uh, whether that logic was there at the beginning or not, as I said before, as a plan, um, that's not entirely clear. Uh, [02:10:00] the ICC, the, the prosecutor, was a bit wary of saying that too, and he really focused more on policies of deprivation of food, of hunger, because it was easier to prove that, right? Now, generally speaking, I think you're totally right.

That is, generally speaking, the problem, as it is seen by Israeli policymakers and the military, is that Gaza is an area that is full of, um, densely populated by Palestinians, mostly by refugees, uh, and that it is from that mass of population that, uh, as Israeli policy makers see it, um, uh, violence emanates toward Israel.

Uh, and how do you solve that issue? Now, obviously there are two ways, generally speaking, of doing that. One is political. [02:11:00] That is, you have to find some way of living side by side. The other is military. And if it's military, the military has not been able to resolve it. And this is not something that started this year or last year or in 2014.

This goes back, as I write in this piece, at least to 1956. That is that most of the Palestinians living in Gaza mostly descendants of Palestinians would live very close to Gaza in towns and villages in southern Israel, what is now southern Israel, northern Negev, southern Israel. And so if you don't find a political solution to this, You have to find a military solution to this and that military solution can be either to fence them in, which is what Israel has been trying to do.

And all this, um, [02:12:00] attempt by Netanyahu for years to bribe Hamas in a sense, to have money go to Hamas from Qatar so that Hamas could. run the business in Gaza. Um, and he could say that he cannot negotiate with Hamas because they are so, um, radical. And of course he can't negotiate with the people in the West Bank because it's so ineffective and therefore we can just manage things.

Uh, that, that kind of policy failed on October 7th. Uh, and so if you can't manage it and you don't want to politically resolve it. What is left? What is left is some kind of destruction. You have to flatten it. You have to debilitate the population. And if you can, you have to push it out. So the logic of this has always been there.

Uh, and it's [02:13:00] based on the, uh, on, on Israeli decision, which is not only by, by, uh, people like Netanyahu, he goes way back. He goes to people like Dayan, uh, Moshe Dayan in the 1950s. We cannot, uh, um, reverse things. We took over their land. Uh, and they know it and they will keep fighting us. And and then the question is, do we have a political solution to this or a military one?

And from the 1950s, the answer is a military one.

The UK’s refusal to ban arms exports to Israel - Today in Focus - Air Date 8-20-24

Mark Smith, this British diplomat is saying that the UK's arms sales to Israel may be making the country complicit with war crimes and possible breaches and humanitarian law. What exactly is he referring to here? He's referring to a variety of issues about the way Israel has responded to the Hamas attack on October the 7th.

He's referring to the blockages of humanitarian aid. He's referring to the, what he described as indiscriminate bombing [02:14:00] in Gaza. And he's also referring to the way in which leaders in Israel have openly expressed, in his view, genocidal intent, and that these are all issues that have been addressed by the international courts.

So for the UK to continue to sell arms to a country that has been found by the International Court of Justice, and more arguably by the International Criminal Court, guilty of all crimes, is, in his view, a breach not only of UK law, but of international law. How significant is it that a diplomat specialised in this area from the Foreign Office would take this view and then decide to resign from his position?

Well, I think it's significant because he's the first occasion we've known about dissent within the Foreign Office. It's been very well kept under wraps as to how the civil service have been viewing this over the last 10 months. He says that he's been raising this issue internally, including through the kind of formal mechanisms, as well [02:15:00] as in a letter to the current foreign secretary.

And largely he was receiving replies to the effect that, um, we note your concerns and, um, nothing more. So there is also going to be an issue to be discussed in the future about how the Foreign Office allows officials to make their dissent known and whether it is treated with any seriousness. But his resignation is the first by a UK Foreign Office official that has been parallel resignations been going on in the US State Department, including some quite high profile figures, but there's been nothing of this ilk inside the UK Foreign Office.

I raised it pretty much every level in the organization. That's my duty. And that would be quite normal. I think for public servants, we're very used to upholding the law. And so we would normally raise things internally. that we might have a question over, particularly if we have a [02:16:00] subject matter specialism as I do.

So, suffice it to say that any response was not satisfactory. Patrick, what's the nature of the UK's arms deal with Israel? What exactly do we export and how lucrative are these arms licenses? Well, there were some statistics that were produced by the previous government, and they showed that the UK had issued at least 108 arms export licenses to Israel since the Hamas attack on Israel on the 7th of October.

And the campaign against the arms trade, and these kind of statistics are very widely used, says that since, uh, 2008, the UK has granted arms export licenses that are worth 1 billion. 574 million pounds in total. But I think the amount of sales in the last year is down very considerably. Today marks a grim milestone for the world.

The people of Gaza are now grieving 40, 000 Palestinian lives lost, according to Gaza's health ministry. [02:17:00] This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli defense forces. to comply with the rules of war. Patrick, what do we know about how these weapons exported from the UK to Israel are being used in this conflict?

Well, there is very little information about which arms have been used for what purpose. There was an attempt by the Foreign Office when, under pressure about the arms export licenses, they took a report. issued by Amnesty International, which had, I think, five or six specific episodes and incidents, which Amnesty said were particularly egregious.

And they wrote to the Israeli embassy and asked them to comment on those incidents. And the Israelis said they couldn't. respond, uh, about specific events and then gave a kind of general defense of its position. So there's been very little [02:18:00] tracing back of individual weapons and individual incidents.

It's very, very hard to do that. And also the complex nature of these sorts of supply chains, because it's about parts rather than the weapons themselves. Indeed, that's the case with the parts that the Brasiera Space supply for the F 35 jets that Israel uses. But I don't think, in a way, the whole of the case rests on the level of armed supplies.

There's also principles involved in terms of complying with. domestic legislation and international law and also the UK's international reputation. I think one can get lost slightly in the weeds of exactly what weapon and how many weapons have been sold. What, what does matter is whether we're continuing to do so as a matter of principle.

And I think it's one thing that's interesting out of this is there seems to be an attempt by the current government to see if there's a distinction that can be drawn between Arms export licenses for weapons that are used for offensive [02:19:00] purposes in Gaza and then weapons that are used for defensive purposes, for instance, to guard Israel against attack by Iran.

But whether that distinction is valuable or whether it can be made is one of the big issues that I think has to be discussed. So how does the UK compare with other countries that we know to be arming Israel? Well, we're a relatively minor player. The big player is obviously America, which has been through similar processes to try to judge whether any of its weapons are being used in breach of international humanitarian law.

Germany, Used to supply a large amount of weapons, but there's been again a big drop off since October the 7th. But America is the main exporter. The U. S. State Department also announced an additional 20 billion in arms sales to Israel for fighter jets, missiles, and tank ammunition, along with an additional aircraft carrier group.

How much international pressure [02:20:00] has there been to stop Israel getting these weapons from the U. S., the U. K. and Germany and others? Well, the reality is that there aren't that many countries that are saying that the U. S. should stop doing this. It's more that within each country, European and, uh, and within American politics, there is, you know, these very, very strong movements that are absolutely disgusted by what they've seen on their television screens and find it appalling that after 10 months, there still seems to be no end to this war.

SECTION D - JOURNALISM

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D: Journalism.

Uncovering Settler Terrorism In West Bank | Jasper Nathaniel - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 8-24-24

JASPER NATHANIEL: The reality is in the West Bank, it's like, there's violence and destruction, and then sometimes they then sort of retroactively legitimize it with laws.

Like, a lot of these illegal outposts have been since recognized as settlements, which makes them legal. Under Israeli law. So like the law to a certain extent doesn't matter because they're either breaking the law. And then later it's being legitimized. They're breaking the law or they're not being convicted.

[02:21:00] Like 3 percent of violent settlers are ever actually convicted. Um, or they're, they're not breaking the law. They're, you know, being violent and destructive within the law. And I should also just say that like, What I write about in this article is that the man who shot Zechariah, Yitzhak Nir, um, his father was, uh, a convicted terrorist.

He shot up an Islamic university, killed three people, wounded 29 others with his brother. And they were part of this, um, movement of really extreme religious fanatical settlers who were very clear in what their aim was. In, uh, being in the West Bank, they were there to start a war with the Palestinians that would end in either the death of all the Palestinians or the Palestinians expulsion.

So it's not as if they were there to try to, you know, live there and have a good life and live, you know, potentially in, like, you know, side by side, like, they knew exactly what they were doing. Um, they were building outposts [02:22:00] in places that they knew were going to cause problems. They were, you know, instigating violence and, um, you know, that's exactly what's happened.

Of course, it's like, there's this constant violence now.

SAM SEDER: All right. We just jumped over something though, that I think is like really sort of what your piece really captures. Um, you named the Jewish settler. I mean, we see the video, we see who shot, uh, Zachariah. Um, the, the, the guy shows up when Zachariah comes out of the hospital, he's outside the door, they know it, I mean, this is the part that I think is like, sort of like the, you know, as if it's like, uh, you know, uh, sort of our classic sort of mafia mob, uh, gangland thing, uh, but they're, it's like, uh, they're all on, you know, not literally on meth, but they're acting, uh, like it on some level, but the point is everybody knows who it is.

And so, I mean, take it from there because this is the part that I don't think that people [02:23:00] fully understand. You know, we hear the U. S. government is, um, uh, you know, uh, making what I think is just sort of like platitudinous, um, um, uh, issue out of, uh, settler violence in the West Bank. And supposedly this is, I mean, this isn't even at the level of an apartheid regime where there is no, there doesn't seem to be any accountability whatsoever, even in the context of a system that has 2 separate laws, like theoretically, it's still not legal for a settler to attempt to kill and shoot Uh, just a, you know, a Palestinian civilian for no reason whatsoever.

But so how, like, how is this guy identified and what has been the process. Uh, of, of like, uh, has he been reported? Like, why is he now able to continue to terrorize his [02:24:00] family?

JASPER NATHANIEL: Let me just first clarify that we don't know that Yitzhak Nier himself has been back to Tawani, but other settlers from the outpost have, have been back.

Um, but okay. So, so this was also one of the most. to me, which again, in hindsight, especially after seeing what's happening in Gaza, it's, it's like, of course there's no accountability, but to me, it's like, it's on video. Clearly there's no, um, you know, legitimate claim of self defense, like how, how could this guy still be walking free?

So basically, um, this is what happened. So this was on October 13th. It was, you know, just, just under a week after October 7th, the, um, civilian security squad at this outpost had just been armed. By the military, so they were given assault rifles, American assault rifles, I should say, um, and military uniforms that they could, you know, be like conscripted into this war against, um, the, the, the Palestinians really.

And, um, [02:25:00] what, what they did is, you know, they, they went down, um, uh. They would, the Yitzhak here would later claim that he had a report from Shin Bet, which is the, from the Shin Bet, which is one of the intelligence agencies in Israel, that there was an attack coming from Attuani, which is almost certainly bunk.

Um, there's, there's no armed resistance in this village. I should say, like, these are farmers and shepherds. There's no guns here. There's really no, there's no violence. Um, so they go down, he claims that after they got this report, they heard a commotion, um, and they went down for, you know, in their capacity as the armed security.

Um, he goes down and he shoots Zachariah. And if you watch the video, you see them sort of like hiding behind a boulder, as if they're in war, when again, they've just entered this complete peaceful farming village, like hiding behind a boulder, coming out with their guns, And he shoots Zachariah and then he's called back by a [02:26:00] guy in military fatigues again as if they're in war So like to a certain extent they're cosplaying here They're pretending that they're in a war when they're actually just shooting unarmed people in a in a farming village um, but what happens is immediately after And I should say like just getting zachariah to the hospital was a debacle because of all the roadblocks um, and he almost bled out in the You In the car on the way there, they couldn't even get an ambulance to him.

But what happens is the police, um, according to the court documents, the police go, um, to investigate the next day, they immediately identify Yitzhak Nir as the man who shot him. I don't know if that was from the video or if, you know, somebody just outed him, but like they immediately knew it was him. Um, he told them that, uh, Zachariah intended to throw a stone at him, intended to throw a stone.

How he knew that, you know, anybody's guess. You can watch the video yourself and see if it appears that he intended to throw a stone. [02:27:00] Um, but that's what he says. The police, um, again, according to court documents, they, they take away his weapon. Um, but they don't do anything else. They don't take them into the station.

They don't investigate. So then the, that same day, um, Zachariah, who is, you know, he's in the ICU at this point, um, Really touch and go. His father and brother go to the local police station, uh, which is, you know, Israeli military police and they try to file a complaint and the police say the victim has to come in here and file a complaint himself.

A criminal complaint. And they say, well, you know, the victim, as you can see in this video here, which has a million views or something, um, was shot in the abdomen is, you know, potentially going to die in the hospital. They said, well, he has to come here himself and file a complaint. So they said, well, why don't you go to the hospital and, um, take, take his testimony.

They refused to do it. So again, according to the court documents, there's a five month investigation, um, and [02:28:00] then no arrests are made. The case is closed. So then finally, once Zachariah is well enough to travel, this is just in July. So, you know, nine months later, um, he and his lawyer actually do go, he and his attorney, who's an Israeli Jewish guy, um, go to the police station and file that criminal complaint.

So, uh, allegedly the case has been reopened, but I haven't been able to get any details on if there's another investigation going on. I should say they also did get a restraining order on, um, near. So he is. For 180 days, not allowed to go into a 20, um, and not allowed to carry a weapon. Now, why he should ever be allowed to go there is, is, you know, anybody's.

Yes. But so that's where we, that's where it stands today.

SAM SEDER: How, how, how indicative, um, lastly of like, this is, you know, one individual story and people can say, well, the, you know, there was a bureaucratic snafu. How indicative of, is this, uh, you know, based upon your having spent, um, [02:29:00] uh, fairly considerable amount of time over the past eight months there, I guess.

JASPER NATHANIEL: Yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll just put it this way. Um, when, when I was traveling around with my fixer, uh, uh, You know, we kept meeting these people who had been maimed by, um, bullets by IDF bullets or settler bullets, or they had lost a son or a father or somebody to the IDF, and I would ask them, you know, what was, what, what was your recourse after?

Who did you call? What was the investigation? What was the, the, what were the proceedings like? And Zaed would sort of smile. Uh, my, my fixer and then he would translate and they would look at him like they didn't understand the question because just the concept of there actually being any recourse against this violence from soldiers and settlers is so absurd that people don't even, they didn't really even understand the question that I was asking.

So, so this is incredibly typical. His attorney, his attorney said it himself. Um, this happens all the time. It's happened since [02:30:00] well before October 7th. It got worse in 2022 when, you know, this new Israeli government came together and, and further emboldened this violence. But yeah, the only difference here is that this was caught on video, but otherwise, you know, this happens every single day.

Emmys Defend Nomination Of Gaza Journalist Bisan - Novara Media - Air Date 8-22-24

That documentary was awarded a prestigious Peabody Award for excellent journalism earlier this year. And in July, it was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Hard News Feature Story Short Form.

But not everyone was happy about it being recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This is from a write up in film industry paper, The Wrap. A pro Israel non profit called the Creative Community for Peace, or CCFP, wrote a letter to the Academy calling on it to rescind Basson's nomination over her alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The rap goes on to say this, CCFP, a pro Israel non profit organization, [02:31:00] discovered ALDA's long standing ties to PFLP, which has been a designated terrorist organization in the U. S. since 1997. The journalist regularly spoke at PFLP rallies and hosted events to honor Palestinians injured or killed in violent confrontations with Israeli soldiers.

In 2018, the PFLP explicitly referred to ALDA as a member of the Progressive Youth Union of the organization. And CCFP director Ari Ingle told The Wrap this. The ME's decision to honour someone with clear ties to a US designated terrorist group is inexcusable and should have never happened. It would be legitimising a terrorist organisation.

If the Emmys don't change course and rescind this nomination, they will be glorifying someone who is a member of an organization that has carried out numerous aircraft hijackings, participated in the October 7 massacre in Israel, carried out waves of bombings on markets and restaurants, and murdered innocent women and children.

The Emmys cannot allow their prestigious [02:32:00] award show to be hijacked by terrorists and instead should continue to promote peace and tolerance through the arts. And Ingle went on to say this, The entertainment community, including the National Television Academy, should use its voice to help build bridges for peace and understanding.

However, the Emmy nomination of Besan Aouda, someone with documented terrorism ties, is unfathomably irresponsible. With it, the Academy is condoning violence and helping to normalize PFLP terrorism around the globe. Now, more than 150 people signed that letter, including Will and Grace star Debra Messing and former CEO of Paramount Pictures, Sherry Lansing.

Now, look, we can't verify those supposed links, but what we do know is that the PFLP, a revolutionary socialist group, has at times been opposed to both the Hamas government in Gaza as well as the more moderate Fatah party. Its members have included Palestinian liberation icon Leila Khaled, and yes, the group has committed acts in breach of international law, [02:33:00] including attacks on civilians.

Now, the academy has responded to the letter from the CCFP with its president, Adam Sharpe, saying this. The news and documentaries Emmys have recognised excellence in television journalism for nearly half a century. The honoured programmes and reports have taken viewers to the front lines of every world conflict, probed political and cultural divides, and sought to illuminate even the darkest circumstances.

Some of these works have been controversial, giving a platform to voices that certain viewers may find objectionable or even abhorrent, but all have been in the service of the journalistic mission to capture every facet of the story. Natas is aware of reports cited in your letter and initially surfaced by a communications consultant in the region that appear to show a then teenaged Bissan Alda speaking at various PFLP associated events between six and nine years ago.

Natas has been unable to corroborate these reports, nor has it been able to date to surface any [02:34:00] evidence of more contemporary or active involvement by Alda with a PFLP related event. organization. The academy also in that letter rejected the request from the CCFP, meaning Bissan and Al Jazeera are still in contention for the prestigious TV award.

Helena, Bissan's journalism has opened a lot of eyes, a lot of people's eyes, to what's happening in Gaza. It's been incredibly important in many ways. So what do you make of this story? I mean, there's a large level of hypocrisy here as well, where of course, as you said, there have been plenty of attacks that the PFLP have done historically.

There have been violations of international law. The IDF, they violate international law all of the time. Do you think there would have been the same reaction if somebody else had previously served in the IDF? was being given an award somewhere else. Do we ever, ever, ever see anyone wanting, anyone being removed from a potential category for any kind of award show off and being acknowledged in terms of the [02:35:00] things that they do with for the arts?

Do we ever, ever have these people, their awards rescinded because they have previously served in the IDF? Of course we don't. Of course we don't. And even then, like she has, been speaking at rallies. She allegedly has links to a social movement that has links to the PFLP. Has she ever been a member of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades?

No, they have no evidence for these things. Again, we've got to separate the fact that the PFLP are a political organization and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades are their military wing, who are the ones who have previously engaged in violations of international law, some terror attacks as well on Israeli soil.

For example, but the last claimed terror attack by the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades was in 2015 anyway, before any of these claims about Bisan were even talked about. One point that they made in the letter too, was saying, oh well this is a group that was involved in the October 7th massacre in Israel. Um, Well, whilst again, there were plenty of violations of international law and war crimes that [02:36:00] were committed by the Azad Din al Qassam brigades and the al Quds brigades on October the 7th, there's been no evidence, at least not that I could find, that there were any terror attacks or any violations of international law committed by the PFLP's Abu Ali Mustafa Brigade specifically on October the 7th.

Even NGO Monitor, a pro Israel front group that is used to smear anti Zionist groups, even NGO Monitor couldn't provide any evidence at all that the PFLP did anything that was targeted at civilians specifically, let's say, on October the 7th. There are plenty of videos of the PFLP's militant wing attacking military targets, but that is, of course, a legitimate target for people attacking an occupying force under international law.

And if that's all the NGO monitor has, like, again, a pro Zionist a pro Zionist group used to smear anti Zionist groups, then that's not really particularly good evidence that it's now, is it, that they participated in October the 7th massacres? Because we definitely, there's no evidence that's been [02:37:00] provided, at least not that I could find in terms of this.

So using this pretty weak, this pretty weak evidence to be able to remove Bissan's incredibly important journalism from such prestigious awards, it strikes to me, like, that it's desperation to ensure that we do not actually have proper credit being given to somebody who's done a lot of good work to expose the failure of American foreign relations with Israel at a time where this should be being put under as much scrutiny as possible.

And it seems like some people want these, what the hands to be washed of this, rather than for everybody to see this in the open and have the people who have exposed it rewarded, at least given recognition for the hard work that they have done in exposing America and Israel's crimes.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in—I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at (202) 999-3991, or simply email me to [email protected].

The additional sections of the show included clips from All In with Chris Hayes, a montage of [02:38:00] doctors speaking out against genocide, The Majority Report, Democracy Now!, TRT World, Al Jazeera English, Owen Jones, Today in Focus, and Novara Media. Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet, Ken, Brian Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work, helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers and all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with the link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the [02:39:00] discussion.

So, coming to you from far outside, the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay! and this has been the Best of the Left Podcast coming to twice weekly thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.

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#1651 The Politics of Migration in the Age of Insecurity: From the UK riots to GOP fear-mongering (Transcript)

Posted by · August 27, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 8/27/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

People feel a lot of ways about immigration. Sometimes it's fear of the other, other times it's not about the people, but just dismay over a broken system. The validity of these concerns and others certainly exist on a spectrum. Some are utter bullshit. And others aren't. Left-wing political parties tend to do a terrible job at creating immigration policy, in that they just don't do it at all. While the right wing is all too happy to create an implement terrible policy. And given a choice between action and inaction, regardless of how misguided the proposed action, people, and importantly, voters with concerns, will choose action.

Sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today include The Brian Lehrer Show, Today Explained, The Times from the LA Times, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Real [00:01:00] News Network, and This Week in Immigration. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more on four topics:

- Section A: the UK Riots

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: -Section B: California Proposition 187

-Section C: Trump vs. Harris, and

-Section D: Migrants.

The UK's Far Right Riots - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 8-8-24

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Can you just start by explaining, giving us a little brief on exactly what happened in Southport? Really tragic. Such a sad incident. What can you share about this knife attack?

MAX COLCHESTER: Essentially, a week ago, a 17-year-old boy walked into a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club with a knife and indiscriminately stabbed young children in that club, killing three young girls. He was then tackled to the ground and arrested by police. In the aftermath of this tragic killing spree, the police did not disclose the [00:02:00] assailant's name because in the UK, you cannot disclose someone who's alleged to have committed a crime, the name of them, if they're under the age of 18.

In that information vacuum, stepped a huge misinformation on social media where someone came up with the idea that the assailant was a Muslim who'd recently arrived in the UK as an undocumented migrant and was known to security services here. Now, this was false. The person who allegedly did this was not born abroad, was born in the UK, the son of migrants from Rwanda, a largely Christian country.

Nevertheless, this took hold and within a day of this tragic killing, far-right people online were whipping up anger. Soon there were protests in [00:03:00] Southport against the police and against the local mosque. That lit a fuse, really. In the following days, we saw looting, arson, attacks on police in a dozen or so cities across the UK in some of the worst violence we've seen, really, here since at least 2011.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Now, just to back up a second, the motive of the attacker, do we know what that was in any respect?

MAX COLCHESTER: No.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: No, we don't know what the--

MAX COLCHESTER: We don't know what the motive of the attacker was. The police have said it's not terrorism-related, so it seems not to have been inspired by any particular ideology, but that's all we know at the moment.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Then the spread of this misinformation that this was a migrant, new migrant, how did this spread so quickly online? Was it just the nature of bad actors on the Internet [00:04:00] and then people jumping on that?

MAX COLCHESTER: Well, it's a toxic combination of A, far-right commentators who've been allowed back onto a lot of platforms, notably X, formally, Twitter, in recent years by Elon Musk, and have built up large followings there were tweeting this out aggressively and we're using and piggybacking off this rumor to say, "We need to reclaim our streets. We need to protect our society from foreign influences. We need to fight back." This was also being parroted by bots run by state actors in Russia and so forth.

It did tap into an underlying sentiment in some quarters of the population that immigration had run out of control in the UK.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Sure.

MAX COLCHESTER: Because you have to remember, there is a real problem here, or a real issue here, which is that the government essentially has allowed [00:05:00] huge amounts of migration in the last two years, up to 2.5 million people have come and settled here and has not found a way to stop people coming and settling illegally in the UK by sailing in small boats across from France. That's one of the rumors after this killing was that the person who did this had arrived in the UK on one of these small boats from France. You had this toxic brew going on and it just span out of control.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: You have this tragic incident, the misinformation follows, and then the violence. Were you out in the streets? Did you witness some of these scenes of violence and vandalism?

MAX COLCHESTER: The violence was really quite indiscriminate. That's what's really shocking here, was that it was against-- it wasn't even that targeted. There were libraries being burnt down, police stations being burnt down, shops. It was opportunistic and it was being committed by people who had nothing. Not all of them [00:06:00] are far-right activists. A lot of them were bored teenagers on their summer vacations, or disaffected locals who got carried away.

It really did light a tinderbox, this tragedy. It's taken a long time to start to bring under control. The one thing, if there is a positive to come out of this, it's that last night we expected another evening of mass unrest with 100 or so protests planned across Britain. Actually what transpired was that there were protests, but they were counter-protests, there were anti-racism protests where thousands of people filled the streets of cities across the country to say, "We don't stand for this and we're not going to put up with it. Stop racism and stop the far-right."

As a result, there wasn't any unrest, which is hopefully going to take the energy out of some of this and bring an end to this period of violence.

Riots in the UK - Today, Explained - Air Date 8-7-24

ROBYN VINTER: Well. Some of the protests are [00:07:00] kind of local to a situation. But there are kind of broad themes. You know, you hear the phrase we want our country back.

<CLIP>

PROTESTORS: We want our country back… we want our country back…

ROBYN VINTER: A lot of it is about anti… a kind of broader anti-immigration sentiment. There was a feeling – definitely in Rotherham, where I was, where the rioters attacked the hotel housing asylum seekers – that asylum seekers were getting better treatment in the UK than British people were…

<CLIP>

PROTESTOR: It’s our country, and we’re gettin’ pushed out. I understand how the Native Indians felt in America. Now because that’s what the white man did when he pushed ‘em out. Only it’s the white man gettin’ pushed outta this country.

ROBYN VINTER: You know, people were saying, ‘Well, I have to pay my bills. I have to put a roof over my head. I have to work. And these people are coming here and they're living in a hotel and they're not working, not doing anything. They don't have to worry about paying bills.’ There was also – which I found very sinister – there were rumors going [00:08:00] around in certain communities that certain men had been following women home. Or, the rumor in Rotherham was that two women had been raped by asylum seekers and that the authorities had covered it up. And obviously that, you know, for me, that – as a journalist – that would be a very good story if I could stand that up. And I'm just completely unable to find any evidence that that's the case. But it sort of doesn't matter because it, it goes around on social media. People hear it. Everybody has heard… heard it from somebody else. You know, nobody's the person that it's happened to.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: And those who are in the streets rioting, injuring police officers, destroying public property. What are the rioters saying about what their intent is?

ROBYN VINTER: Yeah. It's interesting, because I think there are kind of different groups involved in these riots. So there are the kind of really traditional old school far right. We used to have a group in the UK called the National Front – well, it still exists, but it's not as significant as it was in the [00:09:00] 1970s and 1980s – that was a very strong far-right group. A racist group. And so there are some of those kind of people, but there are a lot of younger people. And I think it would be naive to say that they're… that they’re only coming for a fight and they're only coming… You know, in the same way that that we might have football hooliganism in the UK, you know, some people will say that they're they're coming for that, they're coming for the sport of the riot and they're coming to, you know, exert themselves and to, to get something out of their system. There may be a few cases of that – I think there probably are a few cases of that – But there's also, you know, the young people that I heard in these riots chanting things, you know, were saying a lot of the same racist stuff as the older people. So you know, maybe people haven't thought too much about it. Maybe they're not very political people, but, you know, they they might still use a racist slur because they can and because it makes no difference to them and because they don't really think about the harm that those things can cause.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: [00:10:00] This, this all got started with a rumor that the boy who had stabbed these, these little girls was an immigrant. Have rumors continued to contribute to what's going on? Either rumors or deliberate misinformation – sometimes called disinformation, I suppose.

ROBYN VINTER: I think disinformation and misinformation has had a really pivotal role in the last seven days.

<CLIP>

FARAGE: It seems – whenever these things happen – there is a reluctance to tell us the full truth. <fade under>

ROBYN VINTER: There have been a lot of deliberate instigators on social media.

<CLIP>

TIMES RADIO: Elon Musk has actually said on his social media platform X that civil war is inevitable in the UK and he’s also said that the reason for these riots is a lack of integration between different communities… <fade under>

ROBYN VINTER: You know, a lot of people, actually, who wouldn't perpetrate violence themselves because they don't want to put themselves at risk and they don't put their families at risk, but will easily goad other people into doing so.

<CLIP>

TOMMY ROBINSON: That’s what you’re [00:11:00] seeing. Huge resentment, built up over years if not decades of being treated like shit by your government. And a two-class policing system <fade under>

ROBYN VINTER: Something I haven't mentioned so far as well is there’s something that the far right kind of instigators on social media are calling “two-tier policing.” And that's something where they believe that white British people are getting worse treatment, they're getting more heavy handed treatment by the police than, you know, Muslims or other groups of people.

<CLIP>

FARAGE: We use a softer approach on some groups than others…

REPORTER: Ok. And your example for that is?

FARAGE: Well, I think Black Lives Matter, the way that was policed was very interesting. I mean, people tearing down statues and chucking them in the dock, and police just standing by and watching, and I think if you contrast…

REPORTER: Those people were arrested.

ROBYN VINTER: And so that's a huge… I wouldn't maybe go as far as saying conspiracy theory, but it's kind of a huge talking point [00:12:00] among the far right. And even today we heard Elon Musk describe Prime Minister Keir Starmer as “Two-tier Keir,”...

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Mmm.

ROBYN VINTER: …obviously referencing this nonsensical and non-existent idea of two-tier policing.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: How is… Keir Starmer is just about brand new in the office. This would be his first real crisis – and it is a real crisis. How is he perceived to be handling this and how is he handling this?

ROBYN VINTER: Keir Starmer is a very interesting character because, when we had some riots, a very kind of different set of riots in kind of urban areas and London and other cities in 2011, he was the director of public prosecutions. So kind of like your chief prosecutor, essentially making decisions about how these rioters would be handled by the courts, how they'd be prosecuted. And his method of prosecuting was bringing [00:13:00] people in quickly, prosecuting them quickly. So there were late night courts running, courts running over the weekend in order to process the large numbers of, of rioters. And so, so far we're seeing something very similar to, to back then he's, you know, he he's very keen on clamping down immediately on the rioters. And you can kind of see the method in that as well.

<CLIP>

STARMER: Be in no doubt: those that have participated in this violence will face the full force of the law. The police will be making arrests. Individuals will be held on remand. Charges will follow, and convictions will follow. I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder, whether directly or those whipping up this action online and then running away themselves.

ROBYN VINTER: You know, when people start to see the large sentences that people will be getting for attacking police and for setting fires, [00:14:00] they're going to be more likely to think twice before they get involved in the violence.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: I want to go back to something you said at the beginning of our conversation, which is: We are expecting more of this. More protests. Potentially more rioting, potentially more injuries, potentially more clashes with police. The key point you are making is that this does not appear to be over. What should we take from all of this? What does this tell us more broadly about what is happening in the UK right now?

ROBYN VINTER: I think this year, this summer of 2024, is going to be defined, I think, as being a summer of, of rioting. We may have seen the worst of it. That, that could obviously be famous last words, but one thing we do know, obviously, in the UK is: when the weather gets worse, we're not going to see people out on the streets in the same way as we do over the summer.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Mm.

ROBYN VINTER: We have very short summers in the UK, so you know, we're talking about weeks of this, not months of [00:15:00] this, from what I'm able to gather. And so although the riots, I think, will start to die down in the next couple of weeks the sentiment will not go away. And I think it's something that's going to… It's going to take as long as it took to kind of build it up as it is to dissipate it.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Mm.

ROBYN VINTER: And I don't have any answers about what we can do to kind of improve that sentiment. And, you know, that's… It’s something that I feel very worried about. And I feel… although we, we in the UK rarely descend into any kind of real nationwide violence, you know, there's – people from abroad have been saying that, ‘Oh, you know, it's going to end in a civil war.’ And it's, you know, that's absurd. But, we do have to worry about… about this.

SCORING

Introducing 'Battle of 187' week! - The Times Essential news from the L.A. Times - Air Date 7-19-21

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Take a look around the California of 2019. The state is a beacon for progressive politics in the US, a land of environmentalism and [00:16:00] multiculturalism, where vegans and Priuses roam, and taco trucks stand on every corner. And it's the center of the hashtag resistance to President Trump and his policies.

NEWS CLIP: The Trump administration and California are swearing off again.

California is vowing to take the administration to court.

After the Trump administration announced that the 2020 census will include a question about citizenship, the state of California announced that it would sue to challenge that decision.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Democrats control both chambers of the state capital with super majorities. They hold all offices of California's executive branch. Even Orange County, a place Ronald Reagan once described as where [in comic Reagan voice] "all the good Republicans go to die", is going Democrat.

But it wasn't always this way. California was once something of a red state, or at least a purple one. It gave the US Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

RONALD REGAN: When people need a [00:17:00] little sunshine in their lives, and a feel for the optimism that fills the soul of this beautiful country, then I can assure them they'll find it in Orange County.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: In 1994, California also gave us Proposition 187. It was one of the harshest laws targeting immigrants in modern US history. And, that same year, the state gave us this ad.

POLITICAL AD: They keep coming. Two million illegals in California. The federal government won't stop them at the border, yet requires us to pay billions to take care of them.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: It was a campaign spot for Governor Pete Wilson, a Republican running for re election. That wannabe scary voice plays over grainy footage of people sprinting across the US-Mexico border like it was some 5K run. And then the ad ends with this really hopeful, angelic music as Pete Wilson promises to crack down on "them".

PETE WILSON: I'm suing to force the federal government to control the borders. Enough is enough.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Yet 25 years later, [00:18:00] Proposition 187 and Pete Wilson made the Golden State bluer than indigo. You're probably saying, Wait, what? How? But that's what this series is all about. About the time in 1994 that California Republicans went to war against illegal immigration and lost. Bad. And how the legacy of those battles from 25 years ago influences America even today. Because before President Trump, there was Proposition 187.

DONALD TRUMP: Illegal immigration is going to stop. It's dangerous. It's terrible. We either have a border or we don't. And if we don't have a border, we don't have a country. Remember that.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Now, let's begin our story. We're in fall 1993. Dr. Dre and Ice Cube are [00:19:00] bumping on the radio in Southern California. The whole state is still reeling from Rodney King and the LA riots. National pundits say the California dream is over. And in the pretty suburban town of Yorba Linda, Orange County, Proposition 187 is about to be born.

Yorba Linda is Nixon country, literally. He was born here. Big suburban tract homes that owners try to pass off as if they're in old Mexico, with the tiled roof and street names in Spanish. Not many Mexicans around here though. Just saying.

Hi, Barbara.

BARBARA KILEY: Hello! Yes.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Gustavo Arellano, with LA TImes.

BARBARA KILEY: Hi, how are you?

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Barbara and Bob Kiley love here, in a two story home with 1980s-era tan carpet and fluffy couches.

They're out of the game now. But for years, they managed local Republican campaigns as political consultants. They've worked together for decades and can usually finish each other's sentences and stories. I'm visiting Barbara and Bob because they ran the 187 campaign. You could say [00:20:00] they're 187's unlikely godparents.

Unlikely because...

BARBARA KILEY: We actually did not see illegal immigration as a big problem for us. We live in a nice community. We didn't see it, but we did have a friend by the name of Ron Prince, and Ron was really looking to get involved.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Ron Prince plays a big part in our story. Lanky, with bushy eyebrows and a comb over, he was a gadfly in local Republican politics.

BARBARA KILEY: He wanted to do a statewide proposition on anything.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: In California, anyone who gets enough valid signatures, around 400,000 of them at that time, can place a proposition on the ballot about anything. It's a kind of direct democracy you don't see in most states. So, Ron Prince, according to Barbara, wanted to think of an idea that might actually have a chance of passing.

BARBARA KILEY: He'd come here in his cowboy boots, and we'd give him a yellow legal pad and a pen.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: And they'd tell him, go find an issue people really care about.

BARBARA KILEY: And ding dong, on the doorbell on Saturday morning, [00:21:00] he said, I think I have one. I just got ripped off by an illegal alien, and he was supposed to be a contractor, and he ripped me off.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: So here's what happened. Ron said a contractor he was working with ripped him off for half a million dollars. According to Ron, the guy was an illegal Canadian. Later on, reporters would track down the contractor, and it would turn out he was a legal resident.

But anyways, Ron thinks: illegal immigration, that's a winner. And he goes out with his legal pad to a grocery store up the block from the Kiley's home and asks people a simple question. Do you believe illegal immigration is a problem in California?

BARBARA KILEY: He comes back with pages of signatures.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: On that first time.

BARBARA KILEY: On that first time. You know, Ron, I think you got something here.

The Battle of 187 ends — and the war begins - The Times Essential news from the L.A. Times - Air Date 7-20-21

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Whether or not Pete Wilson regrets 187, a lot of people will tell you that it had profound effects on California, especially on Latinos in California. [00:22:00] In 1994, Gerardo Correa was a high school student who had a political awakening when 187 landed on the ballot. His entire life, he had assumed that he was just like anyone else in California. As American as a bald eagle. The night 187 passed, Gerardo realized in the eyes of his White neighbors, he'd never be American enough. So, he vowed to do something about it.

GERARDO CORREA: And for me, it really was about going to school. Like, I'm gonna go to college. Like, I was going, hell or high water, I'm going. And I'm gonna graduate. And it was all started from there. Like, I found myself, if you will.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Now, in the California of 2019, Gerardo's an assistant principal at Saddleback High School in Santana. He's of average build, grey at the temples, and always peppy. During our interview, I asked him a question I've been thinking about a lot.

Do you think ultimately 187 won?

GERARDO CORREA: Well, I think it initially won, obviously, because it passed, but no, it didn't. It lost, and it lost in so many different aspects.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Like which [00:23:00] ones?

GERARDO CORREA: Well, look at the health of the Republican Party in California today.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Every year, Gerardo visits the state capital in Sacramento with the latest class of the Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Project. It's the group he belonged to when he first heard about 187. Gerardo's now president of the non-profit.

GERARDO CORREA: When I went to the conference in '94, I sat in the assembly floor and I remember seeing two, maybe three, Spanish surnames. But now I went back and I counted 36 names. So, you talk about impact, you talk about a change. I mean, I'm looking at this board of legislators. I'm like, there it is. It's right there.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Gloria Molina has a similar take on 187.

GLORIA MOLINA: We became voters. We started changing things. People like my mother stood there and filled out her application for citizenship and she became a citizen. So it changed [00:24:00] people's minds immediately and everybody woke up and said, It passed. What happened? It shouldn't have passed.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: 187 changed Kevin de Leon, too. He's one of the activists who organized a big LA march in October, 1994.

KEVIN DE LEON: The thought that politicians could actually tear at the fabric of who we are as a great country got me to thinking, along with my colleagues, maybe one of us should run for office.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: In 2014, Kevin becomes the first Latino California Senate president in 130 years.

KEVIN DE LEON: My political awakening was Prop 187. There's no question about it.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: The prevailing narrative is that Wilson's embrace of 187 doomed the Republican Party in California forever after. Wilson and his defenders reject that, of course. But just ask the Latinos who lived through 187 and are still around. Ask people like me. Better yet, ask California's Latino Legislative Caucus. To coincide with the 25th [00:25:00] anniversary of Prop 187, they're releasing a short film titled Thank you, Pete Wilson.

POLITICAL AD: Thank you, Governor Wilson. Now, on this 25th anniversary of Proposition 187, we have a roadmap for the entire country to follow. A roadmap on how to fight back against racist, xenophobic policies and an opportunist leader, one person at a time. [different people saying thank you] Thank you, Pete Wilson. Thank you, Pete Wilson. Thank you, Pete Wilson. Thank you, Pete Wilson. Oh, and happy anniversary.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Savage. But if Pete Wilson and the state GOP met their Waterloo with 187, the proposition didn't suffer the same fate nationally. It inspired dozens of states and cities to craft similar measures.

NEWSCLIP: On its first hearing in early December, the Costa Mesa City Council voted 3 to 2 to become the first city to have its cops enforce immigration law.

Earlier this year, the Oklahoma Legislature passed what many consider one of the [00:26:00] toughest bills in the country aimed at discouraging illegal immigration, making it a felony to shelter or transport an illegal immigrant.

In one Virginia county, a proposed measure would require all county agencies to check on immigration status, including police, schools, libraries, hospitals, clinics, swimming pools, and summer camps.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: 187 has also manifested itself in the White House. And President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric sounds a lot like Pete Wilson's of 25 years ago.

DONALD TRUMP: As we speak, the Democrat Party Is openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws, violate our borders, and overwhelm our nation. That's what's happening.

They beat us at the border, people are flowing through, drugs are coming across, pouring across.

They're giving us their worst people.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: What do 187's architects think about all this? We don't know what Ron Prince thinks. He has no [00:27:00] listed address or phone numbers. Barbara Kiley said she'd forward my request to Ron for an interview, but I never heard back from either of them. In any case, Barbara and her husband, they'll take Trump.

BARBARA COE: I don't have to like Trump, but I like what he does. And we elected him and Bob and I voted for him. We needed a junkyard dog. We needed somebody who could repo your car and not even think about it the next day.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Peter Nunez is also a fan. At least when it comes to the president and immigration. He sees Trump's election as proof that most Americans want tougher immigration policies. Policies like 187.

PETER NUNEZ: Nixon used to talk about the silent majority. Uh, I think that silent majority still exists and that's why Trump got elected. And immigration was a big part of that.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: 187 creators like Núñez and Barbara Coe have had a big voice in the country's anti-immigration movement over the past 25 years. Nunez's group, the Center for Immigration Studies, and its sister group, [00:28:00] FAIR, now have Trump's ear on immigration issues.

For Californians who fought 187, it's déjà vu, all over again. Or maybe it's even worse. Just like Wilson, Trump bashed immigrants, and won. I asked Gerardo Correa what he thought about that.

It seems, at least right now on the national scale, that's a playbook that will win just like it did in '94.

GERARDO CORREA: Yeah. And I think it will have some momentum, and I think he's gonna get a lot of support by it, but I think time is what's gonna hurt them because demographics are changing

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: In the end, those of us shaped by 187 believe that Trump, just like Wilson, shall pass.

When I covered a 2016 Donald Trump rally in Orange County, I saw and heard a lot of the hostility from his supporters that I remember from the 187 days. Hell, I was half expecting those White boys from Anaheim High to start yelling at me again. But I also saw young Latinos protesting Trump while waving Mexican flags. My generation needed [00:29:00] 187 and Wilson to jolt us into activism, and now this generation has Trump.

This awakening isn't just in California either. Anthony Rendon is the state's current Speaker of the Assembly. He sees other states going through the same kind of demographic changes that California went through back in the 90s.

ANTHONY RENDON: I remember I was in North Carolina, like four or five years ago, just driving around eating barbecue. And the only things on the radio were, it was Spanish language radio stations and Rush LImbaugh. And I remember thinking like, Wow, this is, something's got to pop, something's got to happen here, right?

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Something has happened. Latinos have organized in many of the places that have attempted to pass laws like 187.

DEMONSTRATORS: People want to know! People want to know!

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: In Arizona, the so-called "Show me your papers" law, SB 1070, seems to have backfired. Now, Arizona is looking more and more like [00:30:00] a purple state.

Anthony Rendon, the Assembly Speaker, thinks a lot about all these demographic changes and what they mean for the country.

ANTHONY RENDON: I have a chief of staff who's White and she kind of talks a lot about being a Californian. And she says, you know, the White people in the rest of the country are going through what we went through in the nineties. And she said, from the perspective of a White person, I can tell you that things are better now, and the food tastes better, too.

RNC & ”Migrant Crime”- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - Air Date 7-25-24

DONALD TRUMP: We have to stop the invasion into our country that's killing hundreds of thousands of people a year.

GREG ABBOTT: Biden has welcomed into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE: We are facing an unprecedented invasion of millions of [00:31:00] illegal aliens across our southern border.

JIM CHELTON: It looks like and it feels like an invasion, because it is.

TED CRUZ: We are facing an invasion on our southern border. Not figuratively; a literal invasion.

JOHN OLIVER - HOST, LAST WEEK TONIGHT: I do not like that man, Ted Cruz. I do not like his toxic views. I do not like his nasty speeches. I do not like the shit he preaches. I do not like him when he fishes. I do not like him when he kisses. Pulling off that beard he ain't, that man, Ted Cruz, looks like a taint.

And I will say I know the Republican Party gets a lot of shit for only landing D list celebrities, but I do have to hand it to them. Booking the actual pair from the American gothic painting was a pretty good get.

And look, it's no accident Republicans were focusing so hard on immigration. Recent polling shows it's the second most important issue among Americans. But a big [00:32:00] reason for that is the relentless, bad faith fear mongering around the issue by the Republican Party itself. Perhaps best summed up by the startling growth this year, of the toxic phrase, "migrant crime".

Now, starting in late January, Fox began using it a lot, and always to build a very specific narrative.

NEWS CLIP: Concerns of a migrant crime wave are growing across New York City.

Every third day, there's a story about some sort of migrant crime.

There's a migrant crime spree killing Americans, and the president's an accessory to murder.

JOHN OLIVER - HOST, LAST WEEK TONIGHT: Yeah, out of nowhere, there was a surge in talk of migrant crime, which went from occasional mentions in December and January to over 300 mentions in February. Basically, migrant crime is a phrase that seemed to come out of nowhere And then we're suddenly all over the place. Like, "what the sigma?" And "skibbity toilet". And by the way, those are real phrases used by the younger generations, or they were, until I just ruined them by having them slide out of my old mouth.

And as the use of that term skyrocketed, there was a correlating spike in concern about [00:33:00] immigration, with the number of Americans who viewed it as their number one issue jumping eight points between January and February. But, this wasn't reflecting anything happening in the real world. Because to be very clear, there is no migrant crime wave happening right now. In fact, there is no crime wave at all. Crime in general has been trending downward in recent years, including this one, with murder, rape, robbery, and property crime all decreasing, even as talk of migrants committing those crimes has exploded.

As for migrant crime, specifically, experts will tell you there is no evidence of a relationship between somebody's immigrant status and their involvement in crime. In fact, while most states don't track crime data by immigration status, in the one state that does—Texas—researchers have found the illegal immigrant criminal conviction rate is roughly 45 percent below that of native born Americans. And yet, despite that, there has been a wave of conservatives claiming there is a wave of migrant crime. And that is almost definitely going to be continuing until November.

So given that, tonight, [00:34:00] let's talk about "migrant crime". And let's start with where exactly the term came from. Because if you listen to Trump, which obviously you should not, he'll say it was all his idea.

DONALD TRUMP: It's a new, it's a new category. I don't know if you've heard this, but I came up with this one: migrant crime. There's crime, there's violent crime, there's migrant crime. We have a new category of crime, it's called migrant crime. And it's gonna be worse than any other form of crime.

JOHN OLIVER - HOST, LAST WEEK TONIGHT: Okay. Obviously, that is not a new category of crime, and obviously, he didn't invent it, because you can't invent putting two words together. Although, I will say, he has tried to innovate the phrase. At one point this year, he told an audience that it should be called "Biden migrant crime", but that's too long, which is true. And luckily, he workshopped a solution to that problem in real time.

DONALD TRUMP: Because Joe Biden allowed this to happen. We will call it from now on, Biden migrant crime. Okay? It's Bigrant Crime. This is, we'll call it, I got it, [00:35:00] Bigrant. Let's call it Bigrant. Biden Crime. Oh, that's good. That's... smart.

Election 2024 As 'neofascist' Trump targets immigrants, how will the left respond w Juan González - The Real News Network - Air Date 7-28-24

JUAN GONZALEZ: Emily, your perspective, especially in terms of the repeated claims of some of the leaders of the Republican Party that many countries are sending migrants here to participate in the 2024 election to rig the election.

EMILY LEE: Right. Thanks so much, Juan. I mean, I think, just to acknowledge what we’re living through right now in terms of the political turbulence we’re seeing for the last few weeks in the United States, obviously, the Republican National Convention just happened this week, where they called for the largest deportation operation in US history, saying they’re going to deport pro-Hamas radicals, to make our college campuses safe and patriotic again. I think these conditions that many of us are organizing in for this current election, the stakes are higher than ever.

And you can see the rhetoric is about… [00:36:00] It is about the threat and the fear, fearmongering that the Republican Party is doing, in which Donald Trump has made his main rhetoric and his main charge, even his pick of his vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance. He’s not trying to bring people of color, BIPOC voters in with him. He’s doubling down on a white nationalist, white supremacist platform.

So I think it’s really important for us to acknowledge that’s a political moment that we’re in. And the conditions are extremely heavy. They’re very difficult.

We have a escalating genocide in Gaza and a sitting president who continues to support it while we also have the threat of Trump who’s openly sharing plans to destroy progressive social movements in the United States and communities of color.

So these times are just very difficult, and we’re holding both the urgency of the crisis and this current election, as well as the long-term root causes we need to be addressing and the long-term strategy we have to build in order to end the violence that immigrant communities are [00:37:00] facing in all these shifts.

So I think that what I would like to speak on a little bit is just the threat of MAGA and what is really the difference between a MAGA administration and a Democratic administration.

Obviously, we know that Democrats and Biden have not delivered on immigration. Everyone knows that. The last attempt to push forward in 2020 and 2021 was not successful, and that Biden has continued to not deliver around asylum, and the way that he’s continued to “close” the border has also been extremely anti-immigrant and led to a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment as well.

But I think we have to be clear that with the Trump administration, they are going to continue to… Stephen Miller will continue to be his senior advisor on this, who was the architect of the Anti-Immigrant Family Separation Program during the first Trump administration, that the defensive layers that we had previously in the courts and the appellate and Supreme Court, that’s not the [00:38:00] same as the previous administration.

We had the previous Supreme Court who actually made the DACA decision. This Supreme Court will not do anything that’s going to be beneficial for immigrant communities. So overall, as we know, the environment is going to be more anti-immigrant and more favorable for Trump to exploit in that direction.

So I think I just want to be clear that the threat that we face, we do believe it is an existential threat, the drive towards more authoritarianism, towards fascism, and that that’s going to have some very serious consequences for immigrant communities.

And I think that Biden, for all his faults, he is trying to signal that he is trying to do some more proactive immigration. On June 18, he just announced his program for about half a million undocumented spouses who are married to US citizens would meet the requirements for parole in place. They’re trying to signal to Democratic voters that they will not be the same as a [00:39:00] Trump administration.

And in terms of what you said earlier about the mythology of immigrant voters being trucked in, driven into the US so that they can influence the results of the 2024 election, obviously, those are factless and baseless, and the reality is that this is their number one issue. They will be using this rhetoric and this message to stoke fears among a white nationalist voting base, and it has been proven to be very effective.

And so I think what’s going to happen this November is going to be… It brings us in two different paths. There’s some very stark differences in the fork in the road depending on what kind of administration we have this year.

And obviously, there’s so many things we don’t know, especially given rumors that President Biden might drop out of the race. We’re less than four months out and still, this is the type of year we’re looking forward to.

So yes, it’s very tumultuous [00:40:00] and a lot is unknown. And anybody who said that they can predict what’s going to happen and knows, that’s just not true. We don’t believe that. No poll can predict what’s going to happen. These margins are very close. And so I just also want to emphasize that this is not the time to despair, to give up. This is the time to take action and make an intervention.

Employment Visa Paths for Dreamers and a Harris vs. Trump Presidential Race - This Week in Immigration - Air Date 7-30-24

THERESA CARDINAL BROWN: So I think we've covered that a lot on this podcast, but just to kind of reiterate: President Biden ran in 2019 and 2020 on a set of immigration policies that were sort of directly in opposition to what we're seeing as some of the harshest policies that President Trump put in place. Things like the so called Muslim ban, the policies of separating kids and families at the border, the Remain in Mexico program at the US-Mexico border, which forced migrants to wait in Mexico for asylum hearings, increasing crackdowns on immigration inside the country as, you know, deportation efforts and, you know, [00:41:00] certainly harsh rhetoric around immigration.

So, Biden came in with, I think, a much more progressive immigration policy, if you will. It's definitely more immigrant friendly. And one of the issues he ran on was rather than trying to increase deterrence of migrants at the border, he wanted to address the so called root causes of migration from what was then the biggest group of people coming from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, which were El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

And so in 2021, he issued a series of executive orders very early in his presidency to undo some of President Trump's policies, and he asked Kamala Harris to take point on and run his administration's efforts at the, what they call the Root Causes Strategy, which meant dealing from a diplomatic and development perspective with addressing the so called push factors from migration.

And those are things like [00:42:00] crime, and governance, rule of law, poverty, lack of opportunity. So, it was a combination of bilateral relationships with the governments in those areas, both to increase their own border security, but also to create investment opportunities, working with USAID, getting private sector commitments to invest money in those countries to help create jobs.

That was her role. Of course, we've seen the Biden administration pivot, particularly in the last year and a half, with regard to the border. Two more, I would, some say, Trump like policies about restricting access to asylum at the border, asking Mexico to do more to prevent the migrants from coming up through Mexico to the border. And that seems to have been having an effect. We have seen migration go down in the last few months from the record high it was in December of 2023, but we also should take note that the countries that Kamala Harris was directed to [00:43:00] work with, those countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America, no longer represent nearly as large a proportion of the migrants we're seeing at the border.

They're coming from a lot more countries, lots more from South America, especially Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, but also more than a hundred countries around the world. So, that Root Causes Strategy, which was aimed at what was then sort of this large number of migrants from a particular area, probably is a little less relevant today for dealing with the border only because the migration is from so many other places.

JACK MALDE - HOST, THIS WEEK IN IMMIGRATION: And some people have been calling Kamala Harris the border czar. I'm not actually sure if I'm saying that word correctly. Um, is that accurate?

THERESA CARDINAL BROWN: I think that's not accurate. Look, you know, I think Republicans have tried for a very long time to make the state of the border under President Biden a liability, [00:44:00] particularly from a political standpoint, and Republicans in the House, since they took back the House two years ago, have been hearing after hearing after hearing about Biden's border crisis, and one of the pieces of that is saying, well, Kamala Harris was supposed to be the border czar and solve all this, and she didn't.

The fact of the matter is, no, Kamala Harris was not named the border czar. Matter of fact, her remit really didn't have anything to do with the border itself. It was this sort of development and diplomatic effort with those countries to reduce the push factors. The border is and remains the provenance of the Secretary of Homeland Security, who to be clear, has faced his own share of criticism from Republicans in Congress, including an impeachment effort over the management of the border. But I think it's not accurate to call her a border czar, and it should be noted that there is no such title in the federal government of border czar. You know, the moniker of czar is sort of a shorthand for [00:45:00] anyone in an executive, you know, branch who's sort of put in charge of a large issue area to come up with policy solutions to work across the federal government in doing that. It's a thing that the media applies, but there is no formal like role that's called a czar in the US government. I think it's worth reminding people of that.

JACK MALDE - HOST, THIS WEEK IN IMMIGRATION: So, prior to becoming Vice President, Kamala Harris held several other public positions. She was US District Attorney in San Francisco, Attorney General of the State of California, and a Senator from California when she ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 2019, before finally becoming Joe Biden's running mate and vice president. We also know that she's a daughter of immigrants to the United States from India and Jamaica. So with all that having been said, do we know much about where Kamala Harris stands on immigration issues and how closely aligned is she with President Biden?

THERESA CARDINAL BROWN: So, I'm going to take that last part first because I think it's worth [00:46:00] looking into that a little bit. It has been a long time since a sitting vice president was running for president when the president they served under is still in office. I think Al Gore and Bill Clinton were the last time we saw that happen, because Joe Biden did not opt to run in 2020, uh, I'm sorry, in 2016. So, this presents a little bit of an issue. As I mentioned, Kamala Harris is part of the Biden administration. She is his partner on the ticket. She was, until recently, his running mate. Now, she leads the ticket. She has an opportunity to say where she might do things differently than President Biden. But, at the end of the day, I think it's gonna to be very hard for her to say, Oh, the things President Biden did were not things that I would have agreed with, because that would make it seem like she, you know, either wasn't involved at all, or disagreed with things that the president did.

So, I think this is a little bit of a [00:47:00] tightrope she's going to have to walk. People are trying to read the tea leaves from where she was when she had all of those previous positions, or when she herself ran for president, or ran for the Democratic nomination in 2019. I think it's worth saying that back then, first of all, she came from the San Francisco Bay area, which everyone knows is a very, very progressive liberal area of California, which is a progressive liberal state for the most part. And so her positions tended to reflect that, but she was a prosecutor. So I would say that she had a pretty much, a relatively tough on crime image when she was Attorney General of California, however, she supported the law that was passed in California called the Trust Act that protected localities under sanctuary laws. So, that's something that I imagine Republicans might take issue with. In 2019, she and many other of the Democratic candidates supported broadly, for example, decriminalizing border crossings. There was a Democratic primary debate where they were asked about whether or not they [00:48:00] supported that policy. She initially indicated she did, and then sort of seemed to step back. And I think it was unclear by the time she dropped out of the race.

But I think, you know, the Democratic politics of the time were very much, you know, wherever Trump is, we're the exact opposite. But if you look at the Biden-Harris administration, certainly what they ran on in 2020 and where they are today is a different place. And so, it's quite possible that in her time in the vice president's office and seeing what it's like to actually try to implement policies that have effect on immigration and border, she may have shifted her views. And I think that's going to be important for her to delineate as she tries to campaign.

But it is worth saying that as the first generation daughter of immigrants, she has a personal stake in this, too, and that may well impact some of her policy decisions going forward.

Editor's note on the electoral politics of immigration policy

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with The Brian Lehrer Show, explaining the outbreak of [00:49:00] riots in the UK. Today Explained looked at some of the grievances of the rioters. The battle of 187 was told by the LA Times, John Oliver on Last Week Tonight dove into the anti-immigrant rhetoric at the RNC. The Real News Network looked at the Democratic stance and policies on immigration. And This Week in Immigration compared to Biden, Trump and potential Harris policies.

And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dives section. But first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring the production crew here, discussing all manner of important and often funny topics. To support our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support. There's a link in the show notes, through our Patreon page, if you prefer, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. If regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the [00:50:00] way of hearing more information.

Now, before we continue onto the Deeper Dives half of the show, I have a thought or two to add about the way Harris is currently framing her stance on immigration. As I mentioned at the top of the show, people have a lot of feelings about immigration that land on a whole spectrum. But, as evidenced by people supporting the Trump campaign and the UK riots, those feelings can easily turn into real world action and the left tends to not do a good job addressing immigration because we don't want to make it a big issue. And we don't wanna make it a big issue because the right enjoys a huge lead in polling support for their terrible immigration plans over the lefts' general total lack of immigration plans.

But it is exactly that kind of avoidance of the issue that leads to such low support, and rightfully so. How can people support the Democratic position when no one can even describe what it is? The best we generally come up with is to downplay the doomsaying of the GOP because they're full of [00:51:00] shit. But we don't actually propose policy changes that would address the concerns regular people actually have The kinds of concerns that, founded or not, lead them to support people like Trump or in extreme cases join or support the sentiments behind riots, like what we just saw in the UK.

Well, a UK think tank supporting their center-left Labor Party has put some thought into this issue and written a paper with some suggestions for the newly elected Labor Party in the UK to enact. And it's notable that they came up with some of their ideas by looking at the Biden administration as a cautionary tale of what not to do.

They identified three primary concerns the public has about the UK immigration system. Number one, dismay that it appears to be in a state of chaos. Number two, worry that migrants undermine economic opportunities. And three, fear that migrants do not "integrate in their new [00:52:00] home". And that last one, it's important to be clear and honest that this could come from a place of bigotry, but it doesn't have to. Often that call for immigrants to "assimilate" or "integrate" is a dog whistle or maybe a train whistle demanding that foreign born people lose their culture, drop their language, and become Americanized or Anglicised for the comfort of Americans or Brits. But it's a concern that could also stem from a genuine desire for new arrivals to be able to find a place for themselves within the existing society, rather than feeling like a perpetual outsider. Unintegrated communities may end up being insular, which could breed suspicion and distrust on both sides. And in the worst case scenario, they could end up as ghettos. So, a desire to see migrants well-integrated in their new home, if it's coming from that positive angle, is a totally legitimate concern.

So, [00:53:00] the paper makes three recommendations to the Labor government in the UK. Number one, clearing a massive backlog of asylum claims to bring order to the system. Number two, cracking down on exploitation of migrant workers. Exploitation has a dramatic impact on job opportunities and wages being paid in job sectors where migraines are taking work. And number three, investing in strained public services that voters fear cannot support growing immigrant communities. And then, additionally, and I really liked the sound of this one, they want a "world-leading scheme for local and community sponsorship of refugees and other vulnerable groups that could help new arrivals find a welcoming environment and make voters less likely to see them as foreigners adrift in Britain".

Now diving more into the opinion polls in the UK, it says, "Opinion research found room for center-left leaders to make the [00:54:00] case for inclusive immigration policy. Most voters were open to viewing immigration as a helpful thing for the economy and responded warmly to the idea of foreign-born people becoming British citizens". However, the positive vision was contingent. It continues, "Openness depended on voters trusting that labor was serious about bringing order to the system overall". And so the experts advised, "The center-left needs to project a message of something like control and compassion. The feeling that migration is out of control is a really strong one and just kind of dismissing it is not a good thing to do".

So, in the UK, Labor went with the message 'Smash the Gangs' as a way of differentiating between desperate migrants and gangs profiting from human trafficking and other cross border crimes. Right? Control + compassion. And that [00:55:00] helped them in their election that got them into power recently. And this appears to be the strategy we are now seeing from the Harris campaign. They're using her history as a prosecutor and attorneys general in California, and are highlighting that she "took down the trans-national gangs" as part of her work in California. And the article concludes saying that it will likely help him in the election to recast "the Democratic agenda in more disciplined terms and drawing a contrast with Republicans' raw hostility to migrants".

I don't see why Kamala Harris couldn't do something similar, say, 'my main goal is to smash the gangs, not to punish the migrants'. That's the important needle to thread because no one should really be against heightened enforcement against actual criminals. It's just the framing of all migrants as criminals that we object to. So you need to be able to do both, say both at the same time. Now the one [00:56:00] important caveat though to all of this, is that it's really important to invest heavily on making legal avenues for migration and asylum seeking possible because any crackdown on illegal means and gangs without opening up legal pathways will just force the gangs to get more organized and smarter about how they go about their illegal business. The way to put smuggling and human trafficking out of business is to make it unnecessary.

Now, of course, this is where Congress comes in. So, not only do Democrats need to finally face this problem head on rather than running from it, they need a trifecta in the House, Senate and presidency to pull it off. But part of their messaging needs to be a demand to s mash the gangs in the human trafficking and point out that the way to do that is to make legal pathways abundant and accessible and put the Republicans on the defensive. If they don't support those legal pathways, they are the [00:57:00] ones increasing cross-border crime.

SECTION A - THE UK RIOTS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up, Section A: the UK Riots. Section B: California Proposition 187. Section C: Trump vs. Harris. And Section D: Migrants.

The UK's Far Right Riots Part 2 - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 8-8-24

MAX COLCHESTER: I mean, he's got a point in the sense that the last time we saw something like this was mods and rockers in the '60s and '70s in the UK during a period of economic deprivation, tough times economically. There's no doubt that Britain is in the midst of a cost of living crisis. It's been affected by high inflation and you know the causes of that, the hangover from the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and so forth, and people are really hurting.

There's no doubt there's deprivation in the UK. Social services are not what they were, people are suffering. Is there a system exploiting that? I suppose you could claim there is. You could say that there is an element [00:58:00] of the far-right that is piggybacking on that general feeling of dissatisfaction and blaming those ills on migrants, which is an age-old issue, which is to say, if you're struggling, it's because a foreigner has taken your job or has taken your council house or taken your place in the hospital bed. That's an age-old tactic and it is very effective. You can see how that could take root. Yes, there is an underlying trend there.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the UK government, effectively, unintentionally, pretty much let in 2.5 million people into the country in the last two years. It didn't control migration properly. It tried to juice the economy by letting in a lot, a lot of workers. That, again, has given the far-right ammunition. It's made the job easier for the far right. Say, "Look, we've lost control of the borders. Everything's going wrong here. The economy's not delivering for you guys. It's because all the foreigners [00:59:00] arrived."

Yes, there are underlying trends here. I think those who just say, "Oh, these people are just kind of-- you legitimize what they're doing by pointing to the underlying trends. Well, I don't necessarily agree with that. I think there are underlying trends and you can say that people are dissatisfied with their daily lives, but obviously this kind of violence is totally, totally wrong.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Can you give us a quick reference? Mods and rockers, a little historical reference for those of us who aren't necessarily familiar with that term. That's something Jay mentioned. Most violence [unintelligible]

MAX COLCHESTER: It's sort of like you punks, I suppose, is how you guys would [unintelligible] . There was a movement in the '60s where you saw punks and other groups kind of clashing famously on the beaches in the south of England. That was during a time of economic difficulty in the UK.

Riots in the UK Part 2 - Today, Explained - Air Date 8-7-24

TIMES RADIO: Last night, the information came up around this supposed teenager called Ali Al-Shakati…we now know that the only place posting this is not a news outlet, it has no named [01:00:00] journalists, it’s not what it claims to be. It’s apparently run by some random Russian lads, and they’ve got no legal recourse to be using someone's name.

ROBYN VINTER: And there's been, quite similar to a lot of European countries and the same as the US, there has been kind of underlying anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK for quite some time. That seems to have gotten worse. We've got a few high-profile politicians that have made very strong anti-immigration comments. There's a guy called Nigel Farage who's just been elected as an MP in the UK.

<CLIP>

MP NIGEL FARAGE: The police say it’s a non-terror incident… I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us. I don't know the answer to that but I think it is a fair and legitimate question. What I do know is something is going horribly wrong in our once-beautiful country.

ROBYN VINTER: And so that kind of anti-immigration sentiment is kind of built. And then what happened then, the following [01:01:00] night, was a kind of outpouring as people took to the streets and rioted in Southport.

<CLIP>

ITV NEWS: We don’t know where they streamed in from, but they’re believed to be supporters of the English Defense League <crowd noise> Just before 8:00 they met outside a mosque in the town where a few hundred people threw bricks and fireworks at the windows. The suspect behind yesterday's attack isn’t known to be Muslim, but a connection was drawn nonetheless.

ROBYN VINTER: You know, it was adequately defended, I would say, by, by locals and by the police, who arrived and kind of started to contain the violence. But in the meantime, you know, they had managed to do quite a lot of damage and that was kind of damage that then, in the morning, the kind of ordinary citizens of Southport came out and, and repaired and restored and, and it was certainly… The feeling the next morning was certainly that people in [01:02:00] Southport don't condone the violence. And they, you know, that is not what Southport is.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: But then unfortunately, the unrest spread.

ROBYN VINTER: That's right. Yeah. This had happened on the Tuesday night. And by the Friday, there was a list of places where demonstrations were going to be held, or, you know, they were described as protests. So fliers were going around social media that said, ‘A protest is going to be held outside this mosque.’ And then we saw a kind of large-scale pockets of far-right riots, a lot of violence in a lot of towns and cities across the UK.

<CLIP>

SKY NEWS: Another fire, another night of chaos this time in Sunderland a police station attacked. The property next to it, set alight.

ROBYN VINTER: There was a hotel that was housing asylum seekers that had come to the UK that had been the scene of protests before, and that was kind of on the list of places where a protest was going to be held. And that one got out of hand [01:03:00] very quickly. It was under-policed, partly because the police were stretched because there'd been another one organized in a city nearby and they perhaps underestimated how many people would attend early on. And Rotherham isn't, isn't a place like Liverpool, where there's a large number of anti-fascists and a large number of people who will go there and, and, and stand up to these people. Although there were counter-protesters there, you know, they were immediately cattled by the group of far right and had racist abuse shouted at them, and the police had to take them a mile away to safety. In total, there were about 750 rioters. They were kind of physically attacking police, you know, physically smashing windows, burning things, you know, the real – as you'd imagine what a rioter looks like – the real kind of hardcore rioters.

SCORING <Kos Kar, APM>

They managed to set fire briefly to the [01:04:00] hotel with the asylum seekers inside. There were about 240 asylum seekers inside. Which was obviously terrifying. You know, they were… the windows were smashed and the asylum seekers were appearing at the windows. And, you know, I managed to shout through a window to some of them and they looked… you know, they were all fairly young. The ones I saw, you know, teenagers, early 20s, all looked very scared, worried. I shouted through the window, ‘Are you okay?’ And I was holding, holding a thumbs up, and I was saying, ‘Are you okay?’ And they were, a lot of them were replying, ‘Okay, okay.’ You know, a lot of them don't have good English. And then one man shouted down, ‘I am not okay.’ So I think there was a real… you know, this was a, this was a very dangerous situation.

ASYLUM SEEKER: They want to kill us… if they catch us.. they gonna to kill us…

REPORTER: watching on in horror from their window as an angry crowd tried to turn over [01:05:00] a police van

<CLIP>

THE GUARDIAN: <<shouting>> GET THEM OUT GET THEM OUT GET THEM OUT

ROBYN VINTER: They, you know, the police were covered in sparks and they were wearing fireproof gear and helmets and had big riot shields, so they were safe from the fireworks. But you know, there was quite a lot of times when I saw the police had been relieved from their shift, kind of on the frontline of this battle against the rioters. And they, they'd gone round the corner, gone down a side street. And they were just sitting, you know, with their heads in their hands because it had been such a draining and exhausting day. And a few, a few police officers said to me that, you know, it had been by far, you know, the biggest riot that they'd ever attended.

SCORING

The UK's Far Right Riots Part 3 - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 8-8-24

MAX COLCHESTER: this morning, and we have to say he's been railing against the British government for several days already. This morning, Elon Musk posted basically an image of an article which alleged that the British government was going to deport protesters to [01:06:00] an island in the South Atlantic called the Falkland Islands. Now, this article, it looked like an article, was actually completely made up. It was made up by someone who runs a far-right entity in the UK.

This stayed up for several hours. I think if you look at the post in question, it was viewed by around 2 million people before it was-- if you clicked on it, it sort of disappears. What's been incredible here is that Elon Musk has really lent into this whole protest. He's actually become something of an agitator himself. We've seen him repeatedly repeat talking points from the far-right in the UK.

One of the key talking points they have is that there's a two-tier police system in the UK. It's sort of like the opposite of what you guys saw with the Black Lives Matter, is that the police actually go down much harder on white people than minorities, which is false. Anyway, [01:07:00] this trope has been pasted all over X in recent days, and Elon Musk has been tweeting away saying, "Hey, I kind of agree with this, and the government should take this seriously." He also tweeted that civil war was inevitable in the UK because of high levels of immigration.

It's been really quite incredible to see him really lean into this whole thing as opposed to-- Most other people would be trying to say, "No, no, we carefully moderate our site and we make sure that extremist content is not promoted." That's what Meta does and that's what TikTok does. Actually, you've got the owner of the site promoting this stuff himself.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Incredible. You said that he has allowed back some far-right activists who maybe were on the site before kicked off, and he's let them back. I know that's happened here in the US. Is that also the case in the UK?

MAX COLCHESTER: Yes. Absolutely exactly the same thing happened in the UK. You saw, there's a fellow called Tommy Robinson who is a figurehead for the far-right [01:08:00] in the UK, and he was banned in 2018, by what was then Twitter. Last year, Elon Musk led him back on, and he's now got 900,000 followers. This fellow, he spent time in jail. He's a well-known character. He's a well-known troublemaker on the right, to be honest.

This guy, he's on holiday in Cyprus, Tommy Robinson, right now, and he's firing away these tweets claiming that Britain's going up in flames and that people need to start cracking down on immigration and protecting British values. That's what's happened, is that Musk has been very clear that he wants to protect free speech on his site and that he wants everybody to be able to weigh in equally. The result of that is that a lot of people, it's become a sort of talking shop for some pretty extremist views.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: What are some of the actual groups and political parties on the far-right that are involved here?

MAX COLCHESTER: [01:09:00] Well, that's the thing about the UK, is the UK isn't like other European countries, like Germany. You've got the AFD, or even France, which obviously, Le Pen's movement have kind of gone a bit more mainstream, but started out on the far-right. In the UK, there's actually a kind of proud tradition of anti-fascism. Historically, it's kind of been on the fringe.

In recent years, you've seen a sort of, some people say that there's this politician called Nigel Farage here who promoted Brexit and is very close to Trump, who espoused anti-immigrant views. Some say he's now managed to normalize this debate, all these questions over immigration. There isn't really a far far-right mainstream political party in the UK. That's why I think a lot of people were surprised by this, because I think for years, everyone thought the far right were a sort of busted flush, and they didn't really have much sway here. Suddenly, to see all these protests in the [01:10:00] street has shocked a lot of people.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: It doesn't seem to us over here on this side of the Atlantic, as organized as maybe in Germany or France, the far-right. There's not a figurehead. There's not somebody that we would often recognize.

MAX COLCHESTER: No.

MATT KATZ - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Interesting.

MAX COLCHESTER: I think that's what's made it really hard to police, actually. When you talk to officials trying to control this, it's not like there's the head of a group you can go and talk to and say, "Guys, please tamp this down a bit." It's really figureheads firing away on social media and then loose groups of people on Telegram getting together to basically organize a ruck a fight. It's very hard to know where these guys are going to pop up or what exactly they're going to target or how many of them will actually show up. It's proved a real difficult one for the authorities to manage.

SECTION B - CA PROPOSITION 187

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: California Proposition [01:11:00] 187.

Introducing 'Battle of 187' week! Part 2 - The Times Essential news from the L.A. Times - Air Date 7-19-21Marker

BARBARA COE: So the experiment was, could you collect enough signatures for and pass a grassroots proposition with no big money behind it, just simply enough, are there enough people involved and angry about a situation?

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: First things first, they need to assemble a committee of people to write it.

BARBARA COE: You know, we just went, okay, well, who do you know?

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: They look around and begin to put together a kind of ragtag Avengers, or Thanos, depending on who you're rooting for, of California anti-immigration hawks. They start with Harold Ezell, who used to work for the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

HAROLD EZELL: What we're saying is. Anybody that isn't here legally should not be rewarded for coming illegally

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: before working for the INS. Harold, or Hal for short was an executive at Weiner Schnitzel, a hotdog fast food chain. He has a reputation as a loudmouth with a singular obsession to stop illegal immigration in reference to undocumented.

I. [01:12:00] He once told Time Magazine, if you catch him, you ought to clean him and fry him yourself.

BARBARA COE: Howell actually knew everybody who was involved in anti illegal immigration movement.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Through Howell, the Kileys hooked up with Alan Nelson. Alan was Howell's former boss at the INS.

ALAN NELSON: The illegal alien comes without any checking, and they often bring the diseases.

So most of the contagious diseases Are being brought in by the illegals.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Hal and Allen are connected to fair, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. It's an anti-immigration lobbying organization law, and controversial for the white nationalist writings of its founder. They also connect with a woman named Barbara Coe.

She's a former crime analyst for the Anaheim Police Department and a petite chain smoker who wears Granny glasses, co-star a group. that leaves cards at businesses suspected of employing undocumented workers. The cards read, Stop the invasion. Close our borders now. Deny benefits to illegal aliens now.[01:13:00]

More people eventually join, but this is the core of the Pro 187 crew. They're an odd mix of former immigration officials and middle aged suburbanites.

BARBARA COE: So, um, we started to have meetings. With

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: their Avengers assembled at a private, members only club in Costa Mesa, They start to work on writing the actual proposition. It's October 5th, 1993.

BARBARA COE: Everybody knew that history was going to start. We knew, we knew that. We knew this was going to make a difference, whether we succeeded or failed.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: What they put together is an all out assault on undocumented immigrants. There's eight sections of 187, so I'll just sum up the lowlights. Block undocumented immigrants from social services and public health care. Force workers in those sectors to report anyone they suspected of having no papers to the INS.

But the group saves the worst for last. Kids without papers would no longer be able to attend public schools, from [01:14:00] kindergarten to college. The Kileys and their crew know that this last provision is extreme, and probably unconstitutional, but they put it in anyway.

BARBARA COE: So it would gather the media attention, so it would send up the red flags that everybody wanted to talk about it, and everybody would have an opinion about it.

And that's when it really took off.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Once 187 is written, the Kileys send it to the Republican mailing lists to see if they can get enough signatures for it to qualify for the November 1994 ballot. Every day, their P. O. box is full. Full of signatures pledging support for their proposition. Full of envelopes stuffed with donations.

Here's Barbara's husband, Bob.

BOB COE: And it just caught on. It was like wildfire. I mean, you'd go to the mailbox. We had a small mailbox. Yeah, well, they told us to stop that. How [01:15:00] many of these

BARBARA COE: boxes do you have? We have three.

CLIP: Three. Today.

187 says nothing about any ethnic groups. It didn't have to. Why do you think the issue resonated so much with people?

BARBARA COE: Because all of a sudden, I think, in certain areas of Santa Ana, in L. A. and there, there was a huge influx of Latino people. And I think a lot of white people like I am were felt threatened.

BOB COE: In a poor area, they took over the neighborhoods. And that, the people there, some of the people there resented the fact that that's what was happening to their neighborhood. It's true, you know.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: When my family moved to a new home in Anaheim in 1989, our street was half white. By 1994, only two white households remained.

Those who left missed out on my dad's awesome carnitas, so they're lost.[01:16:00]

Anyways, on June 23, 1994, Ron Prince's crusade qualifies for the November ballot, where it'll go by Proposition 187. By coincidence, the same number that California's Penal Code assigns to murder. The group decides to try to get support for their anti immigrant measure by using a new tagline. Save our state.

Who thought of the idea to call this a Save Our State initiative?

BARBARA COE: Uh, about four, uh, margaritas at, uh, El Torito.

Damn. El Torito is a Mexican restaurant chain in Orange County. Now, I'm not sure that the Kailis and their crew purposefully ate Mexican food. On the day they raised their margarita glasses and toasted to an attack.

An undocumented people, but they probably imagined they were on the right side of history when they named their campaign save our state S. O. S. For short, the logo of their campaign was an inner [01:17:00] tube. They imagined they were throwing out to a drowning California what the group didn't know in that moment.

Was that Latinos weren't going to take 187 quietly. That both sides were getting ready to gear up for one of the most dramatic fights in California's political history. One that still resonates all over the country today.

The Battle of 187 ends — and the war begins Part 2 - The Times Essential news from the L.A. Times - Air Date 7-20-21

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Back in 2000, I got a Democratic Party mailer that had a fuzzy photo of him with a caption, just when we thought he was gone.

He's back!

When I got this mailer, I remembered Wilson's They Keep Coming TV ad, the one that used fuzzy footage of Latinos crossing the US mexico border to imply we were invading California. Now? A few years later, he's the scary scapegoat.

Not long after I got that mailer, I wrote an article for OC Weekly. It came out on November 23rd, 2000. [01:18:00] Here's what I wrote. Like the Mexican legend of La Llorona, the ghost woman whose story is used to strike fear in the hearts of children. Pete Wilson's name was invoked in mailers, radio commercials, And a popular song during the recent election cycle.

Always to signify something truly horrifying.

This was the first article I ever got published. I wasn't even a reporter back then. I was a film studies major in college. But something about doing that story got me. It was like my own little personal revenge on 187. So I framed the mailer, the little story, and my pay stub. 100 for 700 words. Sadly, freelancer rates haven't improved, but California sure has.

So I guess I might as well say it right now. Thank you, Pete Wilson. Without you, I wouldn't have a career.

From the Los Angeles Times and Futuro Studios. I'm Gustavo Arellano, and [01:19:00] this is The Battle of 187. Part 3?

NEWS CLIP: Thank you,

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Pete Wilson.

NEWS CLIP: Voters decided 59 percent to 41 percent to pass the measure, which cuts off nearly all public services to illegal aliens.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: If you've been listening to this series, You have a sense of how intense the campaigns for and against Prop 187 were. Once it actually passes in November 1994, a lot of people are left asking themselves, What's next? Barbara Coe, one of the leaders of the Prop 187 move, says her phone has been ringing off the hook since last Tuesday, as individuals and organizations seek help in setting up similar campaigns in New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, even Iowa.

The president of Mexico in his final weeks in office has called on Mexicans working in the United States to come home. Remember, Latino voters overwhelmingly [01:20:00] reject 187. Many see it as an existential threat and are terrified that their lives are going to get difficult, fast. That La Migra is going to come knocking on their doors or show up in school and ask for papers.

So just a day after the election, before any parts of 187 can go into effect, Federal and state lawsuits are filed, eight in total, claiming that the proposition is unconstitutional.

NEWS CLIP: Portions of Prop 187 were to go into effect immediately, but court orders were issued today holding off the new law until its constitutionality can be examined.

The move works.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: The court freezes 187. Most of it won't go into effect until the lawsuit is heard. Which is a big relief for immigrants. Among the plaintiffs, the ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF. Gloria Molina serves on the L. A. County Board of Supervisors. We heard from her earlier.

And she tries to convince the county to join the suit. After that, you start getting a lot of hate [01:21:00] mail again.

GLORIA MOLINA: Yes, I did. And I just had to put up with it. People came to the board, attacked me, uh, letters that I would get.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: When Gloria says people attacked her, she's not kidding. She becomes a target of pure venom.

Here's a letter she gets from someone in Long Beach. If you and your protesting Mecs are so great, why don't you go to Mexico and build your own country? You Mecs are the divisive ones. You don't assimilate into US society. You want your divisive language, or divisive holidays, and on and on and on and on.

The place for what you want is Mexico. And it isn't just nasty letters.

GLORIA MOLINA: They were angry. I remember going to Trader Joe's one day and being attacked by a woman there, and talking about, you know, what kind of representative am I? You know, if you're just siding with Mexico, why don't you move to Mexico? And, and, uh, I, uh, Said, thank you for your views.

I know you feel that way. I feel differently. And then afterwards, when I went out to the parking lot to get in my car, I almost could swear she was ready to run me down.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: 180 7 hits a national nerve from [01:22:00] coast to coast. People wanna rail against immigration, period. Take these callers on NPRs talk of the nation.

NPR CALLER: It's an invasion. It's a, it's, it's, it's a, it's like a, it's a passive. There's, there's really nothing else that you can call it. I mean, it's just incredible.

This thing about discriminating against, uh, illegals or whatever, to me, is just a bunch of bull.

And I don't believe it one bit. I am for that proposition.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: In California, 187 is the first in a string of propositions that target people of color through the 90s. In 1994, voters also passed the infamous Three Strikes initiative, which lands hard on Blacks and Latinos. Two years later, voters ban affirmative action. In 1998, it's bilingual education. But while all this is going on, 187 itself stays tied up in the courts.

For years. In 1997, a federal judge finds it [01:23:00] unconstitutional. AKA, goodbye 187. But, then Attorney General Dan Lundgren, a Republican, he appeals the decision to try to keep it alive. Peter Nunez is one of the architects of 187 that we heard from earlier. He thinks Lungren isn't fighting hard enough for 187.

And just a warning here, he describes Lundgren with pretty sexist language.

PETER NUNEZ: I am convinced that Lundgren didn't like it and let it die.

GUSTAVO ARELLANO - HOST, THE TIMES: Why do you think Lundgren held back?

PETER NUNEZ: I think he was a p Maybe he had political ambitions and he didn't want to piss off the Hispanic population, the Latino population.

Shameful. He was shameful. He was the Attorney General of the state of California. He had an obligation that he failed to uphold.

Lundgren has denied those accusations.

187 finally dies for [01:24:00] good in 1999, when Pete Wilson's successor, Gray Davis, drops the appeal. In the end, the big parts of it never go into effect. Started with a bang, ended with a whimper. But Latinos from California like me, never forgot it.

SECTION C - TRUMP VS HARRIS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C: Trump versus Harris.

WATCH: Where RNC delegates stand on immigration - PBS Newshour - Air Date 7-17-24

THOMAS FUGATE: I have a lot of friends at the border, um, different counties down there. Um, obviously a massive problem just with like housing them. Um, there's a lot of trash that gets washed up. There's concerns about crime, um, particularly in those communities. There's a lot of different information that's getting out.

It's hard to tell exactly what's going on, but in general, it's disorganized, it's dysfunctional, it's a mess, and it's probably bad for all parties involved, including the migrants. and everyone else.

DEBBIE MCCORD: We're area. So we don't have th illegal immigrations and illegal immigration. But we live right outside.

We're only [01:25:00] 75 80 miles from Athens. So the lake and Riley killing murder really affected my community. I mean, people are very upset about it. Um, I've had kids in college. Uh, you never want to feel like your child can't go out for a run or a walk and not be safe.

KAY RENDLEMAN: We're getting immigrants coming in.

Fortunately, we are not a sanctuary city. A lot of them are getting sent to Denver where they're having a lot of difficulty and problems. It's creating, um, a lot of financial stress and strain on the city in Denver. But, um, we have, you know, made it clear that we're not A sanctuary town. So, uh, we've had much more limited.

impact in our city.

CINDY SPRAY: Immigration is a big problem in every [01:26:00] community in the United States for us directly, especially for school districts, not only in my county, but all over. We're getting a lot of Children that do not speak our language. So that language we have is just, it's jus languages that we are try to understand english.

So challenge.

JACI LOPEZ: My husband's a driver and he frequently Laredo and every time he semi trucks pulled over by Border Patrol with 50 75 100 illegals that are pouring out of it and being lined up there. You think about that? They're stuck in a hot box with no ventilation, no water, no bathroom, no food, no airflow at all whatsoever.

And that's a problem. That's a big problem. The cartels are benefiting from this because they're making the money. [01:27:00] Um, Our, our country is suffering from it. The people that are trying to cross because they are looking for a better life are suffering. They're being sold a bag of lies. And, um, it's not right.

It's inhumane.

CHRIS SLINKER: The border is a big issue to me. I think the fact that we're disrespecting this country in a way that we are literally letting anyone walk in and do whatever they want. These are not bad people. We're not saying they're bad people. We want to give them a chance to come in, but can we do it right?

Can we also give them a real chance instead of them sneaking in and then feeling left alone or left helpless? That is literally what the Democrats are doing. They are literally just trying to flood the gates.

CINDY SPRAY: When President Trump talks about the mass deportation, I don't see him going to get the grandmother that's taking care of their grandchildren.

Or somebody here. that's been here for a number of years, have, have, uh, [01:28:00] contributed to our society, have worked and have never committed a crime and have been basically a citizen. I could see that they need that pathway to citizenship a little faster than those who just came across the border. That's, that's where I am with it.

I'm a republican. Everybody like, no, everybody's got to go through the process. Well, process is too long. So I think that there is a way that we could do that.

THOMAS FUGATE: The Democrats don't negotiate in good faith. And we've tried this before under Reagan. We've had mass amnesty under Ronald Reagan for millions of illegal immigrants.

And they told us, the Democrats told the Republican party that after that, there would be no more. That they're going to change and fix the immigration system, the asylum system. It's never happened. Republicans are always the ones to give in. They're always the one to compromise first. The Democrats don't ever give us anything on our side.

So we've given amnesty before we've tried it. It hasn't worked. And so we're not keen to try that [01:29:00] again.

RNC & ”Migrant Crime” - Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - Air Date 7-25-24

NEWS CLIP: A gang of migrants broke into the country, pummeled two NYPD officers, and while walking out of jail without bail, flipped the double bird to the country they let them in.

The two birds heard around the world. The symbol of the Biden presidency, right there. Okay,

JOHN OLIVER - HOST, LAST WEEK TONIGHT: for the record, the symbol for the Biden presidency is absolutely not two birds. As we all know, it is a bunch of piss stained Democrats nervously Googling, how old is a person allowed to be? But that image of the guy flipping off the camera was used constantly on Fox from February through early March.

It was used in at least Sixty six segments during that period, with the man's fingers blurred out, presumably, to protect the eyes of the innocent children who are forced to watch Fox News at Grandma's while they eat their Dinosaurs Lived With Humans nuggets. Fox kept hammering their coverage of that incident, with perhaps the apex being a segment where Sean Hannity did an interview with Curtis Sliwa, the head of the vigilante group, The [01:30:00] Guardian Angels, live from the U.

S. Now, during the interview, Sliwa's fellow angel suddenly mobilized towards something off camera, and he later explained they'd had to get physical with a migrant whom they'd seen committing a crime.

NEWS CLIP: Well, he had been shoplifting first. The guardian angel spotted them, stopped them. He resisted, and let's just say we gave him a little pain compliance.

His mother back in Venezuela felt the vibrations. He's sucking concrete. The cops scraped him off the asphalt. He's on his way to jail, but they'll cut him loose. We gotta take 42nd Street back, Sean. These illegals think they own this street. They think they rule the night. This is our country. If they can't abide by the rules, then we're gonna kick them back from where they came.

JOHN OLIVER - HOST, LAST WEEK TONIGHT: Hold on. First, rule the night on 42nd Street? I call bullshit. Anyone who lives here knows the night there is ruled by groups of 13 year olds leaving Aladdin on their way to the Red Lobster one block away. Let me say this [01:31:00] clearly. Immigrants are not invading our country, and they are not taking over 42nd Street, but if they are, they can fucking have it.

But there's a few other things that feel important to mention about that. First of all, First, you can't just beat someone up if you think they're committing a crime. And second, you should never go out in public dressed like that. He looks like Alan Arkin playing one of the Angry Birds. He, he looks like a divorced strawberry.

He looks like if the G. I. Joes had an off hours bowling team. But, but it gets worse. Because it turned out the man they'd beaten up wasn't actually a migrant at all, and there was no evidence to support the allegation he was shoplifting. It seems like what actually happened is that Sliwa's goons apprehended the guy for allegedly attempting to disrupt a live interview, which is not a crime, and also not what he did, since surveillance footage apparently shows he was just trying to maneuver through the crowd when the vigilantes confronted him.

But, Sliwa said he believed the man was a migrant because he was speaking Spanish. Something that could be said. of about, roughly, [01:32:00] 25 percent of this city, including, by the way, me. Qué vas a hacer, Curtis Lee Wa? Soy emigrante, y estoy hablando español. Me vas a mandar? Tú pendejos, hijo de puta? Tu cara es demasiado estúpida y tu cara también.

Eres una mierda y no creo que tu mamá esté orgullosa de ti. And it turns out, even the facts of the original Times Square incident that started all of this fell apart in similar fashion because when more camera footage came out, it revealed how the whole incident had begun and made the NYPD look less like unwitting victims and more like the instigators.

NEWS CLIP: NYPD body cam video takes us inside that Times Square brawl that made national headlines. That and new surveillance video police released raising more questions tonight whether the January altercation should have happened at all. The two officers approached the group of men. [01:33:00]

RNC SPEAKER: The crowd is giving direction to please disperse that they're blocking the sidewalk.

NEWS CLIP: The video doesn't support that as people are seen walking by. Most of the group immediately moves. But you'll Henry Brito in yellow is the last to leave telling police don't touch me. But when he starts to finally obey the officer's orders, pushing the stroller away, the group begins singing a derogatory song.

And then this. Immediately after Bruto yells looks like ugly Betty to the group, the officer is shown pushing him up against

JOHN OLIVER - HOST, LAST WEEK TONIGHT: a wall. Yeah, if you watch the wide shot it becomes clear that what set the whole scuffle off is one cop choosing to push that guy up against a wall after the other one got called Ugly Betty.

And for what it's worth, this is what the cop looked like. And if you're thinking, well he only kind of looks like Ugly Betty, let me remind you, in Latin America, Ugly Betty looks like this, and that is a [01:34:00] fair hit. And violence is not an acceptable response to someone being insulted that correctly. Do you think there haven't been moments when I haven't wanted to throw someone against a wall because they called me worst Sheldon or a less sexual Screech or what would happen if the Rat and the Chef and Ratatouille fucked?

Sure, sure, it hurts my feelings mom, but it's also fair and it doesn't justify violence. But wait. Because there's one more twist here. Remember the guy flipping the double birds, who was on Fox News at least 66 times? The symbol of bigrant crime. Well, funny story, the Manhattan D. A. ended up dismissing the charges against him because it turned out he had nothing to do with the incident.

He wasn't even there! The NYPD apparently mistook him for a completely different person for a mystery reason that I'm sure wasn't racist at all. So, he was arrested for something he didn't do. Spent two nights in jail, and then had cameras shoved in his face. Now, I personally cannot think of a scenario in which flipping two middle fingers is more appropriate there.

Honestly, if he [01:35:00] could have grown another hand in that moment, I would not have blamed him for throwing up a third bird for good measure. But the facts that came out afterward didn't really matter. Because by then, migrant crime was already out there as a phrase, and ever since, Fox and the Republicans have been hammering the idea that migrants are dangerous.

And because, again, there is no data to back up claims of a migrant crime wave, they've instead had to resort to anecdotes or exaggeration. For instance, the Republican National Committee made a website tracking alleged examples of migrant crime called BidenBloodBath. com. If you go to it, you'll find the names of 13 different states, which you can click on to find evidence of so called migrant crime there.

But for four of those states, when you click through, you'll find all they're able to cite is those states overall rates of fentanyl deaths. And look, those deaths were tragic, but you cannot connect them to migrant crime, given that to the extent fentanyl has been seized at the border, 90 percent of the time, it was seized during legal crossings, and 91 [01:36:00] percent of those seizures were from U.

S. citizens. Which, of course, they were. If you want to move drugs across the border, you're going to do it with American citizens because they attract less attention from authorities. I'm not telling you how to move drugs. But if you are going to, that is the only smart way to do it. So I have just told you how to move drugs.

And as for people crossing illegally, just 009 percent of people arrested by Border Patrol last year were found to possess any fentanyl whatsoever. So, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I don't know if BidenBloodbath. com Is the reliable source of news and information that we all thought it was.

And look, I am not saying that there haven't been individual migrants who've committed crimes. Of course they have, because migrants are people. And some people do bad things. In the same way, some Abba fans and some people with SpongeBob tattoos have committed crimes. And if it so happens that there is someone out there who is a migrant Abba fan with multiple SpongeBob tattoos, the only thing they're likely to be guilty of is being an [01:37:00] utterly fascinating human being.

What is your story, dude? I have so many questions about what brought you to this point. The thing is, if you want to prevent crime and death, that's a great idea. And there are absolutely ways to do that, but when you draw a circle around a few members of a particular group, especially one identifiable by race or nationality, then generalize about what this means about all of them.

No matter what you say, you're not having a reasoned debate about crime or safety, you're being racist. And the depressing thing is, all this fear mongering has been effective. Over 70 percent of Republicans now believe there is a high risk of people illegally coming to the US and committing crime.

Something which, again, is demonstrably and provably false.

Harris touts immigration reform at Arizona campaign rally - NBC NEWS - Air Date 8-10-24

KAMALA HARRIS: We, we will move forward and take on the biggest issues facing our nation. For example, the issue of immigration. So I was Attorney General of a [01:38:00] border state. I went after the transnational gangs, the drug cartels, and human traffickers. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.

So I know what I'm talking about. We know our immigration system is broken, and we know what it takes to fix it. Comprehensive reform that includes

strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.

But Donald Trump does not want to fix this problem. Be clear about that. He has no interest or desire to actually fix the problem. He talks a big game about border security, [01:39:00] but he does not walk the walk. Earlier this year, everybody here knows, earlier this year we had a chance to pass the toughest bipartisan border security bill in decades.

But Donald Trump tanked the deal, because

he thought by doing that it would help him win an election. But when I am president, I will sign the bill.

So Arizona, ours is a fight for the future and it is a fight for freedom.

Trump & Harris Each Vow Border Crackdowns as Immigrant Communities Demand Positive Change - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-21-24

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. If you can respond to what he says, but then, overall, what you think the issues are that should be being addressed [01:40:00] here, and what is being addressed?

MARIA HINOJOSA: The chaos? There is no chaos on the border, I just need to say. There is a humanitarian crisis, but the chaos was created by the policies initially of Donald Trump. So, let’s just put that — I just think it’s important that we change the narrative entirely. He’s right, what we should be talking about right now is comprehensive immigration reform, comprehensive, and a pathway to citizenship. In that sense, he’s right.

If I was giving counsel to Kamala Harris, what I would say is, “You need to have a primetime address on the issue of immigration. And you need to come to the camera and say, like, unequivocally, 'We are stopping this narrative about immigrants and refugees as a problem, as bringing in crime, as affecting our economy in negative way.'” We have to — she needs to make a statement based in reality — right? — which is, stop with [01:41:00] this notion of the border as a place where people are coming in, and nobody knows. She needs to take the moment, because she can, because she’s the daughter of immigrants. There’s nobody who can better do it than her.

Also, Joe Biden’s parting gift — I know people think I’m like out of this, you know, when I say this. Joe Biden’s parting gift needs to be actually for him to say, “Executive order, pathway to citizenship, now.” Why not? What is stopping him? I mean, even the Supreme Court has said that a president is not liable. He’s not breaking the law. He will actually — if he does that, he will guarantee — I’m saying this, and I don’t like to make these predictions. If they do that, Kamala will win, because all of those immigrants who are questioning her position, when she’s like, “We want to be tough on the border,” etc., etc., they would say, “Oh my god! This is in fact our party. This is in fact our candidate.” And they could win. I think it would be a game-changer.

And it needs to stop, this narrative about [01:42:00] criminals and immigrants and breaking laws. That is not who we are. And you have to talk to people who have actually been to the border, like Marisa, like myself, like Oscar, to understand that that narrative is not true.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Maria, when you talk about changing the narrative, this whole emphasis on immigration and crime is really a modern version — isn’t it? — of the Willie Horton approach to finding an other to rally the right-wing populists around? Because the reality is that crime rates among immigrants are far lower than they are among U.S.-born citizens.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Hence why when Kamala Harris does her primetime address on this issue, she actually goes really nerdy and has a whiteboard and says, “Let me show you, so it is unequivocal, that the FBI has said that over the last 30 years, violent crime has dropped precipitously. Let me show you on my little [01:43:00] whiteboard that the cities where immigrants are arriving to are among the safest — New York City, for example.”

Now, when you take a people, like vulnerable migrants and refugees, and you have them, like in New York City, what’s happening now — you put them into Roosevelt Hotel, then you’re taking them out, then you’re leaving them on the streets, and then you’re moving them around, and then you’re having them in encampments — this is a recipe for disaster. New York should be — I’m just saying New York because that’s where I live — should be doing a much better job, because, sadly, that reality is going to create a very ugly, visible situation, where you’re going to have migrants and refugees sleeping on the streets of New York, which is happening now. That is unacceptable. But then again, the mayor of New York needs to do something. Point is, massive change of narrative that only Kamala Harris can do.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Marisa, I wanted to ask you, in terms of what you would hope — what do you think Kamala Harris needs to do to set herself apart from previous policies of [01:44:00] the Biden administration, the Trump administration, and even the Obama administration to some degree?

MARISA FRANCO: Well, one, I think that, you know, one of the tenets of her campaign is freedom, and specifically talking about reproductive freedom, reproductive justice. And inside of that is bodily autonomy. And I think there’s not that far to understand then the freedom to migrate and the freedom to move and the freedom to pursue a better life when we’re talking about immigration. I think there’s a recognition for that.

And to be able to resist the sort of political ploys of the Republican Party, but then also resist the lack of political courage that the Democrats have shown, there is executive orders. There’s pushing what we can push through Congress. But there’s also standing up to the likes of Governor Abbott in the state of Texas, who has taken the mantle that was, you know, very much in my home state of Arizona, and standing up to Greg Abbott and the things that he’s doing and that he continues to do, and standing with Mayor Johnson here in Chicago, who [01:45:00] has been receiving folks coming, and different mayors across the country, and being able to actually push forward at the municipal level policies around immigration that I think we have had comprehensive — we have had immigration reform; it’s just been all enforcement.

And so, we need to really turn toward the question of legalization. I think also other key issues, the question of care, and how much she’s been a champion on that, labor, healthcare, education. Like, these are all things that I think people would really support. And finding, you know, the sweet spot between policies that are possible but impactful in our communities, I think, is what people are looking for. I think voters are looking for who gives — who cares about me, who cares about my future. And I think those types of things are things that people would really respond to.

SECTION D - MIGRANTS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally Section D: Migrants.

Election 2024 As 'neofascist' Trump targets immigrants, how will the left respond w Juan González Part 2 - The Real News Network - Air Date 7-28-24

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, José Luis, can you give us a perspective from the work that you have done in Mexico Solidarity, how the [01:46:00] immigration debate is being framed in the United States and how it should be framed?

JOSE LUIS GRANADOS CEJA: Absolutely. It’s really good to be here with everybody on this program to talk about this topic. I think it’s one of the major issues that’s going to be talked about on the campaign trail. And often, it’s actually quite disappointing to see how little we talk about where Mexico fits in, in all of this. Much of what’s being discussed is going to have repercussions, not just for Mexico, but for all of Latin America.

And so I think when we talk about this, we have to have a regional perspective. And I don’t mean to replicate some of the rhetoric that we hear. Often, political leaders in the United States talk about having a regional response or about attending to the root causes, but actually involving Latin American countries, migrants themselves as part of this conversation.

And what they’ve insisted, I think, at least from what we’ve seen here in Mexico, is that they need to recognize the role that migrants play in the US economy, in the North American economy more broadly.

I think one of [01:47:00] the things that we need to talk about more as well is the regional perspective, which is talking about the root causes in a serious way, not in the way that has been done historically by US politicians where they try to frame things in a way that’s, actually, ultimately, going to favor the interests of US capital and the owners of capital in the United States. These programs that talk about investing in Central America or in Latin America but, ultimately, are all about continuing the exploitation and the oppression of the peoples of Latin America. But actually figuring out what’s going on and talking about the root causes in that sense in terms of what’s driving people to migrate.

One of the things we often come across when you talk to any migrant that is crossing through Mexico is that they all say that we would rather stay home. They are fleeing their situations. It’s not that they’re choosing to migrate. It’s a very different kind of phenomenon.

And so if we talk about the root causes, well, what does that mean? And one of the things that I think is often missing as part of the debate is [01:48:00] what is US foreign policy? What’s the role of US foreign policy in all of this? And when I mean that, one of the things that I think we should be highlighting, for example, is something that came out of the Palenque Summit.

It was a gathering of regional leaders: Nicolás Maduro, Díaz-Canel, López Obrador, the presidents of Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela were present. And what did they say? Well, we need to see an end to US intervention in Latin America, an end to the brutal blockade of Cuba, an end to the sanctions against Venezuela, and also talking about a way that actually invests in these people’s communities so that they don’t have to feel like they have to flee.

And I think that’s something that we need to hear more in the discussion about this. There are deeply integrated issues, migration and US foreign policy, and often, that doesn’t come up, even though there are efforts to try to amplify this.

Like I said, how is it that we’re not talking about what was said at the Palenque Summit? We talk about the Los Angeles Declaration, but why not that one? And I think [01:49:00] that’s one of the key things, I would say, needs to be part of this conversation. How do we get to a point where we’re pressuring US politicians, be they Republican or Democrat, to recognize the world that US foreign policy plays?

And I’ll close on this note. When we think about where do migrants come from, they tend to come from the countries that are facing US repression. Right now, one of the greatest communities that is seeing a movement towards the United States comes from Venezuela.

Venezuela, right now, is under a difficult economic situation as a result of US sanctions. US sanctions make it impossible for Venezuela to sell its oil, its number one export commodity, on the international market in a transparent, open way. They have to go through intermediaries, they sell things at a discount. It’s a very important resource to Venezuela’s economy. They can’t benefit from the way that they used to, even with prices being high.

And so that’s why we see the economic issues happening in Venezuela. We’ll try to blame the government and Nicolás Maduro, but I think much of the blame lies with US sanctions.

Same with the case of Cuba. In Haiti, right now, the destabilization as a result of [01:50:00] historic interventions in that country. That’s why we see migrants coming from this. And I think the more we talk about US foreign policy as being one of the root causes of migration, the further we can get in terms of this conversation of actually tackling the issue and making it so that migrants leave only because they want to, not because they have to.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to bring in Nana Gyamfi, a long-time attorney with immigration issues and with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

Nana, what about this issue of US foreign policy? And also, the issue that much of the focus has been on Latin American migration, but the reality is, even as Donald Trump said in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, that people are coming not just from Latin America, but from Asia, from Africa, from the Middle East. And of course, he was talking about it as they were sending criminals and rapists and murderers and terrorists, all of these countries [01:51:00] sending them to the United States.

NANA GYAMFI: Yes, absolutely. Thank you. I’m very excited to be here. I’m having this conversation, such a critical conversation in such a critical time. There are migrants that are coming, believe it or not, from Black countries, Black people, that are coming here to the United States. Many more are coming through the border than were coming previously through the US-Mexico so-called border.

But there’s just generally been an increase in Black migrants, particularly from the continent, not surprisingly, as we go from the late ’80s into the early ’90s when you see the United States playing out its efforts to push back against leftist socialist governments that were coming to the fore on the continent at that time. And of course, the US intervention, it has always intervened with coups, with assassination attempts, et cetera, on the continent.

And in the Caribbean, you see, again, in the [01:52:00] Caribbean, where they were talking about Grenada, Haiti, other places, as you have the US trying to fight to be able to keep its racial capitalist system rolling, the effect has been for people to flee.

And as we often talk about here at BAJI, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, what you see is Black people fleeing from majority Black countries — And also countries that are not majority Black — What Black people were fleeing from the United States, coming from the South to the North, to the Midwest, and to the West: economic terror, social terror, political terror.

And much of that terror has the face of the United States behind it, either directly or through the IMF, the World Bank, various UN entities that are, allegedly, used as diplomacy, as a weapon through their [01:53:00] connections and contacts working directly with the European Union, working also with their own military.

AFRICOM is all over the continent. You have these US military bases all over these areas in Latin America and Central America and the Caribbean, and those places include places where Black people are living. And the result of that is Black people coming into this country in numbers that really haven’t been seen before, particularly over the last 30 years. And then as I said, with this border, the US-Mexico so-called border, really over the last five years.

It is an important conversation to include. As we know, this country is built upon the enslavement and continued exploitation of Black people, as well as the genocide of Indigenous people. And when we look at who is really being rejected at [01:54:00] the border, we’re looking at Black folks, we’re looking at Indigenous folks coming particularly from Central America and Mexico. A lot of the issues that we face are the result of the same kind of racism, the same kind of discrimination, particularly anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, that we see in the United States.

Election 2024 As 'neofascist' Trump targets immigrants, how will the left respond w Juan González Part 3 - The Real News Network - Air Date 7-28-24

JUAN GONZALEZ: I want to follow up on that. In terms of the Mexico situation, first of all, clearly, what most people are not aware of, although Mexicans historically were about two-thirds of all the undocumented migrants in the United States, the last 10 years, there has actually been a shift.

More Mexicans have been leaving the country than have been coming in over the last 10 years, so that the Mexican percentage of the undocumented population has been dropping precisely because, as you mentioned, there was a doubling of the [01:55:00] minimum wage, there was a right of unions to finally break free from government-controlled unions and elect their own leaders. There was a much more vibrant labor movement, and so many people didn’t feel the need to leave as they have in the past.

But I wanted to ask about these class battles within these communities. For instance, one study that I’ve been involved in shows that the Venezuelans, for instance, the Venezuelan migration of the last five years has been the most educated migrant group in American history. 61% of all the Venezuelans who have come to the United States in the last five years have a college bachelor’s degree or higher. The adult US population, only 34% have a college degree or higher.

So the Venezuelans who are coming are twice as educated as the average American, and they are much more of a [01:56:00] middle-class migration similar to that, that came after the Cuban revolution in 1959. And once they learn English and adapt to their environment, they will probably be a very middle class and somewhat conservative wing of the Latino population of the United States.

Likewise, some of the migrants that are coming from Caribbean or African countries don’t come from the working classes or the peasants, the peasantry of these nations, but are pretty much often educated or middle strata people who maybe have a different political perspective from the historic migrants from Haiti and Jamaica and other countries that have come in previous decades.

I’m wondering how you see class conflict developing within the migrant communities of the United States and how that will affect how these communities act politically in the future?

NANA GYAMFI: Absolutely [sung] . Absolutely. [01:57:00] Absolutely. And I think that goes with some of what you were talking about, Juan. A piece that I neglected to mention earlier that is very important when you talked about the Global South and the migration in the Global South.

The United States and Europe have extended their borders way beyond what is considered the border of the geography map into other countries, including some of these countries that are considered more leftist. Black migrants are not enjoying their lives in Mexico. They are not having a grand old time because of changes that have occurred. Same in Colombia and in other countries. Brazil is probably one of the few exceptions.

And the reality is that, that extension, part of the purpose of that is like a continuation of having certain people come over. Remember when Trump was like, why don’t we get Norwegians, and talked about the [01:58:00] s-hole countries and who people were. There’s always been this effort, but it’s been even increased over the past 10, 20 years to have a certain crew of people come.

So you can come through this program for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but you got to fly in. You can’t walk in, you got to fly. You got to have a ticket, you got to have a sponsor. So someone with money who’s able to not just take care of themselves in the United States of America, but has the capacity to extend care to someone else coming in from another country and say, I got them. I can cover them, also has to be involved. They’ve got to have a job. They’ve got to have all these things.

That doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have working-class people that are going to be able to do that. But for the most part, even if the person coming is working class, clearly the person sponsoring has got a little bit of funds. I’m not saying they got to be wealthy rich, but they’ve got to have [01:59:00] some expendable income in order to make that happen.

And you see the same thing that’s happening in Europe where those borders are being extended into the continent so that, again, you keep people from being able to come in unless they come through these very narrow pathways that I refer to as obstacle courses.

They’re actually not pathways. They’re like capitalists, who can make it through, type of energy, where people who are going to come and become part of this wannabe middle class, excuse me, are going to come. And that is creating a situation in which you have, again, people looking at folks within our own communities in this stratified way.

And so, Africans want to be seen as, and talk about the fact that they’re amongst the most educated populations that come to this [02:00:00] country, but they’re driving Uber. They don’t want to talk about the fact that they’re driving Uber. Something wrong with driving Uber. You get my point, right?

Because that part of wanting to hold on to this idea that we are middle class is so important and looking the nose down at those Africans that are on the bikes delivering for DoorDash, et cetera, when, in fact, we know that your degree, whether it’s your attorney license, your medical license was torn up and thrown in the trash when you got to the United States, and you had to go through all kinds of hoops in order to become a medical tech and a paralegal after all these years that you may have been doing something else.

That stratification is there, and the embarrassment about not being in this middle class, the respectability politics that I know we’ll talk about later also [02:01:00] serves as a sort of class conflict-inducing source.

Trump & Harris Each Vow Border Crackdowns as Immigrant Communities Demand Positive Change Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-21-24

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Maria, I wanted to ask you, in terms of this narrative and the work that Latinos do in this country, immigrants especially. Here in Chicago, 70% of all the landscapers in the city of Chicago are Mexican, half of all the restaurant workers. And you could go on, all of the low-paid work that is done here by migrants that have helped to revive some of these cities, and yet the narrative is always about the criminality and those who are bringing problems and seeking to use government resources.

MARIA HINOJOSA: So, what I say is, open your eyes — which, again, Kamala should be saying. Enough with what you hear. Actually open your eyes and see the immigrants all around you. And be like, “Huh, oh, this one’s working at 4:00 in the morning doing this or that.” Also, I like to remember, and [02:02:00] it’s important that we — I mean, Oscar is a professional. Marisa is a professional. I’m a professional. We’re all immigrants. My father helped to create the cochlear implant here at the University of Chicago, steps away from where we are. So, yes, we are all of those things, Juan. We are the laborers, but we’re also the brains behind this country.

So, that, that has to be so important, because, you know, Juan and I, we’ve been around so long that I know I say, “How is it possible that our Black brothers and sisters and that our fellow Latino, Latina, Latinx and Latine immigrants, sons and daughters of immigrants, are buying into these lies? How is it possible?” It truly is brilliant in the sense of mis- and disinformation. But what we have to do is to then replace that with — every single one who’s listening and watching this, when people say, “I don’t know what to do,” you know what you do? You go and tell the next person that you see, “Hey, do you see that immigrant doing this job? Do you see the immigrant doing this job? Do you know about my immigrant neighbor?” [02:03:00] It has to be person to person and just an onslaught of these other messages to combat what we’ve had to deal with over the last several decades.

OSCAR CHACON: I mean, after all, Trump is absolutely correct: Say a lie a thousand times, people believe it. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. I mean, the only reason immigration is such a hot topic is not because it’s real. It’s been manufactured by lies.

MARISA FRANCO: There’s something, I think, also, just to name. Like, we’re talking a lot about immigration and Latinos, but this is a really important moment for Black Americans. I mean, the possibility of a Black woman president, I think, is significant. And I think there’s really important things that Michelle Obama actually talked about yesterday that I think actually speak and relate to immigrant people, people of color, people who don’t come from money that do something, that do something, so, like, changing the narrative. A lot of us did not have the privilege of [02:04:00] being able to fail forward, as like the likes of Donald Trump.

And so, I think there’s a piece there that — because there is real — we have to come out of this with a stronger coalition of communities of color and low-income communities. And I think that there is real jewels in some of the narrative that she was putting out that connects deeply to values that are commonly held across communities. So, I really wanted to lift that up and also recognize how important of a moment it is and how beautiful it is to see the community mobilizing behind her and how much it’s transformed the campaign. I can say that in Arizona and some of the different states we work in, it is truly shifting at the ground level.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And we only have about a minute, but what is Mijente planning to do from now until Election Day? You haven’t endorsed anyone yet. You did endorse Bernie Sanders in the primaries in 2020. What do you see as your work after this convention?

MARISA FRANCO: We are doing a national tour of over 20 cities called “El [02:05:00] Chisme,” that’s broadening the frame beyond the top of the ticket and looking at the local levels. We’re having an event — Maria is joining us — tonight here in Chicago. We’re mobilizing voters in four states, in Texas, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. And we’re preparing to hit the ground running in 2025. Pasa lo que pasa, whoever ends up winning, we’ve got to keep organizing.

AMY GOODMAN: You helped Biden win Arizona, turning it blue. You haven’t made an endorsement this time.

MARISA FRANCO: We did not. We did not. I think we’re prepared to mobilize, but we don’t endorse every time. And for us, you know, our members were not — we were not going to endorse Biden. And when it shifted, we were a little bit too far in the game. So, we’re mobilizing, but we did not endorse.

AMY GOODMAN: But, Maria, in New York, Make the Road did endorse Vice President Harris to be president.

MARIA HINOJOSA: That’s why I’m saying this is a particularly fascinating moment. And you have progressive organizations like Make the Road endorsing, others still waiting. But this is why I’m so glad, Marisa, [02:06:00] that you brought up the importance of the Black, Latino — also, there are Afro-Latinos. There are so many Black Latinos. That question, like, “Will Latinos vote for a Black man, or vote for a Black woman, in this case?” Yes. And we have to. It’s a historical moment. You know, I’m a kid, a Mexican kid, who grew up here on the South Side of Chicago. My mom, who’s 88 now, made the decision of, “Well, we’re Mexican immigrants, but we are siding with Martin Luther King. That is our guy.” So, that notion of the solidarity between Black and Latino communities must exist.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991 or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from The Brian Lehrer Show, Today Explained, The Times, The PBS NewsHour, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, NBC News, Democracy Now!, and The Real News [02:07:00] Network. Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Quartet—Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew—for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.

So, coming to from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, [02:08:00] from bestoftheleft.com.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT:

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#1650 The Vibes Election Explained: Harris is up, Trump is down and Gaza will not be forgotten (Transcript)

Posted by · August 23, 2024 2:00 PM

Air Date 8/23/2024

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#1649 Race in America and the Moral Clarity of James Baldwin (Transcript)

Posted by · August 17, 2024 10:05 AM

Air Date 8/17/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. James Baldwin's 100th birthday passed by recently and we're using the occasion to draw on his moral clarity and eloquence, while we assess the state of race in America.

Sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today, include 1A, ThroughLine, Democracy Now!, The Thom Hartmann Program, Woke AF Daily, The Majority Report, and a speech by Cory Bush, then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more on Baldwin the Writer, Race in America, the White Lie, and Global Connections.

Celebrating James Baldwin's 100th Birthday - 1A - Air Date 7-30-24

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: James Baldwin is one of the most celebrated American writers of the 20th century. He wrote novels, essays, short stories, poetry, even a screenplay. He's best known for his affecting prose, his depth of thought, and his clear moral vision for the country. He was also a bit of a character. In interviews, he's often smoking a cigarette with his legs crossed, [00:01:00] casually calling the interviewer baby with a grin.

But Baldwin is perhaps best known for his philosophies on race.

JAMES BALDWIN: I don't believe in White people. I don't believe in Black people either, for that matter. But I know the difference between being Black and Whiteness and, and at this time, it means that I cannot fool myself about some things, but I can fool myself about it if I were White.

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: As an openly gay man, Baldwin spoke about sexuality in a time when it was unheard of for many Black men to do so.

JAMES BALDWIN: Homosexual is not a noun. It might be a verb, transitive. It is certainly an adjective, but it is not a noun. To ask the question means you don't know anything about human experience—where it can take you, what it can do.

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: Nearly 40 years after his death, much of what he had to say about the U. S. continues to resonate.

JAMES BALDWIN: The future of the Negro in this country is precisely as [00:02:00] bright or as dark as the future of the country. It is entirely up to the American people and our representatives. It is entirely up to the American people.

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: This week, Baldwin would have turned 100 years old. In a moment when democracy is at risk, when wars abroad are being protested at home, when race continues to shape American politics, what can we learn from Baldwin about a moment not so different from his own?

James Baldwin's Fire - Throughline - Air Date 9-17-20

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Yeah, so the lie is what I call the value gap. And that is the belief that White people matter more than others. And that belief evidences itself in our dispositions, our habits, our practices, our social and political and economic arrangements. And they're protected by the lies we tell ourselves.

You know, Baldwin in 1964 wrote an essay entitled "The White Problem", and he has this wonderful passage, it's so poignant, where he—and I'm paraphrasing here—where he says, you know, the founders of the country had a fatal [00:03:00] flaw, they said that they were Christian, they said that they were founding the nation on these principles, but yet they had chattel, they had us, and in order to justify the role that these chattel played in their lives, they had to basically say that these men and women were not human beings, Because if they weren't human beings, then no crime had been committed.

And then here's the line, "That lie is the basis of our present trouble". And so we tell ourselves this story that we're the redeemer nation, that we're the shining city on the hill, as Ronald Reagan said. And we tell ourselves we're the example of our democracy achieved, as if we didn't do what we did in Haiti, as if we didn't do what we did in Cuba, or what we did in Puerto Rico, or what we did in Hiroshima, or what we did in Nagasaki, right? So, we do all of that to protect our innocence.

So, Baldwin is insisting, you know, we have to confront the messiness of who we are, our ghastly failures, in order to release ourselves into being otherwise. And that, [00:04:00] at the personal level, also must happen at the societal level. So, we have to tell the truth about who we are and what we've done, but the lies get in the way,

RUND ABDELFATAH - HOST, THROUGHLINE: You know, those lies that, as you say, we tell ourselves personally and socially—like, as a society we tell ourselves—on the one hand it's that sort of self preservation reflex that we have on both that sort of micro and macro level and it just makes me think, there's a certain vulnerability that it takes to own up to a lie and to look it straight in the eye and say this is not the truth

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Yeah.

RUND ABDELFATAH - HOST, THROUGHLINE: And so, in some ways, you know, that process of confrontation that you yourself, it seems, had to go through just to tackle this subject is also sort of a process of confrontation that Baldwin was saying the country needed to experience.[00:05:00]

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Yeah, you know, it's confrontation is also a sign of maturity, where we've grown into the resources requisite to do it honestly. He has this line, and I'm paraphrasing again, you know, is that the trouble we're in is deeper than you thought because the trouble is in us. You're so right to say that we have to confront it, it requires being willing to be vulnerable.

RUND ABDELFATAH - HOST, THROUGHLINE: There is this personal versus systemic tension in Baldwin's writings, in that he deeply reflects on the personal impacts that America as a country has had on individual people in terms of what it does to their self confidence and that actually brings me to one of the quotes from your book that really stuck with me.

I want to [00:06:00] read it really quick for you if that's okay.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Sure.

RUND ABDELFATAH - HOST, THROUGHLINE: [quoting Glaude] "America and its racist assumptions had indelibly shaped who Baldwin was. But he insisted, we are not the mere product of social forces. Each of us has a say in who we take ourselves to be. No matter what America said about him as a Black person, Baldwin argued, he had the last word about who he was as a human being and as a Black man. Just as we must examine our individual experiences and the terrors that shape how we come to see ourselves, together as a country, we must do the same. The two are bound together". What I love is while it's deeply personal, it's very much examining the systemic, of the broader responsibility of the country, of its government, of its policies.

Today, there seems to be a real tension between those things for many people with the popularity of a book like Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility, where [00:07:00] there is this very direct pointing at individuals, around individual kind of responsibility. What do you think Baldwin would have made of that tension today?

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Well, you know, so one of the most powerful things about Baldwin is that he goes to the interior, not to stay there, but as the launching pad to go outward. So, the interior is the basis for moving to a broader form of social criticism. Some people will move from social criticism to the interior and you end up with this kind of narcissistic kind of account where it's just simply, you know, about the individual and their own pain and suffering, right? For Jimmy, that individual pain, as early as reading Notes of a Native Son, right?, where you end with him at the funeral of his stepfather with the birth of his youngest sister and him leaving to get ready to go to Paris, and of course the [00:08:00] riots in New York. So, there's a way in which the autobiographical is the kind of point of entry to the broader social context.

I think that's really important in our own moment because we live in a moment that's so driven by our own individual brands, right? You know, our social media platforms are micro reality shows, right? It's very difficult for us to move outside of our own selves into a broader understanding of our genuine relationship with others. You know, what would he make of something like White Fragility? You know, what would he make of something like How to Be an Antiracist? Look, they, those sorts of books have their place, but we're talking about something deeper.

DR. KENNETH CLARK, INTERVIEWER: Jim, what do you see in the recesses of your own mind as the future [00:09:00] of our nation?

JAMES BALDWIN: Well, I'm both glad and sorry you asked me that question, but I'll do my best to answer it. I can't be a pessimist because I'm alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: When Jimmy says choose life, don't wallow in the illusion, don't settle for safety, that's not about a 'how to manual', that's not about a corporate strategy for dealing with difference in your midst. The point here is to choose life is a deeper existential question about who do you take yourself to be.

JAMES BALDWIN: Now the artist, no matter how he sounds, is by definition a religious man, believing that we can create and transcend [00:10:00] all our gods, that it is entirely up to us as the work of human being to make the world more human.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: We travel and we move around the surfaces, right? Because we're afraid of what's in the dark cellar. We don't wanna look the terror squarely in the face. But, you know, America's like Never-never Land. You know, we all want to be lost boys and girls, where we don't wanna be responsible or accountable. We'd rather be safe and secure in our innocence.

JAMES BALDWIN: One of the things that most afflicts this country is that White people don't know who they are or where they come from. That's why you think I'm a problem, but I am not the problem. Your history is, and as long as you pretend you don't know your history, you're going to be the prisoner of it.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: And, you know, it's that moment in Baldwin's The Fire Next Time where he says people either [00:11:00] don't know or they don't want to admit, in effect, what's happened to thousands of thousands of their countrymen. And he says you can't be innocent in the face of that. The innocence is the crime.

JAMES BALDWIN: When "White people" talk about progress in relation to Black people, all they are saying and all they can possibly mean by the word progress is how quickly and how thoroughly I become White. I don't want to become White. I want to grow up, and so should you.

“Justice for My Brother”: Sister of Samuel Sharpe Speaks Out After Police Killing During RNC - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-19-24

NERMEEN SHAIKH - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Well, Representative Darrin Madison, if you could respond to this tragic incident and the fact that Black people in Wisconsin are nearly six times more likely to be killed by police than White people? If you could just say what specific measures you’re advocating?

REP. DARRIN MADISON: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, one, I want to uplift that community over there. There’s Repairers of the Breach in that neighborhood, which is a 24-hour-a-day shelter [00:12:00] that provides services for folks who are unhoused in that community, which — that’s why that encampment is there, and that’s why local law enforcement know a lot of the folks in the community and know how to navigate those relationships.

As it relates to the broader context of our local communities, you know, we — Black folks in this city have navigated police violence since the 1950s. That was one of the first killings of a Black male by the hands of law enforcement reported in our state. And that has only happened more and more times throughout history. In recent years, that’s happened a series of times, which has led to communities crying for real change as it relates to law enforcement procedures and practices to ensure that [00:13:00] folks can be safe in their own community.

Some of the bills that, you know, I’ve been working on over the past year have called for, one, police decertification for law enforcement when law enforcement officers are involved in these situations and they are found guilty. What often happens is, instead of being held accountable, a law enforcement officer will quit and then go work in another department in another community nearby, right?

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And you have, in the case of D’Vontaye Mitchell — and let’s just be clear, Sam was killed on Tuesday.

REP. DARRIN MADISON: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: D’Vontaye was killed — oh, it was June 30th. That was a few weeks ago. And he was held down not by police, but by security guards.

REP. DARRIN MADISON: By security.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And I have to say, yesterday, when we went to the Hyatt and I went to the different [00:14:00] police to say, “Can you tell me where exactly D’Vontaye Mitchell was killed?” they would say, “Uh, uh, uh, I don’t know. You know, I am from Chicago,” or “I am from” — and they named all these different places — “Ohio,” “I am from” — because they were all different law enforcement. And, of course, the local police, they also wouldn’t tell me.

REP. DARRIN MADISON: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: But these weren’t even police. They were security guards. That he was held down?

REP. DARRIN MADISON: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Explain. And then talk about what you’re demanding, what police have responded in both cases.

REP. DARRIN MADISON: Yeah. So, in the case of D’Vontaye, what had happened was there was a — you know, the staff claimed that there was — he was being disruptive in the —

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: In the Hyatt.

REP. DARRIN MADISON: In the Hyatt. It eventually led to them assaulting him in the space. Apparently, he ended up in a bathroom at some — a women’s bathroom at some point, and then was chased outside, in which he was pinned down on the ground by at least two confirmed security guards. The other two [00:15:00] folks, it wasn’t confirmed if they were security or they were Hyatt staff.

What we do know is that the Hyatt has fired that security team, as well as a few other staffers who worked in the space, for not being compliant with their own policies. What that tells us — and, you know, the lawyer of D’Vontaye’s family said it best — is that there is skepticism, at least from the Hyatt’s perspective, in that whole altercation.

When Milwaukee law enforcement arrives, they tried to — they found him unresponsive and tried to resuscitate him, and he, sadly, lost his life. One of his — what we know was his last words was “I’m sorry.” And often in these situations where folks are losing their life, they are pleading, with someone who has dominance, for their life. And they don’t respond and do anything. And that hurts.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And [00:16:00] the videotape in both cases is devastating. We only have 30 seconds, but, Angelique, we’re talking — this is our last segment here in Milwaukee. Outside the Republican convention, has the Trump team gotten in touch with you? Have your local police gotten in touch with you?

ANGELIQUE SHARPE: They absolutely have not. And I don’t understand, you know, when we have evidence that Sam called home, that the shelterless community down there, by all accounts, of his character, and the character of the other person, it’s absolutely not making sense.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: What do you want right now, as you speak to a global audience? We have about 10 seconds.

ANGELIQUE SHARPE: Yes. I want transparency. We want not the clips of the video; we want full clips. We want the autopsy report. You know, we really want justice for my brother.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Well, we’re not going to stop here, even as we go [00:17:00] back to New York. I want to thank you both for being with us.

Why JD Vance and the MAGA GOP Do Not Represent the True Idea of America & Our Core Values - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 8-2-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: French President Emmanuel Macron got it right when he recently said "patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism". See, these guys are buying into nationalism and they're promoting nationalism. And patriotism is a very different thing. President Macron said, "Nationalism is a betrayal. By pursuing our own interests first with no regard to others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds most precious, that which gives it life and what makes it great: its moral values".

You know, the French experienced the difference between patriotism and nationalism when Hitler flipped Germany into nationalism in the 1930s. And thus, the former, late president of France, Charles de Gaulle, put it very clearly. He said, "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first, [00:18:00] nationalism when hate for people other than your own comes first".

Abraham Lincoln made this distinction between patriotism and nationalism in the Gettysburg Address after having defeated the White Christian identity nationalist Confederacy movement. In the Gettysburg Address he said, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. It is rather for us to highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".

But then J. D. Vance comes along in the Republican National Convention in his acceptance speech, and says, "You know, one of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. But America is not just an idea. It's a group of people with a shared history [00:19:00] and a common future. Now, that's not just an idea, my friends. That's not just a set of principles. Even though the ideas and principles are great, that is a homeland. That is our homeland. People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. If this movement of ours is to succeed and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation and citizens deserve leaders who put their interests first".

Now that's a perfect articulation of nationalism. You know, just reject the idea that America—and, I mean, this is literally the truth—America is the first country in the history of Western civilization that was founded on an idea, rather than on DNA, rather than on language, rather than on culture, and rather than on geography. Yes, you know, I would be the first to acknowledge that DNA, you know, [00:20:00] basically White men, played a huge role and controlled all the power at the founding of our republic. But every generation over these 240 plus years, every generation has gotten us closer and closer and closer to that founding mission statement, that founding goal, which J. D. Vance rejected in his acceptance speech.

Patriotism expresses love and devotion to one's country as a whole, including all of its people. Nationalism, on the other hand, focuses on a devotion to a specific ethnic, cultural, or national group within the country. Patriotism refers to our country. Nationalism refers to our homeland. Patriotism requires both tolerance and appreciation of other countries and cultures. Nationalism preaches superiority over other cultures, nations and, and groups. Patriots can accept criticism of their country [00:21:00] and seek improvements. Nationalism rejects criticism and says 'my leaders, right or wrong'.

In 1937 at the Nuremberg Rally, when Rudolf Hess—and, Sean, I'm going to play some audio out of my computer here—when Rudolf Hess introduced Adolf Hitler at the 1937 Nuremberg Rally, he switched from the traditional German patriotic Vaterland—Fatherland—and went with instead the nationalistic German Heimat. Heimat zu sein. Heimat is the German word for homeland. This is Rudolf Hess introducing Adolf Hitler in 1937: [Thom reads translation over German archival audio clip] "Germany will become a homeland. A homeland for all the Germans in the [00:22:00] world".

So, that was Hess introducing Hitler, introducing the word homeland into the German vocabulary. At that point, the Nazis stopped referring to Germany as the fatherland and started referring to it as the homeland. Now homeland, after all, invokes blood and soil. It's where your ancestors lived, where your family came from. It's the core of your religious, racial, national identity. We are not a heterogeneous... we're not all one people. We are a multiracial, pluralistic, multi-religious and secular and democratically governed nation.

Yeah, I lived in Germany in the 80s. I knew actual Nazis, people. You know, I knew a guy who had been at that Hitler rally in 1937, marched up and touched the blood flag as part of his initiation into the army. And in my entire [00:23:00] lifetime, until 2001, when George W. Bush started using that word homeland, I had never heard an American politician use that word. Have you? Never. Which is why when Bush came up with the word homeland and created the Department of Homeland Security, a chill went down my spine. And I wrote several op eds about it. It was one of the things that got me, that provoked me to start this radio show, frankly.

So now we've got this movement, this MAGA movement, this nationalist movement that wants to strip the history of African-Americans and queer people out of our history books. They want to pass laws to make it harder to vote. They want to trash economically marginalized and discriminated against people. They use the phrase DEI as a slur. They even ridiculed Biden, President Biden, when he said, this was last week, he said, "America is an idea, an idea [00:24:00] stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It is the most powerful idea in the history of the world. The idea is that we hold these truths to be self evident. We're all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Instead, J. D. Vance is telling us, no, no, we're just, we're just a bunch of White people here.

So, what is the, what is the Republican Party doing to impose their nationalist view on America? First, they're trying to break our ideals and credential-based bureaucracy by Trump's Schedule F. Right? Fire all the civil servants. Loyalty to country is replaced with loyalty to the leader in their party. Next, they're working to fully legalize political bribery. The Supreme Court took the lead on this one. Then they want to destroy our faith in the rule of law. The law is for thee, but not for me. And they're running a felon for president. And finally, they want us to [00:25:00] lose trust in our institutions, like the free press. Hitler called it the Lügenpresse, the lying press. Trump calls it the fake news. Our national motto, E pluribus unum, out of many come one, summarizes the idea of America. Trump's motto, "go back to your S hole country", expresses, to paraphrase President Macron, the exact opposite.

The work of our day, is to restore the idea of America, an egalitarian, pluralistic, democratic republic, and then help it realize its full potential after all these many long years. I'm signed up for it. Are you?

Truth, Privilege, and James Baldwin - Woke AF Daily - Air Date 10-3-23

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: I always loved the sentiment of him being a witness, you know?, to what is happening. And I think that good writers are. They're both a witness and a mirror for us to see the world through. And, you know, when you talk [00:26:00] about history and the importance of history being able to create empathy, we're at a time, Greg, right now, where history's being rewritten and erased, right?, where legislation literally has been passed to ensure White comfort.

GREG GARRETT: In my state of Texas, in Florida, across the South.

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: In Florida, across the South. And so for you, right?, knowing that the purpose of history is just not to repeat it, it is to create a sense of empathy and understanding about the human condition, both our potential, and our detractions from ourselves and from our character and from our moral standings. And so, what comes up for you and what does it mean for you to be [00:27:00] putting out a book in this time when a Baldwin would have been banned, and is probably banned, and it is banned, right? Um, so please.

GREG GARRETT: Well, first, I have had this conversation with my students here at Baylor. And Baylor, of course, is a private school in Texas, so, I look at colleagues at the University of Texas, the flagship school of our state, who are starting to wrestle with these questions and these issues and I have said, I said to a reporter from Fox News not too long ago, if I taught at one of our state schools, it's very likely I would get fired.

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: Yeah, a hundred percent.

GREG GARRETT: And so one of the first things, I mean, just directly to your question, which was actually posed like a historian. I don't know what your major was...

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: Political science, but thank you!

GREG GARRETT: Ok. Well, my historian friends would say, Yay, she got the whole history thing.

When we don't tell the [00:28:00] truth about who we are, and this is personal, you know, I think about the former president who can't tell the truth about who he is as a human being and how detrimental that is not only to him, but to all of us. I think about people in my life. I mean, and I can't name names because like, you know, we're on the air. But I think about people who are unable to face who they are and be honest about where they come from and about their failures and about their mistakes and so are unable to correct them. And those people are trapped in the same way that Baldwin talks about White being trapped.

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: Yeah.

GREG GARRETT: So, if, forever, Black people have been the way that you measure Whiteness, you know, and if the lost cause myth, for example, is partly built around, you know, however difficult your life might be, if you're a poor White person in the American South or [00:29:00] anywhere in America, in the Midwest, any place, at least you're notBlackk and you can set that Blackness as a lodestar. And so Baldwin asked his nephew to think about this. What would it be like if you woke up in the morning and you looked at the sky and everything was different, you know, the sun was out, but the stars were blazing, it would freak you out. And so he had this incredible compassion, you know, this recognition that asking people to be honest about their history is going to shake up who they are because it's going to force them to tell the truth and acknowledge things.

But one of the things, and I had mentioned to your producer a while ago that Robert Jones is coming to Baylor next week and we're going to do an event together here. Robbie's new book about the roots of White supremacy is so good at telling our historical truth. Like, I went to [00:30:00] high school in Oklahoma. We did not learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre. We didn't even hear it called the Tulsa Race Riots. We just didn't learn about it. And if you don't learn about it, then how can you correct it? And, it just, when you don't deal with history, particularly history that's uncomfortable, then it just allows the status quo to be maintained. And Baldwin talks about the status quo a lot and he says it's already hard enough to change the status quo. Because, you know, as Dr. King said, people who are in a position of privilege don't want to give that up.

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: Right. Right.

GREG GARRETT: But if you don't even tell the truth about it, and if you don't even say, Here are the reasons that people in privilege need to reckon with who they are and what they've done, then, then how can anything ever change? And that for me is the distressing thing about the legislation you're talking about and honestly why I feel not only do I need to write about it, but I need to speak, I need to preach, I need to get out there in every venue that I can [00:31:00] and stand there looking like me and say, Hey, people who look like me, we got to think about this stuff.

Celebrating James Baldwin's 100th Birthday Part 2 - 1A - Air Date 7-30-24

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: For fall of 2024, I'm teaching American History II, a course from the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the present, using the 14th Amendment as the story arc to provide a clarifying structure for the course content. While I was already a big fan of Baldwin's, I was unaware of the Baldwin and William Buckley debate in Cambridge in 1965.

I heard snippets of it this morning on NPR and have already included it in the syllabus. Thank you, NPR. It's a republic if we can keep it.

Let's play another clip from that 1965 debate between James Baldwin and conservative writer William F. Buckley.

JAMES BALDWIN: The ex attorney general, Mr. Robert Kennedy, said that it was conceivable that in 40 years in America we might have a Negro president.

And that sounded like a very emancipated statement, I suppose, to White people. [00:32:00] They were not in Harlem when this statement was first heard. And did not hear, and possibly will never hear, the laughter and the bitterness and the scorn in which the statement was greeted. From the point of view of the man in the Harlem barbershop, Bobby Kennedy only got here yesterday.

And now he's already on his way to the presidency. We've been here for 400 years, and now he tells us that maybe in 40 years, if you're "good," we may let you become president.

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: Now, the first Black president wouldn't be elected until 43 years after this debate and now we're facing similar questions about Vice President Kamala Harris, who's the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

Professor Glaude, it's been nearly 60 years since Baldwin said this. If he were alive today, what do you think he would say about this moment?

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: You know, I'm always a bit leery of trying to anticipate Jimmy's [00:33:00] words. He has over 7, 000 pages of writing and we probably could glean something from, from that about what he would say.

I know what I've learned from him that will allow me to say something about this moment. And that is, how can I put this? No matter what or who resides, no matter who resides in the White House, if the nation refuses to confront itself honestly, it will continue to be monstrous, right? We can become the face of the empire.

We too can become monstrous, but unless the country confronts itself honestly about who and what it is and what it has done, it can't release itself into a new way of being, right? And so he, I think from what I've [00:34:00] learned, he urges me to be cautious. To understand, let me use this phrase, to understand the "fragility of hope" in this moment.

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: Robert, we have just, we have just about 30 seconds left here, and I want I want to make sure to bring you in because I want to know what you might say to Baldwin in this moment if your adopted godfather was here?

ROBERT JONES JR: You know, I don't know what I would say to him. I know that I would hug him and have to be pried away because I'm always thinking about the human being that Baldwin was not the writer, not the eloquent speaker, but the human being. And I think about his love for children right now. He has this quote, "The children are always ours. Every single [00:35:00] one of them all over the globe. And I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality."

And that to me cuts to the quick of everything we're facing here and abroad.

US' Unconditional Support For Israel Making The World More Dangerous - The Majority Report - Air Date 8-2-24

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: So, I would love your assessment of this. I think people think it's impolite—I don't really care about being impolite to Joe Biden because he's presided over a genocide—but I think people think it's impolite to ask this question. Has he been entirely manipulated by Benjamin Netanyahu because his brain is not seemingly working anymore and he doesn't know when Netanyahu is humiliating him on the public stage? Like, I'm only speaking about self-interest from a political perspective, about not getting humiliated, about trying to have some dignity. I mean, all these politicians have enormous egos. As, somebody who's been an advocate for Palestinians, you're a Palestinian-Canadian and of [00:36:00] course have been immersed in this for so long, like, what do you see here with the Biden-Netanyahu relationship that makes this so uniquely destructive and that Netanyahu has clearly taken advantage of?

DIANE BUTTU: Look, I think the big thing is that Biden has always said that he himself is a Zionist. And if you look at his record, his record of voting, he's always been on the wrong side of history, incidentally. But particularly on this issue, he's always stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel because he is a Zionist.

Now, since he authorized the genocide back in October, I think that he has not only continued to dig his heels in, but I think he's dug his heels in even knowing that this would eventually cost him the election. I think that it's a mistake to think that Joe Biden stepped down and isn't going to run just because of his age. But I think that there were other [00:37:00] factors as well, that when you look at younger voters and people who are of conscience, they're saying we're not going to vote for Joe Biden because he is Genocide Joe, because he's been the person who has presided over this genocide.

Has he also been played by Netanyahu? Yes, I think he has. And Netanyahu is somebody who has made it clear that he wants to see a Trump presidency, that he likes President Trump, which is why he went to Mar-a-Lago and so, for him, he liked having Republicans in office because it allows him to push his agenda even further.

So, he's trying to push this as far as possible until the next election, hoping that it will be a Trump win so that he can then continue the next phase of his plan, which is, not only the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza, but turning his sights to the West Bank as well. And we've already seen this. We've already seen him start in on the West Bank with more than 500 Palestinians killed [00:38:00] just since October.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And Smotrich being in charge of that and also basically removing military authority and just having the settler gangs that he's a part of being now the primary authority in the West Bank, a part of that as well. But yeah, I mean, it is just astounding to me, I guess, from a really 40,000 foot view, that Biden's emotional attachment to a Zionist project, which is a colonial project and one that inherently involves murdering, since 1967, since 1948, it's been about ethnically cleansing and ruining millions of lives. How one can rationalize that through racism and still have an emotional connection and idealize that project in the year 2024, that's the thing that I just can't put myself in that mindset. And even to tank your own electoral chances, knowing that it's this much of an emotional project for you and... I don't know. Uh, [00:39:00] Diana, your final thoughts there.

DIANE BUTTU: Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, I don't think that people realize what Zionism has meant for Palestinians and what it has done to Palestinian lives, to Palestinian land, to Palestinian bodies. When people try to downplay it and somehow talk of it in its nice version, or even they try to kind of say that it's like, Oh, it's got many faces. No, there's really only one face, and that's the face that I and so many others, so many other Palestinians, have lived with, which is a settler-colonial movement that aims to remove us from our land. And in the process of removing us and erasing us, it's violent on every single level.

And to somehow buy into this violence and think that this is okay, it's not even [that] troublesome is the word, but one would expect that in the year 2024 that there would be a wake up call, that [00:40:00] people would ask Palestinians, What's it like to live under Zionism? What is it like to live under this settler-colonial regime? And we can easily just point to what Israel is doing in Gaza, because that is what Zionism is about. It's about killing Palestinians. It's about erasing them. It's about destroying their homes, taking over their land and pretending that somehow everything is lovely. It's a project of Jewish supremacy at the expense of Palestinians who are the indigenous people. And it's terrifying and really must come to an end.

Raw video- Rep. Cori Bush concedes 1st Congressional District primary race to Wesley Bell - KSDK News - Air Date 8-7-24

CORI BUSH: So every time I stand on the House floor or I speak in the committee here, and you all know the first words that come out of my mouth: St. Louis and I rise. So I'm gonna get to my speech. [laughter, encouragement from crowd]

St. Louis and I rise to [00:41:00] say thank you to all the people who showed up and who support me and support this incredible team and the vision that we have for our future, a future that works for all of us. And so let me say to my Arab and Palestinian, our Muslim community,

I hope that the new member of Congress that will be taking over in January, you know, right before his trial starts. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jesus. I'm sorry. I... let me say this though, because I'm not here, we need to build the community back because [00:42:00] what just happened helped to rip the community apart. The thing is, I'm not, I don't want to feed into that because we have to be one St. Louis because we have to grow and so I just hope he actually takes the time to learn about our Palestinian and our Arab and our Muslim communities, that he actually speaks to you and that he sees the beauty in what we have created that transcends our ethnic backgrounds and our religions and the way that we have been able to do that. And so I just want to put that out there to him as some homework. This race, you all, was unlike anything St. Louis has ever seen. The flood of outside Republican money into this district, this Democratic district, was staggering. This was [00:43:00] the second most expensive congressional race in our nation's history. Nineteen million dollars and counting. And so that's how much they spent in this race. Mostly far-right-funded super PACs against the interests of the people of St. Louis, the people of Missouri's first, they sought to divide us. But we've always been clear that St. Louis is a vibrant and a resilient community, one that refuses to be undermined, one that won't be taken for granted. And together we will continue to rise and stand up against the far-right, Republican extremism. Oh, he don't know what he's about to have to deal with, but I hope you fight! [applause]

And the thing is, you up after me, so your fight got to be bigger and better than mine. And it's okay. If you got that, I hope you got that. Because the people deserve that. We'll switch from a fighter to a...

[encouragement [00:44:00] from crowd, someone shouts "take your time!"]

We'll stand. As a beacon of hope and light and human rights for all people, we'll keep doing that, I will keep doing that work, this team will keep doing that, we'll continue to fight for the rights of all people no matter the race, the faith, or the background, the ethnicity, the religion, the age, the occupation, the gender identity, we'll keep fighting for you, we will keep fighting, we will stand up for what is right no matter the cost, which we just paid a cost but actually it's going to propel us forward.

Always fight for our unhoused communities, our elders, our children, our families, our veterans, our, our... we will keep supporting a free Palestine, [00:45:00] a free Congo, a free Sudan, and keep opposing genocide and human rights abuses worldwide. We will always stand up for the safety, for the dignity, for the self-determination of all people, from St. Louis, to Palestine and Israel, to Bosnia, to India, and everywhere else. We will always keep it real, and we will always keep the truth.

And, I'm going to continue to act with the dedication that you all have seen over the years. I will continue to work to bridge divides and address your concerns and build a stronger, more unified community. And so St. Louis serving as your Congress member has been the joy of my life, and I'm not done yet. [00:46:00] [applause]

It's just that now I'm about to be outside-outside. And so, so, let me lastly say this. Let me lastly say this. You all have been what has undergirded me and what has strengthened me. And I want to say this to all the little kids that have come up to me over even the last week, the little Black girls that see themselves in me and all the little girls that see something in me. [00:47:00] Let me say this to you: We did not fail. You did not fail. You keep rising. You keep going after what God has given you to go after. You keep fighting. You keep, you hold fast to who you are and what you believe because this is only the beginning.

Note from the Editor on the need for national self-reflection

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with 1A introducing James Baldwin on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Throughline discussed the importance of confronting truth when lies get in the way. Democracy Now! looked at the police killing just outside the RNC. The Thom Hartmann Program clarified between patriotism and nationalism. Woke AF Daily talked about Baldwin's compassion with the understanding that asking White people to face the lies of Whiteness is very destabilizing. 1A discussed the need for the nation to begin to tell the truth about itself. The Majority Report looked at Joe Biden and the nation's [00:48:00] role in the Gaza genocide. And finally we heard part of Cory Bush's speech after she was defeated in the Democratic primary by a wave of right-wing money, including from the pro-genocide wing of the pro-Israel lobby.

Those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dives sections, but first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring the production crew here, discussing all manner of important and interesting topics, often trying to make each other laugh in the process. To support all our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support. There's a link in the show notes, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. If regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now, before we continue onto the Deeper Dives half of the show, I have a few [00:49:00] thoughts to tie together. The first is something that I've been reminded of over and over again from James Baldwin's words and today's discussion. Just recently, I came across a parody of the Bible story, the "Parable of the Good Samaritan". It's called the "Parable of the Good Sociologist". And this was referenced in a Guardian article about the recent racist, xenophobic riots in the UK. In this version, when the traveler on the road to Jericho is assaulted, the first sociologist crosses the road and passes by on the other side. The second does the same. But the good sociologist rushes to the scene, cradles the victim's head and says, "Boy, the person who did this to you really needs help". And the connection I think is pretty clear. The fascists in the UK starting riots, they need some help just as people in the US, whether they realize they're racist or if they've just been steeped in the myth of White supremacy for [00:50:00] so long that they're like a fish who doesn't realize they're in water, they all need help. And I think I may have only said this on the bonus show for members, but it bears repeating here: Israel doesn't need peace negotiators or weapons sales so much as they need therapists. Palestinians aren't in the same position of power as Israel, so it's not an equal comparison, but the same basically goes for them.

The situation over there has been completely effed up for basically a full human life span. Of course, everyone who lives in the area has been completely messed up and warped by the conflict. And ultimately there is no way forward but to face the truth that's currently being obscured by lies. And there's one last thought related to all this: the Olympics wrapped up last week and the occasion of Simone Biles dominating the women's gymnastics again, gave the excuse to dig up an old quote from JD Vance about her. In the Tokyo games, Biles withdrew from competition for mental health reasons. [00:51:00] She had what she later explained as "the twisties", which is the phenomenon of a gymnast losing full awareness of their body in time and space while performing their physics-defined routines. As is now a well known story, Biles went through therapy and training to confront the problem she was having, and then, having overcome the twisties, she returned to the Olympics to win three gold medals and one silver this time around. Biles was praised by many, though not all, when she withdrew in Tokyo.

And the line, I would guess, is drawn between those who recognize the need for mental health, self-reflection, self-care, facing hard truths, all that kind of stuff, and those who think that the greatest sign of strength is to just stick it out. Plow forward. Don't ask questions. Don't look back. JD Vance being a sort of cartoon villain who praises his grandmother for not getting a divorce from her horribly abusive husband even though, as it turns out, she probably wasn't able to [00:52:00] because they had not implemented no fault divorce in her state. That's an aside, anyway. JD Vance is clearly in the second group. Stick it out. Plow forward. Don't ask questions, right? And this is what he said about Biles withdrawing from the Tokyo competition: " I think it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we tried to praise people, not for the moments of strength, not for moments of heroism, but for their weakest moments".

And that really lays it out, I think. If you equate therapy and self-reflection with weakness and as antithetical to heroism, then you're destined to always continue to make the same mistakes, likely hurting yourself and others in the process. The big picture argument that's been made over the past few years as Americans have argued over what kind of history we want to teach our kids about the country, is that teaching the bad stuff is akin to wanting to feel bad and wanting others to feel bad [00:53:00] about the country. So, the other side proposes the opposite, a sort of nationalist history that only tells positive stories so that kids can grow up feeling proud. But that's how you continue to cause harm by perpetuating a lie. Plowing forward, not looking back, not stopping to reconsider. But our vision, the vision of telling the truth, even though it's uncomfortable, as Baldwin said, "It'll be unsettling to rip away the lies, like it would be unsettling to be able to see both the sun and the stars at the same time". But our description of that vision, can't stop with the discomfort. We can't pitch the idea that things will be better if people feel bad about the country. No-one's going to buy that, and, by the way, it's not true. People need to feel good about the place where they live. The pitch is that by going through a period of self-reflection, a period of sort of national therapy, that we will come out better on the other side for having done the work. People cry and feel [00:54:00] uncomfortable during therapy, but they don't go to therapy to cry and feel uncomfortable. You do it to get better. That's what's heroic about it. That's what was heroic about Simone Biles in Tokyo, taking the time to stop, reassess, self-reflect. That's what opens up a better and healthier path forward. And that better path is the pitch the left should be making when debating how we talk about our history. It's about being factual, yes. But it's also about making the country, the policies it writes and the actions it takes, match our self-conception.

Right now, we basically have the twisties. Too many of us think we've overcome the ills of racism and sexism, but reality belies that claim. The vast majority of Americans think that we're the type of country that would stand up against genocide anywhere in the world. And yet we are the primary backer of the genocidal, far-right government of Israel. Our perceptions and our body politic are wildly [00:55:00] out of sync. It's time to do the heroic work of reassessing and self-reflecting.

SECTION A - BALDWIN THE WRITER

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, to continue that self-reflection with Deeper Dives on four topics. Next up, there's Section A: Baldwin, the Writer; Section B: Race in America; Section C: The White Lie; and Section D: Global Connections.

Brian Lehrer Weekend 100 Years of James Baldwin; Election Integrity and National Security; New York City Etiquette - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 8-3-24

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: . In this segment, since we're doing a hundred years of a hundred things, maybe we should go through it chronologically.

Start at the start. The title of your book is begin again, James Baldwin's America and it's urgent lessons for our own. So help us put Baldwin into context a little bit. What was his America specifically? What was New York City like where he grew up?

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Well, you know baldwin comes of age in a sense, you know, he's he's the child of southern migrants So he's that first generation born after there's this mass movement his stepfathers from louisiana his his mother's from the eastern shore He's born in august of 1924.

So you can [00:56:00] imagine he's coming of age right against, you know, you can juxtapose the holland renaissance with You know, the Great Depression, uh, his family was profoundly poor, so, you know, he, he struggled. And you can see, you know, he's not, he's not, um, shall we say, uh, African American who comes from Sugar Hill, right?

He's, he's born and raised in the bottom, as it were. And so that distinction, you know, I think shows up in his voice. He's a childhood preacher. You know, um, father was an itinerant stepfather was an itinerant preacher. Um, and then he decides that he cannot, you know, engage in this, this lie. The stories are running around in his head.

He wasn't the best student in the world, but he was obviously brilliant. Um, and, you know, he had, Desires, you know, he was coming to terms with his own sexuality. You can imagine, uh, the, the [00:57:00] challenges of feeling what he was feeling on the inside and for others and having to deal with his father at the same time.

And so you get this young man who leaves and, and moves to the, to, to, you know, Greenwich village and, and there, when you, when he tells the stories of what he's, what he's What he experienced, he not only experienced a kind of freedom, but it's clear that he was haunted by sexual violence, uh, and then he decides to leave in 1948.

And he says that he, he could have gone anywhere, but Baldwin was lying at that point. He, you know, he goes to Paris, um, and he goes to Paris because there's this wonderfully rich expat community there. And it's in Paris that he does something extraordinary. He He literally wills himself into becoming one of the greatest writers the world has ever produced.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: And that writing has affected a lot of people. We're getting a lot of calls. I'd love to hear from some callers right now. Yeah, let's go to Chuck in Philadelphia. Hey, Chuck, welcome to the show.

CALLER: Hi, and thank [00:58:00] you, uh, Eddie, for all that you do and, uh, the great work that you do in the vein of, uh, James Baldwin.

Uh, let me just say, I love the fact that James Baldwin was a luminary in the realm of civil rights. And I, uh, admire the great profundity that he brought to humanitarian issues, uh, because civil rights is a humanitarian issue, and people forget that. But I just want to say, can people please read James Baldwin?

for the joy of reading James Baldwin. He was a prolific and beautiful writer. His words are painterly, and he is just, um, a wonder on the page. And so, uh, with all of the great things that he has done impacting our society, I think it's equally important to appreciate him for the tremendous writer that he is.

And [00:59:00] speaking of his time in Paris, if you're interested, there's a great little book called Giovanni's Room, and um, it takes many of his, uh, uh, experiences in Paris and puts them on the page in such a way that it And thank you guys for allowing me to just say this about him. Thank you.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Oh Chuck and so beautifully said too.

So thank you for that. Yeah, go ahead professor.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: No, he's right. I mean the first thing we have to understand is Baldwin is an artist. Right. And he's an extraordinary artist. I mean, Toni Morrison at her, uh, eulogy at her eulogy for Baldwin, uh, when he dies in December of 1987, um, she, she says that, you know, she found language in Baldwin, uh, the way in which he, How can I put this?

He takes the sound of the black preachily tradition, the black homiletic tradition. He takes the eloquence of, uh, the King James Bible. He, he, he's, he's, he, he's a student of [01:00:00] Henry James sentences. So when you, when you. Re Henry James is the ambassadors. You can see Baldwin inside those sentences. He's thinking with Proust.

He's, he is in so many ways, the inheritor of Emerson just on the other side of the tracks. So Chuck is absolutely right. We can never lose sight. Of Baldwin as the artist as the poet in the broadest sense of that word

Celebrating James Baldwin's 100th Birthday Part 3 - 1A - Air Date 7-30-24

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: In 1971, poet Nikki Giovanni interviewed, uh, he was 47 years old at this point, James Baldwin in London, in a conversation that's been widely circulated across social media in recent years.

We heard from Dominic who says, thank you so much for doing this show. James Baldwin had a profound impact on my life as he met me at the intersections of race, sexuality, civic duty, and democracy. I'd be curious to think about what it means to be out based on Baldwin's work. Additionally, I'd be curious to think about Baldwin's thoughts on misogynoir, given his 1971 conversation on black relationships with Nikki Giovanni on [01:01:00] soul.

Let's hear a little bit of that conversation. I

JAMES BALDWIN: have to smile all day and take out on the job at the foreman. I can't give a performance all day on the job and come home and give a performance all night in the house. Okay, so one of the performances will stop. Yes, so you say, and okay, I might be willing to go with it, but who's going to pay the rent?

The rent will get paid. Look, baby, I'm willing to play it your way, but you have to see my point of view. I see your point of view, but the rent will have to get paid. The price of the house. No, no, I don't want you prostituting yourself. I demand. I don't want you prostituting yourself either. One of us has got to work.

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: Now, Baldwin is often associated with his commentary on race, but Professor Glott, what were his views on, on gender? Ooh,

ROBERT JONES JR: you know, they're complicated. [01:02:00] You know, let me just say this. Uh, Notes was published in 1955 in Giovanni's room is 56. I want to be clear about that. Um, That exchange between Jimmy and Nikki Giovanni freed me to write Begin Again.

Say more. Because I was, I felt, I was drinking too much Irish whiskey. Baldwin's was, Baldwin was demanding a certain kind of honesty, uh, that threatened everything that I had built over a life lived. Um, and the way she said lie to me, Right? I can't lie to you. No, no, no. You lie to him all day. Come home and lie to me.

And that exchange where she, and she's young, she's brash, uh, she's telling him, No, no, no, no. We, together, you and I, in love, we could, we could pay the rent. Right? That's gonna get paid if we're in, if we risk ourselves with each other. [01:03:00] So she, she let me know that Baldwin could be wrong. Right? That you could challenge it, which freed me up to think about him because, you know, otherwise you just consent to the eloquence over and over and over and over again, right?

So, his, his views on gender are really, really complicated. You know he has a very complicated, you know, you read Here Be Dragons, you read, um, the stuff on, um, Uh, the early stuff on male prisons, you see Baldwin understands the constructed nature of gender, right? But you also see him inhabiting traditional gender roles and actually repeating them.

So if you, there's a moment where he's debating or having a conversation with Audre Lorde at Spellman. Oh my God, Audre Lorde handed him his behind, right? Because Baldwin was again, inhabiting a certain, a certain. a certain understanding of patriarchy and what this understanding of manhood distorts that if we're going to allow because the basic claim as I [01:04:00] understand it Is if we're going to deal with patriarchy, we're going to have to deal with the conception of men, right?

That distorts the very ways in which these folk understand themselves. And so he, in order to make that point, he's not going to make the feminist mode. He's going to, he's going to say, you got to deal with the way in which these men come to understand themselves and come to love. And so he's centering folk, men in a way, that, that gets in the way.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. But I would love to hear what Robert has to say about that.

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: Yeah, and I just want to note, Robert, you wanted to make sure this conversation wasn't just a celebration of Baldwin's legacy without confronting some, some of his flaws. So go ahead.

ROBERT JONES JR: You know, um, I learned as much from Baldwin's despair as I do from his love.

I learned as much about life from his triumphs as I do from his flaws, his [01:05:00] flaws. So when I look at his exchange between Nikki Giovanni and Audre Lorde, particularly the latter, I'm seeing somebody, as Dr. Glaude said, embodying the patriarchy he wants to dismantle as a performance to this is what men are.

How do we, how do we confront this? How do we undo it? Because he says to, um, to Audre Lorde at once, this is what men are. This is what they're going to do. Um, but he never realizes he's also embracing this thing as, um, not wanting to hear Audre Lorde saying, well, You know, I'm going to stop you from being violent toward me by any means necessary.

Just like you're going to stop Mr. Charlie from being violent to you. I learned a great deal about that, that pedestals are a small place to put somebody on and there's only one way down to be pushed. [01:06:00] And so here's the other thing about Baldwin that I learned from embracing his flaws is that unlike in the age of the internet, Baldwin can admit that he's wrong.

And he can apologize because if you read The Evidence of Things Not Seen, his last published work, there's an entire section on Black women. And when she says, basically, I got it completely wrong is the deal with black women. Um, something that's really rare today to apologize and to admit fault publicly.

JENN WHITE - HOST, 1A: Well, I've got to tell you, Robert, that pedestals are very small places to put people and there's only one way down to push them. That's going to be, that's going to be sitting in my head. in my head for a while.

SECTION B - RACE IN AMERICA

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Race in America.

Right Wingers Go FULL RACIST About Civil Rights - The Majority Report - Air Date 4-21-24

JEREMY CARL: Relook at how we've enforced civil rights laws. And again, I'm not saying that because I think we need to read litigate The wisdom of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was it was put in at a particular time [01:07:00] to solve I've criticized it Yeah, yeah Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm Chris Chris Caldwell is a colleague of mine and I think it's it's you know it's fine to do that, but I think just as a political strategy I think If people want to say, Hey, that was, there was, there were absolutely real problems that it was addressing, whether you think it did it in the perfect way or not.

But we're as far from that time right now.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I just want to, I want to stay on this segment for a moment because it's, it's a fascinating. Um, he is saying for political purposes, I don't want to engage in whether there should have ever been a civil rights act because the implication is to him that there shouldn't have been.

That. Things either weren't that bad or the fixes for this, like, I don't know. Guaranteeing the right that you as a black person could not be discriminated against at, let's say a hotel. [01:08:00] Or a restaurant. Or, I don't know, on a bus. Uh, where the civil, uh, vote, uh, the, the Voting Rights Act guaranteed that your vote, you cannot be dispossessed of your vote or disenfranchised.

He had problems with it, but he doesn't want to litigate that. He wants to pretend that it's solved everything and there's no racism now. So, uh, which is a just more terra firma, uh, in terms of, of, of the political argument, but

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: that's Carl's argument, right? Where like, yeah, that's Carl's argument, but Charlie's goes, Charlie goes farther in terms of basically, I mean, what has, what have his arguments been about the civil rights act?

Let me guess. It's just, it's process based or the federal government shouldn't be making these determinations, Well, the, uh,

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I, I, I, I don't know, I've heard him articulate it, although he says right there, he has criticized it, and I'm sure he has, I'm [01:09:00] sure the part of it is like, hey, if I'm, uh, you know, you can't, you cannot force a, um, a restaurant to serve black people, and I just know it's going to fail, that restaurant's going to fail anyways, um, if it, if it doesn't serve black people, of course, we've seen Uh, it's just absurd.

Uh, they, they seem to do okay anyways. Uh, you know, prior to that time, oddly enough, but here's the difference. Charlie Kirk has a, um, a, a radio show, and so he has to appeal to, um, adjust his audience. This guy, um, you know, uh, Jeremy Carl is at a, the Hoover, uh, is he at the Hoover? Is that where he is at? The, the, the Hoover uh, found institution, which is a think tank that may has to sound like it's somewhat reasonable.

Mm-Hmm. . And it's just too complicated to argue that the Civil Rights

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Act, it was wrong. We have a big tent over here between [01:10:00] people who, uh, think apartheid is fine and people think we should maybe do something to not be officially apartheid.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Oh, just to clarify, sorry, that was, uh, Jeremy's first stop in the think tank.

He's, uh, space. He's now at the Claremont Institute.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Oh, he's moved on to the full on theocracy, uh, theocratic, uh, racist, but.

JEREMY CARL: And Chris, Chris Caldwell is a colleague of mine and I think it's, it's, you know, it's fine to do that. But I think just as a, a political strategy, I think if people want to say, Hey, that was, there were, there were absolutely real problems that it was addressing, whether you think it did it in the perfect way or not.

But we're as far from that time right now. As they were from the Wright brothers. So there's a lot of things that have changed in American society We're not worried about people not being served at lunch counters anymore.

CHARLIE KIRK: Yeah, and the civil rights act though Let's be clear created a beast and that beast has now turned into an anti white

JEREMY CARL: Yeah, and that's and that's the reality.

And so we just need to fundamentally relook at a lot of our civil rights legal regime. And without that, even though I don't think it's [01:11:00] sort of the magic bullet, but I think without that there's limits to the amount of progress we're going to make. Let's talk about discourse

CHARLIE KIRK: and dialogue. This topic would have been even more forbidden four or five years ago, but it's now becoming in more and more mainstream circles.

Is that because the problem is becoming worse or, but our side is more courageous to confront it.

JEREMY CARL: I think it's both Charlie and I'm gonna commend you in particular and Tucker and guys like Matt Walsh. There's like three of us. Yeah, it's really, I mean, you guys are the people. You guys really, I just want to be clear

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: what they're saying.

We couldn't be this hourly racist before.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And, but now we can. Just to put a time, uh, code on that, uh, Wired has a piece, How Charlie Kirk Plans to Discredit Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Act. Uh, starts with two quotes. In 2015, Kirk called him a hero. Uh, in 2022, MLK was a civil rights icon. Now, you could say both of those things and still hate them.

Cause it's objectively true. He's a hero to many [01:12:00] people and he is a civil rights icon. But now Charlie Kirk is saying, you know, things like MLK is awful. He's not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn't believe being the, uh, probably like don't care about the color of your skin or whatever.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, I remember being at that, um, uh, 9 12 rally that, um, Glenn Beck had back in 2000. I don't know when it was 2008 maybe, or 2009. And, um, There was a guy there who was very angry at Glenn Beck for embracing MLK because MLK was a socialist and whatnot. And I'm like, well, he, he sort of was actually, um, but you should tell a lot of people that, um, but the, the, it really did take Trump and then just sort of like people trying to do, how do we do Trump without the racism?

And it took them to be fair, a couple of months to realize like, we don't. That's [01:13:00] not the formula. It's like, it's like, how do we do soda without sweetness? It turns out, eh, you need the sweetness.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Racism was just one tool in Trump's arsenal, but he won because he was synonymous in culture with the rich decider guy.

Yeah. Right.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, I also, but I do like the idea of the fact that because Charlie Kirk is saying that, you know, maybe we have to be a bit more strategic on abortion and now, as you would say, Sam, the dog has caught the car. Abortion was what the right pivoted to after the Civil Rights Act. And so now they have to go to a return to form where they can try to galvanize their base based on.

Go back. Right. Right. Right. Vintage. Let's see if it works

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: this way.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Exactly.

Trump Questions If Kamala Harris Is Black in Hate-Filled Interview with Black Journalists at NABJ - Democracy Now - Air Date 8-1-24

NERMEEN SHAIKH - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared before the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago on Wednesday for a sit-down interview with a panel of Black women journalists. The association’s decision to invite Trump had sparked outrage within the organization. On Tuesday, Washington Post editor Karen [01:14:00] Attiah stepped down as co-chair of the NABJ’s convention.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: During the interview, Trump repeatedly sparred with the reporters, insulted them, and also questioned whether Kamala Harris is actually Black. He claimed he was the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.

We turn now to excerpts from this interview with Fox News host Harris Faulkner, Semafor's Kadia Goba and ABC News' Rachel Scott, who began the event with this question.

RACHEL SCOTT: I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room, sir. A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congresswomen of color, who were American citizens, to go back to where they came from. You have used words like “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black [01:15:00] district attorneys. You’ve attacked Black journalists, calling them a “loser,” saying the questions that they ask are, quote, “stupid and racist.” You’ve had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. So, my question, sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you, why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, first of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question so — in such a horrible manner, a first question. You don’t even say, “Hello. How are you?” Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it’s disgraceful that I came here, in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country. I’ve done so much for the Black population of this country. …

I was invited here, and I was told my opponent, whether it was Biden or Kamala — I was told my opponent was [01:16:00] going to be here. It turned out my opponent isn’t here. You invited me under false pretense. And then you said, “You can’t do it with Zoom.” Well, you know, where’s Zoom? She’s going to do it with Zoom, and she’s not coming. And then you were half an hour late. Just so we understand, I have too much respect for you to be late. They couldn’t get their equipment working, or something was wrong.

RACHEL SCOTT: Mr. President, I would love if you can answer the question —

DONALD TRUMP: I think it’s a very nasty question.

RACHEL SCOTT: — on your rhetoric and why you believe that Black voters —

DONALD TRUMP: I have answered the question.

RACHEL SCOTT: — should trust you with another four years.

DONALD TRUMP: I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.

RACHEL SCOTT: Better than —

DONALD TRUMP: That’s my answer.

RACHEL SCOTT: Better than President Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act?

DONALD TRUMP: That’s my answer. And for you to start off a question-and-answer period, especially when you’re 35 minutes late because you couldn’t get your equipment to work, in such a hostile manner, I think it’s a disgrace. I really do. I think it’s a disgrace.

RACHEL SCOTT: Let me — let me just ask a follow-up, sir, and then we’ll move on to other questions here. Some of your own supporters, including Republicans on Capitol Hill, have labeled Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the first Black and Asian American woman to serve as vice president and be on a major-party [01:17:00] ticket, as a ”DEI hire.” Is that acceptable language to you? And will you tell those Republicans and those supporters to stop it?

DONALD TRUMP: How do you — how do you define DEI? Go ahead. How do you define it?

RACHEL SCOTT: Diversity, equity, inclusion.

DONALD TRUMP: OK, yeah, go ahead. Is that what your definition? Give me —

RACHEL SCOTT: That is —

DONALD TRUMP: Give me a definition, then.

RACHEL SCOTT: That is literally the words, DEI.

DONALD TRUMP: Would you give me a definition of that? Give me a definition of that.

RACHEL SCOTT: Sir, I’m asking you a question, a very direct question.

DONALD TRUMP: No, no. You have to define it. Define the — define it for me, if you would.

RACHEL SCOTT: I just defined it, sir. Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a Black woman?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I can say, no, I think it’s maybe a little bit different. So, I’ve known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much. And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know: Is she Indian, or is she Black?

RACHEL SCOTT: She has always identified as a Black woman.

DONALD TRUMP: But you know what?

RACHEL SCOTT: She went to a historically Black college.

DONALD TRUMP: I respect either one. I respect either one. But she [01:18:00] obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then, all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she went — she became a Black person. …

HARRIS FAULKNER: As you were coming today, we really got to see that we were divided along the lines of race, along the lines of gender. And there is this question of, in this moment where we are, why come here? What is your message today?

DONALD TRUMP: My message is to stop people from invading our country that are taking, frankly — a lot of problems with it, but one of the big problems — and a lot of the journalists in this room I know and I have great respect for — a lot of the journalists in this room are Black. I will tell you that coming — coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs. You had the best —

RACHEL SCOTT: What exactly is a Black job, sir?

DONALD TRUMP: A Black job is anybody that has a job. That’s what it is, anybody that has a job.

HARRIS FAULKNER: All right. …

KADIA GOBA: [01:19:00] So, Sonya Massey, someone from Illinois, an unarmed Black woman, was shot the other day in her home by a deputy sheriff. The deputy has since been charged with murder. You’ve said police would get immunity from prosecution if you win. Why should someone like that officer have immunity, in your opinion?

DONALD TRUMP: Immunity?

KADIA GOBA: Immunity.

DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know the exact case, but I saw something, and it didn’t look — it didn’t look good to me. It didn’t look good to me. Are you talking — with the water, right?

KADIA GOBA: Yeah. Well, police —

DONALD TRUMP: It didn’t look —

KADIA GOBA: I mean, police unions are not backing this person, either.

DONALD TRUMP: OK, OK.

KADIA GOBA: But again, why would —

DONALD TRUMP: And they’re going to — are they going to be charging the officer? I guess they’re charging the officer.

KADIA GOBA: So, why should he receive immunity?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, he might not. I mean, it depends. It depends on what happens.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: That’s presidential nominee Donald Trump being interviewed at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention in Chicago. [01:20:00] He was questioned by Fox News host Harris Faulkner, Semafor's Kadia Goba and ABC News' Rachel Scott.

Crowder Spews UNHINGED Racism During Harris ‘Comedy’ Bit - The Majority Report - Air Date7-31-24

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: How did her candidacy kind of, like, get launched online? Or have young people get interested? It was the memeing of the coconut tree anecdote, okay? That was a story she told about her Indian mother. So I don't think, know who they, and that's a phrase her Indian mother told her, and it was apparently an adage.

So I don't know who's hiding the fact that she's mixed race from anybody, or who the they is.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: This guy just wants to make sure that we have a racially pure black person as president. Right? Is that what's going on here? Yeah, he loves, yeah, exactly.

CROWDER: Who trick you, the media, the legacy media into believing that Kamala Harris is fully black.

CLIP: Does she really identify as a black woman, or is she more Indian? What does Kamala Harris listen to?

KAMALA HARRIS: Definitely Snoop, uh huh. Oh, pause it, pause it, pause it. You ain't black.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: [01:21:00] Oh my god, this is really just stunning.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: They did blackface.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: They, uh, for folks just listening, they, uh, darkened her image, uh, and put a joint in her mouth.

And, uh, gold chains around her. Oh, right, I forgot,

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Mr. T style gold chains. And graffiti next to her that says, Black like me. What? Now,

CROWDER: That was Joe Biden, not us, we didn't say that. Just to be clear, I would not advise President Trump to focus on this. No. I would not advise politically to focus on her whore kingdom.

No. I wouldn't. But this is not a presidential campaign, and so we like to do it. So, the narrative right now, I told you this was coming, but it's very, very clear. And we have a montage for you, and you can share it on social. Just, just so you can cut people off at the pass. If you, if you don't allow it to happen in darkness, then it loses all power.

The line of attack from everybody and their dog on the left is if you [01:22:00] don't vote for Kamala or if you, if you actively oppose Kamala, if you certainly actively present her shortcomings as a candidate, it's because you hate women. I mean, black people, I mean, black people, I mean, women, I mean, black people or women, black women, but half black women, you hate all the people who are women or black or half black.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Pause it for one second,

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: and so I'll skip ahead for a little bit because it's a long montage

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: This is the way that he's going to, uh, prove That you don't, uh, hate women or black women By assessing how black Kamala Harris is

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And encouraging Trump not to share this Don't run on this, no no no But all my fans who are all voting for Trump You share this stuff Because this is how right wing campaigns run.

They have to operate in some way with plausible deniability, so they have Foot soldiers who, I don't know, are really decreasing in terms of their view count, like Steven Crowder doing it for them. And [01:23:00] earlier on he said, uh, her whore kingdom? Did I hear that correctly?

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, I'm not sure what that's about.

So, and

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: then he said then they're gonna try to say that everybody on the left will, and their dog, will try to say that, uh, criticism of her is because she's a woman and because she's black. You just said that she got to power via her whore kingdom, which, I'm not even sure what that means.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It's a woman in power.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Oh,

CROWDER: gotcha. So, whore. Donald Trump, uh, has never been elected to anything. You

CLIP: have to be able to fairly critique the vice president of the United States without just saying it's the color of their skin or the fact she's a woman. But it is part of it. Sorry, is it just because she's black?

CROWDER: Yes. Okay. Yes. No.

Also. Sorry. Did that. Did that shriveled ladybug say that Donald Trump has never been elected to anything? Uh, sheesh. Hey, that's election, that's election denial. [01:24:00] Reverend, I am not familiar with that term, but I will get back to you. Sorry, election denial. Oh, like misogynoir, I heard that. Misogynoir. For the first time today, too.

Yeah. Misogynoir from that. Half ass house party haircut that you cannot do with that high of a hairline because it just looks like you've been green screened improperly. Oh no! Speaking of hairlines, are we gonna just graze over the fact that we had black Larry David at the end of that? I know. Little Barry David?

That's Michael, what up, Steele? When he was the RNC chairman, he was like, I got a new blog! What up, Larry David? Wow. He was the least effective RNC chairman ever. He's on a show called Curb Your Ebony.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I mean, this is just, wow. Riffing. They're proving, they're just giving you ammo, um, um, young, aspiring racists, to head [01:25:00] off at the pass any critique that your problem with Kamala Harris is that she's black. That's all they're doing. Go ahead. Pretty,

CROWDER: pretty, pretty black. They asked him, they asked him when he was, when he was uh, uh, going to be the RNC chairman, like, hey, what do you think we need to do?

We need to be more effective on our messaging as it relates to strong American economy, jobs for the middle class. He's like, I think they need a what pie. We're gonna start a blog. Michael, what up, Phil? Like, you're the worst. I'll take it. Go away. I see your point. And I'll run your way. That's not even as cringy as they really get.

No. You're less cringy than they are. Well, here's what's even more cringy is, look, and I understand that she is biracial, okay? It's not lost. We will have her Jamaican father, Donald J. Harrison, in just a little bit. Yeah. However, she has tried to use whatever is most convenient that day, and because they [01:26:00] know we'll get to the polls that Kamala doesn't poll very well with the um, the Noirs, to quote that man.

At least I there now. They're now trying to make Kamala do more black things.

KAMALA HARRIS: What'd you get? So Do you know music? Okay, so First of all, Charlie Mangus.

CLIP: And then the Blackstreet Boys. community. She is a great asset to this team. Well, to say that the black community is excited about this potential nomination is an understatement.

KAMALA HARRIS: favorite albums of all time. Roy airs. Everybody loves sunshine. Pause.

CROWDER: If it's your favorite album, why are you buying it now on camera? Yeah, it's like she googled it. Yes.

UNKNOWN COMMENTATOR: You would have already had it.

CROWDER: Oh, I guess It's also

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: possible that maybe it's on your Spotify, but I mean You buy reissue

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I have albums that I purchased on vinyl to have as [01:27:00] collector items that I listen to also on my streaming service.

You like black music? You may have

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: had cassettes or something. You like black music? Name five of their albums. That's basically what they're saying. I mean,

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: but, but, I mean, this is like, this is, you know, This is all just, you know, full on, uh, politician stuff. Like there's no politician out there. You know, I'm going to McDonald's.

Really does, does Donald Trump go, Trump could do that. Does Donald Trump go in Philadelphia and get a cheese steak? I mean, gimme a, she made a

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: campaign stop at a record store and picked up some records that she liked. That's what happened.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, it's, it's, it's, I

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I, this is, this is just like, this is just Nazi strain, gun level race, baby.

Yeah. Like, I mean, honestly I can full

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: on race babies. It

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: really is.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: All right, let's just uh, he's so pathetic

James Baldwin's Fire Part 2 - Throughline - Air Date 9-17-20

JAMES BALDWIN: What is it you want to me to reconcile myself to? I was born here almost 60 years ago. I'm not going to live another 60 years. You always told me it takes time. It has taken my father's time, my mother's time. My [01:28:00] uncle's not. My brother's and my sister's not. My niece's and my nephew's not. How much time do you want for your progress?

RUND ABDELFATAH - HOST, THROUGHLINE: Did he come, come out of the civil rights? movement feeling hopeful because I, I, I look at the moment that we're in now and the, and there's a lot of potential for change. There's a lot of potential for a real kind of awareness of reckoning with our history, but there's also a potential for things to continue as they've been.

And I guess I wonder is, is, is the ultimate kind of takeaway From Baldwin, a sense of hope, um, in, in where the country's headed.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: You know, that's a great question. And in [01:29:00] some ways, it's, it's a question that, that, that is in part the motivation for writing the book, because I focus on the later Jimmy Baldwin's.

I will focus on his later work for a reason, because He witnessed the country turn its back on the civil rights movement. You know, something, they murdered the apostle of love. They assassinated Dr. King. He collapsed, you know, tried to commit suicide in 69. He was despairing, disillusioned. But he had to pick up the pieces.

He had to bear witness. Because he also saw the country elect Ronald Reagan. And he, you know, Reagan for black activists during this period was as bad, if not worse, than George Wallace. And they were calling him the redeemer in chief. This was the man who, who, who led the hunt. You know, that destroyed the Black Panther Party.

This was the man who put Angela Davis in effect on the FBI most wanted list. This was the man who despised the poor. Um, in [01:30:00] California, as, as Baldwin put it, he was the, he would, he became the avatar of all of those who rejected it and resisted the great society and the civil rights movement. And the country elected him, this B list Hollywood actor.

He was their latest fantasy. Hmm. Sounds like an echo. We live in a moment similar. And so Baldwin, um, in that moment, said the country had turned its back on it, on, on, on the possibility of being otherwise. And so he had to figure out how to pick up the pieces so that we could push this damn boulder up the hill again.

In 1970, an Ebony interviewer came to Istanbul while Baldwin was trying to pick up the pieces and working on No Name in the Street. And he asked him about hope and Jimmy is barely keeping it together, although he's in a community of love offers the advice that I found in the ruins and in the rubble that I offer us today, [01:31:00] hope is invented every day, hope is invented every day.

And so I'll say this really quickly. There's no, there's reason to. To think that we are on the precipice of change, but there's no guarantee. But wherever human beings are, we at least have a chance because we're not only disasters, we're also,

we have to dare everything right now. We have to try to be otherwise. We have to risk everything to be otherwise. We have to figure out how to be together differently. I don't want to see another generation of Americans having to bear the burden of this lie. To use an image that Baldwin used, you know, we're all midwives [01:32:00] trying to give birth to a new America.

In the past, every time we came to the moment in which the new America could be born, white supremacy was the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby's neck. And we let it snuff down.

Let's be better midwives as we try to be better people.

JAMES BALDWIN: This is the demand that the artist makes of his society, which society inevitably, unfailingly, and always resists. Resists because it knows that it could do it, but prefers to believe that what it can see and touch is more real. And what it knows and feels at that moment, for example, when the baby is born.

The role of the artist, or responsibility of the artist, is to make you respect that moment above all other moments. To recognize that there is nothing under [01:33:00] heaven, no creed and no flag. And no cause more important than the single human life.

SECTION C - THE WHITE LIE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C: The White Lie.

Truth, Privilege, and James Baldwin Part 2 - Woke AF Daily - Air Date 10-3-23

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: You know, I think that it's so important, Greg, for white people like yourself to take on. The role of shepherd right in trying to corral Yeah in trying to corral people outside of their own self interest and privilege right because what I believe to be true is that the reason why we're at a time when History is being erased again where books are being burned again Where you're seeing this critical pushback in and our public education system being a battleground For social justice again is because of the notable progress that has been made The critical thought that has been [01:34:00] raised the uh, the the opportunities That we saw presented through the historical the historic election of the first black president right through, you know, through people from marginalized communities sitting inside as secretaries of, you know, of transportation as leaders in our government like this is why this is happening.

You wouldn't see a need for this kind of white lash and bigotry if in fact young people's minds haven't already been woke right to the fact that you know what? This system isn't just this place is not right. It isn't okay that by virtue of my birth and whiteness that I have more privilege and opportunity than my friend down the street or my neighbor, you know, or what have you.

And so, you know, my question for you, the last question I have for you is, you know, Baldwin's footprints on this country, on this world. Is, is enormous, [01:35:00] um, is cemented, is important, and what message do you think that he would continue to convey if, in fact, he was still with us in this moment of great hopelessness?

Right? Because that's where we are. We've had tremendous progress, but the pain that we are seeing right now and the cruelty that is being wielded by. Republican politicians is creating a sense of hopelessness. So what do you think his message would be?

GREG GARRETT: Oh, and Danielle, that is such a good question. I actually had a conversation with the BBC earlier today, and I was asked something similar and, and what I had said to them and what I confessed to them is that, you know, as I look at where the world is now in this post Trumpian reality, post Trumpian, please God, it feels darker to me than at any [01:36:00] time during my lifetime.

You know, and I'm 61 years old, you know, I was born in 1961, grew up in the 60s, was fairly cognizant of, of, uh, what was going on. And, you know, for all the excitement of Barack Obama being elected, I do really think that Ibram Kendi has it right. Which is, this is, this is not a, you know, like a, a triangle of narrative that we're used to.

It's, it's jagged, you know? And as you were saying, Barack Obama's. Election and a more inclusive society scared the crap out of a whole lot of white people. And so that's how we end up with, you know, what the Atlantic called Mr. Trump as, you know, the great white supremacist president. Yeah. Um, so here's kind of where I land on this a lot.

There are two late life. Works by Baldwin that I look at. Um, he was asked by Playboy magazine to go to Atlanta and investigate the Atlanta [01:37:00] child murders. And the essay that he wrote is kind of rambling. It's not by any means his most like successful literary work. And there are times in it where he seems to be so daunted and so lost and so hopeless.

And at the end of it, he comes back to the, that question of love again. Um, And he says, you know, I think about the church that I grew up in, where we were told to love each other. And he says, whoever else did not believe that, I did. And I think about that a lot, um, you know, in terms of like trying to bridge some of these chasms in our reality at this time.

Um, and then I also think about hopefulness in connection with the last work that he was writing at the end of his life, which was a play called the welcome table. And, you know, Baldwin loved black spirituals. He loved gospel music. He loved the blues. Um, I know that he was referring to, you know, I'm going to sit at the welcome table one of these days.[01:38:00]

Uh, which is one of the songs that I learned in the African American church that rescued me. Um, and the, the image that he had of the welcome table was one that he talked about throughout his life. Um, someday, he said, you know, and whether that's in this reality, please God, or not, but someday we are all going to come to this space where we can sit at the table and we're not going to see those received identities.

Uh, I'm not going to be a straight white Christian man. I'm going to be human. I'm going to be a child of God. You know, even as, as we might put it, and. We're going to sit together at the table. All of us are going to sit together at the table and we're going to be seen and known and loved. Um, and, and that's a central part of my faith.

And, you know, the crazy thing is that I think it remained a central part of Baldwin's faith, even though he fled the organized church as a teenager. Up to the end of his life, he still believed in that possibility. [01:39:00] And, you know, I talked about it, it's like, what do I need to get out of bed in the morning?

Um, I need to believe in hope, you know, I need to believe that change is possible, that we can do better. And I need to have some pragmatic ways to think about that, which for me is a white man is we've got to do some truth telling, we've got to do some repentance. We've got to create relationships with people who've been marginalized.

We've got to learn, um, who they are. And learn what they need and how we can move forward. Because I mean, another problem that white guys have is that we want to go in and fix things that we don't know anything about.

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: Yeah. Yeah.

GREG GARRETT: What, what Baldwin has given me as a person who looks and lives like I do is all of these thoughts around love and hope.

And the idea that, you know, at the end of the day, we are so much more alike than we are. And that there is possibility. And, you know, I believed, I believed this so much more strongly when Barack Obama stood on the [01:40:00] steps

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: of the Capitol, and I

GREG GARRETT: do when I look at the Republican debates, I also just got back from Bill Clinton's presidential library and I was watching, uh, some of the video there and it was, I mean, it brought tears to my eyes.

Whatever it is, you know that you want to say about Bill Clinton, but that that phrase I still believe in a place called hope and that's what Baldwin gives me every time I read him, every time I hear his voice, every time I think about him, I hope that we can do and be better.

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: Yeah, and I will wait. It was Bill Clinton that said there is nothing that is wrong with America that can't be fixed by what is right by America.

GREG GARRETT: Yeah, that's and

DANIELLE MOODIE - HOST, WOKE AF DAILY: that is and that's actually one of my favorite. That's one of that's one of my favorites that I that I still I still with my mustard seed of hope that I still hold on to.

Right Wingers Go FULL RACIST About Civil Rights Part 2 - The Majority Report - Air Date 4-21-24

JEREMY CARL: I mean, I didn't write this book to de radicalize people. Okay. But I actually think that if people read it, they will understand, uh, if you're a white person and you're like, man, I'm just, [01:41:00] I'm at the end of my rope and I don't know what I'm going to do.

But that's where a lot of

CHARLIE KIRK: the young white men that we speak to on campus, I sometimes have to kind of bring them back into like, Free society, like let's, let's calm down because they say everyone's against us. We need to create our own identity politic group. And I actually don't think that's a good idea.

I, I don't think more tribalism is the answer to tribalism, but I see why they believe that. Pause it for one second. Incidentally,

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: if you are looking for a white identity group, uh, there is one. It is called the Republican Party. Younger campus Republicans.

CHARLIE KIRK: Sympathize with it. The media then says, how dare you sympathize with people that, you know, want to create their own identity group.

But can you speak to that, Jeremy? It's like, you can only push a group into a corner so much until they. They

JEREMY CARL: kind of say, I'm not going to take it anymore. Yeah. And I think that's what's happening. And I think that's, you know, you're seeing this ferment and that's the left kind of loses its mind because they refuse to deal with the consequences of what they've created.

I do think that there's an element in the same way that [01:42:00] Martin Luther King jr, who we talked about before the show, but he wasn't, you know, plus or minus. He wasn't kind of he wasn't a black nationalist in the way that early malcolm x was he was trying to organize black people However, without apology apology, I think in the same way like we've had a lot of airy appeals to equal rights And it sort of hasn't gotten us anywhere.

We need to organize people Not in a way to kind of create racial identity politics, but to show that like these are the people being discriminated against So they have to organized against it actively and

CHARLIE KIRK: it is without a doubt the only group in the country You That you're not allowed. To say that you're even part of that group, right?

Let alone that you're being mistreated.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: What would organizing white people look like, right? I mean, you

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: know, Republican Party.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, sure, but you could even if you want to organize it It's like you could have matching outfits, right? Like I mean so people know that you're a part of the same group. Could be matching armbands.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: A coordinated [01:43:00] step, rather.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Or, or What

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: about Fred Perry shirts? How about maybe race isn't the lines that we decide to organize along? How about maybe instead, these young people, I mean, look, maybe some of them are rich kids, uh, that are gonna be racist, but like, um, join a union. Um, join some of these, like, anti imperial causes that are on your campus that you're being told to hate by people like Charlie Kirk.

Like, there are other causes then. I need to be, because I'm a white man, I do not feel represented by either of these two absolute goobers there. And the idea that these guys are going to give anybody a sort of path to walk in life is depressing.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, the, the fascinating thing is, is that every other, in every other application, I Their ideology is all about the individual in every other application.

Good point. It is all about the individual. It is about, you know, personal responsibility and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and, um, unions are bad. Um, you know, any type of [01:44:00] activist groups are bad. Environmentalists are bad. Um, uh, criminal justice reform, bad, um, any type of activism. Outside of responding to the fact that, that we've gone too far in giving rights to non white people.

Every other notion of communitarianism, of organizing, of activism is, uh, bad, inherently. In its essence, is bad. Unless you're forced into, um, Organizing as white people to push back on what's going on here,

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: which is just the good news is that Charlie's very bad at it Um, you know charlie's not the dumbest conservative, but he's quite bad at organizing at least college students to his cause They failed miserably So focused, very laser, uh, laser focused on Arizona this last election cycle and, uh, Republican, uh, gains with young [01:45:00] people was one of the worst in any of the states that Turning Point USA even looked at, if not the worst there.

So that's the good news for us is that he takes a bunch of right wing billionaire or millionaire cash and doesn't do a ton with it.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Uh, is there any more to this? Let's just hear. Where these, these two guys are going.

CHARLIE KIRK: Right. Why do you think that is? Is it just that everyone's so afraid of being called a racist?

I, I actually think that simple explanation is the deep one. Yeah, I think that's right. It's that being called a racist is worse than being called a rapist in American society.

JEREMY CARL: Oh, absolutely. And you'll see even people, you know, who are, who would be considered very, very far to the right, and they will disclaim, you know, or they will, they will feel like they have been slandered if that is used against them.

Absolutely. And you seem to get over it because ultimately, if you're being effective in this world right now, you're gonna be called a racist by the left, but they don't even know what a woman is, so how would they know what a racist is? Oh! I get

CHARLIE KIRK: called racist every day, and it's easy to say, why are you so terrified of being called a racist?

But there is, there are huge consequences for being called a racist. Of course. [01:46:00] Unless you have your own stuff, and unless you're very unique and you're willing to punch through it, and punch through it, and punch through it, and punch through it, and then you come to the other side and you have intellectual freedom.

Purity and freedom, but that's, that's a small positive

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: incidentally. I'll tell you what that area is. It's when your audience is also equally as racist and they're okay with it and everybody has punched through it.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I know, right. Like they got over the initial shame of being called a racist and just set in, and it just set in the reality that they are racist.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I like the fact too that this guy was feeling loose enough to, um, just to slide off topic a little bit in terms of the only unprotected class that's out there to, uh, slag trans people. They peddled of that. Yeah, it's. It's, it's like, it is the white people who are oppressed and, of course, those people who are not trans.

Yeah.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It's funny to have, like, something that you return to as a touchstone for, like, oh, this is the truth on our [01:47:00] side, and you're wrong about that, too. Exactly.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And what strikes me, too, is these conversations are so boring, because they're never specific. It's just like general feelings, general resentment, I mean, like they can never point to anything in particular because also when they start to go down that road, if Charlie wants to get a little bit more specific about his feelings about the Civil Rights Act, then he gets a little bit, he gets in trouble because for all of his protestations, right?

He knows that there's some lines that he can't cross if he wants to widen his appeal for his audience.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And we should just say, um The number of racists who are arrested for their racism, uh, versus rapists is really out of control.

Brian Lehrer Weekend 100 Years of James Baldwin; Election Integrity and National Security; New York City Etiquette Part 2 - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 8-3-24

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: I'm used at the very beginning. Paradoxical, I think is a, is a wonderful counterintuitive maybe is also a, another word there. That idea that so much time has passed and yet the words ring so true still. That makes me professor want to go to the fire next time, which you brought up.

This one is two [01:48:00] essays. The first was written to Baldwin's nephew. Interesting little factoid here for listeners. This one was in 1963. We're celebrating a hundred years of a hundred things, 1963 itself, a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. How had Baldwin in the country's discourse evolved by, by that point, had it speaking to Nikita's point?

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Well, remember, I mean, this is at the heart of, of the black freedom struggle. So Baldwin, you know, with the, first of all, with the publication of The Fire Next Time, he, he ascends as perhaps the most important black literary voice in the country at the time. But it's also, Uh, you know, you think about Birmingham, you think about, um, the, the movement in Montgomery, you think about, uh, what happened in Arkansas, what was going on in the South, what was about to happen in Washington, D.

C., the meeting with, uh, uh, Robert, Robert Kennedy. So he's in the throes of the black freedom struggle. Right and what's so important about it. Remember that the the [01:49:00] essays were published The year before right and one in the New Yorker and the other and in another in another piece So so he's he's the progressive he's thinking Right?

About movements. He's trying to, how can, he's trying to bear witness to what's happening on the ground and what's happening on the ground. Everyday ordinary folk are engaged in a revolutionary practice to change the very foundation. The very foundation of the country, right? To rip up this, this practice of Jim Crow.

And fire next time is this powerful articulation of that, but it's also this challenge because the country gets introduced to, to, uh, the nation of Islam. Cause this is what's so, what's so beautiful about Baldwin. Baldwin taught me how to love and to be angry, how to not let the rage overwhelm. Uh, you know, but if you're not angry, If you're not in love, you know, [01:50:00] they're experiencing a kind of righteous indignation.

What, what, what world are you living in? And so he's, he's giving voice to this in 1963. And remember, we don't hear the language of black power until two to three years later.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: You know, we're

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: already beginning to get a sense of it in his work

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: that, that, um, that idea of him being a precursor to a larger movement in that sense reminds me of a clip that we've actually prepared.

So it's great timing. In 1968, he went on the Dick Cavett show and talked about the state of race relations. Let's listen to a clip from his comments. I'm going to, I'm going to ask you to reflect on it, professor. Here's the clip. Sure.

JAMES BALDWIN: I don't know what most white people in this country feel, but I can only include what they feel from the state of their institution.

I don't know if white Christians hate Negroes or not, but I know that we have a Christian church which is white, and a Christian church which is black. I know, as Malcolm X once put it, that the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday. That says a great deal for me about a Christian nation.

It means that I can't afford to [01:51:00] trust most white Christians, and certainly cannot trust the Christian church. I don't know whether the labor unions and their bosses really hate me. That doesn't matter, but I know I'm not in their union. I don't know if the real estate lobby is anything against black people, but I know the real estate lobbies keep me in the ghetto.

I don't know if the Board of Education hates black people, but I know the textbooks I give my children to read, and the schools that we have to go to. Now, this is the evidence. You want me to make an act of faith, risking myself, my wife, my woman, my sister, my children, On some idealism, which you assure me exists in America, which I have never seen.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: There's this resolute moving poetry, I'd have to call it in the way Baldwin outlines systemic racism. It's also crucial here to remember that Baldwin is saying these things on television, on a popular TV show. That's really something, right? How do people react to that, to him in this medium?

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Oh, no, remember, this is.

Baldwin in 68, many folk believe that he's [01:52:00] fallen for the siren songs of the so called young black radicals Folks believe that he's lost, you know, his his artistic edge in some ways, right? Uh that his anger has overwhelmed his pen Um, but here I mean he's responding to paul weiss. I mean there's this sense in which the philosopher from Yale, he's responding to Paul Weiss's expectation that black folk haven't earned a deep skepticism about the moral capacities of this country.

I mean, this is what this airs, um, just not too long after Dr. King has been assassinated. And what does it mean at this moment to expect of Jimmy, right? Some kind of moral, Uh, forgiveness, some kind of openness to the possibility that white America will give up the idols of its commitment to whiteness.

And you can hear the rage in his voice. How can you expect me to [01:53:00] risk myself and the people I love for something that is just an ideal that you refuse to live up to, you see? And so this part of this prophetic truth telling. Right. It's, you know, in that moment, Baldwin takes on repetition, that homiletic strategy, right?

He repeats and the rhythm of the repetition, right? Allows for the point to be brought home, not at the level of just simply a claim that's being made, but at the level of the emotion, the passion, at the level of the heart. And at that moment, right? He's, he's being something where he's being something really, he's doing something really special, you know?

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Yeah, there's the litany, the, the, not, not, I mean, maybe gospel in a sense, but based on his roots, but definitely that sense of, of resoluteness that you're talking about. Great writer, great orator, which I think is something really important for folks to remember.

James Baldwin's Fire Part 3 - Throughline - Air Date 9-17-20

RUND ABDELFATAH - HOST, THROUGHLINE: throughout the book. Just to follow up on that, there is this feeling that. While [01:54:00] he holds that rage, as you just said, he's also capable. Of simultaneously understanding that the white citizens of the United States who are responsible for the state of, uh, play a major role and responsible for the state of racism in the system in America.

He also holds a deep love for, and a sense of. Uh, brotherhood and sisterhood for those people. And do you think part of the reason he was able to do that so well, beyond just his ability to write and think, was that he was a witness and not necessarily a participant in the sense that he wasn't an activist, he intentionally chose to be a witness, to bear witness, to document in a lot of ways, uh, what he was seeing.

What does that tell us about kind of where, you know, many of us sit? And do you think that was what really enabled him to? Kind of really be able to [01:55:00] balance those heavy emotions.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: You, you know, I, I don't know, um, to be honest with you. It, it, it's hard. There is a sense in which, you know, Baldwin is, is the poet in, in the Emersonian sense.

Um, Baldwin never gave up on the fundamental sacrality of human being. We're all sacred. And then that line where he says, you know, I want us to do something unprecedented, and that is to create a self without the need for enemies. Oh my lord. Every time, I mean, That's just, I just love that line. So part of what he's saying, um, I know I'm going around in circles.

He's saying that what white supremacy does, it not only causes all of this hell for me and how I have to raise my children and live my life, it is literally deforming and disfiguring the character of the people who embrace it. [01:56:00] You, your character is fundamentally affected by all of this. Can't you see?

JAMES BALDWIN: I think that you and I.

We might learn a great deal from each other if you can overcome the curtain of my color. This country is mine too. I paid as much for it as you. White means that you are European still, and black means that I'm African, and we both know. We've both been here too long. You can't go back to Ireland or Poland or England, and I can't go back to Africa, and we will live here together or we'll die here together.

And it's not I am telling you, time is telling you. You will listen or you will perish.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: And what he's warning us is not to fall into the trap because if it disfigures them, if we buy into his logic, it will disfigure us. We can't release the trap, man. But we can't, we [01:57:00] also can't fall into this stuff of sentimentality either.

But anyway.

Jimmy.

SECTION D - GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D: Global Connections.

Cori Bush vs. AIPAC- Squad Member in Tough Primary Race as Pro-Israel Lobby Spends $8M to Defeat Her - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-6-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Today is Primary Day in Missouri. One of the most closely watched races of the year, Democratic Congressmember Cori Bush is facing off against county prosecutor Wesley Bell. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and an affiliated super PAC have spent over $8 million in an effort to defeat Bush, who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war on Gaza. The election comes just weeks after the same super PAC, United Democratic Project, spent over $14 million to help defeat New York Congressmember Jamaal Bowman in his Democratic primary here in New York.

Four years ago, Cori Bush won a stunning primary upset over the 10-term incumbent Congressmember William Lacy Clay Jr. in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District in the St. Louis area. Bush was a [01:58:00] leader in the 2014 Ferguson uprising over the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Prior to taking office, she worked as a nurse. She was also unhoused for a period of time with her children, an experience that led her to become a leading housing advocate in Congress, where she introduced the Unhoused Bill of Rights.

We go right now to St. Louis. We’re joined by Michael Berg, former political director of the Missouri chapter of the Sierra Club. He has a new piece for The Nation headlined “I’m a St. Louis Jew. Here’s Why I’m Backing Cori Bush. If AIPAC and its donors defeat her, we won’t just be losing one of Palestine’s staunchest allies but also one of the climate movement’s most effective champions.”

Michael Berg, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain what’s happening in St. Louis now with this massive amount of money that’s being put in to defeat Congressmember Bush.

MICHAEL BERG: Thank you, Amy.

Yes, [01:59:00] if you’re in St. Louis and you live here, over the last several weeks, couple months, you look at YouTube, you will see an advertisement either against Cori Bush, a lot of them against Cori Bush, or for Wesley Bell. You go to your television, you hear that. You go to the radio. You get mailers. There’s been — I’ve talked to people who have had over 40 mailers, either anti-Bush or pro-Bell, coming in. It’s just this incredible infusion of money and resources in attacking Bush, in supporting Dell.

And it’s interesting because, as you mentioned, the money is coming from AIPAC, but the attacks have nothing to do with her principled stance for a ceasefire. They’re about other very, very misleading attacks on her coming in. And it’s all meant to push out someone who stands up for Palestinian rights, but who stands up for so many other [02:00:00] things. But it’s very duplicitous for this organization to come in and have the money for one reason, and have all these ads that are misleading for other reasons.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And, Michael, what’s been the stance of the existing Democratic Party machinery, which normally backs an incumbent?

MICHAEL BERG: Well, if you look at the national level, you know, Cori Bush is backed by Hakeem Jeffries and the leadership in Congress, the Progressive Caucus, the Black Caucus. I mean, you have Democrats in the state of Missouri, in the area, who are on both sides of this race. So I can’t say there’s a unified response, but there is a — you know, the union movement, most unions are supporting Bush. She has voted with the AFL-CIO almost 100% of the time. There’s trades have been on the other side, but the other unions have not. So, [02:01:00] I’d say there’s been people on different sides.

But the primary thing happening is just this incredible infusion of AIPAC money that’s sort of washed — like, just dominated the airwaves. And people keep hearing it, and people keep hearing it and seeing it. And I’ve hit a lot of doors, knocked a lot of doors, and it has its effect. Misleading statements about her record as far as the infrastructure bill, where she made a principled stance to hold out for — to make sure there’s a child tax credit, to make sure we had more climate provisions — a stance that was taken in 2021 where she stood up and she took a vote. And in the 2022 election, almost nobody heard about it. But here, in the 2024 election, just the airwaves and the mailers are just hammering, hammering, saying she didn’t stand up for your job, she didn’t stand up for clean air and water. And there’s nothing further from the truth. She was standing up many times as much.

And what I found is, you know, [02:02:00] I knock on doors, and people have heard these things. And you talk to them, and they say, “Oh, I don’t support her anymore, because she didn’t do this.” And when you explain that, no, she was holding out to get more resources for your children, to make sure we much more further confronted the climate crisis, and the only reason you’re hearing about it now is because she stood up for peace in the Middle East, for a ceasefire, for children to stop being killed with American weapons, and that because of that, you have millions of dollars coming heavily from the same donors who backed Trump, Vance and Senator Hawley. When you let people know that, and that you say, “Why are you hearing so much about this? It’s because people don’t want her there,” you flip the vote. People then support her again, but the problem being, you know: Who’s got the capacity to go to every door and have a 5- to 10-minute conversation? You know, [02:03:00] the barrage of misinformation works. And, you know, we’re hopeful. We’re hoping we can counteract it. But it’s been — never seen anything like it.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And what about Wesley Bell? He’s the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney. He previously served on the City Council and was instrumental in policy changes after the police killing of Michael Brown. What’s been the sentiment of voters toward him? But do people even really know him?

MICHAEL BERG: A lot of people know him. I mean, it’s different. St. Louis has confusing jurisdictions. So, St. Louis County is outside of St. Louis city. So, he’s the prosecutor for St. Louis County. The district, Cori Bush’s district, is about half the city of St. Louis and half parts of St. Louis County. People know him.

And I would say, you know, what is disturbing to me is he told Congresswoman Bush that he was not going to run. He told her that. He was running against Josh [02:04:00] Hawley, our senator, who is not very popular in this district. And he said he was running against him. And then, when he was offered a deal to get millions of dollars of AIPAC money, he did a 180 and decided to take on, you know, an incumbent progressive Democrat, who’s just been a champion, as I mention in my article, for the climate, for so many things that people care about in this area.

So, I would call him an opportunist who saw an opportunity to go to Congress, while Cori Bush is in it because she wants to represent the interests of ordinary people, the people who are suffering, people who are unhoused. Before she came into office, she was constantly on the streets helping folks who were unhoused, making sure people had resources, food and shelter, when need be. So, I see a clear distinction there.

Our Genocide Is Their Entertainment-- Israel's Disgusting Pro-Torture Justification - The Majority Report - Air Date 8-9-24

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And, um, the only reason we should say [02:05:00] that these soldiers are even being detained is because or question is because of this international Pressure, um, and because, honestly, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government want to continue with the worst of the genocide in Gaza, um, and this also plays into their efforts to, I think, widen this war, to draw the United States into it, um, and to make it not about Gaza, but about how Israel is constantly under threat.

I guess we could get to that in a little bit, because I want to touch more. On the conditions here. Um, the there have been reports now for months that prisoners were being raped with metal rods, sometimes hot metal rods burning their anuses to the point where they no have longer had control of their faculties.

Um, and this is, I think, the detention. arm of Israel's categorization [02:06:00] of all Palestinian men, or a great majority of them, and boys, as basically combatants. Can you talk about that, that process, and how that has basically midwifed the wholesale detention of up to tens of thousands of Palestinian men, and we don't even know, again, the death toll?

Um, in Gaza, it's, I saw some doctors were citing a figure as high as 92, 000 at this point.

DIANE BUTTU: Yes, we don't know the precise, uh, toll. There's other, the Lancet came out and said that it may be 186, 000. Uh, friends who've been in Gaza on medical missions, say that the number is probably even higher than that. Um, but in terms of how it is that we, that we, that Israel continues to, to grab people, kidnap them, uh, detain them and keep them in prison.

It is because Israel has always had this system of what they, what it's kind of a misnomer, they call it administrative detention. It sounds so sanitary and it's anything but, uh, it's a very [02:07:00] violent process in which people are picked up, kidnapped usually in the middle of the night from their homes, children as young as 13, sometimes even younger, and then held without charge, without trial for a period of six months.

Where that trial then, that, uh, detention can be renewed indefinitely as long as they see a judge every six months. And it's through this system of administrative detention that we've seen roughly 40 percent of the male population be thrown in prison at one point in time. That's roughly about 20 percent of the entire Palestinian population has spent time inside of an Israeli prison.

Some administrative detention can last upwards of 11 years. A friend of mine spent 11 years of his life under administrative detention, which means without charge and without trial. Now, it's not just that, but it's the process of dehumanization that leads soldiers to be able to do what it is that they want to do with Palestinians.

And, um, [02:08:00] since, since November, I've interviewed a number of Palestinians who were kidnapped and then released. And all of them have described similar, um, torture techniques that have been used against them. And one thing, one strand that appears throughout all of these testimonies is that they say that the torture that is being meted out, um, by the Israelis It's unlike torture in the way that people normally think of torture, which by the way is illegal either way, but normally when one thinks of torture, they think of torture in order to obtain some sort of information.

In this case, there is no information that's being obtained. It's simply to exact revenge and to show superiority. And so we've seen people who have already been convicted. who, uh, who are serving sentences inside Israeli prisons who are also being tortured. Again, not because there's an attempt to extract information.

Once again, that's illegal, but simply because they're trying to show who it is, who is boss. And so [02:09:00] the methods that have been used are things that, that it's even so hard to describe because, um, It's just, it's some of the worst, it's the worst behavior of humans that I've ever heard in my, in my life of, of, um, raping, uh, raping people, of torturing them.

You know, one, one, uh, young man was telling me that, that at one point he was, his hands were shackled, his legs were shackled, he was put in the fetal position and blindfolded, and around him they drew, um, a circle in chalk. And, uh, and he was kept in that position for 24 hours a day for days on end, and if he moved in any way, if he spoke up in any way, if he crossed the chalk line in any way, um, that was a sign that he should be tortured, and he was.

And when they torture Palestinians, It's, um, a torture that is witnessed by others. The only time that the blindfold is removed is to be [02:10:00] able to see another Palestinian being tortured. And so the things that, the testimonies that we've heard of, of the ways that people are being held, the conditions under which they're being held, is, is horrifying.

And yet, it's not even moving the needle inside Israel because Everything is, is justifiable and because everything is justifiable, this of course is going to continue and that's why you see the riots that we see.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And in terms of it being, uh, broadly accepted, this kind of brutalization, uh, towards Palestinians within Israel, I'm struck by the fact that these break ins by these activists seem to happen quite a bit.

Um, whether it be along the border into Gaza. Wow, I don't know. Somehow security just seems to fail all the time. And these activists who want to starve everybody in Gaza to death are just able to block all the aid trucks. I mean, what could the people who are manning the border do or whether it be the [02:11:00] break in into this torture camp, um, uh, concentration camp, you could argue.

Um, the, the, It just seems like, oh, they're able to get in, um, what could we do? Can you speak to just almost like the tacit acceptance or almost appreciation that so many, uh, Israeli guards or people who are a part of the militaristic infrastructure there, um, their relationship with these activists who are at, uh, at the front lines of expanding Israel and, and wanting the genocide to ramp up and continue?

DIANE BUTTU: This is a great question, Emma, because I think people often, uh, make the mistake of somehow separating the Israeli security services, the police, the, the prison guards, the, the, the soldiers, the army from ordinary people. Uh, Israelis or from, you know, the extreme right wing. They're one in the same. This is a state apparatus and because it's a state apparatus, it reflects on the [02:12:00] state and it's made up of people who are members of the state.

Um, and so because of that, we see a synergy between the two of them. We see that, that if you look at the West Bank where where the Israeli settlers have been torching Palestinian homes. They've been going after Palestinians and killing them. That instead of the army stopping them, they're actually aiding them.

And similarly, as you mentioned, in Gaza, as the aid trucks are supposed to be making their way into Gaza. We've seen that these, these same security apparatuses are able, are allowing Israelis to set up, get this, bouncy castles in front of, um, these spaces so that they can jump on the bouncy castles, they can eat popcorn, and so that, um, Our genocide is their entertainment and this is allowed to happen.

And third, as you put it, as you already said, when it comes to state to man and the concentration camp or the prison camp that is there, that suddenly they have no means of dealing with crowd control or to [02:13:00] stop the, the, this, this riot from happening, but they seem to have those mechanisms when it's Palestinians who are, who are peacefully protesting, who are demanding an end to the genocide and so on.

And so the, the two are so intertwined. It is, these are, um, these are state, it's a state apparatus. And because it's a state apparatus, it's made of people who are from the state. And it's exactly reflective of Israeli society. So they're not going to go there. They're not going to poke a hole in the bouncy castle.

They're not going to tell people to move on and allow the eight trucks in. They're not going to use any method to stop the riots from entering into state to man, or otherwise, um, they're not going to stop the settlers from. From torching Palestinian homes. They're in, they're working together rather than opposed to one another.

Brian Lehrer Weekend_ 100 Years of James Baldwin; Election Integrity and National Security; New York City Etiquette Part 3 - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 8-3-24

CALLER: Good morning to everyone. Good morning. Go ahead. Professor, there's always the same rewrite of Baldwin's life. And I don't know if anyone's done any [02:14:00] research, because he lived in France for so long, why he never spoke on, and did it move him in any way?

France's occupation of Algiers.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Amon,

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: thank you so

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: much.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Yeah, go ahead professor. No, that's a great question. When you read the 1972 text, uh, No Name in the Street, uh, It's really clear that Baldwin is not trading the American fantasy for a French one, right? He's clear about what what is going on in Algeria, right?

He he understands, uh, even earlier Uh, in the early works, I mean, Read Nobody Knows My Name, I mean, his, some of the early work around, uh, you know, the continent is really bad, I mean, his, you can see his politics evolving, but he's, he's clear that he's not, um, Um, trading the American disaster for the French, uh, you know, for the French ideal.

No, he understands Western Europe, Western civilization to be caught up, uh, in this nasty, [02:15:00] uh, belief that somehow the color of one's skin determines one's value. Uh, you know, at the end, at the end of the day, Baldwin is constantly trying to do two things at once. He's trying to keep track of the material conditions of our living, while also keeping track of the interior complexities on the inside of every human being, right?

So that's, that's, that's the beauty of his, of his writing and the insight, uh, that he,

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: that he provides us on the page. And Aman, we really appreciate your call and bringing that up. I'm looking at the clock, got just a little bit of time left, but I want to bring up your book. begin again, one of your concluding chapters is titled a new America, which is a great title because right now we're kind of celebrating a hundred years gone by and we're looking ahead.

And it's a lot of what you talk about as well in your most recent book. We are the leaders we have been looking for. So, you know, we've got about a minute in your mind as we look ahead to the next 100 years of new America, what's in element, multiple elements of Baldwin's work that you or I, or someone listening should hold close.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: You [02:16:00] know, Baldwin is going to insist that we not find comfort in safety, that we run towards our fears, that we tell ourselves the truth about who we are. Uh, and I think, you know, based upon my reading, you know, for 250 years and remember the 250th anniversary of the nation is right around the corner. We have failed to confront who we actually are so that we could discover a different way of being together.

And so here we are always reaching, reaching for, for, for the possibility of the future, but not dealing with the ghosts of the past that have us by the throat. And so I think in this moment, in this moment here in 2024, we're still grappling with the tragic choice that's at the heart of this fragile experiment.

And the question, the question is, can we begin again? And that is, and, and, you know, begin again comes from the last novel, Just Above My Head. You know, and that is you can't, you know, don't abdicate responsibility, right? What does it mean to take on responsibility? Well, if you do, then you get, get up and you face the ugliness [02:17:00] and you try, try again.

It's Sisyphean almost, but you got to begin again. So we have to be honest with ourselves, Doc. We have to be honest with who we are. We have to be honest with what threatens democracy today. If we're going to release ourselves into a new future,

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991, or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from the Brian Lehrer Show, 1A, The Majority Report, Democracy Now!, Throughline, and Woke AF Daily. Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Quartet—Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew—for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And [02:18:00] thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with the link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.

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#1648 Power Grabs, Elections Optional: The threat of minority rule through election denialism (Transcript)

Posted by · August 13, 2024 2:30 AM

Air Date 8/13/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

Spirits among Kamala Harris supporters, Democrats, and anyone opposing Trumpism are at basically an all-time high right now. That is both fortuitous and crucial to the upcoming election. By the very nature of Trumpism, this election will be the most flagrantly contested in history, With far more Trump loyalists in place than in 2020 who are ready to throw wrenches in the works wherever they can. Nothing short of overwhelming victory for the Harris-Walz ticket is necessary to stave off a constitutional crisis.

Sources providing our Top Takes in under an hour today, include The Rachel Maddow Show, Legal Eagle, Democracy Now!, The Thom Hartmann Program, Justice by Design, and The Brennan Center for Justice. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more on five topics: Section A. The mechanics of [00:01:00] minority rule; Section B. The proponents of minority rule; Section C. The history of minority rule; Section D. A global perspective; and Section E. Activism.

Maddow points out frightening truth about Trump's lack of concern about votes - The Rachel Maddow Show - Air Date 7-29-24

RACHEL MADDOW: You probably heard this weekend that Donald Trump told an audience on Friday night that if they vote for him this November, if he's voted back into office this November, they will never have to vote again. He told an audience on Friday to, quote, "get out and vote just this time." He said, after this time, quote, "you won't have to do it anymore." You won't have to vote anymore. He said, quote, "In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good and you're not going to have to vote."

Now, this is not the first time Trump has told a campaign audience that they will never have to vote again once they vote him back in this time. And that is as alarming as it sounds for all the reasons that you immediately think it is, right? He's positing this like this is a happy thing. Oh joy, [00:02:00] never having the burden of voting again, right? The point of democracy is that we vote all the time. And we like it. That's how we decide what happens in our country. He's promising his followers that he'll end all of that. And it's exactly what you think it is.

But let me also point out something more strange, which has been happening at the same time and it hasn't had as much attention. The day before Trump made those remarks on Friday -- on Friday, he said, you're never going to have to vote again after you vote for me this one time. The day before that, on Thursday last week, he didn't say that people wouldn't have to vote anymore once he was elected this November. Now, the day before that, on Thursday, he told his supporters, not that they're not going to have to vote again, but that they don't have to vote this time. That they don't need to vote for him this November.

DONALD TRUMP: My instruction, we don't need the votes. I have so many votes. [00:03:00]

RACHEL MADDOW: My instruction, we don't need the votes. I have so many votes. He said that on Thursday last week. And it turns out this is something, when you look, he says this all the time now. Watch.

DONALD TRUMP: My instruction, we don't need the votes. I have so many votes.

We don't need votes. I tell my people, I don't need any votes. We got all the votes we need. I don't need votes.

We don't need votes. We got more votes than anybody's ever had.

You don't have to vote. Don't worry about voting. The voting, we got plenty of votes.

RACHEL MADDOW: Don't worry about voting. Of all the weirdness around this campaign, this is a truly strange thing to tell people, right?

Don't vote. I don't need your vote. I don't want your vote.

I mean, all the surface level weirdness is, you know, worth noting. Having a new position on literally anything you can think of as soon as any random rich guy tells you to, that's a weird thing. Picking the eccentric billionaire's intern for your running mate, even though you apparently had [00:04:00] no idea who he was or what a disaster he is on television, all of this is weird.

But telling voters do not bother to vote for me, It doesn't matter if you do, I don't need your votes. That is a thing that should prick up your ears. Because what that means is that he doesn't think he needs to win the vote to win the election. He doesn't think he needs to win the election in order to take power.

He thinks something other than votes is going to determine whether or not he gets back in the White House.

At Rolling Stone today, they profile 70 different election officials who have been put into position in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, who are election denialists, committed election denialists, officials that have been put in place and all of those swing states to make sure that election results, no matter what they are, do not get certified in those states this year.

Quote, "At least 22 of these election officials have [00:05:00] already refused or delayed certification processes in recent elections." According to Democratic election lawyer, Mark Elias, quote, "I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election in November." Quote, "Republicans are counting on not just that they can disrupt the election in big counties; they're counting on the fact that if they don't certify in several small counties, you can't certify statewide results.

70 officials in place across just the swing states.

For all the surface-level weird behavior and language and strange choices and incoherence and odd donors in the Republican campaign, the serious core at the heart of it is that they are not planning on the vote being counted as normal. They are not counting on the election results being tallied as normal. They are not counting on the vote. And in fact, Trump is now repeatedly saying the vote will not matter. He doesn't even want [00:06:00] your vote.

The Republicans are counting on the election results not being certified, thereby creating chaos in Washington around the results.

Just like 2020, right? Just like January 6th, 2021. Except this time with no Mike Pence in the way, and with Republican officials already in place in multiple states saying, Yeah, you may not get any sort of official vote.

The weirdness of this campaign is astonishing, 99 days out. The dislocation from real campaigning, though, the dislocation from actually asking people for their votes, that means something. It means they are not trying to win this thing in a normal way.

So 99 days out, as Democrats stand up what by all accounts looks like a juggernaut traditional campaign under Kamala Harris, are they prepared for this level of weirdness after the votes are cast? Are they ready for [00:07:00] what's coming?

How Trump (Allegedly) Tried to Steal the Election - LegalEagle - Air Date 8-12-23

DEVIN JAMES STONE - HOST, LEAGALEAGLE: Prosecutor Jack Smith lays out a story that is as yet unproven in court, but is the most comprehensive look at the conspiracy to overturn and subvert the 2020 election to date. Now, this story takes place in two months between November 14th, 2020, and Joe Biden's swearing in ceremony on January 20th, 2021. The indictment says that the conspiracy started 11 days after the general election. Now, during that time, we got the worst gang of criminals to work with Donald Trump since Harry and Marvin Home Alone 2.

This cast of characters is enumerated in paragraph 8, starting with Co-conspirator 1 an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that defendants 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not. You guessed it, give it up for America's mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

Co-conspirator 2 an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the vice president's ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election. That is top Republican legal mind John Eastman.

Co-conspirator 3 an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the defendant [00:08:00] privately acknowledged to others sounded crazy. Nonetheless, the defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-conspirator 3's disinformation. You know her from shipwrecks of old, give it up for Sidney "The Kraken" Powell.

Then there's Co-conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud. He was a lawyer in the Environment and Natural Resources Division until Trump offered to make him Acting Attorney General. Yes, this is Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey, "we'll call you when there's an oil spill" Clark.

Then there's Co-conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct these certification proceedings. This is appellate lawyer and humorous name haver Kenneth Cheesebro.

Then there is finally Co-conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct these certification proceedings. Co-conspirator 6 appears to be Boris Epstein, one of Trump's advisers, though this has yet to be [00:09:00] confirmed. Epstein is best known for writing Trump's controversial Holocaust remembrance day speech, in which he omitted any mention of Jewish people.

Yeah, this has not been a great day for the legal profession because all six of the co-conspirators may in fact be lawyers. These six co-conspirators could be indicted in the coming weeks or months, or they could be government witnesses. No one knows at the moment, and it may be up to them.

But the bottom line is Trump worked with this cast of co-conspirators to subvert the Electoral Count Act and stop Congress from certifying the election. The ECA governs the process of casting and counting Electoral College votes for President and Vice President and the statute sets forth a timeline for states to appoint presidential elections in November and for electors to cast their votes in December, and describes the process that Congress should follow when it counts the state's electoral votes in January.

These days, each state cast electoral votes based on their state's popular vote, and then sends their electoral votes along with the state executive's certification that they were the state's legitimate electors to Congress to be counted at an official proceeding. Now, the indictment says that Trump and [00:10:00] his cronies organized, "fraudulent slates of electors" in seven targeted states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, attempting to mimic the procedure that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow under the constitution and other federal and state laws.

The conspirators caused these fake electors to "meet on the day appointed by federal law on which legitimate electors were to gather and cast their votes, cast fraudulent votes for the defendant, and signed certificates falsely representing that they were legitimate electors." One day before Trump was indicted in D.C., 16 of these fraudulent electors were indicted in Michigan for participating in this scheme. And Trump also attempted to use the power and authority of the Justice Department to launch a sham criminal investigation into voter fraud that didn't occur. This apparently included sending a letter outlining false claims that the DOJ discovered massive election irregularities, and recommending that these states call a special legislative session to determine quote, who won the most legal votes, and consider appointing a new slate of electors.

Now, some of the most troubling allegations [00:11:00] involve Jeffrey Clark, the environmental lawyer at the DOJ who Trump wanted to appoint as attorney general in the waning weeks of his term. Clark met secretly with Trump on December 22nd, failing to inform his superiors of the meeting, which, is of course, DOJ protocol. Now it's obvious why he didn't tell them. Trump and his allies allegedly tried to get acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen to sign a letter that made quote, "knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted States through a formal letter under the acting attorney general signature, thus giving the defendants lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the target States to replace legitimate Biden electors with defendants."

Now, apparently Rosen wanted nothing to do with this, And on December 26th, he told Clark not to meet with Trump again without notice. Clark said the meeting was an accident and he would abide by Rosen's directive. But the next morning he had a three minute phone call with Trump, And afterwards, Trump met with Rosen and the acting deputy attorney general and told them that he was considering replacing Rosen with Clark. "People tell me Jeffrey Clark is great. I should put him in." when Rosen [00:12:00] refused to say the election was corrupt, Trump told him to, "just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen." And of course people are pointing to this quote as evidence that Trump actually knew that the election was not fraudulent. On December 28th, Clark circulated the letter Trump wanted Rosen to send.

And it's important to note here how insane it is that Jeff Clark, who was still officially assigned to the environmental department, was suddenly running point on Trump's maneuvers with the DOJ. He was sending his boss, Jeff Rosen, the same letter that Rosen had already refused to sign. Clark proposed sending versions of this to battleground states that Biden won. And here's the claims made in that letter, which the government says are false. false. The Justice Department had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states. The Justice Department believed that in Georgia and other states, two valid slates of electors had gathered at the proper location on December 14th, and that both sets of ballots had been transmitted to Congress. That is, Co-conspirator 4, Jeff Clark's, letters sought to advance the defendant's fraudulent elector plan by using the authority of the Justice Department to [00:13:00] falsely present the fraudulent electors as a valid alternative to the legitimate electors.

The Justice Department urged the state legislature to convene a special legislative session to create the opportunity to, among other things, choose the fraudulent electors over the legitimate electors, but Rosen rebuffed Clark again and told him not to engage with Trump. On New Year's Eve, Trump summoned Rosen and other DOJ lawyers and told them he might have to change leadership at the DOJ.

Now, the Justice Department traditionally operates fairly independently from the White House. Presidents aren't supposed to order the Attorney General to make legal decisions, but here was Trump insisting that they send the letter. And on January 2nd, Clark continued his insubordination by asking his boss and others to sign the letter Trump wanted to send. He told them that Trump was considering firing Rosen and replacing him with Clark, but that he declined the job if Rosen would just cave and send the letter with false fraud allegations.

On January 3rd, Clark revised the fraud letter, changing its language about concerns to a stronger false claim that , "as of today, there is evidence of significant irregularities. that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states." Now that was apparently enough for [00:14:00] Trump to give him the acting attorney general job because the two met and Clark accepted the job. So Clark spent all day scheming with Trump and testing the limits of the new power. Now, apparently quote, "a deputy White House counsel tried to dissuade Clark from assuming the role of acting attorney general. The deputy White House counsel reiterated to Co-conspirator 4, Jeff Clark, that there had not been outcome determinative fraud in the election and that if the defendant remained in office, nonetheless, there would be 'riots in every major city in the United States'."

Jeff Clark responded, quote, "well, deputy White House counsel, that's why there's an insurrection act." Clark apparently then called his boss and told him that he was now the acting attorney general. Rosen "responded that he would not accept being fired by a subordinate and immediately scheduled a meeting with the defendant for that evening." But there was apparently a very strong push by the Justice Department attorneys to stop Trump and Clark from implicating the DOJ in overturning a valid election. In fact, Trump only gave up on his plan to install Clark as AG after, "he was told that it would result in mass resignations at the Justice Department and of his [00:15:00] own White House counsel." Of course, mass resignations are not something that happened every day, and if the Justice Department lawyers resigned en masse, then it would probably have blown the whistle on what the conspirators were trying to do.

As Tension over Venezuelan Election Escalates, the Left Debates Who Won the Contested Vote - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-5-24

EDGARDO LANDER: There is no doubt that Maduro was overwhelmingly defeated by this elections. The electoral system in Venezuela, it’s — the technical part of the system is probably one of the best in the world. There’s hardly any possibility of interference with the results at the technical level. But there are many mechanisms incorporated into the system, including paper ballots, that are printed, and acts that are registered and signed by the witnesses at each voting booth that can be compared with the results presented by the totals of the Electoral Council.

All the steps [00:16:00] that secure the system that are checks established in the system were completely thrown out by the Electoral Council. They published a made-up data, so-called final results. They declared Maduro president before they had even finished counting. There were more than — almost 3 million votes that hadn’t been counted by the time they declared.

And it is a fact that the witnesses at the voting booths have copies of what actually happened at each voting booth. And it’s clear that these papers show that there was an overwhelming result. I directly know of several centers in — that had been radically Chavistas up to some short time ago where the results were against the government. This is really representative also of [00:17:00] a tendency where even the most Chavista centers in the country voted against Maduro. So there’s no doubt that Maduro lost this elections.

Maduro has now decided to ask the Supreme Court to check the whole process again in order to figure out what’s going on.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s go to Nina Farnia.

EDGARDO LANDER: It’s very clear that this is — this caused —

AMY GOODMAN: Edgardo, we’re going to get comment from Nina Farnia, legal historian at Albany Law School. You’re just back from Venezuela. You were an observer with the National Lawyers Guild. If you can talk about what you saw, and respond to Edgardo Lander?

NINA FARNIA: Well, thank you for having me on, Amy.

What we witnessed, by and large, was a free and fair election process, which explains why former President Jimmy Carter once called this system the best electoral system in the world. We were part of a large international delegation of election monitors that [00:18:00] included members of the African Union and the Latin American election experts, and we were quarantined with the rest of our delegation in a hotel that was separate from all the political activities. We attended days of trainings about the Venezuelan electoral system, about the laws that protect it, and then we were taken — prior to the elections, we were taken to polling stations around the country, where we saw the touchscreen voting machines. We saw the ballot boxes for the paper ballots. We met the directors of each voting center.

On the day of the election, our NLG delegation had the privilege of interviewing voters as they were going in and out of the voting room, and we also interviewed members of each of the parties that were there to monitor the elections, the polling stations. We also interviewed opposition voters. We didn’t hear any concerns from [00:19:00] any voters or observers. Every single person that we spoke with said that this is a free and fair process. They had faith in the system. And, in fact, what we saw was a ton of energy around each of the stations that we visited. People were proud to vote. They take that — they view voting as a pillar of the Venezuelan democracy and of the Bolivarian Revolution.

AMY GOODMAN: And your sense of what had happened before? The polls showed that González had won or was going to win by a landslide. Ultimately, what the Electoral Council announced was that — and, of course, we all know that polls can be very wrong — was that Maduro had won by 51%, Nina.

NINA FARNIA: Yes. So, exit polling is illegal in Venezuela, because it can — it has the effect of [00:20:00] altering votes. And also, a lot of the polling results that were used in the U.S. media, the polling predictions that were used in the U.S. media were discredited by Venezuelanalysis, a trusted news source in Venezuela, that has also been critical of the Maduro government.

We actually are very concerned by the claim that González has won. González was a diplomat in — a Venezuelan diplomat in El Salvador during the Salvadoran death squads. He was number two stationed there. He has blood on his hands. He has Salvadoran blood on his hands. And so, the idea that the Venezuelans would support a government, a president who executed U.S. foreign policy in El Salvador decades ago is shocking to us. It’s up, ultimately, to the Supreme Court to decide.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Edgardo Lander, you have said it’s clear that Maduro [00:21:00] lost. You are a leading left voice in Venezuela and, globally, one of the early leaders of the World Social Forum. Even in the United States, when they were demanding that the ballots be shown the following morning, they are not available, for example, in the United States, what happens, right after an election. In what way were these opposition shown ballots verified by anyone but the opposition? And what do you say, Edgardo Lander, to those fellow leftists who say this is a result of a longtime U.S. campaign to unseat Maduro, to destabilize his government with crushing sanctions?

EDGARDO LANDER: In the first place, the demand to have public access to the ballots [00:22:00] is not some weird demand that somebody made up. It’s part of the controls that are established in Venezuelan laws. According to Venezuelan laws, the Electoral Council has to publicly present the ballots at each voting center. And it has absolutely denied to do so. So it’s absolutely clear that they had presented a total result with no backing whatsoever, so the backing that’s expected and established by the law is completely absent.

The ballots that are in the hands of the González people are not the only ballots that are available, because different candidates and their witnesses get copies of the ballots at the voting centers. And all the ballots that are in the hands of this several other candidates show the same tendencies. They show the [00:23:00] tendencies that there was an overwhelming majority of people voting against Maduro.

I think that this is a test for the left internationally. If the left in many places of the world, in Latin America, in the United States, Europe, some sectors of the left, continue to call the Venezuelan government as a revolutionary leftist government, if this repressive, authoritarian, corrupt, extractivist government that is destroying the environment, and it’s in constant violation of human rights, is defined as left, if this is what’s presented as the offer for the future of humanity, then it’s clear that this left is contributing to increasing the [00:24:00] appeal of the right wing and the far right wing. This has ceased to be a leftist government a long time ago.

The conflict in Venezuela has not been in this election a conflict between left and right. It’s a conflict between a repressive government and a whole spread of positions in Venezuelan society that go from far right to left, that includes social democrats, that includes progressives, that includes liberals. It includes a whole spread of people who want to recover democracy, who want to recover the Constitution in Venezuela, which is completely violated by this increasingly authoritarian government. If this result is imposed on the Venezuelan society, this could be the nail on the coffin that will be the end result of these authoritarian tendencies that have been going on [00:25:00] for quite some time and establish a truly authoritarian government.

So it’s very important for the left in Venezuela to get as much solidarity from the left internationally in the recognition that this is not a U.S. conspiracy, that it’s not fascism. We reject U.S. intervention. The United States has no right to decide who won the elections. This is an issue for Venezuelans to decide. And the United States has been intervening in Venezuela for a long time. Sanctions have had a dramatic impact on Venezuelan society. The humanitarian crisis and almost 8 million people that have left the country because they see no future are basically the result of U.S. intervention and U.S. sanctions. So, it’s not in any way a support for U.S. position. We, from the left, reject U.S. intervention and insist on the fact that it’s not for the United States to [00:26:00] decide who won the election.

Why Millions Won't Be Able To Vote In 2024? - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 8-8-24

THOM HARTMANN: You're all familiar with this, how Republicans have been purging people off the voting rolls. For example, when the current governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, was Secretary of State, he purged about a half a million people off the voting rolls and Greg Pallas was able to demonstrate that over 300,000 of those people should not have been purged. They'd never moved. They just mostly happened to be Black people living in Democratically-voting districts. But so anyhow, I documented that last week and we talked about it. But those kind of things -- and this is happening in red states all over the country where they're just purging people like, left and right like crazy, particularly people who live in big cities.But that does produce some blowback. People get seriously pissed off when they show up at the polls and are told that the Republican administration, their state has removed them from the voting rolls. Now, at that point, it's too late to do anything about it other than fill out a placebo ballot, a provisional ballot.

And that's part two of [00:27:00] this story. Provisional ballots, they're counted a little more than half of the time, but a lot of the time, they're simply not counted. It varies from state to state. Provisional ballots came about as a result of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Bob Ney essentially invented them. Bob, who's been a guest on this program many times, a Republican congressman from Ohio. And, it was a good faith effort to make it easier for people to vote.

But here's the thing: your provisional ballot doesn't get counted unless you show up at the Secretary of State's office and prove that you are who you are. Even though you already did that the first time you registered to vote. You've got to do it all over again if you get purged, or, in the case of Texas, they've come up with this whole new scheme. I think you could call it passive aggressive voter suppression. Instead of showing up and being told that you've been purged from the list, which, like I said, just pisses people off, you show up and you're told that you've been put on the suspension list, or they call [00:28:00] it the suspense list, and you're given a provisional ballot. The problem, of course, is that provisional ballots are often not counted. And your provisional ballot won't be counted, unless you drive to the Secretary of State's office, which could be a hundred miles from you, and, present the ID that you originally registered to vote with and prove that you're residents and all that kind of stuff. Most people don't do that. Many people don't even know that they have to do that.

Now here's the kicker. Keep in mind, in Texas, most statewide elections are won by Republicans with a one, two, at the most three or four percent voter margin. Twelve percent, according to the Dallas Morning News, twelve percent of all registered voters in Texas are currently on the suspension list. Let that sink in. [00:29:00] Twelve percent.

Now, if they could just make it so that most of those people on that suspension list are Black or Hispanic or live in big cities and, we don't know because they don't publish the list, but I would be willing to bet money that's the case, then this is how Republicans maintain power in Texas.

Just put 12 percent of the voters on a list where their vote only gets counted if, after they cast their placebo ballot, their provisional ballot, they take a day off work and drive, within six days after the election, take a day off work and drive to the Secretary of State's office and prove that they are who they said they were and who they already proved they were when they first registered to vote.

This is just insane.

If you own a gun in Texas, and the state wants to take away your gun, they have to go to court. They have to prove that they have good reason to go to your house and take away your gun. [00:30:00] But if they want to take away your vote, if they want to put you on the suspense list or purge you all together from the voting rolls, they don't even have to tell you. It's just because you have a right to a gun, but you don't have a right to a vote? And this, by the way, these rules were established by five Republicans on the U. S. Supreme Court, in the Shelby County decision, I believe, was in 2012, Where they basically gutted the Voting Rights Act.

And, of course, in the recent gun control or, gun liberation decisions by these now six Republicans on the Supreme Court, in which they have established that you have a right to own a gun and you can carry it anywhere you want. And, you know, quack quack quack quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. quack So, uh, nearly 12 percent of Texas's roughly 18 million voters are on the suspension list.

This is how these guys expect to win an election.

In The Hands Of The Voters with Marc Elias - Justice by Design - Air Date 8-2-24

KIMBERLY ATKINS-STOHR - HOST, JUSTICE BY DESIGN: We have a candidate for president telling people, telling Christians specifically, [00:31:00] that if they vote for him, they never have to vote again. I know there is still some debate as to what he meant by that. I, for one, think it's as clear as possible, but can you respond to that, in helping our listeners understand, what is at stake here when we talk about the need to protect voting rights and protect our democracy?

MARC ELIAS: Sure, Thanks for the question. I think one of the biggest mistakes that has been made about Donald Trump in the last eight plus years is this notion that took hold in the 2016 campaign, that he should be taken seriously, but not literally. And I think that that honestly led to a culture in many parts of the media and society that his words don't matter. That he can say things that are completely outrageous and that somehow they are to be discounted. That he can denigrate democracy, he can engage in racist [00:32:00] statements, and that it doesn't matter because you have to discount the words.

But the fact is that what we have learned is that he means the words he says. So when he said he was not going to accept the results of a free and fair election, he didn't accept the results of a free and fair election. When he called on his supporters to go to the Capitol, they went to the Capitol. He tells us basically what he thinks and he means what he says. So when he says that there won't be a need for people to vote in four years, what he is saying is there won't be a need for them to vote in four years, in the same way that he said he wants to be a dictator.

Everything he is telling us is consistent. He does not believe in democratic norms and democratic institutions. He does not believe in liberal democracy, not liberal in the progressive sense, but liberal in the idea of freedom and the recognition of the importance of individual rights. He doesn't believe in any of that. He romanticizes strong dictators, because that [00:33:00] is what he believes he wants to be. And so we need to accept that not everyone in our political discourse starts with the same set of assumptions about the importance of democracy and free and fair elections, and he is one of those people who doesn't accept it. It puts democracy at peril. It is an existential risk to what happens if he is able to gain power. And it means that all of us need to be really, really clear eyed about what the stakes are this November.

KIMBERLY ATKINS-STOHR - HOST, JUSTICE BY DESIGN: I think that's exactly right. I get really frustrated, Marc, when people say, "democracy is not an issue that motivates voters in this election year. Democracy is amorphous and not something that people are really motivated by, that are really galvanized by." I think that's really selling Americans short, because I think democracy and the ability to vote is something that is so tangible because that's something that people do. Citizens vote, they know what that's like, and the idea of having barriers to that...

I talked a little bit about covering the Supreme Court [00:34:00] and covering the Shelby County decision in 2013, and at the time I lived in a community in Northern Virginia, and I remember in 2008, because I lived in a bluer part of Virginia, I waited in line in excess of two hours in 2008 to vote in the presidential election that Barack Obama was running in. And when I got into my polling station, there were paper ballots, but there were only four booths. There was no machine. It was a paper ballot and a pencil. They could have lined that place with 30 booths, but there were only four. And that was a choice made in Richmond. That was a policy decision to make people wait in line. A lot of people had to leave because they had to go to work.

And even in 2012, when they made early voting in Virginia more accessible, I voted early and still waited 90 minutes. Those are the kind of barriers that I thought of when Chief Justice John Roberts was saying, "well, you know, this isn't the 60s anymore. [00:35:00] Racism is in the past. You have to prove that there is racism today and Congress hasn't done that, so we're going to strip this whole section of the Voting Rights Act."

For people who don't understand the impact of the Shelby County decision and of the decisions that came after weakening, not just Section 5 but Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, explain to us in layman's terms, in terms of what it means to them as they go to the polls, what the Supreme Court has done to voting rights.

MARC ELIAS: First of all, I want to say something about your experience because, it's something I talk about all the time. The fact is that when we talk about voter suppression, we don't always correctly conceive of it, because people think of it as an on off switch, —either you're allowed to vote or you're not allowed to vote. What voter suppression really is, is about putting barriers in front of people in their real world lives that they lead. And the fact is that one of the biggest forms of voter suppression in this country that we see from coast to coast in red States and in blue, in red counties and in blue [00:36:00] are wait times at the polls.

So I sued Georgia after the 2020 primary, and here's what the data shows. If you were in the six metro counties in Atlanta, and by the way, a number of these counties run by Democrats, this is not partisan, if you were in those six metro counties and you were in a precinct where the voter registration was 90 percent or more Black voters, you waited in line an average of 51 minutes. If you were in the same six counties—same resources, same officials, —and you were in a precinct that was 90 percent or more white, you waited an average six minutes. 51 versus six.

It is time that the media stop celebrating people waiting in line as a commitment to democracy, Because one of the things I always ask audiences, particularly when I'm talking to affluent audiences, when I'm talking to older audiences, when I'm talking to whiter audiences I ask them, how long would you wait in line to vote? You don't want to wait in line two hours to vote. Those images we saw of the college students waiting in line six hours, [00:37:00] you probably wouldn't wait in line six hours to vote. And you don't have the challenges that many of these voters have.

The allocation of voting equipment is the kind of thing that doesn't get a lot of attention. It doesn't grab the headlines. But the fact is we see it in county after county in red states and in blue states. There are racial disparities in wait times. There are age disparities—college students almost always wait in line longer than the surrounding community.

These are endemic in our system, And if you're not willing to accept the fact that we have a voting system, from top to bottom, that has winners and losers, and the losers are almost always Black, Brown, and young, and the winners are almost always old and white. If you don't accept that, even if you don't agree with me that it wasn't intentional. —let's just assume that we're going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even if you assume that it was unintentional—that is the system we have.

You can look at absentee ballot rejection rates. In the state of Colorado, another blue state, in 2020, there were 29,000 [00:38:00] people who voted by mail who had their ballots rejected. Does anyone believe that there were 29,000 fraudulent ballots? How about 290? But when you look at who those people were, they were overwhelmingly young. In Washington state, another blue state, Black voters had a five times [higher] rate of rejection than white voters. That's before you start looking at states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, and Florida, and all of that.

So we need to recognize that our system of voting in this country does not accurately reflect a shared sense of democracy. On top of that now you put a U.S. Supreme court that believes that not only aren't there problems at all, but they don't believe that race is a problem. And look, my law firm brought lawsuits not 20 years ago, not two years ago But this year we won a case in alabama because black voters are being discriminated against in the drawing of districts Louisiana black voters are being discriminated It based on race in the drawing of districts. That's not my findings. Those are the findings of, by the way, in the case of [00:39:00] Alabama, three judges appointed by Donald Trump and a majority of the conservative Supreme Court.

So we have a lot of work to do on voting and that problem is still in front of us.

Resisting Minority Rule - Brennan Center for Justice - Air Date 5-30-24

ARI BERMAN: Wisconsin really became a laboratory for how Republicans wanted to govern after the 2010 election. I think this is so significant because, remember Natalie, this followed the election of the first Black president. And I think that was an electorate that was much more diverse and much more young, urban, progressive, and I think by changing the voting laws at the state level, the Republican party wanted to manufacture an electorate that was older, Whiter, and more conservative.

And the Brennan Center began cataloging this after 2010. I began studying this after 2010. And I think so much of the radicalization against democracy that gave birth to Trump happened first at the state level. And I think if we had been paying closer attention to what was happening in Wisconsin and those similar states after 2010, we would not have been [00:40:00] so surprised to see someone like Trump win the Republican nomination in 2016

NATALIE TENANNT - HOST, RESISTING MINORITY RULE: That's interesting. I mean, what do you think was happening and why there wasn't as close attention? I mean, and forgive me, I know you've written a lot, did you have a book about that? I was busy as Secretary of State trying to put in place the advancements that were coming along in elections and what would make it more accessible for people in West Virginia for rural areas.

So, you're right, I wasn't paying much attention to Wisconsin. All I remember are the pictures flooding into the capital and the union members being members in the capital. But that's interesting. While we weren't paying as much attention, and I was working on my aspect, they were continuing to make it this, you know... and you call it [00:41:00] a laboratory, either a laboratory of democracy or oligarchy. I often think, you know, has everything become an experiment or a tribe? But yes, it has. In a sense, it has. Because we're even watching, you know, 2020 to 2022 became a testing period for what might take place in '24 and even as election advocates and voting rights advocates were paying attention to what's happening in the primaries of elections in 2024 to be ready for it in the general election. So, um, go ahead, talk about that. I didn't mean to get off on election administration.

ARI BERMAN: No, but I know what you're saying, Natalie. I think, well, first off there was an economic crisis, right? There was one party in control of Washington. There were huge Democratic majorities in Washington, so all the focus was on that and big fights over things like health care. There was the rise of the Tea Party as a [00:42:00] reaction to Obama's election and to some of the economic policies, first of Bush and then Obama in terms of the bailouts and things like that. And I think people really weren't focused on what was happening at the state level.

But I think the Republicans looked at Obama's election and said, We don't want this to become the new normal. We want this to become an aberration as opposed to this becoming something that happens on a routine basis. Because remember, it wasn't just the election of the first Black president. Obama's coalition was called the "Coalition of the Ascendant". It was the idea that young people, moderate Whites, voters of color, this would be a new electorate that would push the country in a more moderate to progressive direction.

And so the elements of the Republican party wanted to fight a counter-revolution against this. And one of the major themes in my book is that often when there's moments of great progress, there's these significant backlashes against it. We see that during Reconstruction, for example, when we, after the Civil War, we elect the first Black office-holders in [00:43:00] the South, then there's a violent White backlash against it. After the Civil Rights Movement, when there's voting rights and things like that, that communities of color and African-Americans can enjoy for the first time, and then there's a "Southern strategy" to try to move conservative Whites against it. Then we saw that again after the election of the first Black president, that this is another moment of counter-revolution. And I think this begins to push American politics in a more radical undemocratic direction and I think starts to embolden the forces that later rally around Donald Trump.

NATALIE TENANNT - HOST, RESISTING MINORITY RULE: So, why aren't we seeing that from the other side? Why are we seeing, when we see positive reforms and positive steps being made, why don't we see it when there are not so positive steps? I mean, now, you're obviously pointing out and showing ways, pointing out what is taking place and showing the history of it, but not in the [00:44:00] same... it doesn't seem like the other side has been able to to keep that marching beat in a sense.

ARI BERMAN: Well, I mean, I think what's been interesting for me to watch as a journalist is there has been a steady erosion of democratic rights over the last decade. But there's also been a really robust emergence of a pro-democracy movement to push back against this, and you know this well from your work at the Brennan Center. But just take Wisconsin. I mean, the pendulum has swung dramatically in Wisconsin. There's a different governor now. There's a different state supreme court now. Gerrymandering has been struck down in Wisconsin which is such a huge thing because Wisconsin was a state where Republicans in this assembly in 2018 got 46% of the vote statewide, but 64% of seats in the legislature. I mean, that's inconceivable that something like that could happen. And that gerrymander has been struck down and there's actually going to be competitive elections in Wisconsin this fall for the first time in a decade and a half. I think that's really consequential.

I write a [00:45:00] lot about Michigan in the book, another really pivotal swing state that had a seemingly rigged state government. And beginning in 2018, ordinary people began putting initiatives on the ballot to do things like ban partisan gerrymandering, to do things like making it easier to vote through policies like election day and automatic registration. And this has transformed the politics of Michigan. And what's really fascinating, Natalie, and you know this from being in West Virginia, is so often when things are viewed through a D versus R context, right?, they become so politicized. Then you ask people directly, Do you want to ban partisan gerrymandering? Do you want to make it easier to vote? And there's overwhelming support for those kinds of policies. When they did those kinds of things in Michigan, even though it was close to a 50/50 state, these initiatives passed with about two thirds of the vote, meaning a lot of Republicans and a ton of independents also wanted to ban gerrymandering, also wanted to make it easier to vote.

So, if we could talk about things more in the context of whether it helps or hurts [00:46:00] democracy and less in the context of whether it helps or hurts Democrats, I think we'd be in a much better place when it comes to our democracy writ large.

NATALIE TENANNT - HOST, RESISTING MINORITY RULE: Yeah, you're right about that. And those are some of the words that I hear the president of the Brennan Center say, Michael Waldman. I mean, many times in 2018, when we talk about, and even in your book, the election for democracy and democracy won, that we have to show people what we are for and not what we are against. And kind of in that same vein, too, I've heard him say, you know, it took years and years to get the Voting Rights Act passed, and it's the same that we're seeing now with the Freedom to Vote Act or For the People Act. It died in '22. And, you know, there's still work being done on it now in hopes that something might happen in 2025.

So, you're right about that. And I think what I like about this book, too, Ari, is that it's like you're [00:47:00] reminding me of some of these things, and I think a lot of folks, a lot of people who are watching this and we're getting some questions, would be reminded like, Oh yeah, that's what happened in Michigan. And you said some numbers about Wisconsin, the same numbers hold true in Michigan. And from your book, I'll tell you, page 278 is one of my notes. And here's the book. They're going to put it up and tell people how to get it. But, you know, Republican state legislative candidates received 40% of the vote statewide and controlled, though, 54%.

So, anyone listening, it's hard to throw out numbers, but that one's pretty easy to see that, how was it so uneven? And with that, one of the other things that you reminded me of as I was reading, and I don't think that people, well, I can't speak for everyone [00:48:00] obviously, but I needed reminded [sic] about Flint and, I'll you talk about it since it is your book and you wrote it, but it's so fascinating how the governor of Michigan at the time, I think it's Rick Snyder, was able to make emergency appointments and there were more emergency appointments in the Black communities than there were the White communities. And one of them was Flint.

ARI BERMAN: Exactly. So, I think you talked about, what are the consequences of minority rule? In Flint, Michigan, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, one of the worst environmental disasters we've had in recent times, was a direct example of the consequences of minority rule. Because Michigan had this ability to appoint emergency managers. And what was happening is the Republican officials in Michigan, who were largely White like the governor, were appointing these emergency [00:49:00] managers for these predominantly Black cities who would essentially control the city's finances. And this was viewed as something that was very undemocratic. And so what the voters of Michigan did was they actually repealed this emergency manager law in 2012. Then the state legislature stepped in, overturned the repeal of the emergency manager law, and basically made it impossible to overturn any laws the legislature had passed. Then it was after that that the emergency manager was appointed for Flint, Michigan, switched the city's water supply, and then we got the contaminated water in Flint.

And that made a lot of people really angry and it activated one of the activists I talk about in the book, Katie Fahey—who worked for a recycling nonprofit, she was very much an everyday person—she got really mad about gerrymandering and she said, What can I do to fix it? She quite literally Googled how you end gerrymandering in Michigan, realized they were one of about two dozen states that allowed citizen initiative ballot initiatives, and she got together a group, [00:50:00] started a whole new group, Voters Not Politicians, in 110 days she got 400,000 signatures to put an initiative on the ballot to ban gerrymandering. And I think it was an example of, a lot of times, Natalie, as you know, these democratic issues can feel really abstract. Gerrymandering, right? But when you connect it to things that people really care about—clean water, clean air, people's right to control their own bodies—then it becomes a lot more concrete and people can understand that a broken political system leads to broken outcomes more broadly. And so I think the crisis in Flint became a rallying cry of we need to unrig this rigged system and everyday people have the power to do it.

Notes from the Editor on the importance of happy warriors

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with the Rachel Maddow Show, laying out the threat of Trump and company planning to subvert the election rather than win it, LegalEagle recapped how Trump attempted to steal the last election, Democracy Now! looked at the post-election turmoil in Venezuela, the Thom Hartmann Program explained the mechanics of voter suppression. Justice [00:51:00] by Design explained some of the structural ways the voting system is tilted against would-be Democratic voters, and the Brennan Center for Justice laid out some of the dangers of minority rule and a call to action to unrig rigged systems.

And those were just the top takes, there's a lot more in the Deeper Dive section, but first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring the production crew, discussing all manner of important and interesting topics, often making each other laugh in the process. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive sign up to support the show at BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (there's a link in the show notes), through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast App. If regular membership isn't in the cards for you shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now, before we continue onto the Deeper Dives-half the show, just a [00:52:00] quick note from me about the, maybe, second or third most popular phrase to have suddenly entered the political lexicon of the past couple of weeks. Obviously "weird" takes the top slot, but another that's being attributed to Tim Walz rather than popularized by him—"happy warrior."

It evokes basically the exact image that Walz exudes—happy, even playful, but willing to fight to achieve their goal. I think he was a good choice for plenty of reasons, but the attitude he's brought to the campaign. Is high on the list. Real high on the list. I mentioned the idea of the "happy warrior" now to highlight that it's the ideal, that all rank and file people who want to see Harris & Walz elected over Trump, need to embody. The past few weeks has brought out happiness and joy on the left stemming from a long suppressed but newly found sense of hope, but it's not enough to be happy and joyful content to cheer on the happy warriors [00:53:00] like Harris & Walz. Each of us must become happy warriors and do our own part to whatever extent we're for just over two and a half months before the election, and during what may be a very current time immediately after.

It's the only way we'll get the job done, and fear not! We have some suggestions on activism later in the show.

SECTION A - THE MECHANICS OF MINORITY RULE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue with Deeper Dives on four topics. Up next, Section A - "The Mechanics of Minority Rule," Section B - "The Proponents of Minority Rule," Section C - "The History of Minority Rule," Section D - "A Global Perspective."

And then Section E - "Activism." If you want to skip past all the potential horror and get right to the part about avoiding it, just go there.

Minority Rule Is Threatening American Democracy Like Never Before - Mother Jones - Air Date 4-12-24

We need to save democracy! Democracy is on the ballot! This election is between democracy and authoritarianism! Here's the response I have. To hell with our democracy. And before you clutch those pearls, Let me explain. I'm not talking about democracy, I'm talking about [00:54:00] the over idealized and old as shit American democracy.

Despite all the lofty rhetoric of democracy, when our political institutions were set up in the 1780s, they actually were set up to benefit, in large part, a propertied white male minority. A very affluent white male minority, many of whom were slaveholders. And in fact, the public were largely excluded from choosing the country's leaders and far from encouraging majority rule, the founding institutions of our country facilitated minority rule instead.

Minority rule. Now that is American democracy. So many of our institutions are being controlled by this shrinking and radical conservative white minority that's opposed. By a majority of Americans, but has taken power by taking advantage of the anti democratic institutions of American politics, and then using new anti democratic tactics like voter [00:55:00] suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, the censoring of history, to make sure That their rule is indefinite.

That's Ari Berman, an expert who wrote the book on minority rule called Minority Rule. And it's this ploy still in place that is this ticking time bomb threatening to explode into something far more sinister for the future of our country. The founding fathers wanted to create A political system that benefitted people like themselves.

Intentionally built from the start, American democracy was never supposed to be for the people. Affluent white male property owners, many of whom owned slaves, most of whom owned a lot of land, they wanted to protect themselves from the masses. They viewed the public as something to be feared, and they viewed popular majorities as something to be constrained rather than encouraged.

And I think that remains the central flaw of American democracy, that the U. S. Constitution itself [00:56:00] was set up as something that was meant to constrain democracy rather than encourage democracy, and that legacy is still with us today. It's almost as if the Founding Fathers were a little scared of some revolution.

The fascinating thing about how the different branches of government were set up was that they were designed to prevent the public from having a major role in selecting the government's leaders. Yet despite the Some modifications and some reforms, pretty much all of the undemocratic features still stick with us today.

And that means that all of these protections for white wealthy people, they remain central to all of our institutions. Our basic governing institutions. How we elect our president, how we choose our members of Congress, how we select our Supreme Court justices actually aren't very democratic at all.

Let's go down the line here. The executive branch. Only three times before the 2000 election had the loser of the popular vote won the [00:57:00] electoral college, but it happened twice in the last 16 years. In 2000 Good evening. Just moments ago, I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States.

In 2016, Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. It almost happened again in 2020. The Electoral College vs. the popular vote is just one part of what originated with the Founding Fathers to ensure that a conservative and white minority can stay in power even if a majority disagrees.

We have to stand against the tyranny of the mob. And the Founding Fathers understood that you have decentralized elections through the Electoral College and having states rights. The Electoral College is brilliant. The Electoral College has worked. It's one of the greatest firewalls against tyranny.

Which brings us to the next branch. Legislative. The level of inequality in the Senate today would have shocked James Madison. So, one of the things [00:58:00] that happened when there was these debates over the Senate, was that each state was given the same number of senators, which a lot of senators spoke out against about the time and war that would lead to minority rule.

Now to put it in some perspective, the first census was taken in 1790 and it named Virginia as the largest state in the country with a population of approximately 747, 000, which at the time was 12 times as many people as the smallest state, Delaware. Now, 200 plus years later, Delaware. The 2020 census confirmed California is the new largest state in the country, with a population of 39.

3 million people. That's 68 times the population of Wyoming, the country's now smallest state. And so because of how the Senate is set up, and because it hasn't been truly reformed since its inception, over time it's become biased towards those smaller, conservative, and wider states. And all of this leads us to the last branch, [00:59:00] The undemocratic features of the presidency and of the Senate have led to an unprecedented situation at the Supreme Court, where for the first time in U.

S. history, five of six conservative justices on the Supreme Court have been nominated by Republican presidents who initially lost the popular vote. and confirmed by Senators representing a minority of Americans. So over and over and over again, the Supreme Court has created these situations where it's protected the rights of powerful white people while undermining the rights of everyone else.

That's a fascinating and very scary situation where a Supreme Court that is a product of minority rule has then issued radical decisions on topics like abortion and gutting control and voting rights that are opposed by a majority of Americans. For example, overturning Roe v. Wade with Dobbs, or gutting the Voting Rights Act [01:00:00] with Shelby County v.

Holder, and of course letting billionaires essentially buy our elections with Citizens United. I think we're at a situation today where the Supreme Court is a legacy of the anti democratic distortions in American politics. That court has turned around and made America less democratic as a result of its decisions.

If there's anything all these years of all of these SCOTUS decisions have taught us, It really should be that. There's been this struggle throughout American history between white supremacy and multiracial democracy. And that fight has reached a fever pitch today. Like all things Republican now, the road leads back to Trump.

Because for the first time in U. S. history, white people are going to be the minority in this country. And for a lot of conservatives and pretty much all of the Republican party, that idea has them running scared. So there's these, these biases that are built into the constitution and the biases over and over are [01:01:00] in favor of more conservative areas, wider areas, more rural areas, that's the same constituency that likes Donald Trump.

There's this over representation of Trump voters in the political system at the expense of voters. Trump, which over and over and over have shown to be a majority of Americans. That's why they've been scheming and working for all of these years to strengthen their grip on this country through minority rule.

This shrinking conservative white minority. is exploit the undemocratic features of American politics while doubling down on a whole wide new range of anti democratic tactics like voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, the censoring of history, to try to entrench their power. What they're really doing is retreating behind a fortress.

And while yes, Trump is definitely accelerating all of these anti democratic ideas, he's [01:02:00] also kind of the perfect product of an American democracy. Because our system is so anti democratic, it's so easily captured and diverted seamlessly into authoritarianism. Preserving the rights and freedoms we have today, which is what Joe Biden is largely campaigning on, democracy.

American democracy, and it's what the 2024 election is all about. We have to prove. But our model isn't a relic of history. It's not enough. It's incredibly important, but it's not enough. We have to reform the system that created Trump in the first place. Otherwise, we have these ticking time bombs that are built into American politics.

That bomb may or may not explode this year, as it almost 6th, 2021. It's just a matter of time before the anti democratic aspects of American politics explode. Get so bad that they're just somehow untenable. And I think that's the real risk here is that our political system itself [01:03:00] is a gateway in many ways to autocracy, to authoritarianism, to minority rule, and that the constitution far from protecting against a lot of those things.

Actually facilitates those kinds of things.

The Dangers of a Contingent Election with Beau Tremitiere and Aisha Woodward - The Lawfare Podcast - Air Date 10-30-23

Talk to us about this democratic deficit concern, the fact that democratic representation doesn't get channeled through the contingent election process. How does that true and what makes it maybe more concerning today than it may have been at the founding?

So representation and democratic legitimacy are key concerns here. In addition to the procedural issues we're going to discuss in a moment. I think people are accustomed to, to a degree, the way the Electoral College works. And there is, of course, a substantial criticism of the Electoral College that it's not representative and that it gives of the Electoral College.

More power to some states and less power to others. But setting aside that critique, the [01:04:00] contingent election system is shockingly non proportional. So, for example, think about California and Texas. These two states alone represent about 21 percent of the American population. And that's the, Almost exactly the same size as the 28 least populous states.

Uh, this sort of divergence in state population was, was not at all, uh, what we saw at the founding, I believe that the biggest and small states were at most, maybe a factor of six or seven apart. So there was not the sort of divergence and concentration of population. And so dividing up on state lines mattered much less at the time, but coming back to now, like, what does that actually mean?

How does that translate? So. In the Electoral College, California and Texas jointly have 17 percent of the Electoral College votes. When we move to the continued election process, where every state just gets one vote in the House, those two states have just 4 percent of all [01:05:00] votes. The 28 small states, again, which have the same population as California and Texas, have 28 percent of the votes in the Electoral College.

So, so more than the big states, but, but not a shocking amount more. But in a contingent election that goes up to 56%, so they control more than enough votes to determine the outcome. It's also important to think about Washington, D. C., which thanks to the 23rd Amendment has three electors in the Electoral College, but has no role whatsoever in House or Senate proceedings.

And it's also possible that based on the role adopted in the House, that Any number of states could fail to reach a decision and may not be able to submit a vote in favor of one or another candidate, which would effectively disenfranchise the people in those states as well. So I think it's really important to zoom out and think about those concerns in the moment where we are at [01:06:00] present.

We had an election in which tens of millions of people doubted the outcome when all objective observers were quite clear that Voting was done safely and securely and there was a clear victor. Uh, in this sort of scenario, there could be this enormous disconnect between how people in the electorate voted and how that's translated into the selection of a president.

And that is profoundly concerning given where we are in this democratic moment. So that's one bucket of concerns. I should tell us about the other bucket, the kind of procedural issues we're going to go through it in more detail in a minute, but give us kind of the 10, 000 foot view. What makes the procedural and technical aspects of this so challenging today?

So there are a few different ways, uh, in which this raises a number of procedural concerns and we'll get into them as you said, a little bit later, but let me sketch out some of the, maybe four buckets we would think about within this. specific area. The [01:07:00] first is the way in which a contingent election and the prospect of one, which would become really apparent soon after November 5th, 2024, would corrupt and potentially impact the election procedures that need to take place between November 5th and January 6th, 2025.

So that includes the convening of electors in their states and the possibility of faithless electors trying to throw their votes to sway the electoral outcome in some way. But that also includes the processes that Congress needs to go through when it convenes on January 3rd in 2025 and in joint session on January 6th.

Six to count electoral votes. And what I mean by that is that the house and Senate, um, but particularly the house, which is, you know, a new body every two years, we'll have to convene, select a speaker, seat members, establish rules, all of which in a narrowly divided house could open up the [01:08:00] process to.

Members being able to exert enormous influence on what might actually happen when the contingent election takes place that also feeds into another concern we have, which is about the actual rules that would be set up to govern the contingent election. And as I mentioned a few minutes ago, The Constitution and the 12th Amendment really only generally sketch out what the sequence of events should be, but give no real deep, substantive guidance on how the House and Senate are supposed to conduct these processes.

And you can imagine, for example, in the House, a real tension emerging between, um, uh, the who controls the majority of seats in the next house versus who controls the majority of state delegations. And if there's a difference in, in those two, um, answers, it could create some really scary, um, and challenging dynamics that members would have to navigate.

Uh, and similarly that the, how the Senate has its own, um, set of rules challenges, given the, likely applicability of the filibuster. [01:09:00] Another concern we have is around health and safety of both the members of Congress who would be called upon to conduct this contingent election and whose control of individual seats in this scenario would matter a great deal.

And given the, the way Beau has just sort of laid out how the, the process works and, and the, level of influence that small states have, which means small congressional delegations, any individual member, particularly in those small congressional delegations could face, uh, real concerns about, about their safety, but given the outsized influence they would have on this process, relatedly, the safety and health of the leading presidential candidates would be a concern.

And that is in part a concern. because of an issue we'll, we'll go into later on that makes it difficult to replace a candidate, if not impossible, um, if anything were to happen to them between a certain point in the electoral process in December and when Congress convenes on January 6 in joint session.

And [01:10:00] finally, the concern that we worry about. Related to all of these ones I just described is that because of the complexity of and, and opportunity for gridlock and, um, fighting over the process in January, it's quite possible that January 20th can roll around and neither the house nor the Senate will have been able to take action to fulfill their duty in the contingent election, which could trigger the presidential succession act.

Um, and there's a great deal of debate around this act. And while it's specific applicability to a vacancy on January. January 20th may be in less dispute, um, you could end up in a really unusual situation or even incentives to create a situation in which the Speaker of the House or the Senate, President Pro Tem, ascends to the presidency because Congress has been unable to act and fulfill its duty under the 12th Amendment.

Moore v Harper Democracy is Saved (For Now) w/ Eliza Sweren-Becker - Democracy Nerd - Air Date 7-9-23

Let's dig in to Morver's Harper a little bit. Let's start with the facts of the case and, and looking back a little bit, uh, even to a [01:11:00] 2019 case where the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts could not review, uh, partisan gerrymandered, partisan gerrymandered maps, but racially, uh, drawn maps were still under review of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Give sort of background facts that will be useful to inform the discussion. So that's right. In 2019, in a case called Rucho, the Supreme Court said that as far as partisan gerrymanders go, the U. S. Constitution has nothing to say about them, and the issue is non justiciable in federal courts. So essentially, the Supreme Court closed federal courthouse doors to claims of partisan gerrymandering, no matter how extreme, no matter how unrepresentative the matter.

At the same time, Claims that maps were drawn in a racially discriminatory way could still be brought in federal court. Um, including under section 2 of the voting rights act after the decision in 2019, um, [01:12:00] the North Carolina legislature drew new congressional districts in the state after the census and drew an extreme partisan gerrymander.

The litigants, the voting organizations, the voters in North Carolina said, Oh, hey, I know what to do. The U. S. Supreme Court told us what to do. They said in Rucho, we could go to the state Supreme Court and vindicate our rights. under our state constitution because in foreclosing federal court relief to partisan gerrymandering in Rucho, the court said, you have another answer.

You can get relief in, in state courts. And that's exactly what the litigants in North Carolina did. They went to their state courts. They said, this is an extreme partisan gerrymander. It's barred by our state constitution. You should strike it down. Ultimately, that's exactly what the North Carolina Supreme Court did.

They, the court struck down the partisan gerrymander and told the state legislators to go back and draw a new map. They drew another gerrymandered map, [01:13:00] um, and they were told that that violated the constitution as well. And so a new map was drawn at the direction of the court to be fair and representative of the people of North Carolina.

Rather than accept that outcome, um, Some North Carolina legislators asked the U. S. Supreme Court to bail them out, and they asked the U. S. Supreme Court to say that the state constitution and the state courts could not constrain them when they made rules for federal elections. And that is a profound and dangerous idea that the state legislators get to violate their own constitution, but that is precisely the idea at the center of the independent state legislature theory.

Independent state legislature theory sort of perfect chance to segue to that. What the heck is it? And I think I have some basic understanding, and my basic understanding is that they say what the state legislature says in a [01:14:00] state is primary, is ultimate, is the only thing that matters, unfettered by whatever a state court might say about it.

Uh, that's my sort of simplistic understanding of it. Give us a better understanding of it. And, and to the extent that simplistic understanding says anything, how the heck do they come up with that? So, yes. What is the independent state legislature theory? It is a seemingly benign collection of four words that all generally sound good and inoffensive, um, which I think is by design.

Oh, yeah, no, people like independent things. State legislatures, every state has them. What could be, we don't want a dependent, we don't want a tethered, we don't want a totally, uh, hidebound state legislation. We want them to be able to act independently, of course. Yeah, so it's a collection of words that sounds good that I think is meant to hand wave over the very, very dangerous, um, consequences that the theory would bring to bear if it were ever adopted.

Yeah. Um, [01:15:00] the theory arises from a, an interpretation of the elections clause of the U. S. Constitution, and that clause gives to states the power to regulate federal elections. Of course, that clause also gives Congress the power, the overriding power, to make or alter any laws that states make for federal elections.

and proponents of the independent state legislature theory. Read the word legislature as it is used in that constitutional provision to give state legislators near exclusive authority over federal elections. They believe that the elections clause would prohibit any other state entity. Like state courts or governors, or any constraints from state constitutions.

From placing checks and balances on the state legislative power. When the legislators are making rules for federal elections. The, that is a false reading of the constitution, but that is where the [01:16:00] idea comes from. How did they come up with this? Say more about where it comes from. When you say it's a false reading, make their case for them with or without a tongue in your cheek.

Sure. So the language of the elections clause reads the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed by each state and shall be prescribed by the each state and the legislature thereof. Excuse me. And so proponents say, Look, the elections clause uses the word legislature.

It has to mean legislature we all know what a legislature is. That's it. Of course. If you look at the rest of the provision of the Elections Clause, which also gives Congress to the power to make or alter those rules, nobody would ever say that Congress has the power to make rules for federal elections.

[01:17:00] Without any constitutional constraints from the U. S. Constitution or without needing to present legislation to the president for his signature or veto or without the possibility of review by federal courts, the word legislature, just like the word Congress. It's intended to be used as part of the ordinary lawmaking power in the state.

So just like Congress has to send bills to the president for a signature or veto, the state legislature has to send bills to a governor for signature or veto. The state legislature is constrained by their state constitution. The state legislature is subject to judicial review when it legislates on elections.

All of those things are equally true for states as they are for Congress. And when you look at the history behind the elections clause, it is absolutely unequivocally clear that the framers never would have given special unchecked authority to state legislators to make rules for federal [01:18:00] elections, the framers were deeply deeply distrustful of state lawmakers, and they were trying to figure out ways to corral and constrain them, not liberate them from the shackles of checks and balances.

The proponents of the state legislature. I'm gonna get to the roots. Who are these people? There are not very many. Um, and there are a handful of folks in academia who have advanced the independent state legislature theory. There are a handful of, uh, Supreme Court justices who have, um, expressed support for or interest in the independent state legislature theory.

And there were amicus briefs in support of the North Carolina legislators in the U. S. Supreme Court, but those briefs came from almost uniformly partisan entities, individuals. Um, and and and not from the historians, the election officials, the governors, the academics, the state [01:19:00] Supreme Court justices, the very many bipartisan folks who weighed in against the theory.

Any funding links to be aware of who's helping pay for the think tank. He's stuff to come up with this. There's, is it all coming out of the, the tower of the, you know, university or are there, are there more, as you would say, sort of partisan, uh, drivers involved. The theory really isn't coming out of universities or academic institutions and the entities that weighed in on in support of the theory are these partisan organizations that are, you know, right wing affiliated organizations, advancing, um.

Right wing political goals, so I don't particularly do research into the flow of money and how these things get advanced, but. This is not a theory that is. find support in the mainstream [01:20:00] or find support in academics who spent a lot of time looking into the history or reading language of the founders.

Um, this is really has been advanced in recent years by partisan interests, including, um, in 2020 by the former president and the RNC.

SECTION B - THE PROPONENTS OF MINORITY RULE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now, entering Section B - "The Proponents of Minority Rule."

Marc Elias and Ari Berman - The Al Franken Podcast - Air Date 7-15-23

On the legal front, on the voting rights front, what I'm worried about is That the left has in many quarters decided to move on from the threats to democracy, but it is the central organizing thesis of the Republican party.

So let me give you a couple of statistics around this and then tell you what I'm worried about for 2024. Democracy docket, which is a website that I, I created, it tracks all voting litigation, not just litigation I'm involved in, but all voting litigation. In 2022, there were, uh, [01:21:00] 175 separate voting lawsuits.

This is excluding redistricting in 2020, by the way, there were 150, so the, we went from 150 to 175, so there was more litigation in 2022 than in 2020. And of course, in 2020 you had 65 cases after election day. So it's, the real comparator is 175 versus 85. But of that 175 lawsuits, a majority of them were actually filed by Republicans and conservatives.

The reason why I start with that is that I think most people listening to this. Are unaware that there are any lawsuits against states saying that voting is too easy, but yet there are actually more lawsuits right now, California is under lawsuit, Illinois is under lawsuit by conservatives who say voting is too easy and trying to repeal statutes that make voting more possible.

The Republicans have brought litigation against North Carolina to make voting harder. They recently lost a lawsuit in the [01:22:00] state Supreme Court of Arizona to try to ban mail in voting. And so when you look at that and you add on to that, the fact that you have legislature after legislature passing new voter suppression laws and election subversion laws, in some instances, these are the second or the third law on top of each other.

You get some picture of what the conservative and Republican playbook is, which is. They know they can't win through a majoritarian election, so their goal is to change the rules of voting to disincentivize or to dissuade or to suppress. Or to subvert the votes of black, brown, and young voters. And that's their strategy.

And they are doggedly at, they are doggedly at it. And I worry that on our side, you know, there is kind of like a generalized concern that these things are happening. Um, but they are not nearly as closely. Paid attention to other than frankly, by people like Ari, who is constantly writing [01:23:00] about it. Yeah, I would just echo Mark's point, Al, and say that pretty much every Republican controlled state passed some kind of new restriction on voting following the 2020 election.

And many states have passed multiple new restrictions on voting. And this will be the first presidential election that these restrictions will be in effect for. And the presidential election landscape is different than a midterm, right? We're going to have much higher turnout. In 2024, probably than we had in 2022, and there's going to be many more infrequent voters showing up.

And that's the kind of people who might be targeted by these kind of restrictions. And I think there's a feeling that because Democrats fare relatively well in 2022 because a lot of the election deniers lost. That means that we don't have a crisis for democracy anymore. And I think that's really dangerous because these laws are still into effect.

They're going to try to recruit smoother election deniers and last time they're going to try to [01:24:00] recruit people that are a little bit more sophisticated in terms of how they might try to overturn or alter the rules of an election, but they'll basically have the same election denier playbook. They'll try to pass more sophisticated efforts to try to subvert the will of the voters.

I'll just give you 1 example of something that was really disturbing to me. And I know Mark to the Texas legislature basically passed a bill dictating how elections would be run. In the state's largest County, Harris County, the largest blue County in Texas, where the legislature fired the election administrator at Harris County.

It was the only County in the state where they decided to fire the election administrator. And they said, is this where Austin is or where Houston is? Houston. So there's, there's, there's nearly 5 million people. There is the third largest County in the country. It's the largest county in Texas, the largest blue county in Texas.

So it really, in many ways, determines the swing of Texas politics. And they decided [01:25:00] to A, fire the election administrator only in this one county. And then B, they said, that if there were any kind of violations, even minor things like a voting machine malfunctioning and preventing someone from voting, that could have then allow.

The Republican appointed secretary of state to take over election operations in that county again, only Harris County. So, I mean, you, you had a legislature essentially dictating. This is how elections are going to be run in the largest blue county in the state. And if we don't like it. We're just going to take over election operations altogether.

I mean, that's exactly the kind of thing we were worried about happening in 2022 with all of these election deniers being elected, but it got a fraction of the coverage of someone like Carrie Lake running for office, for example. So I think they've become more sophisticated in the kind of things that they're doing now compared to what they tried to do in 2020.

Are they continuing? Of course they are to go with the, the, There [01:26:00] was a lot of fraud with that myth. Are they, are they trying to Harris County? There were, there were some election problems in 2022 because it was the first election where they used a paper ballot system. They also had new restrictions.

They had to follow based on the voter suppression law that the Texas legislature passed in 2021. So that created some problems in Harris County, where some polling locations ran out of paper ballots, but basically Republicans They did what Common Cause Texas called it, the Texas version of the big lie, where they basically said that Democrats who ran the county intentionally took away paper ballots from Republican areas so that Republicans wouldn't be able to vote and they would lose close elections.

Now, ironically, that's exactly what's being done in black and brown neighborhoods for decades, but nonetheless. Um, that's what they argued and basically they said, you know, all of the elections were fraudulent in Harris County because Democrats intentionally disenfranchised Republicans. There was no evidence that that happened, um, but that's kind of the argument they were using.

So it was fraud, but it was kind of like a, [01:27:00] a more of an iteration of the big lie argument they were using. Al, Al, I, I think we'd be making a mistake, at least with respect to the House of Representatives in control of these. Legislatures to not also note that there is another way you suppress voters, which is by engaging in the kinds of outrageous gerrymandering that we've seen Republicans.

And that's not over. You know, um, we're going to see Republicans redraw maps in several states. in ways that would have defied common sense or defied even imagination a few redistricting cycles ago. North Carolina, they're going to, they're going to redistrict. Uh, as an example, DeSantis redistricted in the face of, of so called fair district amendments in a way that specifically targeted Al Lawson, a black member of Congress.

And so it's part of a larger ethos on the right. To try to use the rules to affect [01:28:00] the outcomes and, and when, when did the Supreme Court say we can't, we're not going to get involved. We can't get involved in any partisan gerrymandering in 2019, 2019 in the Rucho decision. But the kind of things that Mark is describing are such blatant racial gerrymanders.

That it's pretty amazing that those kind of things haven't been struck down, which presumably they can be involved in. But I mean, I think the fear is that the Supreme Court is, is very shortly going to also make it very difficult, if not impossible to strike down racial gerrymandering to leaving many fewer options here.

And I think it's just amazing if you go back and you look at. The, the landscape for voting rights before the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and the landscape afterwards, it's just dramatically different. I mean, Republicans are doing things in states like Florida they would have [01:29:00] never considered before.

I mean, the fact that DeSantis tried to dismantle and did dismantle two majority black districts or districts in which black voters were able to choose their candidates of choice, that would have never passed muster under the Supreme Court. The Voting Rights Act as it was interpreted by the courts for nearly 50 years before the Supreme Court got it in 2013.

So I think Republicans are just going further and further to push the envelope here and they feel like they're going to get whatever they want from the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court has already said. We don't care about partisan gerrymandering.

Judge Warns That Trump's 2020 Coup Attempt Was Just A Practice Run - Farron Balanced - Air Date 4-30-22

Judge Lutig warns us. That what we saw with Donald Trump and the attempted coup regarding the 2020 election and all of their attempts to overturn it, as well as the nonstop string of lies since then Ludwig explains that that was just a dry run.

I mean, that's literally what he said. The, the last presidential election was a dry run. For the next, [01:30:00] and he says their actual objective is to execute successfully in 2024, the very same plan they failed in executing in 2020 and to overturn the 2024 election. If Trump or his anointed successor loses again in the next quadrennial contest, he's not wrong.

I mean, this is something I have said before as well, plenty of other folks have said this, but you know, coming from a former federal judge, I think it carries a little bit more weight than when I say it or when anybody else says it, because these are people of course, who are trained to recognize what this kind of behavior is, what it does and what it leads to.

And that's why this warning Is so dire, but think about it for a second, folks, what we saw and what we're still learning. I mean, literally just this past week, all of the revelations that have come out, all of the text messages, all of the new characters that were involved in this. Those are the people that Donald Trump is going to put in charge.

Next time he runs [01:31:00] for president. And that is why he is hyping up his pro Trump MAGA people in this year's midterm races, because he wants to make sure that he has enough of his loyalists to displace the anti Trump people so that if it came down to it and they were the ones having to, you know, certify the electoral college results, he would have enough people To possibly actually overturn it.

All of the plans start to come together. When you start to look at it that way, folks, this isn't just about Trump wanting to punish people like Liz Cheney. It's because he needs to get Cheney out so he can replace it with somebody that will do whatever he wants them to do in case he loses again in 2024.

That's the plan. That's why people like Steve Bannon have been pushing his audience, go and run for these election boards, go and run for secretary of state. [01:32:00] And that of course is why Trump has been so invested in these secretary of state races that we have going on, but he's pushing these people because he knows where he went wrong last time.

He saw the weaknesses, the weaknesses in his plan, basically that he didn't have enough people all over the country to make this happen. So he's trying to write those wrongs right now, 2020 was in fact a dry run and they're getting ready for the real thing in 2024.

(Election standoff in Venezuela; Campaign Ketchup with 'Driftglass' and Frances Langum, 'Pro Left Podcast') - The BradCast w/ Brad Friedman - Air Date 7-31-24

In Arizona, I'm happy to report there was absolutely zero fraud. And zero problems for any voter at any polling place across the entire state. How do I know this? Well, because 2022 Republican gubernatorial loser and, uh, mini me, Donald Trump election fraud, conspiracist Carrie Lake.

Well, she won her primary election on Tuesday to become the [01:33:00] GOP US Senate nominee. So obviously this election since Carrie Lake won. Had no fraud at all. Everything's fine. That's right. The only legitimate election for Republicans are the ones that they win. Now, uh, Lake will go on to face Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego, who ran unopposed on Tuesday, uh, this November, for a, uh, U.

S. Senate seat that will be critical to determining majority control. chamber of the Congress this year after the seat, uh, the Senate seat is being vacated by the retiring, uh, let's call her right wing, former Democrat, uh, Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Now, there is a whole lot of vote by mail ballots cast in Arizona, so it may take a number of days for all All of the results to shake out.

Uh, much of the action on Tuesday was on the Republican side where there was a bit of a free for [01:34:00] all in a number of races, sort of up and down the ballot as the party continues, at least the party's primary voters continue to move even farther and farther to the right, many of the, uh, Contested Democratic primaries were for U.

S. House seats in a number of swing districts that are currently held by Republicans, but where Joe Biden won back in 2020 as Democrats hope to flip those seats in the U. S. House this November, but Republicans continue to really sort of eat their own, particularly in Maricopa County. Where some 60 percent of state voters live.

That's Phoenix. And it's a County where until Joe Biden in 2020, as I understand it, no Democrat had ever won that County for a presidential race since Harry Truman in 1948. Uh, with that loss for Republicans then in Maricopa and [01:35:00] across the state in 2020, as you recall, there were, there were a lot of wholly unproven and, or just completely evidence free claims of fraud.

None of them have, have ever been borne out in the nearly four years since, even after that, you may recall that wildly flawed. To put it nicely post election hand count that was headed up by the far right group calling themselves cyber ninjas, uh, who if anything actually proved that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by more votes than was officially certified.

But ever since then, the far right. In Arizona and in Maricopa has been blaming the Republicans who, by and large, control the county government in Maricopa, uh, control the government, control its election system for the fact that Republicans lost in 2020 there and then again in 2022. When [01:36:00] Democrats won almost all of the statewide posts from governor to secretary of state to attorney general.

And so to that end on Tuesday in Republican primaries in Maricopa, they unseated the Republican County recorder, the guy in charge of elections. They're a very conservative, by the way. But not insane in the least guy by the name of Steven Richer. He actually won the post as the county's election chief back in 2020, unseating a Democrat at the time, Adrian Fontes that year, who would then in 2022, he would go on to become Arizona's secretary of state.

And both Richard and Fontes have worked collegially together ever since. But Richer, who has defended the Maricopa County voting system and has been highly critical of the right wing election deniers calling out [01:37:00] Donald Trump for lying about the results, well, Richer was unseated by one of those deniers, State Rep.

Justin Heap, during the GOP primary on Tuesday in Maricopa. Richer accepted defeat in a social media post on Wednesday morning. He congratulated Heap. He noted on Twitter quote elections have winners and sadly losers and in this one It looks like i'm going to end up on the losing side of the column, but that's the name of the game Accept it and move on.

Seems like he's sending a little bit of a message out there to some of his fellow Republicans. I don't know. He will, uh, he, uh, he will now face Democratic attorney, Tim Stringham, who ran unopposed on Tuesday, uh, as many of the Democrats did, uh, he will face him in November. If, uh, Stringham ends up winning, of [01:38:00] course, that means Republicans will have given away a key post that they had held over the past four years.

On the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which is currently four to one Republican to Democratic, several of the top Republican officials there are retiring after facing years of death threats and harassment from, yes, Fellow Republicans after having overseen and standing by the 2020 election results there on Tuesday, election deniers were chosen by Republicans to take their place, though.

Now they will have to face several Democrats. Who yes also ran unopposed on Tuesday. And while there were a lot of interesting races, which is putting it kindly, and I don't have time to go into some of the details. There, there is one, uh, race for state Senate that I would like to quickly note here in Arizona's state Senate district one, former state [01:39:00] rep, Mark Fincham.

Fierce Trump loyalist. Uh, you may recall his name. Uh, he defeated incumbent Republican state Senator. And former Republican secretary of state, Ken Bennett for the GOP nomination in this otherwise reliably red district, uh, near Prescott Bennett, like the current democratic secretary of state, Adrian Fontes has been a guest on our program, and he has been working very hard in the state Senate in recent years for real.

Election reform in the state reform that would make it much easier for the public. Yes, including hard right conspiracy theorists to oversee election results to make sure that they are accurate. Fincham, on the other hand, who you may remember as having run out. And lost for secretary of [01:40:00] state as a Republican back in 2022.

Well, he was a prolific proponent of the lie that Trump lost his 2020 race because of fraud. Bennett, on the other hand, represented a more moderate choice for Republican voters. And yes, he was a real champion for election integrity. But now voters will have to choose between the far right Fincham and Democrat Mike Fogel, who ran unopposed on Tuesday in the, uh, in the general election this November.

Bennett, so far, appears to have been the only incumbent, by the way, in the state Senate to have been turfed out on Tuesday, though there is one other undecided race that there that could see another Republican tossed. Democrats will only need to flip one or two seats in the state Senate to take majority control from a very rabid far right majority in the chamber this November.

There are also a number of still uncalled races in the [01:41:00] Arizona state house primaries as well, where Democrats are also within, Just a seat or two from winning majority control this year in that chamber as well in which case You know if the election gods are with Democrats you could see a trifecta in Arizona of Democratic control of both both chambers of the state legislature along with the gubernatorial mansion with Democrat governor Katie Hobbs There right now.

SECTION C - THE HISTORY OF MINORITY RULE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C - "The History of Minority Rule."

How Minority Rule Threatens Democracy - Fresh Air - Air Date 4-22-24

Minority versus majority rule is complicated. I want to say I'm in favor of majority rule, but what about periods when the majority is racist or homophobic or patriarchal? Do you want that majority suppressing the rights of the minority? So it's kind of more complicated than it seems.

Would you agree? It is. And it's a fundamental Tension in a democracy, [01:42:00] which is how do you protect majority rule, but do so in the way that the majority protects minority rights? And that's something that the founding fathers struggled with 230 years ago, which is how do you balance? protections for different minorities with the idea that the majority should rule.

Now, the interesting thing is, is that when we think of the protection of minority rights, we think of vulnerable minority groups, right? Previously disenfranchised communities, for example, are those that have been persecuted in the past. What the founding fathers were concerned about was a privileged minority group themselves, basically white male landowners who were a minority within the country, but they wanted to protect them.

And what we see right now is the same kind of thing in which a privileged conservative white minority is trying to suppress the power of a much more diverse, multiracial governing majority. And [01:43:00] that's a very dangerous situation for American democracy. As an example of minority rule today, you talk about the Supreme Court and the conservative justices on it and how they were appointed.

Can you run through that for us? So, for the first time in American history, five of six conservative justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote initially and confirmed by senators representing a minority of Americans. So the Supreme Court is a product of minority rule, and it's a product of two skewed institutions.

It's how we elect. through the electoral college and how we appoint U. S. senators, both of which are flawed because they both violate one person, one vote in the electoral college. We have a ticking time bomb in which a candidate can win the popular vote, but lose the electoral college and the Senate, we have a situation in which small or more conservative wider states have [01:44:00] dramatically due to Congress.

More representation than larger, more diverse, more urban states. And so the Supreme Court is a product of minority rule. And then it of course has issued very radical decisions in recent years on things like abortion rights. gun control, voting rights that are at odds with the majority of public opinion.

So we have a Supreme Court that is a product of minority rule that is then issuing decisions that deepen minority rule within the United States. And the two presidents you're referring to who did not win the popular vote were George W. Bush and, uh, President Trump. Yes, and those two presidents, George W.

Bush and Donald Trump, appointed five of six conservative justices on the Supreme Court, so a majority of the Supreme Court. And what we see is a decades long strategy by the Republican Party to use the courts to try to do unpopular things. And of course, they used very bare knuckled tactics to get that majority on the Supreme Court, including blocking Barack Obama from [01:45:00] filling an open seat on the Supreme Court eight months before that.

election and then appointing Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court just weeks before the election. So the Supreme Court really has been the epicenter of the Republican Party's drive for minority rule. Let's go back to the beginning. Some of the founding fathers wanted to curb the excesses of democracy.

What did they see as a threat? They were skeptical of democracy, both on the historical notion of democracy at the time, which was direct democracy in ancient Greece and places like that, which they thought had led to mob rule. But they were more concerned with America after 1776, when there were these quite democratic for the time state legislatures that were elected after the Declaration of Independence, when new state constitutions were granted.

And those state legislatures had a lot of power. Legislators were elected. Did annually, for example, they were very responsive to public demands, and the federal government, [01:46:00] in terms of the continental Congress, had very little power. It could not raise its own revenue, for example. And what happened was the states were passing populist policies that the framers didn't like, and there was a big economic crisis in the 1780s.

And what happened is states began to do things like debt relief and tax relief that benefited impoverished farmers for. example, but hurt wealthier Americans by leading to inflation. And basically, the framers felt like there was an excess of democracy in the states that were leading the country to the brink of collapse.

And that what they needed to do was they needed to create a strong central government and a strong central government that would not only restrain the people. Power of the states, but restrained the power of democracy more broadly. So instead of decisions being made by politicians who are influenced by the masses, decisions would be made by these elite white men that had a greater perspective and the greater public good at [01:47:00] heart.

Here's something John Adams said that you quote in your book. If a majority were to control all branches of the government, debts would be abolished first. Taxes laid heavy on the rich and not at all on the others. And at last, a downright equal vision of everything would be demanded and voted. Um, I was surprised to read that.

A pretty remarkable quote, right? I was surprised to read a lot of these things, too, because the Founding Fathers, as much as we worship them, were very honest that they were worried about what would Protecting people like themselves and that if we had pure democracy or a broader representative democracy, there would be these demands for things like equality, which the founding fathers didn't really favor.

They wanted to make sure the government first and foremost protected people like them. The founding fathers limited who could vote. What would you describe the limitations? Many states restricted voting [01:48:00] rights to white male property owners, which meant that poorer whites couldn't vote, of course women couldn't vote, African Americans couldn't vote, Native Americans weren't even considered citizens of the United States, so a majority of the country was excluded from voting at the time of the founding and after.

So there were restrictions on who could vote and you couldn't vote for all of the. People in the institutions of government, the president was voted on through the electoral college, like you voted for the electors who then voted for the president and that worked a little differently than it does today.

Would you describe, first of all, why the Electoral College was created? Yeah, and it wasn't even that you, you voted for the Electoral College. In, in most states, the state's legislatures just picked the electors. So the public had no say in terms of who the electors were. But basically, So who did you vote for?

You voted for I mean, a lot of people just didn't vote at [01:49:00] all. That's the big is that in the first election in which George Washington was elected, only 6 percent of Americans were eligible to vote. So most people just didn't vote at all. And then in certain states. Uh, but basically what happens is states nominated the electors and then the electors chose the president with very little input from the voters on who the electors were, who the president would be.

And why did the Founding Fathers want the Electoral College as opposed to a direct vote? Most of the founders were skeptical of the public's ability to elect the president directly. They felt like the best. The public would be uninformed, or it would be chosen by the largest states, or it would be chosen by free states in a way that would hurt the South.

One of the themes that runs through the book and runs through the founding is that these smaller minorities wanted protection. And when [01:50:00] I say smaller minorities, I don't mean minority groups. I mean the small states wanted protection. The slave states wanted protection. Protection and they felt like they would get that protection in the electoral college.

So they created this very complicated situation in which electors would elect the president instead of the people electing the president directly. Let's talk about the Senate. The Senate was created to counteract some of the Democracy of the House. Can you explain the debate over what the Senate should be and how the people in it should be chosen?

First off, senators were nominated by state legislatures and chosen by the lower house. So, senators were not directly elected by the people and there was basically unanimity among the founders. For that, but there were debates over who senators should represent James Madison and other prominent framers wanted the Senate to be based on proportional representation.

So they wanted to be based on population. [01:51:00] So larger states like Virginia would have more representation than smaller states like Delaware. But the smaller states rebelled. And there's this amazing moment at the Constitutional Convention where the Attorney General of Delaware gets up and he tells the likes of James Madison, the architect of the Constitution, if you don't give us the same representation, we're going to find a foreign ally who we're going to join with instead, and we're going to leave the United States of America.

And that was a stunning demand, the idea that they would go rejoin England or they would join France instead if they didn't have the same level of representation. meant that this larger states had no choice but to give into the demand of the smaller states to ratify the Constitution. But what Madison worried about is that it would allow what he called a more objectionable minority than ever to control the U. S. Senate. Because if the smaller states had the same level of representation as the larger states, that was inevitably going to lead to minority rule. And Madison worried that would get [01:52:00] worse as more states joined the Union. Of course, that's what's happened today, where the gap between large and small states is dramatically larger than it was back in 17 87.

How to Rig an Election: The Racist History of the 1876 Presidential Contest - Washington Post - Air Date 4-3-23

The most hotly contested election in our nation's history did not take place in the year 2000 or even 2020. It took place in 1876. The Civil War ended in 1865, but 11 years after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, America was on the verge of another outbreak of violence between the North and the South.

A deal was made. To preserve the nation, the price, the end of reconstruction, and the preservation of white supremacy. In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Railroads crisscrossed the country. Steel bridges connected cities. [01:53:00] Skyscrapers and ferris wheels.

Reached for the heavens. Electrical grids powered homes and businesses. Oil refineries fueled nationwide progress. The telephone and typewriter transformed communication. By the end of the century, we had coffee pots, escalators, elevators, cars, chewing gum, paper clips, and even jello.

New amendments to the Constitution created a land of promise and opportunity for many. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The 14th Amendment conferred citizenship on all persons born or naturalized in the United States, making formerly enslaved black people U.

S. citizens. And the 15th Amendment made unconstitutional. The use of race to prevent black men from voting. [01:54:00] Reconstruction, the effort to restore southern states to the Union, and incorporate 4 million newly freed American citizens into the United States, was working. Yet, the U. S. Army continued to occupy the South.

To enforce compliance with federal law, the country was united, albeit tenuously. In 1876, a centennial exposition in Philadelphia celebrated the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was also an election year. On June 17th, 1876, the Republicans, the party that guided the Union to victory in the Civil War, nominated Rutherford B.

Hayes for president and William A. Wheeler for vice president. Nine days later, the Democrats, then the party of racism and white supremacy, nominated Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks. As [01:55:00] returns came in on the evening of November 7th, the nation held its breath. In the early count, Tilden appeared to have the lead.

The next morning, Democratic newspapers proclaimed his victory. Then, on November 9th, Republicans announced a Hays win. But this game was just beginning. Tilden won the popular vote, but results in three states were in dispute. Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Neither side would concede. The nation was thrown into chaos.

The Florida governor reported that a special train sent out to get returns had been coup cluxed and thrown from the track. Amid reports of fraud and armed threats, Then President Grant, the former commander of the Union Army, sent troops to the capitals of all three disputed states. Just 11 years [01:56:00] after the Civil War, it looked like it could start all over again.

Congress passed an act authorizing a commission to decide the winner of the 1876 presidential election. The bipartisan commission voted to give the electoral votes of the disputed states to the Republican, Hayes. In exchange, Democrats got something they wanted. Hayes agreed to withdraw union troops from the south.

With that assurance, the deal went through. Beginning the end of Reconstruction. So, despite winning the popular vote, Tilden lost the election, with 184 electoral votes to Hayes 185. And on March 2nd, 1877, almost four months after Election Day, Rutherford B. Hayes became the 19th President of the United States.[01:57:00]

President Hayes made good on his promise to withdraw the troops from the South. He kept the union together at the expense of the rights of black Americans. The criminal legal system quickly became a tool to control black people. By 1870, the prison population of Alabama went from 90 percent white to over 80 percent black.

By 1880, elected officials in more than a third of U. S. states were black. Enacted felony disenfranchisement laws, taking the vote away from people convicted of crimes. Poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests were employed to keep black men from voting. When that wasn't enough, white supremacists used violence and even murder to prevent black men from going to the polls.

Elected officials in states across the South passed Jim Crow laws [01:58:00] enforcing segregation. In virtually every aspect of American life.

The election of 1876 ended with a compromise that ensured the continuation of racism and racist violence in our nation's culture and politics that has lasted to this day.

SECTION D - A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Coming up, Section D - "A Global Perspective."

Politics & Human Rights: With the Politics or Against the Politics? Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast - Air Date 7-31-24

In your book, Judiciary, the accountability function of courts in new democracies, published in 2004, you discussed the role of courts in holding leaders of new democracies accountable and the risks of the trend at the time, which was a global movement towards strong constitutional government, placing more powers in the hands of judges who are not held accountable themselves.

In the 20 years following this, How do you think these predictions have played out? That's a very interesting question. Um, in some ways I think they have played out really well. I think some of the things that we were seeing was that more and more was sort of encompassed within the constitutional domain [01:59:00] and more and more issues and more and more contested issues being judicialized.

And that a lot of politics would go to the courts in more countries than in the global South. And this for sure has happened. It has happened in new democracies and it has happened in old democracies, including in countries like Norway, where I come from, where politics traditionally were not very much judicialized.

Of course, what we were worried about was that this would make, courts more politically visible and more politically contested, and that it would be very tempting for the governments to rein in the courts. And, uh, this has also happened in many countries with very strong courts. I think one of the first examples that was a very clear example was Hungary, where there was a very strong, very ambitious court and that, uh, [02:00:00] then where the government really, um, made the courts.

went for the courts and made them very weak. Poland more recently, although we've seen a bit of a turn there, and of course it has happened in many countries in these 20 years that there has been attempt to rein in the courts more or less successfully, but I think that in some ways courts have been more robust and more resilient than we expected.

And that even. Where, uh, governments have, uh, appointed loyalists to the courts. Um, they have managed to sort of gain a certain independence back. But there is something about the institutionalization of courts across societies that have been more resilient in some cases than we expected. Okay. Yeah, no, that's wonderful.

Um, and following on, I guess kind of a little bit exactly what you were saying. Have we observed any [02:01:00] unexpected or more promising outcomes in terms of judicial accountability and restraint of executive power? So I think maybe, um, some, some developments that are surprising, but not promising, not positive.

And I think. One of the things that we in a way saw, but didn't really sort of see how important it would be, was that courts are being used much more by autocrats. They become part of the dictator's playbook, if you want, or not only dictators, but politicians who are seeking to strengthen their power, use And use law and it's well, I've, I've been using the term autocratic law fair that they use that they've been using courts for impression for strengthening their, their grip on power, using changes to the law as well using rights.

And, and I think we didn't really realize [02:02:00] how important that would be. Uh, in sort of both in countries moving from democracy, backsliding into autocracy, but also in them in democracies, uh, where that remain democratic, but where, where courts are also used. So, I think that is, that's a bit surprising, but also, on the other hand, I didn't think that we would, that would be also see is that courts or have become 1 of the main areas for democratic resistance.

So, um, civil society, political opposition also use minorities, also use the courts and they use the courts to a lot of effect. So I think sort of that, that, so I think that this sort of both, if you want both the autocratic law and the democratic law fair, if, if, if we look at it that way in the courts, how it become, uh, or in a way surprising to.

So I think, yes, some surprising developments, but [02:03:00] going both ways. It's funny you say that actually because, um, my dissertation is kind of looking at, um, I did a survey kind of, of, uh, Scottish nationalists, and part of that was kind of looking at the gender recognition bill that was opposed, like, um, blocked by the UK government, and being in Scotland it's been interesting to see that play out in the UK courts and they're ruling that it was, um, lawful of the UK government to block it, but just the tensions and the, um, sense of self determination within Scotland and how that's kind of channeled through the courts, that kind of political element and a sort of agenda being pursued in the courts at the same time, both on the UK government, like the Conservative side and the Scottish side.

It's really interesting to kind of watch play out in real time. That's really, really interesting. And I think what you also see is that the court process, since it takes time, it focuses attention. So it makes a lot of politics happen [02:04:00] during that process. It creates a lot of media attention. It creates narratives.

that are strong, in a way on both sides, but particularly for, in a way, opposition groups or, um, groups that don't necessarily have a strong voice always. It's, it has been, it's really interesting and helpful because even if in the end, The court ruling is not so favorable. Uh, politics is in a different place.

That's one thing that we didn't really foresee as much 20 years ago, but that has been become very clear. The political space around courts are really interesting in terms of moving politics only in many areas. So, uh, LGBT rights for sure. Um, uh, abortion rights in many different directions. Yeah. Uh, climate change.

A lot. Um, [02:05:00] climate policy, putting it on the agenda in different ways, even if the rulings necessarily are not necessarily that spectacular. Sometimes there are rights and ecosystems, but also indigenous rights. That's something that we see in Norway, but also around the world in many ways, that it sort of, it changes, it changes the discourse, it changes what people see as political issues.

Uh, this, there, there is a book called When Mis Poor by Alicia Yemen. Uh, the, the title is When Misfortune Becomes Injustice. That's a very, very strong mechanism if you want, when our ideas of when things are just unfortunate and when it's an injustice that needs to be politically addressed. That's one of the things that we've really seen in the last 20 years.

Oh, and lots of issues have moved into that space. That's so interesting. Um, so following on, uh, what lessons do you think we can draw from the past two [02:06:00] decades in terms of the judiciary's role and, uh, in democratic consolidation and safeguarding human rights? So in terms of the judiciary's role, I think, so to, to sort of appreciate.

the function that it can play. And that is, for instance, this function of enabling political discourse, enabling political contestation, but also in some cases really sort of safeguarding rights as well. But I think we also need to understand that courts in themselves, uh, are limited, that courts, when they try to do too much, In a context that, uh, where they don't have sufficient support, uh, are vulnerable and can, can be reign in.

And I think, so I think that to realize that they're super, they're really powerful and important and robust, but at the same [02:07:00] time, they are fragile in this sense, or they are, at least the power is limited. They need, they, they, they can provide leverage, uh, they can provide a lot of leverage, but, but they also need, need to have the support.

in order to make, to make that difference. But that, but sometimes when they're not, or sometimes you see the courts shy away from the really, really hard decisions. Like in some, in a few cases where like, for instance, in Malawi, the courts, several levels ruled the last presidential election, uh, on the not free and fair and ruled a new and then ordered a new election.

And there was a, um, and then you can do that one. And that is very rare because that is so close to power that is so difficult to, and courts, when they do that, for instance, in Kenya, it happened before it didn't result in a change of power. [02:08:00] And, and, and it did sort of, it's hard for the courts to withstand the pushback that then comes.

But even in the cases where they can't go all the way, even if they sort of don't cross that line of power, they can still provide a space for a lot of important, uh, civil society, activism, political, that can provide sort of political accountability at a different level.

Making Sense of Bangladesh - Amanpour - Air Date 8-5-24

After 15 years in power, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasinam, has resigned from her post and fled the country. The announcement from the country's army chief coming after these extraordinary scenes of people storming the Prime Minister's residence.

It's an incredible development and the culmination of deadly protests that have rocked the nation for weeks. At least 91 people dying just yesterday after demonstrators clashed with police. Now, this all started over new quotas for government jobs, but quickly evolved into a much wider anti government protest.

Someone who's been closely [02:09:00] following the situation is Mujib Mishal, the New York Times South Asia Bureau Chief, and he joins us now from New Delhi. Uh, Mujib, quite a historic day for a country, we should remind viewers, the size of Illinois, but with a population of 170 million. Talk about the significance of this development.

Well, um, on the one hand, uh, there is sort of jubilation on the streets of Dhaka because it is the end of what was increasingly, um, a very authoritarian rule. Uh, Prime Minister Hasina, uh, in her early part of her career, she was sort of associated with hope. Um, she came from personal trauma because her family was massacred.

In the 70s, but then she was a symbol of how this country could turn things around. She offered, um, economic upliftment to, to a lot of, um, you know, a country that was deeply poor. And she sort of tried to reign in the military that was, um, [02:10:00] long in the, in the practice of, you know, coups and counter coups.

So, so at one point in her career, she offered this promise of hope, but in recent years, she was deeply authoritarian. So the end of her rule, As created, you know, this jubilation on the streets of Dhaka, but at the same time, um, there are deep concerns, um, because the country, as you mentioned, the huge country of 170 million people.

Um, it is leaderless right now, um, the law enforcement that could contain, um, what is deeply entrenched political animosities between parties, um, that law enforcement is very discredited. Um, so on the streets, there are still reports of violence, but there's also fear that, uh, extremist elements. Uh could take advantage of this vacuum.

So right now it's a mix of jubilation, but also deep concern Yeah, deep concern about what could come next and the issue of stability In the country as we heard from the army chief telling uh [02:11:00] citizens there keep your trust in the army quote We will restore peace Peace in the country. Please cooperate.

As you noted earlier there, there was a large level of distrust between the military and its citizens over the course of the last several decades. And you mentioned a number of coups there. Uh, when you hear that type of messaging from the army chief now, how should it be interpreted? Well, yes, the army has had a history of coups, bloody coups, including a coup that killed Prime Minister Hasina's family and her father.

But in recent years, it has been a more of a disciplined army for a couple of reasons. One was that Prime Minister Hasina sort of stacked the leadership with loyalists and made sure they don't stage a coup against her. But another reason is that the Bangladeshi army is a big contributor to the UN peacekeeping.

Uh, the U. N. Peacekeeping missions abroad, and that's a very lucrative [02:12:00] business for the senior leadership of the army, the officers. So that keeps them away from coups and and sort of reigns in some of the abuses as well. So now at this stage, um, it feels like although the army is controlling the situation, it has signaled that it wants to to, you know, hand over power to an interim government, a civilian government that could then, um, oversee elections potentially.

I mean, what is not clear is that the country's parliament is not dissolved right now. So the prime minister has fled and maybe a lot of her MPs and ministers have fled, but the status of the country's parliament is unclear right now and the future of What kind of government formation it could be is unclear, but the army has not signaled that this is a coup or that they're taking over.

The arc of Sheikh Hasina's governance, as you noted earlier, is quite interesting because it's evolved from one where there was a [02:13:00] sense of optimism. Uh, about the change in stability she could bring to the country, uh, then obviously years, uh, of questions, uh, about the, uh, openness, right, uh, of legal, in legality of elections in that country.

And here you have her first question. I think it's really useful to get a sense of where she stood on that front here. Here was part of their exchange. I said, CNN. And other international organizations have not been allowed to come to Bangladesh as journalists to cover this story. They have put very draconian conditions on us.

No, it is not true. It is true. No, no, no, no. Yes, yes, it is true. No, no. Bangladesh is [02:14:00] a free country. Ah. We would hope that. Listen, in our country, we have private television. What? If, if, no, tell me one thing. If it is prevented, then why I am talking to you? No, because I'm not there, Prime Minister. I'm not supposed to talk to you.

Prime Minister, I'm not there. If we, if we prevent you, no, no, if we prevent CNN, then why I am talking to you? Beats me. Then, okay, you stop it. You don't publish it. You see her defiance there, at times really seemingly talking past Christiane, not addressing her concerns and questions head on. Now, that was, uh, 11 years ago.

Um, when you look back at that now and see where things have turned today, uh, what is your takeaway? Well, I mean, it is, I'm not surprised by that exchange. I, I met her last year for an interview and, um, what, what tells, what that tells me is that there were two Sheikah Sinas. One was sort of the image to the outside world, right?

of this sort of [02:15:00] sheik, um, secular Muslim woman, uh, who stood up against Islamic militancy, who helped lift up her nation and brought economic improvement. That was one image of her. The other one was what she was doing to her political opponents, um, the way she was concentrating power and turning the country into a one party state.

For the longest time, she had sort of juggled both. Um, and she had figured out a formula where she could Completely a marginalized, her organized political opposition in a way where they were not a threat to her. But what brought her down, what brought the end of her was not necessarily the organized political opposition.

It was the wider public. It was students, right? And it was, it was mishandling, her mishandling of what was actually a peaceful protest. And it was sort of using the same playbook, right? Of crackdowns of force that she had used [02:16:00] her organized opponents against the wider public, and that that's created a cycle of anger, especially the dead bodies, right?

That's what I was going to say over 300 over 300 believed to have been killed in the past few weeks alone. Yeah, most of the people most not affiliated with political parties, right? So this was the general public and containing that anger turned out difficult for her.

Muhammad Yunus to lead Bangladesh govt as India evacuates families from the country - DW News - Air Date 8-7-24

On Tuesday, citizens gathered at the National Parliament building after the legislative body was dissolved by the President, who called for the restoration of calm. A day earlier, protesters stormed the chamber Demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Now her official residence is awaiting a new occupant, after Hasina fled the country, ending her 15 year rule. Curious citizens wandered through the ransacked rooms where Hasina clung to power. As more than 300 [02:17:00] people were killed in protests, which were brutally suppressed by security forces. We sincerely hope everyone gets justice.

Every death must be accounted for. As Bangladesh mourns the many killed in the unrest, changes are flowing fast. Former opposition leader Khaleda Zia has been pardoned and released from house arrest, one of thousands of critics detained under the previous government. I think the next ruler of the country should take lessons from the students that if anyone becomes a corrupted trader and gets involved in unsocial activities or takes any decision against the country, they will face the same fate.

We want them to chart the future, keeping the country in mind. The burnt out office of the former ruling party shows how quickly Sheikh Hasina's legacy [02:18:00] has been turned to ash. Many Bangladeshis are celebrating and awaiting the start of a new era.

I spoke earlier to Zima Islam, a journalist with the Daily Star newspaper in Dhaka. She told me why the 84 year old Mohammed Yunus is the person the protesters wanted to see as head of an interim government. I think, first and foremost, there is the fact that he is nationally and internationally celebrated for his achievements.

And that is, I think, um, One of the major reasons why he was selected is that this person has proven that through what he has done in his life that he is a worthy person to lead this country. But beyond that, there's one other reason is that he isn't a political person. He has not been linked with any mainstream political parties as of yet.

And that was a big thing. Reason why people want him because we are [02:19:00] tired off, uh, the mainstream political parties and the way that they have been governing the country for the last many years. And last time we had a public uprising of this nature was in 1990, which Give rise to the parliamentary democracy that we currently have.

We want a fresh start. That's what we want. And India has reportedly evacuated all non essential staff and their families from its diplomatic missions in neighboring Bangladesh. That is after the weeks of unrest that forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to quit and flee. Reuters quoting two Indian government sources saying that all Indian diplomats remain in Bangladesh.

So let's get more on this from our correspondent Shalu Yadav in Delhi. Shalu, give us an update on this story.

Well, Claire, there were about 19, 000 Indians who resided in Bangladesh before all of this unfolded over the last three days. And the foreign minister of India shared yesterday that 9, 000 of those were [02:20:00] students and they came back to safety over the last few weeks. But he stopped short of sharing the details of any other evacuation plans for the rest of the Indians.

Uh, that remained in the country. He in fact went on to say that, uh, he expected the, uh, host, uh, government to, to look after the safety of, uh, Indian citizens and its, uh, diplomatic staff, uh, in the country. But we also, uh, knew that until yesterday, the Indian Air Force was on standby in the, uh, bordering state of Northeastern Indian state of Assam.

And now we're hearing that the, uh, that all the non essential, uh, diplomatic staff are staff along with their families, uh, have been evacuated from the embassy and the consulates. Uh, but the main diplomats, uh, they continue to, uh, remain in the country and the mission is reportedly, uh, functioning clear.

And is it possible to give us some insights into the reasoning behind this decision?

Well, you see, India, as well as Indians, are seen as pro Sheikh Hasina. And that was the reason why we saw this kind of anti India sentiment during the protests [02:21:00] in Bangladesh over the last few weeks, because, you know, the Bangladeshis felt that Indian government did not do enough to stop Sheikh Hasina's authoritarian regime and the atrocities that were committed by her government.

So, naturally, there are legitimate fears around the safety of Indian citizens. Uh, who remain in the country as a law and order situation is still, uh, out of hand. Uh, we've been hearing reports of mobs, uh, you know, out on Rampage, uh, not just attacking, uh, uh, the homes of Indians, but also the minority community of Hindus who lives there, uh, which is also, uh, of concern to the Indian government.

Uh, the foreign minister, ESJ Shankar yesterday also expressed, uh, concerns around the safety of the minority community. Uh, living in Bangladesh. There have been reports. So for their homes being targeted, uh, their businesses have been looted and their places of worship have been attacked. Uh, clear Bangladesh is a country where Islam is the state religion and Hindus living in the country are viewed as the supporters of the secular party of Awami League, the party of Sheikh Hasina.

And so [02:22:00] they've been, uh, you know, targeted by the Islamic radicals time and again. This is not the first time, but we're also hearing reports of the young Muslims who are It's coming forward and forming a, you know, chain of safety around Hindus homes, as well as their places of worship, before, you know, there's a let up in the situation on the roads in Bangladesh, you know, and until there is a semblance of safety in the streets of Bangladesh, the Hindus, they continue to remain, you know, inside their homes, and they're locked up, and you know, the Indian government is closely watching the situation, Claire.

DW's Shadow Yarov. Many thanks for that update. Let's get the very latest from Zima Islam, a journalist with the Daily Star newspaper joining us today from Dhaka. Welcome. So 84 year old Mohammed Yunus is really a towering figure of Bangladesh. He's been called in to head an interim government. Why was he the person that protesters wanted to see in this role?

[02:23:00] I think first and foremost, there is the fact that he is nationally and internationally celebrated for his achievements. And that is, I think, um, One of the major reasons why he was selected is that this person has proven that through what he has done in his life, that he is a worthy person to lead this country.

But beyond that, there's one other reason is that he isn't a political person. He has not been linked with any mainstream political parties as of yet. And that was a big. Reason why people want him because we are tired off, uh, the mainstream political parties and the way that they have been governing the country for the last many years.

And last time we had a public uprising of this nature was in 1990, which Give rise to the parliamentary democracy that we currently have. We want a fresh start. That's what we want.

Bear Market feat. Jeff Stein - Chapo Trap House - Air Date 8-5-24

The United States by imposing an economic blockade on roughly a [02:24:00] third of the world is putting that third of the world into the orbit of, you know, like bigger countries like China, Russia, who can provide some sort of banking or can provide what the, you know, U.

S. Dollar backed Global market would have in the past. This is like, is it like, is it, is it like pushing these countries closer together? And I guess like in your article, you have like the, the countries that are on the, under the highest level of sanctions, which are Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, and Cuba.

Cuba has been under economic sanctions since 1962. The list of countries on that, I just want to read for a second, if you don't mind, the number of countries on that list, because like, I think just hearing it out loud is indicative. And this is not, this is an incomplete list of the number of countries under some form of U.

S. sanctions. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, Yemen, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Burma, Libya, Sudan, Belarus, Lebanon, Mali, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. That is a partial list of the number of countries we're talking about here. And like, so in [02:25:00] terms of like, let's say Iran or Venezuela, like what is the intended consequences of the sanctions regimes placed on those countries?

And then what are some of the unintended consequences that you're now referring to that? Like you mentioned in, in, in your piece, I think like the, the sort of the, the, the money paragraph. Paul quote, you say an occasion of a 2011 Hollywood, sorry, a 2011 holiday party at the hotel Harrington in downtown Washington, where Adam Zubin, then director of the OFAC saying the song, every little thing we do is sanctions to the tune of every little thing she does with magic

by the police. And I'm just wondering, you know, you know, you know, you see. When they're reworking the lyrics to popular songs to glorify their, uh, behavior and, you know, uh, justify their existence. I got this tip like six months ago, and I emailed this guy. I was like, hey, I heard you sang this song at the holiday [02:26:00] party.

Is it true? Can you confirm or deny that you sang? Uh, a version of every little thing that she does is magic, uh, at this holiday party. And he just didn't respond for months. And I was like, you know, every time you publish a big story like this, like you're very nervous that like, there's going to be something that you like may have gotten wrong or someone told you the wrong thing or the kind of detail off.

And this guy hadn't responded. And I was like, okay, I'd really like to know if he's going to contest that he's saying this song. And like a few weeks before the story published, he emailed me and was like, um, no, that's incorrect. I was like, okay, what is it? And he was like, no, no, no. You got the lyrics wrong.

I was singing every little thing they want to do is sanction. Not every little thing they want to sanction. I was like, okay, are you saying the song? I've noticed a lot of, uh, they really love song parodies in American interventionist foreign policy. It really do. I'm all, yeah. Everyone always brings up bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran.

That's the McCain one. Yeah. McCain and Lindsey [02:27:00] Graham were doing that one. That that's awesome. I feel like like that would be a fun. Um, I don't know in the presidential debate if we can get the candidates doing doing versions of that, but like, so like at the top of the list here, you've got, you know, Russia, Iran and Venezuela like, and you know, U.

S. Policymakers are attempting to, you know, You know, without using our military directly enforce compliance in some way. What like, so like from their perspective, what is the intended effect of these sanctions? And now what are some of the knock on effects that are actually leading to a point where like us policymakers are beginning to worry that we've actually sanctioned too many countries?

One of my, one of my favorite. Things about Washington. I know you guys don't live here, but people are always like, wow, this food is really good. You know, it's like, it'll be like some food from some foreign country. And then it'll be like Afghanistan. It's like, oh, there's a new Venezuelan place. And like not realizing that the people they work for may have had a role in like [02:28:00] the new restaurant down the street that they're really excited about.

Yeah. That's how fat America is. Even foreign policy is GrubHub. Um, but I think Venezuela is like a really sad and striking example. And I think also like to get back to Felix's earlier question about like, when did this take off? I think it's partly the fault of the media, partly the fault of just people's attention spans where, you know, every American knew about what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Right. But like how many people know about the U. S. role in what happened in Venezuela? Like, I, I think it's probably, I mean, this is like totally made up. Like, I don't have any numbers behind this, but if you like, took the, even like my friends, like just average people, you were like, role did the U S have in Venezuela's economic collapse?

Like they probably wouldn't even know that much about like the Venezuela. Collapse generally, you know, and I think that like the way in which sanctions have [02:29:00] operated a lower profile than sending troops has enabled this whole thing to fly under the radar Venezuela. I mean, we did a whole separate story about this that came out right after our initial sanction story.

Um, we had, um, basically we broke the news that the Department of Homeland Security as Trump was tightening the sanctions on Venezuela, DHS was sending classified reports to the White House that were warning that the sanctions could exacerbate out migration in the region out out of Venezuela. And the mechanism there, of course, would be by impacting the economy broadly of Venezuela.

It would lead to more people having to flee the country and we've seen over 7, 000, 000 people leave Venezuela since the start of their economic collapse in 2014. Um, we reported, um, and I took some flack from a friend, uh, on the left who was, Disputing this conclusion. I think he's wrong about this. But, but what we [02:30:00] reported, it seems clear to me is that the economic collapse in Venezuela predates sort of the intense sanctions imposed by, by, by, by Trump starting in 2017 and through 2020.

That's really when we started squeezing their ability to issue debt on international markets, their ability to, um, to operate their number one source of revenue, which is Paravisa, the state owned oil company. Those sanctions really squeezed in 2017 through 2019, 2020, but to me, there's also very little doubt that those sanctions dramatically exacerbated this economic catastrophe, which I'm so staggered by, and even more staggered by the fact that there are so few people who know, seem to know about the extent of it.

We are talking about the single largest decline in, um, any economy in the modern era for any country not at war, and also larger than The economic contractions of some countries at war, including Yemen, Iraq in 2003 and Ukraine in [02:31:00] 2022. This is a 71 percent collapse of the Venezuelan economy, which is unfathomably large.

It's just enormous. And a lot of that seems genuinely to have started. I mean, you have inflation hitting over 600 percent before the sanctions are really tightened on Venezuela in 2016. But The sanctions, I mean, I talked to John Bolton, a top Trump White House advisor for this story, and he told me, like, the point of the sanctions was to hurt their economy and lead more people to leave in an attempt to get, uh, Maduro, the president to, to surrender and give up control.

Their strategy at the time was to basically say, we will target The Venezuelan economy in a way that leads the Venezuelan military to break ranks with Maduro and support why doe, um, who do you guys remember when Trump compared him to Beto O'Rourke? Yeah, yeah, that's what I knew was curtains for that guy.

Um, but that would be, that was, you know, what the conscious strategy was, was to make the economy of Venezuela [02:32:00] worse. Um, and our story reports that there were people at treasury at DHS were saying. If this doesn't work, you're gonna, you're gonna hurt a lot of innocent people and lo and behold, we now see a few years later that one of the top political issues, obviously, in the U.

S. is a surge of migrants across the U. S. Mexico border that didn't start until a few years after the sanctions bit. But this is, you know, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people. Of migrants from Venezuela fleeing an economic catastrophe that the U. S. had a role in exacerbating. So, yeah, I mean, that that's to me one of the most striking examples of an unintended consequence, and to state the obvious, Maduro is still in power.

But yeah, it seems to me, it seems like there is a self contradictory. core, uh, with sanctions where like the state department will, whoever they're sanctioning, they'll say, you know, whoever it is. And sometimes this is kind of true. Sometimes it's like a complete projection, but if we're sanctioning them, we're saying that [02:33:00] the leader in question is a psychotic madman and he will do anything to stay in power.

And he, he doesn't care about his own people. We love that line. He did X to his own people. Because it's fine to do it to people overseas, but God forbid you do it to your own people. But, um, okay, so we're going to put pressure on the economy. So that he'll be so ashamed that he'll step down. You just said he'll do anything to stay in power!

And I know, you know, you, obviously, like, they want either the military or the intelligence apparatus, depending on the country, to, you know, play a very active role in getting rid of that guy. But, that, how many times does that actually happen? Right, you're treating them as a rational actor, the guy that you're saying.

Um, I think to sort of, um, riff on what you're saying here, one of the things that like the academics who've studied this closely will point out that I think is really [02:34:00] interesting is that like the people who could be rational actors in some of these horrific situations, take Syria for instance, often those are the people that the sanctions hurt the most, right?

Like the, the, Rival power bases for authoritarian leaders are often sort of the middle class, the private sector, civil society, groups that operate independent of the authoritarian regime, and when you cut off economic activity broadly in a country, that sort of weakens the power of those leaders. Sort of parts of the society to do anything on their own on their own volition, and that creates a vacuum that tends to be filled by the authoritarian leader himself.

SECTION E - ACTIVISM

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And, finally, Section E - "Activism."

Trump gives shoutout to his ‘pitbulls,’ Georgia election officials he hopes will obstruct results - Deadline White House - Air Date 8-7-24

That state's election board approved a new rule having to do with Republicans latest attacks on our democracy, on our election systems, the [02:35:00] certification process. The rule establishes new criteria for officially confirming election results in the state of Georgia. The certifying happens, quote, After reasonable inquiry that the tabulation and canvassing of the election are complete and accurate and that the results are a true and accurate accounting of all votes cast in that election.

Now, the New York Times explains what that actually means quote through seemingly innocuous, though, seemingly innocuous. The language implies that local election officials are awarded a level of discretion. in the certification process, a suggestion that runs counter to decades of settled Georgia law, delineating how results are officially certified.

State law dictates that officials shall certify an election, making the process effectively ministerial. Disputes over alleged fraud or major errors are typically left to recounts in courts. Now, attacks on certifying election [02:36:00] results have intensified since the 2020 election, and it is clear the ex president is gearing up to have certification questions play a major role this time around.

Over the weekend, Donald Trump called out the three Republicans on the Georgia State Election Board by name, who ended up voting for this new rule. I don't know if you've heard, but the Georgia State Election Board is in a very positive way. This is a very positive thing, Marjorie. They're on fire. They're doing a great job.

Three members, Janice Johnson, Rick Jeffries, and Janelle King, three people are all pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory. They're fighting. Fighting, fighting who? Fighting for what? Entire state election is administered by Republicans at the state level. Republican governor, Republican secretary of [02:37:00] state.

So again, why is he calling them out? And what is he talking about? What are they fighting against? Georgia passed its voter integrity law in 2021 despite the findings by Republicans that there was no widespread voter fraud in the state of Georgia during the 2020 election. That Joe Biden had legitimately won.

They did three counts. So, shouldn't they be bragging about the security and supremacy of their system? This fight isn't limited to Georgia. This may be the ballgame for Donald Trump this time. Reporting in Rolling Stone last week, I identified nearly 70 pro Trump election conspiracy theorists across several swing states currently working as county election officials who have questioned the validity of elections or delayed or refused to certify results.

According to the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, since the 2020 election, members of state and local boards have voted against certification more than 20 times across eight states. Our friend and voting rights [02:38:00] attorney, Mark Elias, puts it like this, quote, with fewer than 100 days until the election, Republicans are building an election subversion war machine.

Protecting ourselves from that war machine is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. The aforementioned voting rights attorney, founder of the site Democracy Docket, Mark Elias is back, plus writer and editor for Protect Democracy, Amanda Carpenter's back, and New York Times reporter who has been reporting on this for years and specifically in a big piece with Jim Rutenberg in the last couple weeks, Nick Corsaniti is back.

Um, Nick, I've heard You've said this multiple times, but I think you've put the goings on in Georgia on the radar for us with your reporting there. Tell me what this board does to aid Trump in Trump's mind. He's calling them out at his rallies. Well, what they did yesterday is something that Trump and Republicans and his allies have been trying to do across the country, [02:39:00] and that is take the process of election certification, which, as we mentioned, and as you mentioned at the top here, is something that's always been ministerial.

And what that means is it's basically automatic. It's the law says shall, which means you must. Take election results. You, you know, you go through the normal process of checking them that you normally would, and then you certify them and pass them on. These county officials are not empowered by these ministerial duties to conduct their own investigations or insert their own opinions on the validity of these elections.

But a lot of Trump allies have been trying to do this across the country, as I reported a few weeks ago with my colleague Jim Bruttenberg, but they haven't been successful. They've been trying to do this through courts. That hasn't gone anywhere. They've been trying to do this through just having, uh, local officials refuse to certify and see if that gets them some precedent through a challenge.

That hasn't worked either. So what the State Board of Election did in Georgia yesterday was give that argument [02:40:00] its first sense of validity. You know, they are able to establish rules that local county officials all throughout Georgia are supposed to follow. They're not meant to be a lawmaking board. So it's highly possible that what they did yesterday is illegal and will be met with legal challenges, perhaps by some of the people also on on this panel, but they gave an opening to this idea that certification is indeed discretionary at the local level and what that could do if we were to rewind the clock.

Four years ago, when former President Trump was trying to overturn his loss in 2020. And, you know, he was calling election officials in Wayne County, Michigan County board members, excuse me, in Wayne County, Michigan, saying, please don't certify we were in an unknown about what that would do. Would that be able to forestall a loss?

Would that be able to change things? So they're trying to bring this back in an effort that, you know, to possibly short circuit a loss or anything like that. Bring this question of [02:41:00] certification into the realm of uncertainty. And that's what the Georgia State Board of Elections did yesterday. Mark Elias, I want to read what you wrote, but I, I just, for Trump, who's so obsessed with the size of his wins and, you know, wearing a superhero shirt when he survives COVID, it feels like this massive sort of.

telegraphing that he knows he's going to lose. Just talk about the tactic and what it telegraphs. Yeah, look, Donald Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by 3 million votes. You know, every time someone would say Donald Trump won in 2016 and this is because of the American people. No, he won in 2016 because of the electoral college.

In 2020, he lost the popular vote by 7 million votes. Okay. He and the Republicans are running out of runway. They are running out of way to count on the electoral college and a bunch of other structural advantages that they have to, to counteract the [02:42:00] fact that more Americans want to vote for Kamala Harris than want to vote for him.

So what they are left with is two things. Number one, making it harder to vote, making voter suppression, which you and I have talked about. And then the second, which you and I frankly have been talking about for years now, it feels shorter, but it's been for years, is they want to be able to cheat after the election.

So they want to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat. And the way they are going to cheat, the way they tried to cheat in 2020, when I litigated against them and beat Donald Trump 60 times, 60 times in court. The way they tried to cheat is through what ballots get counted and what ballots don't get counted, and there's no better way to do that than through the certification process, which as, as, um, I was pointing, as Nick pointed out, they tried to do in 2020 in, um, uh, in Wayne County, uh, Michigan in 2022, they tried it again.

They tried in Arizona. My law firm, we sued Cochise County because Cochise County wouldn't certify the election results. We sued Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, because they wouldn't certify the election results. [02:43:00] And ultimately, we were able to win those lawsuits because this is a ministerial act. This is a ceremonial function.

This is not a opportunity for these people to conduct their own independent investigations. And what it says about Donald Trump is that he knows he's going to lose the popular vote. He knows he's probably going to lose the election if it is free and fair, but he doesn't care. He revels in the fact that it is an authoritarian, he admires the dictators and he is willing to do, and he has built a campaign and a party that is willing to literally do anything.

If they were willing to storm the Capitol to prevent certification on January 6th, what do you think they would do in a county in Georgia? What is the protection against that, Mark? So I think it's a few things. First of all, it is the great work that Nick and you and others in the media do who, who call attention to this.

It's one of the reasons why I started Democracy Documents, why we've written on this topic, because it is important for people to know this is going on because for [02:44:00] some of these elected officials or appointed officials, they have to live in these communities. They have to look at their neighbors and it is harder for them to do that if they're, if what they are doing is public rather than in the darkness of night.

The second thing is that there's a big obligation here for the legal establishment, you know, uh, lawyers like me, lawyers like, uh, like many others, like at Protect Democracy, you know, have a big obligation here. Every lawyer who swears an oath. to the law and the constitution has an obligation to fight against this kind of activity.

The First Step to Fixing the Electoral College - Robert Reich - Air Date 5-9-23

Should someone else's vote count more than yours? For 80 percent of Americans, that's exactly what's happening. Their vote for president isn't nearly as valuable as the vote of someone in a so called swing state. Most of us live in states that have become so predictably Democratic or Republican that we're taken for granted by candidates.

Presidential elections now churn on the dwindling number of swing states that could go either way, which gives [02:45:00] voters in those states huge leverage. The 2020 election came down to just over 40, 000 votes, spread across just 30 states. three swing states. 2016 came down to fewer than 80, 000 votes, also across three states.

In those elections, the national popular vote wasn't nearly that close. In fact, in the last five elections, the winners of the popular vote A popular vote beat their opponents by an average of 5 million votes. The current state by state electoral college system of electing presidents is creating ever closer contests in an ever smaller number of closely divided states for elections that aren't really that close.

Not only that, but these razor thin swing state margins can invite post election recounts, audits, and lawsuits, even attempted coups. A losing candidate might be able to overturn 40, 000 votes with these [02:46:00] techniques. Overturning 5 million would be nearly impossible. The current system presents a growing threat to the peaceful transition of power.

It also strips us of our individual power. If you're a New York Republican or an Alabama Democrat, presidential candidates have little incentive to try and win your vote under the current system. They don't need broad, popular support as much as a mobilized base in a handful of swing states. Campaigning to a smaller and more radical base is also leading to uglier, more divisive campaigns.

And it's becoming more and more likely that candidates are elected president without winning the most votes nationwide. It's already happened. Now, abolishing the electoral college should be the ultimate goal, but this requires a constitutional amendment, which is almost impossible to pull off because it would need a two thirds vote by Congress, plus approval by three quarters of all state legislatures.

But [02:47:00] in the meantime, there is an alternative, and it starts with getting our states to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Now, don't let that mouthful put you off. It could save our democracy. This compact would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide without a constitutional amendment.

How does it work? The Constitution assigns each state a number of electors equal to its number of representatives and senators. As of now, the total number of electors is 538. So anyone who gets 270 or more of those electoral college votes becomes president. Article 2 of the Constitution allows state legislatures to award their electors any way they want.

So all that's needed is for states with a total of at least 270 electoral votes to agree to award All their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. [02:48:00] The movement to do this is already underway. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have joined the compact, agreeing that once enough states join, all their electoral votes will go to the popular vote winner.

Together, states in the compact have 195 electoral votes. So we just need a A few more states with at least 75 electors to join the compact and it's done. Popular vote laws have recently been introduced in Michigan and Minnesota, which if passed would bring the total to 220. Now naturally this plan will face legal challenges.

There are a lot of powerful interests who stand to benefit by maintaining the current system. But if we keep up the fight and get enough states on board, America will never again elect a president who loses the national popular vote. No longer would 80 percent of us be effectively disenfranchised from presidential campaigns.

[02:49:00] And a handful of votes in swing states would no longer determine the winner. If you want to know more or get involved, click the link below to read about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. If your state is not already a member, I urge you to contact your state Senators and Reps to get your state on board.

HERE IS THE PLAN TO REMOVE TRUMP, ELECT HARRIS. Steps 1, 2, and 3 - Rumble with Michael Moore - Air Date 8-5-24

So no more talk, no more yakety yak here. No more political rhetoric right now. We right now have only three months. From today before the election. That means that we must take, we all of us action every day. There's no way we're going to pull this off unless we do that. So I want to give you three quick things that you can do actually today.

All right, here's number one, go public, go public. You, yeah, I'm talking to you. I know you're not a public person, [02:50:00] but you have a few people in your life, right? You need to inspire them by proudly proclaiming that you're voting for Harris. And if we all do this, it may actually possibly save the country and change the world.

Again, it won't be the way you want it to be, but we're not voting for you. So let's get this right. Start it. So start by going public. And by the way, here's how you do it. You're online right now, right? Cause you're listening to me. Well, maybe you've got earbuds and you're on a walk. Okay. Well, when you get back home, but if you're on a computer right now, if you're on your phone, listening to me, then I want to ask you to do something right now.

I would like you to just pause this podcast and write a brief 20 word 50 word, maybe a hundred word, if you're like me, [02:51:00] your own thing that you call, let's just call it my declaration for president Kamala Harris. That's it. Just a note. And you're going to send it to 20 friends and family members. You need to tell them why, why you are probably not a political person necessarily.

And you don't usually send. Emails or texts like this, but today you've got to do it. You need to tell them why it's a new day in America for you. Why there's no more important job for any of us right now, from now until November 5th to stop Trump, to elect the first woman president of the United States.

Enough is enough. Make sure they feel that from you as you write these few sentences. Let them know we are not going back to the [02:52:00] 1950s. Our daughters will have complete control over their bodies and their lives. People in their 40s must no longer believe they will never own their own home. That is not the America I choose to live in.

Every American must have access to the care they need without having to consider the cost of it. Whether it's health care, dental care, mental care, elder care, child care, we need to stop living like this.

We are out of time. My friends invite these good people in your life that you're going to send this note to to join you in this, in this mission between now and November 5th. I [02:53:00] mean, seriously, and start a thread with them. Start a text thread with them. Right away. You can even name it. You can call it.

We're for Kamala, our Kamala crusade, hurry for Harris, whatever. I mean, just make up your own thing or have no name to it at all. Just start texting the, the 20 people, put them all on the thread. Most I think will join you. They love you. That's number one. Okay. You can do that right now. Number two today, make your own handmade yard sign. That's right. You're going to publicly declare you're for Harris. The usual ones, the campaign puts out because the campaign's only two weeks old. They're not ready yet, but they're printing them now. They say they'll be ready by mid to late August here.

We can't wait. [02:54:00] That's why you need to do one. You know, you need to get out a piece of cardboard and some magic markers. You're doing this because you're making the campaign yours. Now it's not just vice president Harris's or the party apparatus. It's you and me, you and me are going to make this happen.

You and me and a few million other Americans who are going to work their butts off, make this yard sign, make it festive, make it happy. Then go out and put it on your front lawn or, or if you live in an apartment building, put it in your apartment window, make a little ceremony out of it. You know, take the sign out in front of your house, bring your family out and invite a couple of neighbors, bring out your cats.

There's an unveiling ceremony taking place. Bring out a boom box, put on some Beyonce or Springsteen or whatever appropriate [02:55:00] music you think for the occasion. Because what you're doing. You're saving your democracy on your street, the very street you live on. And as soon as people in the neighborhood start to see this, you're going to find out friends you, you didn't know you had, will it upset a few people?

Yes. That's okay. You're not, you're not, you don't have an angry sign. You've seen the Trump signs as you've gone down the road, right? Take America back, make America great, make America great. Again, and again, and again, and again, big flags, angry flags using our American flag as a, as a way to be angry. No, that's not you.

You're going to put it out there. People are going to love you for it. And as soon as we get some bumper stickers, you're going to get a bumper sticker on your laptop and your car and your backpack because we have no [02:56:00] time to lose. Okay. So number one, right? First thing you're going to do. Is right to your 20 friends and family and tell them we're all in for Harris and we all need to get to work right now and sign up for this thing with Michael Moore because he's going to be sending us things for the campaign tool kit here.

Number two, you're going to go make a yard sign with your kids right now or make it by yourself. You know, I've already made mine. It's pretty bad. The nuns gave me a D in art. Unfair. I thought every year I thought unfair, but that's okay. They were good to me in many other ways. Um, that's number two, the yard sign.

Number three, you need to find out where the offices in your town, your neighborhood, uh, for the local Democrats, the local [02:57:00] democratic, uh, organization. Find out where that is. You probably can find it. Google it. And you need to go there today. Even if you don't have the time, just at least stop by there.

Pull up, pull in, walk into the place and announce yourself. There won't be Trumpets or anything just so when you announce yourself, you know, don't do it like you're, you know, Prince William or King Charles, you need to walk into that office and just say, put me to work. Now don't be too disappointed if they look at you like, who is this crazy person?

What are you talking about? Put you to work. We don't even know what we're doing here yet. That's okay. It's all early. All right. Um, but. Don't wait for them to say anything. Just go pick up a broom. There's a broom over there in the corner. Grab the broom. Start sweeping the place. Offer to make some calls.

Offer to make [02:58:00] some coffee. Make more yard signs. You already started that an hour ago. You're a pro at it now. I mean, trust me, my friends, just the doing the physical act of anything, something, whatever, it will feel exhilarating to you. Especially because you know that millions of others across the country right now are doing the same thing.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at (202)999-39912, or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from Mother Jones, the Lawfare Podcast, Democracy Nerd, the Al Franken Podcast, Farron Balanced, the BradCast, Fresh Air, the Washington Post, Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast. Amanpour, [02:59:00] DW news, Chapo Traphouse, Deadline, White House, Robert Reich, and Rumble with Michael Moore. Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Aaron Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet. Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work, helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships.

You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.com/Support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast App. Membership is how you get instant access to our impressively good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with the link to join our Discord community where you can also continue the discussion.

[03:00:00] So coming to you from far outside, the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left Podcast coming to you twice weekly thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.com.

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#1647 How to Eliminate Homelessness While Maintaining Our Humanity (Transcript)

Posted by · August 06, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 8/6/2024

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of the Left podcast. After the recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed governments to constitutionally purge unhoused people from public spaces, we are getting an immediate lesson in the difference between addressing systemic problems with solutions and using the police to clean up after governments that fail to act.

Sources providing our Top Takes in about 45 minutes today includes Today, Explained, The Majority Report, Democracy Now!, Citations Needed, Factually!, with Adam Conover, Morning Joe, and The Thom Hartmann Program.

Then, in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more on four topics:

Section A: The Supreme Court;

Section B: Demonization;

Section C: The Digitalization of Renting; and

Section D: Solutions.

Criminalizing homelessness - Today, Explained - Air Date 7-2-24

STEVEN MAZIE [THE ECONOMIST]: The decision is called City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. And Grants Pass is a city in [00:01:00] Oregon of about 38,000 people, about 600 of whom are homeless on any given day.

<CLIP> KPTV FOX 12 Oregon

Reporter: The City of Grants Pass claims it does not have enough space and shelters for their homeless population at the same time its laws impose civil penalties including fines on people sleeping outside on public property. If the fines are not paid they can become criminal charges

STEVEN MAZIE [THE ECONOMIST]: So some homeless people filed a lawsuit saying this is unconstitutional. And it is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments. You're punishing us as homeless people. You're punishing homelessness, which, under a decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from a few years back, was determined to be unconstitutional. It's the largest of the circuits in the federal appellate court system. And so this is a [00:02:00] decision that applied to all the western states, which happened to be the states that have among the worst homelessness crises in in the country.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: And so what happened here in this case, in Grants Pass?

STEVEN MAZIE [THE ECONOMIST]: There have been a number of claims since 2018 from homeless people living in various places on the West Coast, saying these ordinances are unconstitutional under the 2018 ruling.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: hmm

STEVEN MAZIE [THE ECONOMIST]: And this is one example that you can't ban public sleeping. And this is a decision from the Ninth Circuit that got up to the federal Supreme Court and what the court decided, 6 to 3, with all six conservatives on one side and the three liberal justices on the other, they decided that homeless people in Grants Pass do not have a constitutional claim, that the Eighth Amendment does not protect them from ordinances that criminalize [00:03:00] sleeping in public or in public parks.

<CLIP> KGW News

Anchor: the US Supreme court has sided with Grants Pass Oregon.

ABC7 News Bay Area

the high court’s decision is the most significant ruling on the issue in decades

<CLIP> KGW News

and it comes as cities in the west like Portland, Seattle and San Francisco have struggled to manage tent and outdoor encampments.

STEVEN MAZIE [THE ECONOMIST]: And basically, this gives cities everywhere in the West and across the country more tools at their disposal to address the homelessness crisis, but which the liberal justices thought was unconscionable.

<CLIP> Forbes Breaking News, oral arguments in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson

Elena Kagan: sleeping is a biological necessity, it’s sort of like breathing. I mean, you could say breathing is conduct too. But presumably you would not think that it’s okay to criminalize breathing in public.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: So just to review, like before this case, if you were an unhoused person in the West, you had a pretty good legal case to say you can't criminalize me sleeping in public. But now it's going [00:04:00] to be a lot easier for cities and states around the country to criminalize camping outside. Can you tell me about the majority opinion? Who wrote it and how did they come to this opinion?

STEVEN MAZIE [THE ECONOMIST]: The majority opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was the first of Donald Trump's justices, who he nominated to the court when he first got into office. And Gorsuch begins by acknowledging that homelessness is a crisis, especially in the West. He quotes someone who says it's the defining public health and safety crisis of the day. But then he says, you know, it's not just a crisis for homeless people. It's a crisis for everyone. And that large public encampments bring with them a lot of crime and disease and drugs. And it's not the role of the Supreme Court to hamper the efforts of cities to try to address that crisis.

<CLIP>KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco

Anchor: He said that this is essentially a matter of local [00:05:00] control. Saying in part quote “a handful of federal judges can’t begin to match the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding how best to handle a pressing social question like homelessness” end quote.

STEVEN MAZIE [THE ECONOMIST]: The basic reasoning that Gorsuch summoned in this case is that the Eighth Amendment, when it bans cruel and unusual punishment, it's only banning certain methods or kinds of punishment. So he gives the examples of things like disembowelment and public dissection and burning people alive. Right. These are cruel and unusual kinds of punishment that the Eighth Amendment prohibits. So those things unconstitutional, but imposing civil fines on people for sleeping in public or ordering people to stay out of public parks. Those, he said, are not terrible. They are not painful. They are not cruel or unusual. He also makes a [00:06:00] point that the only argument on the other side involves. A position that criminalizing someone's status is unconstitutional. And there is one Supreme Court case that suggests that. But he says in this case, homeless people are not being criminalized as people. They're being criminalized for the things they do, which is sleeping in public with a blanket on them or with a pillow under their head. And then he says this: “it makes no difference whether the defendant is homeless, a backpacker on vacation, passing through town, or a student who abandons his dorm room to camp out in protest on the lawn of a municipal building.”

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Interesting. So basically, the unhoused people in this case, we're trying to say, look, you're criminalizing my status as a homeless person. You can't do that. But Gorsuch is basically saying, no, it's not - it's not criminalizing a status. It's criminalizing [00:07:00] the action of camping.

Sotomayor TORCHES Oregon Town Trying To Ban Homeless People - The Majority Report - Air Date 4-23-24

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Regardless, here is Sotomayor, in oral arguments yesterday, expressing that skepticism, questioning the attorney for Grants Pass, Theane Evangelis, Theeanne, and I don't know how to say her name, but, um, this is what Sotomayor was asking about.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: You're assuming it's there. It prohibits you criminalizing homelessness, right? So what you do is say only homeless people who sleep outdoors will be arrested. That's the testimony of your chief of police, two or three officers, which is, if you read the crime, It's only stopping you from sleeping in public if you, for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live. And the police officers testified that that means that if a stargazer wants to take [00:08:00] a blanket or a sleeping bag out at night to watch the stars and falls asleep, you don't arrest them. You don't arrest babies who have blankets over them. You don't arrest people who are sleeping on the beach, as I tend to do if I've been there a while. You only arrest people who don't have a second home. Is that correct?

THEANE EVANGELIS: Well...

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Who don't have a home.

THEANE EVANGELIS: No, these laws are generally applicable. They apply to...

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: That's what you want to say. Give me one example, because your police officers couldn't, and they explicitly said if someone has another home, has a home, and is out there and happens to fall asleep, they won't be arrested. Fall asleep with something on them.

THEANE EVANGELIS: Well, joint appendix page 98 is one example of a citation issued to a person with a home address. But more importantly, I think what we're getting at here is that these laws [00:09:00] regulate conduct of everyone. There's nothing in the law that criminalizes homelessness. I really...

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: That's what, that's what you say, but if I look at the record and see differently...

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, I mean, she makes a very compelling point there, which is essentially that if you are clearly of a class that has a home and has private property or is a renter, you're like Sotomayor and you take a nap on the beach, or even, say, you're sunbathing in a public park in the summer and you fall asleep—I've done that—then am I going to get arrested in the same way that the person who's showing that they are visibly unhoused would be? Of course not. And the fact that this lawyer was trying to assert that there wasn't a double standard in this instance is ridiculous.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: To be coy. They're being coy. This is a lock up homeless people bill.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It is.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Own it.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Catfish James writes in: "Small correction on Grants Pass v. Johnson: there is a private homeless shelter there that requires church attendance and labor to use it."

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Oh, that's wonderful. It requires [00:10:00] church attendance? Beautiful.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: That's why I didn't really include it because it's also, uh, categorized as a religious "transitional housing program". I wouldn't categorize that as a shelter, to be honest with you.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: I mean, George Orwell wrote, he did Down and Out in Paris and London, where he went around as he called at the time "a tramp", and went through the humiliation that unhoused people go through in religious contexts, needing to, like, put up with just bullshit to get fed.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Well, I mean, right, exactly. It's, you have to show fealty to the religion. You have to basically be docile, and that's not a way to treat a human being. I mean, it's humiliating, and that's the kind of thing that... and there was also all these hoops to jump through and requirements often for testing ... first, the number one thing we need to be focused on is alleviating the exacerbating factor here, which is being unhoused, contributing to [00:11:00] mental health episodes tangibly, as well as active addiction, and then you can work on those issues and getting people back up on their feet. But, Mark Joseph Stern, as always, has a great write up in Slate and explains further what the Supreme Court is looking at here. "Since 2018, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the Constitution prohibits the prosecution of indigent people who sleep in public places when there is no available shelter space." That's the case that I referenced earlier in the Ninth Circuit. "Grants Pass gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn that rule and in the process roll back long standing limitations on cruel and unusual punishment. A majority of the court seemed inclined to do so based in part on a suspicion that the Ninth Circuit somehow is exacerbating homelessness," which, by the way, the implicit argument here—this is me editorializing—is [00:12:00] that it's incentivizing it? Oh, because you say people can sleep in public under a blanket, they're gonna all want to.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: This is money, too, to prison systems.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yes. Yes. And Mark says, "Let's be clear, it isn't. And abolishing the Ninth Circuit's now ruling will do nothing to help people who lack housing or the communities in which they reside. The appeals court decision was rooted in the 1962 Supreme Court case called Robinson v. California. In Robinson, the high court struck down a California law that criminalized addiction to narcotics. The disease of addiction, the majority reasoned, constituted a status that the government may not penalize under the 8th and 14th Amendments, which proscribed states from imposing cruel and unusual punishments. The act of using narcotics could, of course, be prosecuted, but a person's mere condition as a drug addict could not. Based on this precedent, the 9th Circuit ruled that homelessness, like addiction, is a status that Grants Pass could not lawfully punish. And sleep, far beyond being a voluntary act like narcotics [00:13:00] use, is a basic human need that unhoused people literally cannot live without".

So, there's the second layer there that should undergird this reasoning and basically say that Robinson applies and that the Ninth Circuit ruling should stand, because sleeping is not in the same legal status as narcotics use, which is illegal. But addiction's not illegal. Homelessness is not illegal. The second standard beneath that should also, again, make this case stronger, but that's not seemingly what the conservative justices are alluding to.

"Advocates for homeless people were alarmed when the Supreme Court agreed to review the appeals court's decision, given the conservative majority's extreme hostility towards the Eighth Amendment. SCOTUS has torn down pretty much every safeguard against cruel and unusual punishment that it has come across, eviscerating the principle that the amendment enshrines evolving standards of decency into constitutional law. The real question in Grants Pass then is not whether the Supreme Court will side with the town. It will". This is [00:14:00] what Mark says. "The question is how much damage it will do to the 8th Amendment along the way."

So, Elena Kagan, Supreme Court justice also made the case that I was just making an oral arguments about how sleeping is not something that's voluntary or an action that you can take that should be deemed a criminal criminal activity. But to bring it back to what I said before, this is a way to further. push people in a cycle of poverty and into the prison industrial complex where they're going to have to pay fines over and over again for their own poverty and the conditions that society has set for them.

MATT LECH - PRODUCER, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And, yeah, I mean, I think Luke O'Neill's talked about this with regards to locking up, the police locking up people in Chicago. Like, if you lock up somebody from downtown Chicago, and they are transported to, like, a suburban containment facility, prison, that not [00:15:00] only means money to that facility, basically for caging humans, but also counts for them on the census. And I imagine this would probably play the exact same way, that, Okay, we sort out all the developers who want the police to remove homeless people, we get more money for prisons and count it towards the [unitelligible] on the sentence. Yeah, this is all part of the system.

Biden Proposes Major SCOTUS Reforms, Including Ending Lifetime Appointments & Enforcing Ethics Code - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-30-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: President Biden has laid out his plans to reform the U.S. Supreme Court, calling for 18-year term limits, an enforceable code of ethics and an end to presidential immunity. Biden’s plan comes a month after the Supreme Court granted former President Donald Trump broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed in office. Biden stopped short of calling for expanding the court. He outlined his plan Monday at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, where he commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I’m calling for a constitutional amendment, called [00:16:00] No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It holds — I mean this sincerely. It holds that there’s no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our founders’ belief that the president must answer to the law, that the president is accountable for the exercise of the great power of the presidency. We’re a nation of laws, not kings and dictators. …

The second thing I’m asking for is we’ve had term limits for presidents of the United States for nearly 75 years, after the Truman administration. And I believe we should have term limits for the Supreme Court justices in the United dates, as well. …

Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: [00:17:00] That was President Biden speaking Monday. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson responded by accusing Biden of attempting to radically overhaul the Supreme Court. The House speaker said the proposals will be dead on arrival in the House.

We’re joined right now in Washington, D.C., by Jennifer Ahearn, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Judiciary Program.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jennifer. Why don’t you start out by assessing President Biden’s proposals that he made yesterday in Texas as he celebrated the Civil Rights Act, and also how much chance they have of getting passed, now that we hear what the House speaker has to say?

JENNIFER AHEARN: Good morning, Amy. Thank you so much for having us. It’s great to join you.

I would say this is a pretty big deal for those of us who care about the Supreme Court. President Biden, I think, is somebody who sees himself as an institutionalist [00:18:00] and a champion of the importance of the rule of law and the role of the Supreme Court in upholding the rule of law. And so, if he believes that these kinds of changes are necessary, I think the public already believes this. And so, that he has come along and is lending his voice to this call is, I think, critically important for this moving forward.

I, you know, understand Speaker Johnson’s view, and I understand that this — that means this is perhaps a longer-term project that we are engaged in. And I think, politically, we have a ways to go before the views of the people and the commonsense reforms of these kinds can actually make their way through the Washington process. But I think this is a really important moment in that long process. And we’re just really grateful that the president has chosen this as one of the things to speak out on in his last hundred days in office.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Jennifer, [00:19:00] the commission that President Biden established on Supreme Court reform submitted its report in late 2021. That’s almost three years ago. Why did you think it took him so long to actually pursue some recommendations?

JENNIFER AHEARN: Well, I mean, actually, right, he specifically asked the commission not to give him recommendations, so it really didn’t give him even that list, which I think really goes to show sort of how much movement there has been in his thinking on this in the last few years, right? That he didn’t even want to consider recommendations in those early years of his administration. And so, I think that that is a sign of how far his thinking has come and how far, you know, more broadly, the public’s thinking has come on this issue. And so, I think that that really is why, I think, we are where we are today.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what about this proposed 18-year term limit? How would that [00:20:00] affect the court’s stability and continuity, if it were enacted?

JENNIFER AHEARN: I think it would put the court on a more sustainable path in terms of how it relates to the public and to public support for and views of the court’s legitimacy. It’s worth remembering that, really, the Supreme Court has nothing other than its legitimacy, right? There’s no — it has no army. It has no power of the purse. You know, in our constitutional system, the court’s legitimacy and the respect that we, as a country, have for it is really all it has. And so, something like term limits, that would bring the court more in line in a very long-term, sustainable kind of way with where the public is and where — and with the issues of the day, I think, is really important to the court’s overall legitimacy and putting it on that path.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, Jennifer, if you could more specifically address the points that [00:21:00] Biden is making? What would an 18-year term look like? And if there was an 18-year term, who would be off the court right now?

JENNIFER AHEARN: So, the longest-serving members of the court at the moment are Justice Thomas, Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. So, depending on exactly how you implement a reform like this — and there are lots of different ways to do it — you would probably see those folks rotating off first on the list.

You know, I would also say, in general, if you look at, really, big picture, what would this do, remember that the president, obviously, is the one who nominates Supreme Court justices, and so you would see the — whatever swings there are on the court, in terms of partisan who — the partisan who appointed the justice, that would more closely track how presidential elections have gone over time. And that’s really not what we see on the court [00:22:00] right now. We see the appointees from President Donald Trump having, you know, a huge — having appointed three Supreme Court nominees, which is more than any other president. So, you would see some of that smoothing out over time.

The New York Times also had a graphic this morning that showed that if term limits had been in effect in the past, we would see a 6-3 liberal majority at the moment as opposed to the 6-3 conservative majority that we currently see. So, that’s sort of how you might want to think of it generally. And, obviously, the specifics depend a little bit on how you actually put this into place.

News Brief Media, Billionaires' Attacks on Homeless People May Pay Off Big at Supreme Court - Citations Needed - Air Date 3-6-24

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: I want to talk a bit about, if you could, media narratives around this. This is a media narrative podcast. There hasn't been a lot of coverage of this particular issue. For the most part, it's either, kind of, lurid, shocking tabloid local news stuff centering one's homelessness status in a headline. You know, 'homelessness person' [sic] stabbed so and so, or 'homelessness person' [sic] is caught doing such and such. But of course, we never see headlines saying 'house person' murders wife or 'house person' is arrested for, you know, [00:23:00] securities fraud, right?

So, it's either inciting violence, or it's this maybe, occasionally 10%, you'll kind of get this liberal hand wringing kind of personal interest stuff. Which is fine. I have no problem with that. But generally speaking, as we've covered on the show, there's a lot of demagoguery and misinformation around this particular topic. And like you said, it is framed in this kind of moral context as if it's just millions of people who are just either drug-addled zombies or just lazy. There's been a concerted effort fueled by VC money, real estate interests, and right wing and, frankly, Democratic politicians, I think we would be remiss not to point out where it's gotten more hardcore lately.

So, in the last two years, there's been an effort by the Miami City Council—it was voted on, but I think it was later overturned only because of, I think NIMBY concerns—they wanted to turn an Island off the coast of Florida into a homeless camp, effectively. And then there was an op-ed by former NBA all-star Bill Walton advocating a camp in the middle of the California desert for homeless people. Ron DeSantis now has just revealed a plan to build camps for homeless people.

Now, what they'll say is, is they'll say—and this I think is kind of a clever [00:24:00] marketing thing that I want to get your take on—they'll say, Oh, it's voluntary. But then when you read the fine print and you realize everywhere that isn't the camp, it's illegal for them to sleep in, by pain of jail or police abuse, and when anywhere but the camp is illegal to exist in, by definition, or to sleep in in any meaningful way, like you said, with the blanket or pillow, then it's no longer voluntary, then it is actually definitionally an internment camp.

So, if you could, I want you to talk about what these kind of fringe solutions—"solutions"—which, again, are always kind of laundered through this voluntary choice rhetoric, even though we all know that's bullshit, talk about the more extreme end of the spectrum, if you could, and how even like, I think, 10 years ago, this wasn't really even imaginable that as the housing crisis gets more acute and we see more visible poverty, the solutions really seem like they're becoming more overtly cruel and fascistic.

JESSE RABINOWITZ: Yeah, I want to say maybe three things. One is to note that Donald Trump is running explicitly on a campaign of throwing people experiencing homelessness into [00:25:00] internment camps. And that is terrifying. I don't think the things that you're talking about, these internment camp strategies, are fringe anymore. Cities and states across the country have passed legislation to do this. It's largely being promoted by the Cicero Institute, which is funded and backed by tech fund billionaire Joe Lonsdale. And this template legislation has generally four components. One is, camping is illegal. One is the creation of internment camps. So, if you do sleep outside, the only place you can sleep is an internment camp, which is not voluntary. Another part is the gutting of housing that ends homelessness. So, actually taking money away from proven solutions and homelessness. And the fourth component is the requirement that police are involved in homeless outreach, not to address people's needs, but to enforce anti-camping laws.

So, those components are extreme. I want to [00:26:00] talk about Kentucky, who's working on a more extreme version of this, that in addition to those clauses would enable people to enact 'Stand Your Ground' laws if there is a homeless person that's staying on your property. You could use force and even deadly force to remove a person experiencing homelessness from your property.

So, all of these things are extreme, but that is just unfathomable. And Arizona is working on—you know, I think states are trying to outdo each other—Arizona added a new provision that says if there's a hotel for people experiencing homelessness, or if there's a hotel where people are staying and also being used as shelter for people experiencing homelessness, you have to put a giant sign outside that says homeless people are staying here.

This continual desire to demonize and ostracize people experiencing homelessness is harmful. It's dangerous, and, most importantly, doesn't end homelessness.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Well, that's the issue, right? Because, like, this reminds me so much of this, like, [00:27:00] so called border crisis panic, where it's like the existence of unwanted humans is seen as this thing that just kind of fell from the sky that has no root cause. It has no origin. It has no social solutions or humane solutions, that every solution we have is batons, bars and cages, right? Sort of it's cops and cages, but all the way down, no matter what. And you see this often when it comes to people talking about alternative solutions. So, your organization obviously tries to present that. And in many ways, maybe it's a bit of a, you know, you're kind of yelling into the void because, of course, the media largely presents this kind of anodyne, you know, it's like all the euphemisms we get, right?—secure the border, tighten the border—that obscure the human cost, just like cracking down homeless camp sweeps.

These anodyne terms necessarily make it look like these are kind of harm-free measures. And the human face is just completely obscured or diminished. I want to ask you from the advocacy work you do, obviously, there's a bunch of people working on housing solutions that are not punitive, obviously, on a state level, especially I know New York has [00:28:00] seen great strides or have made an effort. I know Washington, D. C. has tried to do that and obviously I'll work on that, and that has to sort of be an alternative to this punitive approach. So, from y'all's perspective, what do you find is the general, just talking to lawmakers in the public, what do you think is the kind of biggest misinformation or misconception that people have about the cops and cages approach versus like, Yes, this is not a moral criminal problem, it is a problem of not having sufficient housing.

JESSE RABINOWITZ: I think the biggest misconception that folks have is that homelessness is a choice and homelessness is an individual failing. But in reality, homelessness is caused by housing that's too expensive and wages aren't enough. But by continuing to individualize the problem, people think there are individual solutions, like a jail cell or punishment or a courtroom.

But realistically, we have to get to the root of this. And the root of this is that Americans can't afford to pay rent. I think Miami is a really [00:29:00] interesting counterexample to Grants Pass. Miami, until recently, was under a consent decree that basically said they couldn't criminalize people experiencing homelessness if there was no shelter available. So, instead of responding with jail cells, Miami was forced to respond with more housing and more shelters, and they reduced homelessness by half. This shows that another way to address homelessness is possible.

It's so disappointing to watch our elected officials, Democrats and Republicans, throw up their hands and say, There's nothing we can do, the only thing we can do is arrest people, when in reality, there's so much they can do. We saw during the pandemic that essentially overnight cities opened up hotels to house homeless folks. There's no reason we can't do that now, except we lack the political will to do so. We know that when folks are connected to housing and services, [00:30:00] they don't live outside anymore. And in DC, where I'm based, 95% of people experiencing homelessness in permanent supportive housing stay housed after their first year. This idea that housing doesn't work is simply not true.

Myths about Homeless People with Dr. Margot Kushel - Factually! - Air Date 5-8-24

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: But there is this myth out there that people don't want housing and, um, if that person exists, I haven't been able to find them. You know, like, housing, a house, you know, you probably don't need permission in your house to leave or come, you probably don't have like random strangers walking in, right? You get to do kind of what you want to do. Like, no one is door knocking on your house to say, did you, I don't know, open a can of beer, you know, they don't do that in my house. They don't come and ask me. And so once you offer that, everyone says, yes.

We did this other study a number of years ago in Santa Clara County. So most, this is like where Silicon Valley is, most expensive real estate market in the country, I [00:31:00] think. And, we basically helped them find about 300 people who were the most, um, or maybe it was 400 people, sorry, 400 people who were like the most challenging folks on their streets in the county. These were folks who were like in and out of jail, the hospital, the psych, emergency room, you know, really causing a lot of chaos. We basically found them and we were like, you know, we're not even going to ask them if they want housing because we're going to see them. Because the reason they're in this group is like, they're getting arrested or getting pulled into the ER all the time. So, we just kind of put a note in their chart, like we flagged their police record and everything. And we're like, if they show up, when you're ready to discharge them, can you give us a call?

So, the deal was that they had to give us a call. And we had enough units of housing for about half of them. And so we showed up at about seven in the morning and I'm actually not kidding. We literally showed up and we're like, Hi we know you've been up all night, like in the ER, you probably don't feel that hot and, um, you never met me before, but if you sign these [00:32:00] 20 pieces of paper, um, we'll give you a coin flip, a 50/50 chance of getting into housing. We approached 426 people. Two said, I'm really tired. I can't talk to you. Fair enough. One was eligible and said no. Every other person, 423 people were like 50/50 chance and all I have to do is like sign up and sign up to be in the study? Absolutely.

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Wow.

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: We flipped the coin. The people who got into housing by the time we finished, 91% of them had been housed at the beginning, 86% when we published our study had been housed. These are like the "toughest to house" people, like lots of psychiatric disease, lots of [unintelligible]. And then once they got housed, they stayed housed. We followed them for seven years and over 90% of the nights on average, they were housed for the next seven years.

So, these were the folks who are like the public is most freaked out about, you know, these are folks who were in the psychiatric emergency department, you know, 10 times a [00:33:00] year, in jail five times a year, you know, in the hospital four times a year, whatever. Like, really, really folks who are struggling mightily. They all were like, sign me up.

So, this idea that people don't want housing, it's just not true. And what we found in the state study is people desperately want housing—desperately—but there were just so many things. First of all, they couldn't afford it. They were like, you know, when we asked them about the barriers to housing, it was a little bit of a hard question to ask them because they were like, looked at us like everyone sort of looked at us. Like, are you a literal idiot? The rent is too damn high. Like, they were literally like, what do you think? This apartment I can find is $1,500 a month and I only have....

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Yeah. why don't I have a Rolls Royce either, you know?

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: Yeah, right! Exactly. They were literally like... my poor staff would like text me and they're like, I feel kind of like an idiot to ask [00:34:00] this question. And people are treating me like I'm really dumb. But there are all these other reasons. Like people talked about, almost half of people talked about the discrimination they experienced in the rental housing markets. They're like, you try to go looking for housing if you look like me, they would say. You know, lots of discrimination, lots of people not having the paperwork. They're like, have you ever tried to rent a house where you have no clean clothes and no proof that you exist? Like, how are you supposed to rent a house? So, lots and lots of barriers.

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: And in terms of why people are on the street, in terms of those barriers, we almost should have tackled this earlier because it's one of the biggest things that people say about folks who are homeless, is that they are either profoundly psychiatrically disturbed, or that they are addicted to drugs. And that's why they ended up on the streets is because of drug addiction. How much did you find that was true? How much did that cause their problems? How much do those problems exist and how much were they caused by homelessness itself?

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: Yeah, well, to [00:35:00] answer that, I'm going to actually, is it okay if I start with like a little analogy that I feel like helps explain this?

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: I would love an analogy. I live for them.

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: You live for them, awesome! So, my good friend Greg Colburn wrote this, with Clayton Alden, this amazing book called Homelessness is a Housing Problem. I was like, joke, like, you gotta love a book who's like, entire thesis—it's a great book, you should read it—but also the title sort of tells you the whole story, right? Homelessness is a housing problem. And they use this analogy that I've used a lot. They've used, it's a great analogy, which is analogy of musical chairs. So, you imagine like a kid's birthday party and 10 kids show up and there are 10 chairs and the adults plays music and the kids walk around. Adult pulls away a chair, turns off the music, and the kids scramble for the remaining chairs. So, you do a thought experiment, and little Tommy, night before, sprains his ankle at a soccer game. And Tommy shows up on crutches, he doesn't really know how to use and he, you know, shows up at the birthday party and they're playing this game. If you're a betting man, and they're like, who is still going to be [00:36:00] standing when there are only nine chairs? I think we would all put our money on Tommy, right?, who's like not going to be able to like dive bomb into the remaining chairs. Right?

But what if you ask a different question? What if you asked a question like, why is there a kid standing? Well, duh, there's a kid standing because you've got nine chairs and ten kids and either two kids are sitting in each other's lap or there's a kid who's standing, right? So, the same holds true for homelessness. Like in California, right now, we have 24 units of housing for every 100 extremely low income households. Extremely low income household are basically any household that makes less than 30% of the median income for the area they live in. So, that's like a higher income in L.A. than it is in Fresno, but you get the idea. And available and affordable means that it exists, it's habitable, it's not occupied by someone who makes more money, and that they can afford it on less than 30% of their income, 'cause if you're that poor and you pay more than 30% of your income, you can't really pay for it. And so the idea is [00:37:00] that we only have 24 units for every a hundred households. We're a million units short. We basically are playing this giant cruel game of musical chairs, except we have 24 seats and 100 kids.

So, a lot of kids are sitting on top of each other and then we have a lot who are standing. It is not a surprise that who's left standing are often people with behavioral—we call in the medical field—behavioral health disabilities, either mental health problems or substance use problems, because those are disabilities that kind of interfere with your function, interfere with your social relationships. You know, I'm a physician. Like, I don't think about those as moral failings. I mean, in the same way where I don't think having cancer or a heart attack or inflammatory bowel disease, like those are not moral failings, they're just, you know, complex problems that your interactions of like your genes and your luck and your environment. So, anyway, [00:38:00] yes, people who experience homelessness are much more likely to have substance use and mental health problems in the overall population. No, that is not why we have so much homelessness in California.

White House takes new action to lower housing costs - Morning Joe - Air Date 7-16-24

MIKA BRZEZINSKI - CO-HOST, MORNING JOE: Joe Biden will be in Las Vegas today to announce new action to lower housing costs across the country. According to a fact sheet obtained by NBC News, the action will include calls for Congress to pass a law requiring landlords to cap rent increases at 5 percent or risk loslng out on federal tax breaks

JOE SCARBOROUGH - CO-HOST, MORNING JOE: With us now, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Biden, Marcia Fudge. Today, she's officially joining the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign as a national co chair.

Thank you so much for being with us. Obviously, the affordability of housing is one of the greatest...

MIKA BRZEZINSKI - CO-HOST, MORNING JOE: Huge issue.

...greatest challenges facing, I was going to say young Americans, but young and old Americans alike.

MARCIA FUDGE: It absolutely is. And thank [00:39:00] you for having me this morning. I'm happy to be a part of the team. Um, housing is a crisis in this country and it has been for some time. I'm really excited about the fact that the President is announcing this in Las Vegas, where the crisis is particularly acute. Housing prices, especially rents, are going up 10-20% annually, and it is making it such that we have more and more people who need assistance, more and more people being pushed to the streets. I think that the president is saying to this country, I hear you. I see the problem. I know the problem, and I'm gonna do everything I can to solve the problem. And I'm really excited about what can happen when we try to make sure that every American has decent and safe housing and affordable housing. That's what today is about.

WILLY GEIST - CO-HOST, MORNING JOE: Secretary Fudge. Good morning. Uh, you obviously have firsthand experience in this and you've witnessed it from the inside as Secretary of HUD. What are the big challenges from the inside that you saw? You might have come in with an idea about how you were going to fix things. What are the challenges that face [00:40:00] anyone looking for housing, expensive, less expensive or otherwise in this country?

MARCIA FUDGE: Well, there are only really two things that we can do. One is build more housing because until we put more housing in the market, the market is going to continue to drive the prices up. So there has to be more affordable housing.

But secondly, as we're talking about Las Vegas again, one in three homes in various parts of Las Vegas are purchased by corporate buyers. Corporate buyers come in, they own almost one third of the recently sold housing in places like Florida, Las Vegas and other places. So they drive the prices up because they hold on to them. They don't sell them. They rent them and they raise the rents on an annual basis, and it has created a real problem because we have no control over how that is happening. That is why the president is saying it's time for Congress to do something, to act to make sure that people are not being gouged and that people can continue to expect to find something that they can live in that is affordable.

Can Homelessness Be Eliminated- One Oregon County Found a Surprising Solution - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 4-1-24

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: The [00:41:00] other story I want to share with you is just amazing that Washington County is a county here in Oregon, it's not, you know, a huge population county. It's not one of the remote, very, very rural counties. It's kind of in between. It's kind of close to us, isn't it, Sean? Yeah, it's next door to Multnomah County. It's the next county over. So, you know, it's got a pretty good sized population. And, uh, the tri-county area, this is called Metro, we've got this weird government, kind of an oversight government that raises taxes for all three of these counties. And they raised this tax a couple years ago as a 10 year homelessness services measure, uh, that only kicks in for people who are making over a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, and big businesses in Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties. And what it did is it raised millions and millions of dollars. Well, Washington County took that money and literally ended homelessness in their county with it. "Over the past two years, the money has gone"—I'm reading from this [00:42:00] piece in Oregon Live, in The Oregonian, our statewide paper—"They built a homelessness services system from the ground up, they established 90 tiny homes at three locations, and built other shelters, which in turn allowed outreach workers to eliminate the county's seven large and medium sized encampments by moving those campers into the collective 380 new shelter beds. The county also experienced a near instant tenfold increase in housing vouchers to cover or subsidize unhoused people's rent for a few months, for any period of time from a few months to a couple of years, or even permanently. And this provides", they note, "a glimmer of hope regarding what many had come to feel as an intractable problem. Voters approved the 10 year homeless measure", I already told you about that.

So, they did it. They pulled it off, which proves that the homelessness problem is not, you know, yes, there are elements of, you know, mental illness and addiction, as there are [00:43:00] with many other problems we have, you know, the crisis in our prisons, for example. But the biggest part of the problem is housing is just no longer affordable in the United States. And in large part, that's because Wall Street, these hedge funds, and these private equity groups are buying as many as a quarter of all new single family, or all single family homes that are coming on the market, depending on the market, depending on where you are. In some towns, they're buying most all of them. And they're driving up housing prices like there's no tomorrow, because they're taking these houses off the housing market and turning them into rental properties.

And housing should not be a commodity that can become an investment, you know, outside of the investment that individual homeowners make in their homes. I just think this is wrong.

[You're listening to The Thom Hartmann Program. Call (202) 808-9925.]

This exploitation of housing as an investment is wrong. What's right is lowering the cost of housing and thus ending homelessness. [00:44:00] Good on Washington County of Oregon.

Notes from the Editor on the layers of problems and solutions for addressing homelessness

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with Today, Explained laying out the background of the case. The Majority Report highlighted... Democracy Now! looked at Biden's proposed Supreme Court reforms. Citations Needed discussed the demonization of unhoused people. Factually! With Adam Conover compared the benefits of harm reduction programs with the alternative. Morning Joe looked at strategies to lower housing costs And The Thom Hartmann Program described the working solution taken up by a county in Oregon.

And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dives section, but first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes featuring the production crew here discussing all manner of important, interesting topics, often making each other laugh in the process. To support our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show bestoftheleft.com/support. There's a link in the show notes, [00:45:00] through our Patreon page, if you like, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. And if a regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

And now before we continue on to the Deeper Dives half, I wanted to look at the problem of government inaction, sort of layer by layer, using one story from Sacramento County in California, where I grew up. So, I just happened to come across this. In the summers, it gets incredibly hot there. I know that people who aren't from California think, first, of all the places with the perfect weather and the moderate temperatures, but those places are all on the coasts and maybe in the mountains, but in the valley where Sacramento is, it gets oppressive. They nearly broke the record this year for the most 100 degree days in a row, which included many days above 110 degrees. And I think they just had one that broke a record at [00:46:00] 116. So, on surprisingly people need a lot of water to survive in a place like that. Well, the county of Sacramento was delivering jugs of water to homeless encampments—not enough to thrive, not even close, just enough to stave off death by dehydration—until they just stopped in the past few weeks, coincidentally, as it turned out, right before that near record he'd wave.

So, why did they stop? Unsurprisingly, again, the funding dried up. So, when the contract that they were paying for expired and there wasn't a plan in place to replace it, the program was stopped. So it wasn't an active decision pursuing a desire to cut off desperate people from water, but it was the result of the failure to act, knowing that that would be the result. And this I think is indicative of the entire problem of homelessness we have in this country. So, when you dig deeper, you begin to see the layers of the [00:47:00] problem here. The reason that funding dried up is because it was part of emergency COVID funding from the federal government, which of course ended. Now to be clear, I am glad that that emergency money was being used for this good cause. That's not the problem. The issue is that this water delivery program was totally dependent on emergency funding, which was, predictably, a very fragile way to fund a critical program that helps prevent the near instant death of people who cannot access water in the summer in a place where it regularly gets up over a hundred degrees.

So, looking at the very bottom layer of this problem—insecure funding for water deliveries—one could argue that, Well, the solution is we need better funding sources to deliver water to people. But one layer up, there's another argument that came from an engineer who wrote about this problem and asked, essentially, why the hell are we delivering water [00:48:00] in bottles? Sacramento already has great plumbing infrastructure, so we just need to tap into it. The water delivery program costs $200,000 a year and only provides individuals with about six gallons of water per month. For the same cost providing taps where unhoused people are actually living would provide far more water than the delivery program and help prevent unauthorized tapping into the system, because of course, desperate people seeking water are going to do what it takes to get water. And so they have figured out how to illegally tap into the system, which then of course puts them at risk of further interactions with police and on and on. The writer puts it this way. "Our current method offends my engineer's soul. It is outrageous that humans are picking up, driving, and delivering plastic gallon jugs of water when we have plumbing right now. We have mastered delivering clean, [00:49:00] pressurized, on-demand water to our people. That people are dying of thirst in a place with complete water infrastructure is a sign that we have failed at decency"

Plus, just the, like nuts and bolts logistics of being unhoused, it is hard to imagine how hard it would be to ever be able to pull oneself out of homelessness if you have to spend significant amounts of time each day, sourcing water to drink. So, making it inaccessible, except for rare deliveries, just helps to perpetuate the cycle that keeps people living outdoors and perpetuates the fact that the government has to deal with those people and the problems that result from it.

Of course, as we're arguing in today's show, just like how you'd get a better result if you act on the bigger picture, like using built infrastructure rather than cobbling together flimsy insufficient band-aid [00:50:00] programs like water delivery, you'd also get better results if you'd zoom out even further. Start by providing people with housing. They come with water. And watch as that provides the foundation for people to get their lives back on track. Think what they could be doing to improve their situation, if they had a kitchen and a sink with as much running water as they needed.

SECTION A - THE SUPREME COURT

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now, for more of the problems and solutions, we continue with Deeper Dives on four topics. Next up, Section A: The Supreme Court. Followed by Section B: Demonization, Section C: The Digitalization of Renting, and Section D: Solutions.

Criminalizing homelessness - Today, Explained Part 2 - Air Date 7-2-24

Unhoused Woman: My biggest concern is that as much as we try, we might be stuck being in the car for a long time.

RACHEL: Just to put this in perspective: the fastest growing demographic of homelessness in America is people over 65.

<CLIP> CBS Evening News

Reporter: According to research, the number of homeless people over 55 is expected to spike to [00:51:00] 225,000 in the next four years nationwide, up from 170,000 in 2017. That's a 32% jump.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: So, broadly speaking, how are communities handling this like record setting number of people who are unhoused?

RACHEL: Communities are pursuing, you know, a mix of different strategies.

SCORING IN <CEZ_CEZ_4209_00201_Strategies_APM>

Some are increasing funding for low income housing and passing these measures to make it harder for people to get evicted from their homes.

<CLIP> WMHT, New York NOW

Reporter: That's why New York's capital city of Albany recently became the first in the state to approve what’s called “Good Call” evictions. That makes it harder for landlords to evict tenants without a clear reason why

Council member: we have to protect tenants. There are 60% of residents in the city of Albany who are renters and we want to make sure we are protecting them.

RACHEL: Other communities are also looking for more of these sort of stop the tide measures, like investing more in emergency shelters. Some are banning outdoor camping broadly, but then saying, okay, there can be some places within the [00:52:00] city that people can go if they want to sleep outside, but they can't go anywhere else.

<CLIP> KVUE

Anchor: For the first time we're seeing dozens of locations, the City of Austin is considering to designate as homeless camping sites.

RACHEL: As you can probably tell, like these don't really solve homelessness. The real solutions just take time. So we're seeing a lot of communities do things that are sort of trying to deal with the problem, that might not necessarily solve the problem.

<CLIP> NBC News

Program organizer: Worker: we have housing navigation, we have employment navigation, and we have an outreach doctor, an outreach nurse that comes in, we have mental health professionals.

SCORING OUT

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: So, Rachel, the Supreme Court just came down with this landmark decision. What do you expect to see from cities on the ground now?

RACHEL: Effectively, what the decision makes it easier to do is it makes it easier for cities to clear out homeless encampments, even if cities don't have actual, real other shelter options available for homeless people to go to. So it also means that it will be easier for [00:53:00] cities to enforce their existing camping bans, which could result in more arrests and fines for people experiencing homelessness. That said, I do want to stress it's not inevitable that criminalization will occur. We could also see states step up like we saw after the overturning of Roe v Wade, to enshrine new protections for people who are homeless.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: So a big question at the center of this case has been whether the Supreme Court is going to make it easier to criminalize homelessness. How does criminalizing affect things on the ground for the people who are trying to solve the homelessness problem?

RACHEL: Criminalizing people experiencing homelessness absolutely makes it harder to get them into housing. Ultimately.

<CLIP> VICE News

Unhoused Woman: I got a warning ticket. They know I'm on a voucher. I'm waiting for, from HUD, I'm waiting for the apartments to be built for us to move into. And I'm still getting ticketed. They're gonna threaten to throw me in jail. If i’m going to jail. I lose my housing.

RACHEL: You know, there are just limits to how many people are willing to rent units to people with criminal records. And so this creates such a significant [00:54:00] barrier. Roughly 1 in 3 U.S. adults has a criminal record.

<CLIP> VICE News

Advocate for the unhoused: Where do you think that they're brought when they are released from jail? They're brought back to the street, right back to where they started from. The only thing that's changed is they have another barrier to housing.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: You've been covering solutions to the homelessness crisis from different angles, looking at ways cities are trying to combat homelessness. What are some of the more innovative strategies you find that communities are investing in?

RACHEL: So some states are investing in building more housing and shelter, which is really important. But as we've talked about, it just takes time. And a lot of people are really impatient right now. They want immediate solutions. Some of the faster things that communities are turning to are these things called tiny homes.

<CLIP> KCRA 3

Sacramento advocate for tiny homes: It's pretty basic, but it gives folks a place to have their own space: a bed, a little desk, some storage.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Does that mean that cities are moving away from, like, temporary emergency shelters?

RACHEL: Not exactly. But there is this [00:55:00] greater recognition these days that many people who are sleeping outside in tents just do not want to go to these emergency shelters, which at least historically, have been places without much privacy.

<CLIP> Tristan & Robyn answer ‘Why don't you stay in shelters?’:

Tristan: Get your stuff stolen. People try to fight ya.

RACHEL: Where you can't really bring many of your belongings, your pets, sometimes your partner.

<CLIP> Tristan & Robyn answer ‘Why don't you stay in shelters?’

Robyn: If we were to go to a shelter, we would not be able to sleep beside each other. Chances are we'd be separated or monitored or treated very differently because we are a couple.

RACHEL: Some of these shelters have also had rules like mandatory church attendance. A lot of people have had traumatic experiences staying in shelters. And so rather than go back to one, what some people are saying is I'd rather just sleep outside.

NBCLA

Unhoused man in LA: I'm not on parole. Probation? I'm free man. I want to be treated like I'm free. You living in shelters like you living in jail.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: And like beyond shelters, like, what about people moving, you know, off the streets into actual, more permanent housing like apartments? Is that an option realistically, from a cost perspective, for cities?

RACHEL: Yes, it's hard, but it is. So an approach to solving [00:56:00] homelessness that has had bipartisan support for nearly three decades is called Housing First…

… and its general model is getting people into permanent housing and offering them support services but the model has been coming under a lot of strain amid our housing shortage, because you can't really do Housing First without enough housing.

JULIA LONGORIA - GUEST HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: How did this idea of Housing First even start?

RACHEL: Well, it really reflected a shift from how homelessness policy in the U.S. had been handled for many, many years, which was this idea of housing readiness or this idea that before we give you housing, we want to make sure you have gone through job training programs, that you have stabilized all the other issues in your life, and then there basically begin a new way of thinking about it. You know, Republicans and Democrats who came to understand that actually, it's really hard to address other parts of your life that are not working well if you don't have stable housing to come home to

Biden Proposes Major SCOTUS Reforms, Including Ending Lifetime Appointments & Enforcing Ethics Code Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-30-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: In July, Democratic Congressmember [00:57:00] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez filed articles of impeachment against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito over alleged ethics violations. The news outlet ProPublica revealed Thomas failed to disclose millions of dollars of gifts from billionaires — in one case, accepting luxury trips virtually every year from right-wing megadonor Harlan Crow — without disclosing them. The Supreme Court justices have since agreed to a code of conduct. On Thursday, Justice Elena Kagan became the first member of the Supreme Court to make a public statement in support of adding an enforcement mechanism to the new ethics code. Kagan spoke at an annual judicial conference held by the 9th Circuit.

JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN: I think that the thing that can be criticized is, you know, rules usually have enforcement mechanisms attached to them. And this one, this set of rules, does not. … I think, you know, both in terms of enforcing [00:58:00] the rules against people who have violated them, but also in protecting people who haven’t violated them, I think a system like that would make sense.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: For more on this, we’re joined by Andy Kroll, investigative reporter for ProPublica, part of the team who just won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service Journalism for its investigation into politically connected billionaires lavishing luxurious gifts on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, also the fact that they support organizations that have cases before the Supreme Court. Your response to President Biden and to Justice Kagan?

ANDY KROLL: I think the statement from President Biden, and especially the comments from Justice Kagan, show how much the conversation around Supreme Court reform has changed in just the last 12 to 18 months. I mean, thinking back to what Jennifer from the Brennan Center said just a moment ago, [00:59:00] the difference between when the presidential commission did its work and put forward its not-recommendations back in 2021 to where we stand today is pretty stark.

The fact that President Biden is using the bully pulpit, as a lame-duck president, to push for these reforms, to really drive this conversation, and then the fact that a sitting justice, in Elena Kagan, is saying this new code of conduct, a code of conduct that was issued in response to ProPublica’s reporting, is not enough, that it does not have enforcement, it does not have teeth, in the way that the code of conduct for every other federal judge does, I think, really shows how far this conversation has come in just a year. Obviously, it has a ways to go, given the politics of Congress right now and what we heard Speaker Johnson say, but we’ve never had this kind of conversation about Supreme Court reform in modern history, so that alone is a notable thing. It just shows the impact, one, of investigative journalism, but also the [01:00:00] impact of this decline in public trust for the U.S. Supreme Court.

SECTION B - DEMONIZATION

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Demonization.

Criminalizing homelessness Part 3 - Today, Explained - Air Date 7-2-24

RACHEL: Donald Trump, on the other hand, has really been leaning into homelessness.

Our once great cities have become unlivable, unsanitary nightmares, surrendered to the homeless, the drug addicted, and the violent and dangerously deranged.

He released a video in April, saying that if he were president, he would—

DONALD TRUMP: Ban urban camping. Violators of these bans will be arrested, but they will be given the option to accept treatment.

RACHEL: He would create sanctioned campsites for treatment and send homeless people to jail who refuse to go. Now, to be clear, he does not actually have the authority to, you know, make all that happen. But he is campaigning on sending homeless people to jail right now, So I think to the extent that homelessness has been coming up, it's really been being leveraged by Trump as sort of this symbol of chaos and disorder and [01:01:00] democratic failure.

'Social cleansing' The Paris Olympics' war on homeless people - Edge of Sports - Air Date 8-25-24

Dave Zirin: UP

We should talk about your organization so people have a better sense of who you are. It’s two organizations in English. It’s Doctors of the World.

PAUL ALAUZY: Yeah.

Dave Zirin: People can see [foreign language] , and also The Other Side of the Medal. Yeah. Can you speak to us about both of those groups?

PAUL ALAUZY: Yeah. So Doctors of the World, they’re the ones paying my salary. I’m a project manager for them, so it’s been six years. I have an amazing team of doctors, psychiatrist, nurses, translators, social workers, and we go towards refugees who unfortunately lives and survive in the streets of Paris and its surroundings. It can be 10 cities, it can be squat in abandoned building that people occupy in order to be out of the streets. And then we have a great network of partners, other NGOs, activists with which we work. And so we organized a year ago and we created [foreign language] , The Other Side of the Medal because we started to just [01:02:00] suffer the effect of the Olympics.

And it’s not just the refugee community, it’s every homeless person, whether it’s a drug user, sex worker, a refugee, people from Eastern Europe. Everybody got affected. All the numbers of expulsions, harassment, even sometimes control and police violence got bigger, new practices started to develop. So we had to organize to shed light on this matter and also to offer solutions in order to avoid that.

Dave Zirin: Now there are attacks on homeless or unhoused people in cities, certainly across the United States and in major cities throughout the world. Do you think the Olympics have been an excuse for this crackdown, or do you think it is happening because of the Olympics?

PAUL ALAUZY: I think it’s a bit of both. I think for the states and the states in general, it’s an opportunity. Because when they do the social cleansing, [01:03:00] they’re going to push the population away and they’re going to replace the tent city with big rocks. They’re going to build new walls, they’re going to put barbed wire.

So I think for them, it’s not just about the games, it’s also an opportunity to transform the city and to select the population. And most unwanted population is the one in public space that they have to push away. So there is opportunity and then there is an effect. There is an Olympic effect, and I think it’s in the DNA of the games. They want to do the [inaudible] village. You have to clear out the streets of all the people you don’t want to so it’s a bit of both.

And here there is a lot of evacuation that you can link to the Olympic village being nearby the passage of the flame. Today it’s the bicycle. Bicycle.

Dave Zirin: The cycling.

PAUL ALAUZY: The cycling race happening today. So [01:04:00] they kicked a slum last week because it was on the tour of the bicycle. So there is a lot of things that you can directly link to the Olympics, but I think it relates to a more general spirit of big capitalist states being violence and mistreating the homeless population in general.

Dave Zirin: You mentioned about them being moved out, put on buses. Where are they going?

PAUL ALAUZY: That’s a good question. Yeah, so I heard a lot about the buses living at [inaudible] before the games, the buses living Vancouver before the games. And here we witnessed this. So it used to happen a lot in France to take the people in buses and send them somewhere else. But France, right before the games in March, 2023 created a new system. It’s called the SaaS system, and they created 10 spots everywhere but in Paris.

So it’s going to be close to [foreign language] transport in smaller [01:05:00] cities, like small cities, like with 5,000 inhabitants tops, in which people get taken in charge for three weeks. They have three weeks in a hotel or something. After three weeks, 40% of them they will have solution meets long-term solutions in that region. All the others, they are being sent to emergency shelters sometimes for nights, two nights, two months tops, and they end up homeless in another smaller cities where they don’t have the same community outreach and everything.

To give you a very concrete example, just today, two hours ago, I had some patients, they have guns. They’ve been living in the streets for a couple of months here. They just received a new guy. He is an Afghan, too. They know him. He’s been kicked out of Belgium. So that’s his first day in Paris because they’re in Paris called an NGO. I was able to give them a tent. I was able to give them sleeping bags, and they will [01:06:00] try to find somewhere to sleep because it’s very tense now with the Olympics, but at least they have this. You have a community and then you have a community that has a network. If you go to a smaller city to reach the states doesn’t give a dime to receive that population. It’s just going to be horrible for their health and dealing conditions.

Dave Zirin: Through the Olympic activism. Have you been able to meet new people who take this issue of the unhoused more seriously? Have more people gotten involved in the struggle for the rights?

PAUL ALAUZY: Well, the beautiful thing, the right side of the Olympic effects is the fact that everybody’s coming up together. We never regrouped that many association and NGOs working with so many different publics. Usually it’s going to be, oh, you guys work with refugees. You do your thing. Us, we work with the sex workers. We will do our things on the side. And now everybody come up together. Sometimes people with very different [01:07:00] positions. So that’s a good thing.

And then the campaign was crazy because when you have a subject of the homeless or whatever, usually people don’t care that much. If you add Olympics to it, then it blows out of proportion because then you have the BBC making inquiries. You have you coming to ask me questions. You have the international attention. So we really spread the world in a way I couldn’t even imagine. This year, we have media from every country in the world asking to make inquiries about this. And I think it’s not just the Olympic effect, but it’s also the ethic of journalists all around the world that want to not just serve the good side of the Olympics, but also do their job. And it’s nice to meet that many journalists from that many country taking their job very seriously to treat every side of that event.

Myths about Homeless People with Dr. Margot Kushel Part 2 - Factually! - Air Date 5-8-24

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: But what's so funny is that what you said [01:08:00] about, you know, drug abuse and uh, uh, mental health issues being diseases, not moral failings.

Yeah. Is true. And almost everybody in America, if you asked them, which those things are, they would say, yes, that's a disease. And yet there's this moral dimension that we always bring to it. I think all the time about this conversation I have with my neighbor. Um, we were talking about homelessness in our neighborhood and he said, yeah, well, you know, a lot of these people there, you know, they're addicted to drugs and alcohol.

And I was like, yeah, man, but so are we like, I'm smoking weed. I'm seeing your recycling, dude. You're bringing out, you're bringing out a lot of empty Jack bottles every week. You know what I mean? But the difference is you and I are in our homes. Exactly. And these people are not. So what is the actual difference between us and why would you say these people need to get clean before they have a home?

You have a home and you're not fucking clean. You're popping pills. You're, you're doing coke. Come on, man. I

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: know. I mean, it's really like, I mean, [01:09:00] I, I, for like a variety of reasons, don't like, I'm like the most boring human being in the world. I'm like the vegetarian, never smoke, never, never use pot. Don't haven't had a drink in like a million years.

You know, I'm like so boring. It's not even funny. And, um, And, and one thing about being nice, you look around and you realize like, oh wow, when you, when you don't drink, you realize how much people drink and as a physician, you realize how much people, people drink a lot, right? I'll be at these events. Like I do a lot of public events.

Where people are pretty hostile and like being really mad and yet they're all like, I'm like watching people and they're like, they're like, Oh, come to the event. We'll have like lovely wine. I was like,

MUSIC: yeah, guess what dude, like

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: you're drinking too, you know, but I think, I think also, you know, one thing is we don't walk into people's homes and, and check.

Right. If they're, if they're doing drugs and pull them out, that's just not a thing we do. Um, the other thing is, um, yes, if it winds up being a problem for you, [01:10:00] which it is for many people, um, it, it does interfere with your social functioning. In fact, you know, both mental health and, and substance use issues are actually sort of diagnosed.

Not by, for instance, whether you use, but diagnosed as an addiction if it interferes with your social function. So it's almost like racked up in it. You know, the difference is like, really a little neurotic and having a mental health problem really hinges on whether it interferes with your, with your social function.

So, of course, people who have a problem that interferes with their social function are more likely to be homeless, but, but there's so much we know so well that, um. That it doesn't interfere with the ability for people to be housed and furthermore as someone who does Tons of substance use treatment like it's so interesting for me now to hear this really horrifying backlash against harm reduction Um, and i'm like, dude, the opposite of harm reduction is harm increasing Like do you wanna do you actually want to increase people's harm?

And and I always wonder why people [01:11:00] don't seem to notice that all of us who are actually doing substance use treatment You Believe in it, right? We believe in it because I can't save the life of someone who's already dead. I can't, I can't help you kick your opioid problem if you're dead, it's too late, you're dead.

And, um, and yet what we heard time and time again, we heard some really interesting things about the substance use related to this. One thing we heard from people is people using it, um, what we would call instrumentally, which means that they're using it because they're homeless. And not to get myself in like a whole lot of problem with the law here, but if I were like that guy from Breaking Bad or something, if I were trying to design the perfect drug to survive homelessness, You know, meth meth is sort of it, right?

I believe that people use drugs to solve some problem in their lives. Like, you know, they use it to smooth, you know, they're like a little anxious. And so you drink a little bit and you feel less anxious. That's good. You know, whatever

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: reason I have always used any drug I have used is I got some benefit from it at the time.

I needed to sleep. So I fucking drank some Evan [01:12:00] Williams, you know?

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: Exactly. Right. That's why people use. Right. And so if you're homeless, we heard from so many people that the methamphetamines, um, you know, here they are, they're getting assaulted. Their stuff is getting thrown away. They're like, Hey, and they're hungry.

There's no food. They're hungry. What does meth do? Meth keeps you up. It keeps you alert and it keeps you from being hungry. It's not great. It does a lot of harm. We were really aware. It's not like people aren't aware. It's not like people are like, Oh, no way. I didn't know that this is bad for me. Everyone knows it's bad for them, but they're using it for a reason.

When we talk to people about quitting. We heard universally like absolutely, but I can't do it. Don't, don't take this from me now. Don't take it from me when I'm out here, I can't think about that right now. You get me into the housing and then I'll quit. Um, so that's one thing. And the other thing was really, I think one of the things that was really eye popping to me was that over a quarter of people [01:13:00] who either used alcohol heavily or use drugs regularly.

Told us that at some point since they became homeless, they had actually attempted to get into treatment and the door was closed, they couldn't get in. Wow. And one in five people told us that right now they were trying to get into treatment and they're like, there is no treatment. I go, I show up when I'm supposed to show up, and they tell me there are no beds or there's no treatment spots or there's nothing for me.

And, and I think that that's really important to keep in mind. Um, you know, as a physician, I can tell you that, um, substance use treatment, it takes many times before it sticks. That's just sort of how it goes. Just like, just like we don't cure leukemia in a day. We don't cure substance use in a day. Like it takes some, it takes some, you know, time and time again, and that's okay.

Cause people get there. Um, But the people who are most likely to benefit are the people who have made that mental model switch in their head. They're like, I'm ready. I want to do this. And what we heard is that one in four [01:14:00] people were like, had made that switch, and there was no place for them to get treatment.

You put that with the public dialogue now. If we've got to force people into treatment and I'm like, how about we use our, how about we increase our spots? How about we make it easier to use and come back and talk to me once everyone who wants it can get it. But like we are, and I, you know, as a physician, I can't tell you how much like I'm like calling around begging first, it's hard to get treatment spots.

And yet, and yet like there's this myth out there. That like we've got to force people because they don't realize that this is harming them. They are full well aware that it is harming them and a lot of them are ready for treatment and we are the ones who are closing the door in their face.

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Yeah, because the, the, the beds simply aren't there, the rooms aren't there, uh, there's so many times that, you know, you'll see some elected will, will have cleared an encampment, you know, the, the, the cops come through everyone's stuff in the trash and they say, Oh, everyone [01:15:00] was offered housing.

Everyone was offered treatment. Well, what was that offer? Hey, you can get on a wait list. Here's a form to fill out. Here's a number to text. Okay. Just stuff in the trash, you know, like that's, it's not an offer. It's a, it's, it's a sign up for nothing. Um, And

DR. MARGOT KUSHEL: if, and if they're not taking, if someone is out in the 110 degree heat and they're not taking the shelter, you're offering them, maybe you should give some thought into what, what are you offering them?

And people are never offering housing. Like housing is just, you know, in San Francisco, They open up the wait list for Section 8. Section 8 is the voucher that pays, you know, that you use on a free market and it caps what you pay to 30% of your income. They open up the wait list for two weeks for the first time in a decade this fall.

For the first time in a decade, the wait list. They had two weeks. You have to fill out these extensive paperwork. 65, 000 people signed up. They only have about 6, 000 spots that will be distributed over the next few years. Um, People are not offering people [01:16:00] housing and they're turning it down. I mean, look at our study in Santa Clara.

Those were the folks we intentionally chose the folks who give the public the most headache, right? Who like, we were like, if these folks will take housing, everyone will. These are the folks with the most significant. Significant sort of behavioral health impairments and things. They all were like, sign me up, even though we showed up at arguably like the worst moment.

We generally showed up after people had been up all night in the, you know, ER or in the jail or something. And they were all like, 50 50 chance and all I have to do is subject myself to being in the study? Sign me up. So I don't believe that people are offering people housing. It just isn't true

SECTION C - DIGITALIZATION OF RENTING

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C: The Digitalization of Renting.

The Eviction Economy w Mya Frazier - The Majority Report - Air Date 4-7-24

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Um, so your piece starts off in 2021 at a meeting for the, uh, Columbus Apartment Association, this landlord lobbying group in Ohio, and this is in the immediate [01:17:00] aftermath of the COVID eviction moratorium expiring. Uh, what did you see? At this meeting, this kind of conference that you went to, which, when, when I was reading your piece in Harper's, it gave me kind of chills down my spine, uh, about how, um, how corporatized and how automated, honestly, this process, um, of evicting people from their homes is beginning to become.

MYA FRAZIER: Um, yeah, I had started spending some time at my local eviction court during the pandemic from some previous stories I've been working on and Um, I started getting interested in this one law firm. He filed the most evictions in court and was trying to understand sort of the power dynamics within, uh, my local eviction court and, uh, and someone mentioned, you know, the main managing partner of this law firm that [01:18:00] files the most evictions in Columbus mentioned he was, uh, You know, headed to promote their services at this conference.

And so, you know, I headed out there that day, uh, and, uh, was, was really kind of intrigued by what I found because it was. It was a lot of these boosts that you would think. At an apartment association, you know, there were the normal boosts for cleaning up. You know, apartments that were messed up or landscaping and so on, but there was also just this.

Uh, Very, uh, all these booth tech booth. So it's almost kind of, you know, kind of like a bunch of startups and, uh, promoting a lot of services that would allow landlords to not even be directly involved in managing their properties. And so, uh, that was, that was very intriguing. Just the rise of prop. [01:19:00] Tech which is this industry that is just during that time frame was getting billions of dollars in investment

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yeah, you have a sentence here that I thought summed it up quite nicely Two converging trends the automation of property management and wall street's consolidation of america's rental housing stock Had exacerbated the already uneven power dynamics of the landlord tenant relationship um, and that The, the symbolism of, of what, uh, you saw in that, in that particular meeting or conference seems to represent that.

Um, if you could just speak to those two trends in particular, and, and what you witnessed, um, and, and what you wrote about, uh, both the automation of, of property management as you touched on there, and Wall Street's involvement as well.

MYA FRAZIER: Certainly, um, sorry, now my, my own message is, um, certainly we don't hear it.

Don't worry. The, uh, [01:20:00] the interesting thing that I saw was that you, you, I was watching what was going on in eviction court. I was watching the efficiencies that this local law firm had there and trying to understand how is that possible. And so in understanding the growth of property management, you saw how They were able to prepare all all the documents, all the information that was necessary to start an eviction.

So there is almost like a triggering mechanism that's possible now within property management within the software systems where the. Uh, it's, there's just certain, uh, conditions they're able to put on, uh, the, the, you know, the inflows of rent, the, the late fees, the, what would trigger an eviction, and, and just the ease with which they're able to then port that information [01:21:00] to a landlord attorney and proceed with the eviction process.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: It's almost like artificial intelligence, AI, to a degree of. Uh, who, who meets this criteria, um, for eviction, and then they work kind of hand in hand with legal representatives. You, you highlight this powerful law firm, Willis Law, and they're, they're bundling of these eviction cases for the courts in Columbus, in particular.

Um, what did that look like, this law firm that, uh, Seemingly has made a, a bit of a, a, a specialty in, in representing these landlords in eviction cases in Ohio.

MYA FRAZIER: Um, yeah, so the, the issue with eviction court, depending on where you are, is whether or not you need a representative in court to proceed with an eviction and.

Uh, [01:22:00] you used to not have to have that in Columbus. Uh, there was a practice known as sort of eviction by affidavit where this law firm would take affidavits from the property manager and proceed forward with the evictions. Um, and, uh, it can be time consuming, like for a landlord to deal with an eviction to have to go to court.

Is time consuming now, there was a le, there was a legal fight where that practice was outlawed, but it didn't do much to stop this sort of batching of evictions on the docket. So the, the, the sort of brilliance of their business model, Willis Law, is they're able to go to their, their clients and say, we're very efficient.

You know, you can own you. You don't have to give up the labor time of sending your property manager. To be there all day or to go on multiple days, they're able to go say on one day and deal with, you know, 2030 [01:23:00] evictions at one time, which I witnessed quite frequently. You know, I spent a lot of time there and, you know, certain cases would be called up for a very specific property.

Uh, and they would just be taken care of very, very quickly. So, um, and out of the dockets, which often ran over 100 a day. Willis would dominate that. They would have the vast majority of those cases on an ongoing basis. And although I never was able to figure out how much they were making on each of those evictions, it's, you know, plainly a very, very profitable practice to batch and, and evict quite frequently.

Uh, for landlords at that level of efficiency,

Landlords Using Shady Algorithm To Raise Rents w Judd Legum - The Majority Report - Air Date 6-15-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: First tell us about ReelPage and then give us the timeline of what's been happening on that.

JUDD LEGUM: Yeah. And, uh, and this was a story that was really broken [01:24:00] open by ProPublica a couple of years ago, um, about ReelPage, which is a, uh, software program that is used by many corporate landlords, particularly any large building with a bunch of units, that's really what it's optimized for.

And the landlords feed in all of the information well beyond what you could get, you know, on Zillow or publicly available information, vacancy rates, what they're actually charging, all the fees. Um, everything that there is. And then this program spits back out, uh, a recommended rent for that unit. But what's insidious about this process is that essentially so many corporate landlords are using it that they know that They don't need to go underneath that recommendation because the building around the corner is also using [01:25:00] real page and is also going to be using these prices.

And what we, what they found is since, uh, the corporate landlords have adopted this, uh, in large numbers, the rents have gone up and up and up and up. So that's, that's essentially how this, how the system works is that it's, it's. effectively collusion via software, where they can all, they're not sitting in a smoke filled room, uh, fixing the prices of, uh, rent in a given area, whether it's Atlanta or Seattle or wherever it is, but they're doing so via this software algorithm.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And I, I gotta say, like, I don't remember this element of the story until I read, uh, your piece on it. But if there's also sort of like a mafia quality to this, where they say, look, if you're going to use this software, you cannot undercut the price that we give you. Because then you're screwing up everything.

JUDD LEGUM: Yeah.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And [01:26:00] that seems to be a big giveaway.

JUDD LEGUM: Yes. They have people who are monitoring it, who are making sure you're in compliance with their recommendations. And actually if you price your, uh, apartments too low, uh, too many times you'll get kicked off. Uh, the system. And so we actually have learned a lot more, uh, in the last two years since that pro publica story came out because there's been a series of class action lawsuits.

There's also been lawsuits filed by the attorneys general in D. C. And elsewhere, too. So That process has started to, um, reveal even more information about how the whole system works.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And, um, and you write that, um, um, uh, that it's deploying real paid software in, in one case, uh, in Houston, uh, resulted in pushing people out with higher rents, but ultimately increased revenue.

By [01:27:00] 10 million. So they're making a ton of money off of this, the landlords, but they're, I mean, that's the beauty of like price fixing, right? It's like, I know I can sustain this higher than market price. If everybody sustains this higher than market price.

JUDD LEGUM: Yeah, and it's essentially gotten rid of negotiation.

It used to be you could go to rent an apartment, they sell you, here's the price, 3, 000 a month, whatever it is. You go into the rental office and you say, you know, I'd really like to pay 2, 900 a month. Um, now part of that is there's a housing shortage, but the other part of it is RealPage has made it clear that you are not to negotiate these prices.

And they, and the corporate landlords can feel confident. Because before they might know, well, if I won't give these people 100 or 200 off, they're just going to go around to a corner to another nice building and those people will do it and I'll be left with an empty unit. But they know [01:28:00] if those people go two blocks down, they're going to run into the exact same pricing scheme and the exact same reluctance to negotiate under any circumstances.

So that's really what's driving the prices up. There used to be a say Get heads in beds, you know, when you, when you ran these big buildings, the idea is keep them full, but real pages kind of, uh, overturned that philosophy. And now they're, they're really holding the line on prices, even if they have to keep a couple of units empty for a little bit.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Uh, you cite in, uh, one of those hours, one of those lawsuits, this one in Arizona, that in Phoenix. apartments, 70 percent of multifamily apartments units listed in Phoenix, Metropolitan area are owned, operated or managed by companies that have contracted with real page. A lawsuit, DC, 60 percent of large multifamily buildings, 50 units or more set prices using real page software.

These numbers, I don't know. I mean, they may have gone up since then. [01:29:00] And we don't really know, I mean we can't, do we know, like. Can we look at Boston, at New York and at, um, the Dallas, the Chicago, I mean, do we have a sense of like just how ubiquitous this real page software is, or is it only piecemeal information?

JUDD LEGUM: Well, it's really piecemeal at this point because, uh, you, when the, when their suits filed, they can do discovery, they can get information about what's going on. Uh, there's, there's are some ways to sort of, to see. Uh, and to and people have tried to collect data, but we don't have a full sense. We don't know.

Um, what the full scope is. And by the way, there was a competing software company, uh, that had somewhat of a different approach to how it advised these corporate landlords to manage their properties. It was purchased by RealPage. So it's really the whole purpose of it and they even say this in their marketing materials is [01:30:00] You can charge more than the market price would bear otherwise Which is a pretty clear indication that you're doing something to subvert the actual competitive market um, and You know, this is in the context of a housing shortage.

So the prices would be going up anyway, but The level of price increases that we've seen, especially in major metropolitan areas, has far exceeded even the inflation that we've seen in some other, um, you know, uh, areas.

SECTION D - SOLUTIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, Section D: Solutions.

The Eviction Economy w Mya Frazier Part 2 - The Majority Report - Air Date 4-7-24

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Right. And so when, say, your rent gets increased 30%, you don't have anywhere to go, and you are evicted, but you're staying longer as you figure out your next move, um, that would be an example of why squatters rights would be important, or, uh, tenants rights, versus the right of a landlord to evict whenever they choose.

MYA FRAZIER: [01:31:00] Yeah, I mean, the, I think the challenge of the moment is, landlord tenant law is a very, um, Local matter. Um, it varies state by state. It can even vary city by city. And so a lot of the push on that I saw and talking to a lot of tenants rights groups and, uh, national groups that are studying this problem is that there's really no way out of this bind unless there's some federal federal Regulation on what's going on for the within landlord tenant law, right?

That's a challenging, uh, complicated, uh, uh, yeah, I mean, and how that unfolds. I mean, there's been some various attempts. There's been some really interesting proposals, but I think we're very early days on how to sort of address this gap between sort [01:32:00] of the legal context at the local level. The limits of federal intervention and to the housing crisis that, you know, I saw, you know, if it's even happening in Columbus, Ohio, where, you know, pretty much rents were mostly affordable and in my, you know, in my lifetime and have just in the last 10 years become just punitive to the point of impossible for most people, um, Yeah, the question of kind of how to solve that is, I think, remains, um, uh, you know, an open question.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Certainly. I mean, we're getting a little bit of a trickle out from the Biden administration that they see housing as a problem. I'd said a few months ago, Biden should run on a national housing initiative, but we haven't Uh, federally funded affordable housing, uh, since the 90s because of the Faircloth Amendment, um, and like these neoliberal practices.

Uh, we should be [01:33:00] have, uh, some sort of standardized national rent control in addition to building more housing and, and zoning practices so there can be duplexes and, and, and, and, and really though, I just can't imagine how in any just society, a 30% rental increase should be allowed. I mean, that should be federally regulated as an undue burden on the tenant, but we don't have tenants protections nationally in this country whatsoever.

MYA FRAZIER: Yeah, I mean, the push for a tenant bill, Bill of Rights, was kind of you know, was the blueprint, um, in January of 2023. Yeah, so we're, a year later now, what that's sort of been, uh, diluted down to is, um, A possible cap of 10 percent on rent increases for housing that's in, uh, that receives low income housing tax credits in the, in the US.

So that's an interesting proposal, [01:34:00] but it would only impact about 2. 5 million. House households, and when you think about there's 44M rental households, is that enough? And additionally. You know, the people I interviewed at eviction court, the people I spend time within, other reporting that I'm doing, a 10 percent increase is still impossible economically for most people.

Um, I mean, 30% is out there, but even having a 10 percent is, I mean, I mean, inflation rates of, you know, 4 and 5 percent put people under, what a 10 percent for one of your biggest monthly expenses is, Is impossible for a lot of people and, and, and can lead to them being displaced and, uh, and without housing.

So,

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: and, and as we, we wrap up here, Maya, what. In, in your, uh, observations, what was the, the, [01:35:00] the kind of, um, or what were the kind of people who were landlords, right, and what were the, who were the kind of people who were tenants? What, were, are you seeing this kind of rapid increase in corporately owned, uh, housing?

In Columbus, I mean, are the, you speak about this automated landlord system, but, um, for the kind of more existing structure in Columbus, what, what are, who are the landlords and then who are the tenants really?

MYA FRAZIER: Um, I mean, Thomas has seen a mass infusion of investment from out of state and a lot of consolidation into, um, it's not just that.

You have. Landlords who are, you know, Wall Street owners, but you have property management systems that operate for smaller landlords. So even this idea of a mom and pop landlord, you know, [01:36:00] maybe someone who in the past had 10 to 12 properties that they've managed personally, they're now turning that over to these property management systems.

either companies or software programs that really takes a lot of the human discretion out of that relationship. So you're seeing that on, I think, on a pretty rapid, um, it's, it's, it's almost a, a complete change in how that relationship works. Um, and so I've seen that here, um, where, uh, it just, you know, You know, people have kind of given up and just turned over the management of that to other companies.

So that's, that's a significant change and how, uh, tenants sort of interacted with, with their landlords. Um, I, I would say for tenants, I think the frustrating thing that I've seen from them is they, they just can't, Negotiate with money. It's very difficult to begin a conversation about, you know, I'm having an issue.

You [01:37:00] know, I, you know, I, I had my car break down. I can't make my rent this month and just a little lack of, um. Accommodation or grace within the system because of. The way that these metrics that are now being applied through property management software to making decisions about ensuring the landlord's.

Not just profitability, but perhaps excessive profitability

Rep. Katie Porter Lays Out Her Plan to Lower the Cost of Housing - Rep. Katie Porter - Air Date 6-28-24

REP. KATIE PORTER: My son Paul broke my heart with a question. He asked, Mom, will you come visit me when I grow up and live outside of California? Why would you want to live out of state? I asked. It wasn't that there's somewhere else he'd rather be. He was just a teenager, a teenager. already worrying that he wouldn't be able to afford to live where he grew up.

He's right to be worried. [01:38:00] We all face a big cost of living problem. Housing has become Too expensive and affordable housing altogether too scarce. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that there is a nationwide shortage of more than 7 million affordable homes. That's not just a problem.

It is a full blown crisis. Washington has bungled this for decades. And nothing is changing. Earlier this year, bipartisan House and Senate leaders promised Quote, the biggest housing investment in co in hou the biggest investment in housing that Congress has made in 35 years. Until the deal fell apart.

We're back to solving yesterday's problems tomorrow. Maybe. Washington insiders might not have a plan, but I do. Let's start with the easiest step. [01:39:00] Let's create a housing committee. We currently lump housing issues into the Financial Services Committee, a body focused on Wall Street, banking, and financial markets.

But housing is about so much more. It's about shelter, it's about well being, it's about opportunity. Not just about Wall Street profits. Housing should have a dedicated committee. And then Republicans and Democrats on that housing committee must work together to do three related things. First, increase the supply of housing.

Second, make housing easier to build. And third, make housing more affordable. Believe it or not, the supply part is pretty easy. Republicans and Democrats alike actually want to increase our housing supply. You don't have to take my word for it. Look at the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, which would [01:40:00] enhance tax credits to build 2 million homes over the next decade.

It is publicly supported by 111 Democrats. And 111 Republicans. So let's pass that! And then, why stop with tax credits? Let's unleash private capital for home construction by guaranteeing and securitizing the construction of 1 4 unit starter homes. Just like the government already does for big apartment buildings built by Wall Street real estate firms.

Those are the steps that we need to take to invest in our housing supply. But actually building those homes is still too challenging. And it shouldn't be. Stick and brick homes are expensive. Manufacturing costs have gone down in virtually every industry. Except home building. So why aren't we copying and learning from what worked [01:41:00] in other industries?

Imagine a home built, at least in part, from 3D printed materials. Congress can invest in this type of technology and reduce building costs by over 30%, just by thinking creativity. Creatively. And all levels of government should be partners in creative thinking. Congress should reward counties and cities that take steps to make their building and zoning requirements more flexible.

And the federal government should release some of its unused land so we can build homes on it. With these simple steps, we can build way more affordable homes and get those financed and built. Then, we just need to figure out how to make them affordable to own. One problem is that hedge funds have been scooping up all of the affordable homes, especially starter homes.

We need to pass the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act [01:42:00] and tax Wall Street investors that purchase hundreds of homes solely for profits. Houses should be for homeowners and mom and pop landlords, not Wall Street companies. Looking to drive up their profits and with the money we make from that bill, we can invest in down payment assistance for first time homebuyers.

Often the biggest thing stopping people from owning a home is not having the cash to pay up front for the down payment. Even if they can afford the regular payments on that mortgage. Down payment assistance will solve that. Folks, this is what a plan looks like. Congress just doesn't have one. The United States did not wind up with a shortage of nearly 7 million affordable homes overnight.

Our housing crisis is the gradual consequence of leaders in Washington [01:43:00] being asleep at the wheel for over 30 years. Well, Congress needs to wake up. Lowering people's housing costs isn't pie in the sky. We have done it before. We did it through the GI Bill for service members, and we can do it again for all Americans.

That's what we need from Washington, and I'll keep pushing to get it done.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991, or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from Today, Explained, Democracy Now!, Edge of Sports, Factually! With Adam Konover, The Majority Report, and Representative Katie Porter, Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our [01:44:00] bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Quartet, Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.

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#1646 The Kamalanomenon and the Inevitable Misogynoir Backlash of Racism and Sexism (Transcript)

Posted by · August 02, 2024 5:30 AM

Air Date 8/2/2024