The GOP has now adopted an institutional policy of mass voter suppression, justified as "election integrity." But Trump himself is revealing what this phrase really means: Make it harder to vote wherever possible, expressly to help Rs win future elections: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Amazingly, the RNC has tapped a leading proponent of Trump's "stop the steal" campaign to head its "election integrity" project.
But we're not obliged to pretend GOP officials "really believe" the election was stolen from Trump.
Trump, who regularly touted his corruption and contempt for democracy as positive attributes, openly and explicitly told us exactly what the GOP quest for "election integrity" really means.
The key point is Republicans are widely acting on his directive:
When Republicans pretend their concerns about voter fraud are rooted in a desire to restore "confidence" among Trump voters who supposedly "believe" the election was stolen from him, we are not obliged to pretend it's a real argument. It isn't.
Everybody should watch @ossoff debunking this dumb lie.
"Public concern regarding the integrity of the recent election," Ossoff said, is due only to a "sustained misinformation campaign led by a vain former president unwilling to accept his own defeat.”
@ossoff The insulting lie that Republican voters lack confidence in the 2020 election, and that this justifies various anti-democratic moves, is everywhere.
It's been pushed by the head of the RNC's Orwellian "election integrity" group and many others:
Here's my response to @JDVance1's awful take on the migrant influx. This has created very hard moral and policy dilemmas. But Vance doesn't seriously engage them at all. Instead he hides behind phony anti-woke posturing to elide them. You deserve better: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@JDVance1 I say children and teens should not be turned back into Mexico. Does JD Vance think they *should* be?
He doesn't say. Instead he anticipates that critics of his position will only say he's "racist." That relieves him of engaging with such complexities:
@JDVance1 I say it's unacceptable to threaten desperate people with cruel, degrading and dangerous outcomes to deter them from exercising their legal right to apply for asylum.
Trump's policies did those things. Does Vance think that's acceptable? He doesn't say:
A funny thing is happening in US politics right now. Biden and Dems are working with the left far more smoothly than expected. And it's working: It's producing good, ambitious policy that's popular. Which blows up one of Trumpism's biggest lies. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Key development: Biden and Dems are working with the left, while accepting that the GOP has cut itself out of the conversation entirely about how to address our big challenges.
A Politico report on talks between @WHCOS and @RepJayapal tells the story:
The Trump/GOP lie of 2020 was that Biden and Dems would prove captive to the socialist left, which would drive the country into chaos and "depression."
Yet by working together, the Dem center-left alliance is what's burying this falsehood:
The story the GOP is telling about "Biden's border crisis" is nonsense, and the media has gone off the rails in echoing it. The reality is Biden is cleaning up Trump's disastrous mess, which was far worse for our country than the status quo. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
You can read endless headlines screaming about a "border crisis."
The assumption here is that under Trump, there wasn't a crisis.
But there was a crisis under Trump. It was worse for the migrants, worse for the rule of law and worse for our country:
Biden has the potential to be a transformative president. But a lot can go wrong -- especially if Biden and Dems blink on voting rights and the filibuster.
@rortybomb "A universal program can create a coalition that will come to defend it."
Fascinating stuff from @rortybomb comparing the Biden bill's child allowance to the eight-hour-day movement and World War II daycare for women who worked in defense production:
No analysis of GOP strategy for the next two years is complete if it doesn't mention the central role of voter suppression and anti-majoritarian tactics. With Dems on the cusp of transformative victories, those tactics are key to GOP survival. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
It's very possible that Biden and Dems -- with the participation of zero Republicans -- will preside over the defeat of the pandemic that traumatized the nation for a year, while implementing the most transformative social policy since the Great Society: