Bit more on the judge who outlawed drop boxes in Wisconsin, overturning the state election commission
Full story the quote is from here. The broader picture is bleak. In swing states there is a deliberate effort to control and restrict voting. If conservative judges go along with it & legislature is gerrymandered, no real options w/o federal reform. nytimes.com/2022/01/14/us/…
In WI both GOP & Dem leaders and the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) welcomed drop boxes before the election. But after the election assumed it hurt GOP, so conservative judges declare it illegal & GOP legislature will go along while threatening to eliminate the WEC.
In the same way that after the George Floyd murder and protests, the most tangible policy change was anti-CRT bills, the most tangible policy change in the aftermath of a coup is the pro-coup faction taking control of the machinery of elections. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/little-big-l…
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People laughed about the Stephen Douglas/Frederick Douglas mistake, but this bill is really bad. The key goal is to silence, discredit, and put a bounty on teachers, while further undermining the attack on public schools. 1/
The bill has the standard blocking of "divisive concepts." In other words, you can't suggest structural racism is a real and persistent force in America, despite evidence of this point. Doesn't matter if it's true as long as it's "divisive." 2/
It also blocks teachers from talking about current events that might be controversial, that is, the news. If for any reason they do, they have to present both sides. 3/
A judge in Wisconsin declared drop boxes to be illegal *today.*
State legislature won't put them back b/c they believe its in their interests to limit voting and they can do so because of gerrymandering. Thats why federal election reforms is the only way to fix these issues.
If your only concern is avoiding another coup attempt, that's fine but a) that's a pretty limited perspective on defending democracy, and b) there is no legislative reform that can guarantee that won't happen again.
If you are in a severely gerrymandered state, basic democratic processes of accountability no longer work, there is no electoral means to solve the problem and no incentive for the dominant party to stop democratic backsliding. SCOTUS won't intervene. So what's the solution?
New, from me: there is a concerted effort to deny and obscure the meaning of January 6th. In this piece, I examine the different flavors of January 6th revisionism and explain why it matters. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/little-big-l…
January 6th revisionist flavor #1. Tone policing: it wasn’t an “insurrection” or a coup, or a mob, or terrorists, or a riot etc…
January 6th revisionist flavor #2.
Whataboutism: What about Dick Cheney—he was a bad guy and is commerating January 6th? Seems bad. What about George Floyd protests? donmoynihan.substack.com/p/little-big-l…
Weird how "we just want to block obscure legal theories about race" morphed into "we want to exclude Black authors" and now "we want fewer Black teachers"
FWIW the best evidence we have is that diversifying the teaching pool generates positive outcomes, especially when it comes to reducing gaps in student performance nber.org/system/files/w…
"Cyfair has 13% Black teachers...do you know what the statewide average is for Black teachers? 10%. Houston ISD...you know what their average is? 36%...You know what their drop-out rate is? 4%. I don't want to be at 4%. I don't want to be HISD."
Context:
Went looking for more context...and yeah, that's not great
Should the Attorney General treat "rowdy parents" as "potential terrorists"?
I'm sorry, but this is really bad. It pushes the idea that this was happening and on the basis of that argues that the DOJ should not be monitoring threats of school officials. mcusercontent.com/ca678077bc522b…
The nice thing about Rufo is that he is upfront about methods of the con game. “Anti-CRT” has gotten a little tarnished, so now it’s “transparency.” If pundits or reporters are posting about a new school transparency movement, be aware that this is who they are working for.
This is what “transparency” mean in practice: another mechanism to undermine educators and put an ideologically-driven minority in charge of education
The "anti-CRT" has led to the use of state power to engage in censorship and book bans, erasing discussion of history or identities that conservatives dislike. Hoping the coverage is less credulous this time. The end goal is the same. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/making-publi…