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Highlights from The Downballot: Confusion in New York over redistricting and a May primary overview
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This week on The Downballot, cohosts David Beard and David Nir analyzed a bizarre ruling by New York’s top court striking down the state’s new congressional and state Senate maps; explained why Utah Democrats chose not to endorse a candidate for Senate at their convention last week; discussed the Michigan GOP’s decision to back Trump-endorsed Big Lie proponents for state attorney general and secretary of state; and celebrated the results of the French presidential runoff.
Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer joined for the second half of the show to talk about the huge slate of primaries coming up next month. Though primaries started back in March with Texas, the 2022 election cycle really gets underway in May.The coming month brings primary elections in 13 different states, and that includes Texas, which is holding runoffs.
You can listen below, or subscribe to The Downballot wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find a transcript for this week right here. New episodes come out every Thursday!
In New York this week, the Court of Appeals struck down both the new map for the U.S. House and for the state Senate, saying that state legislators simply lacked the power to pass these maps in the first place. The court based its ruling on an amendment to the state constitution that voters approved in 2014 that created a body called the Independent Redistricting Commission. As Nir put it, “It’s not independent at all. Its members are mostly appointed by politicians in the legislature. It’s still called the IRC.”
Furthermore, the IRC failed to produce actual new maps, and the constitution says that new maps have to come from the IRC and those maps have to be passed on a bipartisan basis—creating and impasse on the panel. Nir explained that the process ended up completely jumbled because the commission could not agree on any maps, leaving New York with none. Thus, the state legislature said, “Well, okay. There are no maps. New York has to have new maps, and so we are going to pass new maps,” which they did. Those maps unquestionably favored Democrats, but this was the process that lawmakers believe was left to them.
“It’s not at all clear to me how on earth lawmakers are supposed to force an evenly-divided partisan body, like the Independent Redistricting Commission, to quote, ‘make more meaningful attempts at compromise,’ but that seems to have been the only recourse that was left to them. A dissenter said that was really nonsense and said that this view would leave the legislature hostage to the IRC. That’s essentially what the court seems to be okay with—the majority; this was a 4-3 opinion. It was really bitterly divided. There was a lot of nasty sniping between the majority and the dissenters in the footnotes,” Nir added.
Lacking a timetable, all the commission said was that the maps should be passed with “all due haste.” This, however, throws New York’s politics into turmoil, because the filing deadline passed several weeks ago, and in New York, filing is not just a mere formality.
This “really bizarre” outcome has left Democrats extremely unhappy. As Nir put it:
No one has any idea what the next set of maps will look like, but those also will be subject to appeal. It’s certain that New York’s primary will be delayed. The Court of Appeals said it probably has to take place in August, but there’s a whole other round of litigation that’s going to have to be resolved over the maps drawn up by this special master. Right now, New York’s maps are a total black hole, and there is just no predicting what’s going to come out the other side.
Beard added his perspective on the importance of keeping these maps from a politically strategic standpoint, even if they are gerrymandered:
To take it from a New York-focused point of a view to a national point of view just for a minute, the end result will probably be less gerrymandered maps for the state of New York, which in a vacuum, one could think, “Oh, well, that’s a good thing. Gerrymandered maps are bad,” but when you look at it from a national perspective, what you see is that, in New York, a gerrymandered map to favor Democrats was struck down by a Democratic court, but in Ohio, Republican gerrymandered maps were struck down once by a Republican court. They allowed the Ohio legislature to go back and draw another gerrymandered map and now those maps are being litigated. The expectation is that the primary will go ahead and the general will go ahead with these current gerrymandered maps. The Republican legislature was allowed to do a second round of gerrymandering and just pass it through, at least through 2022.
Next, the pair turned to the Utah Senate race. Delegates to Utah’s state Democratic Convention voted on Saturday not to run a candidate, an unusual move that one would not expect a state party convention to do. What they decided instead is to back conservative Independent Evan McMullin’s campaign. “What you’ll have as a result is Republican Sen.—incumbent—Mike Lee running on the Republican ticket and you’ll have Independent Evan McMullin. You’ll have no Democratic candidate, but you’ll have it at least publicly known that the Democratic Party is backing McMullin’s Independent run,” Beard explained.
In conservative Utah, Democrats seem to have accepted the idea that they have little to no chance of unseating Republican Sen. Mike Lee. For that reason, while it may seem unusual, Utah Democrats are purposefully taking a very narrow path to try to get through with McMullin, so that at least the person who hopefully wins will be closer to the center—“a little bit more pro-democracy, if not a Democrat, somebody who doesn’t like Mitch McConnell, who has promised not to vote for Mitch McConnell for majority leader,” Beard said. “On the off chance he wins and we end up with some sort 50-49 Senate plus McMullin, it’ll be a really interesting scenario to investigate.”
Nir and Beard moved the conversation to Michigan, where concerning news emerged from Michigan Republicans’ convention last weekend. This was a convention to choose their nominees for state attorney general and secretary of state. In both cases, two Trump-endorsed candidates who are Big Lie proponents defeated more traditional choices backed by the establishment. The GOP went with Matthew DePerno in the race against Attorney General Dana Nessel and Kristina Karamo in the race against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Both Nessel and Benson won close races in 2018. In their roles as the top elections official and the top law enforcement official in the state, they have played an important role in making sure that elections are run safely and soundly, whereas the candidates preferred by Trump, obviously believe that the only legitimate elections are ones that Republicans win and would unquestionably use their powers, if elected, to overturn any Democratic electoral victories.
This is a key part of their strategy, Nir noted:
That’s particularly crucial, given that Michigan will, almost certainly once again, be a major swing state in 2024. This is a reflection of a broader pattern we are seeing in other states, where really extremist candidates, Big Lie supporters, are running for secretary of state. They want their hands on the election machinery. We’re seeing it in Arizona. We’re seeing it in Georgia, as well. DePerno, who is the candidate for attorney general, he shot on to the scene in 2020 after the elections, when he claimed that there was election fraud in Antrim County, that’s in northern Michigan, a small conservative community, because the vote totals initially showed Joe Biden leading. It turns out it was just a clerical error. It was quickly fixed. Trump did, in fact, win by a big margin in the county, but of course, none of that ever matters in the MAGA world, so DePerno has continued to press his claims that election fraud—which again didn’t exist—wound up causing Trump to lose the state of Michigan to Joe Biden.
Lastly, in Europe, two sets of elections have yielded positive results, as Nir and Beard explained.
In France, the presidential runoff took place between centrists Emmanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen. Macron won with 59% of the vote to Le Pen’s 41%, a fairly significant defeat, a little bit larger than the polls were showing just before the election—which had been about 10 points—but was a significant narrowing from their 2017 race, which Macron won 66% to 33%. There was a real increase for Le Pen and her vote five years later, which Beard thinks is concerning:
We also saw that turnout was 72% out of registered voters, which was a low for French presidential runoffs dating back to 1969. More than three million voters went to the polls and cast a blank ballot in protest of the two candidates who were available. I mean, it’s safe to assume these were primarily left-wing voters who were unhappy with the options of a centrist and a far-right candidate.
The difference here, obviously, is that Macron is definitely less popular now than he was in 2017. There was much more of a sense that a lot of people voted for him purely to keep Le Pen out, rather than out of real energy on his behalf. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in the legislative elections. It’s a similar system, where all of the races go to runoffs between the top two candidates a couple of weeks later, just like the presidential system was.
Slovenia also recently held elections to determine whether right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa would receive another term. He was defeated by a political newcomer, Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement. Golob is the former executive of a state-owned energy company who took over, in a friendly way, the country’s very newly-constituted Green Party, renamed it the Freedom Movement, and led it to victory all in the course of about a year.
At this point, Beard and Nir welcomed Singer onto the show to analyze some sloppy GOP food fights in Senate races in Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania; a pair of primaries in Oregon and Texas where progressive challengers are seeking to oust irritating Democratic moderates; and the first incumbent-vs.-incumbent matchup of the year, thanks to West Virginia losing a House seat.
Singer opened by sharing what he thought were upcoming main events, including the Ohio Republic Senate primary this upcoming Tuesday for an open seat in the wake of Republican Sen. Rob Portman’s retirement. With no fewer than five candidates running, Singer highlighted the major candidates:
It’s been a mess. Donald Trump recently decided to weigh in. He endorsed venture capitalist J.D. Vance, who is best known as the writer of Hillbilly Elegy. Vance, like plenty of Republicans in 2016, was a vociferous Trump critic, who at one point mused he might even vote for Hillary Clinton. He since reinvented himself as a born-again MAGA conservative, but he’s still taking plenty of flack for his past statements. We have also former state Treasurer Josh Mandel. He was the Republican nominee for the other Ohio Senate seat in 2012. He lost to Sherrod Brown. Mandel has the support of the Club for Growth, a really deep-pocketed conservative organization that’s been particularly aggressive about going after Vance for what he said about Trump.
”It’s really a Etch-A-Sketch. We have no idea who … Vance is going to end up beating. If he does win, that’ll at least be interesting to watch,” Beard said.
Moving on to Nebraska, where the winner of the Republican primary is probably going to go on to win the general election, Singer pointed out three major candidates. This race is open because Gov. Pete Ricketts, who hails from one of the most influential donor families in the Republican Party, is termed out. As he explained,
Ricketts is backing Jim Pillen, who is a University of Nebraska regent and a pig farmer. Donald Trump is endorsing wealthy businessman Charles Herbster, who was at the Jan. 6 rally that came right before the attack on the Capitol, although Herbster says he wasn’t there for that. Then, you have a third major candidate: state Sen. Brett Lindstrom, who is more moderate. He’s backed workplace protections for LGBTQ people, and he voted to override Ricketts’ video on a gas tax and death penalty repeal.
There was a recent poll that showed a very close three-way race, with Lindstrom for the first time with a small lead—but very little polling here. The race took a really unexpected turn two weeks ago when eight women, including a sitting Republican state senator, accused Herbster of groping them and other forms of sexual assault. Unsurprisingly, that’s not shaken Trump’s confidence in him in the least, but we’ll see if that affects things on May 10.
The 2nd congressional district in the northern part of West Virginia will bear witness to the first incumbent-versus-incumbent primary of the whole cycle between Alex Mooney and David McKinley. As West Virginia is a very red state, whoever wins is almost certainly going to prevail in November. Singer thinks that there is a lot to see here. The two congressmen, while having voted the same way most the time, have diverged on two very important issues recently: McKinley supported creating a Jan. 6 commission; Mooney very much didn’t. McKinley was one of the few Republicans who voted for the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill; Mooney very much did not. McKinley’s backed by Gov. Jim Justice; Mooney has Donald Trump and the Club for Growth in his corner.
The GOP primary for North Carolina’s Senate seat, which is another open seat race, has also become another truly nasty affair. Nir asked Singer to provide a rundown of the situation, and Singer had this to say:
North Carolina’s Senate seat is open because Republican Sen. Richard Burr is retiring. There are three major Republicans running. There is former Gov. Pat McCrory—you might remember him from 2016, when he narrowly lost reelection over the backlash over the transphobic bathroom bill. Here’s how far Republican politics has gone to the right: McCrory, if anything, is the less far-right candidate. That’s because Ted Budd, who is Trump and the Club for Growth’s candidate, is also in.
You also have former Congressman Mark Walker, who has some connections with the religious right. Walker has trailed very badly in the polls, but kept running, even though Trump tried to convince him to run for a House seat. There’s some fear that Walker could cost Budd some much-needed votes, but while McCrory went into the year with leads in even a Budd internal poll, the recent numbers we’ve seen have shown Budd well ahead. Things very much appear to have changed. Maybe it was Trump pushing Budd extra hard. Maybe it was the Club for Growth, which has been spending very heavily here on Budd’s behalf, making the difference. Maybe people are just tired of seeing McCrory’s face. The polls show Budd’s really taking control of the race. McCrory’s fired back. He’s run ads that show Budd saying nice things about Putin and commending him as pretty smart when he invaded Ukraine, but so far that doesn’t seem to be moving the needle the way he needs it to.
“Regardless of who wins, Democrats will be nominating former state Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley, who doesn’t really face any opposition in her primary,” Nir said.
The trio discussed yet another primary in North Carolina for a House race in the far western part of the state, which involves Madison Cawthorn. Singer elaborated that Cawthorn might have essentially shot himself in the foot by getting greedy and switching districts:
[Cawthorn’s] greatest liability might be [that he] essentially tried to switch districts. Last year, the Republican legislature adopted a congressional map, put most of Cawthorne’s existing seat in a different western North Carolina district. Cawthorne, he gets a little greedy and says, ‘I’m going to run for an even more Republican seat that I barely represent in the Charlotte area.’
No one’s quite sure why he did that. Might have just been to increase his statewide name recognition, might have been just to show what a big dog he was, but it really backfired, because that map no longer exists. That map got struck down. The map that was adopted by the state Supreme Court no longer gave Cawthorne any real option, except to run at home. Most incumbents would be quite okay with that, but Cawthorne’s constituents, they felt that he just tried to straight-up abandon them. That could be an even bigger liability than all the coke and orgy allegations in the world.
Cawthorn how has seven opponents, and with North Carolina’s runoff rules, that could bode well for him. In many states, Singer explained, if you take less than a majority of the vote, you’re in a runoff. In North Carolina, though, a second round happens only if no candidate takes more than 30% of the vote. “Even if a large majority of voters want Cawthorne gone, if he clears 30% and gets more votes than anyone else, he’s renominated, which is pretty good, considering how red this district is,” he added.
Cawthorne’s main opponent right now appears to be state Sen. Chuck Edwards, who has the endorsement of Sen. Thom Tillis. Edwards has been running ads, saying, “I’m not some vapid celebrity, unlike my opponent. I’m just a hardworking, dependable conservative. If 31% of the voters here want a vapid celebrity, that’s pretty good for Cawthorne.” Edwards even released a poll just last month that gave Cawthorne this huge 32 to 20 advantage. A Thom Tillis-aligned super PAC has also been running ads against him. “We’ll see if that moves the needle, but even Edwards knows he’s starting well behind,” Singer said.
Turning their attention to Oregon’s 5th District, which is held by moderate Democratic Congressman Kurt Schrader, Singer noted that Schrader has annoyed progressives for—among many other things—saying last year that the idea of impeaching Donald Trump was like a lynching. He apologized and voted to impeach Trump anyway, but the damage was done. Schrader’s one and only Democratic primary opponent in the seat, which takes up some of the Portland suburbs in Central Oregon, is Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who would be the state’s first LGBTQ member of Congress and is running to Schrader’s left. McLeod-Skinner argues that Schrader is dependent on special interests. And big names are getting involved: Joe Biden recently endorsed Schrader. “Biden, in many ways, is not like Trump. One of them is he does not really take part in competitive Democratic primaries that often, so it’s pretty notable he’s weighing in here, even for someone who’s tried to obstruct his agenda,” Singer pointed out.
In the next district over, Oregon’s 6th District in the Willamette Valley, there is a large field of candidates, but only two of the nine Democratic candidates have really gotten a lot of attention. One of those candidates is Economic Development Advisor Carrick Flynn, who has benefited from over $7 million from Protect Our Future PAC, which is a group that’s funded by cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. Additionally, Democrat’s House Majority PAC, which exists to keep Democrats in the majority and generally do not intervene in primaries; yet they’ve spent $1 million to help Flynn. Singer says it is a cause for concern, and provided this overview of the situation:
That’s caused a lot of consternation here. Why would they get involved in a primary for a seat that, since Biden won at 55 to 42, really shouldn’t be that competitive? It doesn’t look like Flynn is such a great candidate, that the group needs to intervene here. It’s caused a lot of angst. The other candidate who’s got plenty of attention here is state Rep. Andrea Salinas, who would be the first Latina to represent Oregon in Congress. She has an endorsement from Gov. Kate Brown, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has also spent $1 million on her. That’s far less than what Flynn has benefited from, but it’s still quite a lot. It’s still going to help her get her message out. There are seven other candidates here. So far, none of them have benefited from anything like the endorsements the other two have, but we’ll see. It’s a very, very strange race.
The trio swung back to the eastern portion of the United States to hit the third major state that has a primary on May 17: Pennsylvania. Here, there are competitive Democratic and Republican primaries in the Senate race. “How do you see both of these going, Singer?” Nir asked.
Singer thinks things are clearer on the Democratic side, and that the GOP race has been an “expensive mess”:
On the Democratic side … We have three major candidates, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who’s the tattooed, six-foot-nine candidate who has this big fan base. He’s had an advantage in every poll we’ve seen against Congressman Conor Lamb, who won a very closely-watched special election in western Pennsylvania in 2018, and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, who would be the first Black and gay senator to serve, ever.
To try to break Fetterman’s lead, a pro-Lamb super PAC has spent heavily on ads that—relying on a since-corrected media report—falsely claims that Fetterman was a self-described socialist. He’s not. The group had to pull the ad and edit it. The PAC seems to think that this is a good line of attack to argue Fetterman’s unelectable, because they’ve attacked Fetterman for applying for the endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of America, even though Fetterman explicitly said in their questionnaire he’s not a socialist. We’ll see if that does him any damage, but so far it doesn’t seem to be, at least in the primary.
The GOP race, on the other hand, is such an expensive mess. Trump recently decided to endorse TV personality Mehmet Oz, as in Dr. Oz, who has very weak ties to the state; he didn’t even vote there in 2020. Oz has been self-funding much of his bid, but so has former hedge fund manager David McCormick and his allied super PAC. They’d been running ads, attacking one another. McCormick is portraying Oz as this vapid celebrity. He’s benefited from recent footage of Oz kissing his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There are other candidates. We don’t have any recent polls, but it’s really been this demolition derby between Oz and McCormick.
Nir raised the issue of another demolition derby going on in the governor’s race in Pennsylvania. There, the current Democratic incumbent is term limited, and Democrats have rallied around state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, but the GOP primary is once again shaping up to be very messy.
With nine candidates running, Singer said, “anything can happen here,” especially given that not all of them have much money or name recognition:
One of the worst candidates in the nation—and that’s saying a lot—is state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who, among many other things, tried to help Trump steal the state after the 2020 election, and on Jan. 6, he was filmed passing breach barricades at the Capitol. Mastriano also recently addressed a QAnon-aligned group, although he claims not to have anything to do with it.
Mastriano has plenty of competition, though, on the far-right. You have former Congressman Lou Barletta, who lost the 2018 Senate race really badly to Democrat Bob Casey. Barletta, back in the early 2000s, was this virulent anti-immigration crusader when he was mayor of the small town of Hazleton. He has said he was a Trump conservative before there were Trump conservatives. You also have wealthy businessman Dave White, who has used his resources to outspend everyone else. He lost his election in eastern Pennsylvania to the Delaware County Council back in 2017, but he’s still a big presence, thanks to his wealth.
Nir then informed listeners that Pennsylvania is a state that does not use runoffs, so whoever wins this primary could do so with a very small share of the vote.
“Moving on to May 24, we’ve got three states holding a primary, along with the Texas runoffs. That’s Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia. Let’s start off in Alabama, where the Republican Senate primary is taking place. We’ve talked a little bit about that one. That’s where Trump withdrew his endorsement of Mo Brooks. What’s going on there now?” Beard asked.
Singer offered this update:
Brooks is still limping along. The Club for Growth is still on his side … Brooks really is in bad shape.
There are two other major candidates to watch. There’s Katie Britt, who ran the state’s Chamber of Commerce. She’s the former chief of staff to retiring Sen. Richard Shelby. Shelby’s going all in for her. He’s using his money to finance super PACs to help her.
Then there’s Army veteran Mike Durant, who was held prisoner in Somalia for 11 days in 1993 in the incident that was dramatized in the movie Black Hawk Down. He’s been self-funding. He’s all over the air. We’re waiting to see if Trump’s going to take sides, now that he’s abandoned Brooks, or if he just lets this one play out.
Alabama’s another state where you do need to win a majority to avoid a runoff. With three major candidates, or two and a half if you count Brooks, and a bunch of pretty minor contenders on the ballot, it’s very unlikely anyone’s going to win the first round outright. This one will probably go to a second round almost certainly [in a June 21 runoff].
Nir then highlighted what is happening in Georgia, home to a whole host of compelling primaries, the top of the ticket of which is the GOP battle in the Georgia governor’s race. “This one might’ve gotten more ink than any other, but it seems like it’s possibly about to fizzle?” he suggested.
Singer thinks that it very well could:
Brian Kemp, the governor—he rode to victory in the 2018 primary after Trump endorsed him. Trump’s not so fond of him anymore, especially after Kemp refused to help him steal the state two years later. Trump’s gone all in for former Sen. David Perdue, who lost last year’s runoff very narrowly. The problem for Perdue, it seems, is that Kemp still is liked by a majority of the base. Kemp is anything but a moderate. He’s fervently conservative on pretty much everything.
Perdue’s trying to still get to his right. He’s been focusing pretty much entirely on how he’s Trump’s candidate, and he’s been proclaiming the Big Lie at every chance he gets … but it doesn’t seem to be working. Every poll we’ve seen has shown Kemp either at or very close to the majority he’d need to avoid a runoff also on June 21. Perdue’s sticking with his strategy. Maybe the polls are wrong, but if they’re not, it’s looking like Trump’s going to take a very big black eye here. Whoever wins this one is going to take on Stacey Abrams, who was the 2018 Democratic nominee. She has no primary opposition this time.
“If it is a rematch between Kemp and Abrams, that will certainly be a blockbuster in November,” Beard added.
The trio wrapped up the show in Texas, which is holding runoffs from their March primary. “The highlight, of course, is TX-28, which we’ve covered extensively here already, but what has been going on since the first round down there in south Texas?” Beard asked.
On March 1, conservative Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar led his progressive Democratic primary opponent, Jessica Cisneros, just 49 to 47%—very close, just below what Cuellar needed to avert a runoff. Cuellar’s pretty much stuck with his strategy from the first round. He’s argued Cisneros is weak on public safety. Cisneros is more focused on abortion rights for this round: she’s attacked Cuellar for siding with Texas Republicans to restrict the right to choose. Singer recalled an interesting turn in this race back in January, when Federal investigators raided Cuellar’s home and campaign office, allegedly over his ties to Azerbaijan. Cuellar’s attorney recently said the congressman is not a target in a federal investigation. “No corroboration on this claim from the FBI or Department of Justice, but it hasn’t emerged in campaign ads this time. We’ll see if that changes, but so far Cisneros is focusing on abortion rights,” Singer said.
In closing, he noted that things are far from determined in this race:
While Cuellar has long had a money advantage—and still does—it has narrowed quite a bit. Cisneros is not getting outgunned the way she did back in 2020, when she narrowly lost in the first round. The Republicans also have a race to watch here, but the GOP establishment’s going all in for a former Ted Cruz staffer named Cassy Garcia. Garcia faces Sandra Whitten, who lost a very little-noticed campaign in 2020 to Cuellar … This seat in the Laredo area is a long-time Democratic stronghold, but Biden won it only 53 to 46 in 2020, so it could be in play.
The Downballot comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts. As a reminder, you can reach our hosts by email at [email protected]. Please send in any questions you may have for next week’s mailbag. You can also reach out via Twitter: @DKElections.
Cartoon: How to atone for your vile, disgusting thoughts
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House minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy has gotten himself into hot water with his Republican colleagues for daring to suggest — soon after the January 6th insurrection — that he was going to tell President Trump he should resign. McCarthy denied that he ever said anything of the sort. Then, of course, an audio recording of him saying that very thing turned up.
The crazy thing is that McCarthy never actually told Trump he should resign, he only told fellow Republicans that he was going to tell Trump to resign. Nevertheless, he is getting pilloried for the mere suggestion. The Republican leader, who hopes to soon become Speaker of the House, has since done everything he can to get back on the die-hard, Trumpist side of the party. Principles? Who need ‘em!
Since this most recent dustup, McCarthy has assured everyone he is all-in with Trump and says the former president has forgiven him. All he needed to do was side with the insurrectionists, undermine democracy, kiss Trump’s ring and sell his soul.
Enjoy the cartoon — and remember, you can help support my work by joining me over on Patreon, where you’ll find prints, audio and behind-the-scene video!
Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Anatomy of a French presidential win
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Adam Gopnik/New Yorker:
The Real Meaning of Emmanuel Macron’s Victory
The fact is that, in difficult circumstances, Macron has managed to win the Presidency twice.[Marine] Le Pen did not get an enormous vote as a far-right extremist; she got an exceptionally large, though losing, share by pretending not to be a far-right extremist. She also benefited enormously from the presence of [Eric] Zemmour, who was so much further right and so unapologetically anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant that Le Pen seemed temperate by comparison. The whole force, and successful burden, of Macron’s remarks as the campaign ended was to remind people who Le Pen really is, and what her family legacy has been—though struggling to differentiate herself from her openly fascistic-minded father, she inherited her position mainly because of her family name—and what she really stood for. He did, and the French understood the reminder.
Walter Shapiro/TNR:
The U.S. Needs an Endgame in the Russia-Ukraine War
So far, Biden and the public are fully behind sending arms to fight Russia. But will the time come for a Putin-appeasing peace treaty?
Still, the quest for total victory in Ukraine is premised on the belief that defeat is the best deterrent. Having forged NATO unity and a surprising degree of economic sacrifice by the Europeans, Putin should be under no illusions that next time will be easier. The Ukraine war is one of those rare times when the morally right course—forcing Russia to retreat from all of Ukraine—is also the approach that appears to make the most strategic sense. There are no certainties in an irrational war seemingly brought on by Putin’s passion to restore the Soviet Union. But America should do everything in its power—short of sending troops—to bring victory parades to Kyiv.
Emily Hoge/Lawfare:
The Legacy of the Soviet Afghan War and Its Role in the Ukrainian Invasion
The unifying feature of the Afghan movement was a sense of victimization. Regardless of their politics, Afghan veterans were united by the feeling that they had been betrayed: by a government that sent them to a fight in a disastrous war, by people who now said they were murderers, by the fact that they weren’t considered heroes in the way that World War II veterans were, and by the lack of recognition and benefits they had expected and that were granted to veterans of other wars. In response, they started founding political and mutual aid organizations built around the idea that veterans of Afghanistan were and should be loyal to each other above all else. They felt they didn’t owe anything to and couldn’t rely on anyone but fellow soldiers of complicated wars—members of an international “combat brotherhood” that included them, veterans of Vietnam, and eventually veterans of the conflict in Chechnya and other “local wars.” Above all, they felt that they couldn’t rely on the state, the Soviet state or later the Russian state, to take care of their needs and would take care of each other themselves.
Yet by 2014, when I sent my email for my PTSD research, Afghan veterans’ groups had become loyal advocates of the government, frequently represented at and organizers of pro-Kremlin rallies. Afghan veterans’ groups gathered and trained volunteers to send to Crimea and the Donbas in 2014. Some Russian “volunteers” wounded there were treated in a sanatorium belonging to an Afghan veterans’ group, according to a 2014 interview with fighters published by a now-defunct Russian-language website. Veterans’ groups were some of the first Russian organizations to establish branches in Crimea after its annexation. Many Afghan veterans, even though they were mostly in their 50s and 60s, went to fight in eastern Ukraine themselves.
William Saletan/Bulwark:
The Most Damning Part of the Meadows Texts
He knew the president was lying. And he kept helping to spread the lies anyway.We’ve known for a long time, based on audits, investigations, and court reviews, that Donald Trump’s allegations about massive fraud in the 2020 presidential election are false. We also know, based on firsthand accounts from Trump’s former aides, attorneys, and political allies, that Trump’s advisers repeatedly told him the allegations were false. That leaves two possibilities: Either Trump is lying, or he’s trying to overthrow the government based on an impenetrable delusion. Take your pick.Now we’re compiling similar evidence against Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff during the election. He, too, knew Trump’s accusations were false. And instead of telling the truth, Meadows helped spread the lies.
The latest evidence comes from a batch of more than 2,000 text messages, revealed by CNN that were sent to or from Meadows between November 3, 2020, and January 20, 2021. Three of the exchanges are particularly instructive: one in early November of that year, another in late November, and a third in early December.
Multiple RNC staffers have spoken to Jan. 6 panel, sources say
House investigators have questions about the party’s messaging and fundraising in the weeks after the 2020 election.Most of the officials who have spoken with investigators are former employees who worked during the 2020 election cycle, including the fraught period between Election Day and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, one of the people said.
That means the committee has more insight than previously known into the Republican Party’s activity in the lead-up to January 6. The interviews underscore the select committee’s interest in how political messaging by the national GOP apparatus — which partnered with the Trump campaign on digital fundraising efforts — may have stoked falsehoods about the 2020 election.
They also want to know just how successful one particular email campaign was at getting users to click through to donation websites. Those emails prompted people to give money based on false claims the election was stolen, the select committee has emphasized.
Committee investigators have said they’re interested in who authorized the RNC’s specific messaging about the election outcome and whether it played a role in stoking the violent mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Mark Liebovitch/Atlantic:
Just Call Trump a Loser
His record is clear. Some nervy Republican challenger should say so.
But if Trump does decide to inflict himself on another race, he will enter as the clear Republican favorite, enjoying a presumption of invincibility inside the GOP. This has engendered a belief that anyone who challenges Trump must tread lightly, or end up like the roadkill that his primary opponents became in 2016.
That notion is outdated.
Trump’s bizarre and enduring hold over his party has made it verboten for many Republicans to even utter publicly the unpleasant fact of his defeat—something they will readily acknowledge in private. I caught up recently with several Trump-opposing Republican strategists and former associates of the president who argued this restraint should end. The best way for a Republican to depose Trump in 2024, they said, will be to call Trump a loser, as early and as brutally as possible—and keep pointing out the absurdity of treating a one-term, twice-impeached, 75-year-old former president like a kingmaker and heir apparent. In other words, don’t worry about hurting Special Boy’s feelings.
Most Governors Facing Re-Election This Year Are Quite Popular
Democrats in Rhode Island, Wisconsin and New Mexico have the weakest job approval ratings of governors up in 2022Most governors facing re-election in November are beginning the year popular with voters in their states, according to Morning Consult Political Intelligence quarterly tracking. And despite declines over the past year, a handful of Republicans among them are some of the most-liked governors in the country
Ukraine Update: With modern Western artillery on its way, Ukraine's job is to just hold
This post was originally published on this site
The old adage that “if it’s too good to be true, it likely is,” definitely applies in this war, as I spent much of the day trying to verify fantastical claims from both sides. I even had to enlist Mark Sumner at one point to help me sort through one rumor of a major Ukrainian breakthrough toward Mariupol. Turns out, no one is making big sweeping gains. It’s all “lay down artillery until defenders get the f’ out, walk in. Leave when their artillery returns fire.” Rinse, lather, repeat.
Kutuzivka is a perfect example, as Ukraine claimed to have captured it back in April 8. Then, it was supposedly “partially” liberated on April 17. And here we are, today, confirmed fully captured. Given the heavy shelling in the area, it very well may have gone back and forth for a while.
Ruska Lozova is on the main highway heading back to Russia, the largest town (pop. ~5,000) before the border. It would allow Ukraine to hit Kozacha Lopan up north on the border from three sides. Ukraine suffered heavy losses just a few days ago trying to take that town.
I am curious why Ukraine is pushing so hard north of Kharkiv. Russia can sit on its own side of the border and shell Kharkiv with impunity, so I suspect it’s not about protecting the city, but the supply routes that flow to the south and south east—a way to prevent an exposed “Chuhuiv salient” as Ukraine pushes east toward the Russian supply hub of Kupiansk. By clearing the north, there’s no left flank to worry about.
It could also be a simple, emotional “get the f’ out of my land” effort. But given the limited scope of Ukraine’s offensive abilities at the moment, I doubt they’d waste them on symbolic gestures. Let’s head down south:
I spent way too much time trying to confirm the Oleksandrivka news before posting this. The terrain in the area is flat, open, and exposed. Look at the picture at the top of this story. That’s here. So one side lays down heavy artillery, drives out exposed defenders. That side waltzes in. But oh shit! The other side is now returning fire! So troops withdraw, and the other side moseys back in. So wait, who is in control of the town? No one, that’s who.
Oleksandrivka presents another challenge—it’s one of the most popular town name in Ukraine, with over 100 of them. At least four are in contested areas. There’s this one in Kerhson Oblast. But head north from Kherson toward Kryvyi Rih, and there’s another one. These two are a real pain to keep straight.
Then there’s the two Oleksandrivkas near Izyum, on the Donbas front, one straight north, the other to its southwest.
I swear I’ve also seen one east of Izyum, and there’s likely several. So anytime someone reports “fighting in Oleksandrivka,” I groan and throw my hands up in the air.
Anyway, looks like the one west of Kherson is back in Ukrainian hands after falling to Russia yesterday, which had been pushed out the day before, etc. Given how these battles are shaping up, don’t get overly invested in who holds what. It’s all fluid outside of key locations like Izyum, Kherson, Kharkiv, etc.
That’s the north and south, so what about the Donbas front in the west? Ukraine fended off nine separate attacks. Maybe there’s a big massive Russian offensive brewing somewhere, ready to be unleashed on Ukrainian lines on the Donbas front. I remain forever skeptical.
There is one change we’ve seen to Russian tactics: “The concentrated use of artillery by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine in April is one of the few major changes Russia has made to its operations compared to the early weeks of the war.” Before, Russia would send a bunch of kids to die against entrenched Ukrainian defenders. Now, those defensive positions are first shelled before Russia sends those kids to die. Most of the time, Ukrainian defenders remain, but every once in a while Russia gets lucky, the artillery does its job and clears out an area, and Russia can creep up a kilometer or two.
Given that around 5,000 square miles of Donbas territory remain in Ukraine’s hands, does anyone truly believes this is a winning strategy? Ukraine’s job is to hold their strongholds at Slovyansk (pop. 111,000) and Kramatorsk (pop. 157,000), while Russia burns through their troops, equipment, and ammunition in time for those sweet Western artillery guns to make their way to the front.
As of now, Russia has a long way to go before directly threatening those two cities. Heck, a chunk of Russian forces are heading west of Izyum, in the wrong direction! You know those network of defenses that have held on the border with separatist Donbas? There’s a lot more of that around Slovyansk and Karamtorsk, and that’s before Russians even think about entering those cities, which would be its own special kind of hell.
Another 4-6 weeks, maybe, and then we can start talking about Season Three of this war.
Meanwhile, the breakaway Russian-held territory of Transnistria in Moldova is on the verge of calling a general mobilization, blocking all military-age men from leaving the territory. Both Transnistria and Moldova don’t look to have have military forces worth a damn, and the 2-3,000 Russians stationed there wouldn’t be enough to seriously threaten Moldova. But the destruction of a Ukrainian bridge south of Odesa opens up an interesting possibility: Is Russia planning an amphibious assault?
By blowing the bridge, Ukraine wouldn’t be able to defend an attack on Moldova from the sea, though I doubt it would be interested in trying anyway. Ukraine is sort of busy at the moment. Of more interest would be the chance to take out yet another landing ship, but this one full of Russian naval infantry. Ukraine doesn’t need that bridge to threaten any landing effort.
Would Russia really be stupid enough to open up yet another front, spreading out its troops even further, and risk additional naval losses, for a logistically unsupported assault on a piece of land with zero value to the current war effort in Ukraine? Russia’s naval infantry is already heavily committed (and heavily attrited) in Mariupol. Meanwhile, don’t forget that in addition to losing their flagship Moskva guided missile cruiser, Russia also lost two landing ships in that “accident” in Berdyansk, offloading their gear for land operations after giving up on their Odesa dreams. Russia can’t reinforce either, with the Black Sea closed to military traffic by Turkey.
So is Russia that stupid? Doubtful. I’m guessing it’s pay-ops, destabilizing Moldova and keeping Ukrainian troops in the Odesa region on alert. Given the resources at their disposal, I just don’t see it physically possible for Russia to do this, no matter how much its generals may want to.
Friday, Apr 29, 2022 · 3:58:08 AM +00:00
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kos
With around 1 million downloads over the past month, The Brief is now ranked 33rd globally in podcasts, and top-100 among all podcasts in the U.S. Yeah, this has nothing to do with Ukraine, but I wanted to brag about it anyway! Please like and subscribe if you’re into these things.
Friday, Apr 29, 2022 · 3:58:56 AM +00:00
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kos
This was a very interesting community story, using Google street view to take a look at the terrain Ukraine is defending in the Donbas front.
Friday, Apr 29, 2022 · 4:27:09 AM +00:00
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kos
Intercepted Russian phone call between soldier and his buddy:
“That’s totally f*cked up! Our guys are simply killed in packs, I’ve never seen so many corpses,” the soldier tells his friend during the conversation.
“We left Chornobaivka, it’s a real hell there! So many of our guys have died there that you can’t even imagine. We’re f*cked here in a way that cannot be put into words.”
The SBU noted that the invader’s friend was so “brain-washed” by Russian propaganda that he could not believe it. According to the correspondence, he is already waiting for “captured” Kyiv by May 9, because it was said “on TV in the news.”
“Who gives a f*ck about Kyiv? How do I get home? I’d like to at least survive here. When I saw how my friend was torn apart, I was vomiting for about half an hour. I’ve never felt so bad before,” the invader said.
If you recall, Chornobaivka is the home of Kherson’s international airport. This is where two Russian generals were killed, and where over a dozen helicopters and tons of equipment were destroyed by Ukrainian MLRS fire … after Ukraine had done the same a few days prior.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján says he's close to making full recovery from stroke: 'I’m feeling strong'
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New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján said he’s close to making a full recovery from his stroke this past January. “I’m feeling strong,” he said, according to the Associated Press. Luján made the remarks during a visit last week to a local high school to discuss mental health support. “I’m still not 100%, but I think I’m over 90%.”
Luján was out for roughly a month following his stroke, saying in mid-February that he planned to complete his recovery at an in-patient rehabilitation facility following his discharge from the University of New Mexico Hospital. The junior senator had also undergone surgery to ease swelling on his brain.
”Now, rest assured, New Mexicans can know they will have a voice and a vote during this process,” he said at the time. “That has never changed. Now throughout my recovery, my Senate office has remained open, and we’ve been working to provide constituent services throughout New Mexico during this entire time.”
Luján had also pledged to return in time to consider the nomination of President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee. He made it back on March 3, to a standing ovation from the Senate Commerce Committee. An emotional Luján thanked his Senate colleagues for their prayers, saying “it worked.”
The president had the week prior announced that he’d selected Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to replace associate justice Stephen Breyer. On April 7, Luján voted to confirm her.
“Over the course of Judge Jackson’s historic confirmation hearings, she carried herself with poise, dignity, and resolve,” he said. “Even Republican Senators recognized Judge Jackson as a deeply qualified and knowledgeable jurist, as seen in their remarks and the bipartisan confirmation vote today.” He said that “as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, I know that she will continue to serve as an inspiration to countless Americans.”
Luján made the remarks on his recovery during a joint visit with Education Sec. Miguel Cardona. Luján called the spike in mental health distress among youth “heartbreaking,” but told students “how inspired I am by your strength and courage—and that it’s okay to ask for help or reach out to someone who may be struggling.”
“The Senator also discussed the COVID-19 relief funding he delivered through the American Rescue Plan and other legislation that increased federal support for schools to meet students’ mental health needs and respond to the pandemic,” his office said.
Madison Cawthorn's latest misadventure points up the hypocrisy (and inadequacy) of our gun laws
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Thanks to Republicans, you can bring guns just about anywhere these days. “Good guys” with guns are ubiquitous, as are bad guys with guns. And morally ambiguous guys with guns. And teenagers. And toddlers. And dudes in windowless white vans who’ll give you a discount on a George Foreman grill if you’ll have just one beer with them. And maybe just a skosh of black tar heroin. Come on, you know you want to.
Of course, ours is arguably the last country on Earth that should be awash in guns. We’re a little on edge, in case you hadn’t noticed. And yet we’ve become so blasé about gun ownership, we’ve started to see a rash of gun seizures at airports—and not just among Republican congressmen.
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or getting all your information from Fox News (granted, those two are functionally equivalent), you know that North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn was recently cited for bringing a loaded handgun to the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. It was his second such offense. He’s also scheduled to appear in court next month for allegedly driving with a revoked license.
As a serial lawbreaker, one might think Cawthorn would face the same kind of heat as the lowly plebs who have also conveniently “forgotten” about the guns in their meticulously curated carryons and found themselves in handcuffs. Like this guy. Or this one. Or this one. Or this lady. Or this one. And those are just from this month.
Or maybe, since Cawthorn is in Congress, the klieg lights should be trained upon his and his compatriots’ relentless efforts to turn our country into a giant Insane Clown Posse mosh pit with unlimited ordnance.
In fact, one political party is extrapolating exactly that lesson from Cawthorn’s latest misadventures. I’ll give you one guess which one.
A pair of House Democrats urged the Transportation Security Administration on Thursday to crack down on the growing threat of firearms at airports, days after a Republican congressman was caught bringing a gun to a TSA checkpoint.
[…]
“Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle agree that those who break the law and endanger the safety of other passengers — and especially repeat offenders such as Rep. Cawthorn — must be held to account,” read the letter from Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and transportation subcommittee Chairwoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.
“TSA must pursue appropriate action without fear or favor against all such offenders, regardless of whether they are public figures such as Rep. Cawthorn,” they wrote.
While policies on whether or not to arrest these offenders vary by state, and even city, one lawyer CNBC spoke with hinted that Cawthorn did receive the kid-glove treatment in the wake of his alleged violation. Brad Smith, a Charlotte, North Carolina, criminal defense attorney, said at Charlotte Douglas, such violators are typically arrested at the scene.
“More often than not you’re taken to jail, and booked,” Smith said. “The DA’s office absolutely prosecutes those cases.”
And they should prosecute this one, too; if they do, Cawthorn faces up to 60 days in jail for his misdemeanor charge. But even more important than prosecuting offenders like Cawthorn is rousting him and his fellow gun fetishists from Congress. Because until we do, we’re going to continue to see alarming news items—like this one from February:
With a surge in guns being discovered at airport checkpoints, some security experts are suggesting higher fines and even putting violators on a no-fly list to prevent firearms from getting on planes.
Airport screeners found 5,972 guns at checkpoints last year, easily breaking a record set in 2019 despite a drop in air travel, and 86% of those guns were loaded, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
Guns seizures are rising as airlines report record numbers of disruptive passengers on flights. Together, that “makes for a toxic combination,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., said Tuesday.
Since travelers caught with guns tend to claim they “forgot” they had loaded weapons tucked in with their tiny toiletries, TSA leaders continue to point out how irresponsible that is, from the Garden State—
“Claiming to forget that you have a gun with you is inexcusable,” Thomas Carter, TSA’s Federal Security Director for New Jersey, said in a statement. “If you own a gun you need to know where it is at all times.”
“The regulation preventing the carrying of guns onto planes has been in place for decades, so this is nothing new,” said Robin “Chuck” Burke, TSA’s Federal Security Director for the [Norfolk, Virginia] airport.
[…]
“Forgetting that you have a loaded handgun in your possession is a careless mistake to make, especially when you are headed to the airport for a flight,” said Burke.
Sadly, Republicans are more likely to impeach President Joe Biden for trying to sneak through airport security in a tan suit than pass sensible gun-control laws, even if those laws would be vital to maintaining airport security.
Then again, when was the last time Republicans came out for anything other than chaos?
It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
New poll reveals GOP voters are actually pretty cool with racist, homophobic, antisemitic candidates
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Sometimes you get confirmation of something you already knew and it still makes you want to vomit your small intestines down a storm sewer. Ever wonder why there are so many racist, homophobic, antisemitic, and transphobic GOP candidates? Because GOP voters love ‘em, that’s why! Occam’s razor cuts pretty deep sometimes, doesn’t it?
The latest Morning Consult/Politico poll surveyed voters of all stripes and found, among other horrors, that a full 62% of Republicans are more or less cool with candidates who are accused of making racist remarks.
And that’s not all! They’re also bigger fans of domestic violence, sexual misconduct, homophobia, and antisemitism than Democrats and independents are.
Here’s a quick summary.
For the nontweeters:
Morning Consult/Politico
If a candidate is accused of ___ is it a major problem?
Sexual misconduct:
83% of Dems say yes
77% Ind
66% RepublicansDomestic violence:
81 D
74 I
67 RRacist remarks:
80 D
59 I
38 RHomophobic remarks
71 D
50 I
25 RAntisemitism
71 D
61 I
47 R
The party of personal responsibility and family values, right?
Of course, judging by Donald Trump’s vote totals in the past two presidential elections, it’s safe to assume that at least 98% of the 38% of Republicans who claim to be bothered by racist remarks also told Morning Consult their favorite pastime is lying to pollsters.
It would also be interesting to see what these numbers were before Trump decided to start devouring old-school Republicans’ souls like so much Fiddle Faddle. Perhaps the cognitive dissonance was simply too much for the 34% of Republicans who think sexual misconduct is no biggie, and they decided to be honest for once. But wait, you’re telling me racism may actually be a selling point for GOP candidates? Here I thought all those white Rust Belt voters were flocking to Trump because of Kanye West.
By the way, you’ll be shocked to learn that only 26% of Republicans would consider it a major problem if a candidate was accused of making transphobic remarks. I’m surprised it’s that high, honestly.
They say it’s important to know your enemy. I’d like to amend that slightly: It’s important to know your enemies, but not so well that you can’t control your vomit reflex when you’re driving to the polls to vote them out. I sincerely hope this news hasn’t pushed you over that edge, because we need your vote.
It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
Caribbean Matters: Yes, Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony
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Watching responses to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case of United States v. Vaello Madero, where the only dissent came from Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, was painful. While legal scholars wrote a raft of opinion pieces on why or why not the decision was or wasn’t correct, all I could think of was the 1899 illustration from Puck, posted above, which I used to show my students back when I was still teaching a college course on the Caribbean.
The Library of Congress description of the graphic describes the scene:
“Print shows Uncle Sam as a teacher, standing behind a desk in front of his new students who are labeled “Cuba, Porto [i.e. Puerto] Rico, Hawaii, [and] Philippines”; they do not look happy to be there. At the rear of the classroom are students holding books labeled “California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, [and] Alaska”. At the far left, an African American boy cleans the windows, and in the background, a Native boy sits by himself, reading an upside-down book labeled “ABC”, and a Chinese boy stands just outside the door. A book on Uncle Sam’s desk is titled “U.S. First Lessons in Self-Government.”
The racism encapsulated in the illustration is patently obvious. While Uncle Sam is portrayed as adult white father and teacher, colonized people are depicted as squirming and uncomfortable children, with racial stereotypes including menial labor, pigtails, bare feet, and feathers thrown in for good measure.
Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
I don’t remember ever being taught about the Insular Cases in school. I learned about them when studying Puerto Rican history outside of the classroom, as an activist for Puerto Rican independence. I wonder if readers here had the same schoolroom experience I did.
Back in 2017, Doug Mack wrote this story for Slate which describes the Insular Cases’ history.
How a series of racist Supreme Court decisions cemented the island’s second-class status.
The devastation wrought by Hurricanes Irma and Maria has reawakened many Americans to the existence of Puerto Rico as well as the archaic laws and domineering bureaucracies that continue to burden the island. News outlets have scrambled to explain the Jones Act, the 1920 law that restricts shipping between U.S. ports, the PROMESA board that Congress set up last year to oversee Puerto Rico’s finances, and the fact that territory residents can’t vote for president.
But beneath these data points lurks something deeper and more problematic, yet rarely discussed: the Insular Cases, a series of Supreme Court decisions from the early 20th century. When we talk about the differences between states and territories—and when we ask why the United States even has territories in 2017—we’re really talking about the legacy of the Insular Cases. The recent controversies are, in fact, the latest iteration of a conversation about American empire that goes back more than a century.
The earliest Insular Cases were decided by the same Supreme Court that allowed “separate but equal” segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. That case was overturned, but the Insular Cases, which are built on the same racist worldview, still stand today. Legal scholars disagree about how many Insular Cases there are—some say six; others include more than two dozen—but the general view is that they begin with Downes v. Bidwell in 1901. Up to then, the U.S. government considered territories to have the complete protection of the Constitution and a clear, straightforward path to statehood. This was true for all of the territories that existed on the North American continent at the time—Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and Alaska. But as the new century dawned, the federal government’s definition of what it meant to be a territory was shifting rapidly, as manifest destiny morphed into empire-building. President William McKinley and other leaders of the day aimed to bolster U.S. global stature by following the template of European powers: controlling the oceans by controlling islands, holding them not as equals but as colonies, as possessions.
Social justice activist Debbie Pérez conducted the following hour-long interview with attorney, activist, and co-host of the Radio Independencia podcast Andrés González Berdecía last year. This interview was conducted in English; much of the information and discussions around Puerto Rico, from a Puerto Rican perspective, are in Spanish. This essentially limits the information to only Spanish speakers, but many Puerto Ricans in the diaspora don’t speak the language, much like a vast majority of mainland citizens.
Berdecía explains the history of not only the Insular Cases, but the Jones Act, which granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship. He also points out that some of the best constitutional lawyers both here and in Puerto Rico haven’t studied or been taught about the Insular Cases in depth.
When I was teaching, most of my students didn’t think of the U.S. as a colonial power; our “colonies” are dubbed “territories,” further obfuscating the political reality. Yet most of us here in the U.S. who have been watching the the disastrous Caribbean tours of the British royals—like this one covered here last month—have no problem describing the nations visited as “former British colonies.”
Now if only Americans could only get used to using “colony”—and understanding what that means—when we talk about our government’s relationship to Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam, not to mention the rarely mentioned Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.
Erica Gonzalez, director of Power 4 Puerto Rico, which bills itself as “a national coalition of the Puerto Rican Diaspora and allies working full-time and year-round for federal policies and legislation that will support Puerto Rico’s just recovery, economic growth and self-sufficiency,” has no problem using the “C” word.
It’s often assumed that all Puerto Ricans are clamoring for U.S. statehood. That’s simply not true; as Gonzalez notes below, that’s a “colonizer mindset.”
Puerto Rico and its citizens should get to choose for themselves what happens next—known as self-determination. Activist Maricarmen Gutiérrez of CASA wrote about it just this week in a Daily Kos Community story.
Even though slavery was abolished in the 19th century in the United States, it is dismaying to know that here in the 21st century, an entire country – my country – can be a possession of another country. That we can’t decide our destiny. No matter how many local governments you choose, your sovereignty is kidnapped.
To our surprise, there is a bill in Congress, HR2070, to decolonize Puerto Rico. This bill binds Congress in that process. It is not a perfect bill, but it has achieved the approval of important sectors in Puerto Rico, including all the existing political parties. The United States Congress denies that Puerto Rico is a colony. The existence of such a project – a new law to be passed which would allow Puerto Ricans to control their own political destiny – exposes this lie. This bill gives us hope, but we’ve seen sparks of hope fail to catch fire before.
If you are wondering what you can do to support the movement for self-determination for Puerto Rico, consider sending emails to Congress.
The Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act (introduced in both the House and the Senate) has diverse support.
Join me in the comments section below for more on Puerto Rico and for the weekly Caribbean Twitter Roundup.
GOP targets ballot initiatives with more than 80 voting bills to suppress process
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Journalist Spenser Mestel tweeted a photo on Wednesday of South Dakota Democrat Rueben Engelhart holding a 2018 ballot measure petition that stretched from his chin to his shins. “Per a new law in South Dakota, canvassers must collect signatures on the same single sheet of paper as the full text of the initiative — and the font can be no smaller than size 14,” Mestel said in the tweet. “It’s part of a wider Republican-led war on ballot initiatives.”
Gov. Kristi Noem signed legislation requiring the larger font size into law last year, and South Dakota Republicans as well as those in about a dozen other states are hardly stopping there when it comes to restricting the ballot initiative process.
RELATED STORY: Explainer: What is a ballot initiative?
Last year alone, 146 bills were introduced to restrict that process, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a liberal advocacy organization. “After progressive issues like #MinimumWage won at the ballot in 2016 and 2018, you started to see an increase in state legislatures trying to make them less accessible,” Chris Melody Fields, executive director of the organization, tweeted.
In 2016, voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington pushed through ballot measures to raise the minimum wage by such a degree that at least 2 million Americans were due raises by 2020, The Atlantic reported. Major win.
A ballot measure to lower the minimum wage for employees in South Dakota under the age of 18 who do not receive tips was rejected by more than 70% of voters in 2016, the Associated Press reported. Another win.
The GOP didn’t, however, take the losses silently.
The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is monitoring 87 bills that aim “to change the ballot measure process or block ballot measure implementation in 13 states,” the organization reported. The organization identified Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, and South Dakota as “top states to watch.”
This year, Arizona voters will consider imposing both a “single subject rule” requiring each ballot initiative to address only one topic, and a repeal of the Voter Protection Act, “a 24 year old law which protects ballot measures from being altered by legislators after they are approved by voters,” according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.
Here’s what the center reported on Florida and Missouri:
Florida: Following the trend of their 2021 legislative session, Florida legislators have introduced bills intended to dilute direct democracy from a few different angles: (a) by making the signature collection process more onerous and more confusing, (b) by severely limiting the subjects voters can consider at the ballot, and by limiting campaign contributions during the signature gathering process.
Missouri: The legislature has introduced nearly two dozen attacks on the initiative process as of March 1, 2022. These attacks are designed to curtail Missourian’s initiative and referendum rights in a variety of ways, including raising the voter approval threshold, increasing the signature collection requirements, expanding the geographic signature collection requirements, increasing the fees to file signatures, creating new ways signatures can be invalidated, and even making the processes indirect by giving the legislature say over what voters propose. After failing to pass attacks last year, Missouri legislators are even more determined to undermine the people’s tool this year.
Mestel tweeted that legislators are trying to raise the threshold for a measure to pass to 60% in Arizona and 66% in Missouri. “And when initiatives succeed, lawmakers don’t always listen,” he continued. “After FL voters raised the minimum wage, legislators tried to create a ‘sub-minimum’ wage for service workers.”
That bill failed, but a vital takeaway remains: Where there is a Republican will, there will be a suppressive way. The only real, long-term solution is to vote them out of office.
Roger Stone announces he’s back on Musk’s Twitter—is banned again in record time
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Roger Stone is back! Nope. I spoke too soon! It seems that Roger Stone created a new Twitter account on Thursday morning, announcing he was back from his lifetime suspension. Stone seems to have been under the impression that Elon Musk’s impending take over of Twitter and all of the solipsism Musk represents meant that “free speech” speech talk included him coming back onto the social media platform that banned him back in 2017.
According to the Daily Beast, Stone took to Telegram to write, “Well bitches I’m back on Twitter.” He added, “I’m anxious to see how strong Elon Musk’s commitment to free speech is.” It took Twitter a little while to make sure that @RogerStoneUSA was indeed connected to the odiously pardoned criminal. After they did that, Twitter banned Roger Stone again.
Reporter Zachary Petrizzo followed the fastest story in the West today.
A Twitter spokesperson told the Beast: “The account referenced was permanently suspended for violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically our ban evasion policy.”
Stone told the outlet, “I posted a new account to prove a point. I look forward to whoever made the decision to suspend my account getting fired. Attn: Elon Musk.” Only the best people.
Star Wars!
Don’t let the door …
And a classic.