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Twenty twenty-one should have been a year to celebrate for LaTosha Brown.

After decades of organizing Black voters in Georgia, Brown and other organizers in Georgia broke through. Defying expectations, turnout among Black voters surged in US Senate runoff races, powering two Democrats to historic victories. It came two months after Georgia saw record turnout in its November election, helping Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state in nearly three decades.

This success story was mirrored across America. Despite a lethal pandemic, a staggering 159m votes were cast, 67% of eligible voters, the highest turnout in a presidential election since 1900. Such turnout is even more remarkable considering that millions of Americans adopted an entirely new way of voting, casting their ballots not on election day but ahead of time, either in person or by mail.

There wasnt a meltdown in the election process that many feared early on in the pandemic. The United States Postal Service, under attack from Trump and his allies, delivered ballots on time. Officials found no evidence of widespread fraud or malfeasance during the election. By the time they declared the 2020 election the most secure in American history, a larger truth was apparent: democracy had prevailed.

But 2021 has been far from a celebration of democracy. Its been the opposite American democracy is under attack.

Seizing on Donald Trumps lies about fraud in the 2020 election, Republicans have launched a brazen attack on voting, part of an effort to entrench control over a rapidly changing electorate by changing the rules of democracy. As of mid-February, 253 bills were pending to restrict voting in 43 states. Many of those restrictions take direct aim at mail-in and early voting, the very policies that led to Novembers record turnout.

The fragility of democracy has been exposed at levels that I think even white America was blind to, said Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter.

Republicans have openly talked about their intentions. Everybody shouldnt be voting, John Kavanagh, a Republican in the Arizona state legislature, told CNN earlier this month. Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.

Some Republicans say that their efforts to put new voting restrictions in place are part of an effort to restore confidence in elections and prevent voter fraud, which is extremely rare.

But others have shown that their motivation is anti-democratic. Trump dismissed proposals to make it easier to vote last year by saying: Youd never have a Republican elected in this country again. And this month, Michael Carvin, a lawyer representing the Arizona Republican party, said something similar when Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked him what interest the party had in defending two Arizona voting restrictions. Lifting those restrictions, Carvin said, puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game.

More danger lies ahead. Later this year, Republicans in many states will redraw electoral districts for both congressional and state legislative offices across the country, something the constitution mandates once per decade. This will give Republicans an opportunity to pack GOP-friendly voters into certain districts while spreading Democratic voters thin across others, further distorting democracy and ensuring their re-election.

And all of this comes at a moment when the US supreme court appears wholly uninterested in protecting voting rights. The increasingly conservative supreme court has signaled in recent years that it is not going to stand in the way of lawmakers who make it harder to vote, issuing significant decisions that gutted the Voting Rights Act while also giving the green light to aggressive voter purging and extreme partisan redistricting.

Civil rights advocates have described it as the greatest effort to restrict the vote since the Jim Crow era.

The coordinated onslaught of voter suppression bills is not the norm, Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate widely credited with helping flip the state, told the Guardian. What is so notable about this moment, and so disconcerting, is that they are not hiding. There is no attempt to pretend that the intention is not to restrict votes.

They are responding to the big lie, to the disproven, discredited, the blood-spilled lie of voter fraud, she added. They are responding by conforming to a lie and cloaking it in this mask that this is somehow ethical, that this is somehow about protecting, when it is about restricting and suppressing.

In Washington, Democrats are trying to counter the anti-democratic tide by pushing legislation that would amount to the largest expansion of voting rights since the civil rights movement. It is a once in a generation moment a tipping point for America. The result of that fight will determine whether or not the guardrails of Americans democracy hold or whether they come off entirely.

Georgia has emerged as the center of this battle over American democracy. Joe Biden won the state in November by around 12,000 votes after a record number of people cast their ballots through the mail, and Trumps efforts to overturn the election by claiming fraud and squeezing local election officials ultimately proved unsuccessful.

But Republicans in the state legislature are capitalizing on the uncertainty driven by Trumps false allegations and using it to justify aggressive new restrictions on the right to vote.

One measure would allow for any citizen to bring unlimited challenges against another voters qualification, a procedure that has been used to target Black voters in the past in the state. And even though there was no evidence of absentee ballot fraud, Republicans have lined up behind a proposal that would impose additional ID document requirements on voters who cast a mail-in ballot, creating a new hurdle for the poor, minorities and the elderly who face significant challenges in obtaining ID.

Another provision even bans providing food or water to people standing in line to vote after voters, especially in Black neighborhoods in Atlanta, spent hours waiting to cast a ballot last year.

Were in this hamster wheel of doing the work to register to vote. People exercise their vote, particularly Black voters, and then theyre punished for exercising that vote, Brown said. When Black people exercise our right to vote, there is some kind of punitive measure that is inflicted upon our community.

If the bills pass, Georgias going to send a message loud and clear that they dont believe in democracy. That this is a state thats still rooted in its racist, anti-democratic past, she added.

Amid strong pressure from civil rights groups, Republicans in the state have backed away in recent days from some of their most extreme proposals cutting Sunday early voting in the state as well as requiring voters to give an excuse to vote by mail. Both measures would have disproportionately affected Black voters, according to a Brennan Center analysis.

Still, the proposals that remain in the bill would significantly harm Black voters, said Lauren Groh-Wargo, the chief executive of Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group Abrams founded.

This is Jim Crow 2.0. Those who think thats hyperbolic need to read this bill, she said. This is not some sort of moderate consensus because weekend voting is back on the table.

Outside Georgia, Republicans are pushing equally aggressive proposals.

In Arizona, Republicans are advancing an effort to essentially do away with a policy that allows voters to permanently sign up to automatically receive a mail-in ballot. In Florida, Republicans want to ban absentee ballot drop boxes. Texas is entertaining a suite of proposals to make it harder to vote. In Iowa, a state Trump won handily in 2020, Republicans recently enacted a law requiring the polls to close an hour earlier and shortening the early voting period by nine days, from 29 days to 20.

Many of the voting policies being rolled back have been in place for years and were relatively uncontroversial, said Myrna Prez, director of the voting rights and democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which closely tracks voting restrictions in state legislatures. But after an election in which minority voters started to employ them as Republicans long had, access has come under attack.

It was only until communities of color started closing the gap between who was using them that all of a sudden they become political, Prez said.

Many of the measures that ultimately pass will be challenged by voting rights groups in state and federal courts. But those challenges are likely to meet skepticism from a conservative judiciary, molded by Trump, and a US supreme court that appears unwilling to stop lawmakers who make it harder to vote. During the 2020 election, federal appeals courts and the supreme court turned away numerous challenges to expand voting access.

The supreme courts anti-voter posture has become increasingly clear in recent years. In a landmark 2013 case, Shelby County v Holder, the court struck down a provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required places with a history of voting discrimination to submit voting changes to the justice department before they went into effect.

Things have changed dramatically since 1965, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. It meant that states like Arizona, Georgia and Texas all states considering significant voting restrictions now are no longer required to submit voting changes to the federal government for pre-clearance before they go into effect.

The supreme courts hostility to voting matters has only grown since then. In 2018, the court said Ohio could aggressively remove people from the states voter rolls, opening the door for other states to pursue similar policies. The court could go even further this year it is poised to weaken a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that is one of the most powerful tools groups have to challenge discriminatory laws.

They have made it harder for plaintiffs to establish that voting laws are illegal when they result in greater burdens on voters of color, said Leah Litman, a law professor at the University of Michigan. It has largely made it more difficult across the board, through any medium, to address these state voting laws.

In a true democratic system, one of the strongest checks on the wave of voting restrictions advancing through state legislatures would be voters themselves, who can use the power of the ballot to foment political change. But this year, Republicans will have the power to redraw the blueprints of the electoral system itself in their favor.

The US constitution mandates that state lawmakers redraw electoral districts every 10 years. The process requires politicians to decide which voters belong in which district. Politicians can manipulate it by packing their own voters into certain districts and cracking support for their opponent by scattering their voters across the state.

Republicans will wield enormous influence over this process this year. Despite losing the presidency and the US Senate in 2020, Republicans were successful in retaining power in state legislatures, giving them complete control over drawing 181 congressional districts in 18 states, an advantage they can use to wipe out the Democratic majority in the US House.

A decade ago, Republicans launched a coordinated effort, Project Redmap, to win control of state legislatures. Their aim was to take control of the process of redrawing district lines, which the US constitution mandates state legislatures must undertake once per decade.

The Republican plan paid off tremendously. In 2011, they used new majorities in state legislative cycles to draw favorable maps in swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Those maps ensure that Republicans maintained significant majorities in those states, no matter what happened in regular elections.

While both Democrats and Republicans have engaged in the practice over the years, the Republican effort in 2011 took it to a new level. David Daley, a journalist who extensively chronicled Redmap, has described it as the most audacious political heist of modern times.

Now, the supreme court has made it nearly impossible to legally challenge the tactic in federal court.

In one recent case, the court said Texas lawmakers were entitled to presumption of legislative good faith when it upheld electoral maps a lower court said were discriminatory.

And in 2019, the justices said federal courts could not do anything to stop severe partisan redistricting known as gerrymandering even when lawmakers openly admit they are manipulating district lines for partisan gain. The decision essentially allows lawmakers to slice up voters into different districts to suit their own interests.

The practice has debased and dishonored American democracy, Justice Elena Kagan, wrote in a searing dissenting opinion to the 2019 case. Left unchecked, she wrote, such partisan gerrymandering may irreparably damage our system of government.

When Republicans draw new maps later this year, they will reap the benefits of an unchecked system.

This time around, Republicans will also have more advanced technology and data, allowing them to choose maps from thousands of options with detailed data about voters, said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center. Because of delays with the 2020 census, which produces the data used for redistricting, states are going to undertake the process much later than usual, a move that may allow them to provide little transparency into the mapmaking process.

The delays will also provide an even shorter window between the redistricting process and the start of the election cycle, giving voting rights groups little time to bring challenges to gerrymandered maps.

States will not have to get their maps reviewed for racial discrimination before they go into effect.

Last decade Republicans tried to pack Black voters into districts in the south and claim that they were trying to do it because of the [Voting Rights Act]. Now theres an open route for [Republicans] to say, well were putting Black voters into districts because theyre Democrats. And the supreme court has said thats OK, Li said.

The reality is that people of color will bear the brunt there because you really cant do a partisan gerrymander in the south without targeting communities of color, he added.

Amid this attack on voting rights, Democrats and voting rights groups see a glimmer of hope in Washington. Earlier this month, Democrats passed a bill that would implement sweeping changes to Americas voting system, requiring states to offer early voting as well as same-day, online and automatic voter registration, among other measures. It would also establish independent commissions to handle redistricting.

A separate bill pending in the House would establish a new formula to require certain states with recent voting rights violations to again pre-clear their voting changes with the federal government.

Making both bills the law will require getting rid of a rule, often referred to as the filibuster, that requires 60 votes to advance legislation. Even though Democrats control the US Senate, there isnt yet enough support for getting rid of the filibuster. Some moderate Democrats have staunchly resisted the idea, saying it will empower the majority party to ram bills through without achieving any kind of consensus.

But the efforts to restrict voting rights have only emboldened Democrats calling to scrap the rule. Not doing so, they say, would have perilous consequences.

Abrams said the measures were essential so that the US does not suffer another 100 years of Jim Crow.

Rather than 100 years of stasis and paralysis and ignominy, this is an opportunity for us to get it right, she said.

Continue reading here:
US democracy on the brink: Republicans wage 'coordinated onslaught' on voting rights - The Guardian

Changes to the overall media landscape have drastically altered the way journalism functions in American democracy creating competing sets of facts for different voters.

During a panel discussion Monday, March 22, on the fallout of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, national journalists Lisa Desjardins and Astead Herndon spoke with Grand Valley State University President Philomena Mantella and three former GVSU presidents on how journalism can function in the current political landscape.

Desjardins, who covers Congress for "PBS Newshour," said the rise of "splintered media," or cable news programs amplifying a certain political perspective over others has played a role in stoking divisions.

Givingcredence to inaccurate or skewed viewpoints did, in many cases, boost ratings and audiences, but the tradeoff was a lesser-informed viewership, or one that had been deliberately been given misleading or false information.

Cable news has probably added the most fuel to the fire in the media world," Desjardins said."Not to blame it all on cable news across the spectrum, different outlets gaining ratings either (by) attacking or defending.

"You can debate why that was, and whether that was valuable or not valuable, but one of the outcomes of that was that Americans started picking news outlets like they were picking teams, and became very incensed about that.

During the insurrection, supporters of former President Donald Trump attempted to storm Congress to overturn election results. As a candidate and as president, Donald Trump often attacked media outlets which didn't provide favorable coverage. Rioters were recorded smashing cameras and media equipment, yelling obscenities at CNN and Associated Press journalists.

Herndon, who covers politics for The New York Times, said the events of Jan. 6 were a culmination of a group of people who had in their own media sphere been inaccurately told that the 2020 election was fraudulent. These "different sets of realities" among voters can make it difficult for traditional journalists to operate.

If that is the starting point, its hard for us to have the functioning democracy we say we do," Herndon said.

Herndon said to mend some of the distrust in media, journalists have to be transparent about their reporting process. Desjardins added including more diverse voices to reporting will ultimately help readers understand what they are reading and viewing.

Weve missed a lot, weve had blinders on," she said, of the sources traditional media typically interacts with.

In addition to the discussion on the capitol insurrection, Herndon and Desjardins also fielded questions from audience members on source building in journalism, election reforms and news literacy.

The discussion was the second in a series coordinated by the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies to examine the fallout from the insurrection. In addition to Mantella, former GVSU presidents Arend "Don" Lubbers, Mark Murray and Thomas Haas joined the panel.

The full recording can be viewed on the Hauenstein Center's YouTube page.

Contact reporter Arpan Lobo at alobo@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @arpanlobo.

View post:
What is the media's role in democracy? GVSU roundtable explores premise in insurrection's aftermath - HollandSentinel.com

From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street, and from cryptocurrency advocates to the #MeToo movement, Americans and citizens of democracies worldwide are losing confidence in what we once called the system. How should we engage in public life when neither protests nor elections bring about lasting change? InMistrust: Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them,authorEthan Zuckerman explores how Americans can use their skepticism to resurrect, reform, or outright replace the institutions that no longer serve them. In conversation with Princeton political scientist Omar Wasow, he will offer a guide for new ways to participate in civic life.

Speakers:

The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations for events and services should be submitted at least two weeks if possible before the date of the accommodation need. Please email adrienne.yee@nyu.edu or call 646-925-8728 for assistance.

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Democracy in an Age of Mistrust: A Conversation with Ethan Zuckerman and Omar Wasow - brennancenter.org

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdoan speaks during a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, March 18, 2020.(AP Photo by Burhan Ozbilici)

ISTANBULThe government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoan is dismantling human rights protections and democratic norms inTurkeyon a scale unprecedented in the 18 years he has been in office, said Human Rights Watch Thursday. The government took further dangerous measures over the past week to undermine the rule of law and target perceived critics and political opponents.

On March 19, 2021, the president issued adecreesuddenly withdrawing Turkey from the Council of Europes Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention, a groundbreaking treaty strongly supported by the womens rights movement in Turkey. The move came two days after the chief prosecutor of Turkeys top court of appeal announced that he was opening a case to close down the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), only hours after the Erdoan-controlled parliament improperlyexpelledan HDP deputy.

President Erdoan is targeting any institution or part of society that stands in the way of his wide-ranging effort to reshape Turkeys society, saidKenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. The latest developments against parliamentary opposition, the Kurds, and women are all about ensuring the presidents hold on power in violation of human rights and democratic safeguards.

President Erdoans dramatic move to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention with an overnight presidential decree is part of efforts to shore up support from religious conservative circles outside his party and shows his readiness to use the convention as a pretext to promote a highly divisive and homophobic political discourse. That discourse disingenuously claims womens rights undermine so-called family values and promotes a hateful and discriminatory view of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

The presidents communications chief on March 21 issued awritten statementdefending the decision to withdraw Turkey from the treaty, saying that it was hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality which is incompatible with Turkeys social and family values. The claim stems from the conventions language prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Womens groups across Turkey have been staunch supporters of the convention as it legally obligates governments to take effective steps to prevent violence against women, protect survivors, and punish abusers.

Given the hundreds of murders of women by partners and former partners in Turkey each year, Erdoans move to withdraw from and weaponize the treaty for political ends and to ignore the treatys desperately needed protections for women is shocking, Human Rights Watch said.

The decision to withdraw is a profoundly backward step in the struggle to protect womens rights in Turkey and a major blow for all women across the political spectrum, Roth said.

In response, on March 20, thousands of women protested in cities across Turkey, declaring that the womens movement in Turkey will continue the struggle and demand government action to combat the entrenched problem of domestic violence and femicide.

The move by the chief prosecutor of the Court of Cassation on March 17 to close down the Peoples Democratic Party, the second-largest opposition party in parliament, came shortly after parliament expelled the HDP deputy mer Faruk Gergerliolu on the pretext of his conviction for a social media posting. Gergerliolus expulsion was in reprisal for his consistent focus on the thousands of victims of Erdoans human rights crackdown, while the effort to close the HDP targets the rights of millions of Kurdish voters and subverts the principle of parliamentary democracy, Human Rights Watch said.

Over the past 30 years, Turkey has closed down five pro-Kurdish political parties. As in earlier cases, the chief prosecutors indictment accuses the Peoples Democratic Party of acting against the indivisible integrity of the state with its country and nation (separatism) and violating the constitution and laws, necessitating its full and permanent closure.

The prosecutor also asked the court to ban 687 named individuals, including current and former members of parliament and hundreds of party officials, from political life for five years and to cut the treasury funding that the HDP, like other parties, is entitled to. The evidence cited includes speeches and political activities by parliamentary deputies in office at various times over the past eight years.

Initiating a case to close down a political party that won 11.7 percent of the vote nationally in the 2018 general election and has 55 elected members of parliament is a major assault on the rights to political association and expression, Roth said. The move could deny close to six million voters their chosen representatives in violation of their right to vote.

On March 20 and 21, Peoples Democratic Party voters turned out in force at Kurdish new year (Nowruz) assemblies in Turkeys major cities, turning the gathering into a powerful expression of support for the party and protest at the onslaught on the rights of its predominantly Kurdish base. On March 22, the Diyarbakr prosecutor initiated an investigation into the partys co-leader for his speech during the Nowruz celebrations. And an Istanbul courtsentencedthe partys former co-leader Selahattin Demirta to three years and six months in prison for insulting the president in a 2015 speech.

The major developments of the past few days follow a series of grave setbacks for human rights in Turkey in 2020 and 2021. The Erdoan government has repeatedly flouted binding European Court of Human Rights judgments ordering the release of therights defender Osman Kavalaandpolitician Selahattin Demirta.

In December 2020, the government rushed in alawgiving it much wider powers to target civil society organizations on the pretext of combatting terrorism financing and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The government wrongly contended that the new rules are in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions.

In January, the president moved to deepen his control over higher education, with the appointment of a rector to one of Turkeys top universities and subsequent restructuring of the institution in the face ofwidespread protests by the university staff and students. Anti-LGBT speeches and social media posts by top government officials have become common most recently againststudents arrested for an artwork with LGBT flagsandon International Womens Day.

The publication of a Human Rights Action Plan on March 2 is completely at odds with the reality on the ground, where arbitrary detentions and prosecutions of journalists, activists, and others are routine and intensifying. Two weeks after the President announced the Human Rights Action Plan, ztrk Trkdoan, the co-chair of a prominent human rights association, wasarrestedduring dawn raids in Ankara. He was later released.

The European Union and US administration have acknowledged the profound setbacks for human rights but continue overwhelmingly to focus on Turkeys strategic importance in the region, its foreign policy, its active role in regional conflicts, and migration policies.

On March 25 and 26, EU leaders are to review their relations with Turkey. The European Council should speak out over the sharp decline in the human rights situation in Turkey. The council should make clear that anEU-proposed positive agendawith Turkey would be tied to ending attacks on opposition figures and measurable progress in upholding human rights.

EU leaders should not pretend it is business as usual, while Turkeys government is escalating its assaults on critics, parliamentary democracy, and womens rights, Roth said.

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HRW Warns of Erdogan's Onslaught on Rights and Democracy - Asbarez Armenian News

President Joe Biden said he has no intention of seeking conflict with China, but did criticise the country's leader, Xi Jinping.

Mr Biden made the comments during a press conference on Thursday.

The president said he was familiar with the Chinese leader from his days as vice president under Barack Obama.

He doesnt have a democratic with a small d bone in his body, but hes a smart, smart guy, Mr Biden said.

Mr Biden also compared the Chinese leader to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Hes one of the guys like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who thinks that autocracy is the wave of the future [and that] democracy cant function in an ever complex world, he said.

The president pledged to prevent China from becoming the wealthiest and leading country in the world by leaning on allies and boosting the US's investment in technology.

I see stiff competition with China, Mr Biden said. China has an overall goal, and I dont criticise them for the goal, but they have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world. Thats not going to happen on my watch, because United States is going to continue to grow and expand.

The president said the competition between the countries would be one of democracy versus autocracy.

Were not looking for confrontation, although we know there will be steep, steep competition, he said. This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century, and autocracies.

Mr Biden and Mr Xi spoke for the first time since the former's election during a phone call in February.

According to a White House synopsis of the call, the men discussed Mr Biden's concerns about Beijing's stifling of democratic demonstrations as well as human rights abuses and economic practices.

The call underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing's coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan, according to the White House.

Mr Biden has referred to China as the US's most serious competitor.

The Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, said Mr Xi expressed a desire to improve US-China relations after four contentious years of Donald Trump's sabre-rattling.

You have said that America can be defined in one word: Possibilities. We hope the possibilities will now point toward an improvement of China-US relations, Mr Xi reportedly said.

Mr Xi reportedly also said that the US side should respect China's core interests and act prudently.

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Biden says Chinese president Xi Jinping 'doesn't have a democratic bone' in his body - The Independent