Mediaboss Marketing

In 2018, the Chinese government, under pressure from mounting evidence and United Nations scrutiny, changed its approach: it stopped denying the existence of internment camps in Xinjiang, and instead presented them as vocational skills centres, attended on a wholly voluntary basis by the regions Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims.

This threw up a number of questions: if the students were there voluntarily, why did a single classroom have five surveillance cameras? Why were they dressed in identical jumpsuits, and who volunteers to sit in a classroom chanting I am a citizen who obeys laws and regulations anyway? A researcher, Shawn Zhang, found what he believed to be satellite images of the same centre, which gave a clearer picture of its conditions: surrounded by razor wire and watchtowers. The following year, the so-called China cables were leaked, detailing the nature of this vocational programme the top line, allow no escapes.

Chinas actions are unforgivable, but one thing it can be forgiven for is not taking seriously the censure of foreign governments. While the Trump administration was considering sanctions, Donald Trump himself was guilty of detentions; migrant children were also being separated from their parents in the United States, some dying from neglected medical needs. The UK government, meanwhile, was charged by its own MPs with putting trade before human rights, Theresa May having declared a golden era for Anglo-Chinese relations. The current Conservative administration has conveniently forgotten events as recent as the past 18 months, and is claiming to have always strenuously decried Chinas human rights abuses.

So we enter what has all the hallmarks of a new cold war with a global superpower, under leaders who have variously forfeited their own moral legitimacy, vacillated over decisions such as Huawei for secretive but guessable reasons and prioritised and deprioritised human rights as the mood took them, while simultaneously trying to weaponise a pandemic that really needs no geopolitical dimension to be a crisis in its own right. Its enough to make a progressive quake, but just because Dominic Raab is using the plight of the Uighurs for his own sabre-rattling purposes doesnt mean that plight is unimportant: it is central. There is no meaningful world order that doesnt start at the prevention of genocide. We should take the concept of universalism, rather than capitalism versus communism, as the guiding principle in a forthcoming conflict that hopefully will remain cold but probably will not simply evaporate.

To think about what that would look like in concrete terms, we need to turn to the last cold war, which, at certain points, undid the left. Naturally unwilling to buy into an assumption of capitalist supremacy, many found it hard to condemn elements of communism that were plainly abhorrent. As superpowers fronted up to one another, the discursive space to say Youre actually both wrong, in different ways, to different degrees, at different times, with different consequences vanished, even though it was true.

The exception was the transnational peace movement, specifically the campaign for European nuclear disarmament, which achieved a number of things. First, by taking aim not at ideologies but at the arms race, it was able to build networks between grassroots movements. It didnt have to erase or minimise anyones experience in order to hold an allegiance to one side or the other. This in turn created an alliance between peace and human rights movements across both blocs, which strengthened and extended the ambitions of both, so that what had previously been an argument based on necessity if you can destroy the world with 10 nuclear weapons, why do you need 100? became an argument based on rights: what right has any worldview to destroy lives, or even create the conditions for them to be destroyed? Lastly, of course, it achieved its aim: the end of the arms race, which itself signalled the end of the cold war.

That past doesnt map neatly on to our present, but it does offer some guiding principles. The first is that universal human rights have to remain the ultimate goal. They cannot be up- and downgraded, according to the exigencies of trade or any other international agreement. The second is that any change to the Chinese modus operandi will not come about because a different superpower imposes it by force or sanctions, but from opposition within its own political ecosystem, of which the democracy movement in Hong Kong is the vanguard and not the extent; international manoeuvres must start with the humility of recognising that. Most importantly, none of us can scuttle away from a dire situation simply because we dont trust our own leaders and their allies to be attacking it in good faith. Ones enemys enemy is, inconveniently, sometimes even worse.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Read more:
Progressives can't leave criticism of China to the new cold warriors - The Guardian

The past few weeks have been eye-opening for American Jews. I would have never believed that numerous celebrities could post videos of Louis Farrakhan, Ice Cube could post bizarre anti-Semitic conspiracies, and Desean Jackson as well as Nick Cannon could engage in classic and undeniable anti-Semitism with virtually no broad-based condemnation. There will always be those who stand up against hate no matter where it comes from Jemele Hill, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Charles Barkley come to mind as recent examples. But, those courageous few are unfortunately the exception rather than the rule.

The reason that the toleration of anti-Semitism seems so surprising is that it is being tolerated by those who are supposed to be standing up for groups that are victims of prejudice. Who would have thought that progressives those who spend their days being angry on other groups behalf would somehow let anti-Semitism slip? I sure wouldnt have. But, then again, nobody else did either.

The root of progressive anti-Semitism, however, becomes much more clear once the thin veil of tolerance and acceptance is understood for what it truly is a fragile faade that will crumble at the slightest touch. The truth is that progressives look at Jews as just another group of oppressive white people that are taking advantage of the poor, the working class and the various oppressed minority groups in America. This is a message that finds its chief megaphone in Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. While people claim that Farrakhan and Nation Of Islam are irrelevant fringe actors, the truth is that they have found themselves in positions of tremendous influence. This influence has made its way into mainstream American discourse.

Progressives who subscribe to Nation of Islams pernicious philosophy see the financial success of American Jews, the political success of the State of Israel, and assume that there must have been foul play involved. To them, every disparity can be attributed to discrimination. To them, if that is not worthy of hate, then nothing is.

The issue with this narrative is that it is an outright lie. Over half of all hate crimes committed due to prejudice against a religious group are committed against Jews and all indicators available suggest that anti-Semitism is rising once again. In New York, anti-Semitism accounts for more than half of all hate crimes. It is ignorant at best, malicious at worst, to claim that anti-Semitism is merely an issue of the past. Moreover, we cannot discuss anti-Semitism in a context that ignores the Middle East and the state of Israel. With Irans supreme leader putting out a call for a final solution just weeks ago as well as Hamas Charter, still today, calling for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews around the world, anti-Semitism in America is just the tip of the iceberg.

While anti-Semitism in America seems to have died down tremendously over the past 70 years, and the numbers show that it has, the fact that this singular form of hate is still pervasive in some communities as well as seemingly acceptable in our popular culture and among celebrities is undoubtedly startling. This is not evidence of oppression against American Jews the Jewish people have a far too long history of true oppression to claim that the United States in 2020 can even be compared to our past but rather it is evidence of prejudice that is readily ignored by those who would like to ignore it.

The true irony is that neither anti-Semitism, nor anti-Zionism, (but I repeat myself) are progressive in any true sense of the word.

If progressives see it as their duty to stand up for groups that have historically been victimized, it is truly impossible to understand how Jews could be left out of that equation. The only way to create a fictional history absent of Jewish oppression is one where the Holocaust never happened, there was no anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and there is no anti-Semitism in the Middle East. To claim any of the antecedent phenomena never took place would be to engage in historical revisionism as well as anti-Semitism of the highest order.

Beyond anti-Semitism in general, anti-Zionism in particular is not progressive in any real way either. Defining the term will help explain why.

Zionism is, in its most simple terms, the Jewish right to self-determination. Moral humans generally, and progressives in particular, should be standing for the self-determination of all people. So, to somehow come to the conclusion that by standing for the right of self-determination for all groups with the exception of Jews is somehow progressive seems more than a little odd.

It is not only anger-inducing, but also thoroughly depressing, to see the willing and, at times, prideful ignorance of the faux-progressives that occupy our media, popular culture and college campuses. For those who continue to readily ignore some hate, they must realize that anti-Semitism has a long and ugly history one that refusing to acknowledge will not suffice to make it disappear.

Jack Elbaum will be attending George Washington University in the fall. His writing has been featured in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and the Washington Examiner. You can contact him at jackelbaum16@gmail.com

Read this article:
Progressives, Stop Ignoring Anti-Semitism | Jack Elbaum | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

13th November 1953: Members of Supreme Court. Seated, Felix Frankfurter (far left) and William O ... [+] Douglas (far right). Standing, Robert H. Jackson (second from left). (Photo by George Tames/New York Times Co./Getty Images)

Felix Frankfurter was a man of the Left. He wrote often for The New Republic, and he helped found the ACLU. He lobbied the United States to recognize the Soviet Union during the Russian Civil War. He was the foremost proponent of a new trial for the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.

While Frankfurter was agitating and organizing as a professor at Harvard Law School in the 1910s and 20s, the Supreme Court was striking down state licensing requirements, consumer-protection rules, and wage-and-hour laws. Like many on the Left of that day, therefore, Frankfurter believed in judicial restraint. Justice Louis Brandeis captured the contemporary progressive attitude in a 1932 dissent. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system, he wrote, that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

Brandeiss great ally on the court was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. It was not progressive principle that made Holmes a restrained judge; it was a bullet in the neck in the Civil War. What damned fools people are who believe things, he once told the socialist professor Harold Laski. Although he said it of a pacifist in a case before the court, the line captures how he saw most things, including judging. Oddly enough, the idealistic Frankfurter worshiped the cynical Holmes. A justice willing to uphold social legislation he thought pointless, even ridiculous, was in Frankfurters eyes the pattern of a sound judge. This might explain why Frankfurters own judicial principles would remain fixed as times changed.

And change they did. Frankfurter became a justice in 1939. The next year, on behalf of an 8-1 majority of the court, he declared that the First Amendment has nothing to say about the expulsion from school of Jehovahs Witnesses who refuse to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Local governments must, Frankfurter thought, have the authority to safeguard the nations fellowship. Just three years later, however, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), the court voted 6-to-3 to overturn Frankfurters opinion. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, Justice Robert Jackson wrote for the majority, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

Now in dissent, Frankfurter fumed about judges who write their private notions of policy into the Constitution. It must be remembered, he wrote, quoting Holmes, that legislatures are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a degree as the courts. True, but not a very compelling point in a case about forcing schoolchildren to swear an oath against their (and their parents) will.

Shortly after the First World War, in fact, Holmes had started to take a more expansive view of the Free Speech Clause. When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, he explained in dissent in Abrams v. United States (1919), they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas. When it came to free speech, Holmes could use his old philosophical skepticism to justify a new judicial assertiveness. His pivot was driven in part by distress at the persecution Frankfurter and Laski suffered at Harvard for their radical views. Yet Frankfurter himself remained in awe of the Holmes who told Laski, just a year after Abrams, that if the people want to go to hell, a judges job is to help them along.

Frankfurter clashed often with a group of justices, led by William Brennan and William Douglas, who placed little stock in text, precedent, or history. This activist wing became increasingly dominant. Frankfurters hour was pastor, rather, had never come. When Brennan, writing for the court in Baker v. Carr (1962), overturned a raft of precedents on the way to declaring that legislative redistricting decisions can be challenged in court, Frankfurter issued a long and bitter dissent, suffered a stroke, and retired.

Frankfurter complained that the courts hard left produced opinions that were shoddy and result-oriented. He might have added anarchic. In 1968 a man wore a jacket emblazoned with the words F*** the Draft in a courthouse. He was arrested and prosecuted for disturbing the peace ... by offensive conduct. In his final months on the court, John Marshall Harlan wrote the decision in the mans appeal. An heir, in many ways, of Holmes, Brandeis, and Frankfurter, Harlan set a trend for many later conservative justices by evolving on the bench. His opinion in Cohen v. California (1971) declared the protester's conviction inconsistent with the First Amendment.

Because the offensive-conduct statute applied throughout the state, the defendant, Harlan concluded, was not on notice that certain kinds of otherwise permissible speech or conduct would ... not be tolerated in certain places. Harlan dodged the key questionwhat counts as offensive conduct in a courthouseby denying that the law can turn on context or matters of degree. Having thus oversimplified the case (and infantilized every citizen), he was free to ask simply whether a state may ban the use of expletives in public. At that point he could at least have knocked down his straw man with a straightforward no. Instead Harlan offered a paean to vulgar relativism, a tract now remembered mainly for the assertion that one mans vulgarity is anothers lyric. As Robert Bork noted in The Tempting of America, that statement is a challenge to all laws on all subjects. After all, one mans larceny is anothers just distribution of goods.

Does Cohen remain a totem of left-wing free-speech jurisprudence? The courts progressives seem to have reversed gear. Take the courts decision earlier this month in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants Inc. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act bans almost all robocalls to cell phones. The Act contains an exception for robocalls that seek to collect a debt owed to the federal government. At issue in Barr was whether this carveout violates the First Amendment. While acknowledging that robocalls are widely despised, the court concluded, by a vote of 6-to-3, that the government nonetheless may not engage in content-based discrimination, baselessly favoring some robocalls over others.

Writing for himself and Justices Ginsburg and Kagan, Justice Breyer argued in dissent that robocalls are not vital to core First Amendment objectives, such as protecting peoples ability to speak or to transmit their views to government. Congress, in Breyers view, should have greater leeway to impose ordinary regulatory programs that pose little threat to the exchange of thought. Maybe sobut this is not the outlook on display in Cohen. Say the government prohibits writing political statements on tax returns. According to the Barr dissent, it is hard to imagine that such a rule would threaten political speech in the marketplace of ideas. Dont count on the wing of the court that let a man say F*** the Draft in a courthouse in 1968 to let you say F*** Taxes on a tax form today.

Why has the courts left wing lost its enthusiasm for free-speech absolutism? One factor is the emergence on the court of a right wing that upholds the free-speech rights of corporations. No longer the only ones patrolling constitutional boundaries, the progressives are more careful about loose rights talk.

Another factor might soon come to the fore. If the Left conquers American culture, sheds liberal values, and becomes a force for conformity, will the progressive justices shift in turn? In the case of a child expelled from school for refusing to acknowledge, and renounce, her privilege, would they chastise the wielders of power and discuss the fixed star in our constitutional constellation? Or would they gain a new understanding of Justice Frankfurters belief in the value of making parents accept the training of [their] children in good citizenship? In the appeal of a man charged with offensive conduct for wearing, amid a hostile crowd, a jacket maligning political correctness, would they use Cohen to lecture the easily offended about simply avert[ing] their eyes to avoid further bombardment of their sensitivities? Or might they suddenly see wisdom in the Cohen dissenters claim that absurd and immature antic[s] are conduct rather than speech?

Follow this link:
The Protean Progressive Free Speech Clause - Forbes

Judging from March, the ideological left wing of the Democratic Party in Texas should be inconsolable.

After months of high hopes, the faction ran into a centrist buzz saw in the March 3 primary. Joe Biden practically locked up the Democratic presidential nomination, and progressive candidates experienced electoral drubbings.

Among the fallen: presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, congressional candidate Jessica Cisneros, U.S. Senate hopeful Cristina Tzintzn Ramirez, and Audia Jones, a candidate for Harris County District attorney endorsed by Sanders.

But rather than licking their political wounds, leading progressive candidates still in the fight say theyre invigorated and eager to use the coronavirus pandemic, fights over voting by mail and calls for police reform to score some late victories in the July runoffs.

Every time we have a progressive run, we get a little bit closer, said Sara Stapleton-Barrera, who is in a runoff against state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville. I feel like were slowly winning the war, but we have to get through some of these battles first.

Perhaps the most energy is coming from Austin, where two runoffs have the attention of progressives. Jos Garza is competing in the nationally watched Democratic primary runoff for Travis County district attorney. Mike Siegel is vying for his partys nomination in the 10th Congressional Districts Democratic primary runoff.

Garzas race is where the focus on police reform is arguably the clearest. Even before the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police prompted protests nationwide, Garza was challenging incumbent Margaret Moore from the left, arguing she was too harsh in her prosecution of nonviolent offenders. He earned the most votes in March and has promised to bring all police shootings and more police misconduct cases before a grand jury. He has also pledged not to accept campaign contributions from police unions.

Moore, meanwhile, has accused him of being inexperienced with the local criminal justice system and running a campaign focused on national issues instead of local ones.

In the 10th Congressional District, Siegel is running on a platform that includes supporting Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Siegel will face Dr. Pritesh Gandhi, who has cited his medical experience while pitching Medicare Extra, a proposal that does not go as far as Medicare for All and leaves some private insurance in place.

I think this is the exact moment in history when progressives are in a place to lead, and its because the times have caught up the policies were fighting for, Siegel said. This is the time to run as a progressive. I feel really good not just about my chances, but the movement overall.

Candidates embracing the progressive wing of political thought jokingly argue they have the gift of turmoil on their side. Tea Party Republicans, for example, seized on the Great Recession and its aftermath to reshape their party. And despite some fear that Biden locking up the partys nomination swung the conversation back to the center, progressives believe a global health crisis and the gruesome killings of Black Americans at the hands of police will galvanize the public behind their causes, which include reallocating police funds, Medicare for All, and expanded paid sick and family leave.

I think we have an opportunity in these runoffs to advance some solidly progressive folks, said Alex Morgan, the executive director of Progressive Turnout Project.

Since 2016, when Sanders presidential campaign began receiving plaudits for bringing policy ideas like free college and single-payer health care into the national sphere, progressives have tried to deepen their foothold in the Democratic Party. By some measures, theyve been successful. During the June congressional primaries in New York, two Black progressives Jamaal Bowman, and Mondaire Jones triumphed over their more moderate foes.

But in Texas, challenges for these candidates remain.

Insurgent progressives are battling an electability argument that more moderate Democrats are the best options to flip legislative and congressional seats by appealing to disillusioned Texas Republicans in the purpling suburbs.

I dont think I would equate pragmatism to being more moderate, said Gandhi, Siegels opponent. The two candidates are vying to challenge U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, in what has historically been a Republican district.

I think being pragmatic indicates to people that youre willing to go beyond the partisanship that defines Washington, D.C., right now, he said. Thats what people are hungry for. People want candidates who will value science and objectivity above partisanship and ideology. People are tired of empty rhetoric.

But progressives reject the idea that a more centrist candidate would be a more successful candidate in swing districts across the state.

The mantra of the establishment of the Democratic Party is this belief in the fantasy, unicorn Republican whos willing to flip into the Democratic category just because a Democrat says some things that sound slightly more Republican, said Charles Chamberlain, the chair of Democracy for America. I mean, its just ridiculous.

Another runoff that has drawn the attention of some national progressives is the one for the 24th Congressional District, where Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela are competing to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell. The seat is a national Democratic target.

Valenzuela has endorsements like the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Warren, but the runoff has not as sharply split along ideological lines as much as it has on issues of experience and racial identity. Valenzuela, a former Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board member, and her allies are hammering Olson over her time as human resources director for the Dallas Independent School District. Valenzuela and her supporters are also touting that she would be the first Afro-Latina to serve in Congress. Olson is white.

But the divide might be clearest in South Texas, where the winner of the state Senate runoff between Lucio and Barrera will be the overwhelming favorite to win the seat in November.

Barreras allies are blasting Lucios Senate voting record, which they say is out of touch with the districts young, progressive voices. Theyve also accused him of being too cozy with Republicans. Campaign finance reports released this week show some of the biggest GOP donors in Texas, including Dallas oilman Ray Hunt, Dallas pipeline tycoon Kelcy Warren and Houston real estate developer Richard Weekly, pitched in to support his reelection bid.

Lucio, a conservative Democrat, has long split with his party on issues like abortion, and has cast votes that were controversial within his party in recent years on school choice and the 2017 bathroom bill that would have restricted transgender Texans access to certain public facilities. He was first elected to the Texas Senate 30 years ago and has touted his seniority, experience and local ties.

People are and vote moderate because they are afraid, Barrera said. Im not a fan of the moderate route. If youre going to do it, go big and bold to make some real change.

But so far this year, Texas Democrats have largely stuck with known commodities. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, one of the most moderate House Democrats, fended off Cisneros, who was backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while Tzintzn Ramirez finished third behind Dallas state Sen. Royce West and Air Force veteran MJ Hegar. (Tzintzn Ramirez quickly endorsed West, and some of the groups that supported her have since backed West as well. While few consider him as progressive as Tzintzn Ramirez, they see him as the superior choice to Hegar, whose party credentials have come under new scrutiny in the home stretch of the runoff.)

Those results have frustrated progressive groups, angry that while their policies such as tough action on climate change, student debt cancellation and single-payer health care poll high among Democratic voters nationally, their candidates often still fall short.

The disconnect emphasizes a fundamental schism among Democrats and has caused progressive groups, albeit privately, to divide blame between the candidates they backed and an electorate that has prioritized fear of another four years of President Donald Trump above all else.

But there is still cause for optimism among some on the left, given that issues once considered fringe are now popular.

Biden, for example, has embraced Warrens bankruptcy plan and a proposal from Sanders to make public college free for some students. At the local level, several city councils in Texas more liberal cities have seriously considered or adopted proposals to decrease police budgets or to mandate a reduction in police force against civilians. And in Texas, former presidential candidate Julin Castro recently launched a new political action committee, People First Future, that aims to invest in progressive candidates up and down the ballot nationwide. Hes already endorsed at least seven Texas congressional candidates.

The progressive movement is just getting started here in Texas, Siegel said.

I think all Democratic candidates are more progressive now than they were two to four years ago, and that demonstrates the success of the progressive movement, added Garza.

I think we have a lot to hold our head up high about.

Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.

See the rest here:
Texas progressives have hope for July runoff elections - The Texas Tribune

While some progressives are bullish about the outlook for the November election, Tatenda Musapatike surveys the political landscape and sees masses of unregistered voters who were supposed to be on the rolls by now, but for the pandemic.

It is making her increasingly anxious, and she is not alone.

It is hard to overstate just how underwater voter registration is, said Musapatike, senior director of campaigns at Acronym, a progressive group focused on digital strategy.

Democrats and Republicans alike are struggling to confront a simmering crisis that could hurt either or both of them in assorted contests this fall. Yet the stakes are particularly high for the left, which is relying heavily on mobilizing the sorts of people who often dont vote to help oust President Trump.

The numbers of new voters added to the rolls lately are way below where progressives want and need them to be. Voter registration is yet another casualty of the pandemic, which in this case tore apart carefully laid plans for mass mobilization through door-to-door drives signing people up.

After a lot of talk about progressive groups being well-equipped to shift their efforts online, the reality has so far proven more complicated. Many tactics Democrats rely on to lure potential voters are older even than the partys septuagenarian presidential candidate. The messaging is stale, the targeting out-of-touch and the infrastructure not entirely compatible with the digital age.

That has operatives like Musapatike working at a breakneck pace to innovate, desperately trying to bring cultural relevance and technological competence to the anachronistic American ritual of voter-registration drives. While money from big donors is flowing their way, they are confronting headwinds as some party leaders question how much to invest in experimentation.

We know what has worked in the past, Musapatike said. But we havent expanded our learning. Big ideas need to be explored. The $11-million effort she is spearheading, under the brand Peoples Power Grab, aims to talk to groups such as young Black and Latino Americans on platforms including TikTok and Instagram, with the kind of culturally resonant content that e-commerce marketers tapped into long ago.

One video has a stylish Black woman swiping through a dating app and checking out the playful profile of another user, only to balk when it reveals hes a nonvoter. Viewers of the video can then tap on a link that brings them to a page where they can register easily. It is supported by pioneering technology that simplifies the process and enables organizers to track the registration status and engage with the new voter through election day.

Newsletter

Get our Essential Politics newsletter

The latest news, analysis and insights from our bureau chiefs in Sacramento and D.C.

Enter Email Address

Sign Me Up

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Jesse Horwitz, an e-commerce entrepreneur, has been pushing Democrats to embrace just that kind of campaign, with limited success. Before the pandemic, he ran a voter-registration pilot program that experimented with e-commerce targeting tactics and user-driven content that has served corporate America well. Horwitz said he enlisted voters to register at a fraction of the price of traditional models, which often cost more than $100 for each registration.

While he offered his blueprint free to organizations spending big to register Democrats, its mostly been collecting dust. Its befuddling to me, Horwitz said.

A voter registration recital at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York.

(Associated Press)

The groups that have experimented outside the box are seeing some big successes. Voto Latino, a 15-year-old, digitally-oriented organization focused on spurring the Latino vote, saw its unconventional tactics rewarded with an explosion of interest amid the recent racial justice protests. More than 98,000 people registered through its platform in June, a nearly ten-fold increase over May, which was already a decent month for new registrants.

After the 2018 midterm election, half of the countrys voting-eligible Latinos reported they never got contacted by anyone about their registration status or plans to vote, according to Voto Latino. There is this stigma in the establishment that Latinx people dont come out and vote, said Danny Turkel, the groups communications director. Democrats must invest in contacting them and speaking their language, which is not Spanish but the way they communicate in their everyday lives.

Rock the Vote has also seen a surge in registrations lately, attracting college-age voters with events headlined by celebrities and influencers. When We All Vote, a new organization co-chaired by Michelle Obama and stars including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Janelle Monae, has mobilized tens of thousands of young voters by seizing on what is trending and on the energy of the current protests.

When #couchparty started trending on Twitter signifying the popularity of DJ D-Nices online tunes-spinning for people stuck at home the group pounced, launching its own virtual couch parties with him. The wildly successful events featured both music and talk to recruit those participating to vote, and to get their friends registered, too.

We knew it was important for people to talk about voting in a way that reaches people, not about doing this in some politically correct way, said Stephanie L. Young, a managing director of the group.

For all such efforts, the voter-registration decline triggered by states stay-at-home orders persists. Not even 200,000 people were registered in May, compared with nearly 1.5 million in May of 2016, according to the Democratic data analysis firm TargetSmart.

Those early numbers also showed people of color and voters under 40 making up a smaller share of new voters in April and May than previously. That gap, analysts at TargetSmart say, may have closed in June, when nationwide anti-racism protests ignited the interest reflected in the numbers posted by groups like Voto Latino and When We all Vote.

Yet many progressives are alarmed. They have been furiously trying to upgrade technology to navigate states balky registration systems, to help volunteers easily find who isnt registered, and then get them on the rolls more simply.

Outvote is a startup that seeks to enable activists to enlist people in their social networks to register and vote. It is unfortunately very complicated to vote in this country, said its founder, Naseem Makiya. Our app helps you see which forks they are stuck at, and make sure they move to the next step.

The firm Civitech is arming progressive groups and community activists with technology that uses Google Maps to create a real-time digital map of every unregistered voter. Neighbors, for example, can see who in their community is not on the rolls and then reach out to them.

A hospital in Philadelphia adopted every block within a one-mile radius, urging residents to send in their applications for vote-by-mail ballots, with a tongue-in-cheek note about not wanting to see them at intake with COVID-19 contracted during in-person voting.

Building this 10 years ago would have been impossible, said firm co-founder Jeremy Smith, crediting Google and Amazon mapping applications. There are a lot of people who would vote if you bothered to ask them.

His technology enables even citizen activists to engage in sophisticated microtargeting. It can, for example, find the seven Latinos who are unregistered in one particular neighborhood in Riverside. Or it can more broadly give organizers a view of where in a county Black residents are registering at high rates, and where there is work to be done. After potential voters are reached by cell phones, organizations can arrange to send them registration forms with prepaid postage, or walk them through online registration, where available.

But states and counties constantly shifting registration rules are a persistent challenge. Only two states Pennsylvania and Virginia accept voter-registration applications submitted through sites like Peoples Power Grab. Everywhere else, the information needs to be routed onto a state-sanctioned form.

And the hurdles some states have created to getting a vote-by-mail ballot are adding to the challenge, even as the pandemic pushes voting in that direction.

The rules are radically different state by state, said Emily Del Beccaro, a co-founder of OpenField, a digital organizing firm that shifted its strategy to focus on enabling activists to register voters remotely. Wisconsin, she said, has no single place voters send their vote-by-mail application. Hundreds of voting offices process them, and the voter must find the office for their area, making automation tough for organizations aiming to register thousands of voters a day.

All these organizations have been having to build new systems from scratch, Del Beccaro said. It is incredibly complicated.

More here:
Progressives try to reinvent the registration drive amid a pandemic - Los Angeles Times