What was your top issue two years ago? Climate change? Gun violence? Abortion rights? Preventing another Trump term? What will be your top issue two years from now? What are the odds it will be Israel’s war in Gaza?
I want to follow up on Digby’s (and Rick Perlstein’s) reflections on Saturday about Gaza and young people voting (or not). It’s my regular complaint every four years that the presidential race is not the only one on the ballot or the only reason to cast one. There will be over three dozen races alone on the ballot in my county, one of over 3,100 in the country. Only one race is for national office (two counting the VP). For some states with ballot measures, the fate of women’s reproductive rights is on the ballot. State district, appeals, and Supreme Court races may be on your ballot.
Remember how we held our breath over Janet Protasiewicz in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race in April 2023? Her colleague, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley announced last month that she will retire next spring, putting Wisconsin Democrats’ thin court majority, voting rights and more up for grabs again in April 2025. In your state, such races may be on your ballot in November 2024. Don’t be on the receiving side of what’s going down if Democrats lose.
In the race for governor and other down-ballot contests in North Carolina, Republicans have nominated the Trumpiest head cases they could find — just short of those proudly wearing adult diapers in solidarity with Von Sh**zInPantz. The New Apostolic Reformation is targeting local races in the bluest counties in eight states (including mine).
In 2016, a certain #NeverHillary celebrity argued that a Trump presidency would mobilize the left and hasten the revolution. And then “things will really explode.” Never mind who suffers in the explosion. What the Trump presidency gave us was three U.S. Supreme Court picks that ended a half century of women’s reproductive autonomy, 400,000 dead from COVID-19, and a violent insurrection that might have ended our 250-year experiment in self-government. Plus all those Federalist Society judges Republicans installed like Aileen Cannon.
Another Trump term in 2025 will define the rest of this century and perhaps the fate of democratic self-government across the globe, and the planet itself. There are plenty of reasons to vote this November beyond the presidential contest. And not just reasons to vote against things. For all their shortcomings (we all have them, Joe Biden too), your chances of advancing the issues mentioned above lie with the Democrats and the choices you make (or fail to) this fall.
What was your top issue two years ago? Climate change? Gun violence? Abortion rights? They are on the ballot this November. What will be your top issue two years from now? The same ones? New ones? Fight for the future. Vote for a beautiful tomorrow.
Jacob Blake's family hosting community gathering. Includes comm. clean-up, voter reg. booth as well as food, 🎶, free haircuts provided by local business. Celebration highlights contrast between Trump’s divisive & inflammatory statements & nonviolent demonstrations held by family pic.twitter.com/9D1eHmEMWh
The Seattle International Film Festival is running now through May 19th. This year’s SIFF features a total of 207 shorts, documentaries, and narrative films from 84 countries. The brick-and-mortar event will be immediately followed by a week of select virtual screenings from this year’s catalog (April 20-27) on the SIFF Channel. I’ve been bingeing on screeners and thought I would take a breather and share some reviews. Hopefully, some of these festival selections will be coming soon to a theater (or a streaming service) near you!
Before it Ends (Denmark) *** – In April 1945, the Allies were closing in on Berlin, signaling the imminent demise of the Third Reich. But for the citizens of Nazi-occupied European nations, the trauma was far from over. Anders Walter’s drama is set in a Danish village on the Island of Funen, still in the grip of its German occupiers. When a trainload of German refugees pulls into town, the Nazi commandant orders the local headmaster (the always wonderful Pilou Asbæk) to house them at his school. An outbreak of diphtheria among the refugees, coupled with widening divisions between the locals has the headmaster facing a moral dilemma: if he shows compassion toward the suffering German civilians, does that make him a “collaborator”? A well-acted examination of everyday non-combatants who get caught in the crossfire of (any) war, reminiscent of the excellent TV series A French Village.
Bonjour Switzerland (Switzerland) ***½ – Bananas meets The Mouse That Roared in this refreshingly old-school political satire directed by Peter Luisi. Beat Schlatter (who co-wrote the screenplay with the director) stars as a mild-mannered German-speaking federal agent who gets tasked with overseeing implementation of a controversial new Swiss law that mandates French as the country’s official language (in true Peter Sellers fashion, Schlatter also plays the high-profile media demagogue who pushed for the law). Problems quickly pile up for the hapless agent; he can barely speak French, his dear old mom becomes radicalized, and he finds himself falling for an Italian woman who belongs to a separatist group he’s been assigned to infiltrate. OK, I’ll say it: This is a hilarious, good-natured romp.
Hitchcock’s Pro-Nazi Film? (France) *** – I’ve always considered Alfred Hitchcock’s1944 war drama Lifeboat (about a small group of passengers who survive the sinking of their vessel by a U-boat) as a sharply observed microcosm of the human condition. However, Daphné Baiwir’s documentary sheds a different light, recalling a critical backlash from some who condemned the film as pro-German (an aspect I had never really considered before). A fascinating look at Hollywood in the 1940s, and the effects of war hysteria.
In Our Day (South Korea) *** – Look in the dictionary under “quiet observation”, and you’ll find a print of auteur Hong Sang-soo’s character study of two artists (a 40-ish actress and an aging poet), each at a crossroads in their creative journey. Sang-soo’s beautifully constructed narrative chugs along at the speed of life; I understand that this may induce drowsiness with some viewers-but the devil is in the details, and those who pay close attention to them will be richly rewarded.
I Told You So (Italy) **½ – Set in Rome during a freakish January heatwave, writer-director Ginevra Elkann’s network narrative (reminiscent of P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia) follows the travails of several characters in crisis: an alcoholic mother who has lost custody of her little girl, a faded 80s porn actress coming to grips with her mortality, a bulimic young woman who provides elder care for a woman with a shopping addiction, and an American ex-pat priest struggling with his junkie past. As the heat rises, so does the angst. Episodic; despite a fine cast and some nicely played scenes, the narrative threads never quite gelled for me.
The Missing (Philippines)*** – Writer-director Carl Joseph Papa uses a combination of rotoscoping and hand-drawn animation for this semi-autobiographical drama (the Philippines’ first animated Oscars submission for Best International Feature). A young gay animator who has been mute since childhood suffers a break from reality after discovering his uncle’s body during a wellness check. As the young man comes to grips with suppressed memories, what ensues is an honest, raw, and emotional look at the effects of childhood trauma.
The Primevals (USA) **½ – Stop-motion animator David Allen (The Howling, Q the WingedSerpent, Willow, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, et.al.) originally conceived this film in the 1970s. Live action principal photography was shot in 1994; Allen began work on the stop-motion elements, but sadly he passed away in 1999. The project was finally completed via a recent crowdfunding campaign. The adventure is set in the Himalayas; replete with Sherpa guides, a know-it-all professor, creatures of unusual size and hidden valleys where time has stood still (think a mashup of Lost Horizon, King Kong, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World). The dialog is boilerplate, and the acting is stilted; but let’s be honest, does anyone watch The 7th Voyage of Sinbad for the performances? Not critical viewing but taken in the spirit of a midnight movie (or perhaps with the right, um, enhancements) it’s all a right bit of fun.
Rainier: A Beer Odyssey (USA) ***½ –”Raaay-neeEER-BEEERrrrr….” If you lived in Alaska or the Northwest in the 70s and 80s, you’ll “get” that-and likely start chuckling. That said, you don’t have to have lived in Alaska or the Northwest to get a chuckle out of Isaac Olsen’s documentary. Olsen recounts the origin of the small (and unconventional) Seattle ad agency led by madmen Terry Heckler and Gordon Bowker that dreamt up a series of now-iconic Rainier Beer TV ads. A many-tendrilled odyssey indeed, with some unexpected sidebars (like cross-pollination with the inception of the Starbucks empire, and the story behind Mickey Rooney’s involvement with the campaign). A fascinating, entertaining look at the process behind the creative side of marketing, bolstered by a generous helping of the original TV ads.
Saturn Return (Spain) *** – The unsolved mysteries of romantic relationships and musical partnerships are commensurate. For example, what drives two or more musicians to form a band? What sparks the attraction? Why does the band/creative partnership often break up? Why do human relationships in general almost seem engineered to fail? Is the culprit self-sabotage; i.e., does a fear of success and a fear of romantic intimacy represent two sides of the same coin? And most importantly, why are there so many songs written about failed relationships? Such questions form the crux of Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez’s nonfiction drama, inspired by the Spanish indie band Los Planetas.
The story focuses on the creation of the band’s third album (1998’s Una Semana en el Motor de un Autobús); a period when the band was in turmoil. The female bassist has recently quit to pursue her interest in another field, the guitarist is struggling with substance abuse, and the lead singer has a creative block. To add to the pressure, they’ve been invited to record their next album in New York with a notable producer. The directors take a similar tack to Gus Van Sant’s Last Days; painting an intimate and impressionistic portrait. Excellent performances by all, accompanied by an atmospheric psychedelia soundtrack.
I wrote about the attempts to make Haley “reach out” to Trump to try to mend fences the other day. They are clearly getting worried about her ongoing support in these GOP primaries which continues to come in at 15 to 20%. So far, she doesn’t seem inclined to do it. Then came a rash of stories, undoubtedly from the Trump camp, saying he was considering her for the VP slot, probably intended to make her hold out the olive branch. She hasn’t.
The two had a contentious primary battle and Haley has not endorsed Trump. Many of her supporters also continue to be wary of the former president, a warning sign as he seeks to consolidate Republicans ahead of the general election.
It’s unfortunate that Trump won’t choose “Birdbrain” for VP but maybe he can get her voters to come over now that he “wishes her well.”
She’d be a fool to do it. She became a member of the Mike Pence club and the MAGA crowd won’t forgive either one of them. Maybe another line of work?
I’ve been listening to college kids and faculty being interviewed on cable TV all day and I’m feeling overwhelmingly depressed by so many of them saying they won’t vote for Biden and some even saying they’ll vote for Trump instead. That’s crazy talk. The last time we played this game we got George W. Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I understand the emotion over Gaza. It’s beyond horrible. I wish Biden had handled it differently. I also wish the congress had handled Ukraine differently. And I wish the whole world was handling the current genocide in Darfur differently. (What, you haven’t heard about that one?)
Protests are valuable. I don’t quarrel with that at all. It’s giving Biden the support he needs to pull back from supporting that maniac Netanyahu. But voting is a different story. Biden is not Trump. He is the one who had the guts to get out of Afghanistan which both Obama and Trump promised and didn’t do it. He has dramatically scaled back the drone war that Trump actually ramped up. And you can be sure if Trump wins in November he will pull back all assistance to Ukraine, ramp up support for Israel and give the green light to both Putin and Netanyahu to completely take the gloves off. And nobody should dismiss what he’s going to do with Muslims, latinos, LGBTQ, women and everyone else he sees as his enemies here at home. If they have a heart and truly care about this world there is no choice. The stakes in this election are so high that to choose Trump (which is what failing to vote for Biden really is) will result in a nightmare beyond our imagination.
One of the ways the Trump campaign is attempting to recruit more Hispanic and Black voters is to work closely with their most fanatical cult members, the evangelical Christian church. They had mostly only been able to indoctrinate their white membership but they see some untilled soil in those minority evangelical communities and they’re going after them with a two pronged effort between the Church and the Trump campaign:
Just as they prophesied Trump’s victory and collaborated in the 2020 attempted coup, the Trump wing of the New Apostolic Reformation is on the offensive once again, waging a campaign in counties they think will swing the 2024 presidential election.
The campaign has two main elements. One is led by Apostle Lance Wallnau, whose campaign is branded as The Courage Tour, while the other is led by a Trumpian think tank, the America First Policy Institute and its political action arm, America Policy Works. The latter’s project has disappeared from public view and may have gone stealth, but Wallnau’s Courage Tour, which appears to be a rejiggered version of last year’s Fire and Glory Tour, remains quite conspicuous.
Wallnau, a strategist and the public face of the revolutionary movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, is best known for his advocacy of the 7 Mountain Mandate, which is the idea that Christians are called to conquer seven “mountains” of society to achieve religious and political dominion: government, family, religion, arts & entertainment, media, education, and business.
Wallnau says he’s engaged in “the battle for the mountain of government.” To that end, he also says “there are 3,143 counties in the United States and the Lord showed us that 19 are going to determine the future of America.” (Last year he said it was 14. But apparently, the lord’s plans changed.) The Lord’s target counties, he says, are now in seven swing states, where evangelical turnout was proportionally lower.
[…]
Meanwhile, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a think tank formed in 2021 to promote the Trump agenda, is targeting 19 counties in 9 states. Launched with $1 million from Trump’s Save America PAC, AFPI boasts the involvement of members of the former president’s cabinet, administration and campaign staff.
AFPI is also partly led and staffed by apostolic figures including Trump’s spiritual advisor, Apostle Paula White-Cain who heads the Center for American Values. (She also leads the Trump campaign’s National Faith Advisory Board, an AFPI partner in targeting the 19 counties.)
Wallnau says seven states are key. AFPI says nine. Apparently, the lists of the fateful 19 counties have diverged as they’ve evolved.
In any case, the criteria are that they’re suburban swing counties with a population of 400,000 or more, and where the margin to win the state is less than 2%.
In Arizona, Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix, is the target. Hayek says “We [meaning the Trump campaign] lost the state of Arizona by 10,000 votes in 2020. Think about it.”
Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin complete AFPI’s “Tier 1” states, all of which are, again, among Axios’s six highlighted swing states. Florida, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina comprise “Tier 2.”
Basically, they aren’t even pretending to separate the spiritual and the political anymore. Trump is Jesus.
Wallnau said God told him that the reason some states are electoral battle grounds is because they are “spiritual battle ground states”—where “my people aren’t praying strong in the spirit. And if we don’t have apostles and prophets in the territory, then demons control the territory and the minds of people are under the influence of devils.”
“The Left is loaded with demons,” Wallnau has warned. “I don’t think it’s people anymore; I think you’re dealing with demons talking through people.”
This coalition believes it can brainwash enough non-voting or Democratic evangelicals in these swing counties to vote for Trump/Jesus to win the election. Because, Trump’s opposition (you and me) broadly known as “the Left” are actual demons. Since apparently there are tens of millions of people who believe that QAnon crapola and that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex trafficking ring, it’s pretty clear that there are plenty of Americans who are open to such delusions. They may just be on to something.
I encourage you to read the whole story at Religion Dispatches if you have time. This is the sort of under covered information that’s really important for us to understand as we go into an election that will, once again, be fought in a very select number of swing state counties where Biden barely managed to edge out a win in 2020 and which Hillary Clijnton before him barely lost. It’s the whole ballgame. In our ridiculous democracy, which we are allegedly fighting so hard to protect, these tiny pieces of land in certain closely divided states make the rest of us completely irrelevant.
In the last election Joe Biden won by 7 million votes, which was 51.3% to 46.8%. In a normal system a win like that would be a decisive victory that no one could question. But because of these small numbers in those swing states it actually seems much closer.
The Democrats shouldn’t have to win by 20 million votes in order to be seen as real victors (and I’m not sure that would even do it with Trump around. ) But that’s where we are.
Morning Consult has new results on approval ratings for major world leaders. Every G7 leader has low approval; but here’s the surprise: Biden is doing better than his peers, with only Italy’s Meloni coming close in the not-totally-despised sweepstakes https://t.co/HTAENPeC5tpic.twitter.com/8wrlRv5DyN
The whole world is in a post-pandemic funk. I guess it’s good that Biden isn’t quite as unpopular as everyone else but it’s really bad news, and not a coincidence, that we also have a rising fascist right at the same time. Ours is unique in that our fascist movement is also led by an unhinged, corrupt, imbecilic cult leader which actually makes it more difficult.
The usual suspects are having a good old-fashioned cry over a comment by Biden at a fundraiser. As he was reminding the attendees of the chaos of the Trump years and the probability of it being even worse next time he said:
“Remember him saying the best thing to do is just inject a little bleach in your arm? That’s what he said. And he meant it. I wish he had done a little bit himself.”
They’re melting down because what he said is “a lie!” And technically they’re right. Trump never said to inject “bleach into your arm.” He mused that maybe we could inject “disinfectant” or maybe “hit the body” with a strong light. Totally different Except not.
These were big, breakthrough ideas of the stable genius himself, telling assembled scientists to pursue them:
A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it.
And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting, right?
And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful. Steve, please.
“You know, my uncle was a great person. He was at MIT. He taught at MIT for, I think, like a record number of years. He was a great super genius. Dr. John Trump… I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.”
It’s very rude of Joe Biden to make fun of him. After all, he’s actually very stupid.
In a conversation in Austin with Chief Judge Priscilla Richman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, Kavanaugh acknowledged the polarization in the country over political and legal issues, especially since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the legal right to an abortion established decades earlier by Roe v. Wade.
He said judges and Supreme Court justices must clearly explain their interpretation of the law and apply those legal principles in a uniform fashion. “Individual decisions don’t have to be popular. … The losing party has to respect the decision,” Kavanaugh said at the 5th Circuit Judicial Conference.
“Consistency builds respect,” he continued. “It’s showing up every day in the courtroom and trying to be respectful to the parties, to write your opinion in a way that’s clear and understandable, to get out when you’re speaking and try to explain, to the bar, the judicial process, to try to be transparent and to be impartial as a judge.”
How about consistency with precedent, which they promised to do in their confirmation hearings? In fact, how about consistency with their promises in general in their confirmation hearings? (Although, I guess Kavanaugh has done that — he did promise that we’d reap the whirlwind and a whole lot of women are doing just that today.)
Consistently extreme rulings aren’t going to gain respect from the majority of Americans, sorry. It’s making that majority hold the Supreme Court in roughly the same esteem as a street gang.
He went on to say:
“Real lives are being affected. Real people are being hurt or helped. You can’t lose sight of that. It’s polarized. I get it. I’m part of the system. I understand. I see it.”
If anyone knows, it Kav. He’s been a political operative his whole career and still is.
But Kav wasn’t the only one spouting BS at that conference:
After facing harsh questions about his judicial decisions and acceptance of lavish gifts from a billionaire, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas forcefully pushed back at his critics Friday — saying he and his wife,Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, have endured “nastiness” and “lies.”
Thomas targeted the maelstrom he has facedin Washington, offering some of his most extensive comments since news broke last year of travel and real estate deals paid for by Republican donor Harlan Crow,and since he has faced calls to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election because of his wife’s involvement with efforts to block Joe Biden’s victory.
“What you are going to find, especially in Washington, is that people are going to pride themselves on being awful,” Thomas said during the hour-long conversation with U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a former clerk of his, at a judicial conference on the Gulf Coast, hundreds of miles from the nation’s capital. “It’s a hideous place.”
The justice went on to say that he maintains his positivity in work and life despite the tribulations. Still, he told his audience that he wished he had remained a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and that he “had no interest in public life” but felt called to it by God. He did not address any recent decisions by the court.
Another whining wingnut. Do they ever stop?
These wingnuts are all convinced that they were chosen by God. Actually, Thomas was chosen by George Bush Sr and he was definitely not God. But he is right about Washington being full of people who pride themselves on being awful. He is their leader.
Alito spoke at a Catholic university commencement and told the graduates not to abandon their beliefs, perhaps assuming they all agreed with him. Polling suggests they do not, at lest when it comes to his odious abortion decision.
Connor Clegg, a producer at Fox News according to his LinkedIn, posted a racist attack on a law enforcement officer to Twitter. Clegg has since locked his twitter account.
Clegg complained about being stopped by a traffic officer with an accent because he was blocking an alley and his tags were expired on his vehicle. The Fox News producer’s description was laced with racist language and superiority.
Fox News Producer Locks Twitter Account After Posting Racist Attack on Police – MeidasTouch News https://t.co/2fE9S0yJ4A
Here is what Fox News Producer Connor Clegg’s ranted on Twitter late Thursday night:
Just had a “parking enforcement” office who barely spoke a lick of English attempt to load my car onto a tow truck because I was (allegedly) blocking some type of *very important* alleyway where I was parked.
He said “we have to move your car”
Told him, “no need, sir, l’ll move it myself, thanks, sorry for the trouble!” – very polite!
He then says, in his broken tongue, “yes but your plates are also expired…you have to follow law, sir, we have to tow, it’s too late, you can’t move car” in an accent and diction so thick and faulty it was nearing aboriginal levels.
I proceeded to get in my car and leave because, as someone descended from those who formed the very concept of law he meekly was attempting to enforce, that is my birthright, and there’s not a damn thing a foreigner with a tin badge and poorly tailored pants can do to stop me.
How we got to the point where foreigners are given the privilege to enforce this nation’s “laws” unto citizens is beyond me but l’ve had damn near enough of it.
You can respectfully reason your way out of trouble – at least out of parking violations – with a fellow countryman; I’ve done it dozens of times in my life… But a tyrannical foreigner with no concept of western rites and tradition wielding the Longsword of the Leviathan is completely out of bounds and why we tolerate it as a nation is well beyond me.
“There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy,” journalist Alfred Henry Lewis told Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1906.
A second Trump term could fulfill the right’s darkest fantasies
After Donald Trump won election in 2016, some friends and colleagues in the progressosphere began moving off social media platforms and to more secure communications channels. The fear was that Trump and his lieutenants would crack down on dissenters using state surveillance. In the end, while damaging, the early Trump administration was too bungling and incompetent, too unfamiliar with where the levers of power were and how to work them. That may not be true in a second Trump administration. Project 2025, and all that.
When he’s not seething inside a cold courtroom, Trump is signaling his second term will be more corrupt that his first, and more blatant about it. His promise to supporters, Greg Sargent satirizes, is a simple promise: I have seen elite corruption and self-dealing from the inside, and I will put that know-how to work for you.
A new Washington Post report that Trump made explicit policy promises to a roomful of Big Oil executives—while urging them to raise $1 billion for his campaign—is a powerful story in part because it wrecks what’s left of that mystique. In case you didn’t already know this, it shows yet again that if Trump has employed that aforementioned knowledge of elite corruption and self-dealing to any ends in his public career, it’s chiefly to benefit himself.
More worrisome is how newer, bluer meanies in his employ might direct executive power against political enemies. Trump views power more as a means to wealth and criminal immunity. His allies see power itself as their primary goal and money as a perk. Disarming the left not simply through electoral shenannigans but in every way imaginable could be how they do it. Not unlike how the right has attacked education in red states during the Biden administration, only more so and nationwide.
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland this week, the Republican senator Josh Hawley demanded a federal investigation into dark money groups subsidizing “pro-terrorist student organizations” holding anti-Israel protests on college campuses. He cited Politico reporting linking big liberal philanthropies to some pro-Palestinian organizers. Open Society Foundations, for example, founded by the oft-demonized George Soros, has given grants to the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, which has an active university presence. Hawley noted that an I.R.S. ruling denies tax-exempt status to organizations that encourage their members to commit civil disobedience, calling nonprofit funding for the groups behind the anti-Israel demonstrations “almost certainly illegal.”
Even if Garland doesn’t act on Hawley’s request, the attorney general in a second Donald Trump administration probably would. That’s one reason I fear that the backlash to the pro-Palestinian campus movement — which includes lawsuits, hearings and legislation — could help Republicans wage war on progressive nonprofits more broadly.
If they do, the right would be following a well-worn authoritarian playbook. In addition to repressing critical voices in academia and the media, the autocratic leaders Trump admires have regularly tried to crush the congeries of advocacy groups, think tanks, humanitarian organizations and philanthropies often referred to as “civil society.” Hungary, for example, passed what it called the “Stop Soros” law, which criminalized helping refugees and migrants apply for asylum. More recently, Hungary enacted a “sovereignty law,” which, as a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put it, “offers the ruling party and the Secret Service vast powers to accuse and investigate any groups or individuals that influence public debate and may have had foreign training or contact for any part of their work.”
That Carnegie report, written by Rachel Kleinfeld and published in March, offers a stark warning that something similar could happen here. In fact, Kleinfeld argues, it’s already started.
Titled “Closing Civic Space in the United States,” the report describes a wide array of efforts to curb organizing and assembly. Kleinfeld criticizes the left as well as the right, citing, for example, the pandemic-era rules that kept churches closed even after bars had reopened. But as she writes, “the vast majority of efforts to close space currently come from the illiberal right,” which is integrated into the Republican Party, and thus into government, in a way that has no analogue on the left.
In “Minority Rule,” Ari Berman leads readers through a mind-bending array of tactics Republicans have employed to secure their power in a time when their political base is shrinking steadily. Most are familiar to Hullabaloo readers. But the walk down memory lane is still unnerving. My God, the number and deviousness of them. Inventiveness that might be put to work solving social problems and improving people’s lives is instead dedicated to f#cking with democracy in ways I would never have conceived.
What concerns Goldberg is how pro-Palestinian protests are spurring those criminal minds to more inventiveness and, as one nonprofit consultant put it, giving Republicans “a Hamas-sized terrorist wedge to go after our entire infrastructure.” Legislation is in the works.
Goldberg concludes:
None of us, presumably, want to finance evil. The question is whether you want the government, particularly one controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, deciding what evil is. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, recently suggested that the F.B.I. investigate Soros’s role in the protests. A Trump F.B.I. wouldn’t need to be asked twice.
