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tomorrowusa · 4 months

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Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.

In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).

Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.

Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.

Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.

Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.

Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.

Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.

Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.

Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.

Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.

Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.

It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.

#paul waldman #liberalism #election 2000 #election 2024 #joe biden #third parties #vote blue no matter who #donald trump #dumpster fire #trumpster fire #fascism vs. democracy #nra republicans #abortion #climate change #lgbtq+ rights #race-baiting #take the political long view #phil hands

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 25 days

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 3, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 04, 2024

The election of 2000 was back in the news this week, when Nate Cohn of the New York Times reminded readers of his newsletter, using a map by data strategist and consultant Matthew C. Isbell, that the unusual butterfly ballot design in Palm Beach County that year siphoned off at least 2,000 votes intended for Democratic candidate Al Gore to far-right candidate Pat Buchanan.

Those 2,000 votes were enough to decide the election, “all things being equal,” Cohn wrote. But of course, they weren’t equal: in 1998 a purge of the Florida voter rolls had disproportionately disenfranchised Black voters, making them ten times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected.

That ballot and that purge gave Republican candidate George W. Bush the electoral votes from Florida, putting him into the White House although he had lost the popular vote by more than half a million votes.

Revisiting the 2000 election reminds us that manipulating the vote through voter suppression or the mechanics of an election in even small ways can undermine the will of the people.

A poll out today from the Associated Press/NORC showed that the vast majority of Americans agree about the importance of the fundamental principles of our democracy. Ninety-eight percent of Americans think the right to vote is extremely important, very important, or somewhat important. Only 2% think it is “not too important.” The split was similar with regard to “the right of everyone to equal protection under the law”: 98% of those polled thought it was extremely, very, or somewhat important, while only 2% thought it was not too important.

Recent election results suggest that voters don’t support the extremism of the current Republican Party. In local elections in the St. Louis, Missouri, area on Tuesday, voters rejected all 13 right-wing candidates for school boards, and in Enid, Oklahoma, voters recalled a city council member who participated in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and had ties to white supremacist groups.

Seemingly aware of the growing backlash to their policies, MAGA Republicans are backing away from them, at least in public. Earlier this year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis called for making it harder to ban books after a few activists systematically challenged dozens of books in districts where they had no children in the schools—although he blamed teachers, administrators, and “the news media” for creating a “hoax.”

Today, lawyers for the state of Texas told a federal appeals court that state legislators might have gone “too far” with their immigration law that made it a state crime to enter Texas illegally and allowed state judges to order immigrants to be deported. (Mexico had flatly refused to accept deported immigrants from other countries under this new law.) Nonetheless, Arizona legislators have passed a similar bill—that Democratic governor Katie Hobbs refuses to sign into law—and are considering another measure that would allow landowners to threaten or shoot people who cross their property to get into the U.S.

Indeed, the extremists who have taken over the Republican Party seem less inclined to moderate their stances than either to pollute popular opinion or to prevent their opponents from voting.

While Trump is hedging about his stance on abortion—after bragging repeatedly that he was the person responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade—MAGA Republicans have made their unpopular abortion stance even stronger.

Emily Cochrane of the New York Times reported today that the hospital at the center of the decision by the Alabama state supreme court that embryos used for in vitro fertilization have the same rights and protections as children has ended its IVF services. And on Monday, Florida’s supreme court, which Florida governor Ron DeSantis packed with extremists, upheld a ban on abortion after 15 weeks and allowed a new six-week abortion ban—before most women know they’re pregnant—to go into effect in 30 days.

In the past, people seeking abortions had gravitated to Florida because its constitution upheld the right to privacy, which protected abortion. But now the Florida Supreme Court has decided the constitution does not protect the right to abortion. Caroline Kitchener explained in the Washington Post that in the past, more than 80,000 women a year accessed abortion services in Florida. This ban will make it nearly impossible to get an abortion in the American South.

Anya Cook, who in 2022 nearly died after she was denied an abortion under Florida’s 15-week ban, gave Kitchener a message for Florida women experiencing pregnancy complications: “Run,” she said. “Run, because you have no help here.”

Extremist Republicans have managed to put their policies into place not by winning a majority and passing laws through Congress, but by creating cases that they then take to sympathetic judges. This system, known as “judge shopping,” has so perverted lawmaking that on March 12 the Judicial Conference, the body that makes policy for federal courts, announced a new rule that any lawsuit seeking to overturn statewide or national policies would be randomly assigned among a larger pool of judges.

On March 29, the chief judge of the Northern District of Texas, where many such cases are filed, told Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that he would not adhere to the new rules.

Rather than moderating their stances, extremist Republicans are doubling down on their attempt to create dirt on the president. With their impeachment effort against President Joe Biden in embarrassing ruins, House Republicans are casting around for another issue to hurt the Democrats before the 2024 election.

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico reported today that in the last month, House Republican Committee chairs have sent almost 50 oversight requests to a variety of departments and agencies. Haberkorn noted that there is “significant political pressure on the party to produce results after months of promising it would uncover evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors involving Biden.”

But it is Trump, not Biden, who is in the news for questionable behavior. In The Guardian today, Hugo Lowell reported that Trump’s social media company was kept afloat in 2022 “by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.”

There is more trouble for the social media company in the news today, as two of its investors pleaded guilty to being part of an insider-trading scheme involving the company’s stock. They admitted they had secret, inside information about the merger between Trump Media and Digital World Acquisition Corporation and had used that insider information to make profitable trades.

Meanwhile, Trump is suing Truth Social’s founders to force them out of leadership and make them give up their shares in the company. His is a countersuit to their lawsuit accusing him of trying to dilute the company’s stock.

Of more immediate concern for Trump, Judge Juan Merchan denied yet another attempt by Trump—his eighth, according to prosecutors—to delay his election interference trial. The trial is scheduled to begin April 15.

Finally, in an illustration of extremists aiming not to moderate their stances but to impose the will of the minority on the majority, Republicans are putting in place rules to make it easier for individuals to challenge voters, removing them from the voter rolls before the 2024 election.

Marc Elias of Democracy Docket noted today that states and local governments have regular programs to keep voter registration accurate, while right-wing activists are operating on a different agenda. In one 70,000-person town in Michigan, a single activist challenged more than a thousand voters, Elias reported, and in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, right-wing activists have already challenged 16,000 voters and intend to challenge another 10,000.

One group boasted that their system “can and will change elections in America forever.”

Rather like the election of 2000.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters from An American #Heather Cox Richardson #political #history #Democracy Docket #voting #voter suppression #abortion ban #GOP extremism #election 2024 #purging voter rolls #Election 2000

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futurebird · 8 months

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December 13th 2000 in The White House's Old Executive Office Building

Al Gore: (speaking very slowly and clearly, as if trying to calm a heard of raving mad red-eye's kelpies*) "… while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it."

The first really big election I voted in! I was devastated at how easily Al Gore gave up. My more moderate/liberal friends are saying "Surely you can see why this was the right thing to do, *now* right?"

uh… not really?

Listen, I want to! I really really do! But I don't. Do you see this moment in a new light now?

*it's me. I'm the mad kelpies

#al gore #election 2000 #us politics #concession speech #gore #bush v. gore #brooks brother riot #hanging chad #contested elections #Jeb bush #GWB #Florida #It's always florida

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cock-holliday · 3 months

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Finding it very funny to see people suggesting the 2024 presidential election is some new evil, and yearning longingly for simpler times like pre-2016. Idk how to tell you that 2024 isn’t unique and 2016 wasn’t a shocking departure from civility—you were just 18 years old.

#every election is the ‘end of democracy’#every election is some new evil #like 2012 wasn’t also heralding the apocalypse #like 2008 wasn’t about ‘restoring our great nation’ post-Bush #like 2000’s case with the votes wasn’t a shocking departure from democracy

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damailbox · 2 months

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March 2000

[Results]

#Powerpuff Girls #Scooby Doo #Dexter's Laboratory #Taz #Cartoon Network #cereal #elections #ad #Post #Kraft #Lunchables #Fruity Pebbles #magazine #Disney Adventures #2000 #2000s

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arizonaconservativegal · 2 months

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Did anyone else ever have to do that assignment in like the third grade where you have to write absurdly detailed instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? And you have include things like "unwrap the bread" and "retrieve a knife" and "unscrew the peanut butter jar"...?

My job is like that sometimes.

#'I typed 'primary' into the search bar and all it showed me was from from the 2000 election'#'did you scroll to the bottom of the results?'#'no I just looked at the first one'#oh boy #it was right there he just had to scroll a little bit through CHRONOLOGICAL information to get to the most recent entries #he's not stupid either he seems like a reasonably intelligent person so I don't know why this needed to be spelled out

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deadpresidents · 10 days

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Their paths into politics could hardly have been more different, and their first encounter was rough. In 1999, both George W. [Bush], as Governor of Texas, and Jeb [Bush], newly elected in Florida, visited the White House during a Governors' conference. [President] Clinton liked Jeb right away but found George W. downright surly. Still, when Clinton's aides noted that the Texan seemed particularly uncomfortable, Clinton came to his defense: "Look, the guy's just being honest. What's he supposed to do, like me? I defeated his father. He loves his father. It doesn't bother me -- this is a contact sport." During the 2000 campaign, Clinton watched George W. with growing respect -- "compassionate conservatism" is a "genius slogan," he warned Al Gore's team -- and when George W. paid a visit after he won, Clinton came away from their meeting and a long lunch in the White House residence saying, "It's a mistake to underestimate him."

-- Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, on the first impressions and interactions between then-President Bill Clinton and Texas Governor George W. Bush, TIME Magazine, August 3, 2015.

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lil-als · 2 months

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Gore animation that took way too long to make

#al gore #animation #the audio is from a video called 2000 election rap battle or something like that #flashing tw #near the end

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pagerunner-j · 19 days

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Tonight I pulled out my copy of Good Omens to try to figure out how long I'd had it. Of course I got a little nostalgically distracted by the signatures first. And then I flipped the page and burst out laughing to be reminded of the caveat above the copyrights.

Don't try this at home, kids.

(It's not the only such notice I ever spotted in a Terry Pratchett book. One time I got the Discworld picture book Where's My Cow? signed. In that case, the copyright is directly opposite the title, so while he was signing it, I pointed out that I enjoyed the note midway down the copyright page that, and I quote, "This book was originally published in the Year of Three Horses by Rouster & Sideways, 33b Gleam Street, Ankh-Morpork (please use rear staircase; closed on Fridays)." It's easy to miss. He sounded really pleased that I'd noticed.)

#good omens #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #anyway the answer is 'since sometime between 1996 and 2000'#because there's a whole long story i could tell about reading good omens during the clusterfuck that was the bush/gore election #while working in news #and slowly going out of my mind #don't try that at home either

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tomorrowusa · 5 months

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« [H]aving a voter who stays home or votes for a third party is really the same thing as losing a vote to Trump because the person who gets a plurality of votes in states is the one who wins all the electors. That's our system. It's not a popular vote system. »

— Mara Liasson at NPR's All Tinings Considered.

There's a tremendous amount of civics illiteracy in the United States.

In 2024, the only way to prevent a far right takeover by Trump or some other anti-abortion or homophobic extremist is to vote Democratic. Inaction or a half-witted "protest vote" for an impotent third party candidate has the same practical effect as voting for Trump or a Trump clone.

Contrary to what Ralph Nader supporters were saying in 2000 when they tanked climate activist Al Gore in favor of George W. Bush who put Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court, you do not make things better by making them worse.

To use a cliché, progress is a marathon rather than a sprint. Republicans know this and worked for 49 years trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. To achieve a better country and planet, we need to be in it for the long haul and not get distracted by the political equivalent of "one hit wonders" dangling shiny objects in front of us.

#civics #electoral college #presidential elections #third parties #election 2000 #ralph nader #roe v. wade #vote democratic #smart voting #mara liasson #election 2024

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onlytiktoks · 2 months

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#tiktok #schoolhousecaulk #us politics #politicians #political history #2000 presidential election #president #presidential election #us presidential election #us presidential race #democrats #republicans #presidential race #history

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labyrynth · 5 months

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can’t believe i’m already seeing posts to the contrary (and from non-americans, no less) but

when it comes down to the final vote…

Do Not Die on the Hill of Third-Party Candidates.

I understand the urge, but our current election systems are unable to support third-party candidates, and voting third-party is throwing your vote away at best.

do the rules of the game suck? yes! should they be changed? absolutely! but the game is going to happen whether or not you like the rules, and if you insist on playing by what you think the rules SHOULD be instead of what they ARE, you are setting yourself up to lose.

if you want to support third-party options, support your local candidates, look into movements to abolish the electoral college or implement ranked choice voting, and by all means—protest the current rules!

but so long as the rules remain what they are, protest with your voice, not your vote.

#moi #politics #us politics #american politics #2024 elections #especially if said third party candidate has zero chance of actually getting enough support to win #if you are going to tell people to vote third party #and i google their name and can only find ~3 news articles from the last two months that mention them #your candidate is not nearly as popular as you think they are.#your candidate cannot win if nobody knows who they are.#like. this is an ongoing problem on the left.#we cannot keep splitting the vote between aspirational candidates and electable candidates #literally look at the 2000 election #look at 2016 #we shouldn’t need to have this conversation as frequently as we do

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euphoricdior · 1 year

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Jennifer Freeman at the "Young Hollywood Votes" event (2004) ‧₊˚✩彡

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cidnangarlond · 6 months

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two days ago was the 125th anniversary of the only successful coup on U.S. soil and I just wish the event was more widely known. obviously there are bigger, more important things going on currently but it's one of those important historical events no one talks about let alone even knows about

#I only know because I had a black professor (his race being important here) who told us about it. like wilmington nc has remained #overwhelmingly white since then. when white supremacists attacked and murdered dozens if not hundreds of black people and their businesses #and drove them out of town because black people were elected to local office. in 1898 only some few years removed from the civil war #this was pretty big especially for a state that had cededed from the union and was a confederate state. and 2000 white people had a problem #with the ''''''hierarchy''''''' being upset #I only learned this happened because of him in this sociology class about deviancy/delinquency I believe #I didn't have any other professor that even mentioned it. no one talked about it but him. and we were in the city where it happened #idk it's just. it's one of those things where it gets skipped over completely people never learn about it. it's upsetting to put it one way

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bighermie · 2 years

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#election integrity #china #true the vote #2000 mules #facts matter

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deadpresidents · 5 months

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If for some reason George W Bush had run against Jeb Bush for the republican nomination who would have won?

That's a pretty great idea for a topic for historians to debate.

I think people forget how effective of a campaigner that George W. Bush was. Yes, he was pretty goofy at times and a master of malapropisms. But he was pretty incredible on the campaign trail in front of smaller crowds and as a one-on-one retail politician. Much like Lyndon B. Johnson, those skills did not translate to television and, on many occasions, it reinforced the idea that Bush was dumb. But simply believing that Bush was dumb is one of the reasons why so many people underestimated him -- and that made him a very dangerous opponent for pretty much everybody that he ran against beginning with Ann Richards in his first race for Governor of Texas to John McCain and Al Gore in 2000 and finally to John Kerry in 2004. That was evident in his Presidential debate performances. In my opinion, Bush probably lost the first of his three debates to John Kerry in 2004, but I've always felt that he won the other two debates against Kerry and all three debates against Al Gore in 2000.

George W. Bush was also one of the most disciplined leading Presidential candidates of the past 40-50 years. He stayed on message, no matter where he was campaigning, who he was campaigning against, or what other news might have been seeping into coverage of him at the time. That was a credit to his enormously talented political teams over the years, but it was also the result of hard work. He'd still say something odd or mangle a few sentences at every campaign stop, but you never had to guess where he stood on the positions he built his campaigns upon.

While he was certainly no Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama when it came to charisma, George W. Bush did have his own unique brand of charisma. Despite his background and the privileges he had from day one due to his family name and his father's accomplishments, Bush had a real ability to connect with people while campaigning. People genuinely liked him. I mean, that's even better understood now when you hear about his relationship with his surprise BFF Michelle Obama or with fellow Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Many of his political opponents have noted in interviews or books that they've found it hard not to like him once they got to know him. Again, that's an attribute that doesn't translate well to television, but it was clearly a strength when he was meeting folks while campaigning. He made a lot of people want to vote for him -- as opposed to John Kerry, whose personality didn't inspire a whole lot of fervent supporters in 2004 (I say that with personal experience).

Jeb Bush was a more serious, wonky politician -- with a personality more similar to that of their father whereas George W. famously took after his outspoken, direct mother. Jeb did not easily connect with voters, and was a more naturally cautious politician while George W. was more emotional and decisive (for better and worse). One example of Jeb's cautious nature is demonstrated by the poor timing of his eventual candidacy for President. Once Jeb finally decided to run for President in 2016 he was nearly 10 years removed from the end of his term as Governor of Florida. He jumped into a crowded field where it was difficult to distinguish himself despite his famous last name (and the exclamation point behind his first name on his campaign logo) and was steamrolled by Donald Trump. I think George W. probably would have defended himself and his family against Trump's attacks better than Jeb did if George W. had been the candidate in 2016 instead of an ex-President in retirement. Jeb's 2016 campaign was almost sad in how timid he came across at times against Trump.

Both brothers were born with more advantages than most people will ever have come their way in a lifetime. But I do think George W. tried to be someone other than his father's son more than Jeb ever did. George W. ran for Governor of Texas in 1994 despite the fact that his opponent was the legendary Governor Ann Richards. Jeb ran for Governor of Florida the same year, and their parents believed that Jeb was the Bush son with the real political future and kind of saw George W.'s candidacy as a hopeless cause. But on Election night in 1994, George W. was victorious and Jeb was not. I think that Jeb Bush wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, but George W. wanted to surpass George H.W. Bush's legacy. He didn't in terms of the quality of his Presidency, but George W. Bush did get reelected as President while George H.W. Bush was only a one-term President.

So, in a head-to-head race, I think George W. would probably smoke Jeb. He was just that much more skilled as a politician. Plus, a brother vs. brother matchup would probably be emotionally difficult for anybody and I think George W. clearly had more of a killer instinct than Jeb ever did (that's probably a perfect setup for a drone strike or war crimes comment). Bush had no problem running a ruthless campaign, either. If you don't know what I mean, look up the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary campaign against McCain and the Swift Boat ads against Kerry in '04 (he was also one of the hatchet men for his father during the 1988 campaign against Michael Dukakis, which was one of the nastiest campaigns in American history up to that point). Anyway, I just think George W. was a better politician than Jeb ever hoped to be. In fact, from a purely political perspective -- as a campaigner out on the trail, as a one-on-one retail politician, even as a debater -- George W. was probably a more talented politician than his father. Of course, George W. was nowhere near as experienced or competent as George H.W. Bush was as President. But George W. would easily defeat his brother in a one-on-one campaign and I think he'd even give his father some trouble on the trail in a one-on-one race between them. And then if he was elected, he'd promptly become the really bad President we all remember him as!

Great question and interesting thought experiment!

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