H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021, is the first truly crucial fight in Congress that will pit the parties in desperate, zero-sum struggle. For the Republican Party it will be life-or-death, since in its present form it simply cannot survive an end to the cheats that let it maintain overwhelming power, despite losing all but one presidential election popular vote and almost every Congressional popular vote across 30 years. HR1 also pretty comprehensively addresses a laundry list of many (far from all!) of the recommendations that I made, in Polemical Judo.
This will test Democrats to the fullest degree. Not only must they suffer zero defections in the Senate and use their best tactics to get past filibusters and suffer no more than half a dozen in the House – testing my hypothesis that the blatant morass of blackmail that pervades Washington is mostly a GOP problem – but this will be when the masters behind the GOP will surely summon their Supreme Court majority into the fray.
You should look at the provisions in HR1, which would sharply curtail congressional gerrymandering, provide for automatic voter registration, overhaul federal campaign finance laws, increase election security against foreign interference, strengthen government ethics rules, empower small donors, expand lobbyist disclosure (“drain the swamp”), and more. Most of these reforms would be implemented for the November 2022 general election, with the exception of some redistricting and public financing changes that would go into effect later.
Those few of you who live in areas where a marginally sane and honest Republican legislator might be swayed, you are duty bound to track HR1 and apply what pressure you can. The rest of us? Use this bill to quash the inevitable rise of far-left splitters who chafe at any hint of loyalty to our coalition of national and world salvation, eagerly seeking any excuse to slam and betray Biden, Pelosi and “DNC sellouts.” Here’s the proof to hammer those ‘summer soldiers’ with the pure fact that they got nuthin’.
Oh, noteworthy: some of these reforms do what I recommended on the 1st page of Polemical Judo, actually enacting the "good parts” of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract With America, that bait-and-switch pack of promises that the GOP utterly betrayed, first chance. So hammer your rightists with that choice irony, and defy them to defend opposing any of these reforms. Fox n’ Putin-pals will rail against HR1! So it is up to you to read the summaries aloud to your uncles n’ such and get them to see truth.
The only core reason to oppose HR1 is racism... fearing the vastly diverse Democrat surge of voters actually using their rights. There’s a way for them to deal with this threat, though! Kill the GOP and replace it with a party of conservative-but-sane grownups who believe in fact and honesty and the future... and who at long last will leave Dennis Hastert’s curse behind and negotiate with us, like neighbors. Like Americans. That kind of conservative party might actually draw in some of the rising classes of minority business owners etc. and actually survive demographic collapse.
Here’s how to get involved in just about the most important piece of legislation of the 21st Century.
== Meanwhile, down in Georgia... ==
Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight org reports: “Georgia Republicans once again showed their contempt for voters as two of the worst voter suppression bills since Reconstruction continued to move quickly through the state legislature: SB 241 would end no-excuse mail voting, implement new ID requirements, and add witness requirements for mail voters- in essence, creating one of the most restrictive absentee voting laws in the entire country and resulting in some of the worst voter suppression since Jim Crow. Meanwhile, HB 531 is a desperate attempt to force the legislation onto the floor before Crossover Day. The bill would restrict dropbox access, add new ID requirements for mail voting, and restrict weekend voting among other provisions, all of which demonstrate just how unrelenting the GOP-led Georgia legislature is in their attacks on voting rights.
In Polemical Judo I reveal a jiu jitsu tactic that can demolish “voter ID laws,” NOT by opposing them frontally – goppers can claim that means we plan to cheat – but over the matter of compliance assistance (CA).
Republicans always whine for CA whenever some new regulation affects business, demanding state aid for companies to comply. In this case, the metric is simple. Answer this: If a state heaps new ID requirements on poor voters, women etc, do they accompany it with major funding to help the poor etc. GET the required ID?
This standard is so clearcut that even Trump-appointed judges would be hard pressed to find an excuse, when most of these cheater/Jimcrow states are closing DMV offices in poor areas, rather than allocating funds for compliance assistance.
This is one of many legal or legislative or political maneuvers that no politician or lawyer on the good side of this civil war phase has had a glimmer of brains to notice, alas.
== Those who know the dangers – know we’re better led, now ==
“Biden Signs Order Seeking Homegrown Fixes For Shortfalls Of Foreign-Made Items.” No way Fox can spin this. Republicans blocked Obama efforts to deal with crippling dependence on hostile foreign sources for our industrial supply chains. Then the problems were deliberately made much worse under Trump. ("America First" meant first to be ripped off by foreign oligarchies.)
To be 'great' has to entail reducing vulnerabilities. And this act of Biden's is a first step toward ending GOP-induced frailties. If it is in time.
== And finally... irony...
Want irony? Look at this map of where US citizens face terrible years ahead from flooding – as I described in both EARTH and EXISTENCE – and guess where climate denialism is strongest.“
