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Trump Lost. Vote Suppression Won. (www.gregpalast.com)

submitted 6 months ago by circledot@feddit.org to c/politics@lemmy.world

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"If the purges [of potential voters], challenges and ballot rejections were random, it wouldn’t matter. It’s anything but random. For example, an audit by the State of Washington found that a Black voter was 400% more likely than a white voter to have their mail-in ballot rejected. Rejection of Black in-person votes, according to a US Civil Rights Commission study in Florida, ran 14.3% or one in seven ballots cast."

"[...] Democracy can win* despite the 2.3% suppression headwind.

And that’s our job as Americans: to end the purges, the vigilante challenges, the ballot rejections and the attitude that this is all somehow OK."

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[-] Skyrmir@lemmy.world 125 points 6 months ago

So the new campaign is that the DNC did nothing wrong, they were just thwarted by voter suppression?

Couldn't be they completely fucked up by campaigning to a center that doesn't exist any more. The DLC's triangulation bullshit is dead and needs to stay dead. Every Dem from the Clinton era needs to get that through their damn heads, they should have retired a decade ago anyway.

[-] blackbelt352@lemmy.world 98 points 6 months ago

It's a combination of everything, DNC has been spineless and bought out by corps, voter suppression techniques from Republicans skewed votes in their favor, white rural voters came out in droves to vote for trump, the Harris campaign failure to meaningfully address the genocide or get enough messaging out to address people's financial troubles.

[-] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 28 points 6 months ago

The voter suppression problem is a symptom of the spineless and bought out DNC problem. Dems should be talking about nationwide voting laws and how red states aren't democratic and don't have legitimate rule of law constantly, but that would be too radical and unpredictable for the corps to feel comfortable with, so instead they focus their legislative efforts on just cutting checks to all the state governments for this infrastructure initiative or that climate bill or whatever, which helps assholes like Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp run the systems of patronage and oppression that keep them in power (also, those checks are eventually ending up in the corps' accounts, so they're happy too).

[-] Serinus@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago

They don't talk about voting laws during the campaign because it loses.

Contrary to popular belief, they're not idiots.

If you get all the corporations to turn against you, especially the media companies, you lose. Ask Bernie.

They're not doing everything right, certainly, but it's also not a simple problem to solve. There are some very fine lines to walk for Dems. Kamala tried to walk those lines and failed.

She offered a $50k credit towards buying your first house. Does Gen Z remember that?

Meanwhile Trump could shout "hail Hitler" tomorrow and all the corporate media (and then 50% of the voters) would make excuses for him.

We need voters to seek out primary sources. We need them to be more resistant to manipulation. The problem isn't getting the information out there; it's getting people to hear it. How many people who didn't vote for Kamala went to KamalaHarris.com? And how many of those seriously considered what she had to say?

The problem is that saying nothing is more of a winning strategy than saying something. People always want to tear you down, and more words give them more ammo. So every politician's website is filled with fluff and platitudes.

The problem is Fox News telling people what to think 24/7 in a way that they actually listen.

Honestly, The Daily Show and Colbert Report of around 2000-2015 were one of the best things this country had going for it, and we were hardly aware of it.

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[-] blackbelt352@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

You're right, the DNC should be working to expand voter protections and ensure that freedom is protected and it sucks they're bought out by corps.

[-] Banana@sh.itjust.works 49 points 6 months ago

I'm never gonna stop sharing this

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[-] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago

The Democrats have plenty of problems, but none of that compares to Republicans who are worse in every conceivable way. Propaganda, foreign interference, and domestic voter suppression won this for Trump and his goons.

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 14 points 6 months ago

I get the argument, but at this point, nobody is contemplating whether to vote Democrat or Republican. It's between Democrat and apathy.

Comments like these sound as if during WWII the French were saying "well, the French army has plenty of problems, but Nazi German occupation is worse in every conceivable way, so there is no point criticising the French army".

Everyone knows the Reps are Nazis. The problem with the Dems is not that they are not less bad than the literal Nazi party, but that they are unable to effectively fight the Nazi party. The problem is that Democrats fail to demonstrate that voting for them is better than not voting at all to a large part of the electorate.

[-] Serinus@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

The problem is that Democrats fail to demonstrate

And compounding that problem is people being angry at the Dems for this failure instead of trying to help.

"Clearly you're not worth voting for because you can't convince people to vote for you." Great.

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 9 points 6 months ago

“Clearly you’re not worth voting for because you can’t convince people to vote for you.” Great.

But it's not that. It's "please do something because you're abandoning wide swathes of people and are going to lose, and lose our best chance against the fascists this way".

The problem is that Dems don't like progressives' help, they would rather get help from Cheney than Sanders.

[-] Serinus@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

abandoning wide swathes of people

Because forgiving college debt and giving you $50k towards your first house and bringing prescription drug prices down is abandoning you? Fixing our rail system is abandoning you? Repeatedly saying they're going to tax billionaires is abandoning progressives?

It's not like we give them enough to have the power to actually get big things done. When we do give them a little, they have to bring in the vice president to break ties in the Senate.

In this regard, it's not like Republicans wield power any better. They couldn't even repeal the ACA. It's just that they get more credit. First, they get credit for every Dem initiative they stop (even if it's not real). The reverse isn't true. Second, everything the Republicans do get done tends to be negative and stings more than the positives.

I know you want to abandon billionaire money. You want Dems saying the right things to you, in a closet where nobody hears them. Because if you don't have money, you lose elections. Period. That's a big problem that needs to be solved, but it can't be solved by people who lose elections.

The Dems absolutely could have tried to appeal to the progressives more instead of moderates. Clearly, in hindsight, it'd be worth trying something different. But I doubt it would have worked. People weren't happy, and they were going to take it out on the incumbent party. And right now they'd be hearing "why didn't they appeal to moderates?"

My point is that it's more complicated than just "appeal to progressives instead of moderates". The Dems have more realities to deal with than we give them credit for.

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 10 points 6 months ago

Because forgiving college debt and giving you $50k towards your first house and bringing prescription drug prices down is abandoning you? Fixing our rail system is abandoning you? Repeatedly saying they’re going to tax billionaires is abandoning progressives?

Tax billionaires how? Any concrete plans? Any proposed laws that were brought to the floor as much as repealing Obamacare was by the ghouls?

And trying to win by forgiving student debt that they themselves made undischargeable as recently as 2005 is good, but it's just trying to clean up after themselves. Unsuccessfully.

And giving $50k towards a first house, when houses are nearing a million is not going to do anything other than drive housing prices even further up. How much public housing have they built? Have they even proposed putting a tax on large-scale corporate homeownership or price gouging, houses sitting empty?

I'm not even going to mention Gaza.

But the elephant in the room, Joe Biden could have nominated anyone, literally anyone for AG. He nominated known conservative Merrick Garland, who then proceeded to let Trump go after 34 felony convictions and who knows how many hundreds of actual felonies, to become US president.

In this regard, it’s not like Republicans wield power any better. They couldn’t even repeal the ACA.

At least they tried. How many times have Democrats brought a vote to tax billionaires or megacorps, even if it failed, just to keep it on the table?

I know you want to abandon billionaire money. You want Dems saying the right things to you, in a closet where nobody hears them. Because if you don’t have money, you lose elections. Period. That’s a big problem that needs to be solved, but it can’t be solved by people who lose elections.

If money is more important than getting votes in order to win an election, then the US is not and has not been a democracy. That said, the Dems got all the money ever this election. Where is the win then?

The Dems absolutely could have tried to appeal to the progressives more instead of moderates. Clearly, in hindsight, it’d be worth trying something different. But I doubt it would have worked. People weren’t happy, and they were going to take it out on the incumbent party. And right now they’d be hearing “why didn’t they appeal to moderates?”

Has that ever happened? Once? Or has it been dozens of elections in a row, always appealing to "moderates" - actually wealthy donors - and leaving progressives to rot. And then blaming progressives for the election loss. Damn, Lina Khan, the one woman who was arguably doing her job well was possibly on the chopping block. How do you get people to vote for this?

The Dems have been the perfect Weimar to Trump's Hitler. May they be remembered as "fondly" as them.

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[-] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 months ago

Exactly. Democrats ran on "vote for a Democrat to save Democracy!" Millions of voters shrugged and asked, "what good has democracy done for me?"

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 9 points 6 months ago

The problem is that a lot of people, also on here equate people saying that "this is going to alienate voters" with saying "this is going to alienate me", and then go into personal attacks of "are Republicans better then?" or "you're the problem because you don't vote".

No, the problem is and was that large swathes of the population that you don't interact with won't vote if you don't give them something to vote for, as they don't see Trump as the threat he is, since people's opinions are saturated with the 24 hour news cycle. Point is "Trump bad", while true, doesn't win elections. You have to do something more, and the DNC is very much tending to do the bare minimum besides fundraising.

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

The problem is that a lot of people, also on here equate people saying that “this is going to alienate voters” with saying “this is going to alienate me”, and then go into personal attacks of “are Republicans better then?” or “you’re the problem because you don’t vote”.

Centrists only did that because in all cases, they supported the behavior that was alienating voters and didn't want it to change. Even if that meant trump again.

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[-] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 months ago

They didn't campaign to the center, they campaigned to the right. It was incredible obtuse and stupid.

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[-] Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

I really hate that this is the top comment. Two things can be true at the same time. Dems messed up in the previous election and narrowly lost against the worst candidate to ever run for president,AND voter suppression is real and will become a much larger problem going forward. Under Trump, nothing is stopping Republicans from enacting voter suppression laws the likes of which you have never seen before. Trump won’t need to steal the election for his third term (yes he will run if he’s still alive!), because the states will do it for him by suppressing the votes.

Now you may think that you are protected from a third term by the constitution. You may think you are protected against things like poll taxes, tests etc. But do you honestly believe the SC is on your side?

The Dems messed up this election. Voter suppression will ensure that there will no longer be fair elections in the future.

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[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 83 points 6 months ago

FTA:

The crucial statistic is that not everyone’s ballot gets disqualified. One study done for the United States Civil Rights Commission found that a Black person, such as Maj. Turner, will be 900% more likely to have their mail-in or in-person ballot disqualified than a white voter.

Okay, I went into this expecting cope, and it's an actually good article, worth a read or at least a skim. So, let's do something about it.

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[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 68 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's always "funny" when people act like systemic racism is some reformable problem rather than a major foundation of the entire system.

[-] blakenong@lemmings.world 13 points 6 months ago

The system of humanity.

[-] umean2me@discuss.online 17 points 6 months ago

It is not natural to be racist.

[-] Soulg@sh.itjust.works 20 points 6 months ago

It's actually very natural to form in/out groups. The issue is getting the species as a whole to overcome it.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 18 points 6 months ago

In/out groups are natural, but the establishment of those groups on 'racial' lines is totally constructed. The concept of race itself doesn't hold up to scrutiny, it's a fixation on specific phenotypic traits.

Notice how racial bias is fixated on skin color while other phenotypic differences are largely ignored; people with different colored eyes or hair, different nose shapes, different hair textures, etc. 400 years ago skin tone was similarly trivial, but that changed with the rise of chattel slavery.

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[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 67 points 6 months ago

One lesson 2020 should have taught everyone and that's vote by mail WORKS.

Lifting the restrictions on vote by mail for Covid won the election for Biden, and replacing those restrictions in 2024 lost it for Harris.

We should have 100% vote by mail in all states.

[-] samus12345@lemm.ee 56 points 6 months ago

vote by mail WORKS.

Which is why red states didn't want to use it. Can't stay in power if you don't suppress votes.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago

One lesson 2020 should have taught everyone and that’s vote by mail WORKS.

It was a lesson national administrators learned. That's why it was heavily clawed back. 2020 was a big year for Popular Socialist Candidates. Neither party enjoyed a wave year that included The Squad and put a guy like Bernie Sanders in arm's reach of Biden after Super Tuesday.

We should have 100% vote by mail in all states.

Republicans have been outspoken in opposition to mail-in voting, particularly for younger college-aged voters. But even Dems are lackluster in their support for full enfranchisement, on the grounds that higher participation tends to make controlling primaries more difficult and expensive (the NY-14 upset by AOC being a classic example).

Incidentally How Voting Laws Have Changed in Battleground States Since 2020: Most have made it harder to vote, but others have expanded access.

[-] Furbag@lemmy.world 57 points 6 months ago

I knew that this was going to happen as soon as they started purging voter rolls and passing draconian voter suppression laws after Trump lost. Biden just barely beat Trump in 2020, so all they had to do was give Trump a little bump - a few thousand votes nullified here or there would win him a whole state. The media focus in 2020 was on the "historic turnout", but how many of those were covid mail-in ballots that red states didn't allow this time? How many people showed up on election day ready to vote for Kamala only to get turned away because they weren't on the registry even though they voted in 2020?

Republicans cheated in more than one way this time, and we got screwed because we failed to stop it early.

[-] cultsuperstar@lemmy.world 48 points 6 months ago

Once again, Trump said (during his first term, I believe) on Fox News Republicans would never win another election if minorities vote. They know this. They consistently make it harder and harder for people to vote, while targeting minorities.

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[-] Freefall@lemmy.world 40 points 6 months ago

We all know. Nothing was or will be done. Now they can rig it from the inside. Was a fun run!

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago

Democrats had the opportunity to fix this when they were in office. They chose to protect the filibuster instead.

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[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 27 points 6 months ago

This is why Kamala accepting the outcome "No matter what", to prove she's better than Trump...

Was the dumbest thing she could have done because it was just playing into the GOP's hand.

The Republican game is "You go high, we go low, because low gets us elected and furthers our agenda."

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[-] Floon@lemmy.ml 27 points 6 months ago

Dem pols are always too afraid to exercise the power they have when they win. Always. When Biden won, DC and Puerto Rican statehood should have been the first things on the agenda.

The GOP is never afraid to exercise as much power as they can get away with.

[-] BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Biden never had enough control of the whole government to get those things done without Republican buy-in.

A Republican controlled house won't send a bill like that to the Senate. A Republican controlled Senate won't send it to the President.

You can be upset at Biden, but we've rarely ever given a Democratic president a Democratic Congress to help him get anything done.

[-] Floon@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 months ago

Uh, no. He had a Democratic congress the first half of his term. Part of why he lost them is Dems are so tepid with exercising the power the voters give them.

Nothing the Dems do, or even try to do, gin the base up into excitement. The base never feels inspired that the Dems are striving for the goals they claim to represent and want.

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[-] Glasgow@lemmy.ml 26 points 6 months ago

https://electiontruthalliance.org/2024-us-election-analysis

[-] nexusband@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

That's some thorough analysis, holy cow...

[-] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Oh please. We had the same shit in 2020 and we had a record turn out.

Don't put the blame on voter suppression when it's American stupidity and apathy that's the cause.

[-] Nalivai@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

It is in the end stupidly and apathy. But, you can't deny that voter suppression is also a big thing and it should be addressed.

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[-] gofsckyourself@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

Hard to trust any site that uses AI slop in their images.

If they are willing to use AI images, why wouldn't they be willing to use AI in their writing or in how they interpret the data for their writing?

This whole article could be based on logic or data that AI just hallucinated.

[-] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

Greg Palaat has been reporting on issues like this for over 25 years.

His book "Best democracy money can buy" is an awesome read, but it's fucken infuriating corruption he exposes never gets punished.

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[-] verdantbanana@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

get the fuck out of here with this horseshit

both parties Democrats and Republicans both use voter suppression based on what their check writers want

for example there is bipartisan efforts to keep United States citizens locked up for a list of nonviolent offences such as Bidens tough crime bills and now immigrants and women are on the list too

the education system is also used to suppress votes - no democracy without a properly funded education system

bipartisan effort to keep the minimum wage at $7.25 is another way to suppress votes - tired, overworked people do not vote with an informed healthy mind thus subverting democracy more

state of healthcare is another way voters are suppressed - health people would not vote for the current state of things

the politicians' check writers also suppress by controlling the media that is consumed along with the entirety of culture deleting content as needed to keep us in line

and the list goes on we need to throw both parties out and start fresh

[-] BrokenGlepnir@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago

While many of those things may effect people's ability to vote, how many of them target republican voters? I'm pretty sure that's what "this shit" that you want them to "fuck out of here with" is talking about.

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[-] nwilz@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Oh look election denialism

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

Oh look, voter suppression denialism.

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[-] DarthFreyr@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Re post text: For context, Washington state is mail-only voting, so that number would (I assume) be for all votes, not just specifically requested mail-ins. I didn't see it in the article, but I wonder if that is predominantly "centralized" or "distributed" in nature; i.e. are technically-valid ballots from all voters being incorrectly rejected by the county elections facilities office at different rates across racial lines, or are there other factors like targeted disinformation, education, local infrastructure, or socioeconomics that disproportionately affect Black (or other types of minority) voters that would make them more likely to produce a technically-invalid ballot?

Those might get the same statistic, but would seem to indicate very different sorts of problems and approaches.

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this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025

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