Lots of reasons why it’s a good idea I’d like to reinforce Simon Rosenberg’s advice on The Importance of Voting on Day 1 of early voting. Digby referenced it on Sunday. You are going to vote anyway. Voting in person on Day 1 of early voting has several advantages. First, once you’ve voted you will quickly “stop getting canvassed and called!!!!” Second, once you are scratched off the list, campaigns will turn their dollars, attention and efforts to turning out voters needing more of a nudge than you. And they’ll have more lead time for reaching more of them. Rosenberg notes: Voting on Day 1 has other benefits. A heavy early turnout leads to stories about “hey everyone is voting” putting social pressure on people to go vote, which also increases turnout. Voting early in big numbers also becomes a very public affirmation that our democracy and election system is working as intended, which creates a greater incentive for people to vote and makes it far harder for the Republicans to cheat, disrupt or contest the election.
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The NY Times headline writers are romanticizing Trump as an “outlaw” like Butch Cassidy (the Paul Newman version.) The article paints a different picture. And it’s just plain creepy: Over the past week, Donald J. Trump rallied alongside two rap artists accused of conspiracy to commit murder. He promised to commute the sentence of a notorious internet drug dealer. And he appeared backstage with another rap artist who has pleaded guilty to assault for punching a female fan. As Mr. Trump awaits the conclusion of his Manhattan trial — closing arguments are set for Tuesday and a verdict could arrive as soon as this week — he used a weeklong break from court to align himself with defendants and convicted criminals charged by the same system with which he is at war. The appearances fit neatly into Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, during which he has said he is likely to pardon those prosecuted for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and lent his voice to a recording of the national anthem by a choir of Jan. 6 inmates.
So you think polling skepticism is a fool’s errand? Maybe. But it does pay to remember our most recent election in 2022. Here’s the opening of the NY Times recap of what happened (gift link): Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat, had consistently won re-election by healthy margins in her three decades representing Washington State. This year seemed no different: By midsummer, polls showed her cruising to victory over a Republican newcomer, Tiffany Smiley, by as much as 20 percentage points. So when a survey in late September by the Republican-leaning Trafalgar Group showed Ms. Murray clinging to a lead of just two points, it seemed like an aberration. But in October, two more Republican-leaning polls put Ms. Murray barely ahead, and a third said the race was a dead heat. As the red and blue trend lines of the closely watched RealClearPolitics average for the contest drew closer together, news organizations reported that Ms. Murray was suddenly in a fight for her political survival. Warning lights flashed in Democratic war rooms. If Ms. Murray was in trouble, no Democrat was safe. Ms.
This is a good idea, especially if you live in a swing state. From Simon Rosenberg: The Importance of Voting on Day 1 – Our elections have changed a lot in recent years. Most voters can now vote early in person or with no-excuse mail ballots. This has made it far easier for people to vote which is one reason we’ve seen such a big increase in turnout in recent years. It also has forced our campaigns to move away from Election Day focused get out the vote programs, and begin our work to get our folks to vote much earlier. The recognition that our Election Day is now as Tom Bonier calls it “just the last day of voting” is central to why Team Biden asked to move the debates up this year. People start voting on September 20th, and it was smart to move the debates to before people started voting. This new early vote electoral system is important for Democrats, who traditionally have more episodic and new voters in our coalition. This extra time to do GOTV allows us, if we have the money and the volunteers, to reach down and touch more less likely voters than we could in the past, and this increases our turnout and helps us win.
Former Washington Post editor Len Downie sounds a warning to the American press: “I say up front, openly and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in September in an attack on NBC News. “The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country.” What could Trump do to the news media and their ability to inform the American people? Judging by what he did in his first term, plenty. As president, he habitually attacked the news media and individual journalists as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people,” undermining public trust in the fact-finding press. The irony of him saying that when we now have testimony under oath that he was personally involved in manufacturing dirt on his opponents in collusion with the owner of the National Enquirer is too thick to slice. He literally concocted fake news about Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton.
Ken Burns suspends “long-standing attempt at neutrality” This clip is a week old, but it’s flying around the internet this weekend. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns addressed graduates at Brandeis University and warned about the threat to America’s “fragile, 249-year-old experiment.” On our “existential crossroads”: Burns cites Lincoln’s Lyceum speech (Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838) on “the perpetuation of our political institutions.” Lincoln was 28: At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. Lincoln continued: I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; Burns’s point was that while history never repeats, it sometimes rhymes. And the rhymes are unmistakeable now. The speech in its entirety is here and worth your time.
Taking pandering to new lows First, big props to Dave Weigel (now with Semafor) for covering the messiest. most tedious parts of political conventions for years. How he can stand to live-blog Democratic platform committee meetings is beyond me. This weekend, Dave is covering the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Washington, D.C. Weigel reports: Donald Trump promised members of the Libertarian Party that he would “put a libertarian in my cabinet” and commute the life sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, a top demand of a political movement that intends to run its own candidate against him. “On day one, we will commute the sentence,” Trump said, offering to free the creator of what was once the internet’s most infamous drug clearinghouse. “We will bring him home.” His speeches more typically include a pledge to execute drug dealers, citing China as a model. As anyone might have guessed from the motion made from the floor on Friday that “Donald Trump to go f*ck himself” that drew applause, Trump’s reception was not his warmest.
He’s the main reason masking turned into a political issue. He didn’t want to mess up his make-up and people died. He just has to lie…
Service and self-sacrifice I’ve shared before a tale about the first Memorial Day in 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina, a remembrance of “slavery’s terrible legacy.” The focus of that ceremony and of most on Memorial Days since is on the fallen. Less featured are the stories of those left behind. The Fayetteville Observer ran an op-ed a few days ago by Rebekah Sanderlin. She calls out Donald Trump for his dismissal of soldiers who fell in battle in Europe as “suckers and losers.” She spotlights the burdens borne by the wives of U.S. soldiers lost in Afghanistan thirteen years before Trump’s snubbing: I started leading Care Teams in 2005, only we didn’t call them that then. We didn’t call them anything back then. We just helped. We, military spouses, showed up after the soldiers in dress uniforms notified someone just like us that the person she loved most in this world was never coming home. As the wife of an enlisted U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who spent more time deployed than home, my husband’s friends were the ones dying, and my friends were their widows.