Here's what is ahead of us this fall:
Yes, we have to do this -- we have to create more potentially Democratic Congressional seats in California to counter the House seats Republicans are carving out in Texas. In this episode of "they started it," California can't opt out. And won't.
For anyone who has had a hard time finding a place in the mushrooming resistance to Trump/MAGA, here's another all too familiar opportunity to make a difference. Spread the word.
All Californians are being offered a chance to participate in resistance to Trump's effort to eradicate even feeble opposition. Lucky us to have a role, I guess. All Americans don't get such a relatively frictionless opportunity. But we do: on November 4 we'll get to vote on a state redistricting plan that should yield 4 or 5 new Democratic Congresscritters.
It's kind of nauseating to overthrow our own anti-gerrymandering initiative -- but we have to fight and at least this is, not yet, a violent measure unless you are a GOP Congress-member losing your safe seat.
And it's being led by our very flawed Governor who hopes to ride it to the White House. Sigh.
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| Pretty boy puff piece from the Nob Hill Gazette, 2020 |
I'm a longtime San Franciscan. I know Newsom is a very mixed blessing. Sure, he advanced the cause of gay marriage back in the day. But in the same mayoral season he kicked homeless people for applause lines. Kind of like what he did last spring with trans people. As with all our recent mayors, beginning with Willie Brown, the overriding thrust of his term was to tame this formerly flamboyant city into a sterile corporate headquarters and real estate magnates' paradise.
On the other hand, having Newsom out trying to lead the charge against Trump is a net win. This is how our system is supposed to work: let our pols compete to show they can be the best at enacting their constituents' gut desires.
Grumpy columnist George Skelton of the LATimes gets it:
“It is really a calculated power grab that dismantles the very safeguards voters put in place,” California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin said in a statement last week, echoing other party members. “This is Gavin the Gaslighter overturning the will of the voters and telling you it’s for your own good.”
Power grab? Sure. Overturning the voters’ will? Hardly.
Newsom is asking voters to express a new will–seeking permission to fight back against Trump’s underhanded attempt to redraw congressional districts in Texas and other red states so Republicans can retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives after next year’s midterm elections.
First of all, that anti-gerrymandering vote creating the citizens’ commission was 15 years ago. It was a wise decision and badly needed, and still a wonderful concept in the abstract. But that was then, this is now....
... Second, that 2010 electorate no longer exists. Today’s electorate is substantially different. And it shouldn’t necessarily be tied to the past. ...
So we have to vote for this thing ... maybe even work for it. Now that's a tiresome reality. Newsom is not my leader, but resisting fascism is my cause and this is one bit of what we can do.
One thing I've noticed about Martha's Vineyard island, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts generally, is that they go in for a lot of voting. Popular, participatory democracy is alive and well around here. I don't know if they'll have a big turnout, but the residents of the town of Tisbury are having their say today.
At Tisbury special town meeting on Dec. 17, voters approved a $4.4-million borrowing request to renovate and maintain the Vineyard Haven library. The next critical step in the process requires voters to approve the spending request at a special town election on Jan. 7.... Previously, the library board of trustees created a nonprofit organization, which raised $1.6 million for an addition to the library, but during construction, the older portions of the building continued to deteriorate. According to trustees, there are major issues with roofing, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, and overall integrity of the building, and those issues have continued to grow.
“We raised $1.6 million to build an addition that is paid for, but in the process, the building continues to deteriorate. We need to replace the roofs so we can put solar on it, replace the bathrooms, fix ceiling water leaks, and the exterior is rotting,” said Arch Smith, chair of the board of trustees. “In short, we have water coming in from the roof, and water coming in from the ground, and we don’t want it in the building.”
If approved at the Jan. 7 special town election, bids for the construction project will be sent out to all possible contractors by late February, Smith said. -- MV Times
This island has wonderful libraries, though apparently the one in Vineyard Haven needs a lot of work.
I'll update here when we learn whether the voters are willing to go for these improvements and these costs to themselves.
January 8 update: The voters have spoken. "Tisbury voters on Tuesday approved a $4.8 million funding request that will be used for the addition and repair of Vineyard Haven Public Library. The ballot question passed by a vote of 305 to 130."
The Downballot reports that Democrats are contesting far more state legislative seats all over the country than Republicans.
Across the 85 legislative chambers holding regularly scheduled elections in 44 states this year, Republicans are defending 3,169 seats while Democrats are protecting 2,616. But Republicans have failed to field a candidate in 1,066 Democratic seats, while Democrats have left 1,127 GOP seats uncontested.While the Democratic figure for uncontested seats is slightly higher in raw numbers, on a percentage basis, they're playing more offense: Democrats are challenging Republicans in 64% of GOP-held seats, while Republicans, conversely, are contesting 59% of Democratic seats.
The totals reflect strong Democratic recruitment in many states, including Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, and even Idaho. In total, Democrats are running 2,042 challengers compared to 1,550 for the GOP. When accounting for open seats (which are also tallied in our new data set), Democrats are fielding 2,485 non-incumbents, versus 2,224 for Republicans.
The disparity also arises from the current dysfunction in the GOP. Lots of veteran legislators retired or were dumped by MAGA voters in primaries.
Altogether, 124 GOP legislators who wanted another term were denied renomination by voters, often for allegedly failing to adhere to far-right orthodoxy. Just 28 Democratic lawmakers, by contrast, lost primaries this year.
This is no way to build a political party. Perhaps a mob ...
Assuming we live to fight another day, there's lots to build on here.
The east coast branch of the UniteHERE national phonebank took a short turn through North Carolina last week to help on-the-ground organizers turn out voters to this Power to the Polls festival in a Charlotte park and their march to vote. Looks like they had a good time.
It's great to see our work is succeeding.
This effort, like many across the nation, aims to restore some sense of community to the election process though which we make our national and local democratic decisions.
Not long ago, there was only Election Day voting unless you submitted an excuse to vote by absentee ballot. But states in the Pacific Northwest experimented with mail-in voting and discovered this increased turnout (sometimes). Some states added early in-person voting options. The COVID year further encouraged many states to implement various systems of mail, drop box, and other options which reduced crowding and responded to some people's fears of being around others.
So, really, we no longer have Election Day as so much as Election Month. This year almost all states use some version of voting options distributed over time.
A friend describes what living through the transition felt like:
When we lived in Colorado, we were some of the very early voters in line to cast our votes on Election Day, and at first I really didn't like that we couldn't have that moment duplicated here in Washington State. But now I have grown to prefer it this way, because we can be assured that our votes will definitely be counted and not manipulated in any way.
Early in the transition to early voting options, I was uncomfortable. An election is the most collective experience we participate in as citizens of a huge, wildly diverse, country. As Karl Kurtz wrote way back in 2007:
[Early voting] eliminates the notion of a national civic convocation of the American people on election day...
We've made voting a solitary action for many of us. Is this good? Certainly it is good for campaigners; we push early voting with gusto and profit by it because it reduces the number of people we have to reach on Election Day. (And early voting relieves voters in contested areas of that relentless flood of calls and texts.)
But I'm glad to see more and more groups creating public events like Charlotte's Power to the Polls march to remind people they are in this big thing together.
After all, voting is a chance to join in a celebration of the best aspirations of this country, even in these terrible times!
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| We even have election parties in San Francisco. |
First, let me whine a little. I hate the profusion of ballot measures on which we are asked to vote every election.
Many involve complex issues which the legislature and governor have been unable to resolve. Most of us know nothing about the matters they concern. To our elected leaders I say -- damn it, do your jobs! Sorting these interests out is what we hire you for.
Another sort of measure is something that somebody had enough money to pay signature gatherers to qualify for the ballot. Now I love quite a few signature gatherers; it's a hard job. And then we get hit with the TV and social media ads. I'm often disgusted by seeing money set the campaign agenda, even when I care about the issues.
• • •
Enough -- here's how I voted on the state props ...
Prop. 2 is a $10 billion school bond measure to fund repairs and upgrades to public schools. ... Statewide, 38% of students in California go to schools that do not meet minimum facility standards, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Opponents of the bill include the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. Dems and Reps for it. Voted YES.
Prop. 3. Repeals 2008 hate measure that outlawed gay marriage. Clean up time! YES
Prop. 4. The Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024 would have the state borrow $10 billion to pay for climate and environmental projects — including some that were axed from the budget because of an unprecedented deficit. There's little bit of something for everyone in this: water, coastal protection, fighting wildfires.
Probably not perfectly designed, but a product of the legislative process and the Governor's druthers. Okay. YES
Opponents of the bill include the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.
Prop. 5: According to the LA Times:
Currently, most local bond proposals require a two-thirds vote of the public to be approved. If voters pass Proposition 5, this threshold will be lowered to 55% for bonds supporting low-income housing, road and transit expansions, parks, wildfire resilience and other public infrastructure projects. The existing supermajority requirement for local bond approval was written into California’s Constitution in 1879.I think I'm against supermajority provisions wherever they exist. That includes the US Senate filibuster rule. We need to grow up. YES
• the California Hospital Assn., the California Medical Assn., the California Primary Care Assn., Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, labor unions, emergency responders and community health centers. Both the California Democratic Party and the California Republican Party support it.
• the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, the League of Women Voters of California, Courage California, and the California Alliance for Retired Americans oppose it.This is an example of measures we never should have to vote on if the legislators and governor were doing their job.
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| No, there is no Prop.37 this year. But just you wait ... |
Coda: Note the numerous mentions of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. opposing various measures above. As a general rule, if those cranky old men funded by billionaire tax cheats don't like something, you can at least give it a look.
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California state ballot measures here.
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Meanwhile, you can help Harris-Walz get elected by joining the hospitality workers of the union UniteHERE on a national phonebank. Sign up here.
• when you vote early, on Day 1 of the early vote, for example, the campaign knows you voted and will remove you from their GOTV/field targets. ...• It creates a very public permission structure and social pressure for voters who are not sure about voting, of when they are going to vote, to vote. “Hey other people seem to be voting I need to vote too.”• It is a daily affirmation of the health and vitality of our democracy, something desperately needed today. All these people voting, and voting successfully, is in itself a sort of repudiation of MAGA and Trumpism. ...• A heavy early turnout leads to stories about “hey everyone is voting” ...
Did you know that Elon Musk is a naturalized American citizen? Born in South Africa in 1971, the tech tycoon apparently thought, correctly, that his prospects would be improved by acquiring citizenship here. Good for him; in this respect, he's ordinary. (One doubts that actually...)
Most naturalized citizen eligible voters have lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years. About three-quarters of immigrant eligible voters (73%) have lived in the U.S. for more than two decades. Another 20% have lived in the country for 11 to 20 years, while relatively few (8%) have been in the U.S. for a decade or less.
Among naturalized citizen eligible voters, more than half (55%) live in just four states: California, Florida, New York and Texas. These four states are also the country’s most populous when looking at eligible voters overall. Combined, they’re home to roughly a third of the U.S. electorate (32%).
The naturalized citizen share of the electorate differs widely in some potential battleground states in the 2024 election. Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are widely considered to be among the swing states this fall. ...
In Nevada and Arizona, naturalized citizens make up 14% and 9% of all eligible voters, respectively. They account for 7% of eligible voters in Georgia, and about 5% in both Pennsylvania and Michigan. In Wisconsin, they are just 3% of the electorate.
In overall numbers, Georgia’s naturalized citizen electorate is the largest among these swing states at 574,000, while Pennsylvania is not far behind at 546,000. Both of these states were among the closest in the 2020 presidential election.
What do I take from this statistical picture of naturalized citizens?
• Like Americans born here, naturalized Americans don't vote automatically. If you want their votes, you have to talk with them and turn them out. Voting can be intimidating, even when Republicans aren't spreading lies in immigrant communities.
• It's not very clear that naturalized citizens have different issue desires and preferences than anyone else. (Well maybe Ukrainian-origin immigrants might be especially urgent in seeking aid to their relatives under siege.)
• This is still a country enriched by immigrants many of whom choose to become citizens. Immigration by ambitious strivers is what makes this country unique and interesting. It always has been.
It's more than a little sick that so many Republican pols are willing to beat up on some of the best of us.
... I could not love this more. A 93 year-old man in Oklahoma bought a billboard declaring, “Women, the Republican party does not respect you…vote Democrat.” When a local news outlet asked Burt Holmes why he bought the billboard, he said, “Because I think women can win the next big election in the country if they will get out and vote.” Burt knows what’s up! -- via Jessica Valenti, Abortion Every Day
Joe Perticone of The Bulwark called it "Snoozer Tuesday." I like that. I can think of nothing that came out of the primary on Super Tuesday except perhaps a chance for media outlets to take a practice run in multiple state for their work next November. We've known the presidential candidates since perhaps last May; the rest was mostly expenisve noise.
Erika D. Smith of the LA Times aptly describes what it felt like to be a California voter in this oh-so-predetermined exercise:
We used to hear: “Vote for who you think is the best candidate for the office or who best represents your interests.”Now it’s about the mass gamification of elections.
More fantasy football than rooting for the red or blue home team. More chess than checkers. There’s a slow shift underway from thinking of voting as a simple act of civic duty. Instead it’s becoming a series of strategic decisions and complicated calculations made in a desperate attempt to create a government of politicians who will actually improve our lives.
In practice, gamification looks like obsessively reading polls in an attempt to gain an edge or dispel rumors about your party. Or “wasting” your vote on the candidate you want to win, even if the polls say they won’t win, because you want to send a message to the political establishment. Or, my favorite, voting for a candidate you don’t like in a primary to help a candidate you do like win the general election.
Sure, not all of this is new. We’ve been told to “vote for the lesser of two evils” for decades. This country’s electoral process has always been imperfect. ...
Smith ended up following her heart and voting for Barbara Lee in the US Senate contest, knowing this was a sort of protest vote against calculated decision making. I applaud her, even though I did not take the same tack.
In the Washington Post, Robin Givhan hopefully speaks to what is meaningful amid the clutter and noise of an empty primary season; she reminds that there are a deep rights at stake here.
Voting isn’t merely a zero-sum game that ends with the winners crowing over their victory and the losers slinking away in defeat. That’s part of it, but not all of it. In a free and fair election, it’s sometimes not even the most important thing.
The vote itself is proof of faith. The person casting it believes that it matters. Denying them the opportunity is a callous dismissal. The depth of meaning in a single vote comes from our troubled history, our collective ability to effect change and the dignity inherent in expressing our singular desires to the lofty state, as well as to our next-door neighbor.
... As a country, we like to speak about the right to vote as a sacred act. But in the next breath, we characterize it as a tedious chore that must be accomplished in a blizzard or downpour. And when candidates dare to linger longer than electoral math suggests that they should — we liken voting to an enabling act in service to a narcissist.
But a vote has never only been fundamentally about wins and losses. Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, the lack of access to the ballot box was characterized by activists as something that was humiliating, degrading and unjust. In contrast, the act of choosing one’s representative was an expression of dignity and respect. Victory wasn’t assured. Progress was elusive. How long would it take? Not long. But justice wouldn’t be instantaneous. It wasn’t a matter of a single election or the success of one candidate. The work was in the voting, which is to say, the work was in making one’s voice heard. Again and again.
It matters if one’s candidate wins or loses. Profoundly. Today, it matters more than ever.
But there’s nothing quite as searing as a loss in which a voter had to stand by in silence and watch as it happened.
People have died for the right to have a say; even when our choices lose, our vote shouts "we are here."
“Everybody I speak to says how horrible it is,” [Donald Trump] said during an event at the border on Thursday. “Nobody [can] explain to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don’t speak languages — we have languages coming into our country, we have nobody that even speaks those languages. They are truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.” -- Washington Post
Okay, we know that Donald is both clueless and bigoted when it comes to people who speak a language other than English -- though if he ever had an English teacher, she might wonder she'd made any impact on his ability to construct meaning in his native tongue.
California lawmakers are considering a bill that would expand language assistance and election services to immigrants who don’t speak English fluently, but a group representing voter registrars throughout the state says it will cost counties too much money.
California has the nation’s highest proportion of households that speak languages other than English. Nearly 3 million voting age Californians have limited English knowledge.
Assemblymember Evan Low, the Cupertino Democrat who co-authored Assembly Bill 884, said he hopes it will increase voter participation and strengthen democracy in California.
“California is one of the most diverse states and leads the nation in language diversity,” he said, “so it is important that we lead the way to providing in-language ballots and voting materials to reduce barriers and enfranchise more Californians.”
The bill, which passed the Assembly in late January and is before the Senate, would require California’s Secretary of State to identify the languages spoken by at least 5,000 voting-age individuals in a county who don’t speak English fluently, including groups not covered by current federal voting rights laws, such as Middle Eastern or African immigrants.
The Secretary of State would then have to provide language assistance, including a toll-free hotline and funding for county language coordinators, in areas where the need is most acute.I can easily image that, to many harried election administrators, Low's bill looks like one more underfunded mandate. But, in my experience, people who do those jobs usually want everyone who is eligible to have a chance to vote, so they'll want to make this work.
... “We want voters to trust the government and that boils down to a voter in any community being able to understand what is happening in their own community,” said Pedro Hernandez, a policy director at California Common Cause, which cosponsored the bill.
This is the great California experiment, something to cherish on primary day.
I don't know anything substantive about Taiwan. This island, populated by 23.5 million inhabitants, exists in a kind of sovereign limbo, claimed by China and inhabited primarily by people of Chinese ethnicity, but outside the domain of Beijing. How this anomalous situation came to be is a tangled story.
Since China's current ruler, Xi Jinping, presses China's claim to rule the island, it's not crazy to fear the big country might try to absorb the little one. And U.S. foreign policy (non-Trumpified) pushes back, though cagily. The situation seems appropriately scary, given what China has done to democratic aspirations in Hong Kong and U.S. anxiety over our overstretched global power. Poor Taiwanese, balanced between monsters!
Taiwanese historian Albert Wu offers a presents a succinct pre-primer on how the island became what it is and some sense of its people's current opinions in an interview with political scientist Yascha Mounk. But what warmed my heart was his account of participating in the recent presidential election. Democracy is new and valued in Wu's Taiwan.
"What I've been really moved by the past couple of days is how democratic culture really has come to take root here. On Saturday, we went to the polls with my wife and her parents and, like many families, there are generational divides in Taiwan but also political disagreements. We've long had political disagreements, and we’ve talked about them. But on Saturday, we all went to the polls together. And the polling station was a five minute walk from us. We took our little daughter with us.
"In this election, 70% of people turned out, which is actually considered low for Taiwan. Normally it's between 75 and 80 to 85%. But 70% turned out. And when we got to the polls, there were multigenerational families, people pushing their elderly parents or grandparents. I'm sure many of them disagreed. But they just went to the polls. And many of those people had lived for forty years without ever having the chance to vote for their own president.
"There are always local elections, but people really take this privilege of being able to choose their elected leader seriously, and it was orderly: people were just lining up. When I was growing up, election day was really just a chaotic mess, people were still campaigning outside. I sort of missed that personally.
"But everybody got the day off. And afterwards, in Taiwan, eating is very important. So we strolled to this hotel and had a really delicious and wonderful meal. And even though we disagreed politically, we sat down and ate and talked about the future of our country and our hopes and dreams and desires for the country. And even though we know we've had some disagreements, we cherished that moment of voting together and being together.
"Coming out of the ‘70s and ‘80s, when there was a lot of ballot stuffing during the authoritarian era, vote counting is now completely transparent. And what they do is they open up the voting booths, and everybody can go and observe. And people will just open up the ballots and count them out, and so we went and watched the count.
"The polls closed at 4, and, by 7:30, all the votes were counted. By 9:30, we had a new president, and there was just this wonderful victory rally and all this confetti. And what really moved me is that by the end of the victory rally, everybody stayed behind and picked up confetti: they wanted to keep the streets clean, they picked up confetti, they stacked all the chairs. And the next day, it was as if nothing happened. It was just part of the normalcy of everyday life.
"My grandfather never in his life was able to vote for his own president. My grandmother died before the transition to a fully democratic country. And I think everybody, at least in my parents' generation, and in my generation, knows that. And I think that love for democracy is sort of baked into the current landscape."
As we strive to ensure our own aspiring dictator goes down to defeat in November, the experience of people newly able to make choices about their lives through voting can be inspiring.
Charles Blow, columnist and son of the Black South, is out with an appeal for frustrated, angry citizens to get serious.
There are still too many citizens who think of a vote, particularly for president, as something to throw to a person they like rather than being cast for the candidate and party more likely to advance the policies they need.
And there are too many who think that a vote should be withheld from a more preferable candidate as punishment for not delivering every single thing on their wish lists — that choosing not to vote at all is a sensible act of political protest rather than a relinquishing of control to others. Abstinence doesn’t empower; it neuters.
If you want a democracy to thrive, the idea that voting is a choice is itself an illusion. Voting is about survival, and survival isn’t a choice. It’s an imperative. It’s an instinct.
It’s a tool one uses for self-advancement and self-preservation. It’s an instrument you use to decrease chances of harm and increase chances of betterment. It is naïve to use it solely to cosign an individual’s character; not to say that character doesn’t count — it does — but rather that its primacy is a fallacy.
Voting isn’t just an expression of your worldview but also a manifestation of your insistence on safety and security.
I'm afraid that 2024 is going to be another long slog during which we will have to make this point over and over. Posting Blow here to get a jump on the project.
I’m 79, and women my age remember when abortion was illegal. Many of us either had a back-alley abortion, or had friends who had one. We are determined that neither our daughters nor our granddaughters have to experience this. Many of the elderly men I know still vote for Republicans. But watch out: We outlive you! — Mary LeonhardtAs Cohn points out, old men too live longer in more prosperous areas where there are more Democrats. Kind of makes you suspect there's a correlation between (better) functioning social systems, sane politics, and longevity.
You may be partly joking, Mary, but this is probably a minor reason Democrats do a bit better among older voters than people might guess!
Why? American women, who tend to support Democrats, live almost six years longer on average than men. Women make up 55 percent of registered voters over age 65 — including 58 percent of those over age 80 — according to data from L2, a political data firm. In comparison, women are 52 percent of registered voters under 65.
I know all of this is a little morbid, but longevity strikes me as an underexplored dimension of electoral trends nowadays. We know higher life expectancy is correlated with socioeconomic status and tends to be higher in Democratic-leaning areas. Could this be a factor in why Democrats are performing better among older voters than usually thought? I think so.
John Della Volpe writes "for more than two decades, I’ve been embedded in the land of young Americans. First millennials, and now Gen Z with an eye on Gen Alpha. From my perch since 2000 as polling director at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, at SocialSphere, and as the dad of a few Zoomers and one Zillennial — I spend most of my time talking with, surveying, and thinking about young Americans. ..."
He concludes, based on long running CBS News polling, that younger Americans are approaching the looming 2024 election and our general prospects with a lot more hope than their elders.
#1: Younger Americans are the most optimistic Americans
• Younger Americans have dealt with more chaos more quickly than most Americans — indeed, before most reached adulthood;
• Yet, they’re not turning away from their country; they are leaning in with a generous and tenacious spirit.
Gen Zers and millennials are significantly more likely than older generations to indicate that things in the country are going “very” (13%) or “somewhat well” (31%).And unlike their elders, they think well of Vice President Harris. Her presence along with Joe Biden increases their confidence in the ticket.
#2: VP Harris is polling solidly with younger voters who see her as an asset to President Biden and the 2024 ticketAlthough the GOP presidential candidates are attempting to downplay Vice President Harris’s role in the administration and her potential impact on the 2024 Democratic ticket, this poll indicates that younger voters remain undeterred and supportive.
The Vice President’s approval ratings are trending ahead of most national figures and are particularly strong across the younger cohorts. (55%: among the 18-29 age group)
On a fraught subject, a majority think Joe Biden is getting U.S. support right for a free Ukraine.
#3: Gen Z and millennials are more in favor of U.S. engagement in Ukraine than older generations
For as many adults over 30 who believe that the Biden administration is generally handling things the right way in Ukraine, about the same number think the U.S. should be pulling back and doing less. The pattern reverses, though, with younger Americans. ...those under 30 are between seven and ten points more likely to support greater U.S. support for Ukraine.
Additionally, young adults are also more supportive than older generations of sending aid and supplies (76%), weapons (57%), and troops (48%) to Ukraine.
Though I agree about the justice of Ukraine's cause, I marvel at the reversal from past wars which younger people questioned more readily than did their elders.
• • •
The optimism of President Obama’s “Yes we can” and President Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” seem like increasingly quaint relics....
... a campaign for reform is not an impossible idea. In the early 20th century, a national debate and calls for systemic change led to the direct election of senators, widespread adoption of ballot initiatives and women’s suffrage. In the 1960s, another wave of reform enfranchised Black Americans and swept away legally enforced racial segregation.
Could that happen again? The optimism about the future that our Times/KFF poll of immigrants found and the deep discontent the Pew survey documented among younger Americans point to a possible way the current era of stalemate could end.
... Both immigrants and young people vote at much lower levels than the rest of the population. Many immigrants aren’t citizens, and even those who do have citizenship often aren’t plugged into U.S. politics. Young people often aren’t habitual voters and need a cause to motivate them.
But both groups are poised to play a larger role. Millennial and Gen Z Americans are forecast to become a majority of voters by the end of this decade. And the number of immigrant voters will grow as well, as more achieve citizenship. Both groups want more than the current system offers and could push it out of its rut.
• • •
The Civics Center works to get young people registered as soon as they turn 18, mostly while still in high school. That early start on encouraging engagement with politics is important. Once they leave high school, spread out, start college or a job, often elections can seem one thing too many in a challenging time of life. It becomes hard to catch them to ensure they are registered -- but they will vote once they are already registered.
Looking at polling about the attitudes of young citizens is to realize we're sailing into a different world. And there is reason to hope that world is a better, more benign, democratic (small "d") place. Really.
Item: John Della Volpe studies young Americans.
For more than two decades, I’ve been embedded in the land of young Americans. First millennials, and now Gen Z with an eye on Gen Alpha. From my perch since 2000 as polling director at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, at SocialSphere, and as the dad of a few Zoomers and one Zillennial — I spend most of my time talking with, surveying, and thinking about young Americans.
He sees a pattern I find fascinating:
Gen Z is in the midst of the best job market in their lifetime — and also most of the lifetimes of their parents and grandparents. The youth (16-24) unemployment rate is 7.5% — the lowest at any point since the Eisenhower administration. Among Gen Zers between 20 and 24 years old, the unemployment rate is 6%; it is only 5.3% among young women.
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| Click to enlarge |
Gen Z seeks unconventional, self-directed work environments
Currently, over half of Zoomers between 15 and 25 are working part-time or full-time jobs (52%) – with nearly a quarter (23%) working more than one job. Living up to their own standards, nearly two-thirds (62%) have found roles that leave them fulfilled.
Very few Zoomers that we interacted with over the last year showed an interest in the jobs that their parents once or currently hold. Gen Z is witnessing the regrets of their parents playing out in near real-time, sacrificing family time and personal fulfillment for a work culture where the rewards are reaped by only a few.
Only about one-in-ten Zoomers aspire to a “conventional work environment,” we found that far more find conditions with “social” (21%) or “self-directed” and “unconventional” (20%) elements appealing.
I read this and I am reminded of my own early Boomer cohort which came of age in the late 1960s. We had NO interest in joining the conformist work culture of many of our parents who had happily traded the struggles of the Depression and WWII for calm and consumption. We aspired to make something better, more meaningful -- and in the context of general prosperity, we did change the country -- and did make life somewhat freer for communities of color, women and queers. Sure we had many failings, but the culture never reverted and the MAGAs are still pissed off about it.
Wonder what the Zoomers will do?
Item: This is less general, but something very interesting is happening in California voter registrations. Demographic change -- becoming a "majority/minority" state where no ethnicity amounts to over 50 percent -- facilitated the state turning heavily Democratic (capital "D") around 2000.
This shift did not include newly engaged voters enthusiastically signing up as Dems. In fact, the fraction that chose "independent" has grown ever since. The traditional political party divisions did not appeal.
But, unexpectedly to me, the increase in independent registrations seems to have peaked or even declined among young people, according to the LA Times.
Voter registration data in many states also has shown an increase in independents, although there’s intriguing data from California suggesting that trend may have started to turn around.
After decades of steady increase, the share of Californians registering as nonpartisan peaked in 2018 at 28%. It has dropped since by 5 points, with the biggest declines coming among young voters. Among voters younger than 35, the share registered as nonpartisan is the lowest it’s been since 2006, according to analysis by Eric McGhee of the Public Policy Institute of California.
... Party polarization has been strong for years, but since the Trump era, “it’s entered into a whole other gear,” [McGhee] said. “I wonder if that hasn’t changed how people think about the parties” and made the option of sitting outside the party system feel less attractive.
I'm not such an unfaltering Democrat that I'm jumping for joy about this -- but I've long accepted that, if you want to play, you have to get in the game. New registrants, mostly young, seem to be coming to play.
Here in Chilmark, Mass. the town voters are choosing a new member of the Select Board (roughly the Town Council in New Englandese). I suspect it may be a thankless position.
Have to say, this might be one of the more unusual election announcements I've ever seen. Perhaps the Commonwealth of Massachusetts requires this typeface?
Update: Ms. Larsen won, roughly 2 to 1. May her tenure be peaceful and positive.
A twitter comment from a Helen Kennedy has me reflecting:
I think Dobbs is this generation’s Iraq war. The first time a right is taken away is searing.There's something in that. Mostly we just live our lives. But external events can jar us into extremely enduring political alignments.
For my generation, early Boomers, that event was the immoral, futile war in Vietnam -- and the military draft. War bad; pols who constrain war, good. (The Democrats were weak reeds here until years later.)
There may be citizens for whom the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Russian empire had similar valence. But is what is experienced as a distant triumph of similar enduring weight to what is felt as moral injury? That's an honest question. I don't know.
For sure, G W Bush's Iraq war scarred a generation. "Bush Lied; Millions Died!" went the chant. Only partially accurate, but heartfelt.
And now, Dobbs/abortion prohibition on top of Donald Trump, MAGA racial and gender hatefulness, climate denial, and guns galore ... these are generational moral injuries to many young people coming up these days.
“The incredibly personal threat posed by the Wisconsin abortion ban…meant that in an election that normally has almost no resonance among young people, in this election, campus wards were packed,” [Ben] Wikler [Democratic Party chair ] said. But more broadly, the issues of democracy and personal freedoms also brought students out in big numbers.
“This generation of young people are primed to participate in the electoral process,” Mike Tate, [lead organizer,] said. “They simply need to know how to do it.”
Democrats flooded state campuses with local student organizers who tabled daily -- only moving inside when temperatures dropped below 35. They made sure students planned for the election, knowing when, where, and how to cast their ballots. Many new voters need information and support with these simple mechanics; there's a fear to be overcome of somehow doing it wrong or embarrassing themselves.
All this organizing was cheap -- at least in election terms. The two candidates together spent $37 million on campaigns -- mostly TV ads. The Democratic campus organizing cost just $1 million.
Would that the entire Democratic Party would join WisDems in recognizing that diligent organizing, especially among young citizens, is where our future can be ensured.
But it turns out he joins the rest of his party in pushing back access to voting, undoing the reforms that previous Democratic administrations put in it. Can't let those Black people vote so much ...
Virginia Jim Crow laws dating back to 1902 permanently disenfranchised anyone with a felony conviction. That's a lot of Virginians, most of them Black. The two recent Democratic governors restored voting rights by executive action to over 300,000 felons who had completed their sentences. A state court ruled that the clemency power of the governor required individual consideration before these grants should be effective, so people who had been barred had to fill out a form to get their rights. But the Democrats made it work.
Youngkin's administration has complicated the form -- and now seems to be neglecting to process them. The struggle to restore full citizenship goes on ...
• • •
On the other side of the country, the former swing state of New Mexico, now with a Democratic Governor and legislative majority, is moving in the opposite direction.
New Mexico has become the 26th state, plus D.C., where at least anyone who is not in prison can vote. And new voting reforms include much more:
[The legislation] contains a flurry of other measures that are meant to strengthen voting rights in the state, including the establishment of Election Day as a state holiday and the expansion of ballot access on Native land. Native people living on reservations in New Mexico did not gain the right to vote until 1948, and HB 4 addresses continued hurdles by requiring language translation at the polls, reducing the distance people on reservations must travel to cast a ballot, and allowing input from tribes on where voting precinct boundaries are set.
“This is a huge step in the right direction,” said Ahtza Chavez, executive director of NM Native Vote, an organization that advocates for the rights of Native people. “Tribes, Pueblos, and Nation will now have a Native American Voting Rights Act section in the [New Mexico] election code to build upon.”
The bill would also further automate the state’s registration system. Under the new program, the state would automatically register eligible New Mexicans when they interact with the Motor Vehicle Division, for instance while renewing a license; these new voters would later receive a mailer at home enabling them to opt out if they choose. Currently, people are asked to decide immediately, while they are still at the MVD.
Colorado made this same switch in 2019—delaying the stage at which people are asked if they want to opt out—and that resulted in a dramatic jump in the number of registrations.
When I worked on the election in 2004 in New Mexico, under a far too bipartisan consensus, state officials actively worked to prevent Native Americans living on the pueblos from becoming part of the process. Time and organizing can make change ...
These are apparently demographically similar places, with only small differences:
Michigan and Ohio have similar white populations, 78% and 80%, respectively; Black populations, 14% and 12%; bachelor’s degree recipients, both 18%; people over 65, both 17%; median household incomes, both $59,000 in 2020 dollars; and workers belonging to unions, 13% and 12%.
According to the Michigan secretary of state’s official election results, there were 4.5 million total votes in the gubernatorial election, the highest office contested in 2022. Meanwhile in Ohio, the secretary of state reported 4.2 million total official votes cast for governor. ... The total number of voters in Ohio dropped by 295,466 between 2018 and 2022.Well - maybe. But I have reservations, based having worked the election in Nevada in 2022. Under a Democratic governor and legislature, both elected in 2018, that state put in place election laws that do everything possible to make voting easy. Every Nevadan got a ballot in the mail, could mail it in or vote it in person as much as two weeks before election day, or register on election day if somehow they'd missed out on the mailing or at the DMV.
And Nevada remained its deeply divided self in 2022, replacing its Democratic governor with a Republican, and re-electing a Democratic U.S. Senator, both by razor thin margins.
So very easy voting in Nevada (easier than in Michigan I think) wasn't enough to shape the partisan outcome.
The authors of the Michigan/Ohio comparison note one considerable discrepancy between but don't discuss it much:
Ohio voters were less likely to reside in a union household – 21% to 27% – and were much more likely to identify as Republicans, 41% to 32%.
Did the labor movement in Michigan get out the vote?
From what I saw in Nevada, it was the massive commitment of the hospitality union -- Culinary/UniteHERE -- to electing the Democrat that saved Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. Union membership in Nevada is not so different than in the other two states, between 11 and 12%. But a determined, high functioning union sector can make a difference in outcomes. And, so far, union membership does keep a lot of Nevadans identifying as Democrats.
Perhaps unions in Ohio, despite their nominal membership, are not doing the work of communicating the advantages of Democratic governance to their people. Or maybe, their members have irrevocably soured on messages from these unions. These study authors conclude that whatever is going on, it may not be irrevocable --"... writing off Ohio as a noncompetitive state may be premature." Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown will be testing this out in 2024.
