Politics | Voter.org

What the Georgia Runoff Revealed

December 8, 2022 Georgia, Revealed, Runoff0 comment

Senator Raphael Warnock’s win in yesterday’s Georgia Senate runoff capped a commanding show of strength by Democrats in the states that decided the 2020 race for the White House—and will likely pick the winner again in 2024. With Warnock’s victory over Republican Herschel Walker, Democrats have defeated every GOP Senate and gubernatorial candidate endorsed by Donald Trump this year in the five states that flipped from supporting him in 2016 to backing Joe Biden in 2020: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona. Coming even amid widespread discontent over the economy,…

The GOP Can’t Hide From Extremism

December 4, 2022 extremism, from, Can't, Hide0 comment

The role of extremist white nationalists in the GOP may be approaching an inflection point. The backlash against former President Donald Trump’s meeting with Nick Fuentes, an avowed racist, anti-Semite, and Christian nationalist, has compelled more Republican officeholders than at any point since the Charlottesville riot in 2017 to publicly condemn those extremist views. Yet few GOP officials have criticized the former president personally—much less declared that Trump’s meeting with Fuentes and Ye, the rapper (formerly known as Kanye West) who has become a geyser of anti-Semitic bile, renders him…

Political Hobbyism Has Entered the Workplace

November 30, 2022 Political, Workplace, Hobbyism, Entered0 comment

In a 2005 episode of The Office, Michael Scott, the office manager, requires his employees to choose an upside-down index card from a tray and place it on their forehead. The cards bear a racial or ethnic label—Black, Jewish, Italian, and so on—and Michael tells the employees to treat one another according to the label listed on the card and to “stir the melting pot” by playing to racial stereotypes. The scene, which ends with Michael getting slapped in the face, mocks corporate America’s ham-handed approach to diversity training. Back…

The House GOP’s Investigation Conundrum

November 26, 2022 House, Investigation, GOP's, Conundrum0 comment

The list of investigative priorities for the House Judiciary Committee that the incoming chairperson, Jim Jordan, sent to the Justice Department earlier this month reads like an assignment sheet for Fox News. And that was before Jordan, with incoming House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer, repeatedly insisted the FBI had colluded with “Big Tech” to undermine former president Donald Trump by “suppressing” information about Hunter Biden’s laptop prior to the 2020 election. It was also before reports surfaced that Kevin McCarthy, in his bid to secure the…

How J. Edgar Hoover Went From Hero to Villain

November 22, 2022 from, Went, hero, villain, Edgar, Hoover0 comment

Five decades after his death, J. Edgar Hoover still haunts the FBI. His nearly 48-year reign as its director, from 1924 to 1972, has come to symbolize the dangers of a stealth domestic police-and-intelligence agency in an open society. Hoover is widely seen today as an autocrat who used secret surveillance and other illegal means to control politicians and infiltrate and disrupt domestic political groups in the service of his conservative worldview. No operation confirms this verdict more vividly than the FBI’s wide-ranging electronic surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr.,…

The New Majority

November 18, 2022 Majority0 comment

The last time Republicans won control of the House of Representatives with a Democrat in the White House, the two parties clashed so ferociously that Congress nearly crashed the economy with a first-ever debt default. But with the GOP’s majority-making victory, those bitterly partisan confrontations of the Obama era might seem like halcyon days compared with what’s to come. Republicans will assume control of the House in January, at a moment of deepening political turmoil. Trust between the parties is lower than it’s been in decades. A would-be assassin assaulted…