Blogito...

Cartoon: Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times/Free Press

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is suddenly the term on the thin, pinched lips of all the racust, xenophobic, misogynistic GOPhux "White People" and Trumpanzees. It occupies space in the "Critical Theory" spectrum ithat includes "Critical Gender Theory" and "Critical Class Theory." There are also "Critters" in law, history, economics and social theory.

Like Critical Theory, generally, CRT involves the active, multi-sourced, wide-ranging interrogation of common-place institutional phenomena--actions, ideologies, and discursive practices of civic entities--to reveal what is concealed in the quotidian discourses on any subject, and especially the kinds of elisions that are suppressed or ignored in issues of oppression on the bases of race, class, and/or gender at which USer culture has bewcome punishingly adept over the first 400 years.

The implication of these investigations is that "Critical Theory," generally, and praxis based in and upon it, can begin to unravel the knots that hold people--in Ed, of course, especially kids--back.

In a nut-shell, CRT reveals that just about everything of which "minorities" have been complaining about how they are and have been systematically and systemically abused, oppressed, and demeaned by dominant WHITE culture for the past 400 years is basically true, both in general and in the details.

For instance, one need only examine "lynchings," in their proper, historical situations.

There is a rich literature.

To begin the odyessy, start with Souls of Black Folk, by DuBois; especially, recommend trying to get into the "spirit" of "double consciousness," for a look at the historicity of the phenomenon and the humanity of its victims.

Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald leads a protest against the passage of a mail-in voting bill in Las Vegas last August. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

You think discussions and warnings about the end of American Democracy is hype, exaggeration and fear-mongering, going all "the sky is falling! the sky is falling!"

You re NOT paying attention.

Fearfully, White People are busily and efficiently martialling all their power, influence, and money to build a legislative fortress from within which they can withstand the changes portended by the demographic revolution that will engulf them in the middle of the 2040s, preserve their skin privilege and restrict the franchise.

Of course, one cannot be unaware of all the voter suppression legislation being shoved through State legislatures by the GOPHUX this year. See Max Boot's summary below to get a real sense of just how pernicious and impactful these are, and how the tacit intent those laws is to create a situation such that, in 2024, any semi-tight election, as in 2020, will 100% not end up as a Dem victory even if the dems legitimately won -- instead, the GOPhux will "win" the election by stealing it in one of many ways, or a combination of ways.

*Why would one NOT steal an election to determine the fate of the Earth if one COULD steal it?

| They "win" as they HAVE won, hitherto: by suppressing the vote in key swing states; and/or they will "win" by using powers under their new laws to toss out elected election officials and replace them with partisan Trump-loving hacks who will not certify or otherwise jimmy the system; or they will "win" by refusing to certify election results for key states which will result in no electoral majority which means the election gets sent to the house, where each state, regardless of size, gets one vote, and where GOPhux have the "majority" when you do it that way, with California and Wyoming each getting one vote.

This is it, amigos.

The absolute fundamental precondition of democracy is that the voters believe that their vote counts, that elections are real, and winners win and losers lose. Right now you have the whole GOPhux/Trump/White People portion of America believing the 2020 election was fraudulent. After 2022, already, we could likely find conditions that could convince all the rest of us no longer believing elections are fair or real. Attack that understanding, that trust, and you destroy 'democracy.'

Plus you will STILL have ruthless, "we don't give a s--t about democracy" Trump/White People/GOPhux in power, wholly unprincipled and unscrupulous about continuing to game the system to their advantage in such a way that going forward they can hold on to power, by "hook or by crook", and they are just fine with the "crook" part of that because holding power, not upholding democracy, is what matters to them.

Let me say that again: POWER is all that matters.

What can be done to stop this?

Really, not very much, sadly. The recent spate of neo-JimCrow legislation won't be overturned any time soon, especially by the Roberts Court, which disemboweled the Voting Rights Act back in 2013, in a ruling that could fairly be (but never was) characterized as gratuitously defiling that landmark law, and not incidentally as spitting in then-President Obama's Cheerios. Passing HR 1 would do a lot, but there is, as they say, "NO FUCKING CHANCE" of that. NAGAHAPIN!!!!

As Boot says: "Senate Democrats have to choose between saving the filibuster and saving democracy. They can’t do both."

But, being the Dems, they'll try.

(Parenthetically, while thanking Herr Boot for the summary, we should recall how much HE, personally, contributed to the fall with his yeoman service in behalf of the greater Conservative causes in the '90s and into the new Century. He now describes himself as "a man without a party."  He's a fucking fascist, with good manners. Fuck him.)

***********************************
Opinion: The Republican plot to steal the 2024 election
Max Boot
Columnist
June 1, 2021 at 11:25 a.m. PDT

Republicans have spent nearly seven months making bogus charges of fraud in the 2020 election under the banner of “stop the steal.” Now they have segued into a “start the steal” offensive to ensure that they will win the 2022 and 2024 elections — even if most voters once again support the Democratic Party.

The Brennan Center for Justice reports that “between January 1 and May 14, 2021, at least 14 states enacted 22 new laws that restrict access to the vote” and “at least 61 bills with restrictive provisions are moving through 18 state legislatures.” Those bills are designed not to avert nonexistent voter fraud but to avert another election defeat for Republicans — and they are drawing perilously close to that goal.

In Georgia, for example, a new law stipulates that mobile voting stations “shall only be used in emergencies declared by the Governor,” who is a Republican. That will put out of business two “mobile voting units” — a.k.a. buses — that collected 11,200 ballots in Atlanta’s Fulton County in November. Also, under the new law, provisional ballots will no longer be accepted from voters who go to the wrong polling place; 11,120 provisional ballots were counted in November. “Combined,” writes my Post colleague David Weigel, “the ballots cast by both methods are nearly double the margin by which [Joe] Biden won Georgia.”

A new election law in Texas, which has been temporarily blocked by a walkout of Democrats from the state House, would outlaw many of the methods used to increase minority turnout, such as drive-through voting and early voting before 1 p.m. on Sundays (crimping “souls to the polls” events after church services). But the most alarming element of the bill is that it makes it easier to overturn election results even if there is no evidence that fraud affected the outcome.

The Georgia law, for its part, includes a pernicious provision giving the Republican-controlled state legislature the right to suspend county election officials and to name the chair of the State Election Board. Previously, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had chaired the board, but he incurred Republican wrath by certifying Biden’s victory. Raffensperger is being challenged next year by a Donald Trump-endorsed opponent, Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who insists that Trump would have won in Georgia if the election had been “fair.”

Meanwhile, in Arizona — another state Trump narrowly lost — Republicans are trying to strip Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) of her power to defend election lawsuits. They want to vest that authority in the Republican attorney general. If she runs again, Hobbs, like Raffensperger, will face an election challenge from an advocate of the “big lie.” Trump die-hards are also running for the secretary of state posts in Nevada and Michigan.If the challengers win, pro-Trump conspiracy theorists will be supervising elections in key swing states.

While GOP efforts are ultimately aimed at the 2024 election, they will first make their impact felt in 2022. Off-year elections are always tough for the party in power. This one will be tougher still because of Republican-driven voter suppression, reapportionment and gerrymandering. Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report writes that Republicans will have full authority to redraw 187 congressional districts, while Democrats will control just 75. He estimates that redistricting in just four states — Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina — could be enough to deliver the House to Republican control.

This brings us to a nightmare scenario: a Republican-controlled Congress overturning the 2024 presidential election results to install Trump or a Trump mini-me in the White House. In January, 139 House Republicans and eight Senate Republicans voted not to certify electoral college results in at least one state. Since then, the most prominent GOP opponent of the “big lie," Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), has been purged from the House leadership. Willingness to lie about election fraud has become a litmus test for Republicans, with the implicit threat of mob violence if they don’t go along. Republicans are so scared of Trump and his fanatical followers that most of them just voted against a bipartisan investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Many congressional Republicans will refuse to certify a 2024 Democratic win in swing states. If Republicans control Congress, they could deny the Democrats an electoral college majority and throw the election to the House — where each state delegation, regardless of population, would cast one ballot. Given that Republicans already control a majority of state delegations, they could override the election outcome. If that happens, it would spell the end of American democracy.

I hope I am being overly alarmist. I really do. But after the storming of the Capitol — and the Republican failure to hold the instigators to account — we have crossed a Rubicon. The best way to protect our electoral system is to pass the For the People Act, which would curb partisan gerrymandering and protect voting rights. Senate Democrats have to choose between saving the filibuster and saving democracy. They can’t do both.