Voting: A Humble Tool with a Long Lever Arm

To skip to the principal post, click here.

For brief descriptions of and links to recent posts, click here. For an inverse-chronological list with links to all posts after January 23, 2017, click here. For a subject-matter index to posts before that date, click here.

Rayshard Brooks, R.I.P.

Rayshard Brooks’ death was more complicated and less horrifically documented than George Floyd’s. But two things about it are clear. If the Atlanta police had been trained and required to preserve public safety and human life, Brooks would still be alive today. So would he be if he had just been white. The circumstances of his murder, so well described and analyzed by WaPo Columnist Eugene Robinson, make both points incontrovertible. Two weeks ago, I pledged to give, as long as I can, five political causes each another $100 a month for every “extrajudicial police killing of a nonwhite person while in custody between now and November 3[.]” The five causes are: Biden’s presidential run, Amy McGrath’s quest to retire Mitch McConnell, and three voter empowerment organizations—Fair Fight Action (Stacey Abrams’ group), Black Voters Matter, and Nse Ufot’s New Georgia Project. Arguably Brooks was not killed “while in custody,” as he was running away. But to make that claim would be quibbling. He had been in custody before grabbing a cop’s Taser and running away. Then the cop shot him down from the back, as if flight were a capital offense, or as if a drunken man running in fear presented a mortal threat to the community. You could argue that Brooks was killed for the cop’s own incompetence in letting a drunken man in custody get away. I’m making these contributions for two reasons. First, in a strange way, the worst presidency in our history, the worst pandemic in a century, and a spate of outrageously unjustified and meticulously documented killings of nonwhite people can coalesce to facilitate the most profound electoral change since FDR’s New Deal. All that need happen is for progressive whites, long-oppressed minorities, conservatives (and others) who can’t abide Trump, and citizens of age who’ve never before voted to recognize their common interests and unite. I want to be part of that grand coalition and to do all I can to insure its success. Second, I want to have some skin in the game. I’m tired of trying to imagine what mortal fear nonwhite people feel whenever they see a cop or a police car, and of coming up short. I want to have something at stake besides bare abstractions. I want those of us who can understand to take back America before I die. I don’t expect others to follow me. One commenter to my announcement of my pledge said she felt “invalidated.” My reply to her I reproduce below. All I want to do is what I can to grab this historic chance for profound change, and to be able to feel, for just a moment, the barest shadow of the pain and anxiety that my nonwhite fellow Americans feel every time a “peace” officer murders one of their own. Reply to commenter who felt “invalidated” (in part): As for feeling “invalidated” (I read “intimidated”), please don’t. We all do what we can. Someone like billionaire Michael Bloomberg can give, in one stroke, more that I’ve given to candidates and causes in all my 75 years—even more than I’ve earned in my whole life. I hope he will. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do what I can. (As you can see from these three replies, what I do best is chew on ideas and problems, think and write.) No one, not even Biden, can fix this nation alone. It’s got to be all of us, working together. If you do what you can and “fight in a different way,” you can feel good about yourself and hopeful for our future. This is an “all hands on deck” moment in our national history, and every willing hand is worthy.

The Principal Post follows:

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” — Archimedes

“I don’t ask you to die for your country, to bleed or shed tears for it. All I ask is that you sweat a little.” — Loose paraphrase of quote from the mouth of a noble Spanish knight in the movie El Cid, who fought for the reconquista of Spain from the Moors and later helped unify it.

Most politicians live by individual or group loyalty and vague, abstract ideologies. Republicans want “smaller government,” less regulation, and more “freedom.” Leave aside the fact that this sort of “freedom” usually empowers the already rich and powerful. What exactly do those terms mean? Smaller, less and more than what? When do you know you’ve achieved these goals? When anarchy is rampant?

Democrats are not much different. They want “justice,” “fairness,” “diversity” and “equality.” But what exactly do those words mean? We live in what is probably the most diverse nation on Earth. The problem is not diversity; it’s the needless rivalry among our groups and their undeserved domination by whites.

Stacey Abrams is different. She thinks like a scientist or an engineer. She rarely uses abstract nostrums. Instead, she focuses on how to make things work and what really matters. She knows which end of the proverbial screwdriver to pick up because she understands cause and effect.

To see how and why, read her recent New York Times op-ed about getting disenfranchised people to vote. The problem, she says, is not just voter suppression, although that’s getting more real and flagrant with every passing day.

The deeper problem is that many people don’t vote because they don’t see any connection between voting and their own lives. Abrams describes precisely how to make that connection, voter by voter, starting with elections for city council and mayor. Like former House Speaker Tip O’Neill, she seems to recognize that “all politics is local.” She connects local consequences to the national and presidential elections. Thus she motivates people who’ve never voted and now fear their votes won’t be counted or won’t matter.

It’s become cliché that this will be a “base” election. Trump seems to be making no attempt to attract the undecided. And why should he? After three years of his misrule, you either buy his lies, ineptness and vulgar showmanship, or you despise him. (Individual voters don’t have to worry, like Trump’s Republican lackeys, that their jobs depend on their personal loyalty to the worst president in our history.)

There’s not much middle ground. If you haven’t heard much about Trump, you’ve not been paying attention. Trump is one of the most gifted exploiters of available media in human history, and media profiteers like the Murdochs, Zuckerberg and Dorsey feed his rise for money.

In short, the notion that there are a lot of undecided white workers in the upper Midwest, where the Dems lost the 2016 election, seems pure fantasy. What there are—in a nation in which 60% is a high turnout in a presidential election and 35% in the off-years—is a lot of people who can and should vote but don’t. Many of them are women, members of minorities or both. They don’t vote because they despair of being allowed to vote or of having their votes make a difference. And they have lots and lots of history by which to rationalize their despair.

Enter Stacey Abrams. She knows how to reach these voters and inspire them. She didn’t win the Georgia governorship in 2018, due to massive and systematic voter suppression, including by her own opponent as Georgia’s Secretary of State. But even so she lost by only 1.4%. She did so as an African-American and a woman in a state that had never elected either as governor. That was an extraordinary achievement and the reflection of her unique talent.

In the movie El Cid, the Spanish knights need to move a huge cannon, stuck in the mud, to breach the walls of the Moors’ castle. They need more manpower to do so. The leader makes his speech to a group of peasants untrained in war. Once they understand that they wouldn’t personally be under fire, just pulling a cannon, they rise up. The cannon gets where it needs to be, the castle walls are breached, and the rest is history.

Just so in our time, street demonstrations won’t win the day. They show passion and solidarity, but they also expose good people to Covid-19, arrest and police mayhem. They may be shows of personal courage for principle, but historically they have had little effect.

Just as after the protests of Dr. King’s martyrdom, Rodney King’s beating and the killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Trayvon Martin, the current demonstrations likely will accomplish little more than greater justice in the individual case. What we need is broad, systemic reform. That requires a profound change in government, which will come only when and if people who’ve never voted do. Republicans see this fact clearly: that’s why they are openly touting voter suppression under the pretext of voter fraud.

Enter Stacey Abrams. She’s a threefer. She’s an African-American, and she’s a woman. So her very identity gives hope to others like her. How many times have white male pols promised African-Americans and women changes they would like but failed to deliver? Isn’t it only natural that one from their own ranks could inspire where others have not? And does race and gender even matter to others as long as a candidate is smart and competent, which Abrams self-evidently is?

Abrams’ third—and decisive—advantage is that she knows how. She’s practical, non-ideological and skilled in explaining to people how voting can change their lives. No one else has done as well as she under such adverse circumstances.

So we find ourselves in an El Cid situation. The people don’t need to march and demonstrate and risk infection, arrest and police brutality. We don’t need a second civil war. All we need is for people who’ve never voted before—who now think that their voting won’t matter—to reconsider and vote.

The tragedy of our time is that political operatives in both parties obsessively focus on the white “majority.” But it’s fading. By 2043, just over a generation away, it will be history. It’s history even today if you add to in sympathetic whites, progressives in solidarity, and lifelong conservatives who just can’t stand Trump.

For powerful historical reasons, the weakest link in this chain of solidarity is minorities and women who’ve never seen their votes produce any light—except for the brief candle of Barack Obama and the chance that Hillary Clinton lost. If you can think of anyone else better situated by identity, experience, mindset and skill to urge them than Stacey Abrams, please let Joe Biden know. Because his success in the coming election, and the survival of our democracy, will hang on her skill in winning votes. Joe Biden alone simply cannot inspire enough women and minorities who’ve never voted to do so.

Permalink to this post