But first:
Please read all the way down for the latest news for the end of 2021!
And a Happy New and Blue 2022!
What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
December 29, 2021
Kamala’s Conundrum: She’s Doing a Great Job But Her Story’s Not Getting Out
“More heat than light.”
That’s how David Rothkopf, the highly accomplished author and political scientist, describes the press coverage of Kamala Harris’s performance and accomplishments so far as Vice President. In his December 17th Daily Beast opinion piece, “Kamala’s Conundrum: She’s Doing a Great Job But Her Story’s Not Getting Out,” the prolific author and CEO of The Rothkopf Group lays out a detailed and effective case for how, contrary to “[o]verheated D.C. rumor-mongering,” Harris can boast “a first-year track record that is impressive, substantive, and wide-ranging.”
Before delving into many examples of the breadth and substance of the Vice President’s record to date, Rothkopf adds, “Like the president, she has ignored the inside-the-Beltway buzz from a D.C. press corps going through a bad case of withdrawal after the never-a-dull-moment train wreck of the Drumpf years. And, like the man she works alongside, she has kept her head down and done her job.”
Throughout the Daily Beast article, Rothkopf’s portrayal of Kamala Harris as a skilled, hard-working, and frankly brilliant politician is based on quoted sources—predictably within the Biden Administration, but also outside of it. He contrasts this with the “silly feeding frenzy stories” and “retweetable rips from anonymous critics,” as the author characterizes the made-up controversies around the VP, doing so in the carefully researched style of a skilled journalist.
Looking back on the last 12 months, David Rothkopf’s article is one of the best opinion pieces we’ve examined for Indivisible Napa. And despite the concerns it raises about the challenges faced by the Biden-Harris Administration, and even the future of the Democratic Party, it embraces hope for what lies ahead in 2022. It’s a highly recommended read for this holiday.
January 6 Candlelight Vigil for Democracy
January 6 was a violent and deadly attack against all Americans – against our country, our democracy, and our freedom as voters to choose the leaders that represent us so that we have a government of, by, and for the people.
One year later, the same faction that attacked our country on January 6th is hard at work silencing our voices by restricting our freedom to vote, attacking fair voting districts, and quietly preparing future attempts to sabotage free and fair elections and with it our democracy.
So this January 6, exactly one year later, Americans across race, place, party, and background are holding candlelight vigils to say: In America, the voters decide the outcome of elections!
The promise of democracy is not a partisan issue but a calling that unites us as Americans. To prevent this kind of attack from happening again, our elected leaders must pass urgent legislation that will protect this country from anti-democratic forces who are continuing their efforts to destroy it.
Coming together, we can prevent another January 6th attack and realize the promise of democracy for all of us - no matter our color, zip code, or income - so we all have an equal say in the decisions that shape our daily lives and futures.
When: January 6, 2022
Time: 5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Where: Veterans Park, Downtown Napa, 3rd and Main
You must RSVP at this link to attend.
RSVP:
Wear masks, bring tea lights or small flashlights, and make a poster!
Any questions, email us here!
Last but not least:
We usually discuss local candidates closer to the primaries and elections. However, even though Indivisible Napa has not endorsed these candidates yet, they are on our radar and we encourage you to take a look at them and consider supporting them before the critical year-end fundraising deadline. Early support of donations of any amount AND of the number of donors is important to their candidacy. And since the County budget now approaches $1 BILLION, we feel it is incumbent on all county residents to know all of the candidates.
Joelle Gallagher, candidate for Napa County Supervisor, District 1
https://www.gallagher4supervisor.com/
Anna Chouteau. candidate for Napa County Supervisor, District 3
https://www.annachouteau.com/
Jon Crawford, candidate for Napa County Sheriff.
https://sheriffcrawford.com/
Your feedback is important to us. If you have any comments, concerns, and suggestions, please share them with us.
But first:
We want to wish every one of our devoted and committed activists the Happiest of every Holiday, all the Blessings of the Season, and a Healthy, Happy New Year! We can't wait to see you again in 2022!
Our hiatus ends on MLK 2022. However, plans are in motion for a January 6th Insurrection Vigil. Indivisible Napa is in the talking stage for participating in this national event. Please stay tuned.
What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
December 17, 2021
Opinion | What Brett Kavanaugh Didn’t Mention when He Talked About Reversing Roe
In a powerful piece of Politico reporting from this past week, University of Baltimore School of Law professor Kimberly Wehle wrote an opinion article that gives oxygen to the suspicion progressives around the U.S. have had about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh since 2018 and his Senate confirmation hearing: that he harbors a dangerous agenda for overturning Roe v. Wade. Wehle’s contribution is titled “What Brett Kavanaugh Didn’t Mention when He Talked About Reversing Roe,” and takes a deep and highly informed dive into what Kavanaugh said—and didn’t say—about his beliefs around privacy and reproductive rights.
“Today’s Supreme Court right-wing, which was constructed almost deliberately to create a majority capable of undoing Roe, seems far more ideologically minded,” the professor writes in her piece, filling in critical blanks left by Kavanaugh and his fellow conservatives. “And that makes it potentially prone to more radical maneuvers such as altering the scope of the Constitution itself by erasing a constitutional right.”
Among other frightening scenarios, Wehle zeroes in on the recent Texas Legislature’s banning of abortion at six weeks, “in violation of the individual constitutional right recognized in Roe and Casey, which protects against government interference with that right until around 24 weeks gestation.” She goes on to scrutinize the fact that only four justices—the liberal ones, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, along with Chief Justice Roberts—shared the opinion that the Texas Legislature was working directly in opposition to Roe v. Wade and a later abortion case; in other words, that Texas was attempting to deny a right protected under the Constitution, and a scary majority of Supreme Court justices, including Kavanaugh, had nothing to say about it. And as it relates to this nightmare scenario, Professor Wehle finds Kavanaugh practicing what she refers to as “sleight-of-hand,” as he glossed over the meaning of the legal precedent established in the first place by Roe during his Senate hearing.
“So any suggestion that overturning Roe would amount to a relatively commonplace move by the court is simply not borne out by the facts and is an evasive misreading of court history,” the Baltimore professor sums up in her thought-provoking, must-read article.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
December 10, 2021
Can Beto O’Rourke show Democrats how to lose less badly in rural America?
With Texas on many people’s minds today, vis-à-vis the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling today on the state’s abortion ban, it’s an opportunity to consider another piece of news with national implications. In yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, national political correspondent Melanie Mason wrote a well-researched article on 2022 Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke. Titled “Can Beto O’Rourke show Democrats how to lose less badly in rural America?”, the medium-length piece took the reporter to Comanche County in rural southwest Texas, where O’Rourke, the former U.S. Congressman, was campaigning before a tiny group of outlier Democrats in a place she described as “rock-ribbed Republican territory.
”Summing up O’Rourke’s visit to the deeply conservative county as an effort to “help thaw the icy reception in the countryside for candidates with a D behind their names,” Mason equated his campaign hurdles to those of Democratic candidates—both challengers and incumbents—in rural districts around the country. Her piece sheds light on the idea that if Democrats in Texas can simply increase their rural voters by a few to several percent, they can potentially win elections because of the much stronger support in cities and urban areas—the losing “less badly” of the article’s title. But, as we all know by now, nothing is simple in Texas.
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Summary of the Week
December 3, 2021
White supremacists declare war on democracy and walk away unscathed
“The enslavers’ extortionist threats – white supremacy as the price for the nation to come into being – should have created a massive backlash. But it didn’t. There was no retribution, only compliance, and acquiescence.”
So writes Carol, Anderson, the Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Emory University, in a recent opinion piece for The Guardian. Her article, “White supremacists declare war on democracy and walk away unscathed,” is a highly recommended read this week. The section quoted above references, of course, the southern states’ ability to hold the continuation of slavery over the heads of the Founding Fathers, whose desire to preserve the Union took precedence over all other considerations in the late 18th century.
And though the eventual election of Abraham Lincoln, a president opposed to the spread of slavery, led to the Civil War that would end it once and for all, Professor Anderson draws a dark, historical through-line in her excellent article: from the aftermath of the war, when many of the southern states’ leaders were granted amnesty and reintegrated back into positions of power; to the subsequent Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation; and to the Trumpist present and the January 6th riots at the Capitol, after which this country’s history of democracy-threatening white supremacy got a 21st-century facelift in the form of a tepid governmental response to a massive, right-wing conspiracy. “This horrific attack on American democracy should have resulted in a full-throttled response,” Professor Anderson writes with great force and clarity. “But, once again, white supremacy is able to walk away virtually unscathed.”
“For doing so much to destroy this nation, after the [Confederate states’] defeat, the consequences were disproportionately minimal,” she writes of the post-Civil War period in her piece. It’s shame—and a crime—that an utter lack of accountability and abject hatred of democracy continue to be the forgivable norm for white supremacists over 150 years after they should have been relegated to history’s trash heap.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
November 26, 2021
As Kyle Rittenhouse Walks Free,
Republican Lawmakers Fight Over Who Loves Him the Most
Heading into this holiday weekend, we’re grateful for the justice extended to Ahmaud Arbery’s family in Georgia after the jury in his murder trial found all three defendants guilty. We can’t say the same for the shameful outcome of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.
We won’t give any further oxygen here to the vile reactions of the right-wing media and (even worse) of members of Congress for Rittenhouse’s bizarre acquittal, except to say that their antics are beyond the pale of what should count as political discourse in a civil society. But in a truly civil society, illegally armed, sociopathic 17-year-olds don’t cross state lines to “protect” property and, unsurprisingly, kill people in the process. The “civil” society imagined by Fox News & Co. and the Trumpist majority of the former Republican party is actually quite uncivil and is full of Kyle Rittenhouses, and the lethally armed militias to which they flock, that signal America’s growing neo-Nazi-ism.
For a couple of great reads on this depressing, but critical, subject—one short and one long—we’ll recommend The Intercept and The New Yorker this week. In Robert Mackey’s Intercept piece, “As Kyle Rittenhouse Walks Free, Republican Lawmakers Fight Over Who Loves Him the Most,” the political reporter leads with a dark analogy: “The reading of the verdict that set Kyle Rittenhouse free on Friday,” he wrote on Nov. 19th, “also acted as the starter’s pistol in a depraved race among Republican members of Congress to see who could most excite the young vigilante’s fans with the most ardent expression of support.”
And back over the summer, while the Rittenhouse trial was being planned, The New Yorker’s Paige Williams created some deeply researched context for what brought this damaged and dangerous young man to the point of killing two people and gravely injuring a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August of last year. Williams’ article, “Kyle Rittenhouse, American Vigilante,” is a fascinating read as it lays out the backstory summed up in her subtitle: “After he killed two people in Kenosha, opportunists turned his case into a polarizing spectacle.”
We have little doubt that Rittenhouse will always be associated with double-murder in the eyes of a truly civil society, but for now, he’s probably feeling his own version of thankfulness that he gets to avoid a significant amount of time in prison. Maybe he’ll land a job with a Trumpist congressperson or become a spokesman for an arms manufacturer. But his 15 minutes of fame—infamy, in this case—will soon be over, and he’ll never amount to much more than being a polarizing figure and a killer, guilty or not.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
November 19, 2021
IT’S NOT JUST WHITE PEOPLE:
DEMOCRATS ARE LOSING NORMAL VOTERS OF ALL RACES
Sometimes, Indivisible Napa members help put the “we” in “What We’re Reading.”
Take this recent example from a local Indivisible who forwarded us a fascinating article from the November 15th edition of The Intercept. The piece is a “long article relevant to the Virginia [election] results, and criticism of Democratic messaging,” he wrote in an email to us. “It's not just what's left out (‘kitchen table’ issues), but what's left in (‘wokeness’) that makes no sense to a large swath of voters.”
Ryan Grim’s extensive and in-depth piece, titled “It’s Not Just White People: Democrats Are Losing Normal Voters of All Races,” interrogates some of the differences between “cultural traditionalists,” as political strategist Andrew Levison refers to moderates in the article and conservative extremists. On the one hand, the extremists on the hard right of the voting block are obviously a lost cause to ever vote Democratic; on the other, the traditionalists, whom Levison describes as “individuals [who] express a generally tolerant attitude across a range of issues and topics and display a generally more ‘easy-going’ outlook on life,” are not. Such individuals comprise the “normal” voters of the article’s title.
How their differences affected the results of the Virginia governor’s race, particularly vis-à-vis school closures for Covid-19, is where Grim leads off his well-researched piece. He goes on to address some of the fraught concepts that form a sharp wedge between progressives and conservatives, particularly the culture war and its attendant “cancel” trend; critical race theory; and the “wokeness” referenced by our Indivisible colleague. The article is a fascinating and fairly comprehensive look at where, and how, the Democratic leadership and its elites have lost touch (and relevance) with a wide swath of its voter base. Virginia is simply Grim’s most recent example.
“The culture war is not a proxy for race, it’s a proxy for class,” he writes midway through the article in a carefully measured bit of alarm-sounding. “The Democratic problem with working-class voters goes far beyond white people.”
AND, dammit! Last week's What We Are Reading Now article was prescient! We are not surprised by the Rittenhouse verdict, but we are sickened. Our country needs healing so desperately even now!
Please count your blessings this Thanksgiving and yes, there are always some to be counted! We wish you a bountiful holiday full of health and happiness!
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
November 12, 2021
I Hope Everyone Is Prepared for Kyle Rittenhouse to Go Free
The page is right there on the Indivisible Napa website: “Indivisible Napa stands with Black Lives Matter,” it reads at the top. “This is a fundamental part of the Progressive Movement. We cannot call ourselves free until ALL of us are free from the fear of violence and death due to the color of our skin.”
BLM protesters, and their supporters of different skin colors, no doubt had this in mind in August of 2020 when they gathered in Kenosha, Wisconsin to march in protest of yet another controversial shooting of a Black person by a white police officer. In this case, Jacob Blake was shot in the back by Kenosha police office Rusten Sheskey. He remains paralyzed below the waist.
Meanwhile, Kyle Rittenhouse, the now-18-year-old legal adult, likely had little else but violence and mayhem in mind when he traveled—as a minor—from his home in Illinois across state lines, armed illegally with an AR-15 assault rifle. Aside from being a stupid teenager, what could Rittenhouse have possibly been thinking except that he was going to be stirring up a bunch of potentially lethal trouble, armed as he was? When he subsequently shot and killed two protesters in what should have been a completely avoidable altercation, that potential for a violent outcome was tragically realized.
That the BLM protest turned violent in Kenosha vis-à-vis some property damage is undisputed. But in the October 27th edition of The Nation, the magazine’s Justice Correspondent, Elie Mystal, wrote a powerful article in advance of the trial for Rittenhouse. The title says it all about Mystal’s take on the proceedings: “I Hope Everyone Is Prepared for Kyle Rittenhouse to Go Free.”
After leading with the opinion that he finds “the claim that Rittenhouse subsequently murdered two unarmed people in self-defense to be unconscionable,” the journalist goes on to write, “[W] do not live in a just world; we live in a white one. Rittenhouse has become a cause célèbre among white supremacists and their media sympathizers, who have proudly defended Rittenhouse’s decisions to kill. Rittenhouse is the very definition of an ‘outside agitator’ who came into somebody else’s community armed to do violence, but because he murdered-while-white, he will probably walk free.”
Mystal then dives into the reasons why he believes this, the principal one being Rittenhouse winning what he caustically refers to as “the white people’s lottery” and sitting before a very partial white judge.
Elie Mystal’s article in The Nation echoes the Black Lives Matter-supporting statement on our website, and it serves as yet another forceful reminder of the need for progressives to stay united in the face of bigotry and hatred.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
November 5, 2021
THE ENEMY WITHIN Why the Democrats don’t need Joe Manchin
by Andrew Cockburn
Harpers Magazine, August 2021
When it comes to analyzing politics in the nation’s capital, few journalists have a breadth of experience like Andrew Cockburn. The Washington, DC editor for Harper’s Magazine has, since the 1970s, written extensively on national security, the military-industrial complex, and other important political topics. For the August issue of Harper’s, Cockburn turned his sights on domestic politics and the story of Senator Joe Manchin’s ascension in West Virginia’s Democratic Party. In his piece, titled “The Enemy Within – Why the Democrats don’t need Joe Manchin,” he doesn’t paint anything close to a pretty picture of this powerful senator’s maneuvering over the last four decades.
The article is a great read about Sen. Manchin’s consistent embrace of corporate interests since he entered politics in the early 80s. It starts with his West Virginia Democratic Party machine’s torpedoing of a progressive Democrat’s congressional run in 2018. And it ends with Manchin and his “vulgarly opportunistic” (Cockburn’s sharp words) sidekick, Kyrsten Sinema, doing similar violence to the $15 minimum wage in Joe Biden’s stimulus bill. In between, the skilled journalist chronicles many of highlights (rather, lowlights) of Manchin’s career in both West Virginia and Washington. Perhaps the most significant of these came back in 1996 when he lost to a progressive Democrat opponent in the state’s gubernatorial primary—and then took an active role, according to that opponent, in undermining her chance of winning the governor’s seat… in favor of a Republican! It was, Cockburn writes, a “bitter race [that] was a turning point in West Virginia politics.”
Then he added, ominously, “As West Virginia went, so went the nation.”
What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
October 30, 2021
WATCH: Oil executives testify over climate misinformation in House hearing
Listening to the House hearing yesterday on Big Oil companies’ complicity in climate change and their direct, decades-long role in misinformation about it, we were reminded of that infamous Senate hearing scene in The Godfather II. The proceedings were enough of a horror-drama show without House Republicans taking their turns to address the oil company executives, almost without exception apologizing to them for their Democrat colleagues’ line of questioning. Clearly, these Republicans were channeling Robert Duvall’s Tom Hagen shouting “This committee owes an apology, Senator!” during Michael Corleone’s trial.
Not coincidentally, as KPFA’s Brian Edwards-Tiekert pointed out during his live coverage of the hearing, these same Republicans have received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the companies—including Shell, BP America, and Exxon—whose executives were called to the capitol to testify.
“Big Oil has changed its rhetoric,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Democratic chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, said during her opening statement. “Now they say they believe in climate change, and they support the Paris agreement and a price on carbon. They promise they will reduce their carbon emissions, and even aspire to net-zero emissions, and they’ve spent billions of dollars on PR firms to paint themselves as climate champions, but Big Oil’s actions tell a different story.”
House Democrats, including indefatigable progressives Ro Khanna from the Bay Area, Katie Porter from Orange County, and Rashida Tlaib from Michigan, went on to lay out an incredibly damning case against the oil companies, whose cynical, science-obscuring actions were defended every step of the way by their Republican beneficiaries. It was quite the drama, worthy of Hollywood but grounded in a depressingly predictable reality: Big Oil has been greenwashing its role in climate change for decades.
PBS Newshour published an excellent synopsis of the hearing yesterday. In the same link, the entire six-hour hearing is viewable on YouTube (and if you search for it, so is that great Godfather II scene).
Link to Watch
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
October 22, 2021
We’re Starting to Learn Just How Big Democrats’ Kyrsten Sinema Problem Is
Between the two “moderate” (i.e. maddeningly obstructionist) Democratic senators, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, the representative from the conservative coal-mining state may have the higher national profile, but Sinema is the trickier one to figure out. In a story published yesterday on Slate.com, senior politics writer Jim Newell makes a solid effort to do so.
His piece, titled “We’re Starting to Learn Just How Big Democrats’ Kyrsten Sinema Problem Is,” looks at the Arizona senator through the lens of her redline position against some of the key revenue-raising sources to help pay for the Build Back Better Act. The act, Newell writes, is Joe Biden’s signature piece of social infrastructure and climate change legislation, and it is being painstakingly negotiated by Democrats. But for her part, Sinema is just being a pain.
For whatever reason (corporate fealty, or perhaps just plain hypocrisy?), Sinema objects to tax increases for businesses, wealthy individuals, and capital gains. Conveniently, according to the Slate reporter, to win her state’s U.S. Senate seat in 2018, she campaigned against Donald Drumpf’s tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Now, even though the conservative Democrat Manchin supports reversing Drumpf’s tax law to raise much-needed revenue, his Arizona colleague takes an opposite position. “These objections alone could blow a hole of nearly half the cost of the bill, which Democrats are now negotiating to come in at around $1.75 trillion to $1.9 trillion,” Newell writes. “It is not necessarily that the White House didn’t know until Wednesday that Sinema felt this way. It was more that they thought they could change her mind. [They] are now starting to believe that they can’t, and are looking at other options.
”One future option for Arizona, as noted in an article hyperlinked in the Slate piece, would be to vote her out of office in three years. The website Data for Progress (self-described as “the think tank for the future of progressivism”—we love this) ran a data-driven story last week, rather bluntly titled “Kyrsten Sinema Poised to Lose Democratic Primary in 2024.” In the reporters’ summary of findings, they write with an equal bluntness that “Sen. Sinema faces a steep uphill battle to defend her record and convince voters she should stay—as negative sentiment towards her continues to grow.
”The Slate and Data for Progress articles are great companion reads. Each makes it clear that, for her stubborn obstructionism, Kyrsten Sinema might very well feel some pain in Arizona’s next election.
Read Data For Progress Article
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
October 8, 2021
“God’s will is being thwarted.” Even in solid Republican counties, hard-liners seek more partisan control of elections.
Over the summer, and especially during the past several weeks, we were pretty intensely focused on gubernatorial politics in California, the September 14th Gavin Newsom recall election, and the long shadow of Donald Drumpf over the proceedings that would eventually, and thankfully, lead to Republican defeat at the polls.
Since that election, in which the national Republican Party took a vested interest, we’ve been reminded that the current Trumpist wing of the GOP is still a dangerous force in state and national politics. Nowhere is this more evident than in Texas.
In a detailed article for the Austin-based Texas Tribune, investigative reporter Jeremy Schwartz explains how pro-Drumpf partisan politics—particularly in Texas counties that voted overwhelmingly for the ex-president in the 2020 election—are damaging the foundation of the entire voting system. The October 1st piece, which Schwartz wrote as part of the ProPublica/Texas Tribune investigative unit, is titled “’ God’s will is being thwarted.’ Even in solid Republican counties, hard-liners seek more partisan control of elections.”
It's a long article with many voices; Schwartz is a very capable journalist who does meticulous research. It’s the kind of weekend read we like to recommend with the caution that its narrative is pretty terrifying, as are most things that have Trumpist fingerprints on them. But it’s worth paying close attention to what the cult-like followers of the former president in Texas have up their sleeves for the next two elections. At one point in the story, the reporter quotes David Becker, a former Department of Justice lawyer who helped oversee voting rights enforcement under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, talking about the “incredible delegitimization of American democracy” happening in the Lone Star State.
“’[W]hen it comes right down to it,’” Becker is quoted, “’ it is a security threat that is injecting chaos and partisanship and doubt into our election system.’”
And it’s very much in the spirit, if not the letter, of what Donald Drumpf and his political ilk had hoped to see inflicted less than a month ago on California.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
October 1, 2021
Women's March for Reproductive Rights TOMORROW!
Veterans Park, downtown Napa
Saturday, October 2, 2021
Time: 10-11 a.m.
Indivisible Napa, Women's March Napa Valley, DONV, Healthcare 4 All, and other activists will rally for Women's Reproductive Rights!
Please join us as we gather peacefully on Saturday, October 2, at Veterans Park in downtown Napa, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. We are calling on all women and feminists in our community to join the nation in rising in defense of women’s reproductive rights before the reconvening of the Supreme Court on October 4th.
We are gathering in response to the Texas six-week abortion ban and authorized vigilante "justice." When the Supreme Court rejected an emergency request to block Texas' abortion ban, they effectively took the next step toward overturning Roe v. Wade. Simply put: We are witnessing the most dire threat to abortion access in our lifetime.
Bring your signs, a friend, a water bottle, sunscreen, and your voice. Add a little time to allow for parking, which will be limited. Please clean up after yourself and be kind.
Stop by the Indivisible Napa table at the rally. Prizes for the best signs!
And, of course, be SAFE! Please follow local COVID protocols by masking up and practicing social distancing.
California farmworker union marching to the French Laundry
after Newsom vetoes labor bill
In the aftermath of last month’s recall election/power grab attempt by the Trumpist GOP, it’s important to remember that Governor Gavin Newsom, while vastly preferable to Larry Elder or any other right-wing, pseudo-candidate, still needs to be held accountable for his actions and policies. An in-our-faces reminder of this fact occurred recently when the governor vetoed Assembly Bill 616.
Just over a week after the United Farm Workers—along with a huge majority of Californians—voted No on the recall effort, Governor Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed farmworkers to vote by mail in union elections. The assembly bill was, as The Sacramento Bee’s Kim Bojórquez and Melissa Montalvo reported on September 23rd, the day after the veto, “a change the United Farm Workers pressed for after the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year dealt a setback to its organizing practices.”
“Assembly Bill 616 would have allowed agricultural workers to select their collective bargaining representative through a ballot card election by voting at a physical location or mail or dropping off a ballot to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board office,” the pair wrote.
They went on to point out that the UFW had supported the governor’s efforts to fight the recall campaign and had, in commemoration of Cesar Chavez’s 1968 labor rights march, planned a 260-mile trek from Tulare County to Sacramento to advocate for the bill. Instead, the UFW, led by its president, Teresa Romano, altered the destination of their march—from the state capitol to Indivisible Napa’s own backyard: the French Laundry restaurant in Yountville. The choice was, no surprise, “a reference to the pricey meal Newsom had with lobbyists as he asked other Californians to avoid mixed groups and indoor settings during the coronavirus pandemic.”
The UFW marchers’ wish to, as they tweeted, “finally meet with the Governor” at the French Laundry was only symbolic. But their point was clear. They had supported Newsom, and now he was turning his back on them.
“’ Why shouldn’t farmworkers have the same rights when voting in union elections?’” Elizabeth Strater, a labor union strategist for the UFW, was quoted in the article. “’ A week ago, voters used many options to save Gov. Newsom from a recall effort. Today, the governor revealed who he is by vetoing AB 616. Farmworkers will show him who we are. We’re heading to the French Laundry, hoping to finally get that meeting we’ve so far been denied.’”
California’s governor already knows the perils of which Napa Valley restaurants he decides to frequent—and when. In the larger where-and-when of next year’s gubernatorial election, he’ll need to decide who his most important supporters are in this state. Depending on his choice, he might just bump into some of them in Yountville.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
September 24, 2021
Beto O’Rourke Says It’s “No Secret” He’s Thinking of Running for Governor
With the spectacular failure of the Republican power-grab—aka the September 14th Gavin Newson recall election—now, thankfully, in the rearview mirror for California, it’s a good time to look down the road of state politics at another unfolding right-wing disaster: the Texas governorship of Greg Abbott.
Leading a state that has all but banned legal abortion, Abbott and his administration are fast becoming pariahs on both a national and international level. To make matters worse for Texans (not to mention those who travel to and from the state) the governor seems to be unaware that the coronavirus pandemic is actually a thing that is happening. “The governor has seen his approval rating in Texas drop to 45 percent in the wake of the controversy surrounding the ban on most abortions after six weeks,” as The Independent’s Graeme Massie reported this past week. “The state has also faced a surge in Covid-19 cases, while Mr. Abbott, 63, has banned mask and vaccine mandates.”
And as what should be a final straw, Gov. Abbott presides over a state that recently passed a draconian voter suppression law. It’s a scenario that, as Massie reported in the British paper, has potentially drawn Matthew McConaughey into the 2022 governor’s election. As a hypothetical candidate, the famous actor is currently polling nearly ten percent ahead of the sitting governor in his home state.
Perhaps more realistically, Abbott’s terrifying agenda now has a notable Texas Democrat on the verge of entering the gubernatorial fray, according to Mother Jones. In her Sept. 22nd piece, Assistant Editor Jackie Flynn Mogensen wrote, “At a virtual live event hosted by Mother Jones on Wednesday, former US Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) confirmed that he is considering a run for Texas governor—in large part due to his concern for voting rights.”
For either of these gentlemen (or, frankly, any other capable, forward-thinking Democrat), the time seems right in the nation’s second-largest state to challenge the hard-right GOP and its post-Drumpf agenda. Texas Republicans—and, by extension, their national party—want nothing to do with democracy, and everything to do with authoritarianism. Next year’s mid-term election will be the moment for Texas Democrats, progressives, and their Indivisible supporters around the U.S. to vote Greg Abbott out of office. And to do so legitimately, without the cynical veneer of a recall election.
Save The Date
Saturday, October 2, 2021
Time: TBD
Join Indivisible Napa, Women's March Napa Valley, DONV, Healthcare 4 All, and other activists as we rally for Women's Reproductive Rights. Due to a new police chief and staff changes, the protocols for these types of rallies have changed. To address the new requirements most effectively, this rally won't be officially announced until 48 hours prior. The date is firm. Details will be sent out as soon as they are available! Stay tuned!
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
September 17, 2021
Newsom’s winning recall strategy offers a playbook for Democrats in 2022.
We’re ready to move on from the Gavin Newsom recall election news. Almost.
As a slightly junior version of the Biden-Harris victory last November, it’s been a few days of relief and gratitude that sane, rational California voters held the line on September 14th against a toxic force of anti-democratic, anti-science, right-wing Trumpism. The Republican power grab threatened to send this huge and critical U.S. state off the political rails. As The Washington Post’s Perry Bacon, Jr. writes in his September 15th opinion, “Newsom’s winning recall strategy offers a playbook for Democrats in 2022,” the vote this past week in California revealed an opportunity for blue states—and for Democrats and Progressives in red states—to effectively push back against Republican extremism in the next election cycle.
In his opinion piece, Bacon notes (not entirely correctly, in our opinion) that Gov. Newsom “has nothing to apologize for,” but then goes on to write that “Democrats across the country should consider adopting his approach.” It’s the values aspect of Bacon’s argument that carries the most weight in his article. “Newsom,” he writes, “was essentially arguing that he is a rational, common-sense person who cares about saving people’s lives during a deadly pandemic, while [Larry] Elder is an out-of-control ideologue.
”Highlighting the fact that such common-sense approaches to appealing to voters were also crucial parts of the 2018 and 2020 Democratic gains in the House, Senate, and in the White House, this well-written Washington Post opinion paints a less bleak picture of America’s political future than might have been imagined just a couple of years ago. But, moving forward to 2022 and beyond, there’s still a lot of work to do.
Save The Date
Saturday, October 2, 2021
Time: TBD
Join Indivisible Napa, Women's March Napa Valley, DONV, and other activists as we rally for Women's Reproductive Rights. Stay tuned for forthcoming details!
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
September 10, 2021
Newsom stakes his future on one simple argument: Fear a GOP governor
In a piece of good, old-fashioned political reporting, Los Angeles Times’ staff writer Taryn Luna led her September 9th front-page story, “Newsom stakes his future on one simple argument: Fear a GOP governor,” with the pointed warning being issued to California voters by the governor himself: that electing the right-wing radio personality Larry Elder “would have deadly consequences for Californians amid the still-raging COVID-19 pandemic.
”Considering the havoc wreaked by the Trumpist Republican Party since 2016—and especially since January 6th at the capitol—Newsom’s painting the recall effort as “as a battle against ‘Trumpism’ that could plunge the state into an uncharted, near-apocalyptic future,” as Luna writes in her article, is hardly an exaggeration.
This is a dire moment for the state of California and, by extension, the United States, as the dominant pro-Drumpf forces of the GOP try to stage their own cynical, pathetic power-grab and portray overturning the democratic will of the people as a “referendum” on Gavin Newsom’s performance thus far. The excellent L.A. Times story is just another reminder, as we count down to this Tuesday, to fill out and return your ballots and vote NO on the recall.
You MUST vote in the California Recall election!
You received your ballot last month to vote in the California Recall election. Here's how to vote your ballot: If you cannot locate your ballot, please call John Tuteur's office at 707-253-4459 for assistance.
1. Vote No on 1.
2. Vote for NO ONE on 2. (Per CADEM, NO on the Recall campaign, and Gov. Newsom's office. If we turn out the Democrats to vote NO on the election, then #2 is moot. Focus on getting everyone you know to vote NO on 1. Don't waste any energy trying to figure out who to vote for. And do not write in Newsom, Kounalakis, etc. LEAVE 2 BLANK!)
3. Tear off your tab, sign, and seal.
4. Mail or drop off ASAP. Drop-offs are always safer these days. The deadline is September 14th!
5. Ask EVERYONE you know if they have sent in their ballot. Many Democrats don't want the recall, so they are not sending in their ballot. IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU SEND IN A NO VOTE ON YOUR BALLOT NOW!
PS: This is the official strategy for defeating the recall.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
September 3, 2021
“Relief pitchers are typically called up from the bullpen, not picked from the crowd booing in the stands.” So writes The Atlantic’s staff reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere, furthering an analogy offered by a Republican he interviewed for his August 27th article, “What California’s Recall Election Says About America.
”The Republican California assembly member, “moderate” Jordan Cunningham from San Luis Obispo, cynically tells Dovere in his insightful piece of political reporting that he likens Governor Gavin Newsom to a baseball pitcher who is “getting shellacked” and “giving up homer after homer” as tries to carry out his Democratic agenda.
A landslide 2018 victory – against Republican John Cox, whose name now, almost laughably, is among the recall replacement candidates – sent Newsom to Sacramento. For his well-documented personal shortcomings, he now presides over a robust state economy (the world’s fifth-largest), a budget surplus, and some of the nation’s most successful Covid vaccination numbers. He continues to navigate the pandemic while dealing with this state’s increasingly extreme wildfires. None of this is easy.
But what should be near impossible to imagine is an unapologetic Trumpist-like Cox, or perhaps the supremely unqualified conservative radio personality Larry Elder, or even a formerly capable politician like ex-San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer (now an unhinged Trumpist) attempting to walk a mile or two in Newsom’s shoes. If heaven forbid, he is recalled, he’ll likely be replaced by one of these marginally popular Republicans, none of whom will garner more than 15 or 20% of Republican votes, while Newsom would likely receive twice as many from Democrats and independents, if not more (but not enough, as California’s recall rules dictate).
While he takes a carefully measured view of Newsom’s performance thus far as governor in his Atlantic article, here’s the gist of Dovere’s message: Trumpist (i.e. most) Republicans are openly disdainful of majority victories by Democrats, and they go out of their way, as witnessed by this right-wing power grab masquerading as a gubernatorial recall, to subvert the will of the people. More booing from the stands. This country should have had quite enough of it on January 6th.
The people need to vote NO on the recall on September 14th.
You must vote in the California Recall election
You received your ballot 2 weeks ago to vote in the California Recall election. Here's how to vote your ballot:
1. Vote No on 1.
2. Vote for NO ONE on 2. (Per CADEM, NO on the Recall campaign, and Gov. Newsom's office. If we turn out the Democrats to vote NO on the election, then #2 is moot. Focus on getting everyone you know to vote NO on 1. Don't waste any energy trying to figure out who to vote for. And do not write in Newsom, Kounalakis, etc. LEAVE 2 BLANK!)
3. Tear off your tab, sign, and seal.
4. Mail or drop off ASAP. Drop-offs are always safer these days. The deadline is September 14th!
5. Ask EVERYONE you know if they have sent in their ballot. Many Democrats don't want the recall, so they are not sending in their ballot. IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU SEND IN A NO VOTE ON YOUR BALLOT.
PS: This is the official strategy for defeating the recall.
Your feedback is important to us. If you have any comments, concerns and suggestions, please share it with us.
What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
August 27, 2021
MONTHLY MEETING
This month's meeting is next Monday, August 30th at 5:30 p.m.
via Zoom!!!!
Our guest speaker will be Matt Caffrey with Swing Left.
Save the Date and RSVP now.
The Zoom link will be emailed at noon on Monday.
The Gavin Newsom Recall Is a Farce
“If you loathe [Gavin] Newsom, the recall is your sole hope for relief,” as Ezra Klein wrote in a New York Times Opinion piece last month. “If you like him, the recall is a distraction you’d prefer to ignore. But it means California could see a popular governor ousted not because a majority think he’s failed but because they tuned out an unusual midcycle referendum they didn’t ask for and weren’t paying attention to.”
Those are our bold italics, but Klein’s message goes to the heart of why Democrats, progressives, and Indivisibles of all stripes MUST get out and vote “NO” on September 14th. The insightful author and columnist’s Opinion article is our must-read this week, particularly for how he interrogates the concept that his beloved home state of California is “littered with well-meaning ideas to increase democratic participation that have decayed into avenues that organized interests use to foil the public will.”
Attempting to kick a quasi-unpopular governor out of office in the midst of an enduring pandemic—while the state is, according to Klein, dealing effectively with that same pandemic—and during an otherwise booming economic period is a prime example Republican organized interest to foil the popular will that got Newsom elected in the first place. It must be stopped next month. September 14th is the day Californians can—and should—kill the recall.
You must vote in the California Recall election
You received your ballot last week to vote in the California Recall election. Since we've been asked this question repeatedly since, here's how to vote your ballot:
1. Vote No on 1.
2. Vote for NO ONE on 2. (Per CADEM, NO on the Recall campaign, and Gov. Newsom's office. If we turn out the Democrats to vote NO on the election, then #2 is moot. Focus on getting everyone you know to vote NO on 1. Don't waste any energy trying to figure out who to vote for. And do not write in Newsom, Kounalakis, etc. LEAVE 2 BLANK!)
3. Tear off your tab, sign, and seal.
4. Mail or drop off ASAP. Drop-offs are always safer these days. The deadline is September 14th!
PS: This is the official strategy for defeating the recall. We've already heard all the arguments for voting on #2. We would prefer not to have to hear them again!
Your feedback is important to us. If you have any comments, concerns and suggestions, please share it with us.
What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
August 20, 2021
You must vote in the California Recall election
You received your ballot this week to vote in the California Recall election. Since we've been asked this question over a 100 times already this week, here's how to vote your ballot:
1. Vote No on 1.
2. Vote for NO ONE on 2. (Per CADEM, NO on the Recall campaign, and Gov. Newsom's office. If we turn out the Democrats to vote NO on the election, then #2 is moot. Focus on getting everyone you know to vote NO on 1. Don't waste any energy trying to figure out who to vote for. And do not write in Newsom, Kounalakis, etc. LEAVE 2 BLANK!)
3. Tear off your tab, sign, and seal.
4. Mail or drop off ASAP. Drop-offs are always safer these days. The deadline is September 14th!
PS: This is the official strategy for defeating the recall. We've already heard all the arguments for voting on #2. We would prefer not to have to hear them again!
There Is a Problem With California’s Recall. It’s Unconstitutional.
Continuing our close monitoring of the reporting around the September 14th recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom, we came across a New York Times opinion piece that is as enlightening as it is direct and to-the-point. In an August 11th guest essay, titled “There Is a Problem With California’s Recall. It’s Unconstitutional,” co-authors Erwin Chemerinsky and Aaron S. Edlin break the two “Yes” and “No” votes on the recall ballot down to their component parts to conclude that, while the structure of California’s recall system is unfair to the governor potentially removed from office, it’s the voters who get hurt.“The most basic principles of democracy are that the candidate who gets the most votes is elected and that every voter gets an equal say in an election’s outcome,” they write. “The California system for voting in a recall election violates these principles and should be declared unconstitutional.”
Chemerinsky and Edlin go on to describe a post-election scenario in which Newsom loses on the first vote and is removed from office. But, as his name doesn’t appear on the list of replacement candidates in the second vote, his millions of California supporters—critically, millions more than any replacement would realistically receive—are essentially disenfranchised.
The guest authors are, respectively, the dean of the School of Law at UC Berkeley and a professor of law and of economics at Berkeley. In their piece, they cite a pair of 1964 Supreme Court decisions that effectively settled the one person/one vote question. Thus, their argument that the recall is “not just nonsensical and undemocratic [but] it is unconstitutional,” carries more than just a little authoritative weight in the Times opinion page.“Every voter should have an equal ability to influence the outcome of the election,” the law professors write, summing up a core constitutional principle that has existed for over 60 years.
Their opinion piece doesn’t need to mention what the post-Drumpf Republican Party thinks about that principle. But it does serve as yet another important reminder to all voters who care about the direction California needs to be going—now and into the future—to return their ballots by September 14th, and vote NO on the recall.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
August 13, 2021
You must vote in the California Recall election
If, as the saying goes, all politics is local, then the current Republican-led effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom is the turbocharged version of that saying. As it applies to 58 counties in the state of California and its thousands of cities and towns, it adds up to a lot of local politics. But they all have one thing in common: the recall is a terrible, baseless, and all-but-insane idea that must be stopped.
As for the politics local to the city and county of Napa—those which are of particular concern to this Indivisible chapter—they got a recent boost of sanity from the editorial board of our city’s daily newspaper, the Napa Valley Register. This past Sunday, the board published its editorial, “Our View,” in which it stated in no uncertain terms, “You must vote in the recall election.”
Declaring right off the bat that this recall election is nothing more than “a political stunt by a Republican party that has drifted so far from the California mainstream that it is no longer capable of winning statewide office under normal rules,” the editors go on to lay out their case—which does not discount or avoid the fact that Gavin Newsom is a far-from-perfect governor. But they balance their justifiable criticism of Newsom by crediting the many achievements thus far in his leadership. Which takes the editorial back to the foundation of its argument that the recall is, as they describe it, “a frivolous waste of time,” money, and resources that, if successfully pulled off by Republicans, would put an unqualified candidate in the state capitol.
“While polls show that Newsom is generally popular with voters, at least popular enough to defeat the recall,” the Register board concludes, “polls also show that the people who hate Newsom are far more motivated to vote than people who oppose the recall.”
Those people are the same brand of hard-right Republicans who stormed the capitol on January 6th and who conveniently overlook the massive failings of actually terrible governors in states like Florida and Texas.
Indivisible Napa completely agrees with the Register’s editorial board: people who oppose this absurd recall must vote NO.
Your feedback is important to us. If you have any comments, concerns and suggestions, please share it with us.
What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
August 6, 2021
Democratic leaders rally behind Newsom to fight recall, but how enthusiastic is the grassroots?
With California’s September 14th vote to recall Governor Gavin Newsom looming on the horizon, we took a look at CalMatters.org to get some informed perspective. The website is a self-described “nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters.”
While this informative site may be non-partisan, as politics and elections reporter Ben Christopher writes in a recent article, the Republican-led efforts to unseat Newsom have been met with, as he puts it, “a few well-timed rejoinders benefiting the governor,” as well as pushback from some current and former California Democratic leaders like Barbara Lee, John Burton, and Barbara Boxer.
Christopher’s reporting around the issue of the recall accurately reflects both Republican and progressive discontent with Newsom’s leadership. In particular, he notes that the Democratic party’s Progressive Caucus is not “a reflexive defender” of the state’s Democratic leaders or the governor. “Some progressive activists,” he writes, “believe Newsom could afford to do more to solidify their loyalty.”
In the end, the CalMatters reporter’s article offers a thorough analysis of this important turning point in California—and by extension U.S. national politics—and why it matters that the Republican-led recall receives the utmost scrutiny.
AND
Please spread the word to EVERYONE you know - VOTE NO ON THE RECALL!!!!!
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
July 30, 2021
'The physical violence we experienced was horrific and devastating': Officers recount harrowing events of Capitol insurrection
There’s that trusty old saying about ducks: “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”
And if, as a sentient human who was paying any attention at all on January 6th, you saw on your TV, computer, or smartphone what looked like a seditious insurrection carried out by legions of right-wing, domestic terrorists (as they quacked in top QAnon fashion), then it probably was an insurrection.
Correction: it absolutely WAS an insurrection. As everyone who’s not a craven, Drumpf lapdog Republican politician—or one of their brainwashed constituents—knows very well.
For those who might have missed the deranged, illiberal proceedings on January 6th, or for those who need an unpleasant reminder, we’d recommend reading CNN’s excellent reporting on the first day of the January 6th House select committee hearings this past Tuesday at the capitol.
A team of CNN correspondents—Clare Foran, Jeremy Herb, Lauren Fox and Annie Grayer—reported on the “harrowing testimony from officers who experienced firsthand the violent events of that day at the hands of a pro-Drumpf mob.”
At Indivisible, we don’t usually default to such mainstream news outlets as CNN, but its reporters’ efforts need to be recognized—and read—this week as a reminder of the ongoing heartbreak and trauma the 21st century Republican Party is inflicting on our democracy.
And because this is such heavy subject matter, we figure it can’t hurt to suggest a piece of lighter (and downright hilarious) political writing, courtesy of one of our favorite weekly reads, The Surge. Slate.com’s senior politics writer Jim Newell’s latest column is especially good.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
July 23, 2021
MONTHLY MEETING
This month's meeting is this coming Monday, July 26th at 5:30 p.m. IN PERSON!!!! Our guest speaker will be Ellen Montanari, from Rep. Mike Levin's office in CD 49.
The library is still not available so we will be meeting at Lisa's home this month. You must RSVP as well as be vaccinated to attend the meeting. (If we haven't seen you for a while, we will ask!) Please RSVP by Sunday evening. Looking forward to seeing you in person BRING A FRIEND!
Rev. Liz Theoharis of Poor People’s Campaign Arrested in Protest over Voting Rights & Infrastructure
For this week’s recommended reading, we’ve turned our gaze inward: to a July 22nd newsletter from Indivisible Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director Leah Greenberg and a related piece of news covered by Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman.
Leah’s email describes her participation this past week in Rev. Dr. William Barber’s Poor People’s Campaign. In her own she words, she writes that she joined the July 19th protest in front of the U.S. Capitol “to collectively demand that President Biden and Congress end the filibuster, act on voting rights, and guarantee a $15 minimum wage.” For her brave effort, she and 100 fellow protesters were arrested by Capitol police. “I didn't take this action lightly, “ the Indivisible co-founder adds. “But I felt called to do it.”
At the same protest, Reverend Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, was also arrested. She was Amy Goodman’s guest this past week on Democracy Now! The transcript of Rev. Theoharis’ interview with the veteran journalist reads as an eye-opening account of what her group and allied organizations, including Indivisible, are doing to expose and fight against right wing Republicans’ cynical attempts at voter suppression in advance of the midterm elections of 2022.
“I and nearly a hundred other women got arrested in front of the Supreme Court, in front of the Senate office buildings, because our democracy is in peril,” the reverend told Goodman on Democracy Now!’s July 23rd broadcast.
“We are living in a moment when 17 states have passed voter restrictions since 2020,” she said. “And we see the connection between this attack on voting rights and all of the other issues that impact, especially the 140 million poor and low-income people in this country.”
Leah Greenberg and Rev. Theoharis’ arrests, and those of 100 other progressive protesters, were not just symbolic actions, but serve as reminders of the fragility of our democracy.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
July 16, 2021
The obscure foundation funding "Critical Race Theory" hysteria
As a follow-up to last week’s recommended reading on the right-wing campaign of disinformation about—and onslaught against—the previously obscure, academic concept of Critical Race Theory, we’ve returned to Judd Legum’s website, Popular Information, for his report on how hard-core conservatives are fueling this fire. In their article titled “The obscure foundation funding ‘Critical Race Theory’ hysteria,” Legum and his contributor, Tesnim Zekeria, have written a long, detailed piece that focuses on the efforts of The Thomas W. Smith Foundation, and other such shady operations, that are bent on pursuing so-called free market agendas. These groups have Critical Race Theory directly in their crosshairs, as it seeks to shed light on the structural racism that has plagued the U.S. for much of its history and, as a result, caused vast economic inequality.
The Popular Information reporters ask a central question midway through their piece: “How,” Legum and Zekeria write, “did CRT, a complex theory that explains how structural racism is embedded in the law, gets redefined to represent corporate diversity training and high school classes on the history of slavery?”
Part of their answer is that it has become difficult for conservatives “to generate excitement around tired arguments opposing diversity and racial equality. It's easier to advocate against CRT, a term that sounds scary but no one really understands.”
The twenty-odd right-wing organizations investigated in this excellent piece are doing their cynical best to build up and disseminate that misunderstanding. The situation right now is tantamount to a massive, and extremely well-funded, disinformation campaign. For a deeper understanding of the hot topic of Critical Race Theory, this article is, in our opinion, critical reading
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
July 10, 2021
Opinion | I've Been a Critical Race Theorist for 30 Years. Our Opponents Are Just Proving Our Point For Us.
For some thought-provoking weekend reading, we’d suggest Gary Peller’s excellent and highly nuanced article in this week’s Politico online magazine. In the magazine’s opinion section, “The Big Idea.” Peller, who teaches constitutional law at Georgetown University, wrote a piece on June 30th titled “I've Been a Critical Race Theorist for 30 Years. Our Opponents Are Just Proving Our Point For Us.”
Those opponents, Republicans personified by the all-too-predictable Senator Ted Cruz, have been trying to put forward baseless arguments against the CRT discipline, insofar as it interrogates traditional and highly entrenched structures of white power and privilege in this country. “[T]he point of those who seek to ban what they call ‘CRT’ is not to contest our vision of racial justice, or to debate our social critique,” the law scholar writes. “It is instead to tap into a dependable reservoir of racial anxiety among whites. This is a political strategy that has worked for as long as any of us can remember.”
To sum it up, Peller notes, “the absurdity of the conservative charge that teaching about racism is itself racist.”
The Georgetown scholar has written clearly and concisely on the complex topic of racial inequity. We give this read our highest recommendation.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
July 2,, 2021
Advocates decry Supreme Court's surprisingly sweeping voting rights decision
This week’s bad news? (because we “love” to share bad news): the conservative-dominated Supreme Court yesterday, in its 6-3 ruling, issued a severe blow to voting rights advocates in Arizona, Georgia, and across this country. Reporting in Politico on the Justice Samuel Alito-authored opinion, crack legal-political correspondents Josh Gerstein and Zach Montellaro teamed up to explain how the controversial Alito opinion “may appear modest in scope and subdued in rhetoric, but…will have a sweeping impact — undercutting efforts to challenge a slew of new laws Republican-led states have passed imposing new restrictions on the ballot,” according to the legal and civil rights experts quoted throughout the article.
Gerstein and Montellaro do offer some good news in the July 1 piece. They note from one of their sources, attorney Marc Elias, that other tools to challenge voting restrictions are available to voting rights advocates, not least the forceful argument that such egregious restrictions violate the Constitution. The Politico pair quote Elias, who represented the DNC in the case, saying that it’s “important to remember that most voter suppression laws are challenged under First, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Today's decision does not affect any constitutional claims.”
For all of the news—good and bad—that surrounds this landmark case, Politico yet again does an admirable job of showing what progressives are up against in 2022, 2024, and years beyond with justices like Samuel Alito and the harshly conservative decisions they will continue to issue from the Supreme Court.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
June 25, 2021
NO, THE BIDEN AGENDA ISN’T DEAD YET
This past week, The Intercept’s Ryan Grim offered a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the noble efforts of progressive House Democrats and their Senate counterparts in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. In his June 24th article, “No, the Biden Agenda Isn’t Dead Yet,” the website’s D.C. Bureau Chief—an accomplished and highly astute observer of political workings in the capitol—writes that, when it comes to pushing through President Joe Biden’s agenda in Congress, “Democrats, including their leadership and rank and file, are unusually motivated for a party that flinched at its own shadow for the past 40 years.”
What follows is Grim’s recounting of the Democrats’ efforts this past week to enact what is being called a “two-track strategy”: a critical bipartisan infrastructure package, negotiated with Republicans, coupled with an ambitious reconciliation package that only requires 50 Senate votes to pass.“The latter package could add up to another $6 trillion over the next decade,” Grim reports. “[I]t carries with it the fate of the Biden administration and will significantly shape how the United States emerges from the crisis produced by the collapse of the neoliberal order.”“Upending that order requires a reassertion of the public’s role in the economy,” he adds.
This excellent article is a reminder that the CPC, whose members include New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and California’s Ro Khanna, exerts some influence over mainstream Democrats. And in the effort to push through the Biden agenda in the face of Republican resistance, Grim highlights that progressives still have a vital role to play.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
June 18, 2021
Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers!
You can bet that when an article we’ve read starts with a warning about containing “offensive language,” it’s likely (these days, anyway) to have fact-denying, white supremacist Trump supporters as its subject. And sure enough, in a June 11th Reuters Special Report, the news outlet’s Linda So writes in her extensively investigated piece, “Campaign of Fear,” that state government employees in Georgia are still incurring the wrath of deluded and dangerous supporters of the former president. The harassment leveled at Brad Raffensperger, his family, and a host of other Georgia election officials—both Democrat and Republican—is verbally offensive. That it might devolve into physical violence is a very real danger.
“The intimidation has been particularly severe in Georgia, where Raffensperger and other Republican election officials refuted Trump’s stolen-election claims,” the Reuters journalist writes, noting that the ongoing harassment “could have far-reaching implications for future elections by making the already difficult task of recruiting staff and poll workers much harder.”
Thanks to a largely spineless and subservient Republican half of Congress, such harassment—both verbal and physical—continues to be the norm among Georgia Trumpists in 2021, despite the plain-as-day Biden-Harris election victory last fall. As Trump continues to stoke the fires of hatred for democracy, not just in the Southeast but across the U.S., it’s clear that, whether or not the words he chooses are offensive, the lies he tells his “Stop the Steal” believers are the worst kind of language.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
June 11, 2021
Another timely political article crossed our desktop this past week.
Judd Legum’s playing off of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” lyrics (“Meet the new Charles Koch. Same as the old Charles Koch”) is about the only amusing thing in his Popular Information story from June 10th. Titled “Koch-and-Switch,” the story highlights Charles Koch and his Koch Industries’ utterly disingenuous offers to, as Legum writes, work with the Biden administration, and not against it, so that “things would be different moving forward” between Republicans and Democrats. In truth, the P.I. editor reports, exactly the opposite has been happening so far in 2021: the right-wing billionaire enabler of the Tea Party and ascendant Trumpism in America is working hard to block the new president at every turn.
As Legum writes, “Koch has deployed the full resources of his political network to try to stymie virtually every aspect of Biden's agenda.”
He goes on to quote Charles Koch’s political network in a post-January 6th insurrection statement that “we will continue to look for ways to support those policymakers who reject the politics of division and work together to move our country forward.”
Legum could quote Indivisible Napa even more succinctly: “We won’t get fooled again. Or ever.”
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
May 21, 2021
We have a couple of useful and highly insightful readings this week to share: one on a critical domestic issue and one international.
For some alarming but light-shedding news from the Middle East, where the latest spasms of violence between Palestinians and the Israeli government and military have captured the world’s attention, read Aida Touma-Sliman’s May 20 article on The Intercept. The Israeli Knesset member’s story, “In Israel’s Mixed Jewish-Palestinian Towns, Old Frustrations Boil Into Violence,” helps to detail how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government is doing its best imitation of a Trumpist regime in terms of the violence it is unapologetically inciting against Palestinians—both in Gaza and inside Israel itself.
Here at home, meanwhile, it’s business as usual for the GOP in Washington, where Senate and House Republicans are doubling down on their outlandish denials that Donald Trump was directly involved in inciting the January 6th mob that stormed the capitol. In some (perhaps unexpected) good news, a trio of Politico reporters recounted this past week how, as they write, “House GOP divisions were on full display Wednesday as dozens of Republicans broke with their party leadership and former President Donald Trump to support a proposed commission investigating the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol.” The Politico story, “GOP defections over Jan. 6 commission deliver rebuke to McCarthy,” is a must-read piece in the lead-up to the desperately needed creation of such an investigative, bipartisan commission. We at Indivisible Napa have our fingers crossed that, for the good of our increasingly fragile democracy, it actually happens.
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
May 14, 2021
We’re doing a quick circle-back this week on Judd Legum’s excellent website, Popular Information, to recommend his May 13th story titled “Lying is non-negotiable.” In this excellent piece, Legum revisits the revolting “Big Lie” myth propagated by the vast majority of Republican senators and representatives, who seem hell-bent on creating thoroughly anti-democratic and un-American conditions for voter suppression to become the dark theme of the 2022 midterm elections.
Legum examines this ugly scenario through the lens of this past week’s Republican leadership ouster of Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, an otherwise Trump-supporting, arch-conservative who had the nerve to call out the disgraced ex-president for his Big Lie. “But is it really Cheney who is responsible for extending disputes about the 2020 election?” Legum writes. “If Trump would admit the truth and concede that Biden won fairly and there is no evidence of meaningful voter fraud, the issue would disappear."
The thought of the entire Trump fantasy about stolen elections disappearing is a pleasant one, indeed. But as long as the current manifestation of the Republican Party remains sycophantically beholden to the rantings of the former president, such adherence to—and respect for—the truth of Joe Biden’s election will also remain a fantasy for the rest of us.
Read Popular Information Article
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
May 7, 2021
Curious how and why the current manifestation of the GOP resembles less a political party these days and more an unfolding national disaster? (You’ve come to the right place.)
Admittedly, it’s a big question, but one that a couple of our readings this week at least partially answer.
The first is an informative article by The Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, on the impending expulsion of die-hard conservative Congresswoman Liz Cheney from the House Republicans’ leadership. “Her removal for refusing to parrot Trump’s ‘big lie’ that last year’s election was stolen would exemplify how the Republican party remains beholden to the disgraced ex-president,” Smith wrote in the May 6 edition.
And the second must-read piece is found on Popular Information, a new (for us) political website with a great tagline: “News for people who give a damn.” There’s a clear penchant on the part of its creator, Judd Legum, to shed light on the more disastrous aspects of so-called Republican politics, along with the enabling of such mayhem.For example, his May 6 post, “Facebook's problem isn't Trump — it's the algorithm,” delves into how the social media giant created its own Oversight Board—and then chose to ignore its findings regarding how millions of Facebook users have bought into the aforementioned “big lie” about Trump’s defeat in the November election.“Facebook's algorithms amplify false, paranoid, violent, right-wing content from people other than Trump — including those that follow Trump on Facebook,” Legum writes. “Trump aside, Facebook played a key role in the spreading of misinformation about the election and the organization of the January 6 attack.”
Two more thought-provoking, and highly recommended, examples of progressive journalism for your weekend reading.
Read Popular Information Article
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What We're Reading Now
Summary of the Week
April 30, 2021
The Unraveling of the American Empire
This week’s “What We’re Reading Now” comes from the dependably cautionary, often depressing, yet thoroughly enlightening Chris Hedges. The journalist and author is a regular contributor to Scheerpost. His latest article, “The Unraveling of the American Empire,” paints a bleak picture of American exceptionalism and the existential danger it poses to the world and, in particular, to the U.S. itself.
“Imperial ineptitude is matched by domestic ineptitude,” the Pulitzer Prize-winner writes in his scathing critique of both the military-industrial complex and those he describes as “liberal interventionists,” also referred to in the piece as “useful idiots for imperialism.”
He continues, “The collapse of good government at home, with legislative, executive and judicial systems all seized by corporate power, ensures that the incompetent and the corrupt, those dedicated not to the national interest but to swelling the profits of the oligarchic elite, lead the country into a cul-de-sac.”
It's an eye-opening and highly recommended read from one of progressive journalism’s fiercest and most eloquent voices.
Summary of the Week
April 25, 2021
"The Simple Fact Is That the Republican Party Has Been the Party of Voter Suppression Since the 1960s"
AND
The Bigger Short: Wall Street’s Cooked Books Fueled the Financial Crisis in 2008. It’s Happening Again.
Catching up on some Indivisible Napa “What We’re Reading” shares, we’ve linked a couple of timely pieces of political journalism below: the first a bit heavy, but humorous; the second strictly heavy-duty reading.
In his Esquire online story from early April on the Republican Party’s deplorable history of voter suppression going back over half a century, the author and veteran journalist Charles Pierce takes a few well-aimed jabs at Mitch McConnell (who he gleefully reminds us via italics is the Senate Minority Leader), the current and previous Chief Justices, and GOP legislators in nearly every state. “[E]ver since the country elected Barack Obama twice, and the Republican Party saw a new majority rising to which it could not (and would not) appeal,” Pierce writes, “the Republicans have made voter-suppression the cornerstone of their political strategy.”
The Republicans’ fresh attempt at blatant voter suppression in the lead up to the ’22 midterm elections is sobering in the wake of the Biden-Harris victory, but Pierce’s touch is humorous and lightly acerbic enough to take some of the edge off of this depressing subject.
There’s no humor to be found on The Intercept these days (or any, really, but so it goes). Contributor Jon Schwarz partnered with the website’s DC Bureau Chief, Ryan Grim, to publish a long investigative piece titled “The Bigger Short.” The story’s subtitle—“Wall Street's cooked books fueled the 2008 financial crisis. It's happening again”—gives an ominous glimpse into what the pair have uncovered regarding “creative accounting on a startling scale,” as they describe it, in the commercial real estate market.
“This time, the issue is not a bubble in the housing market, but apparent widespread inflation of the value of commercial businesses, on which loans are based,” Schwarz and Grim write. Their research in this excellent piece is focused on the findings of a real estate industry analyst-turned whistleblower. It’s a reminder that, when it comes to greed on Wall Street, not much has changed over the past thirteen years.
What We're Reading Now
A weekly drill-down via an online political article (or two or three) that we find especially timely. In light of—and as an antidote to—the dangerously misinformed Trumpist narratives that make their way onto the internet these days, we're happy to report that there are dozens of progressive magazines and other media outlets working in enlightened and informed counterpoint to the right wing's version of "news."
Summary of the Week
March 6, 2021
What We’ve Watched
How Joe Manchin Brought the Senate to a Screeching Halt
West Virginia centrist demands Democrats rewrite their deal, for no clear reason.
For a quick glimpse into the disarray of the Democratic-majority Senate, consider an enlightening article by Slate’s senior political writer, Jim Newell. His March 5th story, “How Joe Manchin Brought the Senate to a Screeching Halt,” is a pause-giving piece on what he calls the “big, predictable problem known as Joe Manchin.”
The West Virginia Senator is one of the most maddening characters on the 2021 Washington DC political stage. He leans progressive-sympathetic on a handful of issues, but he is essentially a bygone era Republican—who happens to be a Democrat. The extraordinary sway this diehard centrist holds over his party is, no doubt, explained by the 50/50 split of Senate seats held by each party; in a more decided Democrat majority, Manchin would probably be a marginal politician, or at least less a source of aggravation to his fellow Democratic Senators.
As it stands with regard to the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, Manchin seems hell-bent on curtailing benefits for needy Americans. “The issue was the dueling set of amendments scheduled to come up next,” Newell writes. “There was the unemployment insurance deal Democrats had crafted, which Delaware Sen. Tom Carper would be offering as an amendment, and then an amendment from Republican Ohio Sen. Rob Portman which would cut unemployment benefits and have them expire in July.”
Then the reporter adds, with a flourish, “Manchin liked the Republican amendment better. Oops!”
Newell’s mystification through the article about what goes on inside Joe Manchin’s head reflects, in a way, the Democratic Party’s own disarray, and it extends beyond the Manchin question. “I just think that the Democrats right now are in a bit of a quandary,” the author quotes Senate Majority Whip John Thune on his party’s COVID bill voting challenges. “I mean, they’ve essentially stopped action on the floor so that they can try and persuade, I think, all their members to stay together on some of these votes.”
For now, as progressives, we get to sit on the sidelines and watch the apoplectic display that is the 2021 Democratic Senate. It’s not an enjoyable performance.
November 13, 2020
“17 minutes”
That’s how much time Stacey Abrams spent celebrating Donald Trump’s historic loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The Democratic political leader was a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert this past Monday night when she shared with her host just how little time she took to rejoice in the election results as Biden surged past the 270 electoral votes threshold to claim victory.
“I had about 17 minutes on Saturday afternoon,” Abrams told the surprised—and amused—Colbert. “I’m good.” She then emphasized that the Senate runoff races in January are where she’s shifting her get-out-the-vote effort. “Now I get back to work. We’ve got to win two Senate races; I can’t dawdle too long.”
She referred, of course, to the pair of runoff elections to be held in her home state of Georgia on January 5th that will decide which party walks away with a senate majority. Abrams’ laser focus on the runoffs is both admirable and practical: a Democrat-controlled Senate would allow President-elect Biden and VP-elect Kamala Harris to carry out many of their policies and platform promises. The opposite will no doubt continue to be the case under majority leader Mitch McConnell and his gang of Trumpist sycophants.
We at Indivisible Napa, along with countless other Indivisible chapters around the country, are fired up to do our level best to help Abrams’s fellow Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock defeat their rivals in their respective Senate runoffs. But, based on the internecine conflicts we’ve been reading about in the Democratic Party, the post-election picture is anything but rosy—the Biden-Harris victory notwithstanding. The party appears to be creating a highly divisive atmosphere when the Georgia situation requires unity.
In an excellent Politico article, “Pelosi floats above Democrats’ civil war,” reporters Heather Caygle and Sarah Ferris analyze the potential unraveling of four years of Trump-driven shared purpose between liberal and centrist Democrats. The source of the extreme tension is the election results outside of the presidential race, in which the House saw a net loss of seats, when Democrats expected to gain them. In this sobering context, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will retain her position of power, but troubles at the party’s organizational level are a cause of grave concern. And this is happening to a political party whose 24/7 mode for the last four years has been grave concern.
“Instead of pinning the blame on Pelosi,” who, Caygle and Ferris note, has led her caucus for 14 years but is entering what could be her final term, “House Democrats have turned on each other in a resumption of the ideological war gripping the party. The sniping has grown pointed and personal, with centrists and liberals blasting each other by name both privately and in the press. Both sides have been privately discussing how they will exert their will even further in the upcoming Congress.”
In our opinion—which we hope any sentient Democrat would share, whether liberal or centrist—this is NOT the time for “ideological war,” but, rather, a doubling down on the unity front in the face of an angry, paranoid, and ultimately soulless Republican Party. Exertion of will is the natural outcome of a new Congress. But, in the meantime, the varying elements of the Democratic Party should stick together to give their rising leader, Stacey Abrams, something to celebrate for more than seventeen minutes.
November 6, 2020
What We’ve Watched
“That is the president of the United States. That is the most powerful person in the world, and we see him like an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the hot sun, realizing his time was over."
– Anderson Cooper, CNN, November 5, 2020
We have to confess that we’ve been doing a lot of screen-watching this past week – of our televisions, computers, and smartphones – and a bit less reading than we normally would. But it’s been a historic week in America, with all eyes on the commercial and public media as we await the results of the presidential election. There will certainly be plenty of reading and political analysis to catch up on the coming weeks and leading up to January 20, 2021.
In the meantime, regarding the trusty old TV we’ve been glued to since Tuesday night (when things seemed pretty dire for Democrats and progressives), our viewing has veered from the genuinely progressive Free Speech TV to the reliably Democrat-leaning MSNBC. In between these two outlets, CNN has offered up-to-the-minute programming all week long that has kept an impressive pace with elections results. The network’s diverse lineup of anchors, reporters, and commentators (including at least two Republicans) have done good work breaking things down state-by-state. And in a related effort that seems to have evolved over the last four years into part of their job descriptions, these journalists have been obliged to document the avalanche of lies, disinformation, and – there’s no other way to put it – authoritarian tantrums coming from the White House.
After the most outrageous of these explosions occurred yesterday in the White House press briefing room, CNN’s chief national correspondent, John King, took Donald Trump to his version of the woodshed (with a little classroom blackboard mixed in): the Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall, aka the “Magic Map.” As King used the high-tech map to drill down on the voting results in the swing state of Georgia, his destruction of the president’s lies-laden “speech” was so thorough, it bears quoting here:
“In the White House earlier tonight, [Trump] said it was because of fraud and cheating,” King commented, while consulting the display of pro-Biden counties in Georgia. Then he countered forcefully, “It is because of math, and democracy, and counting votes in a state with a Republican governor, a Republican Secretary of State [and] Republican office-holders. If the governor of Georgia thought there was fraud, we would’ve heard from him by now. He’s the Republican governor; this has been playing out for a couple of days. They’re simply counting votes.”
A little later into the evening, King added, “Unless something dramatic changes from what has been happening hour after hour after hour today, Joe Biden is on a trajectory to pass the president as soon as more votes come in.”
As we continue to watch our screens with both patience and anticipation until this presidential election is called, we can already see a dramatic change, four years in the making, taking place before our eyes.
October 30, 2020
What We’ve read
For Biden supporters of all stripes, from the progressive left to middle-of-the-road Democrats to the former VP’s staunchest supporters, there’s clearly plenty to be concerned about before Tuesday’s election—not least of which is intimidation at the polls by the violent foot soldiers this shameless president has tried to enlist as “poll watchers”: white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the (so-called) Proud Boys.
But as reported earlier this week by CNN’s Don Lemon, Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Larry Krasner, stands resolute.
During a guest appearance with Lemon, and a subsequent interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota this morning that was covered on Mediaite.com, the veteran public defender directed some real talk at these unhinged groups—and to the current (and equally unhinged) occupant of The White House who is giving them their matching orders. “There has been a steady drumbeat coming from this president about how Philadelphia is a terrible town, just like he constantly does about other large, diverse cities,” Krasner told Lemon during the interview.
“We’re not having it,” he said. “We are not having it. This is the cradle of democracy.”
Krasner then went on to offer a warning to the White House.
“I do, in fact, have something for the president if he wants to send people here to break the law: I have a cell; I have criminal laws; and I have a jury—a very diverse jury—that is going to want to hear why these people came to steal our votes.”
The DA noted that Philadelphia has had early and safe voting going on for several weeks, and that when it comes to white supremacists and other fringe groups, “they tend to be big talkers [but] they're not always big doers.” He emphasized that he didn’t want to discourage voters in his city from coming out to vote.
“I don’t want to exaggerate the danger, but I do want people to know that we are being vigilant. We are ready. We’re tired of the rhetoric, and we’re ready for the results in this election.”
Near the eve of what will hopefully be a momentous election, Larry Krasner is emblematic of responsible government officials across the U.S., not to mention voters themselves, who have had it up to here with Donald Trump’s lethal nonsense. It’s been a long four years, and, as Krasner observed, we’re all ready for some new results.
October 23, 2020
What We’ve read
With most newsreaders’ attention understandably turned towards print and online analyses of the presidential debate last night, we elected to cast our gaze in a related, but different, direction. In advance of the debate at Belmont University in Nashville, The Intercept’s Senior National Security Correspondent, James Risen, delivered a zinger of column, titled “We’re Not a Democracy.” In the medium-long piece—a highly recommended weekend read—he summarizes the innumerable, egregious, and criminal failings of the current occupant of the White House.
Risen, a gifted writer and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, has an enormous menu of such failings to choose from, but he zeroes in on Trump’s Covid-19 response (or rather, deadly lack thereof); his ideological war on blue states and Democratically controlled cities; the stinking pile of evidence that is this president’s corrupt relationship to Russia; and, in the end, “the rot at the heart of the Republican Party—particularly its deep-seated racism” that has enabled the administration and fueled its shameless behavior since 2016, when it was bestowed power by the Electoral College—though not the actual electorate.
“Four years ago, the nation tumbled down the Trump rabbit hole,” Risen writes at the beginning of the article. “We’ve now been lost in the dark so long that it is hard to figure out which way is up. Trump wants to keep us that way: a Tommy-like catatonic nation on the perpetual edge of a psychological breakdown.”
In less than fourteen days, despite the gloomy tone of Risen’s otherwise excellent piece of journalism, voters have a chance to repair some of the damage caused by this Trumpist breakdown of our democracy. If we’ve indeed been lost in the dark, then there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
October 16, 2020
What We’ve read
We don’t usually default to CNBCs website when seeking out progressive examples of political journalism, but when Abigail Hess’s article popped up on our Reddit feed, it caught our attention. The business channel’s Careers Reporter penned an article on Wednesday citing a Georgetown University report—titled “The Dollars and Sense of Free College”—that researched Joe Biden’s free public college plan and concluded it would pay off within 10 years.
Hess writes, “The team at Georgetown estimates that after 11 years, the Biden initiative would cost $73 billion per year, but would be completely offset by the associated increase in tax revenue to a whopping $186.8 billion as workers earn more due to their advanced education and training.”
This last point about the benefits of advanced education to U.S. society really hits home at a time of super-spreader Covid rallies and cult-like allegiance to the would-be authoritarian leader currently occupying the White House. In a better-educated country, would Donald Trump have the type of devoted following he enjoys? Maybe… but probably not.
Considering the scope of the Georgetown research, the article is a quick summary of it. But a read into the findings has us thinking that, in a future envisioned by both Biden and the university researchers, an educated electorate will be better prepared to avoid the grave mistakes made by less-informed voters in 2016. In the meantime, the election in less than three weeks (with voting already taking place in certain states) is a chance for U.S. voters to prove how smart they can be.
October 9, 2020
What We’ve read
As one of our favorite political commentators and analysts, Boston-based David Pakman tends more often than not to hit the nail on the head when it comes to dissecting the latest piece of outlandish news emanating from the White House via its current occupant.
This past week, in a “What We’re Reading Now” moment of his own on Free Speech TV’s The David Pakman Show, the astute host highlighted an October 6th article in Esquire by Politics Editor Jack Holmes titled “Trump's Maskless Balcony Stunt Was a Portrait of American Empire in Decline.”
We’d normally offer our own thoughts on what we’ve read during the last few days, but since Pakman’s summary of Holmes’ article was one of the most effective pieces of political messaging we’ve heard during this entire disaster of Trump’s presidency, we’d like to simply quote him from part of his segment:
“Jack Holmes wrote a very good piece in Esquire about really what is the urgent decline of America and the pressing imperative to remove Donald Trump, and he hits many important points.” Pakman begins. He goes on to read a paragraph of the article that derides the Covid-stricken president’s terrible decision to check himself out of Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday and then describes the horrifying spectacle of Trump climbing the stairs outside the White House and removing his mask in front of the cameras. It was a moment that Holmes chillingly calls “authoritarian chic.”
Pakman continues, “This article, which I would encourage you to read, outlines the mockery that Donald Trump has made of personal responsibility and how actions have consequences … But I’d go even further: Donald Trump has completely undermined the Executive Branch of the United States; he’s undermined the Justice Department; he’s undermined science and education and the people of America and common sense; he’s undermined—and really eliminated—the status of the United States as a worthy participant in the experiment of humans on planet Earth.”
“Part of the problem—part of this rapid decline—has to be accounted for in the more than 60 million who voted for Trump in 2016 and the likely more than 60 million who will vote for him again,” he observes. “The window is closing, and we have a real opportunity here [with] Joe Biden.”
David Pakman’s carefully chosen and powerful words about the Esquire article are a reminder to everyone watching him (and reading this) that those 60 million Trump voters need to meet an immovable wall of resistance between now and November 3rd.
October 2, 2020
What We’ve read
Naomi Klein: I Fear Trump Will Exploit His COVID Infection to Further Destabilize the Election
When Donald Trump visited Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s flag-draped coffin last week, he was greeted with a furious, and totally unsurprising, chorus of boos and “Vote Him Out!” chants from the crowd who spotted him in front of the Supreme Court, where the late justice was lying in repose. Now, this week, another thing has happened that should surprise no one: the president and First Lady have tested positive for Covid-19.
While a different-sounding chorus echoes around the country and in the media—wishes from Democrats for the Trumps’ recovery from this horrible disease—one progressive voice that stands apart from the rest is Naomi Klein’s. The acclaimed journalist and social activist appeared on Free Speech TV’s Democracy Now! this morning to discuss these White House revelations with host Amy Goodman. FSTV viewers and/or readers of the show’s transcript on the Democracy Now! website who are already familiar with Klein’s outstanding work will not be surprised by her take on the situation, nor the cynical Republican strategies likely to be attached to it.
“[A]s we think about what this means,” she tells Goodman, “we need to be prepared for the president using the fact that he’s having to cancel campaign events for two weeks to try to further delegitimize elections that he very likely will lose."
Klein goes on during the interview to explain that Trump has been campaigning non-stop for a second term since the day after he was elected. “He has had plenty of time to campaign,” she points out tersely. In the meantime, this now-stricken president has displayed nothing but reckless behavior, specifically towards himself and those around him and more significantly to the rest of the United States, which he has callously endangered through his coronavirus denial and notorious avoidance of mask-wearing.
At this point in the election cycle, when every day seems to bring a new moment of distress, we don’t need to chant “Vote Him Out!” as RBG's mourners did a week ago. We need to step up and do it four weeks from now.
What We're Reading Now
September 25, 2020
The Election That Could Break America
by Barton Gellman
From Facebook to MCNBC to the Pacifica Network and Democracy Now!, it’s been the political story of the past few days: The Atlantic’s Barton Gellman and his extraordinary column on how Donald Trump is trying to discredit mail-in voting, with the horrifyingly cynical goal of throwing the election into chaos to grab a second presidential term—regardless of what voters decide during early and mail-in voting, and then live voting on November 3rd.
The esteemed journalist discussed his lengthy, in-depth Atlantic story, titled "The Election That Could Break America," with MSNBC’s Katy Tur in an interview yesterday. The column focuses on this so-called president’s outlandish refusal to guarantee to the American people that he would concede in a loss to Joe Biden and ensure a peaceful transfer of power. “Concession is how we end elections,” Gellman told Tur. “There is no umpire who’s got jurisdiction over the whole thing and can say to the loser, ‘You lost. The game’s over, the whistle’s blown.’”
During the course of his article, he lays out a variety of scenarios. “It is hard to imagine a Trump lead so immense on Election Night that it places him out of Biden’s reach,” Gellman writes. “A really big Biden lead on Election Night, on the other hand, could leave Trump without plausible hope of catching up."
What the insane occupant of the White House tries to pull if he has no plausible hope is, of course, the nightmare scenario.
As we mentioned, the article is a long one—ideal for weekend reading. But for its analysis and foreshadowing, it is perhaps the most important piece of political journalism we’ve come across this year-to-date. Gellman’s supreme effort is yet another powerful reminder of how important it is for Americans of all political stripes to get and vote—safely, if in person on or before November 3rd, or diligently and in timely fashion, if by mail (and Gellman covers this point in great detail).
"This is not just an election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden," as Bernie Sanders said Thursday in a powerful and sobering speech from an empty auditorium at George Washington University. "This is an election between Donald Trump and democracy – and democracy must win."
July 31st
What We’ve read
For this week, a timely piece of reporting that lays bare the need – perhaps better described the national emergency – to remove the current occupant of the White House from office in November.
This is a quick but important read from HuffPost’s Nina Golgowski, who wrote online yesterday about Donald Trump latest assault on America in her piece titled “Trump Suggests Delaying Presidential Election Due To Mail-In Voting.” In it, the Breaking News Reporter exposes the president’s bizarre (and illegal) suggestion that the election could be postponed because of his “concerns” about coronavirus – instead of simply switching the November ballot to vote-by-mail in every state. The gist of Golgowski's story is that Trump is trying to distract the American public from the reality that “the U.S. economy shrank by 9.5% in the April-June quarter — the worst quarterly plunge ever,” and that, with less than 100 days until the election, he is trailing badly in the polls.
Progressive Americans will not be distracted by this frightening nonsense. Nor should conservatives or voters of any and all other political stripes allow themselves to be fooled by #45’s most recent outrage. Heading into this weekend, Indivisible Napa wants to remind everyone that the promise of a #46 is real, but it will take a lot of work to get there in November. So check your voter registrations, and tell your friends and families to do the same.
July 24, 2020
“Portland police overreacted at people throwing bottles at them. They started gassing whole neighborhoods. They were doing that long before the feds showed up.”
What We’ve read
Is there a more nauseating thought to a progressive citizen of this country (or for that matter, any person with a functioning brain) than that of the current occupant of the White House mobilizing gangs of federal police to assault and terrorize lawful protesters on the streets of U.S. cities? Let us know if you can think of one. In the meantime, witness the current situation in Portland, Oregon, where this exact scenario is playing out on a nightly basis as thuggish groups of unidentifiable agents of the DHS swarm through the city's downtown — mainly around the federal courthouse in downtown Portland — gassing, "non-lethal"-shooting, kidnapping, and otherwise harassing BLM and anti-fascist protesters.
"Out of the locales that have already seen federal police involvement — with Trump vowing to send more into new cities — only in Portland has the conflict devolved into captivating and terrifying medieval-style battles." So writes Arun Gupta in today's edition of The Intercept, in an investigative piece that headlines, "In Portland, Questions Swirl Around Local Police's Coordination With Federal Officers."
Gupta goes on to document how certain Portland city officials are joining forces with federal police to curtail the completely legal public protests, which are mainly against police violence in the first place. "The assaults by federal agents on protesters are widely seen as a sign of Trump’s descent into violent authoritarianism," The Intercept reporter ominously notes.
These dark days (and terrifying nights) in Portland and other U.S. cities are a desperate reminder to voters everywhere in the U.S. that Trump MUST be voted out of office in November. Please join us at Indivisible Napa by informing yourself through conscientious journalism like Arun Gupta's — and please make sure you're registered to vote in less than three and a half months. Keep reading, and keep doing your part to end this nightmare presidency.
July 17, 2020
We’ve read
Of the many important, yet sometimes overlooked, progressive media outlets—The Intercept, Scheer Report, The Grayzone, and Consortium News, to name but a few—perhaps none is more vital than Democracy Now! This hybrid program (it’s on both the Pacifica Radio Network and Free Speech TV) is recorded in New York City and hosted and executive produced by the fearless Amy Goodman, one of the most conscientious journalists working today. The program she and her co-hosts, Nermeen Shaikh and Juan González, put out every weekday through the tireless efforts of their staff is, in Indivisible Napa’s opinion, one of the essential sources of fact-based news. Normally subtitled “The War and Peace Report” and broadcast from their Manhattan studio, Goodman and her Democracy Now! team have, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, re-dubbed it “The Quarantine Report.”
Two timely articles from today’s program are featured below. The stories, like most of the pieces produced by this extraordinary outlet, are reprinted as transcripts on Democracy Now!’s website. Both go a long way to highlighting the disaster represented by the current occupant of the White House—and how critical it is that he’s removed from office in less than four months.
The first, incredibly tragic story is on the Trump regime’s ongoing humanitarian assault—in the midst of Covid-19, no less—on the people of Yemen, in collusion with their corrupt Saudi Arabian counterparts. “We’re seeing death rates that are just astronomical,” the show’s Michigan State guest scholar from Yemen says. “The war continues, the bombing continues, the blockade is still enforced.”
And the second story, also coronavirus-related but hitting closer to home, features The Nation Magazine’s investigative journalist Sonia Shah. She’s interviewed by Amy Goodman about a recent piece she wrote that discusses the U.S. government’s failed response to the pandemic. The two reporters address “the false idea that the virus is a ‘foreign incursion’” and the alarming concept of “vaccine nationalism” embraced by the Trump administration.
June 19, 2020
What We’ve read
Amidst the ongoing pandemic crisis and abject failings of the White House on virtually every related front (not to mention most other things it touches), the existence of independent, progressive media and news outlets is more important than ever. Sadly, one of our most trusted news websites, Truthdig, recently went on hiatus due to a labor dispute between the two owners.
But in a fantastic development, the political journalist half of that brain trust, the highly respected Robert Scheer, has now branched off to launch Scheerpost. This new site has a look and feel similar to Truthdig and, more importantly, engages some of the same contributors—including Juan Cole, Chris Hedges, Tom Engelhardt, and the inimitable political cartoonist, Mr. Fish.
For both its hard-hitting investigative journalism and dignified moral stance, Robert Scheer's new website deserves a visit by anyone looking for conscientious reporting (along with a healthy dose of sanity) on the crazy world in which we find ourselves. Scheerpost comes highly recommended by Indivisible Napa.
June 12, 2020
What We’ve read
Another week gone by, another horrifying and uniquely Trumpist moment: this country's so-called president had the gall to accuse peace activist Martin Gugino of possibly being "an ANTIFA provocateur." Gugino was the victim, now famously, of brazen police brutality caught on camera last week during a Buffalo, NY protest against police brutality. In an excellent piece on Slate.com on June 9th, "What the Video From Buffalo Has Revealed to White America," staff writer Lili Loufbourow drives home a carefully delineated point that increasing numbers of those White Americans are beginning to understand: "The police are out of control," she writes. And instead of doing his job and leading the country, Trump's only response is to throw gas on the flames of justified public protest. "But," Loufbourow notes optimistically, "if Trump has perfected the politics of distraction ... these protests have somehow—despite or maybe because of the proliferation of shocking, unwarranted violence—done the opposite. They keep focusing Americans’ numb and unexercised attention on the problem." We won't sugarcoat it: the Slate article otherwise contains little good news. But we think its message serves as a particularly powerful reminder during this week of reflection on the life and death of George Floyd: Trump MUST be defeated in November if concepts like police reform and social justice have any hope of becoming realities in our collective future.
June 5, 2020
What We’ve read
On June 3rd, in the middle of one of the most tumultuous weeks in recent U.S. history, The Atlantic's celebrated editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote an article for the magazine with a shocking headline: "James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution."
Shocking on its face because of the constitutional threat this so-called president continues to snowball into on a daily basis—but more specifically because of the restraint Mattis, who Goldberg in an earlier Atlantic article rers to as "perhaps the most revered living Marine," has always shown in his capacity as a military officer when talking politics.
Those gloves, according to the Atlantic journalist, are now decidedly off. "[Mattis] has now broken his silence, writing an extraordinary broadside in which he denounces the president for dividing the nation, and accuses him of ordering the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens."
For Indivisible members and supporters, Jeffrey Goldberg's story is a must-read that goes to the heart of our mission not be divided as voters or citizens—or as a nation.
May 29, 2020
This past week on Salon.com, contributor Heather Digby Parton has two relatively quick reads that highlight what a grave menace the current occupant of the White House is to American society — including to his own rabid base, a cult-like segment of the U.S. population that emulates their dear leader's insanely cavalier attitudes toward the coronavirus pandemic.
Your election angst is real: Trump's gonna cheat and it could be total hell
In the first piece from May 27th, "Your election angst is real: Trump's gonna cheat and it could be total hell," the accomplished political journalist expresses a not-understated regret at the result of the 2016 presidential election, followed by her justifiable fear that it could happen all over again in less than six months. "The truth is that Democrats aren't paranoid about Trump winning again because they think he is a political savant," Parton writes. "They're paranoid because the system is failing" under the watch of Congress, and the Republican-controlled senate in particular.
Donald Trump unmasked: Culture-war nihilism is his last line of defense And today, "Digby," as the reporter is known to her colleagues, contributed a story that delves into the cult of personality that is the Republican Party in 2020. In "Donald Trump unmasked: Culture-war nihilism is his last line of defense," she writes, ominously, "In order to maintain his supporters' devotion, Trump has stoked the culture wars at every turn, ruthlessly dividing the country in order to keep his fans engaged. They receive such hypocritical gestures of solidarity as his newfound "pro-life" zealotry with enthusiastic gratitude — but what they really love are his brutal assaults on those they consider their political and cultural enemies. In that, Trump and his base are one." Our message at Indivisible is very clear: Americans need to get out and vote, in huge numbers and in-person (if it's safe to do so); or otherwise demand vote-by-mail in November. In either voting scenario, the desperate truth is that Trump must be defeated if America is going to find its way again as a civilized nation.
Summary of the Week
May 22, 2020
Is America too libertarian to deal with the coronavirus?
On the American proclivity to libertarianism, Vox.com Interviews Writer Sean Illing spoke to Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University professor who works on addiction and public health policy. Humphreys had written a May 14th column in the Washington Post about how "a lot of his public health colleagues weren’t thinking seriously enough about the cultural obstacles that might undercut the country’s efforts to test, trace, and isolate Americans" who might have contracted the coronavirus.
In his Vox piece, Illing quotes Humphreys saying, "I’ve seen this dynamic play out over and over again in different contexts and I worry it will be the thing that limits what we’re able to do in our efforts to stamp out this virus." He then adds, "I don’t think we can reconcile our libertarianism with the need for a sense of shared purpose in a time of crisis."
Optimistically, the Stanford professor notes that he suspects "most people will follow their local leaders when the restrictions are wise and explained decently." Humphreys was referring in this quote to Californians trusting in their governor Gavin Newsom's leadership. But we at Indivisible have to wonder if other U.S. state populations and their elected officials will do the same—and, if not, at what cost to public health and the eradication of Covid-19?
Summary of the Week
May 15, 2020
We’ve read—though not necessarily enjoyed
The first, from May 13th on Slate.com and written by Jeremy Stahl, is titled “Not Even the People Ranting About ‘Obamagate’ Know What It Is.” Slate’s Senior Editor attempts to go down the rabbit hole of the Republican Party's "Obamagate" fantasy, the “biggest political crime in American history,” as described, of course, via tweet by President Trump.
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, ‘Obamagate’ didn’t spring forth wholecloth from Trump’s brain,” Stahl writes, “but came directly from the conservative media apparatus that contributes to roughly 95 percent of the president’s mental space.”
Federal Whistleblower Rick Bright Tells Congress
The second piece, published yesterday on The Intercept, is a shocking report by health and environmental reporter Sharon Lerner on the Trump administration’s mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis. Titled “Federal Whistleblower Rick Bright Tells Congress How Trump Officials Bungled Coronavirus Preparations,” the article details the retaliatory ouster last month of the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
“’We should have been doing everything possible, placing orders early, ramping up supply. It should have been a high priority,’” Lerner quotes Rick Bright testifying to a House subcommittee yesterday about the Trump administration's dismal policy failures in dealing with the pandemic. “’I was met with indifference…There were a number of excuses but never any action.’”
Summary of the Week
May 8, 2020
Whose Freedom Counts?
In an outstanding piece by Slate.com's Mary Harris on May 7th, the news editor dissects the increasingly shocking right-wing "freedom" protests against commonsense, science-driven public safety measures across the U.S. "Beyond a profound misunderstanding of the relationship between broad state police powers and federal constitutional rights in the midst of a deadly pandemic," Harris writes, "this definition of freedom is perplexing, chiefly because it seems to assume not simply that other people should die for your individual liberties, but also that you have an affirmative right to harm, threaten, and even kill anyone who stands in the way of your exercising of the freedoms you demand."
In the opinion of Indivisible Napa, it's an absolute must-read.
What are we watching?
An incredible documentary about the journey of four female Democrats who decided to run for Congress in the 2018 United States elections: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Amy Vilela of Nevada, Cori Bush of Missouri, and Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia. Vilela, Bush, and Swearengin lost in the primary round, but Ocasio-Cortez won the election.