Progressives Every Day: Democrats, Republicans, and Democrats who are Republicans
Progressives Every Day: Democrats, Republicans, and Democrats who are Republicans
A tale of two and a half parties
Welcome to the Tuesday evening edition of Progressives Everywhere!
Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you — last night’s RNC opener was absolutely terrifying, right? I actually didn’t watch much of it myself, but I did hear Kimberly Guilfoyle screaming all the way from Washington. [That one’s going in my staff writer submission packet in case Jay Leno ever gets a talk show again.]
On the bright side, it was a pretty terrible day for the bigoted firstborn namesake children of world-famous bigot grifters. Jerry Falwell Jr. wound up resigning from Liberty University late last night (read his incredible quote) while Donald Trump Jr. was so obviously powdered up during his speech to the RNC that #cocaine was a top trend on Twitter.
If nothing else, the hour of hate on TV every night this week reminds us just what we’re up against. This will be the hardest fought election of our lives — we’re up against die-hard fascists who will do whatever it takes to win. Based on what we saw last night (and over the last four years), if we don’t beat them in November, we may not get another chance.
Anyway, on to the news!
New York and New Jersey: Whaddya know, more news about the post office!
The attorneys general of NY and NJ filed a federal lawsuit against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the United States Postal Service over all the operational changes to the USPS that have slowed mail delivery down to a crawl.
The complaint was joined by the state of Hawaii and the cities of New York and San Francisco.
Yesterday, DeJoy promised that the changes (like destroying over 600 mail-sorting machines, removing mailboxes, and messing with delivery schedules) wouldn’t interfere with the election. But he also didn’t know how much it costs to send a postcard, so it’s hard to really take the guy at his word.
Texas: As Progressives Everywhere members know, I’m a little bit obsessed with Texas.
Even before COVID-19 hit, I was focused heavily on the state’s legislative elections, interviewing candidates and raising money to flip the State House and Congressional seats.
As Politico points out today, the state GOP’s disastrous response to the pandemic (Attorney Ken Paxton is an actual sociopath) has put the party in even bigger danger ahead of November’s election. Over 11,000 Texans have died of COVID-19, which sets up things like this:
Health care had already been a top issue for Kulkarni in 2018. This time, the ex-Foreign Service officer is holding campaign events with an epidemiologist and an expert in vaccine development; meanwhile, his opponent — GOP sheriff Troy Nehls — once compared local mask mandates to “a communist dictatorship,” though he has toned down the rhetoric since cases surged in Texas.
Rep. Chip Roy, who is being challenged by liberal hero Wendy Davis, has been known to slam Anthony Fauci, which is now earning him plenty of fire in his toss-up district.
There’s a lot more in the story, including a quote from Julie Oliver a 2018 Progressives Everywhere endorsee who we’ll be supporting again this year.
Pennsylvania: Governor Tom Wolf is calling on the state legislature to work with him on legalizing marijuana, part of a larger series of policy proposals.
Because Republicans control the legislature, that won’t happen in 2020. But it creates a nice wedge issue for November.
He also called for a lot of COVID-19 recovery money, which is likely to also go nowhere.
Democrats can flip the legislature in PA and I’ll be looking at those races soon!
Colorado: Republicans are sponsoring a ballot initiative that would cap state income taxes. And wouldn’t you know it, moderate Democratic Gov. Jared Polis seems to be into it.
As the Colorado Sun points out, the state is facing a huge budget crunch due to COVID-19.
The cuts would rob the state of more than $300 million over two years.
At best, people would get $200 back per year.
This is nothing new for Polis:
“At the end of this year’s legislative session, Polis helped business groups water down a Democratic bill that would have capped a popular tax deduction that disproportionately benefits wealthier Coloradans. And he largely sat out last year’s failed campaign to eliminate taxpayer refunds in order to increase spending on various public services.”
This is why I support so many primaries!
Massachusetts: Speaking of primaries! In our interview with Alex Morse last week, he mentioned wanting to run a final closing ad in his race against Rep. Richard Neal. Well, thanks to a surge in fundraising, the Morse campaign was able to pull it off.
The ad is a biographical spot and is seriously well done:
If you want to help get it in front of as many people as possible, you can donate to Alex here!
Florida: Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 4% in the latest poll of the state.
Also in Florida: Rep. Matt Gaetz is one of the dumbest, most awful members of Congress. Unfortunately, he’s also in a very safe red district.
In fact, the district is so red, Democrats are running a former Republican.
This isn’t unique to Florida, though — Democrats in Kansas also nominated a former Republican for Senate. State Sen. Barbara Bollier, who switched from the GOP in late 2018.
Meanwhile, former Democrat and newly minted Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew will speak tonight at the RNC. Don’t watch!
National: Between all these party switchers running for Democrats and the Republicans at last week’s DNC, we’ve got a lot of Republicans hanging out in the Democratic Party without any of the electoral benefits.
Conventional wisdom is that the more Republican officials come to the big tent, the more that GOP voters will come along, too.
Right now, that is proving to not be the case at all.
And In Other News…
Wisconsin: Jacob Blake, the innocent Black man who was shot seven times by police in Kenosha, is paralyzed from the waist down.
It’s unclear whether it’s permanent, though the prognosis is not great.
His family gave a press conference today and it’s heartbreaking:
Once again, protests have broken out across the country. The destruction isn’t great, but what else can people do at this point? These shootings are happening in blue states just as often as red states. I advocate for Democrats, but honestly, a lot of them are failures on police violence — even self-anointed progressives.
This is a great story about the movement for police abolition and what it really means.
New York: A lot of NIMBY New Yorkers in the Upper West Side have been throwing a fit that empty hotels have been converted into temporary homeless shelters during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yes, New Yorkers who saw the worst devastation of the virus up close are whining that the city is belatedly trying to keep its most vulnerable people safe — traditional homeless shelters have been hives for the virus.
Last night, a city deputy commissioner said that the new hotel shelters would stay in place until it was absolutely safe for people to be released (presumably out onto the streets).
National: Analysis by the Washington Post indicated that over half a million absentee ballots were rejected in just 23 states alone during the primary season. That’s very bad news.
It’s often hard to know whether your ballot was rejected because not every state is obligated to get in touch to seek clarifications that would validate it.
The Post put together this list of logical (but not always obvious!) steps to take to ensure that your ballot isn’t rejected.
Speaking of absentee ballot info, watch this space for a big update on our new (and soon to be even newer!) site AbsenteeBallots.info later this week!
Wait, before you go!
Progressives Everywhere is a one-person operation funded by readers like you (and whatever spare change I have in my pocket after paying rent). Together, we’ve raised over $1.3 million for truly progressive candidates and causes since 2018, helping to flip seats, restore voting rights, expand healthcare, and much more.
I’d love to do this as a full-time job (or at least make it one of my full-time gigs), but I’ve got a long way to go.
To help me out (more than you already have! thank you!), you can make a donation to Progressives Everywhere’s GoFundMe campaign — doing so will earn you a shout-out in this Wednesday’s edition of the big newsletter! I’ll also be able to pay people to do stuff for the newsletter. Win-win!