Extra: Courtesy of Thom Hartmann

Important Note: The August Primary Election ballots will arrive in your mailbox in the next few days. Pay attention. Voting and encouraging others to vote is essential to counteracting the insanity on display this week in Milwaukee.

I grew up in Wisconsin in a family that consistently voted Republican (although my mother was fond of saying that she voted for FDR “every time”). The Republican Party today is nothing like the Republican Party for which my parents voted—it deserves repudiation. Thom Hartmann, in a remarkable roundup that I have pasted below, details its transformation into the violent, radical reactionary authoritarian cult on display in Milwaukee this week. 

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Trump Sounds the GOP’s Death Knell: The End of the Old Republican Order

JD Vance, now the Republican candidate for vice president, is fully supportive of every aspect of Donald Trump’s cons and nakedly anti-American and pro-dictator policies…

THOM HARTMANN

JUL 16

A lot happened at the RNC yesterday [the first day, Monday], but the most telling moment predicting the future of America’s conservative movement and the GOP was when Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was soundly and loudly booed by the assembled delegates and participants, and then JD Vance was selected for VP.

It was the death knell of the old order, the Republican Party that has held a relatively consistent set of values since the 1880s, and the beginning of something entirely new.

Emphasizing this, Donald Trump picked Vance, a man who — like Trump — no longer embraces the traditional conservative values and policy positions of the GOP, as his vice president.

By ignoring what could be called the Nikki Haley/Mitt Romney/Ronald Reagan wing of the party in favor of this pugilistic heir to the politics of Joe McCarthy, Trump signaled he believes he’s now strong enough that he can ignore entirely the orthodox GOP and take both the party and our country down an authoritarian road we haven’t traveled since the days of John C. Calhoun’s Nullification Crisis.

I grew up in a traditional Republican household. My dad, who had a good union job in a tool-and-die shop, was an enthusiastic Eisenhower, Goldwater, and Reagan Republican and I well remember the values and policy positions that animated the GOP from that era until Trump’s hostile takeover in 2016:

— Traditional Republicans supported the American system of elections, encouraged voter registration drives (my mom volunteered as an election worker for decades), and were proud of their tradition — dating back to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War — of supporting the right of all American (men) to vote regardless of creed or color.

Trump and Vance, on the other hand, embrace Trump’s oily, disingenuous lies about the 2020 election being “stolen” from him, endorse purging Black and college-town voters from state rolls by the millions, and criminalizing voter registration efforts.

— Traditional Republicans supported an expansion of trade relations with other nations, arguing that the “principle of comparative advantage” would benefit consumers and that countries that trade with each other are less likely to go to war with each other.

Trump and Vance, on the other hand, want to put massive tariffs — paid for by American consumers — on imported products while embracing trade wars and xenophobic protectionism.

— Traditional Republicans supported — at least rhetorically — balanced budgets and fiscal sanity, historically arguing that taxes and expenditures should at least come close to balancing each other out.

Trump and Vance, on the other hand, were just fine with Donald Trump adding $8.4 trillion to the national debt, more than any other non-wartime president did in four years in the entire history of the United States.

— Traditional Republicans supported rights to privacy and personal autonomy. “Big government” that would insert itself into the private lives of citizens was anathema. They welcomed the gay Log Cabin Republicans.

Trump and Vance, on the other hand, support draconian bans on abortion and are pushing to end Americans’ rights to birth control, gay marriage, and the ability to check out and read the books you want from your local library. JD Vance says women in abusive relationships should not be allowed to get a divorce, and even children who are raped and impregnated should be forced at gunpoint to carry their pregnancy to term.

— Traditional Republicans helped build the American public school system and were proud that by the end of Eisenhower’s presidency it was the envy of the world.

Trump and Vance, on the other hand, want to subsidize private, for-profit and church schools for the upper-middle-class and rich people while ghettoizing the remaining public schools for poor and working-class people.

— Traditional Republicans endorsed the concept of America as a worldwide example of democracy (Reagan’s “shining city on the hill”) and “peace through strength.”

Trump and Vance cheer when Trump hangs his head and trashes the American military and intelligence agencies while humbly deferring to Vladimir Putin. They’re fine with him telling Russia and China they can “do whatever they want” to democratic nations and NATO members.

— Traditional Republicans supported nations’ rights to national sovereignty and joined WWII to push back against Germany’s seizure of independent European nations. My dad volunteered for WWII as soon as he graduated high school; traditional Republicans were eager to defend democracies and never would have thought of draft-dodging five times with purchased X-rays of somebody else’s bone spurs.

Trump and Vance cheer Donald Trump’s promise to turn Ukraine over to Russia, ending the war “in one day,” and want to abandon the rest of Europe to Putin’s tender mercies. The news story echoing around the world today is: “Both Trump and Vance want to give Ukraine to Putin.“

— Traditional Republicans defended America’s institutions of law enforcement; the FBI, in fact, has never had a Democrat at its helm in its entire history.

Trump and Vance supported congressional Republicans when they voted to defund the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies and booed Capitol Police officers when they showed up at the Pennsylvania statehouse. They defend January 6th traitors who attacked the Capitol police officers, putting over 140 of them in the hospital and killing three.

— Traditional Republicans demanded high moral standards from their presidents.

Vance has embraced a man who cheated on each of his three wives, who’s been credibly accused of rape by over 20 women (one 13 years old), and found to have actually raped E. Jean Carroll by a jury of his peers…twice. Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was legendary, he brags about being able to “grab them by the pussy” whenever he feels like it, and he publicly boasted about walking into the dressing rooms of teen and pre-teen girls when he owned that pageant.

— Traditional Republicans honored “law and order,” keeping your word, and integrity in business relations; they had nothing but disgust for con men, hustlers, and lawbreakers.

Vance is now enthusiastic about a man who paid $25 million to make whole people who’d been conned and ripped-off by his fake university, was fined hundreds of millions for business and tax fraud, who stole (along with his son Eric) from a children’s cancer charity, had six bankruptcies leaving creditors holding the bag for billions, and has been sued over 3000 times for refusing to pay his bills to small businesses, employees, and independent contractors.

— Traditional Republicans embraced the right of everybody to practice the religion of their upbringing or choice, and honored politicians who live their faith by church membership and behavior consistent with the teachings of Jesus and the prophets.

Trump and Vance are fine with the fact that Donald Trump has never attended church, brags that he has never done anything that would require him to ask God for forgiveness, and hangs out with religious hustlers who are most interested in getting subsidies and payments that Trump can facilitate from government.

— Traditional Republicans like Ronald Reagan supported rational gun control policies.

Trump and Vance are just fine with an America where the leading cause of childhood deaths is bullets. They embrace armed militias whose members often openly fantasize about killing their neighbors in a second Civil War.

— Traditional Republicans were environmentalists and wanted to protect wild spaces and species. Richard Nixon signed the Environmental Protection Agency into existence.

Trump and Vance are “drill, baby, drill” and say they don’t believe that the climate is changing, at least as long as the fossil fuel industry keeps pouring money into their nonprofits and campaigns.

John Kennedy picked Lyndon Johnson for his vice president because he needed Texas; Trump doesn’t need Vance’s Ohio. Al Gore picked Joe Lieberman to balance his ticket both ideologically (Lieberman was far more conservative) and religiously; Trump and Vance are both “Christian” nationalists.

The only reason Trump picked Vance was because Vance will be a brutal enforcer for Trump’s most autocratic tendencies.

He’ll delight in ripping mothers from their babies like Trump did, in moving 11 million asylum seekers into concentration camps, and in stripping Americans of their rights under the Constitution in the face of Trump’s promised declarations of insurrection and emergency. Traditional Republicans like my dad wouldn’t recognize today’s GOP.

JD Vance, now the Republican candidate for vice president, is fully supportive of every aspect of Donald Trump’s cons and nakedly anti-American and pro-dictator policies. And he’s the favored candidate of most rightwing billionaires who’ve expressed a preference.

That should tell us — along with traditional  Republicans and independent swing voters — exactly what sort of future the two of them have in mind for us and for what remains of the GOP.

The county’s electoral landscape and what it means

In the State of Washington (and probably most other states) the “County Commission” is a critical governmental choke point. Nowhere else in our layers of government, national, state, county, and municipal, do fewer people hold more power—a fact little recognized by voters (including this author—at least until the last few years). 

In the United States, at the national and state levels, government is composed of the traditional three branches we were taught about in school: executive, legislative, and judicial. As individual voters, our say in the legislative branch at a national and state level is heavily diluted. Consider that, nationally, each of us has a voting voice in electing just one of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and two of the hundred members of the U.S. Senate. Similarly, in Washington State each registered voter casts a ballot to elect just two of 98 state representatives and one of 49 state senators. In contrast, since January 2023, in Spokane County we vote to elect one of only five county commissioners. Those five hold sway over all of county business while functioning as a combined executive and legislative body. 

On account of this narrowing of executive and legislative power my message in this post is that we should all pay greater attention to who it is that we elect as county commissioners. This election season in Spokane County three of five commissioners are up for re-election but only one of those three has a challenger—a very competitive and competent challenger worth your vote. Molly Marshall is challenging Al French for the Spokane County District 5 seat that Mr. French now holds. (District 5—see map below.) 

The County Government

Most county governments in Washington State, as established at the state level by the Washington State Constitution (Article XI, Section 4) and the Revised Code of Washington (Chapter 36.32), combine the executive and legislative functions in one county commission consisting of just three commissioners. Each commissioner comes from one of three county districts of approximately equal population—but is finally elected by a countywide majority vote in the general election. (Note: Spokane County, since January 2023 is an exception—see below). A countywide-elected three member county commission is a recipe for uniformity of opinion and concentration of power in one dominant individual commissioner. (Washington State’s Open Public Meeting law, passed in 1971 long after the three commissioner system was established, had the unintended consequence of prohibiting two commissioners from talking about anything touching on county business outside of a public meeting, since two commissioners is a quorum in a three person commission.)

In the decade prior to January 2023 the Spokane County Commission consisted of three mostly like-minded Republican commissioners (thanks to countywide election) dominated by Commissioner Al French, who has served on the commission since 2011 (and previously served on the City of Spokane City Council). In 2018 the Washington State legislature passed a law that changed county governance structure in counties with a population of 400,000 or more to five commissioners elected by district, not countywide. This was apparently such a threat to Mr. French’s power and dominance that he (and others) took a lawsuit challenging constitutionality of the new law all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court—where they lost. 

Have a look at the map of the new districts. (Click here to see the map online where it might be easier to magnify and examine it. It is not an easy map to read.) Here is a much more readable map based on Googlemaps (but lacking the municipal boundaries). Take note that the five districts are required to contain roughly equal populations. As a result, Districts 1 and 2, while geographically small, mostly lie within the boundary of the City of Spokane and constitute forty percent of the population of the entire county. Districts 3 and 4 (NE and SE) similarly enclose forty percent of the county’s population. Districts 3 and 4 achieve that by dividing between them the people of the City of Spokane Valley. District 5 (W and SW) takes in a fifth of the county’s population by including several portions of the City of Spokane, including parts of the South Hill, northwestern Spokane, the Airport, and the Grandview and Latah neighborhoods, as well as the more sparsely populated West Plains.

One thing made clear from the map of the current five districts is that the county commissioners in Spokane County are meant to represent the citizens of the entire county—not just those who live outside municipal boundaries—a common misconception. The Spokane County Commission is a layer of government that overlies and interlocks with municipal governments. I’m not sure what the current count is, but Commissioner Al French once proudly stated on the county website that he served on forty “local, regional, and statewide Boards and Commissions.” A whole lot of what happens in the government that affects us happens on those boards of which most of us are barely aware. Holding a seat on so many boards is a position of immense power often exercised largely out of the awareness of the majority of the public.

Bottom line: County commissioner is a powerful position. Voters ought to pay close attention. County commissioners serve in four year terms. Three of the five Spokane County Commissioners will appear on some ballots (in Districts 1, 3, and 5). Only District 5’s Commissioner Al French has drawn a challenger. Her name is Molly Marshall—and she is a solid candidate ready to actually represent the citizens of the West Plains, Grandview, Latah, and the west and southwestern parts of the county. 

A vote for Molly Marshall is a vote for building rational infrastructure that addresses the threats of wildfire as well as PFAS contamination of the West Plains aquifer, issues that get short shrift from Mr. French. (Of course, he has recently, recognizing his electoral vulnerability, hurriedly cobbled together development proposals that pretend to address these issues.)

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. For those of us who, besides living in a county, also live within the boundaries of a municipality, city governments are more varied in structure and representation. The City of Spokane, for example, follows the executive, judicial, and legislative model with a “strong” mayor as head of the executive branch, a judicial branch with “district” judges, and a legislative branch consisting of a city council of seven members, two elected from each of three geographic districts, plus the council president, who is elected citywide. 

In contrast, the City of Spokane Valley government combines the executive and legislative branch in one seven member city council, each of which members is elected not by district but “at large”—an electoral method that tends toward uniformity of political viewpoint. “At large” voting leaves each voter a little unclear as to which of the councilors, if any, actually represents their interests. (If 51% of the voters citywide are deeply conservative and vote accordingly as a bloc in every election, city government will contain zero dissenting voices.) The mayor of the City of Spokane Valley is elected from among the council members by a majority vote of the council. In this system the mayor chairs council meetings, but otherwise serves a largely ceremonial purpose. The functions of the executive and legislative branches in this system are combined in the city council.

My point remains the same: county government, in the form of the county commission, represents a concentration of legislative and executive power, a narrowing, a bottleneck, within our entire system of government—a bottleneck that deserves the attention of the voters.

Here’s Why

In 1988 Dr. James E. Hansen testified to the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Hansen was then a prominent forty-seven year old astronomer, physicist, and climate scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He presented clear evidence that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution had already started to raise the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. He rather naively expected that Congress, presented with clear scientific evidence, would soon act to reduce the mining and burning of carbon fuels. 

Instead, Congress has done very little (until the Biden administration’s recent efforts) and atmospheric carbon dioxide has steadily increased. Year after year we record higher average global temperatures and ever wilder weather events, while Republicans line up to reject all efforts to address the underlying cause. At no time in our history have Republicans be more stridently opposed to any effort to limit carbon burning—and it is not just a matter of money. It is a matter of worldview.

I grew up in the fifties and sixties, the age of Sputnik, reading about the stars and planets, of worlds with different atmospheres than that of earth, and of vast spans of time through which, on earth, continents had slowly drifted while a myriad of plants and animals had lived, died, and been buried in deposits that very slowly became coal, oil, and natural gas. In college I was introduced to the concept that the earth’s atmosphere also changed over vast spans of time as plant photosynthesis pulled carbon dioxide from a CO2-rich atmosphere to construct those plants and animals that later became coal, oil, and natural gas. Over millions of years the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere drifted downward as carbon was “banked” in these deposits. The early greenhouse effect slowly diminished and earth’s climate slowly cooled. The key concept is that all this happened over hundreds of millions of years, a rate slow enough for species to adapt. 

In 1988 Dr. Hansen, addressing the Senate, was trying to make the point that by digging up and burning this fossilized carbon bank over the tiny span of time of the last one hundred and fifty years, mankind is releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere at a jarringly rapid rate. The rapid build up of CO2 results in ramping up the earth’s temperature and the climate—a change so rapid as to exceed plants and animals capacity to adapt.

I was brought up in the Methodist tradition. My mother read Biblical stories to me from an early age. When I noted that the Biblical Creation Stories (there are two) seemed to be in conflict with the science I was reading, my parents explained that the Creation stories were to be taken as instructive allegory rather than literal truth. I was aware that some Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christians continued to believe in a literal seven day Creation Story and in an entire earth history encompassing only six to ten thousand years. Even so, I was sure that the overwhelming majority of Christians accepted the burgeoning scientific evidence amassed in the centuries since the Age of Enlightenment. 

In February 2015 U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) famously (and with prideful ignorance of the distinction between weather and climate) brought a snowball to the floor of the Senate—in winter—as evidence that the planet is not warming. Many assumed that Senator Inhofe was financially captive to the oil companies that dominate Oklahoma—but there is a far more basic reason for his stance. Inhofe said, “Climate is changing and climate has always changed and always will. There is archaeological evidence of that, there is biblical evidence of that, there is historical evidence of that.” Note that absence of any timeframe. Then he tellingly added, “There are some people who are so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change climate.” As a Fundamentalist Christian, Senator Inhofe projected arrogance on anyone whose understanding of geologic time reaches farther back than Noah’s Flood.

Senator Inhofe’s statements are classic modern-day Republican rhetoric, acknowledging the obvious—that climate (weather) changes—while denying that the actions of mankind could possibly be responsible—and legislating based on that denial. Mentally hemmed in by Fundamentalist Christian doctrine, mankind’s actions—or inactions—changing the climate is for these people an unthinkable, arrogant idea. 

Somewhere on Facebook a stalwart of the SpokaneGOP interjected, “God is in charge of climate change,” an echo Inhofe’s worldview. These days, when you scratch the surface of many Republicans the first thing you find is a Fundamentalist Christian, the majority of whom have little or no concept of geologic time and many of whom subscribe to young earth creationism, a set of beliefs that makes it impossible to comprehend the threat of global heating—which is based in part on the rapidity with which we are ramping up the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

I was right years ago about a majority of Americans accepting post Enlightenment science, but the number who cling to a form of young earth creationism based on a literal interpretation of ancient stories remains startling—and these people are the backbone of the modern-day Republican Party. A 2017 Gallup creationism survey found that 38 percent of adults in the United States held the view that “God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years or so” when asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings. 

The next time you hear a Republican answer a question about the importance of climate change and their answer begins with something like “Of course the climate is changing” your followup should be “Do you think the earth is closer to six thousand or hundreds of millions of years old?” You should assume their understanding of the world and of science is limited by a bedrock young earth creationist belief system that soothes the believer in the conviction that fossil fuels were put in the ground by God for the sole benefit of mankind. From that viewpoint, of course, it would be arrogant to think that humans by their actions can affect the climate. After all, “God is in charge of climate change.”

These people are the base of the modern day Republican Party. They are the same folks who who want their particular brand of “Christian” government in which women aren’t allowed to make their own reproductive decisions, a government that declares a woman’s life and health is worth less than a fertilized egg. 

We face stark choices in this year’s elections—principal among them is whether or not we will leave a habitable planet to our children and grandchildren—Republicans are universally on the wrong side of this issue, nationally, statewide, and locally. Vote your future accordingly.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. It is not my intent to demean the people whose bedrock beliefs I describe in this post. I believe they are misguided, shielded by family, by cult, or circumstance from a rational understanding of science, but that doesn’t keep them, necessarily, from being people with whom I am happy to share the world. I draw the line when they strive—as a minority—to take the reins of government, jeopardize the habitability of our planet, and impose their narrow beliefs over hard-won freedoms I have fought to gain and retain my whole life. That is precisely the threat we face in the upcoming elections.

P.P.S. Donald Trump is often quoted as saying “Climate change is a hoax” and advocating all manner of increase in the digging up and burning of fossil fuels. In his four years in the White House he tried hard to open up public lands to oil and gas exploration. If returned to the White House this fall he will have staff and tools at hand to complete the task, thanks to his staffers’ Heritage Foundation Project 2025. Click that link, then hit “COMMAND F” and insert search words like “renewable energy” or “oil” or “climate change.” Read a little around each mention to understand the magnitude of the reverse revolution Republicans are prepared to enact.

P.P.P.S. James Inhofe died last week at age 89. An extensive obituary, including his anti-climate advocacy, is available in the New York Times.

The proper focus

Years ago a high school friend of mine pointed out to me that, on social media, satire like that of Andy Borowitz is quite often taken by readers as truth rather than pointed humor. He provided examples, and, consequently, I have tried to steer clear of writing or promoting satire for fear of being misunderstood. However, after finally steeling myself to watch the first half hour of the Biden-Trump debate and being buffeted by Trump’s continuous “firehose of falsehoods,” (coined, I believe, by Ruth Ben-Ghiat) I thought Mr. Borowitz hit the nail on the head so squarely that I had to share this as a fitting way to round out the week:

George Santos Urges Trump to Step Aside for Him

“Now is the time to pass the torch to a new generation of liars.”

JUL 8

READ IN APP

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Arguing that age has dimmed Donald J. Trump’s ability to lie, former congressman George Santos proposed on Monday that he supplant the former president atop the GOP ticket.

“Over the course of his career, President Trump has produced an impressive array of falsehoods,” Santos said. “But now is the time to pass the torch to a new generation of liars.”

Santos said that, although Trump spewed a continuous stream of whoppers during his debate with President Biden, “From the earliest moments, it became worryingly obvious that he is no longer the liar he once was.”

“According to fact-checkers, Trump lied 30 times during the debate,” he said. “I could’ve done 60.”

Santos said he was “saddened” to issue his assessment of Trump’s decline, but added, “As a board-certified neurologist I had no choice.”

Subscribe here [to The Borowitz Report] for more

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. In the realm similarly grim assessment, the Lincoln Project 4 minute video titled “Aftermath” is a masterpiece summary of where Trump, armed with the Project 2025 blueprint would take us. Be sure to watch the hard-hitting ending—and then share the link widely.

urday, July 20–Sign up and join in

Each year the Spokane County Democrats’ C.C. Dill Salmon Feed is a great chance to gather and talk with candidates and friends, while raising money for the Party to support priority races. This year the stakes in the upcoming elections are high, the issues stark, and the penalty for not paying attention and voting is grim. 

Primary election ballots will go in the mail over the three days prior to the Salmon Feed—and your individualized ballot should become visible at VoteWa.org (in case you haven’t yet received your paper ballot). That way you can see what races you and other folks in your precinct will be voting on. Check out your ballot, do a little homework, and come meet the candidates!

From Naida Spencer, Chair of the Spokane County Dems:

This year, we will not only enjoy BBQ Salmon fresh off the grill but also celebrate the culture of our Native American neighbors and their relationship to this amazing, life-sustaining fish!

Join us for great food, storytelling, music, and speeches. Every ticket comes with a commemorative engraved stemless wine glass, a small favor, and two drink tickets. We will have a great spread, a very cool desert, nonalcoholic beverages, beer, wine, and a specialty cocktail!

Meet the Democratic candidates running for office in 2024 and do NOT miss our very special guest at 6:30PM.

Our annual Salmon Feed is where we raise money for our candidates and honor the work. This year, every voter in Spokane County will have a local Democrat to vote for. We are so honored that so many Democrats have stepped up to make a change in our community. Our annual fundraiser raises money to go to these candidates so they can win their elections. Since we have so many more democrats to support, we need to raise more money this year to impact Spokane County truly. The candidates will be there to meet the public. This year, we have a great opportunity to make historic wins in many of these races.

CLICK HERE TO BUY A TICKET:https://secure.actblue.com/donate/salmon-feed24

WHEN: Saturday, July 20, 2024, from 6-9PM

WHERE: Center Place Regional Event Center, 2426 N Discovery Place, Spokane Valley, WA 99216 on the West Lawn Plaza There’s plenty of free parking.

HOW MUCH?: $75 for a single adult ticket—with many other options (click the link above)

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

“Or you’re not going to have a country anymore”

The media is pulsing with “Biden’s age” exactly like it did in it 2016 with “but…her emails.” That focus is now and was then an intentional distraction from the most pressing issue of our time. Donald Trump, immunized last week by the U.S. Supreme Court and following the recipe laid out by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, is poised for an autocratic takeover, a takeover riding on a wave of a Christian nationalist right wing minority that has been preparing for this for decades. On Bannon’s War Room, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts couldn’t have stated Trump’s and Heritage’s intentions more starkly: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” This is an “all hands on deck” moment.

I strongly encourage you to go right ahead, click this link (Heather Cox Richardson on Amanpour) and watch this 11:17 video (after the obligatory ad) titled “’We have never been here as a country’: Historian Heather Cox Richardson puts Trump immunity ruling into perspective.” Professor Richardson is a sober historian. Her assessment of where we now find ourselves should set off alarm bells. (If you aren’t already receiving Richardson’s daily email “Letters From an American,” click and sign up.) 

We have four months to get “all hands on deck” before the November 5th General Election (and only four weeks before the August 6th Primary). Each of us needs to make sure that we and everyone else we know not only understands what is at stake in the upcoming elections but is also fully prepared to vote. 

Go to VoteWa.gov and click the tab “Your Voter Registration.” Make sure that your registration is up-to-date, particularly your addresses. The “Home Address” is your permanent residence that determines your voting precinct and, thereby, what races appear on your ballot. The “Mailing Address” is the address to which your ballot will be sent. Primary election ballots will be mailed out to this mailing address on or about July 19th, a week from this Friday. Make sure your ballot is sent to the right place. We are a mobile society. When we move, even from apartment to apartment in an apartment complex or senior living situation, when we are off at college, in the military, or are going to be on an extended trip somewhere it is easy to forget to update mailing addresses to receive a ballot. 

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton notes that each election between one and five percent of mailed ballots are returned as “Undeliverable” because the USPS does not have an address on file, returned because the forwarding period has expired but the USPS provides the new address, or forwarded and the USPS provides the new address. Don’t be one of those people that misses their chance to vote or makes extra work for the Elections Office, especially this election. Now is your chance to check for yourself—and an opportunity to remind others to do the same. Do NOT assume that officially changing addresses with any other state government agency simultaneously updates your voting registration and mailing address with Elections. It does not. Update with the Elections office or online at VoteWa.gov—even if it is just a change to a different apartment in the same building! Your vote is your voice. 

VoteWa.gov contains links to a wealth of voter information, FAQs, contacts, and details. Unfortunately, one thing it won’t do (until ballots are in the mail) is display what is on your particular ballot (determined by precinct of registration). You can, however, already see every race that will appear on any ballot in your county. Just click “Voter Guide: What’s on Your Ballot” found under the “Your Ballot & Voting Materials” tab. Under the “Your Ballot & Voting Materials” tab you can also see whether your ballot was mailed, whether and when it was received, reviewed and processed, and accepted after you’ve mailed it in. 

After checking your own registration and familiarizing yourself with the website for your own orientation and information, reach out to others online and in person, the “all hands on deck part.”

Young people have a special roll in these upcoming elections. The Republican Party openly threatens to rob women of their bodily autonomy, valuing the intelligence and integrity of women as less than that of a fertilized egg. The same Party, disdainful of science and committed to the belief that fossil fuels were put on earth by God exclusively for mankind to dig up and burn, is hell bent on ruining the very climate and atmosphere on which our lives on this planet depend. (Of course, that’s not the way they see it.) Young people, take note.

Young people are also the most mobile among us and, up until now, the least likely to vote. Talk with them about your concerns, what is at stake, and how to participate.

Special Note on College Students: A student who is a Washington State resident can remain registered in WA using a family address for residency and a mailing address at their school for the ballot. Alternatively, a college student can decide to register to vote at their school address AND receive their ballot at that address. But, before changing a voter registration address (especially if it’s in another state), a college student ought to discuss residency with their parents and their school’s financial advisers. A wrong decision could void their tuition status or their financial aid. 

Finally, pay attention to down ballot races. Republicans have been voting a straight down ballot ticket for years while Democrats tend to shy away from down ballot voting, often leaving the lesser known candidate choices as “undervotes”. How we are allowed to live in each state will be heavily influenced by those we vote into office, even while the national government might teeter, so pay attention to the down ballot races. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. I’ve heard some say that they didn’t think they’d bother to vote because the Electoral College system. Living in Washington State, for example, a non-swing state, “my vote won’t matter.” Even if, God-forbid, Republicans put another president in place via the Electoral College system, who we send to the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House still matters, as do the down ballot races. Another win for Democrats of the popular vote for President would also serve to emphasize that Republicans represent a minority. (No Republican president since Reagan (except Bush II’s second term) has garnered a popular vote majority.) 

And a means to do so

On this day before July 4th and celebration of our suddenly wobbly Independence, I’m struggling to look at the bright side of last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decisions. There is much to do and say about the politics and civics of eastern Washington, my usual topics, but right now we all seem focused on the recent vile decisions of the Supreme Court, a Supreme Court speaking for corporations and a minority of voters, a Court made possible by Leo Leonard, the Federalist Society, Donald Trump (who loves to take credit for it), and Mitch McConnell’s duplicity. 

Taken in no particular order, in the last two weeks this U.S. Supreme Court’s reactionary majority 1) ruled that the U.S. President is above the law in the aptly named Trump v. United States, 2) legalized bribery, as long as it is given after the fact and called a “gratuity” Snyder v. United States, 3) gave themselves and the lower courts the power to overrule federal agencies’ regulations even in areas in which lawyers and judges have little or no expertise, e.g. fishing regulations, clean air standards, and drug safety, by reversing the precedent of Chevron Deference in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 4) and strategically punted an abortion/women’s health decision until after the fall election in Moyle v. United States, leaving aside the question of federal health regulations vs. a state’s (Idaho’s) draconian abortion laws. (Does anyone doubt on which side they’ll come down on this issue once they get another crack at it after the election?)

And, of course, this same SCOTUS reactionary majority infamously robbed women of the right to manage their own reproductive health in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, relegating women to second class citizens subservient to a fertilized egg.

Do not be tempted to “lie back and enjoy” all this as the new depressing, unalterable reality (as was once infamously recommended to women facing a rapist). We have been in like places with U.S. Supreme Courts before this (although the sheer number of shameless decisions of this current SCOTUS is unprecedented).  Robert Hubbell nails it:

Trump v. United States will be overruled. The decision is so bad it will not stand. Like Dred Scott [1857] (holding that enslaved people are not citizens entitled to judicial protections), Plessy v. Ferguson [1896] (upholding segregation), Koramatsu v US [1944] (upholding the Japanese internment camps), today’s decision will be overturned by the acclamation of history in due course. It will be remembered as a mark of shame for the Roberts Court just as Dred Scott tarnishes Chief Justice Taney’s legacy to this day.

We are not powerless against the current reactionary majority on SCOTUS. We can still vote (even as Republicans try wherever they can to restrict that right and/or negate results of votes they don’t like). Just as the SCOTUS decision in Dobbs is still producing a voting backlash this new plethora of outrageous decisions properly explained to voters should drive voter turnout. Donald Trump returned to the White House, empowered by the Supreme Court’s recent decisions would, indeed, be a “dictator on day one” immune from law. And this time with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025’s recipe for autocratic takeover of the federal government there will be nothing to stand in his way. This scenario should give even the most loyal of Republican voters second thoughts on voting for an imperial Trump—or for any U.S. Rep or Senate candidate that supports him. A Democratic federal trifecta (control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency)—as blowback to this autocratic power-grab by corporate-backed Republicans—is the healthy and necessary solution. The SCOTUS can—and should be—expanded by an act of Congress. 

I remember local and state Republican candidates of the recent past side-stepping questions on abortion and climate change, for example, by claiming that as local officials their personal views on such things were irrelevant because they were controlled at a higher level of government. Therefore, supposedly, they could not be called upon to affect such issues. That bandaid has been ripped off by the Supreme Court’s reactionary SCOTUS majority in Dobbs, Snyder, Loper Bright, Moyle, and Trump v. United States. Unless the Republican Party once again changes its stripes (it was, once upon a time, the party of civil rights) anyone who votes for a “Prefers Republican” for any office is deluded. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Enjoy Independence Day. Renew your faith in our country’s fundamental reach for fairness, inclusion, tolerance, and freedom that Republicans now seem intent on destroying. I plan to take off this Friday and return on Monday to resume concentration on issues pertinent to eastern Washington.

P.P.S. I want to leave you with the final words about Trump v. United Statesfrom Joyce Vance’s excellent (but lengthy) commentary: 

We each have the opportunity to join Justice Sotomayor in dissenting when we vote in November. The Court’s decision means that the only force that can hold Trump accountable for trying to interfere in the last election is the voters in the coming one. It’s up to us, because the Supreme Court has said the rule of law no longer applies to the President. We held Trump accountable at the polls in 2020 and must do it again in 2024, because the Supreme Court won’t. So, I will dissent too.