This week, new polling revealed that voters across the country are recognizing MAGA Republicans’ threats to democracy as a top issue. Voters believe Trump and his allies should be held accountable for their actions and their blatant attacks against us and our rights. As a result, MAGA Republicans are increasing their threats against election workers and systems, including harassment and violent threats, and attempts of legal action to change the way votes are cast and counted.
Here’s what you need to know for the weekend:
Main Points for the Weekend:
1. The Select Committee met with Ginni Thomas for an interview about her involvement in attempts to overturn the 2020 election. CNN revealed that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas exchanged text messages with Mark Meadows about overturning the election and attended the violent rally and attack on the Capitol. She even pressed local lawmakers to overturn the states’ results of the election.
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- Top point to make: Trump allies from all walks of life were directly involved in the conspiracy to overturn our election and actively inciting others to follow the same conspiracies.
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- If you read one thing: CNN, 9/29/22: Ginni Thomas meets with January 6 committee. “Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is meeting with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol on Thursday. When entering her voluntary interview, Thomas declined to tell CNN why she felt the need to speak to the committee and instead said, ‘thank you for being here.’ Thomas also declined to say whether she spoke with her husband, Justice Thomas, about her beliefs that the 2020 presidential election was stolen… Members of the panel have long said they are interested in speaking with Thomas, particularly after CNN first reported text messages she exchanged with then-Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows before January 6 about overturning the election. Thomas attended the rally that preceded the attack on the US Capitol, as she said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, where she stressed that her and her husband’s professional lives are kept separate. She also said that she had left the gathering before the protesters turned violent. She has also been publicly critical of the House January 6 investigation, calling on House GOP leaders to boot from their conference the two Republicans serving on the select committee.”
2. Polling results from CBS show that the January 6th Committee is effective. Voters believe the former president should not be treated any differently from other Americans concerning his various crimes.
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- Top point to make: No one is above the law – not even past presidents, members of Congress, or other elected officials.
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- If you read one thing: CBS News, 9/26/22: The Jan. 6 investigation and the Trump effect — CBS News poll. “Heading into the next Jan. 6 House select committee hearing this week, the investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol have thus far had a bit of impact on vote choices… Looking specifically at former President Donald Trump in the context of the law and former presidents: Voters of all political stripes do not believe that Trump should generally be considered any differently from other Americans, and given special exemptions from the law as a former chief executive. Big majorities would see all Americans — including Trump — considered equally under the law… As a factor in voting, Trump is a net negative with the rest of the electorate overall, as noted in earlier analyses. More voters are voting to oppose Trump than support him, on balance.”
3. In states across the country, MAGA Republicans are changing laws to challenge voters’ registration seeking to disqualify voters. Elections staff members are also completely overwhelmed with bogus claims making it harder for them to do their jobs.
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- Top point to make: MAGA Republicans will stop at nothing to override the will of the people and infringe on our rights to choose who leads us.
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- If you read one thing: Bloomberg, 9/26/22: Georgia County Rejects Most Voter-Registration Challenges by Trump Supporters. “More than 64,000 registration challenges have been filed to county elections offices in Georgia this year. They seek to either disqualify voters ahead of the Nov. 8 election or to make it more difficult for them to cast ballots… The challenges were allowed under a 2021 state law passed in response to Trump’s narrow loss in Georgia. The new law allowed individual citizens to challenge the eligibility of an unlimited number of voters and required county elections offices to respond within weeks.”
Expert voices
Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, and has tracked extremist movements for more than 20 years: “I think that we are facing the biggest threats to democracy in the United States that we ever have. I can’t think of any time in my lifetime where there were so many people who don’t believe that election results are what they say they are. There are people running for office right now, some of them are actually QAnon adherents. They deny the election and some of them are running for offices like secretary of state and if they win, their plans are to make the elections partisan, to manipulate the vote for the outcome that they want, not the outcome that comes from the election. This stuff is real scary. There’s other things to remember, like how a large percentage of Americans believe that violence may be necessary for politics. I mentioned earlier the fact that this white supremacist idea, ‘the great replacement,’ is being spread by candidates and influencers like Tucker Carlson. These are frightening and disturbing portents that are occurring right now.” Politico
Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project and law professor at UCLA: “With @maggieNYT’s upcoming book in the news, a reminder that I’ll be in conversation with her for a free webinar on “Trump, Trumpism, and the Future of American Democracy,” 10/27 12 pm PT for the @UCLA_Law http://SafeguardingDemocracyProject.org. Free registration: LINK” Tweet
Barbara McQuade, former US attorney: “Oath Keepers trial begins Tuesday. Sometimes seditious conspiracy can be hard to prove. Not this time. When you attack the Capitol while Congress is certifying an election, it seems that neither sedition nor conspiracy can be in any real doubt.” Tweet
Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University: “We are at a turning point with our democracy. While the campaign to overturn the election failed, the Republicans pursuing this strategy came extraordinarily close to victory – and they engaged in dangerous violence along the way.” CNN Op-Ed
Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and expert on political violence: “‘We know in other countries that when a political party normalizes violence, their followers are more likely to commit it,’ Kleinfeld said in an interview. ‘What we’re seeing is high levels of desire for violence on both the left and the right, but actual violence is vastly disproportionate to the right. And that has a lot to do with the fact that we’re seeing this assumption that violence is normal that it’s part of normal politics…The most important thing, frankly, is for candidates of all parties to make this less normal, to not normalize this kind of violence and threats[.]” MLive
Kevin Morris, researcher focused on voting rights and election administration at the Brennan Center: “Last month we published a Brennan report on where restrictive voting laws were coming from. That piece focused on the results, but now there’s a full working paper, too” Tweet | Working Paper
Joyce Vance, former US attorney: “This week’s trial will be the first of three seditious conspiracy trials DOJ will conduct this fall. The trials include members of both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. DOJ will have to prove a conspiracy involving the use of force in order to convict. That’s the key to a seditious conspiracy charge, distinguishing it from a more general conspiracy or obstruction charges. Because force must be proven, there can be tension during investigations of this type of situation between getting enough evidence to convict and stopping the conspiracy before anyone is harmed. But in the case of the Oath Keepers, boom happened.” Civil Discourse
Frank Figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, re: reported phone calls between Roger Stone and leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers before and after the January 6 attack: “There are Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who are cooperating. Roger Stone will have some decisions to make” Tweet
Harry Litman, former US attorney: “We’ve been expecting some bridge between [Roger] Stone and the rest of the Willard war room gang from On the ground marauders to the White House. Sure stands to reason he’s part of that bridge” Tweet
Lara Putnam, professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh: “I spend a lot of time worrying about the ways false claims of election fraud are generating future risks in Pennsylvania. This new frameworkd👇[sic] for anticipating spread is super smart & really helpful. Intended audiences incl. election officials, analysts, crisis communication teams LINK” Tweet
Joshua Tait, historian of American conservatism: “The 2016 election, Trumpism in the United States, Orban, Law & Justice in Poland, and to a lesser extent Brexit in the United Kingdom have validated the intellectual right in the America that long held some or all illiberal positions. Moreover, Trump in particular obliterated right-wing respectability politics and revealed the conservative and Republican establishments had no capacity to discipline views that had previously been beyond the pale — the result of changes in the way the right-wing media ecosystem worked, and the nature of party primaries.” Thomas B. Edsall NYT Column: Seven Years of Trump Has the Right Wing Taking the Long View
Arlie Hochschild, a professor of sociology at University of California, Berkeley: “The right believes that it is the left, not the right, that is moving toward fascism. Inside the right wing mind today freedom is threatened ‘by the left.’ Political correctness a form of ‘thought control.’ The left controls the media. The F.B.I. is scanning Facebook to hunt down patriots in Washington. So, ironically, they see themselves as brave upholders of freedom, democracy, civil liberties. They aren’t saying we want strong totalitarian control so we get to impose our values on others. They see themselves as the victims of this control and Trump as their liberator from that control.” Thomas B. Edsall NYT Column: Seven Years of Trump Has the Right Wing Taking the Long View
UPDATED: CREW’s Tracker of President Trump’s Staggering Record of Uncharged Crimes: “As of September 2022, Donald Trump has been credibly accused of committing at least 55 criminal offenses since he launched his campaign for president in 2015. That total only reflects allegations relating to his time in or running for office and omits, for instance, Trump’s criminal exposure for fraudulent business dealings. The seven offenses we have added since we published the first version of this table in March 2022 include three criminal offenses relating to the investigation of election fraud and related crimes in Fulton County, Georgia; one offense relating to potential wire fraud stemming from fraudulent representations made to solicit PAC contributions after the 2020 election; and three offenses relating to Trump’s unlawful possession of government records at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office.” Overview| Table
Robb Willer, American sociologist and social psychologist at Stanford University (Audio): “‘There’s people wandering around in packs, not thinking for themselves, seized by this mob mentality trying to spread their disease and destroy society. And you probably think, as I do, that you’re the good guy in the zombie apocalypse movie, and all this hate and polarization, it’s being propagated by the other people, because we’re Brad Pitt, right?’ —Dr. Robb Willer, Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford University[.] When it comes to navigating the deepening ideological divide in America, what if we’re not so much the hero fighting the forces of evil—instead we’re accidentally acting just a little too much like “foot soldiers in the army of the undead,” wonders this episode’s special guest, Dr. Robb Willer.” Fulcrum’s Village SquareCast Podcast
Heather Cox Richardson, American historian at Boston College: “Last night, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is running for reelection, insisted on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight that Democrats must push back against the Republican domination of culture wars…That omission is likely a result of the fact that after World War II, it never occurred to most Americans that anyone here would need to defend democracy. And yet we are now facing the rise of ‘illiberal democracy’ or ‘Christian democracy,’ which argues that democracy’s protection of equal rights weakens societies by destroying their moral core and by splitting the people internally. Its adherents call for limiting the vote; privileging white, heterosexual Christian citizens; and standing behind an authoritarian leader who will stamp out opposition—that is, a system that is not a democracy at all.” Letters from An American
Paul Pierson, political scientist at University of California, Berkeley: “‘For those who feel like they’re locked in an existential struggle with demonic forces, democracy might feel like a second-level kind of problem,’ said Berkeley political scientist Paul Pierson. ‘They may feel completely justified in using whatever levers of political power are available.’…In such a climate, said Pierson, ‘American democracy clearly is at risk.’” Berkeley News
