Donald Trump tried to steal the election in 2020 and, by all accounts, he and his MAGA minions are going to try again in 2024. But how likely is it that they'll succeed? The good news is that since 2020 we have some new guardrails in place to make it even harder for them to overturn another Biden win. Learn more over at The Big Picture. https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-overturn-biden-election-2024
@georgetakei The article doesn't mention Lessig and Seligman's How to Steal a Presidential Election (Feb. 2024) at all. Until I see a case-by-case rebuttal of every scenario covered in that book, I'm not optimistic that all the potential avenues for stealing the election have proper defenses.
@rbreich Similar to the Dobbs decision, overturning Griswold v. Connecticut wouldn't make contraception illegal, rather it would allow assemblies to ban or restrict contraception. Unlike abortion however, the political support for banning contraception in the US is negligible, even if congressional Republicans don't think contraception should be a federal right.
Whether it's the Electoral College, the U.S. Senate, or partisan gerrymandering, Republicans have mastered the art of exploiting anti-majoritarian structures in our system to wield power. Join us for a conversation with author Ari Berman, whose new book Minority Rule explores this GOP power play and what we can do to combat it. Catch up on this eye-opening discussion at The Big Picture here. https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/ari-berman-minority-rule-republicans
@georgetakei Anti-majoritarian structures are part of the political #DNA of the #USA. There is a mechanism to change that. The rest is just yada-yada. #USpol
There are two easy-peasie ways to avoid the current hyper-partisanship that is an existential threat to #American#democracy.
So who are the corporations and billionaires funding the American far right?
A lot of the discourse around the US far right, on both the left and the right, has presented it as being essentially a working class movement.
White working class Southerners (perhaps with some manipulation from Russia) advocating for their prejudiced world view, the narrative goes.
But what if that's not the situation? What if the rise of the far right has been funded with millions of dollars from extremely wealthy individuals?
Where are the resources coming from?
You probably already know about Rupert Murdoch with Fox News and Elon at Twitter, but there's a few others...
"Two billionaire Texas brothers whose fortunes derive from oil and gas fracking have pumped millions of dollars into rightwing media outfits that have promoted climate-crisis denialism.
...
"Farris and Dan Wilks have each doled out millions of dollars through separate foundations over the last decade to a number of high-profile conservative and religious groups including the Heritage Foundation, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.
"The Wilks brothers, for instance, have poured millions of dollars into PragerU and the Daily Wire
...
"In 2015, Farris Wilks gave $4.7m to help launch the Daily Wire and remains an owner of the media company, whose founding editor and co-owner Ben Shapiro has forged ties with Dennis Prager, the PragerU founder and talkshow host. Shapiro and Prager are slated to attend a PragerU “founders’ retreat” in September for donors who give at least $100,000 a year."
"[One America News] founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives.
"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms ... according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant."
"[Robert] Mercer is a Christian conservative, gun enthusiast, a climate change denier, religious, small-government proponent and a man who despises the political establishment as incompetent and corrupt. He has donated over $100 million (€84 million) to various right-wing candidates and think-tanks. Most of that money has gone through the Mercer Family Foundation, run by Robert Mercer's daughter Rebekah.
"The Mercers hold a major stake in a company called Cambridge Analytica, which uses digital data to tailor election propaganda to voters.
"The Mercers first met Andrew Breitbart, the founder of what is now Breitbart News Network in 2011 ... The Mercers also invested $10 million in Breitbart and gained a large stake in the nascent company."
In recent days, Democrats have tried to show our colleagues in the Republican majority a way out of the dysfunction and rancor they have allowed to engulf the House. That path to a better place is still there for the taking....
[Opinion] Hakeem Jeffries: A bipartisan coalition is the way forward for the House ( www.washingtonpost.com )
In recent days, Democrats have tried to show our colleagues in the Republican majority a way out of the dysfunction and rancor they have allowed to engulf the House. That path to a better place is still there for the taking....