democracynow--2020-11-06--Labor Organizer: I Witnessed Bush Steal 2000 Election in Florida. We Can't Let Trump Steal This One

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González , as we continue to look at Donald Trump ’ s attempts to steal the U.S. presidential election , how he can be stopped .
We ’ ve been speaking with independent journalist Allan Nairn .
I want to bring in Jane McAlevey into the conversation , from San Francisco , union organizer , negotiator , senior policy fellow at University of California , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently published part of her firsthand account about what happened in Florida in 2000 and its lessons for today , in a piece headlined “ To Stop an Electoral Coup , Study What Went Wrong in the 2000 Florida Recount.
” Her recent interview in Jacobin is headlined “ Prepare to Hit the Streets After Election Day.
” She ’ s the author of several books , including A Collective Bargain : Unions , Organizing , and the Fight for Democracy .
Jane McAlevey , thanks so much for being with us .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ what you ’ re seeing now and what you feel needs to be done ?
JANE McALEVEY : Good morning , and thank you for having me .
Yeah , you know , in Florida , I was among the first people to land in Florida , like literally the next morning at 6 a.m. , and one of the last people to leave .
So I spent an incredible amount of time on the ground in Florida in 2000 and , I think , experienced an electoral coup .
The fact is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And the consequences of that decision is something we ’ re still paying for .
So , the parallels right now , that are sort of nerve-wracking , from my viewpoint , are the following .
One , what we hear from , we hope , President-elect Biden is a lot of the same sort of commentary that we heard from Al Gore : Stay calm , the process is working .
There ’ s sort of an overinvestment in the idea of counting and the legal process .
And that , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pretty profound way in Florida in 2000 .
And people like myself and many other trade union organizers who were there on the ground immediately to try and defend the democratic outcome and the votes of working people in Florida understood , within 24 hours of being in Florida , that we needed nonviolent — I ’ m going to stress that — nonviolent , peaceful direct action , in large numbers , both in Florida , for sure , back in 2000 , but also around the country .
We needed it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the right wing , were going to frame a narrative that it was Al Gore who was trying to steal the election versus Bush .
And , of course , we didn ’ t have to wait for Election Day , you know , because Trump has been saying this for the month and a half leading up to Election Day .
So he ’ s been forecasting every single thing he ’ s doing right now .
So , on the one hand , to say , “ Stay calm , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stay calm .
Secondly , as Nairn was just describing , your previous guest , I mean , the Byzantine nature of this process is confusing to the average voter .
So , part of why I think that people need to be engaged in very large , very peaceful , very nonviolent , I hope , faith- and trade union-led demonstrations this weekend all across the United States is because we have to have a counternarrative .
We have to have very large numbers of people in the streets saying , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearly 4 million ahead , and I think , as Juan was saying earlier , it ’ s going to be more like 8 million when the final states come in .
So , there ’ s no question that the popular vote is massively favoring Biden .
The popular vote was favoring the candidate in Florida in 2000 .
So , to me , you know , as someone who was on the ground in Florida disagreeing — I was disagreeing pretty wildly with the Gore lawyers , as well as , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ employers , which was the national AFL-CIO , and saying to them that it was one thing for the Democratic Party to behave in a way that trusted counting and the legal process , but if you ’ re a union organizer , which I am , and I ’ ve experienced one unionization election after another where the employer cheats and voter suppression is rampant and massive , in the way that it is now in the United States in this presidential election , we understand that narrative creation really matters .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not made in a vacuum , which Nairn was also just saying , right ?
But I want to really emphasize this .
No legal decision — JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Jane , I wanted to ask you — for those many of our listeners and viewers who were probably youngsters back in 2000 — JUAN GONZÁLEZ : — the people don ’ t understand that even back then there was a mobilization by the supporters of President Bush in the streets outside a lot of these counting places and quite a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you talk about what was actually happening on the ground when you were there ?
JANE McALEVEY : Yeah , it was absolutely intense , and it was violent , by the way .
And people — I think you ’ re right , Juan , that many — the reason I keep writing and talking and writing articles about Florida right now is because , in fact , I experienced violence .
I was followed and chased by people called “ Christian militants.
” I mean , I wrote a lot about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ published .
I was actually followed .
I had a security detail , because I became the lead 1 % precinct counter in Miami-Dade , which was this really crucial moment , because the Bush people understood — we had opened up counting in Palm Beach .
We had opened up counting in Broward .
I was involved in all of those counts .
And then , what ’ s called the 1 % precinct threshold , which is where the violence really got intense , was — the Republicans understood , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up the recount in Miami-Dade , that there were a lot of votes , back then , that were going to be — that were trending absolutely Democratic and that would put Gore over the top .
So I was sent there as one of two people in the entire United States to be what was called the 1 % precinct counter .
And it was at that moment that I began to seriously experience the violence , the intimidation .
We were being brought in in vans that were — as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being brought in in vans that look like this .
They were shaded , they were dark , so no one could see us .
There was huge personal security for the counters themselves , myself included .
And , you know , I ’ m someone who is used to standing up to union thugs , union busters and a lot of normal violence , really , in unionization campaigns .
But this was unprecedented in my life experience .
I was 36 years old .
It was sent in to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was unbelievably nerve-wracking .
And I was walking up the stairs when the Brooks Brothers riot was conducted by the right wing — right ?
— which , as we know now , the Brooks Brothers riot refers to , you know , what we know now were Republican staffers , dressed up in nice suits , who began throwing tables in Miami-Dade as soon as the counting got serious , because they needed a way to disrupt the counting process .
So , it was violent .
It was totally intense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in all of these places where they ’ re counting right now , and governors and Republican legislatures and everyone needs to see is that we ’ ve won this election , once again .
And we are not — our side is not going to let them steal it .
We need the two biggest organized forces that know how to run nonviolent , large , peaceful demonstrations , which is the houses of faith and the organized trade union movement , to get people into the streets , so that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ created , which is happening right now , where you ’ ve got sort of like little skirmishes going on .
Little skirmishes aren ’ t going to help us , by the way .
We need things that look as large as the Women ’ s March , the Climate March in New York City several years ago .
We need a massive outpouring of support by ordinary people , so that governors , the Democratic governors who are in the three states that have to certify these electors , certify the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election correctly .
Like , there ’ s so much going on .
And I would say one more thing .
There ’ s a lot of people , ordinary people , who don ’ t follow the ins and outs of this , who are sitting home right now , who worked very , very hard , who wrote millions of letters , did text messages , phone banked , did a ton of work to drag Joe Biden over the finish line .
And all of those people need a way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve won this election in the streets .
They need to build solidarity .
We need to practice governing power , because to move a Joe Biden , assuming that we can stop the Supreme Court from acting as they did in Florida , we ’ re going to need governing power .
And that ’ s going to mean that a lot of those same voters need to practice what it means to intervene right now to save this election from going back to Trump .
So , nonviolent direct action is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Democratic governors need to see it .
The Supreme Court needs to see it .
And , you know , the Supreme Court does not act in a vacuum .
Even an ideological right-wing Supreme Court does not act in a total vacuum .
AMY GOODMAN : Jane McAlevey , we want to thank you for being with us , union organizer , negotiator , scholar , currently senior policy fellow at UC Berkeley ’ s Labor Center .
When we come back , we go to Georgia , that has just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we continue to look at Donald Trump’s attempts to steal the U.S. presidential election, how he can be stopped. We’ve been speaking with independent journalist Allan Nairn. I want to bring in Jane McAlevey into the conversation, from San Francisco, union organizer, negotiator, senior policy fellow at University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center. Jacobin recently published part of her firsthand account about what happened in Florida in 2000 and its lessons for today, in a piece headlined “To Stop an Electoral Coup, Study What Went Wrong in the 2000 Florida Recount.” Her recent interview in Jacobin is headlined “Prepare to Hit the Streets After Election Day.” She’s the author of several books, including A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy.
Jane McAlevey, thanks so much for being with us. Why don’t you lay out what you’re seeing now and what you feel needs to be done?
JANE McALEVEY: Good morning, and thank you for having me.
Yeah, you know, in Florida, I was among the first people to land in Florida, like literally the next morning at 6 a.m., and one of the last people to leave. So I spent an incredible amount of time on the ground in Florida in 2000 and, I think, experienced an electoral coup. The fact is that Al Gore did win Florida. And the consequences of that decision is something we’re still paying for.
So, the parallels right now, that are sort of nerve-wracking, from my viewpoint, are the following. One, what we hear from, we hope, President-elect Biden is a lot of the same sort of commentary that we heard from Al Gore: Stay calm, the process is working. There’s sort of an overinvestment in the idea of counting and the legal process. And that, that was an error of judgment in a pretty profound way in Florida in 2000. And people like myself and many other trade union organizers who were there on the ground immediately to try and defend the democratic outcome and the votes of working people in Florida understood, within 24 hours of being in Florida, that we needed nonviolent — I’m going to stress that — nonviolent, peaceful direct action, in large numbers, both in Florida, for sure, back in 2000, but also around the country. We needed it because we understood that the conservatives, the right wing, were going to frame a narrative that it was Al Gore who was trying to steal the election versus Bush. And, of course, we didn’t have to wait for Election Day, you know, because Trump has been saying this for the month and a half leading up to Election Day. So he’s been forecasting every single thing he’s doing right now.
So, on the one hand, to say, “Stay calm, the process is working,” we should stay calm. Secondly, as Nairn was just describing, your previous guest, I mean, the Byzantine nature of this process is confusing to the average voter. So, part of why I think that people need to be engaged in very large, very peaceful, very nonviolent, I hope, faith- and trade union-led demonstrations this weekend all across the United States is because we have to have a counternarrative. We have to have very large numbers of people in the streets saying, “Hang on.” Right now Biden is nearly 4 million ahead, and I think, as Juan was saying earlier, it’s going to be more like 8 million when the final states come in. So, there’s no question that the popular vote is massively favoring Biden. The popular vote was favoring the candidate in Florida in 2000. So, to me, you know, as someone who was on the ground in Florida disagreeing — I was disagreeing pretty wildly with the Gore lawyers, as well as, at the time, frankly, my employers, which was the national AFL-CIO, and saying to them that it was one thing for the Democratic Party to behave in a way that trusted counting and the legal process, but if you’re a union organizer, which I am, and I’ve experienced one unionization election after another where the employer cheats and voter suppression is rampant and massive, in the way that it is now in the United States in this presidential election, we understand that narrative creation really matters. And we understand that legal cases are not made in a vacuum, which Nairn was also just saying, right? But I want to really emphasize this. No legal decision —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jane, I wanted to ask you — for those many of our listeners and viewers who were probably youngsters back in 2000 —
JANE McALEVEY: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — the people don’t understand that even back then there was a mobilization by the supporters of President Bush in the streets outside a lot of these counting places and quite a bit of intimidation that occurred. Could you talk about what was actually happening on the ground when you were there?
JANE McALEVEY: Yeah, it was absolutely intense, and it was violent, by the way. And people — I think you’re right, Juan, that many — the reason I keep writing and talking and writing articles about Florida right now is because, in fact, I experienced violence. I was followed and chased by people called “Christian militants.” I mean, I wrote a lot about this in the book chapter which Jacobin published. I was actually followed. I had a security detail, because I became the lead 1% precinct counter in Miami-Dade, which was this really crucial moment, because the Bush people understood — we had opened up counting in Palm Beach. We had opened up counting in Broward. I was involved in all of those counts. And then, what’s called the 1% precinct threshold, which is where the violence really got intense, was — the Republicans understood, the Bush team understood, if we opened up the recount in Miami-Dade, that there were a lot of votes, back then, that were going to be — that were trending absolutely Democratic and that would put Gore over the top.
So I was sent there as one of two people in the entire United States to be what was called the 1% precinct counter. And it was at that moment that I began to seriously experience the violence, the intimidation. We were being brought in in vans that were — as a union organizer, I usually associate strikebreakers being brought in in vans that look like this. They were shaded, they were dark, so no one could see us. There was huge personal security for the counters themselves, myself included. And, you know, I’m someone who is used to standing up to union thugs, union busters and a lot of normal violence, really, in unionization campaigns. But this was unprecedented in my life experience. I was 36 years old. It was sent in to do the 1% precinct count. And it was unbelievably nerve-wracking. And I was walking up the stairs when the Brooks Brothers riot was conducted by the right wing — right? — which, as we know now, the Brooks Brothers riot refers to, you know, what we know now were Republican staffers, dressed up in nice suits, who began throwing tables in Miami-Dade as soon as the counting got serious, because they needed a way to disrupt the counting process. So, it was violent. It was totally intense.
And part of what counters, in all of these places where they’re counting right now, and governors and Republican legislatures and everyone needs to see is that we’ve won this election, once again. And we are not — our side is not going to let them steal it. We need the two biggest organized forces that know how to run nonviolent, large, peaceful demonstrations, which is the houses of faith and the organized trade union movement, to get people into the streets, so that we don’t have a vacuum being created, which is happening right now, where you’ve got sort of like little skirmishes going on. Little skirmishes aren’t going to help us, by the way. We need things that look as large as the Women’s March, the Climate March in New York City several years ago. We need a massive outpouring of support by ordinary people, so that governors, the Democratic governors who are in the three states that have to certify these electors, certify the right people, and they certify the election correctly. Like, there’s so much going on.
And I would say one more thing. There’s a lot of people, ordinary people, who don’t follow the ins and outs of this, who are sitting home right now, who worked very, very hard, who wrote millions of letters, did text messages, phone banked, did a ton of work to drag Joe Biden over the finish line. And all of those people need a way to experience and demand that they’ve won this election in the streets. They need to build solidarity. We need to practice governing power, because to move a Joe Biden, assuming that we can stop the Supreme Court from acting as they did in Florida, we’re going to need governing power. And that’s going to mean that a lot of those same voters need to practice what it means to intervene right now to save this election from going back to Trump. So, nonviolent direct action is essential. The counters need support. The Democratic governors need to see it. The Supreme Court needs to see it. And, you know, the Supreme Court does not act in a vacuum. Even an ideological right-wing Supreme Court does not act in a total vacuum.
AMY GOODMAN: Jane McAlevey, we want to thank you for being with us, union organizer, negotiator, scholar, currently senior policy fellow at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center.
When we come back, we go to Georgia, that has just flipped from red to blue. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-11-06--Allan Nairn: Trump and Republicans Use Legal & Physical Means in Attempted Coup Against Democracy

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re starting with our top news .
As President Trump doubles down on unsubstantiated claims of election rigging , concern is growing Trump ’ s supporters may begin using violence to disrupt the electoral process .
Trump addressed the nation Thursday night from the White House , falsely claiming victory and accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election .
He offered no evidence to back up his claims .
AMY GOODMAN : ABC , CBS , NBC and MSNBC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ live because it was filled with lies about the election and the vote-counting process .
On Thursday , the president ’ s son , Donald Trump Jr. , called for , quote , “ total war over this election , ” unquote .
Trump supporters have protested at ballot-counting locations in Phoenix , Las Vegas , Atlanta , Detroit and Philadelphia , where police have arrested two men after receiving a tip that the men were armed with AR-15s and were driving a Hummer up from Virginia to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Police stopped the vehicle just north of the convention center .
The Hummer had several stickers connected to the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory .
Election officials say they ’ re worried about the safety of their staff due to a spike in threats .
This is Joe Gloria , the registrar in Clark County , Nevada , where votes are still being counted .
AMY GOODMAN : This comes as former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka used his show on Salem Radio Network to protest how votes are being counted .
Gorka left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emerged of his ties to a Nazi-allied group and racist paramilitary group when he served as a Hungarian politician .
This is what Gorka said Thursday .
AMY GOODMAN : Also on Thursday , Twitter moved to permanently ban President Trump ’ s now-indicted former campaign manager Steve Bannon from the platform , after Bannon called for the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray .
Bannon made the comment on his podcast War Room : Pandemic .
AMY GOODMAN : Steve Bannon is currently out on bail after being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this comes as the Trump campaign has faced multiple setbacks in the courtroom .
And a legal adviser told Fox Business they hope new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett will help Trump win the presidency if a case makes it to the Supreme Court .
Meanwhile , the Secret Service is reportedly sending reinforcements to Wilmington , Delaware , to protect Joe Biden , who could give a victory speech as early as today .
For more , we ’ re joined by independent journalist Allan Nairn .
Allan , welcome @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summarize what has happened at this point , what you think is taking place and what will happen ?
ALLAN NAIRN : Well , Trump and the extremist Republicans , who constitute a minority of the population and have a minority of the votes , are trying to consolidate their minority rule .
They ’ re aided in that by the U.S. Constitution and the structure of the U.S. system , which is against , fundamentally , in a certain sense , has many barriers to , majority rule .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even be close now if you just based the presidency , like most countries do , on who gets the most votes .
Biden is way ahead in the popular vote .
And both parties expected that from the very beginning .
They have a whole series of things they ’ re trying to leverage .
Starting from the deep level , they ’ re in the midst of trying to sabotage the census to exclude as many nonwhites as they can , and therefore make it easier for the Republican state legislatures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of supporters even more dominant representation in the U.S. Congress .
And in fact , the election results so far indicate that the Democratic establishment , led by Schumer and Pelosi and others and the campaign committee , did not turn out enough Democrats to take control of enough state legislatures to turn the tide of this gerrymandering and redistricting .
So the structure of system , even after this relatively high-turnout election , is likely to get even worse .
On COVID , where Trump has committed , in essence , criminally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ approaching a quarter of a million bodies , a quarter of a million victims , he ’ s cynically leveraging that to attempted political advantage .
He told his followers , “ Don ’ t worry about COVID .
Go to the polling place .
Vote .
It ’ s not going to hurt you.
” And he observed that the Democrats told their followers , “ No , COVID can kill you.
” They simply stated the medical fact .
Trump saw this and said , “ Great .
The Democrats are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll just sabotage the post office.
” And he did .
There are undoubtedly significant numbers of votes , which Democrats mailed , which will not arrive in time .
Then , as the second step , Trump is now saying , “ OK , those mailed-in votes that did arrive , invalidate them .
Don ’ t count them.
” Then the Republican lawyers will go to the courts hoping to eventually reach a tame federal judge that they have , or reach the now tame U.S. Supreme Court , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , these votes should be invalidated.
” And if that doesn ’ t work , they ’ re ready , as Lindsey Graham alluded to , to try to call on some Republican state legislatures to simply ignore the popular vote in their states and send pro-Trump electors , even if Trump lost the popular vote in their state .
Then , on the street level , aside from this indoor game of politics , which they ’ re playing very ruthlessly , they have their armed tough guys who Trump has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the civilians who carry guns , the racist police unions who Trump appeals to .
And they first called on them to show up at the polling places .
And by the way , another aspect of the structural rigging was that over the years Republican legislatures and governors had been systematically reducing the number of polling places for voting in areas that tend to vote against Trump — what courts have called surgical , race-based targeting .
But they were calling , in the election , for their armed tough guys @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that did remain in enemy territory to try to intimidate people away from the polls .
Now , as the vote counting is in process , people like Don Jr. and Bannon and Gorka and Trump himself , though not yet as explicitly as them , are essentially raising the prospect of staging physical assaults on vote-counting facilities , because , as President Trump put it , any vote that is part of a tally that is not coming out in his favor should not be considered a legal vote .
However , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many years and worked against U.S. operations overseas led by — operations led by American Special Forces and the CIA , where they systematically try to disrupt or thwart elections , and sometimes back coups , the most recent big one being in Bolivia in 2019 , that you have to be very — you have to get the timing right in the use of your street forces .
And I think , on election night , in the crucial hours after late election night , when Trump went into his tent and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been thwarted , I think he may have missed his moment , because that was the key moment to call his people onto the streets and start stopping and trashing the votes , and he failed to do that .
They ’ re now playing catch-up .
At this moment , the political atmosphere , I think , is not quite sufficiently favorable to them to give them a favorable chance of getting the vote count stopped that they want stopped .
A lot of this turns on political atmosphere , especially in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only reason that Obamacare still exists now , even in its weakened form , is that when it came to the Supreme Court several years ago , Justice Roberts decided to reject the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare because he feared the public reaction .
He feared the public backlash .
Now even the most militant radical-rightist Republican judges , they have their ears up .
They have their fingers to the wind .
They ’ re looking at the mood on the streets and in the country .
And they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with .
They will do with whatever they think they can get away with .
But if they think they can ’ t get away with something , they won ’ t do it .
This leads to the issue of the Senate .
The Senate , if Biden becomes president and somehow manages to actually take the White House because he had the majority of the electoral votes — Senate control becomes absolutely crucial .
If the Democrats fail to control the Senate , McConnell will try to act as , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Supreme Court , now with a 6-to-3 majority with Barrett , will feel emboldened , licensed to do anything , because they won ’ t be facing the constraint of possible legislation , which you could have with a Democratic Senate , that might expand the number of justices or might implement term limits for justices , as Representative Ro Khanna and others have proposed , and they won ’ t be facing the prospect of any new Biden replacement judges , in case someone leaves , who might be oppositional , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from putting in any federal judges whatsoever .
So , this could let the Republican Supreme Court completely off the leash , and they could go about invalidating basic tenets of civil rights , voting rights , democracy that still exists in the United States .
So , we ’ re at a point of epic struggle right now and of great plasticity .
Things could move radically in one direction or radically in the other direction .
And I think people have to be very alert and also very self-disciplined , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the summer in the racial justice demonstrations and the demonstrations against police brutality is deliberate provocation by the extreme right to try to create scenes of looting and senseless violence , that can then be used as an argument for even stricter authoritarianism and racism and nullification of democracy .
And we can ’ t allow that to happen .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well , Allan , I just wanted to ask you briefly — you were talking about the issue of the popular vote and the structural inequities built into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden is likely to be much greater in the popular vote than it is right now , because most people are focusing on Arizona , obviously , and Pennsylvania and Georgia , but these states are actually much more advanced in their count than are a lot of the blue states .
Like , California , New York , New Jersey have millions of votes that they have not yet counted .
No one ’ s paying attention , obviously , because those states have already turned blue .
But when the final @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s very likely that Joe Biden may have about an 8 to 10 million margin in the popular vote , which I think will bring more into relief the problems , the structural problems right now , that the majority of the American people are not deciding these presidential elections .
And yet , as you ’ re saying , the possibility for structural change will be even less now , given the fact that Republicans control the Senate .
So , how do you see progressives moving forward to effect these structural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Yes , the structural aspects could get even worse with the result of this election .
You know , in most countries around the world , even those that have democracies that are not very strong , a direct popular presidential vote is the way it ’ s done .
The U.S .
Electoral College system is rather unique .
And the Founders engineered it that way because they didn ’ t trust the majority , which made sense for them , because at the time of the founding , the majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re still burdened with that system today .
But as bad as the Electoral College system is , as undemocratic as that is , the Senate structure is even more undemocratic , because it gives two senators to each state regardless of population .
So , again , while people are nail biting over who wins the Electoral College , and they ’ re now nail biting over who ’ s going to control the Senate , if the Senate were allocated on some kind of basis of popular vote , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It would be an overwhelmingly Democratic Senate , reflecting the will of the clear majority of the United States residents and voters .
But it ’ s engineered in the opposite directions , partly tracing back to the Founders and partly tracing back to the structural changes that Republicans have made , especially since around 1980 , at the time of the rise of Reagan and at the time of the rise in Washington of the radical Republican lobby , funded by various industries , and then , in later years , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they systematically set about trying to reengineer state legislatures and state voting rules around the country .
I think activists were on exactly the right track in setting out an agenda , a possible agenda for the coming year , if the Democrats got the presidency and the Senate , to push for all sorts of structural changes .
But now that could be blocked if the Republicans , by their fingertips , hold on to the Senate .
And I think it ’ s not clear yet exactly what tactics will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One of the tactics , I think , will have to be within the Democratic Party , to try to move out of power the corporate Democrats , who spent about a billion dollars on this campaign in things like Senate races that they could have won , that the polls said they were going to win easily , and that they actually lost , thereby opening the door to a McConnell , in effect , co-presidency .
You know , those Democrats , those corporate Democrats , ended up making lots of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extremely rich , but they didn ’ t flip the votes sufficiently .
AMY GOODMAN : Allan , we want to thank you for being with us .
Allan Nairn , independent journalist .
Next , union organizer Jane McAlevey on her firsthand experience with what went wrong in the 2000 Florida recount and what she says needs to happen now to stop what she calls an electoral coup .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re starting with our top news. As President Trump doubles down on unsubstantiated claims of election rigging, concern is growing Trump’s supporters may begin using violence to disrupt the electoral process. Trump addressed the nation Thursday night from the White House, falsely claiming victory and accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election. He offered no evidence to back up his claims.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We think there’s going to be a lot of litigation, because we have so much evidence, so much proof. And it’s going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the land. We’ll see. But we think there will be a lot of litigation, because we can’t have an election stolen like this.
AMY GOODMAN: ABC, CBS, NBC and MSNBC all stopped airing Trump’s speech live because it was filled with lies about the election and the vote-counting process.
On Thursday, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., called for, quote, “total war over this election,” unquote. Trump supporters have protested at ballot-counting locations in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia, where police have arrested two men after receiving a tip that the men were armed with AR-15s and were driving a Hummer up from Virginia to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where the ballots are being counted. Police stopped the vehicle just north of the convention center. The Hummer had several stickers connected to the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory.
Election officials say they’re worried about the safety of their staff due to a spike in threats. This is Joe Gloria, the registrar in Clark County, Nevada, where votes are still being counted.
JOE GLORIA: I can tell you that my wife and my mother are very concerned for me. But we have security here. We have law enforcement who are protecting us. I am concerned for the safety of my staff. We’re putting measures into place to make sure that we have the security that’s necessary.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka used his show on Salem Radio Network to protest how votes are being counted. Gorka left the White House in 2017 after reports emerged of his ties to a Nazi-allied group and racist paramilitary group when he served as a Hungarian politician. This is what Gorka said Thursday.
SEBASTIAN GORKA: We need the judges to enforce the rule of law. And if the local bureaucrats prevent us from seeing the evidence, from seeing the legitimate votes, we need the U.S. Marshals to deploy, and they need to break down the doors of those polling stations and stop the crimes being committed. It is that simple.
AMY GOODMAN: Also on Thursday, Twitter moved to permanently ban President Trump’s now-indicted former campaign manager Steve Bannon from the platform, after Bannon called for the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Bannon made the comment on his podcast War Room: Pandemic.
STEVE BANNON: I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put the heads on pikes. Right? I’d put them at the two corners of the White House, as a warning to federal bureaucrats: You either get with the program, or you’re gone.
AMY GOODMAN: Steve Bannon is currently out on bail after being indicted for alleged fundraising fraud.
All of this comes as the Trump campaign has faced multiple setbacks in the courtroom. And a legal adviser told Fox Business they hope new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett will help Trump win the presidency if a case makes it to the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the Secret Service is reportedly sending reinforcements to Wilmington, Delaware, to protect Joe Biden, who could give a victory speech as early as today.
For more, we’re joined by independent journalist Allan Nairn.
Allan, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you summarize what has happened at this point, what you think is taking place and what will happen?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Trump and the extremist Republicans, who constitute a minority of the population and have a minority of the votes, are trying to consolidate their minority rule. They’re aided in that by the U.S. Constitution and the structure of the U.S. system, which is against, fundamentally, in a certain sense, has many barriers to, majority rule. It’s fundamentally anti-democratic. Things wouldn’t even be close now if you just based the presidency, like most countries do, on who gets the most votes. Biden is way ahead in the popular vote. And both parties expected that from the very beginning.
They have a whole series of things they’re trying to leverage. Starting from the deep level, they’re in the midst of trying to sabotage the census to exclude as many nonwhites as they can, and therefore make it easier for the Republican state legislatures to further gerrymander and give their minority of supporters even more dominant representation in the U.S. Congress. And in fact, the election results so far indicate that the Democratic establishment, led by Schumer and Pelosi and others and the campaign committee, did not turn out enough Democrats to take control of enough state legislatures to turn the tide of this gerrymandering and redistricting. So the structure of system, even after this relatively high-turnout election, is likely to get even worse.
On COVID, where Trump has committed, in essence, criminally negligent homicide and has a stack of approaching a quarter of a million bodies, a quarter of a million victims, he’s cynically leveraging that to attempted political advantage. He told his followers, “Don’t worry about COVID. Go to the polling place. Vote. It’s not going to hurt you.” And he observed that the Democrats told their followers, “No, COVID can kill you.” They simply stated the medical fact. Trump saw this and said, “Great. The Democrats are going to vote by mail. I’ll just sabotage the post office.” And he did. There are undoubtedly significant numbers of votes, which Democrats mailed, which will not arrive in time.
Then, as the second step, Trump is now saying, “OK, those mailed-in votes that did arrive, invalidate them. Don’t count them.” Then the Republican lawyers will go to the courts hoping to eventually reach a tame federal judge that they have, or reach the now tame U.S. Supreme Court, and get them to say, “Yeah, these votes should be invalidated.” And if that doesn’t work, they’re ready, as Lindsey Graham alluded to, to try to call on some Republican state legislatures to simply ignore the popular vote in their states and send pro-Trump electors, even if Trump lost the popular vote in their state.
Then, on the street level, aside from this indoor game of politics, which they’re playing very ruthlessly, they have their armed tough guys who Trump has been cultivating from the start — the militias, the civilians who carry guns, the racist police unions who Trump appeals to. And they first called on them to show up at the polling places. And by the way, another aspect of the structural rigging was that over the years Republican legislatures and governors had been systematically reducing the number of polling places for voting in areas that tend to vote against Trump — what courts have called surgical, race-based targeting. But they were calling, in the election, for their armed tough guys to show up at the polling places that did remain in enemy territory to try to intimidate people away from the polls. Now, as the vote counting is in process, people like Don Jr. and Bannon and Gorka and Trump himself, though not yet as explicitly as them, are essentially raising the prospect of staging physical assaults on vote-counting facilities, because, as President Trump put it, any vote that is part of a tally that is not coming out in his favor should not be considered a legal vote.
However, I think, from having seen over many years and worked against U.S. operations overseas led by — operations led by American Special Forces and the CIA, where they systematically try to disrupt or thwart elections, and sometimes back coups, the most recent big one being in Bolivia in 2019, that you have to be very — you have to get the timing right in the use of your street forces. And I think, on election night, in the crucial hours after late election night, when Trump went into his tent and started sulking like a bully who had been thwarted, I think he may have missed his moment, because that was the key moment to call his people onto the streets and start stopping and trashing the votes, and he failed to do that. They’re now playing catch-up. At this moment, the political atmosphere, I think, is not quite sufficiently favorable to them to give them a favorable chance of getting the vote count stopped that they want stopped.
A lot of this turns on political atmosphere, especially in the courts. For example, the only reason that Obamacare still exists now, even in its weakened form, is that when it came to the Supreme Court several years ago, Justice Roberts decided to reject the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare because he feared the public reaction. He feared the public backlash. Now even the most militant radical-rightist Republican judges, they have their ears up. They have their fingers to the wind. They’re looking at the mood on the streets and in the country. And they’re looking at what they can get away with. They will do with whatever they think they can get away with. But if they think they can’t get away with something, they won’t do it.
This leads to the issue of the Senate. The Senate, if Biden becomes president and somehow manages to actually take the White House because he had the majority of the electoral votes — Senate control becomes absolutely crucial. If the Democrats fail to control the Senate, McConnell will try to act as, in essence, co-president. And the radical-rightist Supreme Court, now with a 6-to-3 majority with Barrett, will feel emboldened, licensed to do anything, because they won’t be facing the constraint of possible legislation, which you could have with a Democratic Senate, that might expand the number of justices or might implement term limits for justices, as Representative Ro Khanna and others have proposed, and they won’t be facing the prospect of any new Biden replacement judges, in case someone leaves, who might be oppositional, or McConnell could even decide to block Biden from putting in any federal judges whatsoever. So, this could let the Republican Supreme Court completely off the leash, and they could go about invalidating basic tenets of civil rights, voting rights, democracy that still exists in the United States.
So, we’re at a point of epic struggle right now and of great plasticity. Things could move radically in one direction or radically in the other direction. And I think people have to be very alert and also very self-disciplined, because one of the tools they already used over the summer in the racial justice demonstrations and the demonstrations against police brutality is deliberate provocation by the extreme right to try to create scenes of looting and senseless violence, that can then be used as an argument for even stricter authoritarianism and racism and nullification of democracy. And we can’t allow that to happen.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Allan, I just wanted to ask you briefly — you were talking about the issue of the popular vote and the structural inequities built into the system. The actual margin for Joe Biden is likely to be much greater in the popular vote than it is right now, because most people are focusing on Arizona, obviously, and Pennsylvania and Georgia, but these states are actually much more advanced in their count than are a lot of the blue states. Like, California, New York, New Jersey have millions of votes that they have not yet counted. No one’s paying attention, obviously, because those states have already turned blue. But when the final vote total comes in, it’s very likely that Joe Biden may have about an 8 to 10 million margin in the popular vote, which I think will bring more into relief the problems, the structural problems right now, that the majority of the American people are not deciding these presidential elections. And yet, as you’re saying, the possibility for structural change will be even less now, given the fact that Republicans control the Senate. So, how do you see progressives moving forward to effect these structural changes in the future?
ALLAN NAIRN: Yes, the structural aspects could get even worse with the result of this election. You know, in most countries around the world, even those that have democracies that are not very strong, a direct popular presidential vote is the way it’s done. The U.S. Electoral College system is rather unique. And the Founders engineered it that way because they didn’t trust the majority, which made sense for them, because at the time of the founding, the majority was either disenfranchised and/or enslaved. But we’re still burdened with that system today.
But as bad as the Electoral College system is, as undemocratic as that is, the Senate structure is even more undemocratic, because it gives two senators to each state regardless of population. So, again, while people are nail biting over who wins the Electoral College, and they’re now nail biting over who’s going to control the Senate, if the Senate were allocated on some kind of basis of popular vote, again it wouldn’t be close. It would be an overwhelmingly Democratic Senate, reflecting the will of the clear majority of the United States residents and voters. But it’s engineered in the opposite directions, partly tracing back to the Founders and partly tracing back to the structural changes that Republicans have made, especially since around 1980, at the time of the rise of Reagan and at the time of the rise in Washington of the radical Republican lobby, funded by various industries, and then, in later years, by figures like the Koch brothers where they systematically set about trying to reengineer state legislatures and state voting rules around the country.
I think activists were on exactly the right track in setting out an agenda, a possible agenda for the coming year, if the Democrats got the presidency and the Senate, to push for all sorts of structural changes. But now that could be blocked if the Republicans, by their fingertips, hold on to the Senate. And I think it’s not clear yet exactly what tactics will be most effective in changing that reality. One of the tactics, I think, will have to be within the Democratic Party, to try to move out of power the corporate Democrats, who spent about a billion dollars on this campaign in things like Senate races that they could have won, that the polls said they were going to win easily, and that they actually lost, thereby opening the door to a McConnell, in effect, co-presidency. You know, those Democrats, those corporate Democrats, ended up making lots of political —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
ALLAN NAIRN: — consultants extremely rich, but they didn’t flip the votes sufficiently.
AMY GOODMAN: Allan, we want to thank you for being with us. Allan Nairn, independent journalist.
Next, union organizer Jane McAlevey on her firsthand experience with what went wrong in the 2000 Florida recount and what she says needs to happen now to stop what she calls an electoral coup. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-11-06--Headlines for November  6, 2020

Headlines for November  6, 2020

Concern is growing that supporters of Trump may begin using violence to disrupt the electoral process .
On Thursday , the president ’ s son , Donald Trump Jr. , called for “ total war over this election.
” This comes as police in Philadelphia have arrested two men after receiving a tip that men armed with AR-15s were driving a Hummer up from Virginia to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center , where votes are still being counted .
Police stopped the vehicle just north of the convention center .
The Hummer had several stickers connected to the pro-Trump QAnon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying they are worried about the safety of their staff due to a spike in threats .
Joe Gloria is the registrar in Clark County , Nevada , where votes are still being counted .
Joe Gloria : “ I can tell you that my wife and my mother are very concerned for me .
But we have security here .
We have law enforcement who are protecting us .
I am concerned for the safety of my staff .
We ’ re putting measures into place to make sure that we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Meanwhile , the Secret Service is reportedly sending reinforcements to Wilmington , Delaware , to protect Joe Biden , who could give a victory speech as early as today .

Concern is growing that supporters of Trump may begin using violence to disrupt the electoral process. On Thursday, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., called for “total war over this election.” This comes as police in Philadelphia have arrested two men after receiving a tip that men armed with AR-15s were driving a Hummer up from Virginia to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes are still being counted. Police stopped the vehicle just north of the convention center. The Hummer had several stickers connected to the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory.
Election officials are openly saying they are worried about the safety of their staff due to a spike in threats. Joe Gloria is the registrar in Clark County, Nevada, where votes are still being counted.
Joe Gloria: “I can tell you that my wife and my mother are very concerned for me. But we have security here. We have law enforcement who are protecting us. I am concerned for the safety of my staff. We’re putting measures into place to make sure that we have the security that’s necessary.”
Meanwhile, the Secret Service is reportedly sending reinforcements to Wilmington, Delaware, to protect Joe Biden, who could give a victory speech as early as today.


democracynow--2020-11-09--Bree Newsome & Prof. Eddie Glaude: The Black Lives Matter Movement Helped the Democrats Defeat Trump

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
History has been made : President-elect Joe Biden , Vice President-elect Kamala Harris .
Kamala Harris set so many precedents here .
She becomes the first woman vice president , the first African American vice president , the first Indian American vice president , first South Asian vice president , the first Tamil American vice president , the first Caribbean American vice president , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continue our conversation with Eddie Glaude and as well as Bree Newsome Bass , we ’ re going to turn right now to a comment that is brewing part of the debate that ’ s happening right now about the direction of the Democratic Party .
This is House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina , who went on several Sunday talk shows to criticize calls to defund the police , arguing the phrase hurts Democratic congressional candidates .
Here he is on NBC ’ s Meet the Press citing the defeat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incumbent Republican Senator Lindsey Graham .
AMY GOODMAN : That ’ s Congressmember Clyburn speaking on the Sunday talk shows .
Clyburn is credited with really Joe Biden winning the Democratic primaries , having endorsed him right before the South Carolina primary , which then launched him to victory .
I wanted to first go to Bree Newsome Bass .
You ’ re in the Carolinas , but you ’ re in the other one : You ’ re in North Carolina .
Can you talk about this major debate , this debate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right now , Bree ?
BREE NEWSOME BASS : Yeah , certainly .
Well , I mean , first of all , to this argument that is being made so fiercely right now , you know , attacking the “ defund the police ” effort , I mean , I have yet to see anyone provide any concrete data that supports that claim , other than people making this conjecture .
I mean , I live in the Carolinas .
I have seen all of the ads that have been running .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of ads trying to tie Jaime Harrison to Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi .
So , I mean , unless someone is showing data that can really show that one or the other is what led to Jaime Harrison specifically plateauing in South Carolina , which is a deeply red state , you know , was an uphill battle against Lindsey Graham to begin with , I frankly don ’ t give that a whole lot of weight .
And I think , again , we can not gloss over the racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we ’ re talking about a situation where the Democratic leadership is making the claim — simultaneously making the claim that we need to reach across the aisle , we need to engage in bipartisanship with the party that is not acknowledging the election results ; the party that just tried to prevent us from having a free and fair election ; the party that engaged in rampant voter suppression , disenfranchisement and intimidation , and particularly in communities of color ; the party that , you know , is completely opposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the party that is essentially advocating a form of genocide through medical neglect , that has been ravaging our communities .
And so , we can ’ t just gloss over when people are saying that the path forward is to build with Republicans and at the same time to essentially demonize , make a boogeyman of Black activism and Black causes .
Ro Khanna is exactly correct .
It is the organizers , the same exact people who have been organizing Black communities around issues that impact us , that mobilized those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know , I ’ ve also seen people making reference to progressives as being the ones who are being divisive or , you know , ending the truce within the Democratic Party .
And it ’ s quite the opposite .
You had a situation where you have a significant segment of people who either traditionally vote Democrat , a lot of people who are completely disengaged from the electoral process completely because they feel that regardless of who is in power , their needs are not met ; regardless of who is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kill us ; regardless of who is in power , we do not have access to proper healthcare , we do not have access to housing .
So , you had a lot of organizers who had to do a lot of heavy lifting to convince folks that it was worthwhile simply to get Trump out , to mobilize behind Biden and Harris .
And that ’ s why you got Georgia turning out as it did .
That ’ s why you got Arizona turning out as it did .
So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look at the election results and for the takeaway to be we need to figure out how to appeal to the Lindsey Graham voters , you know , and the deeply red districts , as opposed to recognizing that there ’ s an entire electorate that is younger , that represents where the electorate is going — it ’ s younger , it ’ s more diverse , it can win you states in the South — this is the argument that Stacey Abrams has been making for quite some time — instead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ How can we invest more in Black and Indigenous and people of color organizing ?
How can we really look at those issues ?
” — this is again going to what Ro Khanna was saying — I mean , politically , that makes a lot more sense than saying , “ How do we tap into the electorate that lost the presidential election , the electorate that is shrinking , and then , morally , the electorate that opposes democracy ?
” because they are more committed to racism than they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that allows everyone to participate .
So , you know , again , I just think that we can not — we can not gloss over .
Yes , I recognize , of course , that James Clyburn is a long-standing politician from South Carolina .
He is Black .
And I don ’ t — you know , I ’ m sure that he recognizes what the political landscape is like in South Carolina .
But if we ’ re looking at the bigger picture , they ’ re going to cost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the case that they ’ re making is that we ’ re going to try to lean more towards Republican than making it clear to people that unless they turn folks out for those Senate seats in Georgia , you ’ re not going to have access to the things that you need , like healthcare and all these other things .
So , if they embrace a more centrist or Republican agenda , then the takeaway from folks is going to be , again , that it doesn ’ t matter whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So I think it ’ s just like the complete opposite .
And the fact that the focus in the immediate aftermath of the election , when we are still dealing with the situation of a president who does not acknowledge the election results , we ’ ve got him stoking violence among white supremacists who are threatening violence against sitting governors , who have threatened to blow up ballot-counting centers , that folks would pick defunding the police as the target , as the threat , as the danger , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are still being killed by police and still turning out to support this party in spite of that , complete opposite direction of where they should be going .
AMY GOODMAN : That brings us to professor Eddie Glaude .
Professor , you tweeted this quote from James Baldwin : “ It has always seemed much easier to murder than to change .
And this is really the choice with which we are confronted now.
” Explain .
EDDIE GLAUDE : Well , you know , there ’ s a sense in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the question of whether or not we ’ re going to fundamentally embrace the idea that we are a multiracial democracy .
And the history of the country suggests that we constantly , when faced with that question , will double down on violence , that white America will choose violence to defend its way of life , to defend those noxious assumptions , that have , in some ways , led to the organization of our way of life predicated upon this idea that white people ought to be valued more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exact a certain kind of violence to defend that view .
And so , Baldwin , in this moment , is kind of marking this , right ?
That America is always talking about it changing , but it never changes , right ?
And so , what ’ s so interesting about the conversation around the Democratic Party is that it ’ s actually insane — right ?
— that we would think that the way to respond to the scale of problems that we confront as a nation is to harken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is DLC , “ Third Way ” Democratic-oriented — you know , Democratic politics , that seems to try to triangulate and appeal to this Reagan Democrat that they are so obsessed with as a way of responding to this problem .
It makes no sense that we would go back to the politics that actually produced Trumpism in the first place .
That ’ s the first point .
The second — or the second point .
The third point is this : We can ’ t allow these folk to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think this is what Bree Newsome Bass is trying to suggest to us .
We can ’ t allow them to disentangle these two things .
They are one and the same .
So what are you asking for when you talk about reaching across the aisle ?
What are you asking us to do when you talk about reaching across the aisle in unity ?
We won ’ t do that again .
That ’ s not going to happen this time .
And then , lastly , we need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ narrow labels .
The politics is much more muddled .
Right ?
We need to get beyond these narrow labels .
We need to get beyond big government and small government and smart government and get to transformational government .
We need to understand what “ defund the police ” means .
Budget your values .
Budget your values .
That ’ s what it means at the heart of it , right ?
Why are you spending 60 , 70 % of your municipal budgets on policing , when you have education @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stop lying .
Stop lying .
And then what we need to pay attention to , lastly — I ’ ll say this really quickly — we need to pay attention to who Biden appoints as his secretary of treasury .
If we get another Rubinite , if we see someone in that tradition , we know what we got .
And so , remember , we celebrate yesterday and the day before , but today begins the hard work .
The problems of this nation require us to break from the old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clyburn , we will not allow Kamala Harris ’ s symbolic and significance , we will not allow the threat of Donald Trump to get us from seeing that that is the issue .
We have to break the political frame that got us in this mess in the first place .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to ask you , Professor Glaude , Black male voters , a lot is being made of , came out in higher numbers for Trump this time than last time .
But my colleague , co-host @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the information that ’ s come out on who voted in this unprecedentedly high turnout campaign , the highest in absolute history .
Now , what it looks like at this point , as he was pointing out , white voters did not increase that much .
That meant people of color increased .
Yes , there were more people of color who voted for Trump , but overwhelmingly more who voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris .
Apparently , many people are concerned about — well , I mean , obviously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close the election was — Trump winning possibly about , at this point , 57 % of the white vote .
And you , in your piece in Time magazine , said , “ Alongside the details of policy and the particulars of governing a deeply divided country , [ Biden ] will have to confront what Donald Trump refused to face : that our way of life is broken.
” Can you end with that ?
EDDIE GLAUDE : Sure .
You know , I think we have to deal with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 240,000 Americans are dead , and there ’ s no communal , public rituals to acknowledge the collective grief and individual sorrow that we ’ re experiencing .
We have to deal with loneliness and what does it mean for us to be stuck in our homes and hidden behind our masks , where social interactions are kind of overdetermined by the specter of death and the virus .
And then , of course , the principal issue is selfishness , that you have folk who have simply given up stake in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And so , when we look at those numbers among Black men and Latino men , we can say that , you know , the epidemic of selfishness doesn ’ t end at the doorstep of white people .
And so you have people who are concerned about their 401 ( k ) s , concerned about their own individual self-gain , individual self-interest .
And so , these folk have opted out , in some ways , of any robust conception of the public good .
So we ’ re going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loneliness and selfishness and how it poses , I think , an existential threat to our democratic way of life .
But , you know , everybody is bringing up Black men .
When you look at Black folk , when you think about what happened in Atlanta , when you think about what happened in Milwaukee , when you think about what happened in Detroit , when you think about what happened in Philly , you see the path for the Biden-Harris ticket to get to the White House through Black America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at 80-plus percent .
They need to start talking about why white women have voted at 56 % for Donald Trump , given what he ’ s done .
But , again , who ’ s at the center of the gravity of our politics ?
Who are folks thinking about all the time in a certain sort of way ?
We need to — these numbers will allow us to drill down at some point , but we need to understand the reality for what it is .
BREE NEWSOME BASS : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that there is this constant abusive relationship between party politics and Black communities , where we are scapegoated when it ’ s convenient , and then we are thrown under the bus when it ’ s convenient .
And otherwise , it ’ s , you know , “ Show up to the polls to help us stay in power , because we can ’ t get elected without you.
” And that ’ s a dynamic that has to end .
When it ’ s time to try to scapegoat and talk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump do better , then they want to talk about Black men .
When it ’ s time to talk about the issues and why 80 % of Black men turned out to vote for Biden , no one wants to talk about defunding the police .
That ’ s the dynamic that has to end .
And I think the last thing I would say is it ’ s important for everyone to recognize that the Black movement , the Black organizing of our communities , that is independent of the Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics , but this movement began during the Obama administration , it continued through the Trump administration , and it will continue through the Biden administration .
We ’ re not altering our agenda based on what the Democratic leadership decides .
AMY GOODMAN : We have to leave it there , and I thank you so much for being with us , Bree Newsome Bass , antiracist activist , and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
History has been made: President-elect Joe Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris set so many precedents here. She becomes the first woman vice president, the first African American vice president, the first Indian American vice president, first South Asian vice president, the first Tamil American vice president, the first Caribbean American vice president, her father from Jamaica.
As we continue our conversation with Eddie Glaude and as well as Bree Newsome Bass, we’re going to turn right now to a comment that is brewing part of the debate that’s happening right now about the direction of the Democratic Party. This is House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, who went on several Sunday talk shows to criticize calls to defund the police, arguing the phrase hurts Democratic congressional candidates. Here he is on NBC’s Meet the Press citing the defeat of Jaime Harrison in South Carolina against incumbent Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
REP. JAMES CLYBURN: Jaime Harrison started to plateau with “defund the police,” showed up with a caption on TV right across his head. That stuff hurt Jaime. And that’s why I spoke out against it a long time ago. I have always said that these headlines can kill a political effort.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Congressmember Clyburn speaking on the Sunday talk shows. Clyburn is credited with really Joe Biden winning the Democratic primaries, having endorsed him right before the South Carolina primary, which then launched him to victory. I wanted to first go to Bree Newsome Bass. You’re in the Carolinas, but you’re in the other one: You’re in North Carolina. Can you talk about this major debate, this debate for the soul of the Democratic Party right now, Bree?
BREE NEWSOME BASS: Yeah, certainly. Well, I mean, first of all, to this argument that is being made so fiercely right now, you know, attacking the “defund the police” effort, I mean, I have yet to see anyone provide any concrete data that supports that claim, other than people making this conjecture. I mean, I live in the Carolinas. I have seen all of the ads that have been running. I mean, they were also running a lot of ads trying to tie Jaime Harrison to Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. So, I mean, unless someone is showing data that can really show that one or the other is what led to Jaime Harrison specifically plateauing in South Carolina, which is a deeply red state, you know, was an uphill battle against Lindsey Graham to begin with, I frankly don’t give that a whole lot of weight.
And I think, again, we cannot gloss over the racial aspect of this whole situation. So, we’re talking about a situation where the Democratic leadership is making the claim — simultaneously making the claim that we need to reach across the aisle, we need to engage in bipartisanship with the party that is not acknowledging the election results; the party that just tried to prevent us from having a free and fair election; the party that engaged in rampant voter suppression, disenfranchisement and intimidation, and particularly in communities of color; the party that, you know, is completely opposed to the idea of our existence; the party that is essentially advocating a form of genocide through medical neglect, that has been ravaging our communities. And so, we can’t just gloss over when people are saying that the path forward is to build with Republicans and at the same time to essentially demonize, make a boogeyman of Black activism and Black causes.
Ro Khanna is exactly correct. It is the organizers, the same exact people who have been organizing Black communities around issues that impact us, that mobilized those voters for the Biden-Harris win. You know, I’ve also seen people making reference to progressives as being the ones who are being divisive or, you know, ending the truce within the Democratic Party. And it’s quite the opposite. You had a situation where you have a significant segment of people who either traditionally vote Democrat, a lot of people who are completely disengaged from the electoral process completely because they feel that regardless of who is in power, their needs are not met; regardless of who is in power, the police continue to kill us; regardless of who is in power, we do not have access to proper healthcare, we do not have access to housing. So, you had a lot of organizers who had to do a lot of heavy lifting to convince folks that it was worthwhile simply to get Trump out, to mobilize behind Biden and Harris. And that’s why you got Georgia turning out as it did. That’s why you got Arizona turning out as it did.
So, in my view, for anyone to look at the election results and for the takeaway to be we need to figure out how to appeal to the Lindsey Graham voters, you know, and the deeply red districts, as opposed to recognizing that there’s an entire electorate that is younger, that represents where the electorate is going — it’s younger, it’s more diverse, it can win you states in the South — this is the argument that Stacey Abrams has been making for quite some time — instead of looking at things and saying, “How can we invest more in Black and Indigenous and people of color organizing? How can we really look at those issues?” — this is again going to what Ro Khanna was saying — I mean, politically, that makes a lot more sense than saying, “How do we tap into the electorate that lost the presidential election, the electorate that is shrinking, and then, morally, the electorate that opposes democracy?” because they are more committed to racism than they are to the idea of a democracy that allows everyone to participate. So, you know, again, I just think that we cannot — we cannot gloss over.
Yes, I recognize, of course, that James Clyburn is a long-standing politician from South Carolina. He is Black. And I don’t — you know, I’m sure that he recognizes what the political landscape is like in South Carolina. But if we’re looking at the bigger picture, they’re going to cost themselves the Senate race in Georgia if the case that they’re making is that we’re going to try to lean more towards Republican than making it clear to people that unless they turn folks out for those Senate seats in Georgia, you’re not going to have access to the things that you need, like healthcare and all these other things. So, if they embrace a more centrist or Republican agenda, then the takeaway from folks is going to be, again, that it doesn’t matter whether they turn out to vote or not. So I think it’s just like the complete opposite.
And the fact that the focus in the immediate aftermath of the election, when we are still dealing with the situation of a president who does not acknowledge the election results, we’ve got him stoking violence among white supremacists who are threatening violence against sitting governors, who have threatened to blow up ballot-counting centers, that folks would pick defunding the police as the target, as the threat, as the danger, when you’re talking about communities that are still being killed by police and still turning out to support this party in spite of that, complete opposite direction of where they should be going.
AMY GOODMAN: That brings us to professor Eddie Glaude. Professor, you tweeted this quote from James Baldwin: “It has always seemed much easier to murder than to change. And this is really the choice with which we are confronted now.” Explain.
EDDIE GLAUDE: Well, you know, there’s a sense in which the reckoning that we find ourselves involves the question of whether or not we’re going to fundamentally embrace the idea that we are a multiracial democracy. And the history of the country suggests that we constantly, when faced with that question, will double down on violence, that white America will choose violence to defend its way of life, to defend those noxious assumptions, that have, in some ways, led to the organization of our way of life predicated upon this idea that white people ought to be valued more than others, that they will in fact exact a certain kind of violence to defend that view. And so, Baldwin, in this moment, is kind of marking this, right? That America is always talking about it changing, but it never changes, right?
And so, what’s so interesting about the conversation around the Democratic Party is that it’s actually insane — right? — that we would think that the way to respond to the scale of problems that we confront as a nation is to harken back to an older form of politics that is DLC, “Third Way” Democratic-oriented — you know, Democratic politics, that seems to try to triangulate and appeal to this Reagan Democrat that they are so obsessed with as a way of responding to this problem. It makes no sense that we would go back to the politics that actually produced Trumpism in the first place. That’s the first point. The second — or the second point.
The third point is this: We can’t allow these folk to disentangle Trumpism from the Republican Party. I think this is what Bree Newsome Bass is trying to suggest to us. We can’t allow them to disentangle these two things. They are one and the same. So what are you asking for when you talk about reaching across the aisle? What are you asking us to do when you talk about reaching across the aisle in unity? We won’t do that again. That’s not going to happen this time.
And then, lastly, we need to get beyond, I think, these narrow labels. The politics is much more muddled. Right? We need to get beyond these narrow labels. We need to get beyond big government and small government and smart government and get to transformational government. We need to understand what “defund the police” means. Budget your values. Budget your values. That’s what it means at the heart of it, right? Why are you spending 60, 70% of your municipal budgets on policing, when you have education, social services and the like? Stop lying. Stop lying.
And then what we need to pay attention to, lastly — I’ll say this really quickly — we need to pay attention to who Biden appoints as his secretary of treasury. If we get another Rubinite, if we see someone in that tradition, we know what we got. And so, remember, we celebrate yesterday and the day before, but today begins the hard work. The problems of this nation require us to break from the old frames. And we will not allow Clyburn, we will not allow Kamala Harris’s symbolic and significance, we will not allow the threat of Donald Trump to get us from seeing that that is the issue. We have to break the political frame that got us in this mess in the first place.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Professor Glaude, Black male voters, a lot is being made of, came out in higher numbers for Trump this time than last time. But my colleague, co-host Juan González did a brilliant analysis of the information that’s come out on who voted in this unprecedentedly high turnout campaign, the highest in absolute history. Now, what it looks like at this point, as he was pointing out, white voters did not increase that much. That meant people of color increased. Yes, there were more people of color who voted for Trump, but overwhelmingly more who voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Apparently, many people are concerned about — well, I mean, obviously, many people are concerned about how close the election was — Trump winning possibly about, at this point, 57% of the white vote. And you, in your piece in Time magazine, said, “Alongside the details of policy and the particulars of governing a deeply divided country, [Biden] will have to confront what Donald Trump refused to face: that our way of life is broken.” Can you end with that?
EDDIE GLAUDE: Sure. You know, I think we have to deal with the reality of our dead. Close to 240,000 Americans are dead, and there’s no communal, public rituals to acknowledge the collective grief and individual sorrow that we’re experiencing. We have to deal with loneliness and what does it mean for us to be stuck in our homes and hidden behind our masks, where social interactions are kind of overdetermined by the specter of death and the virus. And then, of course, the principal issue is selfishness, that you have folk who have simply given up stake in the American life for their own selfish ends. And so, when we look at those numbers among Black men and Latino men, we can say that, you know, the epidemic of selfishness doesn’t end at the doorstep of white people. And so you have people who are concerned about their 401(k)s, concerned about their own individual self-gain, individual self-interest. And so, these folk have opted out, in some ways, of any robust conception of the public good. So we’re going to have to deal with death, loneliness and selfishness and how it poses, I think, an existential threat to our democratic way of life.
But, you know, everybody is bringing up Black men. When you look at Black folk, when you think about what happened in Atlanta, when you think about what happened in Milwaukee, when you think about what happened in Detroit, when you think about what happened in Philly, you see the path for the Biden-Harris ticket to get to the White House through Black America, Black folk. Black men voted at 80-plus percent. They need to start talking about why white women have voted at 56% for Donald Trump, given what he’s done. But, again, who’s at the center of the gravity of our politics? Who are folks thinking about all the time in a certain sort of way? We need to — these numbers will allow us to drill down at some point, but we need to understand the reality for what it is.
AMY GOODMAN: Last 30 seconds, Bree Newsome Bass.
BREE NEWSOME BASS: Yes. I mean, I think that there is this constant abusive relationship between party politics and Black communities, where we are scapegoated when it’s convenient, and then we are thrown under the bus when it’s convenient. And otherwise, it’s, you know, “Show up to the polls to help us stay in power, because we can’t get elected without you.” And that’s a dynamic that has to end. When it’s time to try to scapegoat and talk about, you know, why did Trump do better, then they want to talk about Black men. When it’s time to talk about the issues and why 80% of Black men turned out to vote for Biden, no one wants to talk about defunding the police. That’s the dynamic that has to end.
And I think the last thing I would say is it’s important for everyone to recognize that the Black movement, the Black organizing of our communities, that is independent of the Democratic Party. We are interacting with party politics, but this movement began during the Obama administration, it continued through the Trump administration, and it will continue through the Biden administration. We’re not altering our agenda based on what the Democratic leadership decides.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, and I thank you so much for being with us, Bree Newsome Bass, antiracist activist, and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude.
Happy Birthday to John Hamilton and Kieran Krug-Meadows! I’m Amy Goodman.