Mike McGirr is a community activist living in Bristol, Virginia. He grew up on a regenerative farm in Massachusetts where he learned the fundamentals of farming and shaped his lifelong commitment to localized, equitable food systems. Mike works to dismantle barriers that have long disadvantaged farmers of color, small scale producers and under-resourced communities. He also has a degree in graphic design and has handled marketing campaigns for Fortune 100 companies. This year Mike served as the volunteer campaign manager for Cindy Green, who ran for the House of Delegates in Virginia’s 44th District, a deep red district in Southwest Virginia centered on Bristol and Abingdon, near where the Tennesse, Virginia, and North Carolina borders meet. Now he’s running to be the Chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia’s Rural Caucus. Mike joins Scott and me for a discussion of politics in rural areas, economic development in Southwest Virginia, and his ideas for organizing the Rural Caucus and local County committees to grow the Democratic Party in rural spaces and more effectively support candidates.
You can find out more about Mike and his work on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/people/MichaelRay4VA/61583415347341/ and at www.MikeMcGirr4VA.com.
The FBL Theme music is Partners In Crime by Alexander Nakarada, downloaded at https://creatorchords.com. Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/free-music/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), used by a Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Scott and I conduct an after action review of yesterday’s election in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and California. Why did Democrats more or less run the table, in some cases by flipping districts Trump won last year?
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Yesterday I spoke at the No Kings rally at the Williamsburg/James City County (WJCC) Courthouse, and thought I’d post a video of my remarks here.
Experts estimated the crowd at about six thousand people. I can tell you that protestors lined Monticello Avenue five or six deep for about a quarter mile or more, and many more gathered on the lawn next to the courthouse and the terrace where the speakers stood.
I can tell you that I saw elderly folks who clearly needed assistance to be there and still showed up. I spoke with middle-aged folks who remember Jim Crow and understand that Trump and his minions want to bring back oppression of out-groups and minorities of all kinds. And I engaged with young people who see very clearly that the system created by corporate capitalism simply does not work for them because they came too late to the party – the billionaires have already hoovered up all the wealth and they have no plan to share it or use it for the greater good.
The people I spoke with understand that MAGA is angry because Trump and his minions have lied to them about the state of the Nation and created fear in their hearts of people who live differently, love differently, and worship differently than they do. They lied to them so they can cripple the state, pervert law and order, and expand their fascist project of oppression.
Thanks to Heather Allen Meany and her team (looking at you, Rex!) for organizing this and creating a wonderful event with amazing speakers, including Lisa Vidernikova Khana (candidate for Congress in the First Congressional District, Ty Hodges (candidate for WJCC School Board), Diane Carter de Mayo (Chair of the Virginia First Congressional District Democratic Committee), Jason Moulenbelt (Marine Corps veteran and philosophy professor), Jessica Anderson (candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 71st District), and Mark Downey (Pediatrician and incumbent Delegate and candidate for reelection in the 69th District).
None of these people were paid to organize this event. None of the protesters were paid to attend. Patriotic Americans – the real core of the American identity, those of us who believe in a Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all – showed up for free.
As you probably know, the big news in Virginia politics this week, are the texts that Jay Jones, candidate for attorney general, sent to Delegate Carrie Coyner back in 2022, discussing basically the murder of former House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert and Gilbert’s children.
I know Jay Jones. It’s hard for me to believe that he wrote this even as a joke. I don’t understand it. He’s apologized. But, you know, the fact that it entered his head at all is problematic, much less that he put it in a text.
It goes without saying that wishing political opponents and their children dead over a policy disagreement is way outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse, even as a joke or a suggestion that “if they only suffer from their own policies, they might change their minds.”
We can and should do better. And yes, as both an expression of a thought that political violence has a place in policy disputes and as a demonstration of very, very poor judgment – the kind of poor judgement no one wants to see in an attorney general – disqualifies him. His rhetoric disqualifies him. But let’s take a step back and talk a little bit about political violence more broadly.
Yes, assassination certainly counts as political violence and is indeed perhaps the ultimate example. We should work to convince people that Charlie Kirk was wrong on the merits of his policy ideas and even his religion. Simply murdering him without warning violates our most fundamental values and ethics. It’s immoral, plain and simple.
That said, the America we know today was constructed on a foundation of political violence, starting with forced migration of Africans as slaves. The Boston Tea Party, the American Revolution, genocide against the indigenous peoples who lived here before Europeans arrived, and the attempt by the slave states to protect and expand the right to own human beings as property are all examples of political violence in our history.
Political violence continued after the Civil War in the form of Black Codes, Jim Crow, sundown towns, redlining, and other efforts to suppress the political power of outgroups. Our history is one long thread of political violence, mostly against the weak and defenseless, and mostly justified by those in power as necessary.
Today, ICE raids and the deployment of military forces to American cities look an awful lot like political violence designed to continue the suppression of groups and individuals seen by those in power as illegitimate political actors. The difference between the assassination of Kirk, or Jones’s rhetoric of murdered opponents is that, in this case, it’s agents of the State committing the political violence in our name.
Agents of the State invade apartment buildings. Agents of the state detain Americans without warrants or any kind of probable cause.
Agents of the state kidnap children in Chicago, some of them naked, and held them for no reason on the pretense of searching for gang members who were not there.
Agents of the state detain people, some of them American citizens, almost all of them lawful residents following the law and deport them to foreign prisons where they cannot apply for redress of this unlawful detention and deportation.
Agents of the state occupy cities on the false pretense of reducing crime where local governments have quite effectively reduced it without their assistance, and who have not asked for that assistance. We know they do this under false pretenses because they end up picking up trash, not fighting crime.
Now, for those of you who may have forgotten, these were key elements of the Founders’ grievances against the British Crown in 1776.
Quoting the Declaration of Independence:
“For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:”
For all the caterwauling by Jason Miyares, his running mate Winsome Sears, and Governor Youngkin about Jones’s violent political rhetoric, they all support political violence as long as it’s committed by agents of the state controlled by their Party.
Jones would push back against this. Miyares will not.
For this reason, although I believe Jones is not qualified by temperament or judgment to serve as Virginia’s Attorney General, I believe Miyares’ support for Trump and the anti-democratic Republican Party makes him even less qualified.
I therefore plan to vote for Jones and urge my fellow Virginians to do the same.
Once elected, I would then urge Jones to resign and allow the General Assembly to select his replacement. If Republicans control the legislature after the election, they can appoint Jason Miyares.
That’s my two cents on this subject, and that’s probably all I’m ever going to say about it again.
I can’t improve on Troxell’s explanation – he was in these meetings – so I won’t try. My crack at a TL;dr is that because this system limits the number of votes from each local Unit (even if it does not limit the number of delegates from each local Unit) it creates incentives for candidates to capture local unit delegations, as they would in a more…conventional…convention. Sorry.
As I read it, the minority faction fought for a primary because they believe their preferred candidate, Amanda Chase, can win the nomination with a 35% plurality in a large field. They’re less confident in her ability to win a majority at a convention with rank-choice voting. Of course, they frame the problem as “establishment RINOs” controlling the convention results to make sure Chase has no chance, but it’s not clear how including the broader GOP electorate across Virginia helps the most extremist potential nominee.
In any event, I followed the saga as it unfolded and I think it’s important to note that through the entire debate the core question focused on how to best keep opponents from voting. We see no willingness among any of these factions to form a coalition in support of a set of common goals based on commonly accepted social agreements. At every turn each one sought to expand access to their members and deny it to others.
When someone tells you who they are believe them – and the GOP is telling us that conservatives see a no path to power in building coalitions. Easier to simply shut opponents out of the electoral process altogether, and Republicans across the country have moved to do this to Democrats.
Voting in Person, 2019 Photo Credit: R. Stanton Scott
An authoritarian figure who has joked about being President for life runs the Federal Government during a pandemic that could literally kill millions of Americans and disrupt society for months. States are postponing primary elections and struggling to figure out how voters can cast ballots while keeping social distancing. Understandably, some people worry that Donald Trump might take advantage of the crisis to stay in power.
Lots of journalists have written about this, including Evan Halper in the LA Times, Blake Rutherford for The Hill, and Chris Cillizza for CNN. The general assessment boils down to “Trump may be desperate with the economy in the tank but has no power to postpone elections. His term ends on 20 January 2021 even if he could, and the Presidential Succession Act kicks in if he isn’t reelected or replaced through a Constitutional election before that time.”
These discussions focus narrowly on two questions: whether States could physically hold elections during a pandemic using modern systems and what would happen if they couldn’t. Most agree that elections can take place if state legislatures hurry up and figure out how to use expanded absentee voting, other voting by mail systems, or even the internet. They also think that if for some reason elections cannot be held, someone other than Trump would take power based on existing statute.
What none of these articles mention is the Electoral College and the role of state legislatures in choosing these Electors. This is the group that actually elects the President, as we found out the hard way in 2016. These days voters choose these Electors by casting votes at polling stations or by mail because state legislatures want it that way – this is not a Constitutional requirement. This means that elections for President and Vice President can take place as long as state legislatures can meet and choose Electors before Election Day.
Contributors and staff at The Bull Elephanthave predicted the outcome of today’s elections and they deliver about what you’d expect from true believers. Most think the GOP will hold the House and some think Republicans will pick up 3 or more seats in the Senate, with one suggesting a 60-seat majority. Many argue that Corey Stewart will outperform polls and one thinks he could have won with more help from the Republican national and state parties. Almost all think Barbara Comstock will lose, but few think any other Democrats will win Virginia House seats they aren’t heavily favored to win (e.g., Don McEachin [D-4]). Continue reading →
“Whenever I’m in New York, I can work myself into this state of really bleak despair, and then I go out and travel and meet … it’s not even necessarily Democratic Party activists as much as Indivisible activists or Democratic Socialists of America chapters or these sort of grass-roots groups that have sprung up since the election and are just doing so much work. And it always makes me feel so much more hopeful about the future.
You hear the same story over and over again of these kind of middle-aged women who, they voted, but they didn’t necessarily pay super close attention to primaries, maybe they had to look up what congressional district they were in, and who woke up the day after the election and were so shattered and looked around for somewhere they could go and found either an offshoot of Pantsuit Nation or a local Indivisible meeting.
And you meet these women, and they go to meetings now four or five nights a week. They have all new friends. They are just astonishing organizers, and they’re kind of using this intense local knowledge that they have. You can’t replicate that when it comes to canvassing, somebody who just knows everyone on the block. So you see that being deployed everywhere, and that I think is why you’re seeing these numbers in some of the special elections, these swings that are even bigger than the swings you see on the generic ballot.”
I can tell you that I saw the same thing all over Virginia’s First Congressional District during the primary campaign this spring, and these folks don’t seem to be tiring. So I’m more optimistic than some of my fellow Progressives that we’re really about to see a Blue Wave in November.
Rob Wittman never had much to say about broadband internet access in the Congressional District he represents until the issue came up in the Democratic Primary this spring. Much of the district is rural and without connection to the web services that stimulate economic development, support businesses and allow remote access to medical care. They are without this connection because private markets do not provide what amounts to a public utility in remote areas, and no amount of deregulation will make them want to. The return on investment simply isn’t there.
Back in the day, much of Tennessee had a similar problem with electricity. The Federal Government, not private enterprise, solved the problem through the Tennessee Valley Authority, a New Deal Democrat effort to modernize rural areas of the state. Could we learn something from this very successful effort? Continue reading →
Corey Stewart likes to pal around with people like Paul Nehlen and Jason Kessler. Nehlen is an anti-Semite who jokes on Twitter about killing political opponents. Kessler organized the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville last August. A rally attendee and Kessler supporter killed Heather Heyerwith his car. Two Virginia State Troopers, Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen, 48, of Midlothian, Virginia, and Trooper-Pilot Berke M. M. Bates, 40, of Quinton, Virginia, died when their observation helicopter crashed on their way to assist authorities on the ground. Kessler plans a sequel, by the way. Wonder if Stewart will attend. Continue reading →
