Dear Progressive Reader,
Last Sunday, I spent the afternoon in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with radio host and author Thom Hartmann and U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar. The event was sponsored by progressive talk-radio station AM950. Hartmann, whose new book The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote—And How to Get It Back was recently featured in an excerpt on our website, spoke about concerns over ways in which the November 2020 elections might be derailed. The antidote, he told the crowd, would be a “huge turnout” so that the results could not be questioned. Representative Omar echoed this call saying, “We are greater than fear, because when we come together, we are able to achieve great things.” Omar was profiled in the cover story of our December/January issue. She was elected by a strong majority in the November, 2018, elections to serve Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.
As Hartmann, Omar, and others at the event emphasized, voter turnout will be a key factor this year’s election. Donald Trump, speaking in rallies this week has continued his cries of “hoax” whenever anyone challenges him—even calling the coronavirus a “new hoax” perpetrated by Democrats. This raises serious concerns about the way he might respond to an electoral defeat. Hartmann is very concerned, and noted, quoting Yale professor and author of the book On Tyranny Timothy Snyder, “When an autocrat says something, believe him.” However, as Congressmember Omar emphasized last Sunday, we must “stand up to tyrants and say No More.”
Jeff Abbott writes from Central America about the rising trend of “strongman” figures in Latin American politics, most recently amplified when the President of El Salvador brought troops into the chamber of the nation's Legislative Assembly to urge passage of a piece of legislation. Reese Ehrlich reports this week on the rise of hardliners in recent elections in Iran as that country begins to tackle the globe’s second largest outbreak of coronavirus. And Sarah Lahm brings news from Minnesota, where Hmong immigrants are facing fears of deportation as the Trump Administration announces plans to send members of their community back to Laos.
South Carolina voters go to the polls today, and, earlier this week, seven Democratic hopefuls participated in a debate in Charleston. Ruth Conniff provides an overview of that event, which more than one political commentator and numerous “everyday citizens” have described as being more like a cafeteria food fight. Conniff observes “the Democratic Party would apparently rather commit collective suicide than get behind its frontrunner [Senator Bernie Sanders]. . . . His party is determined to do as much damage as possible to his chances, even as the rest of the splintered field continues its fruitless bickering.” Meanwhile, far from being a radical left-winger, as Sophie Vaughn writes this week, “There are deep parallels between what Bernie Sanders is proposing and what Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised.” And, as Mike McCabe, executive director of the Sanders-inspired group Our Wisconsin Revolution, notes in our featured excerpt from his just-published book, Unscrewing America: Hints and Hopes from the Heartland: “It’s not too late. America can be unscrewed once we overhaul the thinking, the practices, and the systems that screwed us over in the first place.”
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. – We are offering a special half-price sale on our 2020 Hidden History of the United States calendar! You can order one now, before they are all gone, by clicking here.
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