Dear Progressive Reader,
At the beginning of this past week, all eyes were on the two historic runoff elections in Georgia that would determine control of the U.S. Senate. As Zach Roberts chronicled in his photo essay, the stakes were high, and all stops were being pulled out by both sides in an effort to achieve victory. Huge amounts of money poured into the state for advertising, but it was the on-the-ground organizing that turned the tide. Steven Wishnia reports on the crucial role played by labor unions in securing the victory. And there is no question that the long-term efforts of groups like Black Voters Matter, led by Latosha Brown, and Fair Fight, founded by Stacey Abrams, were essential to the two Democrats’ victories.
By early Wednesday morning, it was clear the Senate would flip, giving new opportunities to an incoming Biden Administration. While many are already rushing to point out that the majorities that Democrats now hold in both House and Senate are very slim, there is no question that controlling what reaches the floor of the U.S. Senate will make a huge difference in achieving legislative goals. But all of this hope was quickly overshadowed on Wednesday as Trump supporters, many of them armed, stormed the U.S. Capitol (and threatened other state capitols across the country).
Fueled by unfounded claims of election fraud, thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., to attempt to create an actual “election fraud” by nullifying the results of the 2020 popular vote. As New York Times fashion writer Vanessa Friedman writes in an excellent analysis of their costume choices, “[T]hey came dressed for chaos” in a spectacle where “the pageantry of aggression turned actual.” Progressive reporter Laura Brickman was on the scene, reporting for Insider News, and shared these chilling images of the events. As another Progressive correspondent, Mary Jo McConahay, describes in her blog, the insurgency reverberated around the world.
One lasting question from these events is why police behaved so differently for the pro-Trump crowd than at previous protests for racial justice and against U.S. military policy. As Iliana Hagenah reports, this contrast is also displayed in recent legislation authored in response to last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. “With the rise of white nationalism and conservative movements coinciding with the resurgence of BLM protests, which are more likely to draw a heavier police presence,” she says, “PEN America notes that conservative movements that have been getting more support from these same politicians drafting anti-protest bills ‘is potent evidence of the political motivations that have shaded these legislative efforts.’ ”
This reality is echoed by the announcement Tuesday that prosecutors would not seek charges following the August 23 shooting of Jacob Blake by a Kenosha police officer. The same day it was announced that white vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse had pled not guilty in his trial for shooting three unarmed protesters in Kenosha, killing two. Rittenhouse is currently free on bail, paid by rightwing supporters, while Blake remains partially paralyzed in a spinal-injury rehabilitation center in Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been banned from Twitter (finally?) but he still has his telephone, as cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates, and in an op-ed, Bill Ballas highlights Trump’s use of the classic “organ grinder’s monkey.” And, although the House is discussing impeachment, as of today he still has the presidency. In his final days in office Trump is pursuing a variety of legislation to impede the incoming Biden Administration in its efforts to undo the damage wrought during Trump’s previous four years. Reese Erlich describes the plans to put Cuba back on a State Department “terror” list, and fears remain high about Trump’s intentions towards Iran and his attempts at scuttling the potential resumption of a nuclear peace treaty with that nation.
The Trump Administration has also radically failed in its handling of the coronavirus epidemic, as the country surpassed the mark of twenty-one million cases, with more than 130,000 currently hospitalized and a current average of one death every thirty-two seconds. Many of the cases, and the deaths, are occurring in prisons, but as Brian Dollinar points out, “Jails have [also] become Petri dishes for COVID-19. The majority of people in jail have not been convicted of a crime, yet they are being exposed to the coronavirus,” often bringing the disease home to their communities as they cycle in and out of the system. As Yohuru Williams wrote in an op-ed last April, early in the pandemic, “COVID-19 behind bars [is] a threat to all.”
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
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