In this episode, Andre and Todd discuss their different views on the threat of racial violence, whether anyone is capable of being pushed to violence, what’s behind the caution that Andre brings to Black-white relationships, and how canceling each other’s views and experiences impedes our ability to have open, honest conversations about race.
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Trump sticks to America First policies in deeply Democratic Chicago
Oct 22, 2024
Huot-Marchand is a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
“I do not comment on those things. But let me tell you, if I did, it would be a really smart thing to do,” boasted Donald Trump, when Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait asked whether the former president had private phone calls with Vladimir Putin.
Welcomed with high applause and lots of laughs from the members and guests of the Economic Club of Chicago on Oct. 16, Trump bragged about his great relationships with U.S. adversaries and authoritarian leaders Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jung Un.
Author and Washington Post editor Bob Woodward, in his new book “War,” claims Trump has had as many as seven private phone calls with the Russian president since he left office in 2021. Woodward also reports that Trump sent Covid-test equipment to the Kremlin for Putin’s personal use in the early weeks of the pandemic when his own population was scrambling to find tests. In his continued awe of the Russian president, Trump gushed during the Chicago event, “Russia has never had a president they respect so much.”
Speaking to a friendly audience in a city and state he will likely lose by large margins, Trump continued to promise to impose high tariffs on foreign goods, a topic that drew criticism from attendees. He also used the nonpartisan forum to blame diplomatic allies for America’s $70 billion trade deficit and tout his isolationist, America First foreign policy.
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Trump claimed current international disputes would not exist if he had won the 2020 election. The cause for China’s most recent intimidation tactics toward Taiwan is clear, he said: “The reason they’re doing it now is because they won’t do it later” — presumably meaning if he is re-elected.
He also criticized former presidents for not doing enough to stand up to China. “Barack Hussein Obama, not one president, charged China anything, they said ‘Oh, they’re a third-world nation, they’re developing,’” Trump said. Then he reiterated his recent criticism of Detroit, noting, “We’re a developing country, look at Detroit.”
Trump also lashed out at multiple American allies.
“European nations are screwing us on trade,” he charged, claiming the United States faces a $350 billion trade deficit with the European Union. (According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the deficit with the E.U. — America’s No. 1 trading partner — stands at $131.1 billion.) Trump has said he would impose a 10 percent tariff on European products. This will have a noticeable negative effect on consumers, according to Micklethwait and many in the audience.
“Tariffs are ultimately passed down to the consumer,” said Janice Boudreau, a certified public accountant at BMM Testlabs. “We're going to have another depression like 1929. I think the country will collapse.”
“I agree with the borders 100 percent,” says Todd Rowden, a lawyer at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, expressing approval of Trump immigration policy positions. “While I agree with some tariffs for strategic purposes, the kinds of things he suggested with Western Europe might be a little bit problematic.”
On NATO, Trump claims the U.S. was paying “almost 100 percent” because “delinquent countries” refused to pay. Whether Trump wants to downsize America’s security role with NATO remains unclear. In the same tone, he said South Korea will have to pay for its own military, mentioning the 40,000 U.S. troops stationed there, and that South Korea has become a “very wealthy country.”
Trump also mentioned that Germany was paying billions to Russia because of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline: “We’re supposed to pay to protect you from this country you’re paying billions to?” Trump insinuated military aid to Ukraine would shrink if he wins in November. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany was paying Gazprom, the Russian company that built NS2. Once the war started, the E.U. made extreme efforts to cut off Russian gas from its energy supply. For a second time, Trump spread a clear lie about having terminated NS2 when, in reality, it was destroyed in September 2022 during the war in Ukraine.
Trump last visited Chicago in August for the National Association of Black Journalists conference. He received heavy criticism then for claiming that Harris had “turned Black.” This time, he addressed a crowd mostly composed of CEOs and business executives. “She is not as smart as Biden,” Trump said, “we're not going to have a country left.”
The crowd cheered loudly.
Rowden observed that the Chicago interview showed a “human side to him” and appreciated the “unfiltered answers” from candidate Trump.
“I am trying to create a space for people to have civil discourse,” says Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, Vice Chair of the ECC. Even if Trump will most likely lose deeply Democratic Illinois, this interview revealed he still has some strong Republican support in the city.
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Election lawyer Justin Levitt on why 2024 litigation is mostly hot air
Oct 21, 2024
Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Justin Levitt has been on the frontlines in some of American democracy’s biggest legal battles for two decades. Now a law professor at Los Angeles’ Loyola Marymount University, he has worked as a voting rights attorney and top Justice Department civil rights attorney, and he has advised both major parties.
In this Q&A, he describes why 2024’s partisan election litigation is likely to have limited impacts on voters and counting ballots. But that won’t stop partisan propagandists and fundraising from preying on voters.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Steven Rosenfeld: The 2024 presidential election has more partisan litigation targeting how elections are run than I've ever seen. Does this worry you?
Justin Levitt: It sure seems like a lot. … That said, I don’t generally gauge the amount of litigation by the raw quantity of filings — not least because I got internet-famous for 30 seconds in 2020 by reminding people that a lawsuit without provable facts of a legal violation is just a tweet with a filing fee. And, so, for the privilege of 400 bucks or so, you too can file a lawsuit, and have it count toward the total volume. But that doesn’t mean there's anything of substance in there. I tend to evaluate the degree of litigation, not just by adding up numbers, but by sort of how serious some cases are. By that count, I think there are probably more cases now, but not more serious cases. And I think that's meaningful.
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SR: How can we help readers understand what is and is not serious? I always thought that a serious case when it came to election challenges and recounts was you had to prove that there were enough votes in dispute that would change the outcome.
JL: That’s one good measure. And meaningfully dispute — not just [dispute] with made-up facts that can't be proven. So, in 2020, I think there were zero lawsuits, at least concerning the presidential election after the election, that had to do with meaningfully disputed ballots. Contrast that with before the election trying to get clear on the rules that were going to be in place. There was a hefty amount of litigation over what we do in a pandemic; some pushing for relaxation of the normal rules, some pushing against administrative action that relaxed the normal rules, and an awful lot of uncertainty at stake. There was a lot more litigation with a meaningful capacity to impact the way Americans cast and count ballots in 2020 than there is now. And that was all pre-election, not post-election.
SR: Many of 2024’s pre-election suits have not yet been decided or heard by judges. Many officials have not even replied to recently filed suits. What are people to make of that?
JL: I think what people are to make of those is not very much. In most cases, those lawsuits are not going to affect the final result. And they’re not going to affect the process of filing a ballot, either. For example, the most significant of mail ballot cases, right at the moment, have to do with the deadline for returning ballots and, in particular, challenges to state deadlines. The easiest thing that readers can do to make sure that their mail ballots get in on time, regardless of the litigation, is fill them out and get them in. There is no serious challenge, at least as far as I’m aware, to any mail ballot that arrives by Election Day.
SR: Yet when I look at the litigation, I see partisans, especially Republicans, targeting little-known steps and claiming the process is flawed. They exaggerate the impact of mistakes. They say results can’t be trusted unless voters are disqualified and ballots thrown out.
JL: That’s happening. And definitely going to happen. I’ll get back to the mistakes in just a second, because I think you're right about that, and yet, I don’t think it ends up mattering.
But the point about creating the context for noise and disruption is 100 percent going to happen. And how do I know that? I know that because for eight years now, the median candidate of a major political party has claimed, without evidence, that there is a vast amount of fraud in the process, including for elections that he won. And so, is that coming again? You bet. Is it true? No. It hasn’t been true for eight years, and it’s still not true now.
But that messaging, that noise and the disruption that follows from it is absolutely coming. And also, it doesn't change the result. Some of the litigation is premised on a view of the law as magical legalism. If you say the right words in Latin in the right order, it's like casting a spell, and, all of a sudden, you can magically sweep away millions of votes. I understand the view, the under-informed view, because some of these processes seem byzantine. But the law at its heart is a dispute resolution system. It is not a venue for magic in the way we actually make electoral choices. And the things that lawsuits are pointing to as mistakes are not even mistakes. Sometimes they're just perceptions of mistakes, or perceptions of things that are allegedly contrary to law — but aren’t in any way.
But sometimes [the litigants] do actually capture real mistakes. It turns out that we have a process for resolving those mistakes and it’s not “Throw away all of the ballots.” The measure of a voting system is not, “Have we made a mistake,” just like the measure of any human endeavor is not, “Has there been a mistake?” The measure of a voting system is, what are the belt and suspenders procedural processes? Is it robust enough to actually resolve mistakes? What do we do if a mistake happens? And it turns out that every election structure in literally every county across America has a bunch of safeguards for figuring out what we do in case of mistakes, and most of the litigation now just ignores all of that.
SR: That’s true, of course. But isn’t much of the litigation’s purpose to sow propaganda and distrust?
JL: It’s more than just propagandizing; it’s for fundraising. An awful lot of this is messaging-based. But that is not just for the message itself. That’s because the message usually comes attached to, “We're fighting for you and give us money.” There’s an enormous amount of litigation at the moment that is being filed either for pure messaging or for fundraising. It’s a big business now. That’s not what litigation should be for.
We saw this, for example, in the period between November of 2020 and January of 2021 — I’m going to use this as an example, although it was surely not the only example — President Trump's personal leadership PAC, which is a fundraising vehicle that effectively is completely unconstrained by campaign finance rules. It can be used for any purpose at all, including, “I feel like going out to dinner at a nicer place,” or “I feel like buying a jet,” or “I feel like buying a house.” It's walk-around money. It's money that goes straight into his wallet, effectively. I believe that one fundraising vehicle raised $30 million between November and January based on appeals that were almost exclusively focused on “Keep us in the litigation fight,” even when there was zero accountability for ensuring that any of that money would actually be used for litigation.
I cite that example because it’s big business to be filing cases to show that you’re in the fight, or to demonstrate that you’re in the fight, even if there’s not really that much to be fighting about, or even if the courts are extremely unlikely to give you relief. So how should readers sort of figure out which is which? I have a real easy benchmark.
SR: Which is …
JL: If the election is within 537 votes in a major swing state — and that number is not obviously taken out of thin air, that’s the margin in Bush vs. Gore [in 2000 in Florida] — then absolutely every one of these lawsuits is important. Why? Because absolutely every one of them matters, because everything matters. A butterfly ballot flapping its wings somewhere could change the results. That close a margin means that the margin of victory is inevitably less than the margin of error. A tiny change in one place changes the election. But I say that in order to make the more important point: With a margin of more than 537 votes, none of these cases matter. Absolutely none of them.
Even if an election is really close, and 2020 was really close in a number of states, if it’s not 500 votes close, then the thing that decides the election is the choices of the people who turn out, and not the lawyers and not the courts. And I say that as a law professor and an election lawyer who’s deeply invested in the importance of some of these concepts. But honestly, the people are going to end up deciding this election — not lawyers.
SR: This is very clarifying and grounding, especially as people's anxieties are rising.
JL: I don’t begrudge them the anxiety. There’s a whole industry out there that’s designed to stoke their anxiety and then, usually, to channel that anxiety toward a request for a little bit of money. So, I am in no way belittling people for feeling freaked out, because there are a lot of people who are paid very handsomely to try to make sure that they’re freaked out.
I’m only saying I’m giving them permission not to feel freaked out about the process, about the structure. I've been in this business for more than two decades now. And I worked in a variety of roles, including in campaigns, in government. I also have served as a precinct election official. The system was put to the test about as thoroughly as any system ever has been in 2020 where there was a conscious attempt to break the process and a lot of not-conscious factors that could well have broken the process, including a once-a-century pandemic. And the process held remarkably thoroughly. That’s credit to a giant roster of people and officials and election workers. And it didn’t just happen.
But in a system with thousands of alleged points of failure, none of them failed. And in order to swing an election, you need all of them to fail. And absolutely none of them did, despite enormous pressure to the contrary. So, I am quite confident that this year, the processes and systems are robust enough and resilient enough.
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If you think the 2020 election was stolen, why vote in 2024?
Oct 21, 2024
Clancy is co-founder of Citizen Connect and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund. Citizen Connect is an initiative of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, which also operates The Fulcrum.
I’m not here to debate whether the 2020 presidential election involved massive voter fraud that made Joe Biden’s victory possible. There has been extensive research, analysis and court cases related to that topic and nothing I say now will change your mind one way or the other. Nothing will change the fact that tens of millions of Americans believe Biden was not legitimately elected president.
So let’s assume for the sake of argument that there actually was game-changing election fraud that unjustly put Biden in the White House. If that was the case, what are the odds that Donald Trump would be “allowed” to win this time? If that level of voter fraud is set to happen again, isn’t voting just a waste of time?
Following is an overview of what has and hasn’t changed since 2020 — and why if massive election fraud happened last time it would be even more likely to happen this time.
- Democrats now control the White House. If Trump couldn’t stop massive fraud in 2020 while he was in the White House, doesn’t having Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris running the executive branch make it easier to pull off now? If the party out of power could get away scot-free after stealing the last election against a strong incumbent who was acutely aware of the risks of fraud, what are the chances of stopping it this time?
- Will election reforms put in place since 2020 stop another steal? Put another way, have Republicans enacted enough changes to the voting process at the national and state level to address the scale and scope of Biden’s alleged voter fraud? Short answer: They haven’t. While there have been election process changes in many states, none of them could disrupt such a widespread and meticulously executed corruption scheme. At the federal level Republicans have done almost nothing — and this in the face of what would be the greatest election crime in American history.
- Have the people behind the alleged 2020 fraud faced justice? Not at all. In fact not one person behind the suspected 2020 fraud has been charged, much less convicted. Given their incredible success last time, why would they hesitate in the slightest to do it again? Where have Republican district attorneys and judges been on this issue? Passive overall with some Trump-appointed judges even dismissing election crime allegations.
- What have Republican leaders done? Given the level of alleged fraud, you’d think the Republican Party would have spoken as one to make sure this never happened again. And yet not only haven’t they come together to decry these unprecedented crimes and demand reform — many leading Republicans are claiming that Biden won legitimately in 2020 and that our election process is sound.
- Are election officials ready to stop fraud this time? Many of the election officials most committed to addressing supposed fraud in 2020 lost their election bids. In addition, Democrats now hold more leadership offices around the country including those with election oversight responsibilities. None of this suggests that our election system would be more prepared to take on another 2020-style election conspiracy.
The fact is, Democrats are in a much stronger position overall in 2024 to “fix” the election. If Democrats actually got away with stealing the election last time, why on earth wouldn’t they do it again? The stakes are even higher this time because Trump has made it crystal clear that he’s committed to aggressively rooting out and prosecuting election fraud. If these incredibly skillful criminal forces were driven by a desire to win in 2020, this time they will try even harder to stay out of jail.
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Let me be crystal clear: I would like every American citizen to vote with confidence whether they are a Republican, Democrat or independent. It is a core duty, honor and blessing of citizenship. However, if you really believe the presidential election was stolen in 2020 what makes you think your vote will matter this time? If rigging it proved so easy and seamless before, it should be even easier in 2024.
Voting makes sense if and only if you have faith that America’s election process is essentially sound. Not perfect — that’s impossible — but able to accurately reflect the will of the people. So don’t take anyone else’s word for it — do your own research and determine your level of confidence in our election system. If you think it’s fundamentally sound, definitely vote. But if you decide to cast a ballot you should also commit to respecting the outcome and supporting the American tradition of free, fair and safe elections.
Whether you chose to vote this year, undermining American democracy or resorting to violence is never justified. Our election system can always be improved, but that must be done peacefully and with respect for the rule of law.
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Not all Hartford Latinos will vote but they agree on food assistance
Oct 21, 2024
Dumont is a freelance journalist based in Connecticut.
The Fulcrum presents We the People, a series elevating the voices and visibility of the persons most affected by the decisions of elected officials. In this installment, we explore the motivations of over 36 million eligible Latino voters as they prepare to make their voices heard in November.
Many residents living in the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford, Conn., are hesitant to vote, despite being passionate and in tune with local social issues, due to historical distrust. Among those voting and not voting, food insecurity and inflation at large are a key issue for many Latino residents.
At the heart of Frog Hollow, Natalie Morales stays busy as a patient navigator at the Hispanic Health Council's Family Wellness Center on 590 Park Street. She spends her days helping people find open food pantries, apply to state assistance programs, fill out housing applications and secure employment.
As a working mother, Morales said, her own paychecks go directly to paying bills. Whatever she has left over is her budget for groceries. With increasing prices, high-quality foods and fresh produce don’t always make that budget.
“Sometimes, I don’t have enough to go out and buy $200-$300 worth of food,” she explained. “There are times that I do have to go to food pantries because it’s not enough.”
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Even then, like many working parents, Morales said she cannot always make it to a food pantry since they have limited hours and she has a busy schedule.
“Inflation with food is very high. … Yes, we have food pantries but some are not every day,” said Morales. She knows families who depend on food pantries on a regular basis and pointed out that pantries offer more non-perishable foods rather than meats, proteins and produce that contain essential nutrients.
In 2023, about 30 percent of Hartford residents said they experienced food insecurity — more than half of these individuals identified as Latino and/or Black — compared to the statewide average of 14 percent, according toDataHaven’s annual Hartford Equity Profile.
Passionate about social issues in her local community, Morales said she supports the council’s work on civic engagement — however, she does not plan on casting a ballot this fall. Morales said she has not voted in many years and has not seen a difference when she does or does not vote.
At a food distribution event in September, Hartford resident Melanie Segui echoed Morales, saying inflation has impacted her this past year but she does not plan on voting. “I just let others choose,” she said.
In the 2020 presidential election, about 50 percent of Hartford’s eligible voters cast ballots — compared to the state average of 80 percent. During the 2022 election, 26 percent of Hartford residents voted, with the state average being 58 percent.
A historical distrust between residents and political processes continues to be a major challenge in the community, said Megan Scharrer, policy advocacy manager of the Hispanic Health Council. In response, the council has partnered with local, community-serving organizations to host two listening sessions on how to best civically inform and motivate potential voters in the area.
Through these community discussions, Scharrer learned that residents prefer to learn about the voting process through in-person conversations with other members of the community. In response, the council has organized a team of about 20 volunteers who conduct door-to-door canvassing in various Hartford neighborhoods to reach potential voters.
Scharrer shared that food insecurity is a top concern for local residents — voters and non-voters alike — along with affordable housing, quality health care access, community safety and protecting workers’ rights.
“Access to food … that’s a really big thing, access to actually healthy food in the neighborhood,” said Scharrer.
Although there are Frog Hollow residents who are hesitant to vote, this community is not a monolith and those who are voting seem confident in their decision.
On a sunny Saturday in October, seven volunteers reached out to around 200 households in the Frog Hollow community. Scharrer shared that residents were overall receptive to speaking about Election Day, and many had questions about voting registration and early voting — although there were residents who felt as if their vote doesn’t matter,
While some residents said they feel as if their vote doesn’t matter, others expressed great excitement for the elections, said Scharrer.
Hartford resident Pedro Pimienta is ready to cast his ballot in November. He has watched his community adapt to the highs and lows of the local economy since emigrating from Colombia 60 years ago and said that recent inflation will strongly influence his vote.
“We got to be careful this time,” said Pimienta. “We have to [be] cautious when we vote because it’s our future.”
Although Pimienta receives Social Security and pension benefits, he said it’s not enough to cover all his expenses. In the past few years, inflation has impacted many aspects of Pimienta’s life, including the cost of groceries, insurance, home electricity and his mortgage — which has gone up from $700 last year to $1200 this year.
“Right now, the cost of living for me is very high,” shared Pimienta. “Every month, when I pay all my bills, I don’t have enough money for food. Every time I go to the supermarket, I think, ‘Oh, they made a mistake’ and they say, ‘No, everything is correct.’ … I remember I used to buy a rotisserie chicken for $5.99 and now it’s $10.99.”
Residents have emphasized how the qualifications for assistance programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, are specific and exclusionary. For those who do receive SNAP benefits, the amount given is not enough at times due to inflation.
A few residents, who are eligible, have commented that the amount given is not enough at times since SNAP benefits are not increasing at the same rate as inflation.
“Food is very, very expensive,” said Morales. “Even when a person gets food stamps from the state it’s still hard because if … that’s all you get, you have to know how to manage your money to buy the food that you need.”
About 37 percent of Frog Hollow households were participating in SNAP in 2022, according to the Census Bureau, while 10.6 percent of households experiencing poverty were not receiving SNAP benefits.
With these issues in mind, community organizations are continuing their civic engagement efforts this fall with nonpartisan, door-to-door canvassing and informational events with the hopes of increasing voter turnouts and civic participation year-round.
“We’ve definitely tried to also teach people that it doesn’t just stop at voting,” said Scharrer. “There are ways to get civically involved and that’s our goal, making civic engagement a part of everyday life.”
In the weeks leading to Election Day,The Fulcrum will continue to publish stories from across the country featuring the people who make up the powerful Latino electorate to better understand the hopes and concerns of an often misunderstood, diverse community.
What do you think about this article? We’d like to hear from you. Please send your questions, comments, and ideas to newsroom@fulcrum.us.
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