Tell your Senators and President Biden: Protect the freedom to vote out white supremacists!

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Call Script

My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.

President Biden:

How bad do the death threats and mob violence have to get before you can convince all of our Democratic senators to protect our great, diverse electorate with a filibuster carve-out for voting rights? Senator Manchin has now had two chances to prove that the Republican Party is still at least arguably in favor of voting rights. In the meantime, death threats and intimidation of public officials keep increasing while Republican-led states aggressively continue their gerrymandering, voter suppression, and election subversion. Our pluralistic, multiracial democratic coalition needs the freedom to vote out and vote against those who reject fundamental American values like equal protection under the law.

To our Senators:

How bad do the death threats and mob violence have to get before you can convince all your fellow Democratic senators to protect our diverse electorate with a filibuster carve-out for voting rights? Senator Manchin has now had two chances to demonstrate in Congress that the Republican Party is still at least arguably in favor of voting rights. It’s time for Democrats to go on the offense regarding racial justice and treat it as a strategic imperative for winning in 2022. You need to pass both the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act before the end of the year so that all Americans have the freedom to vote out and vote against those who reject the fundamental American value of equal protection under the law.

Background

In a piece analyzing the 1980 presidential election, James Baldwin stated: “My black vote, which has not yet purchased my autonomy, may yet, if I choose to use it, keep me out of the ballpark long enough to figure out some other move. Or for the children to make a move. Or for aid to come from somewhere. My vote will probably not get me a job or a home or help me through school or prevent another Vietnam or a third World War, but it may keep me here long enough for me to see, and use, the turning of the tide—for the tide has got to turn.”

Unfortunately, after the election of President Obama, the Republican party activated its enduring weapon of White identity politics (a.k.a. racism) to push back against his agenda, augmented by the Roberts Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act through Shelby v. Holder in 2013.

After multiple cell phone videos exposed millions of Americans to many examples of police shooting unarmed black men, the Black Lives Matter movement was born. Racial justice became a majoritarian issue, with voters of all races protesting police brutality. Citizens were getting local governments to remove statues honoring Confederates that had been erected decades after the Civil War as part of the racist “Lost Cause” campaign. Inspired in part by the struggle for racial justice, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016, and Republican propaganda needed help from Putin’s trolls to win that election via the undemocratic electoral college.

In the summer of 2020, Black Lives Matter protests filled the streets to continue the quest for justice after Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd. And in November 2020, millions of people of all races rushed to the polls to vote in support of our pluralistic, multiracial democracy. A broad coalition of voters gave President Biden a decisive victory. The Democratic Party should remember that you can't build coalitions if you're telling millions of people you need as allies that the issues that are a matter of life and death to them don't matter, don't exist, or can be addressed in a tomorrow that never arrives.

It was embarrassing to hear old-fashioned Democratic consultants talking about how damaging “woke” talk could be to the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects. They should instead have discussed how pathetic it is to see Republicans trotting out their ugly “Southern Strategy” from the 1960s in the elections of 2021. Democratic policies are so popular that Republicans have promoted shameful campaigns inciting outrage against the teaching of US history to get their voters to the polls, in addition to directing death threats and mob violence against earnest public officials just trying to do their jobs.

Democrats must soundly and firmly reject Republicans who are brazenly embracing White identity politics and trying to turn back the tide on racial justice with increasing violence. As Georgetown history professor Thomas Zimmer has noted, far-right extremists historically don’t rise to power unless centrists make common cause with them – and unfortunately, the center in the US today is doing just that. We need every single Democratic member of Congress to actively defend our democracy. Republican state legislatures are using aggressive gerrymandering, voter suppression, and election subversion, bolstered by campaigns to outlaw any criticism of our white supremacist history, to cling to power. This is the fast track to one-party authoritarian rule. A carve-out in the filibuster for voting rights would be a firewall against that and facilitate passage of the Freedom to Vote Act before the end of the year.

Let’s join Bishop William Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign and reaffirm that “our deepest moral traditions point to equal protection under the law, the desire for peace within and among nations, the dignity of all people, and the responsibility to care for our common home.”