Voting Rights

When the history is written, America’s decline should be attributed largely to one man, and that man isn’t Trump. The most evil man in American government is Mitch McConnell.  It was McConnell who took the filibuster from a seldom-used mechanism meant to ensure that minority opinions would be heard to a routine method of subverting majority rule.  It was McConnell who famously promised to obstruct anything and everything Obama might do, irrespective of whether what was being obstructed was good policy, good for the country, or even if it had originated with his own party.

As reported two weeks ago, the Democrats’ first order of business as they took control of the 116^th Congress was introducing H.R. 1, the “For the People Act.”  The bill covers voting rights, campaign finance reform, ethics improvements among other things. “For the People Act” would go an enormous way toward repairing our badly broken democracy.

The headline of this post seems like clickbait but the truth can't be that bad.  This is the part where you learn the facts ARE THAT BAD.

Two teams of federal officials assembled to fight foreign election interference are being dramatically downsized, according to three current and former Department of Homeland Security officials.

House Democrats are finally able to present their agenda after the LARGEST Midterm election win in history.  As you'd expect, Republican reps think it's evil.  They would....

Dictators stay in power by not allowing a vote for their position at all or staging an "election" that is controlled in a manner that pre-determines the results.  In the United States, something so brazen seems unimaginable.  From the "Election Integrity" Commission to revocation of the Voting Rights Act, wildly absurd claims of voter fraud and undocumented individuals voting, rampant gerrymandering and attempt to rig the 2020 Census..... These are directly from the playbook of a dictator, supported not just by Trump, but by a Republican Party determined to hold onto power at all costs.

Nearly all of us missed this one two months ago.  While enjoying a brief celebration that Jeff Sessions was leaving the Attorney General position, he was doing one last thing to significantly harm our nation.  And of course, by the next hour, Trump had done something else stupid and then we had a corrupt acting-AG and this story below never hit the mainstream news.

Rather than doing the soul-searching that should follow a massive electoral loss, Republicans are changing the rules to shield themselves from election outcomes. They are making the government less responsive to the popular will.

In 2016 to little national coverage, North Carolina wrote the playbook Wisconsin and Michigan are using to undermine democracy.  

Potentially the last in our eight part Blue Wave Recap Series, celebrating a tremendous wave that the national media has not and will not fully convey.  In this post we drive home the simple fact that this was the BIGGEST WIN IN THE HISTORY OF MIDTERM ELECTIONS.

Democrats won the House with the largest margin of victory in a midterms election for either party...

The Blue Wave on November 6, 2018 included so much good news it was difficult to process it all.  Over the next few weeks, Smart Dissent will attempt to recap the progress we made together including well-publicized topics and less covered ones.

Our sixth post includes some exciting and long overdue "firsts" that will lead our nation into the future we deserve.  This list is not complete as we continue to learn about new "firsts" and we may add a new post with more in the coming weeks.

The Blue Wave on November 6, 2018 included so much good news it was difficult to process it all.  Over the next few weeks, Smart Dissent will attempt to recap the progress we made together including well-publicized topics and less covered ones.

Our fourth post focuses on critical wins in the fight against gerrymandering which is ruining our representative democracy.  Combing this with Monday's post, the Blue Wave was a major step forward for voting rights.