Tag: GOP now as racist as Trump

How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections

New York Times logo

In Georgia, Republicans are removing Democrats of color from local boards. In Arkansas, they have stripped election control from county authorities. And they are expanding their election power in many other states.

LaGRANGE, Ga. — Lonnie Hollis has been a member of the Troup County election board in West Georgia since 2013. A Democrat and one of two Black women on the board, she has advocated Sunday voting, helped voters on Election Days and pushed for a new precinct location at a Black church in a nearby town.

But this year, Ms. Hollis will be removed from the board, the result of a local election law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican. Previously, election board members were selected by both political parties, county commissioners and the three biggest municipalities in Troup County. Now, the G.O.P.-controlled county commission has the sole authority to restructure the board and appoint all the new members.

“I speak out and I know the laws,” Ms. Hollis said in an interview. “The bottom line is they don’t like people that have some type of intelligence and know what they’re doing, because they know they can’t influence them.” Continue reading.

Trump supporter pleads guilty after firing his gun into car full of Black girls

Raw Story Logo

A supporter of former President Donald Trump has pleaded guilty to intimidation with a dangerous weapon and willful injury after he fired multiple shots into a car filled with Black girls last year.

Local news station KCCI reports that 26-year-old Michael McKinney is now admitting to “causing the occupants to fear serious injury from my action” and also seriously injuring a 15-year-old girl whom he shot in the leg.

McKinney shot into the car while attending a pro-Trump rally at the Iowa Capitol building in December, exactly one month before the deadly January 6th pro-Trump riot that took place at the United States Capitol building. Continue reading.

The dark history behind a revealing Fox News chyron

AlterNet Logo

For decades, the GOP claimed the mantle of an economically conservative party and exploited societal issues such as racism and abortion to bolster their electoral support. Yet over the past few years, a reversal has occurred, such that the GOP’s cultural identity now eclipses any pretense of an economic agenda. As an example, just this week, Fox News declared, “Critical Race Theory Replaces Economy as Top Issue.”

Over the course of the 1980s through the 2000s, American conservative thought was often framed as primarily economically oriented. The Republican Party, however, gained electoral support by appealing to societal resentments. From Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” to encouraging turnout with anti-LGBTQ legislation, the GOP augmented cultural wars. It knew how to exploit culture to win elections and power.

Yet during all this time, the GOP had an economic agenda—”fiscal conservatism”—that appealed to voters less moved by resentment. This agenda revolved around deregulation of industry, reductions in government spending and tax cuts. The GOP also had an even broader vision: deconstruction of the social safety net as established by the New Deal and the Great Society. From Reagan to Newt Gingrich to George W. Bush, Republican leaders mounted attacks on the safety net, largely centered on privatization and incentives to encourage Americans to choose other options. Continue reading.

Nevada GOP thrown into turmoil after avowed Proud Boys member said he participated in censure vote of state official

Washington Post logo

The leaders of the Nevada Republican Party are facing an internal revolt after an avowed Proud Boys member said he was invited with friends to attend a state party meeting last month and cast the deciding votes in the censure of a state official who concluded that the 2020 election in the state was not tainted by fraud.

In the past week, the Nevada Senate GOP caucus and the chairmen of the two largest Republican county organizations have called for an audit of an April state party vote to uncover who cast ballots as seated party members and proxies for a resolution against Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske (R).

The Republican state chairman, Michael McDonald, a close ally of former president Donald Trump, has so far declined to release those details, other Republican officials said. Continue reading.

Video resurfaces showing Marjorie Taylor Greene saying she wouldn’t want a statue of Hitler taken down

Raw Story Logo

As Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to take heat for her comments comparing mask mandates to Nazi policies against the Jews during the Holocaust, a video from last year showing Greene arguing against the removal of Confederate monuments, saying that given the choice, she’d advocate to allow a statue of Hitler or Satan.

The video, which was first resurfaced by Punchbowl News reporter Jake Sherman, shows then-candidate Greene speaking before a Dalton, Georgia, city council meeting on June 15. 

“We’re seeing situations where Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, all kinds of statues are being attacked, and it seems to be just an effort to take down history,” Greene says in the video. “And whether I see a statue that may be something that I would full disagree with, like Adolph Hitler — maybe a statue of Satan himself — I would not want to say take it down, but again, it’s so that I could tell my children and teach others about who these people are and what they did.” Continue reading.

White supremacist propaganda surged in 2020, report says

NEW YORK — White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels across the U.S. in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League provided to The Associated Press.

There were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful messages spread through physical flyers, stickers, banners and posters, according to Wednesday’s report. That’s nearly double the 2,724 instances reported in 2019. Online propaganda is much harder to quantify, and it’s likely those cases reached into the millions, the anti-hate organization said.

The ADL, which was founded more than a century ago, said that last year marked the highest level of white supremacist propaganda seen in at least a decade. Its report comes as federal authorities investigate and prosecute those who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January, some of whom are accused of having ties to or expressing support for hate groups and antigovernment militias. Continue reading.

MAGA rioter demands Texas trial because DC jurors would be too eager to ‘cancel’ her for ‘white supremacy’

Raw Story Logo

MAGA rioter Jenny Cudd, who infamously boasted on video about breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, is now demanding that her trial be held in her home state of Texas due to concerns about bias of jurors in Washington D.C.

Reuters legal reporter Jan Wolfe flags a new filing made by Cudd’s attorneys that claims D.C. jurors would be far more likely to unjustly “cancel” Cudd because they’d believe that she’s a racist.

“There is a social expectation of punishment for anyone accused of being a ‘white supremacist,'” the filing states. “In Washington, D.C., people have been readily ‘canceled’ for being politically conservative and for their public support of Donald Trump.” Continue reading.