Today’s Edition: “Americans who did not give up.”

November 5, 2021

          Reader comments about the Virginia losses continue to overwhelm my inbox. On Thursday, readers from Virginia weighed in with their view of the election. Those readers were highly critical of McAuliffe and his campaign. They described him as the wrong candidate for the race, ‘a hold-over Clinton associate’ who ‘failed to inspire enthusiasm.’ They wrote that he ran a sluggish and flat-footed campaign against nimble and aggressive attacks by Youngkin. Readers from Virginia who watched the debates between McAuliffe and Youngkin noted that McAuliffe provided disastrous answers that generated fodder for attack ads by Youngkin. They descrbed McAuliffe’s responses to those ads as “late and weak,” claiming only that his answers were ‘taken out of context.’

          I didn’t follow the daily ebb-and-flow of the Virginia campaign and have no sense of how the election played out on the ground, but the comments from readers in Virginia were consistent and unanimous in attributing a significant portion of the blame to McAuliffe’s weak campaign.  That is neither a happy fact nor an excuse, but it is one that could help explain, in part, why Democrats lost in Virginia up-and-down the ballot. Democrats could have and should have won in Virginia. If the loss is attributable to who Democrats selected in the primaries and how that candidate ran his campaign, we can and should make course corrections for 2022.

          Speaking of whether the Virginia losses predetermine the outcome in 2022, Judd Legum (writing in Popular information), offered a helpful observation in his essay, “One thought about Tuesday's election.” Legum writes,

          Post-election analysis often assumes that the political environment will remain static over time. It looks at the political dynamics that propelled the winner and speculates that they will create persistent "challenges" for the loser.

          My point is not that Democrats will do better in 2022. I don't know what will happen then. My point is that 2022 will be very different than 2021. Politics is much more dynamic than the coverage suggests. The only thing that is constant is change.

          By far the best analysis of the significance of the Virginia elections was offered by Jennifer Rubin, writing in the Washington Post, “How Democrats can get their act together.” I urge you to read the entirety of Rubin’s balanced essay. She begins by acknowledging Biden’s significant accomplishments to date and the prospects for more in the short term. She notes the peculiar media dynamic of blaming Biden for not undoing in eight months all of the damage inflicted by Trump over four years. She also rightly criticizes the media for describing Biden’s significant achievements as a “failure” because he did not achieve 100% of his goals. But she also lays blame at Biden’s feet for not being a more aggressive standard-bearer for the Democratic Party. Her essay recognizes the promise and problems faced by Democrats and avoids the hand-wringing fatalism of other commentators.

          Among the trenchant observations by Rubin is the following, which addresses the point raised by readers yesterday about the failure of Democratic messaging:

          Democrats are often accused of “waging class warfare.” If only they would give it a try. The best-kept secret in the Biden era may be that under the Democrats’ plan, the rich would pay more, and virtually all the economic benefits would go to struggling families. The second-best kept secret: Republicans want tax cheats to prevail and billionaires and big corporations to avoid taxes. Put differently, Democrats have not embraced their greatest strength: economic populism.

          Well said. Democrats should make that point more frequently, in words of one syllable, and in short, declarative sentences.

          There is much more to discuss about the Virginia elections, but there is other news that deserves comment. But if you are looking for a story about hope and perseverance in the face of loss, read “Concluding Thoughts” in this newsletter.

DOJ attorney who urged Trump to overturn election will testify on Friday.

          Jeffrey Clark, the DOJ attorney who circulated a letter that proposed a plan to overturn the 2020 elections, will testify before the House Select Committee on Friday, November 5th. Clark’s testimony will be big news—if he does not invoke the attorney-client or executive privileges.

          As a preview, Clark will tout the fact that he was the lead signatory on a brief filed by the DOJ in December 2020 urging the court to reject a lawsuit by Rep. Louie Gohmert to order Mike Pence to reject Electoral ballots from some states. But that brief argued only that Mike Pence was the wrong defendant—not that Pence was powerless to overturn the election.

          Clark is the subject of several ethics complaints for his role in the attempted coup. In the meantime, he is on the payroll of a foundation funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.

Supreme Court indicates it will overrule NY concealed-carry law.

          Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument on a challenge to NY’s law restricting concealed carry of a firearm. According to Court observers, it appears that the Court will invalidate New York’s law—thereby significantly expanding the right to carry concealed weapons. See Ian Millhiser in Vox, “Supreme Court: The NRA got great news from justices on the Second Amendment.”

          It is difficult to overstate the sweep of the Court’s reversal of a century of jurisprudence holding that the right to bear arms was a collective right subject to reasonable regulation by states. In 2008, Justice Scalia authored an opinion in a 5-4 ruling that held the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns for self-defense. That precedent-breaking decision is about to be expanded in a way that will make all Americans less secure in their churches, movie theaters, auditoriums, and workplaces.

Lying to the FBI should be a crime.

          Bill Barr appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation. On Thursday, Durham announced the indictment and arrest of a Russian national for lying to the FBI about the origins of the Steele Dossier, which contained salacious allegations against Trump. See CNBC, “Durham probe: Analyst lied to FBI about Trump-Russia dossier.”

          People who lie to the FBI during an investigation should be indicted and sent to prison. That rule should have included Michael Flynn, who lied to the FBI about whether he spoke to Russia about U.S. policy before Flynn became National Security Adviser under Trump. But the DOJ dismissed charges against Flynn after he twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

          Among the many derelictions of Merrick Garland is the absence of any accountability for the DOJ leaders who let Flynn off the hook because of pressure from Trump. Yes, prosecute the Russian national who lied to the FBI—but also discipline those in the DOJ who bowed to political pressure to dismiss the charges against Flynn for lying to the FBI.

Concluding Thoughts.

          I received hundreds of email responses to yesterday’s newsletter. My apologies if I was unable to respond to your email. Among the emails I received, one stood out. David Goodman wrote about the sacrifice made by his brother, Andrew Goodman, in the fight for civil rights and voting rights in 1964. David’s comments are highly relevant to our current fight to protect voting rights and to the question of what obstacles can be overcome by a mobilized electorate. David has served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Andrew Goodman Foundation, which supports youth leadership development, voting accessibility, and social justice initiatives on campuses across the country.

          David’s email is timely given that Senate Republicans invoked the filibuster on Wednesday to prevent debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. David’s email reminds us that the timescale for determining success is not measured in 24-hour news cycles or biennial elections but in decades and generations. Here is David Goodman’s email (with minor edits for length and context).

Dear Robert and Jill:

Thank you for today's newsletter; “It’s hard to beat someone who won’t give up.”

57 years ago, my brother, Andrew Goodman, was recruited along with another 1,000 young people by The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee as a volunteer to register Black Americans to vote during what was called Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964.

Previously, Black leaders and organizers had been working for decades for the right to vote and equal citizenship in the former confederate states, particularly Mississippi, without success. Though they endured murder and mayhem, they never gave up.

At the time, SNCC's national chairman was 24-year-old John Robert Lewis, from Alabama. He worked tirelessly with many other Black leaders, even though they were defeated consistently from realizing their right to vote. John Lewis’s persistence continued, notwithstanding recently having lost his friend Medgar Evers who was shot in the back by a KKK member, and other weekly lynchings by white terrorists. By this time in John's life, he had been arrested, beaten and white mobs had attempted to kill him. It was a police state of white folks terrorizing Black folks all day long all the time. But John and his fellow democracy workers never quit.

My brother, Andrew, was the first of the volunteers to arrive in Mississippi from the SNCC Ohio training center along with two paid civil rights organizers, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney.  All three were killed on the first day of Freedom Summer (June 21, 1964) by 18 Ku Klux Klan men carrying out a plan of premeditated murder.  All of these men were either elected sheriffs (2) or ‘law enforcement’ deputies (16) acting under color of law, a conclusion made by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Price. As Andrew, Michael, and James looked at their murderers in the moments before being shot, it had to be shattering to know that law enforcement officials were their executioners.

The White power structure and their enforcers in Mississippi believed that murdering Andrew, Michael, and James would demoralize the Black civil rights leadership and the 1,000 other SNCC volunteers (mostly from the North). But it did not, and they all came to Mississippi by the end of June 1964. These people were hard to beat even when their co-workers were murdered. While they were fighting this second American revolution nonviolently, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed into law, and in the next year after Bloody Sunday, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed—legislation that was washed in the blood of Americans who did not give up.

 Certainly, we can work harder today to elect politicians so our democratic ideals can become a closer reality in everyday practice.

Thank you for your encouragement.

Best and warmest regards,

David Goodman

          The current political environment is challenging, but it is immensely better because of the sacrifices by activists like Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and John Lewis. The State of Mississippi refused to prosecute the sheriffs and deputies who carried out the murders, so the Department of Justice charged 18 members of the KKK mob under federal law (18 U.S.C. §§ 241, 242, and 371). Despite the best efforts of a segregationist federal judge to prevent trial on federal charges, the Supreme Court reinstated the charges and ordered a trial. Seven of the murderers were convicted and spent time in prison. Years later, the organizer of the KKK mob—a fundamentalist minister—was charged by Mississippi with murder and convicted of manslaughter. He died in prison.

          In living memory, we have examples of men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of freedom. Yes, the current political environment is toxic. But there are enough decent, honest, law-abiding citizens to overcome the present difficulties. Do not give up. Instead, redouble your efforts.

          I hope that everyone has a restorative weekend. We have lots to do in the coming weeks. Stay strong!

          Talk to you on Monday!