Month: November 2018

Show Me Your Papers

Voter ID laws make so much sense, if:  if, you are from the suburbs, if, you have had no negative interactions with the police or government, and if you are secure that the American Democracy is meant for you.  To most Americans, having an ID to cash a check, or go to the store to buy beer or cigarettes, is so common place that it defies common sense that having ID to vote is a big deal.

Voter ID is supposed to protect us from voting fraud. But, there’s really no evidence of widespread voting fraud occurring, with or without Voter ID laws.  In North Carolina for example, where the Republican candidate for a Congressional seat is accusing his Democratic opponent of being in favor of voting fraud by not supporting a new Voter ID law, a voting study showed that from 2010-2014 there were 19 fraudulent votes cast out of 12 million.  Most of the 19 were longtime US residents, who mistakenly thought they could vote. That’s .00000015% illegal votes, not a “game changing” impact.  The North Carolina Voter ID law solves a problem that didn’t exist.

Voter ID isn’t a big deal I f you see the government as serving your interests, not questioning them. Say you’re a citizen of Hispanic ethnicity, and go to the polls to vote and are asked for you ID.  Perhaps, in some polling places, a “challenger”  (folks whose job is to “challenge” you’re registration, affiliation, address and documentation) will ask for additional information.  Language might be an issue, but intimidation might be even a more significant blockade.

It is absolutely true that if a voter stands their ground, ultimately they have the right to vote, at the least on a provisional ballot.  But the knowledge of the rules is fully weighted to the poll workers and the challengers; most regular voters don’t know enough to demand their rights when questioned.  And if you are a new citizen, or maybe one with a father or mother who is in the US illegally, or a “Dreamer” living with you, will you fight the “voting battle,” or will you avoid drawing attention to yourself and not vote at all?

In newly migrated communities in the United States today, fear of the government is growing.  The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency, “ICE,” has earned a reputation for arbitrary round-ups, and fast and loose play with individual rights.  Regardless of what President Trump says, no reasonable politician, Democrat or Republican, is in favor of  “open borders.”  Reasonable enforcement of immigration law makes sense.  But in our nation, with at least 12 million undocumented immigrants living and working here, it also would make sense to target enforcement towards those who are truly dangerous.

That’s not what ICE’s is doing right now with their factory “round-ups” and arranged fake meetings.   The US government is even questioning the legal citizenship of some American citizens crossing at the border, demanding documentation beyond Passport cards, and denying their issued birth certificates.  An atmosphere of fear has been created in Hispanic communities, among documented, undocumented, and even US citizens.

Folks are scared. They are scared to interact with the government, and they are scared to vote.  Demanding additional layers of identification just create additional barriers to participation.  That drives down Hispanic participation, and reduces their impact on elections.  Will that make a difference?  We will see in the Florida Governor’s race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum, and in the Texas Ted Cruz versus Beto O’Rourke Senate election.  Suppress the normally Democratic leaning Hispanic turnout, and elections already on the knife-edge fall Republican.  It’s difficult to imagine that’s not intentional.

In the old World War II movies, there was always a scene on the train rolling through occupied Europe. The “good guys” were riding along, and into the railroad car walked the black uniformed Gestapo.  “Show me your papers,” was the demand, and the good guys would hope and pray that their forged documents would hold up.  “Show me your papers” became the trademark of authoritarian regimes, governments that don’t trust the governed.

If you’re white, suburban, middle-class; it doesn’t feel like it effects you.  “Sure, I’ll show you my papers, and sure, I know the government is acting in my interest.”  But in minority and newly migrant communities it’s different.  “Show me your papers” is a challenge of your right to be here, a challenge made with the full authority of the government.

Martin Niemoller, a German Lutheran, spoke of the Nazis:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

They asked for your papers.

 

What He Says

Since the first day of the Trump campaign there have been outrageous statements.  From Mexican “rapists and criminals at the border” to “bleeding from whatever” to “banning Muslims,” President Trump has found a way to encourage his base and inflame his opponents.  The energy, anxiety, and outrage these statements produced took a whole lot of time and resources from  Trump’s opposition, such that “wiser heads” (such as Rachel Maddow on MSNBC) began to say:  “Don’t listen to what he says, watch what he does.”

It was the “doing” that was changing the country:  trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act; giving vast tax cuts to the wealthiest (and vastly enlarging the National Debt;) packing the Federal Courts with appointees, some of whom were rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association; tearing children from their parents at the border.  Those actions required energy enough, without the constant irritation of the Tweets and the Fox interviews.

But what we have seen in the past two weeks is that what “he” says has had more impact than we realized. The old adage, “words have consequences” is ultimately being applied to Donald Trump as well. What he has said, more perhaps than what he has done, has inflamed the political and cultural divides of America.  That inferno of rhetoric has pushed many Americans to the edges of their political views; and to those who are already deranged, pushed them into the abyss of violence and hate.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, the little Abolitionist lady of Cincinnati, was driven by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act to write a novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  It was the story of slaves in the South, beaten, killed, willing to do anything to escape their bondage.  Eliza, a mother of a five-year-old boy, carries him from ice chunk to ice chunk across the near-frozen Ohio River to reach freedom.  Uncle Tom, the kind elder slave of the story, is beaten to death by his master.

In the North the story inflamed passions, giving energy to the growing Abolitionist movement.  While only a small minority of people in the free states were Abolitionists, they had a strong voice in newspapers read throughout the nation, and with the publication of Stowe’s book, found even greater power.

In the South the book was read as well, as an outrageous “creation” of a Northerner’s mind.  It was used to convince slave owners that the Federal government would never allow slavery to continue, and was held up for ridicule by slave owners who didn’t treat their slaves with such brutality.

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe.  “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war” he supposedly said.  He recognized the role that “what she said” had in pushing the nation to extremes, leaving no middle ground left for political compromise.  The compromisers, Stephen Douglas who offered to let states vote slave or free, and John Bell who hoped to focus US attention away from slavery, both were left in electoral defeat.  The extremes, Lincoln restricting slavery’s expansion, and Breckenridge calling for total slavery, were all that was left.

While I do not think America today is heading to a Civil War, the point to be made is that words in fact “do matter.”  What is said contributes to forcing each side farther apart.  Add that to the political forces that already encourage polarization: the huge amounts of money contributed by a few ideological billionaires, the division of our media into left and right, the divisive impact of the structural changes made in gerrymandering, and the increasing income inequality in America; and we have a divided country.

And in that division, the extremes go even farther to the edge.  Whether it’s bombs in the mail, shooters at the Synagogue, or a black child shot at for knocking on the front door; the deranged find it easier to act.

Thousands of people have left their homeland looking for safety and security.  They are carrying their children through a harrowing thousand-mile march in the hot Central American sun.  They sleep in the street at night; they take what generosity the local townspeople can give.  They are doing what many immigrants to America have done:  they have decided to risk the dangers of travel, to give their families an opportunity to grow in peace.  They have risked all to leave the gangs and the death and the poverty behind.

But the “words” of the President are those of hate:  invasion, infection, a “horde” coming to attack.  And those words are serving the purpose:  Americans who normally would have sympathy for the refugee’s plight, are now convinced we are facing a siege .  Troops are being sent to the border (even though they cannot, by law, actually police the border.)

Maybe it’s all just a campaign ploy, and on November 7^th the words will evaporate.  But the impact on our divisions will matter beyond the election regardless.  We will remain divided as along as division serves Trump’s political needs, and as long as we the people allow it to polarize our minds.  What he says does matter.