On December 16, 2020, The New York Times editorial board elected to give its entire opinion page to long-time journalist Thomas Friedman to discuss a topic he knows nothing about: rural America.
The one-time foreign affairs correspondent presented his bold idea that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris should become the czar of rural America and bring broadband to bridge the “connectivity gap.” He wanted this accomplished not so much for the benefit of rural America but to put on a show that Democrats care about these lagging Americans, so those red states might loose a touch of their rosy glow and prevent Democrats from getting trounced in the next election cycle.
What Friedman failed to understand and convey in the editorial was that the Trump administration committed billions of dollars to bring broadband to rural America.
Friedman further noted that Harris “is a natural bridge builder to a more inclusive America.” Maybe Freidman is not aware that non-partisan GovTracks observed that Harris was the least bi-partisan U.S. senator. She also scored as the most extreme leftist in her voting record, even more than proud Democratic-Socialist Bernie Sanders and closeted Democratic-Socialist Elizabeth Warren.
But don’t let history get in the way.
The Times will have its urban readers believe that rural Americans are waiting for Democrats to save them, but all Friedman’s editorial really showed was his ignorance and contemptible view that non-urban Americans are just pawns for progressive politics.
Both the political right and left are coming after the large social media platforms due to their powerful influence over society. The right has complained about the censorship executed by the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for silencing conservative voices while the left has voiced concern about these perceived monopolies destroying competition. The left has mostly been dismissive about the idea that the corporations have a left-leaning disposition, and if they do, they are nonplussed. If corporations are allowed to contribute to election campaigns (see Citizens United v. FEC which the left abhorred), they should similarly be free to share or block content.
As to the question of whether shadow-banning is real, consider this blog of FirstOneThrough which has a right-of-center orientation to American and Israeli politics.
On a typical week, Facebook would account for over 10 times the number of referrals to an article as search engines. That pattern was relatively consistent whether there were few or several posts.
But the pattern broke during the election cycle.
Weeks Ending
FB Average
Search Average
Ratio
Dec 13
672
58
13x
Nov 8
181
56
3
Sep 20
823
60
13
Aug 2
538
48
11
Jun 14
926
71
14
Impact of Facebook Shadow Banning on views of First One Through blog
During the seven week cycle before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the blog remarkably went from getting roughly 13 times as many views from Facebook than search engines to only 3 times as much. The change was completely the result of a sharp decline in Facebook readership, as the volume produced from search engines remained constant.
That meant that fewer people had a chance to read the analysis of a vocal Libertarian and Zionist leading up to an important election. Once the election passed, Facebook permitted viewership patterns to return to normal (as of the following five weeks).
How and why did this happen?
Did a liberal reader flag the October 1 article “Vote Harvesting,” a completely true first-hand account of watching how a local election official can influence who gets to vote? Did Facebook decide on its own that posts from a writer who penned on September 25 “NY Times Tries Hard to Paint Obama/Biden as Pacifists and Trump as Mercenary” is an opinion to be silenced? Did an anti-Israel agitator do their utmost to flag a blogger who wrote on September 27 about the vile anti-Semitic Hamas Charter and how former Democratic U.S. President Jimmy Carter backed the Hamas terrorist group?
Whatever the origin of shadow ban, it clearly happened.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Facebook and Twitter’s actions around the closely contested election on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, in Washington. | Bill Clark/Pool via AP
If Facebook wants to present itself as a biased platform like MSNBC or Fox News, that’s fine. A private platform can take whatever form it chooses. While it may be annoying when a media company like The New York Times pretends to be unbiased and not left-leaning, the tilt is well known and consistent. Only people living in a liberal bubble believe it to be a neutral and factual publication.
However, what kind of platform swings alt-left for just moments in time like during an election season? If the analysis presented by a blogger is offensive, then make it clear for that person to take their business and opinions elsewhere. Always.
What was done by social media in this instance was clear election-meddling, and on the grandest of scales due to the enormous power of social media. (\According to Pew research, 43% of Americans got their news from social media in 2018, a number that surely went up by 2020. That growing figure is despite a majority of people (57%) being skeptical of what they read.
In 2008, Barack Obama and his supporters were very effective in using social media, especially relative to John McCain supporters according to Pew Research. Obama voters surpassed McCain voters in posting content online (26% vs. 15%) and engaged politically on social media (25% vs. 16%) to yield a very successful outcome. But now, the social media companies themselves are keeping the gap in favor of Democrats by blocking the distribution of conservative posts.
Shadow banning in social media is very real and can easily tip presidential elections that are decided by less than one percent of voters in a couple of states. It is frightening and appalling that we no longer have to only fear the actions of foreign actors in the conduct of our democracy but the large social media platforms themselves.
Hamas is the rabidly anti-Semitic terrorist group which runs Gaza and touts itself as simply a “resistant group” while pro-Palestinian media calls it a “militant group.” The group actively tries to recast itself as a legitimate political party and voice of Palestinians as it won 58% of the parliament in elections held in 2007. Its supporters go so far to call it a “social justice” movement, so as to allow more funds to flow into its coffers, such as former head of the UK’s Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn who said:
“The idea that an organisation that is dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region should be labelled as a terrorist organisation by the British government is really a big, big historical mistake and I would invite the government to reconsider their position on this matter and start talking directly to Hamas and Hezbollah…”
The main governmental sponsors of Hamas are Iran, Qatar and Turkey. Iran makes no secret of its desire to destroy Israel, making its support understandable. Biden has made clear that he intends to reengage with Iran and end the crippling financial sanctions imposed by President Trump.
Saudi Arabia just previewed that it is going to resolve the blockade it imposed on Qatar as a “gift for Biden,” as described by an advisor in the region. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt had all cut diplomatic ties with Qatar due to its support for terrorism. That is seemingly coming to a close.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, March 9, 2016. (Flash90)
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas celebrated Biden’s win and said “We call on President-elect Joe Biden to make a historic correction to the discriminatory American policy toward the Palestinian people that has caused instability in the region and the world.” It would appear that Hamas is not just looking for direct aid from a Biden government but is very hopeful that indirect funds will flow via the terrorist group’s sponsors in Iran, Qatar and Turkey, and possibly even from the European Union which curtailed sponsoring Palestinian terrorism during President Trump’s term.
Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer (NY) and Elizabeth Warren (MA) proposed that a new Joe Biden administration immediately cancel student debt upon taking office. They proposed cancelling $50,000 for all borrowers of federal student loans while Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) proposed cancelling all student debt.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn in July 2019, well before the pandemic. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
This initiative has great appeal to progressives whose economic mission is to transfer wealth to lower income people. It also goes directly to big Democratic donors.
The Education Industry is Democrats Big Money Donor
Democrat Joe Biden out-raised Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election by 48% ($1.38 billion to $864 million). While the legacy liberal media lies that small donors made up Biden’s base, according to the non-partisan OpenSecrets.org calculations, Biden was all about big money. Libertarian Jo Jorgenson had 68.6% of her donations come in small amounts followed by Trump with 45.0%. Biden was third with only 39.3% coming from small donors.
The big money to the Biden campaign came from the usual Democratic loyalists like lawyers and lobbyists ($83 million in total, almost all to Democrats). The Education sector was even bigger, with over $110 million being contributed to the presidential campaign, of which 94.2% went to Democrats. To give a sense of scale, the hedge funds and private equity industry gave a total of $55 million – HALF as much as the education sector. The oil and gas industry gave $16 million.
Why would the education industry pour so much money into a presidential campaign? Isn’t it struggling to keep up? Don’t they always ask for more money as though cash strapped? If money is so tight, how do schools “donate” more money to an election campaign than the hedge fund, oil and gas, casino and gambling industries combined?
The education industry gave more money to the 2020 presidential campaign than the hedge fund/private equity, oil and gas, and the casino/ gambling industries COMBINED.
source: opensecrets.org
Public SchoolsK-12
The giant and powerful teacher unions are the big contributors. According to Open Secrets, “two organizations account for practically all of the contributions made by teachers unions: The National Education Association (about $20 million in 2016) and the American Federation of Teachers (almost $12 million). Both groups — which compete for members, but also collaborate with each other through the NEA-AFT Partnership — are consistently among the organizations that contribute the most money to candidates and political groups.” The NEA is seemingly transparent about their partisan spending, showing on its website that 96% of its funds go to Democrats. AFT is a 1.7 million member organization headed by Randi Weingarten who makes no bones about trying to use her influence to enact liberal priorities on matters like climate change and universal healthcare.
The payoff scheme is pretty straightforward: Democrats work to empower unions whether in committing to only hire union labor or the ability to collect fees from members. In turn, the union leaders give money to Democrats and push their members to vote for their candidates. These paid-for local Democratic politicians now negotiate the contracts of the people who just helped give them their jobs, a much more loyal base than exists among taxpayers. The Democratic politicians give the unions favorable pay increases and the best healthcare and pension benefits found in the country, far superior than non-unionized citizens.
The cost for K-12 public education has ballooned under this corrupt money transfer scheme where Democratic politicians pour taxpayer money into unions who in turn pour money back into their election campaigns.
According to the US Census Bureau, the per pupil cost to educate public school students consistently rises more than inflation. In 2016, the average cost for a pubic school student was $11,763 while in 2013 it was $10,724, a 10% increase in just three years. That’s OVER THREE TIMES the 3.0% inflation of the consumer price index in that time period.
The ramp in expenses is due to a variety of items including building state-of-the-art facilities and professional-quality ball fields as well as a range of inclusion and enrichment programs for students who need more help. But the biggest costs are the teacher salaries and benefits. In 2016, 88% of the $665 billion of U.S. public school costs were in “Current Spending” of which 65% was for salaries and 35% for benefits.
Teachers’ unions focus on their core constituents – the teachers – not the students. The unions protect even the weakest non-performing teachers, making it almost impossible to fire anyone. Employees of the public education system have health and retirement plans which are the envy of CEOs of large corporations. Teachers and administrators get to retire in their 50’s with amazing benefits throughout retirement while fellow citizens must work into their 70’s. Of course, there are summers off and the occasional sabbatical, unique to the education industry. It is estimated that between 2001 and 2018 the proportion of the educational budget that went to retired teachers grew from 7.5% to 14.4%. Those fixed liabilities keep growing and are crowding out funds for children. The teacher unions prioritize their own early retirees over children and the future.
Teacher unions prioritize their own early retirees over children and the future.
Free K-12 public school is not so free to taxpayers. It is one of the major wealth transfer schemes in America where the wealthier people who own homes shoulder 65% of the costs of public school via property taxes. The wealthy and religious, who are much more likely to send their children to private school, are effectively taxed twice by paying for the services for a second time.
Public and Private Colleges
The inflated costs for education do not stop at high school and Democrats’ fingerprints are here as well.
From 1998 to 2018, the inflation for a vast range of items was 56%. The items with the highest inflation were hospital services (+211%) and colleges (+184%). A year of college today costs an average of $26,820 for in-state public college, $43,280 for out-of-state, and $54,880 for private colleges.
The cost for these degrees is beyond the budget of most people, so they apply for grants, scholarships and student loans. If it were not for the loans, many could not attend school or be forced to attend a lower cost community or in-state school.
The student loan market now stands at $1.6 Trillion. Roughly 66% of borrowers who attended public college have an average loan balance of $25,550. Graduates of private non-profit colleges have more debt, with 75% owing student loans averaging $32,300. The biggest borrowers are for private for-profit colleges where 88% of graduates have debt averaging $39,950.
Note the trend lines. The facts continue to paint an interesting story.
According to a Pew study, the number of poor and non-White people attending college increased significantly between 1996 and 2016, with the share of college students from poor households going from 12 percent to 20 percent over those 20 years, and non-White students jumping from 29 percent to 47 percent. The greatest growth occurred in private for-profit colleges, where 58 per cent of undergraduates were non-White in 2016.
The private for-profit colleges run a very different program than local colleges. As described in The Best Schools, “For-profit colleges often have higher acceptance rates than their non-profit counterparts. Many for-profit schools have an open admissions policy, meaning that they admit all who apply and meet specific, noncompetitive criteria, regardless of grades, test scores, etc. Typically schools with open enrollment only require that applicants have a high school diploma or GED certificate. For students who might struggle to gain admission to schools with competitive admissions requirements, a for-profit college might provide an open door that leads to further academic and career success.” As students with poor grades want to be able to get good jobs that often come with a college degree, they buy their college degrees at these for-profit institutions.
More poor and non-White students attending these schools are increasingly defaulting on the loans they take out for tuition. According to a report by the U.S. Department of Education, “Looney and Yannelis (2015) found that, between 2000 and 2014, the substantial increase in borrowers and the doubling of loan default rates were associated with attending for-profit, and to a lesser extent, 2-year and other nonselective institutions. Among students attending 2-year institutions who borrowed, for-profit students borrowed four times the amount borrowed by their peers who attended public colleges (Belfield 2013).”
The higher default rates are not only associated with the more expensive tuition costs at the for-profit colleges. The same report noted “on average, employment and earnings are higher for students who attend public or nonprofit institutions (Liu and Belfield 2014; Deming, Goldin, and Katz 2012). Six years after beginning their programs, students who ever attended for-profit institutions were more likely than students who attended only public and nonprofit institutions to be unemployed or out of the labor market, and they earned less than students with similar student characteristics and school completion rates did (Liu and Belfield 2014).”
The private for-profit college industry is seemingly taking advantage of everyone: the poor and non-White communities by awarding degrees at a high cost with seemingly lower ultimate earnings, and the American taxpayers who fund the loans to these students which are not being paid back.
Enter Democrats.
Rather than fight to remove the accreditation of these private for-profit colleges which fail everyone or refuse to give student loans to students with poor grades (or cap the loan amounts at a minimum as the poor grades are the underlying reason many apply to the schools), Democratic politicians are making the grand generous offer – WITH YOUR MONEY – to bail out people with high student debt because most of them are non-White. Far-left Rep. Ayana Pressley (MA) was clear in that point when she argued that cancelling student loan debt will “close the racial wealth gap.” The scheme also keeps these for-profit colleges afloat as they need the students and tax-payer funded student loans to pay their shareholders. Democrats need these institutions around to keep churning out degrees for people with poor grades who cannot get accepted to other colleges.
Knowing that the student demand is there and the loans are available, colleges have little incentive to cut costs including terminating the system of professor tenure and sabbaticals as well as renegotiating teachers’ pension largess. There is also no reason to turn away applicants with poor grades as the American tax-payers fund the farce. Democrats join the joke as they hand-out money and college degrees to loyal constituents – the education industry, the poor and non-White communities.
The education industry is a runaway freight train and Democratic politicians are gleefully throwing away the brakes.
Over the past several years, people on the political left-of-center chose to label those right-of-center as ‘Nazis.’ Actual Nazis, not just ‘depolrables‘ the way Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had called them.
Current Democratic President-elect Joe Biden said that President Donald Trump was “sort of like Goebbels,” referring to Adolf Hitler’s propaganda machine’s mastermind. The left-wing media leveled accusations that Trump welcomed Nazis into the Republican Party. There were slurs by lower level Democratic politicians about Republican rivals in local elections that they were Nazis. And so many American citizens – including employees at Google tasked with fact-checking – condemned conservative commentators such as Ben Shapiro (who is an Orthodox Jew), as modern Nazis.
All of this slander despite Trump having an Orthodox Jewish daughter, creating a new position in the State Department to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, and being the most pro-Israel president in American history.
Meanwhile, these same leftists simultaneously refuse to call out as Nazis the most anti-Semitic people committed to killing Jews and to destroying the Jewish State.
Palestinian Arabs voted the terrorist group Hamas to a majority of Parliament with the most anti-Semitic foundational charter ever written. The bile in its charter and daily calls to murder Israeli Jews are readily available to see, yet the left-wing media writes that Palestinians are “resorting to violence.” On the rare occasion that the left-wing media labels Hamas as a terrorist group, it calls it a “right-wing” one, even though it is nothing of the sort but a devoutly Muslim one.
Cover page of the Philadelphia Daily News in December 2015 essentially calling President-elect Trump a Nazi “fuhrer” for a “Muslim ban,” a fake media charge
We are now at a pivotal time when the Democrats who besmirched those to the right of them as Nazis are about to assume control of the White House. This Biden/Harris ticket said it will reverse many pro-Israel positions taken by the Trump administration. Kamala Harris said the new administration “will take immediate steps to restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem and work to reopen the PLO mission in Washington.” [note that the US consulate was in WESTERN Jerusalem, not East Jerusalem]. The new administration said it is eager to re-enter the JCPOA which gave Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism which has threatened to destroy Israel, a legal pathway to nuclear weapons.
These are all plain and terrifying facts.
If this country truly wants to unify and overcome hate, this administration, the media and every American must finally stop besmirching people with whom they disagree as ‘Nazis’ and simultaneously condemn and punish the terrorists and genocidal maniacs hell-bent on killing Jews and destroying the Jewish State.
There are many people who simply cannot understand how anyone could vote for Donald Trump. The accusations of his racism, misogyny and sowing hatred in the country overwhelm so many that they cannot pause to consider that many people consider many of Trump’s actions to be excellent and preferred to what Joe Biden might do as president. People who prioritize a strong economy built on capitalism and a strong foreign policy in rewarding allies over enemies might be willing to ignore Trump’s vile statements.
It is much the same of people who vote for Ilhan Omar for congress despite her repeated use of anti-Semitic tropes. Some constituents love her progressive socialist values and give a pass to her comments.
A popular lawn sign that “Hate has no home here” dots much of suburbia but the reality is that many liberals and conservatives are willing to overlook the hatred. Liberals might rant about Trump but will defend Omar, while conservative people will do the reverse. The placards really need to add the word “SOME” before “HATE”.
More accurate lawn sign
Pew Research did a poll in August 2020 about the top issues for voters. Trump voters placed the economy, violent crime, immigration, gun policy and foreign policy as their top five issues. Biden voters placed healthcare, the coronavirus, race and ethnic inequality, the economy and climate change as their biggest issues. The two different lists point to an America that doesn’t simply have different policy preferences on certain matters (like capitalism over socialism) but completely different priorities.
Yet to read social media leads one to believe that hate itself is on the ballot. That a vote for the likes of Trump or Omar is a tacit approval of inciting division in these envisioned “United” States.
Arguably, the polls and social media should be read together and not as distinct data points. Trump voters consider fellow citizens that ignore the economy, violent crime and their most important issues as undermining America, much like Biden supporters view people who do not prioritize healthcare, the coronavirus and racial inequality as destroying society.
It is worth considering whether the hate that’s on the ballot in 2020 really belongs to the politicians or the convictions of our fellow Americans.
Some winners and losers in the 2020 election have already been determined.
Rep. Elliot Engel (NY-16) was defeated in the Democratic primary by a far left progressive Jamaal Bowman during the summer. As such, Engel’s chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee was lost in that primary as well, and three Democrats are now vying for that role.
The two most pro-Palestinian voices looking to head this important committee as it relates to foreign affairs are Joaquín Castro (D-TX) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY). Both Castro and Meeks boycotted Israeli Prime Minister’s address to a joint session of Congress in 2015 and both voted for the Obama administration’s JCPOA which gave the leading state sponsor of terrorism a legal pathway to nuclear weapons and access to roughly $150 billion.
The third contender, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) voted against the JCPOA and did not boycott Netanyahu, but has begun to make comments to appeal to the anti-Zionist leanings of a vocal and growing segment of the Democratic Party. That has excited far left groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street.
J Street said that it “welcomes statements from all three candidates to become the next Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.” It highlighted a quote from Castro in-line with J Street’s thinking:
“Israeli settlements violate international lawand their expansion is a serious impediment to peace. The Trump administration’s decision to fund investments there breaks decades of bipartisan consensus, undermining America’s ability to be a fair arbiter for a two-state solution.”
The anti-Zionist website Mondoweiss came after Sherman stating “Sherman also called out progressive groups like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow for supporting Castro’s candidacy, claiming that anti-occupation organizations were building a movement to block him from acquiring the chair.” The site noted that JVP prefers Castro among the three contenders.
J Street, an influential anti-“settlement” organization, lobbied hard for the Obama administration to support the Iranian nuclear deal as well as allowing the passage of UN Resolution 2334, which made it an international crime for Israelis to live east of the invisible 1949 Armistice Lines. The Democratic Party has only lurched further left and anti-Israel since that passage in 2016.
Should Joe Biden win the presidency and Joaquín Castro become chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the next two years promise to be the most anti-Israel in American history, much to the joy and lobbying of far left groups like IfNotNow, JVP and J Street.
Joaquin Castro (D-TX) running to head the House Foreign Affairs Committee, doxed his local constituents after the 2016 election
There is a notion being put forth that the only people who back President Donald Trump are old White uneducated men. While many uneducated White men do support Trump much like uneducated Black women voted for Barack Obama, the path to Trump winning the 2020 presidential race will actually tip with the Hispanic community.
“Black Lives Matter” Doesn’t Resonate with Many Hispanics
While liberals and the Black community have aggressively pushed the notion of intersectionality and the cause of BLM, it has left many in the Hispanic community feeling less than excited.
For those who generally believe that minorities suffer under “white supremacy,” as Progressives call it, Hispanics are turned off by the BLM moniker. Why not state that “Minority Lives Matter” or “People of Color’s Lives Matter”? Why elevate the Black community over their own?
“Defund the Police” Doesn’t Resonate
More specifically, the Hispanic community’s orientation towards police in America is not the same as for White liberals and Black people. Hispanics relate to law enforcement much more like Independents and Libertarians, appreciating the important role that law enforcement has in creating safe streets in America. They have heard enough war stories from Latin America to recognize truly crooked cops. Further, the number of Latinos in the U.S. armed services and police forces jumped significantly over the past twenty years, more than any other group.
As such, the BLM Manifesto which calls for “defunding the police” is appalling to many Hispanics. That founders of the movement (Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi) support the Biden/Harris ticket has pushed many Hispanics away.
October 12, 2020 Time magazine cover featuring leaders of the BLM movement which advocates positions at odds with the beliefs of many Hispanics
“Disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structurerequirement” Doesn’t Resonate
The BLM manifesto did not only go against the police but many “requirements” foisted upon society, including having households headed by a father and mother. While Hispanics do have more single parent households (41%) than White people (24%), it still pales relative to Blacks (65%). Similarly, the percentage of fathers with children outside of marriage for Hispanics (59%) is in between Whites (37%) and Blacks (76%). Blacks and Hispanics are far from a uniform.
The religious orientation surrounding families is also a factor. Whites and Hispanics have almost the same feelings regarding a belief in God whereas Blacks are much more likely to believe. Whites and Hispanics similarly attend church at similar rates, while Black people go more frequently.
Hispanics are more Jewish and Zionist
While several elements of the Black Lives Matter both advocated for anti-Israel policies and leaders associated with vile anti-Semites, the Hispanic community is very different. Many researchers believe that as much as 25% of Hispanics have deep Jewish roots going back to when Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal with many settling in South America as part of the European discoveries in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Israel has long been a favorite destination for Evangelical Christians but is increasingly seeing more Hispanics travel to the holy land. Israel’s Ministry of Tourism has made the Hispanic community an important part of its marketing plan and they are seeing a greater number of positive messages pulling them to the Jewish State.
Trump Masculinity and Liberal ‘Machismo’
While liberals and conservatives have both condemned Trump’s vile and vulgar comments, liberals have leaned in on Trump’s ‘toxic masculinity‘ and connected it – in a derogatory racist manner – to White and Hispanic men but not to Black men. Outfits like HuffPo call out Trump’s ‘Machismo‘ tying him to Hispanics and avoid using terms like ‘swagger’ and connecting him to Black males. Yet Black people are less tolerant of gays and transgenders than either Whites or Hispanics according to FBI statistics on hate crimes, but don’t let a narrative get in the way. The media prefers to lump Hispanics and Blacks into a Democratic grab bag of voters with just a handful of Hispanic men who like Trump’s ‘macho man‘ bravado outside the liberal reach.
COVID-19
Democrats have made the case against Trump based on two principles: his toxic masculinity and his failure to contain the coronavirus.
But Hispanics look at the coronavirus very differently than Blacks. African-Americans are much more likely to have a local lens than Hispanic Americans who look at Central and South America. To the extent that Blacks look at Africa, they see a continent thus spar spared from the pandemic. In stark contrast, Hispanics see the USA being hit at roughly the same rate as homelands, making the case against Trump much weaker.
Deaths from COVID-19 according to Worldometer as of October 30, 2020 show the US and Latin America being worst hit. The African continent has virtually no cases
Arizona, Texas and Florida
There are a number of key states in the electoral college that are considered “swing states.” These will likely go to Trump due to the Hispanic vote:
State
Electoral CollegeVotes
Percent Hispanic
Arizona
11
31.4%
Florida
29
25.6%
Texas
38
39.4%
Georgia
16
9.6%
North Carolina
15
9.4%
78 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win will be delivered by the Hispanic community in three key states. Should Pennsylvania go to Trump again, Georgia and North Carolina are the pathways to a Trump re-election (129 votes in those six states).
The Hispanic vote is far from a monolith. The Cubans in Florida for example are much more conservative than Dominicans in New York. The media doesn’t only fold them together with the Blacks inappropriately but treats them as a single voting block as well.
While the Black community is a lock for liberals, the Hispanic community if far more diverse and conservative. Should Trump win re-election, a contributing factor will be the far-left turn of the Democratic Party with its embrace of the Black Lives Matter ‘Defund the Police’ agenda pushing Hispanic voters to the right.
The middle has been collapsing for some time. Senators like Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and John McCain (R-NV) could no longer exist in today’s political climate. The moderates in both the Republican and Democratic parties have been expunged in their respective primary seasons.
Fringe parties like Democratic Socialist and the Working Families Parties have successfully inserted themselves into America’s main parties. Far left extremists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are no longer on the outside looking in, but have seats in Congress, are members of important committees and been endorsed by the heads of the Democratic National Committee and the Speaker of the House.
In New York State, Democrats forcibly retired politicians that considered bi-partisanship a noble idea. The majority Democratic Party is now looking to seal the fate of the state by actively looking to expel the last of the moderates and achieve a super-majority to advance extremist ideas. The terms “DINO” and “RINO,” Democrats In Name Only and Republicans In Name Only have become slurs.
The dynamics extend beyond state politics and congress. The Democratic Party has selected, Kamala Harris, the most liberal and least bipartisan member of the Senate to be Vice President. They have made clear their intentions to establish long-term changes to America in packing the Supreme Court and adding Washington, D.C. as a new state.
For their part, the Republicans can’t stand the incumbent president of their own party, with dozens upon dozens shunning Trump. It’s an unheard of dynamic in the history of American elections: Republican hate Republicans and Democrats hate Republicans. It sounds like an easy vote this election.
Not so.
The cleft in society will not be bridged with endorsing a party that has swung far from the center. It will also not be cured with a vote for an Independent or Libertarian, which might feel like good, but does as much as throwing a pebble into the trench.
In this contentious election, the best path forward to heal the country is to vote purple – not all blue (Democratic) or pure red (Republican) up and down the ballot, but to vote for a mix of both parties. If you live in a deep blue state, vote straight red, and if you’re in a deep red state, vote blue in every race. Americans must force the parties to find common ground, as a sweep for Democrats or Republicans in 2020 is a vote for extremist ideologies and policies.
The protests in the streets of America have ranged from Black Lives Matter, COVID-19 lockdowns, abortion, immigration policies and more
June 23rd was the Democratic Primary in New York. As the coronavirus was still raging, I decided to vote a day beforehand to avoid crowds.
I arrived at the voting location in White Plains about an hour before its scheduled close. There were only two Hispanic men in front of me inside, so I was able to enter as the center had a strict limit on the number of voters allowed indoors at one time. The men were clearly frustrated, engaged in a discussion with officials behind the partition glass.
I went to an open window and told the middle-aged woman that I needed a ballot. I gave her my name and she looked me up in the system. In short order it became clear that it was not going to be a quick vote as she got up and said she needed to check something.
While waiting for her return, I got a clearer picture of the saga involving the two Hispanic men. It seemed that they had brought in a large number of ballots to submit, and the official who I later learned was Reginald LaFayette, the Chairman of the Westchester County Democratic Party, said that he could not accept the stack of votes. The men left, disappointed, and other people who had waited outside soon took their place at the window. I would watch thirteen other people come-and-go during the twenty minutes I was there.
I was told that my party registration was in question and that it was not clear I was qualified to vote in the Democratic primary. While I had been a Democrat for decades, I switched party affiliations to Libertarian in 2018 after Tom Perez, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee said that the future of the Democrats was with the far-left progressives winning House seats. However, for this election, a friend heavily involved in Westchester politics told me about the importance of switching back to being a Democrat as Congressperson Nita Lowey was retiring and her seat was being pursued by another far-left progressive named Mondaire Jones. My friend dropped change of party affiliation forms (for my wife as well) at my house in January 2020 and told me to submit them by Valentine’s Day. I mailed mine in two days before the deadline.
Not according to the Westchester Democratic Party.
According to their records, my change form was marked received in their ledger on February 19, several days after the deadline. I protested that it could not have taken a week for the mail to arrive and Lafayette joined the discussion. He went to the records and pulled the envelope I had mailed to check the postmark date. It proved illegible – perhaps the 11th or the 17th – and LaFayette decided to let me vote. This was another indication of the power the chairman had to allow (me) or disallow (the Hispanic men) votes.
There were other interesting observations during my wait.
Of the thirteen other people I watched vote, six were White and seven were Black. The White people ranged in age from college girls to an older couple, with each casting a single ballot. In sharp contrast, every Black person was in a narrower age range (roughly late 20’s to mid-40’s) and they all brought several ballots with them. The quantities were less than from the Hispanic men – handfuls rather than dozens – but the difference was striking. Why were the Black people bringing in outside votes which were all accepted, while the White people only voted for themselves and the ream of Hispanic people’s ballots were disqualified? I heard one Black woman say that the additional ballots she was submitting were from her parents and aunt who had recently moved to the city, but what about the others?
My mind wandered-
Were these people very effective at collecting ballots at their churches to get the vote out for their favorite candidate? Did they go door to door in their neighborhood? If they went to a nursing home and took dozens of ballots from elderly people, could they have effectively stuffed the ballot box with their own personal preferred candidate? What kind of questions could Lafayette – or anyone tasked with such a situation around the country – ask to determine if the votes should be admissible?
Westchester County Democratic Committee Chairman Reginald A. Lafayette
President Trump has argued that the mail-in system is ripe for voter fraud. While I hope that will not happen, I witnessed either the very essence of fraud or a skilled person ensuring a fair election. I honestly don’t know which.
What is clear to me, is that if this turns out to be a close election, the local people at the voting centers will have a greater impact on the winner of the 2020 presidential race than the Supreme Court.
First One Through 