Will A Suitable Boy Meet Expectations? 
... and more reviews!

I was struck by BBC TV’s adaptation of A Suitable Boy which began streaming Stateside on Acorn TV earlier this month and have seen three of the six episodes aired so far. My first thought was that the series deserved more than six episodes. Didn’t Downton Abbey get six seasons and a movie? 

It is a take on Vikram Seth’s celebrated 1993 epic novel set in 1951 — in a newly independent India — against a backdrop of political and religious upheaval. The central character is the young and rebellious Lata Mehra whose mother is trying to find her a husband (“a suitable boy” of the title). As a fan of the 1,500 page book, I was afraid of being disappointed — but loving it so far!

Directed by Mira Nair (of Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake fame) it is lush and colorful. Through the relationships of four families, the Mehras, Chatterjis, Kapoors, and Khans, Nair presents a country that keeps failing (killing of peaceful protesters, sectarian riots, Hindu nationalism) but remains aspirational (general elections, land reforms, inter-faith love). 

As one of the most expensive BBC series ever made, Nair has splurged on gorgeous costumes, fine jewelry, and lavish parties, including an elaborate wedding, celebration of Holi (a spring festival), and scenic boat rides on the Ganges.

Nawabi (Princely) Culture

Nair, who (like Seth) grew up in a similar public school educated, secular Indian tradition as many of her generation, has a way of recreating time, place, and historical context — as in Lucknow’s famed Nawabi or Princely culture — that is deeply nostalgic and strongly evocative of an India that once was! 

The book’s fictional Brahmpur is filmed on location along the Ganges between Benares and Patna. Besides Lucknow, the series also features Calcutta, Delhi, Kanpur, and Maheshwar (Madhya Pradesh in central India), and feels compellingly authentic. 

There is a large ensemble cast. Lata (played by Tanya Maniktala) and Kabir (Danesh Razvi) fall in love after meeting at university but Lata is a Hindu and Kabir a Muslim in a country riven by unrest and painful religious differences. Lata realizes that Kabir is not the “suitable boy” her mother would like her to marry!

Lata’s brother-in-law Maan, played by Ishaan Khatter, embarrasses his dad (high-ranking politician Mahesh) by pursuing Saeeda Bai, an older courtesan and ghazal singer, played by Tabu. Mahesh’s land reforms are opposed by greedy landowners who want to maintain the status quo. 

I enjoyed the hilarious scenes of tango dancing at a party in Calcutta, which used to have (still has) a distinct rather Westernized club culture rarely found elsewhere in India.

Political Turmoil 

The series reflects the socio-economic and political turmoil of the times with the pull between tradition and progress, bitter class and caste conflict, wealthy landowners exploiting the poor, and the taboo of inter-faith marriage. 

Nair has said in interviews that she was drawn to the political backdrop of a post-independence India as it prepared for its first national election as a democracy, and the modernity and optimism embodied in Lata’s character. 

Also interesting is that the themes covered — of religious intolerance, the complexities of family life, the position of women, the pressure of society on the individual, and the danger of democracy slipping into autocracy — are being played out just as intensely in today’s India.  

Media Flak!

The series, a first by the Beeb with an entirely South Asian cast, was met with praise in Britain but not so much in India where there was flak about it being almost entirely in English. But the world of Seth’s book is also very anglicized, influenced by two centuries of Colonial rule. Many Indian families of Nair’s and Seth’s milieu grew up speaking only (or mainly) English. 

Critics found fault with the actors’ accents and accused them of “trying to sound browner,” “taking a Peter Sellers approach,” and the drollest one, “the BBC’s revenge on Indians for writing better English!” In my view, what you hear is a clearly enunciated, slower, 1950s English, the kind not in use today but, I think, appropriate!  

I agree, though, that it is odd to hear Indian village characters speak to each other in English. When they converse in Hindi, as Saeeda with her maid, the flow sounds more natural.

Indian critics were also peeved that award-winning British screenwriter Andrew Davies, who adapted Pride and Prejudice, was chosen by Seth to do the screenplay — shouldn’t that be the decision of the author?

Intolerance for Dissent

Meanwhile, a controversy has erupted over kissing scenes! Indian ruling party politicians of the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have claimed that “religious sentiments” were “hurt” because the series showed a Hindu girl kissing a Muslim boy against the backdrop of a temple! They called for a nationwide boycott of Netflix whose officials were booked by police, told to remove offensive content, and apologize for “encouraging love jihad.”  

The absurd love jihad conspiracy theory claims that Muslim men are part of a plot to lure Hindu women into marriage and force their conversion to Islam! A few years ago, it was a fringe notion of the lunatic right feeding a culture of suspicion around inter-faith couples — it has now gone mainstream!

I find it odd that the series was even shown in India! It is a time of total intolerance for dissent with secularism and free speech under threat and Muslims reviled and persecuted in ways previously unseen — all of it happening with police complicity, little recourse to justice, and much of the elite and media seeming to acquiesce with such blatant bigotry. Sad times, indeed!

Lucknow

The Urdu poetry of Mirza Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir, and Daagh Dehlvi in the scenes with Saeeda are a celebration of Lucknow’s rich and historic Indo-Muslim culture that clearly belong to an earlier more liberal era, unsullied by today’s dark cloud of Hindu fundamentalism! 

Lucknow is famed for its “Tehzeeb” (mannerisms and culture) that derived from the Muslim Nawabs (Princes) of the erstwhile Kingdom of Awadh (also called Oudh). The city’s Nawabi culture speaks to its refinement, courtesy, etiquette, sophistication, and fine taste in dance (Kathak), Urdu poetry (ghazals, qawwali), music, literature, drama, and cuisine.

It reminded me of two of my favorite Lucknow-based Indian films. One is Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj ke Khiladi (Chess Players), the story of the 1856 British annexation of Awadh on the eve of the Indian Rebellion (Sepoy Mutiny). The two main characters are so immersed in playing chess, they ignore the invasion taking place! For classic performances, look no further than Amjad Khan in a heartrending role as the Nawab, Sanjeev Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey as the chess players, Shabana Azmi as Sanjeev’s philandering wife, Farooq Shaikh as her lover, with Richard Attenborough, Victor Bannerji, Tom Alter, and Barry John. 

Another is Umrao Jaan, the 1981, visually stunning, Muzaffar Ali-helmed film starring Rekha (not the bad 2006 remake!) which outshone its Bollywood “nawab and nautch girl” genre. Also set during the 1857 Mutiny, the film beautifully recreated the Lucknow of the period with its pigeon flight contests (kabootar baazi) and Indian hop scotch (ikkal dukkal)! It was also a feast for Urdu and Kathak (Indian classical dance) fans! 

More Reviews: Jane Austen, Daphne du Maurier

The new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma which mixes social satire, romantic intrigue, and match-making was excellent with live musical performances giving it a decided edge! Emma (Anna Taylor-Joy) plays the piano and sings “‘Tis the Last Rose of Summer” and Mr Knightley (Johnny Flynn) plays the violin and gives a commanding performance of “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes” from Ben Johnson’s To Celia. (English Majors will be familiar with those classic poems/chansons/lieder!)

A Suitable Boy has its own German lied, Schubert’s Die Nebensonnen (The Sun Dogs), beautifully sung in the third episode by a character described as a music teacher. Seth himself sings Schubert — I heard him in Delhi many years ago at the home of Austrian diplomat Peter Launsky who later married Seth’s sister, Aradhana, a designer. 

I’m intrigued that many new British adaptations of period literature and historical plays seem to sneak in a live musical performance now and again, such as, in the film version of My Cousin Rachel, with Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin, based on the Daphne du Maurier novel.

Victoria and Albert

Victoria, a PBS Masterpiece Theatre drama by ITV, also included a live performance with a young Queen Victoria, played by Jenna Coleman, singing a Bach hymn “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,” (O sacred Head, now wounded) in German. But wasn’t it Prince Albert of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who soulfully sang “Drink to Me Only...” to Victoria which made her pick him over Ernest, his more charming older brother? I waited in vain! He didn’t sing it in the PBS drama!

I wonder how the disastrous six-part ITV historical drama, Beecham House (on PBS Masterpiece Theatre, directed by Gurinder Chadha) played in India. Not everyone can do period films! Chadha, who also directed the films Bend it Like Beckham and Bhaji on the Beach, co-wrote Beecham House. One of the kindest things said about it by The Guardian was “risible!”

Sorry to report that the new film version of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca with Armie Hammer, Lily James, and Kristin Scott-Thomas was drab, poorly directed, and oh-so disappointing! Du Maurier deserved better!

Let’s hope 2021 will be an improvement — for films, streaming shows, and life in general! Meanwhile, waiting impatiently for the next three episodes of A Suitable Boy!  

Note that Seth is writing a sequel novel called A Suitable Girl where an aging Lata, now a grandmother, has come full circle and is looking for a wife for her grandson!

Ludi Joseph

Washington, D.C.

December 16, 2020

Check out NPR Interview with Mira Nair: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/12/945788759/mira-nairs-a-suitable-boy-makes-us-streaming-premiere

 

 

 America to the GOP — Clean Up Your Act!

The Republican Party has a position of outsize influence in American political life. Representing as it does the white population, it has used all the tricks in the book to perpetuate its power by winning (often by crook!) governorships, state houses, state judiciaries, and consolidating its power in all branches of the federal government. 

More than anything else, its control of the U.S. Senate has helped it to shape the ideological balance on the federal courts. We have them to thank for the Supreme Court’s lopsided 6-3 conservative majority! Don’t blame Trump alone— he was a willing tool they used to get us there!

The party is often satirized for its devotion to guns, extreme partisanship, a lazy dependence on lobbyists, and a penchant for falsehoods and demagoguery! 

It’s actually a lot worse!

Downright Chicanery!

The entire raison d'être of the GOP is to remain in power by any and all means. The only way they can do that is, first, stop minorities from voting! Why? Because (for the most part) those darn minorities, they up and vote for the other guy!  Second, stop all the votes being counted!  

With America becoming a minority white country, the GOP does not have the numbers to win in the regular way. Hence, they resort to downright chicanery and crude efforts like purging voter rolls, shutting polling stations in Black and Latino areas, and changing ID laws. 

In Georgia, the legislature cut the number of polling stations by 10 percent, dropped thousands of voters from the rolls because they hadn’t voted in a while, and suspended registrations of another 50,000 Blacks for minor inconsistencies (e.g., omitting a hyphen in a name.)

Alabama began enforcing a strict ID bill and then closed nearly all ID offices in majority Black counties. North Carolina’s legislature required the exact form of ID that Blacks were least likely to have. Texas required a certain kind of ID they knew 600,000 registered Latino voters lacked. 

You get the picture? Without court challenges mounted by Democrats, many of those sidelined voters may never have cast their ballots. 

By November 4, it was clear the presidency would be decided by votes being counted in big cities with large Blacks populations: Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. Trump cast doubts on the votes by dint of location: “Detroit and Philadelphia are known as two of the most corrupt political places,” he said. “They cannot be responsible for engineering the outcome of a presidential race.”

The pattern was obvious. Trump was attempting to invalidate ballots cast for Biden in swing state cities where minorities predominate and can swing elections. He was saying that Blacks have no right to vote him out of office! Writing in The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson labelled it an “undisguised, unapologetic reassertion of the white-is-right doctrine.”

Author Gary Younge calls it a “new twist in the racial logic of the American right, which has gone from blocking Black people from voting to allowing them to vote as long as their votes don’t all get counted.” Younge has written about identity politics in Who Are We? How Identity Politics Took Over the World (Penguin). 

Demographics Are Against Them!

Although GOP clout is unlikely to diminish in the near future, demographics are against them! The country grows less white every year and, by 2045, is expected to be majority non-white with 29 percent Hispanic, 13 percent Black, 9 percent Asian, and 47 percent white. 

At present, less than half of all American children under the age of 15, are white. In five states (California, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas), white people are already a minority. 2045 is still a few years down the road, so, patience, mes amis! But, before you start counting your chickens, remember this, “there is nothing inevitable about demographics,” Younge adds! 

Whites have long been a minority in Texas and yet, despite the Dems giving Texas their best shot, the GOP has held that state for nearly 50 years! Florida is also very diverse, yet (for the most part) votes GOP, whereas two white states, Vermont and Maine, are reliably Democrat. Go figure!

Christian Right

Over the past several decades, the Republican Party has been captured by two powerful forces: the Christian right with its theocratic vision for America, and the Tea Party movement. Both are overwhelmingly white.

The Christian right (comprising Evangelicals and conservative Catholics and Protestants) unites around anti-abortion activism, opposition to LGBTQ rights, sex education, and euthanasia, and the promotion of abstinence, school prayer, religious freedom, and the teaching of creationism (as opposed to evolution). (Read NYT article on religion and right-wing politics below.)

The Tea Party (an acronym for Taxed Enough Already) was a reaction to Obama’s 2009 mortgage relief plan. A populist social and political movement, it favored an unfettered free market while opposing excessive taxation, government intervention in the private sector, and economic redistribution. (See Pew Research article on the Tea Party below.)

The two came together on economic issues (e.g.  railing against welfare checks to “lazy minorities!”) but mostly on immigration — they wanted it halted or curbed! A more diverse America (with new immigrants voting for the wrong party) was most unwelcome!

Culture Wars

These movements within the GOP converged with a realization that demographic trends were hostile to the party’s older whiter heavily Christian base. It also generated a virulent white identity politics that found its natural expression in Trump’s intensely divisive rhetoric.

Consider “Make America Great Again.” It is a promise of a return to better days, a past that never was, a halcyon time when white men ruled America, Christianity was the “official” religion, minorities were rarely seen, and women had no power. This is precisely the kind of faux 1950s world that most Republicans yearn for: a doomed exercise in nostalgia! 

Trump’s appointment of conservative judges gave the Christian right what they craved: a chance to defeat legalized abortion, same sex marriage, multiculturalism, environmentalism, secularism — they were back to fighting the “culture wars.”

Trump’s draconian immigration policies (the Muslim Ban, the Border Wall, separating children from their parents) were what the Christian Right wanted, never mind the horrific sight of toddlers in cages. It also meant a sudden lurch of the party in the opposite direction after George W. Bush had championed a more diverse future. 

Is the GOP’s embrace of voter suppression a by-product of opportunism? The party is existentially committed to restoring (or preserving) white, Christian supremacy in the face of increasing diversity. Electoral mischief, like voter suppression, is the most direct means of reaching that goal, a means to an end, not cheating, no sir! 

Political conservatism was once a principled philosophy. The current GOP has transformed it into a grievance agenda fueled by xenophobia. Propping up a declining white Christian base amid changing demographics was always bound to fail — the numbers just don’t add up! 

Beware of GOP Fear Mongering!

America needs immigrants to help maintain the country’s economic growth and provide a solid tax base to fund entitlement programs. Without younger people of color coming in, entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare would dry up. Hence, to protect and preserve the country’s social safety net, whites should be welcoming immigrants, regardless of race.

By growing the economy, immigration is likely to increase the size of the proverbial “pie” of economic resources. The claim made by some in the GOP that immigrants are a threat because they depress wages and take away jobs from American workers is blatant fear mongering.

White Identity Politics

Waves of immigration in the late 1990s and early 2000s transformed America’s demographics. This was brought into sharp relief by the election of Obama which ignited a high degree of racial unease and fear that activated identity politics. 

About 40 percent of white Americans now identify with their whiteness. Once secure in the belief that they held a disproportionate share of economic, political, and social resources, they have begun to see their privilege and status being increasingly questioned. 

They are afraid of losing, not just their majority, but also their cultural and political power. Many also feel they are being discriminated against and that the economic, political and social gains of minorities are coming at white expense.

“Dominionist” Strategy

Getting back to the Christian right, their long term agenda can be summed up essentially as promoting the idea of Christian nationalism.  They believe the U.S. once was, and should again be, “a glorious Christian nation.” They endorse a theocratic vision that Biblical law (the Ten Commandments) should be the foundation of the U.S. legal system.

To achieve their goals, the more extreme among them believe that America must adopt a “dominionist” strategy where Christians exercise power and dominate every sphere of life: religion, education, economics, politics, culture (arts, entertainment, media), and family.

Armed Struggle

The GOP’s determination to resist any hint of gun regulation, despite public opinion, is not just a matter of campaign contributions from the gun lobby. It comes from a genuine belief among grassroots conservatives that armed struggle — against “radical Democrat elites” — must remain an option if conventional politics fails! 

You may balk but that is the core belief of much of the Christian right — and now an intrinsic GOP belief, whether articulated or not! They are convinced that a civil war may be necessary to impose Red America’s will on Blue America! To this end, they will call on militias, the Boogaloo Boys, anyone, who will rally to their cause!  

Sounds insane? Maybe, but if it’s how a section (perhaps, not the mainstream, yet) of a major political party thinks, we should pay attention!

Trump, with his authoritarian contempt for democratic norms, was the perfect vessel to achieve their agenda! He was never the evil genius! Far smarter and loonier right wingers were deciding on how to reach their objectives! 

The Once Proud Party of Lincoln... 

The party that ended slavery and fought to maintain the Union — the once proud party of Abraham Lincoln — is dead and quite gone! It now houses the ideological heirs to the very Confederacy that it defeated! 

By being a willing accomplice to Trump and pandering to his every whim, the GOP has set back racial progress and damaged democracy. It can continue to use bigotry and race baiting for now but, sooner or later, must face reality. 

Check out some of its worst transgressions of just the past four years:

The party has transferred wealth from working Americans to billionaires: by giving tax breaks to the wealthy while shifting taxes onto the middle class and working poor, weakening unions, removing workplace protections, and trying repeatedly to strip citizens of health insurance. 

It has permitted Big Business to poison our air, water, soil, and food — all in the name of profit!  

It is not just ignoring the climate change catastrophe; it is accelerating it by expanding fossil fuel extraction. 

It has gravely mishandled the global pandemic resulting in nearly 300,000 Americans dead and counting.

Many principled Republicans, such as the creators of the Lincoln Project, have left the party. They canvassed and voted for Biden. Will they return or is the party too damaged and toxic? Will there be a split with the ethically-challenged truth-deniers on one side and the group that acknowledges reality on the other?  

The GOP might yet be salvaged by Republicans who believe in democracy. But first, to become a governing party again, soul searching is on the menu: it must clean up its act!

Ludi Joseph

Washington, D.C.

December 10, 2020

Religion and Right-Wing Politics: How Evangelicals Reshaped Elections (Published 2018)

Trump’s Staunch GOP Supporters Have Roots in the Tea Party

Democracy Needs Fixing! 

The 2020 U.S. elections have shown that the country’s institutions are in dire need of reform. These past months have exposed the weakness of a system that has relied on acceptable norms and responsible behavior, both of which have been in short supply from much of the leadership.

Elections should represent the will of the people but partisan politicians continue to manipulate the system to entrench themselves and their party in power. Gerrymandered legislatures have rigged the rules! Massive voter suppression, mostly in southern states, has resulted in the illegal purging of minorities from electoral rolls, leading to their deliberate disenfranchisement (see VRA section).

A record number of Americans voted early, by mail, or braved 8 to 10 hours in long lines to cast their ballots amid a pandemic that has killed nearly a quarter million of their fellow citizens. They did this while their own government and courts put every impediment in their way, slowing the mail and enforcing rigid deadlines on when ballots must arrive to be counted. 

Voting became a struggle with GOP legislatures shutting down polling stations (for no reason other than to deter citizens from casting their ballots) and making it more challenging in heavily crowded metros to find a polling place to vote or a drop-box to secure it!

In the weeks leading up to November 3, the president warned (sans evidence) that mail-in ballots were suspect and that, if he did lose, it would be because of voter fraud. He declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and, more than two weeks after losing the election, has still not conceded! 

 

This breaching of traditions demonstrates that the Biden administration must prioritize both institutional reform as well as reform of norms and practices. Most importantly, key provisions of the Voting Rights Act (gutted by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling) must be restored. 

The Electoral College

Every election year, pundits call for abolition of the Electoral College. Like the Senate, it over represents the views of relatively small numbers of people, but should it be gone? See Brookings essay below where author Darrell M. West urges dropping the Electoral College and switching to “the direct election of presidents” before there is “a genuine constitutional crisis.” 

Through the Electoral College (and the Senate), the 35 smaller states have “disproportionate power to choose presidents and dictate public policy,” writes West. Each state has two Electoral College votes regardless of population size, plus additional votes to match its number of House members. 

The Electoral College’s rural bias heightens the importance of largely white, midwestern battleground states. Therefore, a vote cast for president in Wyoming counts nearly four times as much as a vote cast in California! This is why the GOP (with fewer votes than Democrats) twice won the White House (in 2004 and 2016).

There is an easy fix! Currently, 15 states with 189 electoral votes have set into state law a policy to give all their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. Called the National Popular Vote Compact (NPV), this policy will go into effect if enough states join to constitute a majority of Electoral College votes. Right now, the NPV is only 74 electoral votes short of a majority (see article below). It needs approval by a majority vote in Congress to be constitutional — far easier than a constitutional amendment! 

Amending the Constitution requires a vote of two-thirds of both the House and Senate, followed by ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures. It is a huge challenge to pass a constitutional amendment at the best of times but, in this polarized atmosphere, it would be impossible!

The Senate

Like the Electoral College, the Senate gives disproportionate power to older, whiter, more rural, and more conservative interests. But it’s much harder to fix and has resisted reform! 

Unlike the House of Representatives where each state’s representation is based on population — a large state like California has 53 reps but smaller states like Vermont and Delaware have one each — the Senate continues to have two senators represent each state. Hence, California with a population of 40 million has two senators as does North Dakota and Wyoming with populations of less than a million each.

It is so unbalanced that, by 2040, academics predict, the 15 most populous states will be home to 67 percent of Americans, yet they will be represented by only 30 percent of the Senate! 

There are some Senate reforms that do not need constitutional amendments. For instance, abolishing the filibuster super-majority only needs a majority vote in the Senate; next, admitting the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states needs majority votes in both the House and Senate. (This last would substantially reduce the Senate’s rural and white voter bias!)

The following reforms would need constitutional amendments, such as, switching the vexed issue of judicial confirmations from the Senate to the House, not requiring Senate approval for all legislation, and (more drastically) turning the Senate into a body that allocates seats by state population size. (This last reform would require the approval of every state!)

The representational biases of the Senate make it hard to reduce the systemic and unequal treatment of minorities. And, yet, there is no credible solution to fix it within the constitutional framework. The GOP has held the Senate for 10 of the past 20 years. The Democrats have to start winning state houses and the Senate itself to make even small changes happen!

There are two Senate seats in Georgia going into runoff elections, January 5. If the Dems win those, they can wrest Senate leadership away from the GOP! It is the only way to ensure that Biden will not be hampered and obstructed at every turn as Obama was! 

Redistricting and Redmap!

More than 50 million Americans live in a state in which one or both chambers of their state legislature is GOP-controlled even though Dems won more votes in 2018. How did this happen?

Every state legislature and congressional district is redrawn every 10 years — after the nationwide census — to account for population changes. Known as redistricting, legislatures draw these lines in almost every state. After the Democrats (with Barack Obama heading the ticket) swept elections in 2008, Republicans identified devious new tactics to misuse redistricting!

A $30 million plan — known as Redmap — devised by conservative strategist Karl Rove and others, identified 107 key state legislative seats across 16 states that would give the GOP complete control of the process in the most important swing states: Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. 

The plan was to flood state races with “dark money” made possible by the Citizens United ruling (see next section) in order to reshape state legislatures where the power to redistrict is held. The GOP won those state houses, drew maps to build themselves a “voter-proof firewall,” and voilà: in the 2012 election they kept the House of Representatives despite losing the overall vote by 1.4 million! 

They had infamously “insulated the party and its wealthy donors from popular democracy!” See article, ‘Gerrymandering On Steroids': How Republicans Stacked The Nation's Statehouses (WBUR) below.  (Note that the GOP also won the House of Representatives in 2014 and 2016!)

These devious GOP tactics predate Trump! The real Machiavelli here is perhaps Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the longest-serving leader of Senate Republicans in history. He is ably supported by conservatives brimming with clever (barely legal) stratagems! 

Nevertheless, the Dems turned it around, winning the House in 2018 and keeping it in 2020. The main reasons are: they registered thousands of new voters and the need to defeat Trump made the 2018 and 2020 elections existential. Dems, who are usually not motivated enough to cast their ballots in every election, came out in droves! 

Meanwhile, citizen initiatives proposing redistricting reforms are being pursued in several states in an effort to make the process less partisan — read AP News article attached.

“Dark Money” and Citizens United

When “the source of political money isn’t known, that’s dark money,” says the Center for Public Integrity. 

In lay terms, dark money refers to campaign money whose sources are not disclosed. An expenditure (such as a TV commercial criticizing an opponent) will often be publicly reported to the Federal Election Commission (see below explanation) but not the actual identities of the people, firms, or organizations that pay for it.

This lack of disclosure makes it harder for regulators, opponents, and the media to detect violations of campaign finance law, such as illegal overseas contributions, money from government contractors, or contributions over the legal limit. It also denies voters valuable info, significant in primaries when all candidates are from the same party and voters cannot rely on party labels to decide whom to vote for.  

Dark money can be addressed with legislative fixes. First, all organizations (corporations, labor unions and non-profits engaged in election-spending) could be required to disclose large donors whose funds are used for campaign ads. 

Second, the disclosure could include major donor sources. New Jersey and Colorado have passed laws requiring this critical information. The House of Representatives passed similar legislation in 2018 addressing dark money donors in federal elections; however, the Senate’s GOP leadership is unlikely to take it up.

Dark money groups have spent roughly $1 billion (on TV, online ads, mailers) to influence elections in the decade since the notorious 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling which held that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from limiting how much money a group can spend. 

More than any other judgement in recent Supreme Court history, this (5-4) ruling had a major impact on the nation’s political landscape by allowing unfettered election spending and giving special interests and lobbyists more power to reshape elections. It horrified reformers by extending “personhood” to corporations and unleashing a flood of campaign cash!

More controversially, it gave rise to Super PACs (political action committees) controlled by a small group of right wing billionaire donors whose activities were based on hard right ideology. These publicity-shy mega donors became more powerful than the political parties while keeping themselves largely anonymous! 

Note that the conservative wing of the court was responsible for this judgement which was, of course, welcomed by the GOP!

A majority of Americans abhor the concept of dark money and would like to see Citizens United overturned! But how? The Supreme Court could reverse itself or Congress and the states could amend the Constitution. The first is a non-starter with so many conservative justices on the court. A constitutional amendment is more ironclad but also improbable; hence, Citizens United (like the Senate) is apparently immune from reform!

VRA Changes: 32 Million Voters Purged!

The VRA was passed in 1965 to ensure that state and local governments did not deny citizens the equal right to vote based on their race, color, or membership in a minority group. But, that right has been under threat since a 2013 Supreme Court decision undid the law’s protections by removing a key provision requiring jurisdictions with a history of extreme racial prejudice in voting laws (e.g., poll taxes, literacy tests) to obtain approval from Congress before changing voting rules. This process, known as “preclearance,” blocked discrimination before it occurred. 

However, in 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder (5-4) ruling, the court invalidated certain sections of the VRA and required that Congress pass a new formula to determine which states and localities would be subject to “preclearance.” The ruling had the effect of eliminating it altogether, ushering in a new and punitive wave of efforts to restrict voting rights largely aimed at disenfranchising Black and Latino voters.  

The effects were stunning and immediate. Within 24 hours of the ruling, Texas announced it would implement a strict photo ID (identification) law. Mississippi and Alabama also began to enforce photo ID laws that had previously been barred because of federal preclearance.

Note: between 2014 and 2018, with extremely restrictive voter ID bills enacted in 25 states, 32 million (mostly minority) Americans were purged from state voter rolls. In addition, thousands of precincts were shut down across the south, disproportionately affecting minority voters.

Note that the Republican Party is responsible for all of these suppression tactics, supported by state supreme courts packed with ideological true believers. The only way to stop them is to strengthen the VRA and restore its core protections so that southern legislatures and judiciaries are compelled to allow minorities to freely exercise their franchise. Read Politico article on the Voting Rights Act 

Cheating the System!

Schemes to throw the election to Trump were bandied about for months: one of them was to have state lawmakers in battleground states appoint new electors who would change the results of the Electoral College! 

Another plan, that Trump frequently alluded to, was to take his case to the Supreme Court where Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett would rule in his favor since they owed their seats (and, presumably, their loyalty) to him! 

Could these theories be tested? Who knows? This is the year when many norms have gone out the window! The unthinkable and yet openly-voiced expectation that a conservative-leaning court would automatically settle a dispute to benefit the president is in itself shockingly corrupt!

Survival of Democracy

For democracy to survive, the Republican Party must walk away from its underhand tactics and compete for every vote! Perhaps the 2020 presidential defeat will encourage that or — what’s most likely — they will just double down!  

Trump may have lost, but the Texas governor who unjustly limited ballot dropboxes to one per county ain’t goin’ anywhere! Nor are his congressional colleagues, who refused to fully fund the postal service amid expanded pandemic mail-in voting. Or GOP officials who refused to process millions of mail-in ballots early, enabling Trump to try to paint mail them as not quite kosher? 

There is a strong bill ready and waiting called the “For The People Act” (read link below). But it would be naive to imagine that many of the reforms recommended would be permitted by the Supreme Court’s right wing ideologues! Hence, court reform would need to proceed in tandem with fixing democracy! 

A country that proclaims itself the greatest democracy in the world has a lot of work to do. Thirty-four Senate seats are up in 2022. Twenty-two are Republican. Reform should begin now to restore and maintain public confidence that future elections are free and fair!

Ludi Joseph

Washington, D.C.

November 18, 2020

 

It’s time to abolish the Electoral College

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state-status

'Gerrymandering On Steroids': How Republicans Stacked The Nation's Statehouses

More states to use redistricting reforms after 2020 census

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) enforces federal campaign finance laws, including monitoring donations. It also oversees public funding for presidential campaigns.

Opinion | Voter Suppression Is Back, 55 Years After the Voting Rights Act

Text - H.R.1 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): For the People Act of 2019