General Discussion

Nevilledog

(51,023 posts) Wed Nov 25, 2020, 12:06 PM Nov 2020

THREAD: It's called voter disenfranchisement, suppression, and disinformation.

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
this is a jingle jangle stan account.
@MsPackyetti
So, I really try my best not to use the quote tweet for shade or snark. I employ it for funny/sweet things or if there’s a lesson we really, really need to understand.

This, you’ve by now guessed, is the latter. Because this isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous.

Yes, thread.

Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Replying to @NateSilver538
Namely, there was a lack of precision to many of them; they didn't explain the mechanisms by which the election would be stolen. Often they were a bit Underwear Gnomes-ish:

1. Trump wants to steal the election
2. ???*
3. ELECTION STOLEN

* Or "THE COURTS!!"
11:10 PM · Nov 24, 2020

Unrolled thread here
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1331480366805299202.html

So, I really try my best not to use the quote tweet for shade or snark. I employ it for funny/sweet things or if there’s a lesson we really, really need to understand.

This, you’ve by now guessed, is the latter. Because this isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous.

Yes, thread.
Unroll available on Thread Reader

2016. 2018. 2020. Modern, recent, robust evidence is *everywhere* that election theft is abundant.

It’s called voter disenfranchisement, suppression, and disinformation. It’s not new-but it is getting more sophisticated.

I say that takes like that are dangerous because NOBODY seen as an authority on elections should EVER be downplaying or invalidating the danger of modern voter suppression.

It’s malpractice-and IMO it’s way worse than the polls folks like to dunk on.

At some point, white voices of “authority” are going to have to realize two things if they want to be at all truthful:

1. Black folks know y’all better than you know yourselves.

2. You can’t afford to keep living in a totally different world.

On the first point, plenty of Black folks felt like Biden was a calculated move. That he was white man *enough* of you would vote for. I’ve explained this multiple times before, and there are enough white voting patterns that prove Black people right time and again.

Whatever your preferred outcome was in the primaries isn’t the point. The point is, Black folks know how to hold radicalism and pragmatism at the same time and in the hard moments.

If Biden was the pragmatic choice, black voter turnout was still RADICAL AF.
Which brings me to point 2.

The idea that Trump’s attempted theft was unsuccessful (?) because it was never real is the exact WRONG conclusion.

It didn’t work because Black, Indigenous & marginalized people BUSTED OUR TAILS to beat back our own suppression. PERIOD.

It’s the most frustrating thing to watch people give trash hot takes when the “mechanisms” for theft were WIDELY reported on & fought against.

If the mechanisms didn’t exist I guess all those Black lawyers and organizers and digital protectors did *nothing* for four years?

You’re telling me you WATCHED Brian Kemp run his OWN election, Stacey Abrams’ race get stolen, READ the reports that 200K GA voters were wrongly purged in that race, and SEE the #ProGeorgia table of organizers fight tooth and nail and still think elections don’t get stolen?!

You’re telling me you WATCHED Ron DeSantis turn over the will of Floridians and make 1.4 million formerly incarcerated folks pay restitution before they could vote, FRRC raise MILLIONS of dollars to pay a damn poll tax, and still think there are no “mechanisms” for theft?

You mean to tell me you watched Allie Young have to lead entire caravans on HORSEBACK in Arizona because there are TEN MILES for some Indigenous folks between their homes and their polling places and still think there’s no suppression?!

You’re actually going to fix your fingers to say there was no “mechanism” for theft when JUST THIS PAST PRIMARY, Milwaukee went down to ONE polling place in a Pandemic? You watched Greg Abbott try to pull a similar stunt in Harris County and still have the nerve to say that??

You have the unmitigated gall to call warnings about election theft an “underwear gnome” like Trump didn’t file a bunch of lawsuits in the BLACKEST CITIES AND COUNTIES IN AMERICA because he couldn’t understand for the LIFE of him how we overcame their robbery attempts?

You really gonna look John Lewis’ ghost in the face and say this was never real when Mitch McConnell let the Voting Rights Restoration Act named for Mr. Lewis sit and get dusty on his desk?!?

In the year of our Lord 2020 you’re going to act like Trump didn’t hire his homeboy Louis DeJoy to try to shut down the damn postal service, the sorting machines, and the infrastructure needed for a pandemic election?!

You’re gonna get on Beyoncé’s internet and not act like Cambridge Analytica never existed, disinformation ain’t running rampant and Black and LatinX communities were never targeted?

You’re gonna take the day the Lord has made and use it to pretend Trump hasn’t attempted to undermine the validity of our elections since the SECOND he was afraid he was going to lose with lie after lie???

It’s offensive to all of us who spent every waking minute fighting the well-documented, multifaceted “mechanisms” for election theft you refuse to take seriously because few white dudes ever have their votes suppressed

And you should be embarrassed to be this persistently wrong.

And YES I’m making it about race because, news flash: IT IS.

White men who keep getting it wrong still get every dollar and press clipping and opportunity when Black folks, who have honestly and accurately assessed the flaws of democracies for generations, keep it alive.

If there is no monster underneath your bed, it’s not because it never existed: it’s because all the Black and Brown and Indigenous people you don’t bother taking seriously killed it for you.

And every time you get on your very big perch and proclaim the threat was never real and the monster was made up, you undermine the very people who slayed the actual dragon with far fewer resources and notoriety than you have.

The emperor has no clothes. Let us handle it, please

I got worked up, but the point is this:

Any American electoral commentary, predictions or work that lack a clear analysis of racist voter suppression is not worth the paper it’s printed on or the app it’s posted on.

This is America. The entire democratic project has been based on the use of Black & Indigenous labor and land and the suppression of Black & Indigenous freedoms.

It’s central to the entire conversation. The sooner we act like it, the sooner we get free.
And don’t ever fix your mouth to say there’s not a precedent for theft in this Country.

Not within earshot of Black folks or Indigenous folks.

We will correct the record every time.

We know America better than she knows herself...and more intimately than she’s like to admit.
Night y’all.

(By the way, I put a question Mark after “unsuccessful” because I stay on my toes when it comes to racist white male narcissists. Iono what he might try next. Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready.)

TL; DR:
“Stares in fed up Black girl.”

Morning.

Uh...I see this thread is moving 😂.

2 quick notes:

1. I want to be clear: Allie & her group were brilliant in leveraging the culture of the space and riding horses. It’s not “primitive,” it was brilliant. I’m saying no one should have to go that dang far to vote.
Unroll available on Thread Reader

And 2, my SoundCloud can be found at @NewGAProject, @fairfightaction, or @BlackVotersMtr.

Give them your follow, your volunteer time, and if you have it to give, a few coins. They deserve all of it. Let’s go grab these Senate seats, y’all. 🖤
• • •