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Progressives Demand Voting Rights Overhaul Amid GOP Suppression Efforts Common Dreams "Lots of folks believe that neither old party can fill the political vacuumand they could be right. But Congressman Beyer has offered his party an opportunity to rise above partisanship and stand on principle," writes John Nichols. (Photo: Michael ...

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Progressives Demand Voting Rights Overhaul Amid GOP Suppression Efforts - Common Dreams

by Anthony Flaccovento

For the past several years, as most of rural Virginia has become increasingly red, a number of us have been arguing that this shift is as much about a lack of real alternatives as it is about a genuine change in values. As someone who has lived in southwest Virginia for the past 32 years, who has worked with farmers, loggers, miners and small business people, Ive found as many places of agreement as disagreement, particularly on basic economic issues. During my run for U.S. Congress in 2012, I fared better in the coal counties of the 9th District than overall, with a message that attacked inequality and trickle-down economics, and proposed leveling the playing field with bottom up economic policies. A message I might add, that didnt shy away from the need to care for our land and to transition beyond coal.

So for folks like me, its been particularly painful to see our region become such a tough place for Democrats seeking office, and to overwhelmingly support Donald Trump for president.

There are many reasons for this steady movement to the right, from the outsized impact of Fox News to the role that churches have played in shaping perceptions of their congregants. But one reason that simply does not get enough attention is this: the Democratic Party and the progressive movement both have, for the most part, written off rural America. Its true. Ive experienced this first hand, not just as a Congressional candidate, but in my speaking, writing and advocacy work intended to elevate both the problems and the solutions emerging in small towns and rural communities. Whether focused on politics or the economy, progressive and liberal organizations are largely clueless when it comes to rural communities. And its not a priority for them to change that.

A month after Trumps election, a dozen or so folks from southwest Virginia began meeting to consider what we could do, and especially, what we needed to do differently. This group, which calls itself Progressive 9th, includes farmers, academics, working people, students and activists. Some are long-time Dems, while others lean more towards being Independent.

With the goal of changing and greatly improving our politics and public debate, our group has just completed and released the Rural Progressive Platform. You read that right: its a Progressive Platform, written by rural residents, grounded in rural values, priorities and language. The full platform is four pages long and is accompanied by a one page synopsis, both of which can be found here(also, see below). They are not intended to address every issue of importance to rural people or to political progressives, but rather to fundamentally reframe the debate and to offer more authentic and constructive ways to discuss economic, environmental and community issues.

We invite all readers of Blue Virginia, rural and urban alike, to read and consider the Rural Progressive Platform, to share it widely, and to use it or adapt it as you need. We particularly hope that local and statewide elected officials, candidates for office and Democratic Party leaders at all levels will review the platform. We believe that it could help us begin to overcome our severe polarization and political dysfunction, not by aiming for some lukewarm middle ground, but by identifying and prioritizing the core values shared by both Progressives and rural people.

Anthony Flaccavento is a farmer and sustainable economic development consultant from Abingdon, Virginia, who was the Democratic candidate for Congress in 2012. He started Progressive 9th, along with Michael Hudson of Blacksburg, and a dozen other people from eight different counties in southwest Virginia. For more information, please visit the Rural Progressive Politics website at https://ruralprogressivepolitics.wordpress.com/

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Rural Progressive PlatformJune 2017

ARural Progressive Platformmust be built upon three central elements: land, livelihood and community. Over generations, these three pillars of rural life have shaped the economies and cultures of much of the countryside; they have forged our commitment to self-reliance and belief in hard work. Though much of rural America has changed greatly over the past several decades, land, livelihood and community continue to shape the way we see the world, ourselves, and therefore our politics.

What follows here is a framework for Progressive Values within a rural context, particularly that of Central Appalachia. It frequently uses us and we, not to stereotype or diminish others them but because we write from our own experience, in our own words. This platform is not intended to be comprehensive, but should be understood as a background document from which rural progressives can develop more focused and fully developed positions, or platforms better suited to their particular regions. It is accompanied by a one page summary, which we hope will help spread the ideas more widely.

Our land

In southwest Virginia, our forests provide lumber for building, wood for heating, deer and turkey for food and ginseng for a little bit of cash. Cattle and sheep graze on lush pastures, while narrow strips of bottom land have grown tobacco, produce and home gardens. Creeks and rivers offer bass, trout and perch, as well as irrigation for crops. And underneath all of this, in some parts of our area has been coal, which historically provided well-paying jobs and a good chunk of the tax base for many local services.

In Kansas, they have prairies; in Louisiana, bayous. Though each place is different, rural regions share a sense thatnature is part of how we meet our needs, feed ourselves, create jobs and livelihoods. That the mountains, forests, valleys and streams are apractical part of our livesand economies. No doubt this is at least part of why we look at a chainsaw or a rifle so differently from most city folks. Yet its also true that many urban communities have begun to revitalize and rebuild their own land base, whether as community gardens, farms or public parks. The time is right for rural and urban folks to come together around the idea of working landscapes that respect the environment while helping people meet their needs.

Our livelihoods

There are environmentalists in rural communities and small towns across Appalachia, the Midwest and every other part of the country. Nevertheless, because the environmental movement has emerged most strongly in cities or suburbs, its focus has been onprotectingthe environment, more so than using it well to meet peoples needs. It often seems that environmentalists forget just how much everyone depends upon the food, materials and energy that primarily come from rural areas, thanks to the work that rural folks do. Raising food, cutting logs, mining coal or minerals, drilling for gas these are some of the jobs we do, along with the mechanics, the welders and carpenters, the engineers and the truck drivers that finish the work and get these products to market. If we seem to resent people telling us how to manage our land, its because we do a lot of the work that enables so many others to eat well, be warm and live comfortably.

Of course our jobs are far more diverse now, and many rural people no longer even raise a garden, let alone work in the outdoors. But the sense of livelihood, of taking care of our own needs through hard, sometimes dangerous work, of being self-reliant, that sense is still strong in most rural people, still part of what we believe and what we want. Were encouraged to see that an increasing number of people in cities, especially young people, are yearning to work with their hands, to learn how to raise food or live closer to the land.

Our community

In rural places, family and neighborliness are the starting point for community. And church. Small towns and rural places, like many bigger cities, have seen community eroded by empty store fronts, consolidated schools, addiction and more. Even so, we still tend to set down roots in our place, so when were told to just move to where the jobs are, we think its a choice we shouldnt have to make.

We believe that a caring local community offers the best means to support and help our neighbors.

Its true that too often weve not welcomed people who look or act differently from our norms. But not always. After 911 and Katrina, many first responders traveled from rural towns to New York and New Orleans. For years, the UMWA offered help to Chinese miners in their struggles to make their coal mines safer. We can be neighborly to others, far away. But we need to believe that our own communities are valued and respected, not dismissed or ridiculed.

If land, livelihood and community are central to rural identity and culture, what would a progressive platform look like in these places? How should it be different from the progressive ideas and language that we usually hear? What are some examples of public policies to support these values?

Rural Progressive values and the land:

We love the land and all it has to offer. However, we want people who dont live from the land, who experience nature mostly through tourism or recreation, to understand this: Its hard to make a living from the land without harm, without impact. Farmers understand this, as do fishermen, hunters, loggers and miners. Those of us who farm, fish or hunt see ourselves as good stewards, because we know that our livelihoods depend on healthy land.

If were going to do a better job sustaining the environment while still meeting peoples needs,progressive policies must make partners of those who live from the land, rather than just regulating and restricting what happens in the countryside.Progressive policies should make major investments in the most promising rural sustainable businesses, particularly in communities historically dependent on coal. Rebuilding local economies so that people can care for themselves and their families should be as much of a priority as protecting the environment. We need to see that we are truly in this environment thing together, sharing the challenges equally.

Policy examples:

Rural Progressive values and livelihoods:

We say without hesitation thatworking men and women must be at the center of a Rural Progressive platform and must form the foundation of the broader progressive movement. Working folks in rural Appalachia and urban Baltimore might look different, but in city and country alike working people often do work that is physically demanding, work that requires a practical intelligence, and jobs that so many others have come to take for granted. We think its long past due that ruralandurban workers share in the wealth our work creates, and be respected by politicians with their actions, not just their words.

We come from generations of resourceful people, folks who were poor but didnt know it because they made the most out of what they had. A Rural Progressive platform should thus be built onresponsibilitiesat least as much asrights, with policies that help people help themselves, and build on our strengths and assets.

Policy examples:

Rural Progressive values and community:

Weve not yet given up on community real community, built around a place.We need progressive economic, tax and trade policy that supports healthy, self-reliant local communities, instead of polices that suck the life out of our businesses, homes and downtowns.

Strengthening local communities should be a central goal of progressive policies.

Policy examples:

Rural citizens believe in fairness and understand that some people start with advantages that ordinary people just dont have. After all, Jesus honored the widow, who gave in spite of her poverty, and rebuked the Pharisees, who gave only from their surplus. It seems fair, then, to ask more of those with wealth and privilege, to oppose policies that further their economic or political power, and to protect and care for those who are struggling.

Policy examples

Download a PDF of the platformhere. Download a one-page synopsis of the platformhere.

Follow this link:
Rural Progressives: It's Not an Oxymoron - Blue Virginia (press release) (blog)

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Donald Trump's presidency is a disaster. But it's a disaster that may teach liberals a valuable moral lesson.

Most liberals tend to view morality in horizontal terms as a matter of securing and protecting the rights of free and equal individuals. This leads liberals to emphasize procedures and processes that ensure fairness for all. Many other liberals, especially those primarily concerned about issues wrapped up with identity politics, highlight another horizontal aspect of morality: recognition of the value and worth of different groups. This goes beyond equal rights to demand that fellow citizens and the government itself actively affirm the goodness of different ways of life. People don't merely have rights that give them the freedom to live as they wish. They actually deserve to enjoy positive affirmation in the public square.

Leaving aside the very real and important conflicts between these two constellations of liberal moral concern, they both presume and seek to enforce equality or egalitarianism. That's why I've described them as fostering a horizontal vision of morality.

But egalitarianism doesn't exhaust moral experience. On the contrary, morality also has a different dimension one having to do not with equality but with inequality, distinction, nobility, elevation, sanctity, excellence, and virtue. This vertical aspect of morality is absolutely crucial for understanding politics, but liberals tend to neglect it or at least took it for granted until Trump became president.

Trump morally offends liberals in many ways. A number of them have to do with horizontal concerns: offenses against the rights of various individuals and groups, such as the poor, minorities, immigrants, and Muslims. The liberal response to these offenses is to reaffirm the transgressed rights and attack the president for his divisiveness, cruelty, and failure to affirm equality for all.

Then there are Trump's myriad offenses against the rule of law. In response to these, liberals reaffirm the principle and insist that the president be held to the same exacting standards that have applied to his predecessors. Again, equality is the norm and the measure, across presidential administrations over time.

But there's another way that Trump offends liberals (as well as many on the center-right): with his angry and insulting tweets, attacks on the press, and continuous stream of lies. What makes this behavior so bad? Charles Blow of The New York Times spoke for many in a recent column that used a series of terms one now regularly hears tripping from liberal lips: "We must remind ourselves that Trump's very presence in the White House defiles it and the institution of the presidency. Rather than rising to the honor of the office, Trump has lowered the office with his whiny, fragile, vindictive pettiness."

Every italicized word is a term of distinction, referring to and presuming the possibility of making vertical moral distinctions: pure and defiled, rising and falling, honorable and dishonorable, higher and lower. The same kind of distinctions are implied every time someone describes Trump's actions or statements as "unpresidential." Since he's the president, the claim would seem to be self-refuting unless, that is, we believe that the office of the presidency itself, apart from the behavior of any particular president, is honorable, noble, elevated, exalted, something to which we rightly look up and from which a particular president can diverge or fall short.

There are many ways to conceive of and think about such vertical moral distinctions. Aristotle treated them as woven into the fabric of political life and because human beings are political animals, he also assumed they were woven into the fabric of human life, where they could be studied to teach us crucially important lessons about the longings that most powerfully move the human soul. Meanwhile, the political-theological traditions within Judeo-Christianity appeal to the God divinely revealed in the Bible to explain, limit, and complete these vertical moral intuitions. In our time, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has devised his own empirically grounded theory of moral foundations that gives vertical moral distinctions their due.

The liberal political tradition from Hobbes to Rawls, by contrast, has always been suspicious of the vertical dimension of morality, worrying that it fosters aristocratic and illiberal passions that decent politics must constrain, thwart, or channel into less publicly dangerous pursuits. Yet the most thoughtful liberal thinkers have also understood that decent politics necessarily presupposes that citizens affirm the reality of such distinctions.

For those liberals inclined to forget the need for them, or to complacently assume that they will always be there to draw on and elevate public life, the jarring experience of living under President Trump is a potent reminder of just how crucially important (and fragile) vertical moral distinctions really are. It also demonstrates that transgressions of vertical ideals can feel just as wrong just as much a violation of an intrinsic standard of right as transgressions against horizontal-egalitarian notions of equal dignity before the law.

If the nation's bracing experience of life with a profoundly unpresidential president manages to open liberals to the importance of the vertical dimension of morality, it will have had at least one positive result.

See more here:
What liberals can learn about morality from Donald Trump - The Week Magazine

For at least two and a half centuries, Americans have argued over the proper size and scope of a central government. Though the abuses of power by a distant monarch and legislature sparked our revolt against England, and though Americans have always remained suspicious of putting too much authority in the hands of our own federal government, the general drift over the years has been toward more centralized power, and thus more centralized decision-making over important issues.

But we may have hit peak centralization.

The very election of Donald Trump spoke to the extreme contempt with which many Americans have come to hold the federal government. Many Americans held their noses while voting like never before, out of a sense of desperation that the candidacy of Hillary Clinton the embodiment of the political class that earned their contempt represented a point of no return regarding the concentration of power. From health care to immigration to energy to the judiciary (and the host of issues it considers from the First Amendment to the Second and beyond) a Clinton presidency could have locked into place that drift toward centralization. Instead, most conservatives and independents cast their lot with a man who at least offered a chance at preventing that.

But to many liberals now, Trumps presidency represents a terrifying mirror image of what the right had feared. They see his actions and attempted actions as a retrogression to be Resisted.Such is their anti-Trump fervor that his presidency appears to be sparking a serious rethinking of their long-held appreciation for federal power. I suggested somewhat tongue-in-cheek right after the election that this should happen. The clearest and perhaps most prominent example that it may actually be coming true can be found within this essay in Politico by the urbanist Richard Florida. Here is the key excerpt:

Its time to confront a simple but stunning fact: When it comes to urban policy and much else, the federal government is the wrong vehicle for getting things done and for getting them done right. Whether it is controlled by the left or the right, no single top-down, one-size-fits-all strategy can address the desires and needs of a country as geographically, culturally and economically divided as America. Big cities and metropolitan regions, far-flung exurbs, suburbs and rural areas are very different kinds of places, with vastly different desires and needs.

If we are ever going to rebuild our cities and our nation as a whole, including our suburbs and rural areas, there is really only one way forward, and it does not and cannot start in Washington. It can only come from our many and varied communities, who know best how to address and solve their own problems and build their own economies. And if that sounds like going back to an old-fashioned, conservative conception of how federalism should work a kind of extreme localism to address the sorts of issues liberals worry about, so be it. America needs nothing less than a revolution in how we govern ourselves, or well only end up poorer, angrier and more divided.

Read the whole thing, but this excerpt neatly summarizes what conservatives have long argued. The thinking is old-fashioned only in the sense liberals have long since deluded themselves into believing more-centralized power could only be good, because it would inevitably be used to achieve their desired ends. That might have been true as long as the right was chiefly devoted to limiting and devolving federal power. But with a president coming from the right who instead is quite interested in seeing what he can do with this large federal hammer the left spent decades fashioning, it seems some liberals are suddenly gaining a Strange New Respect for returning power to those governments closest to the people. Threatening to withhold federal funds to coerce acquiescence to federal prerogatives is apparently less appealing when it comes to sanctuary cities harboring illegal immigrants rather than (as Obamacare attempted) states refusing to expand Medicaid. It seems to have taken Trump to demonstrate to liberals what Reagan meant when he said a government powerful enough to give you what you want is also powerful enough to take it away.

I dont want to overstate this nascent trend, if we can yet call it a trend (Florida names other liberals who agree with him later in his essay). You of course still hear many liberals whose response to Trump on, say, health care is to elect Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in 2020 and get on with the mission of single payer. But the more honest liberals surely recognize what this sentiment amounts to: Get Better Leaders.

The problem is Get Better Leaders is neither a political philosophy nor much of a plan. For one, its fraught with risk, as the election of Trump seems to have shown. And consider the possibility, if a strong-federal-government right truly becomes ascendant, that what follows Trump is not better but perish the thought, gentle progressivist reader! worse. If you dont want a president who can so terrify you with his actions, the best answer is not to have such a powerful president (and executive branch and federal government more generally). More fundamentally, Get Better Leaders is the very conceit of governance our Founding Fathers rejected because of their appropriately dim view of human nature.

It would be ironic if what it took for the left to acknowledge the wisdom of the rights arguments for less-centralized governance were not the arguments themselves, but a president coming from the right who wields power like one from the left. I guess seeing really is believing.

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Opinion: How Trump is prodding liberals to agree with conservatism ... - MyAJC (blog)

A country afraid of words.

The late, great George Carlin first famously spoke of the seven words you can never say on TV in 1972.

Since then, some of those words have changed. Television has changed. If were talking HBO, Showtime or Netflix, you can say whatever you want.

But when it comes to political discourse on television and in our personal lives, we seem to have strangely embraced a new set of words that we are, for some reason, not allowed to say.

They are words like lie, liar, bigot and stupid.

This is a dangerous prospect.

Im not suggesting that every political discussion should devolve into name-calling or that we shouldnt be respectful of others. But I am suggesting that we should call lies lies, bigots bigots, insincere people insincere, and stupid or baseless accusations stupid.

Carlin, of course, once also noted that we have no more stupid people in this country; everybody has a learning disorder.

But, kidding aside, stupid notions and stupid policies can have actual effects and should be condemned as stupid, not simply different. When someone presents alternative facts, another person should alternate from the usual civil discourse. For some reason, weve gotten rid of shame when shaming is often helpful.

Weve allowed the dishonest to continue to be dishonest without any fear of repercussions. Jeffrey Lord, Boris Epshteyn, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and their ilk can continually dissemble on live TV without any concern that anyone will call them out on it.

They dont have different points of view; theyre just plain dishonest and greedy people looking to benefit from their dishonesty.

Liberals have made the mistake of tolerating dishonesty for too long. We tolerate it so much, in fact, that were often dishonest with ourselves: wed like to believe that the Trump supporters we know our friends, coworkers, and relatives somehow arent bigots.

Yet the rational part of us knows that they either agreed with Trumps racist, bigoted and misogynistic statements and policies or those statements and policies didnt bother them enough not to vote for him.

Heck, Trump was a key figure in the birther movement; he said he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the country (and, no, he did not say temporarily) and is currently pursuing that policy; he said would consider having a registry for Muslims; he said that Mexico was sending us rapists; that a judge of Mexican descent couldnt be impartial and that he liked to grab womens private parts. Yet we pretend that his supporters somehow arent bigoted. It doesnt make sense and we know it.

During the presidential campaign, I talked about the War on Truth, and now it is clear that it is indeed an all-out war, with Trump consistently attacking and discrediting reliable media and sending out his minions to do the same.

Liberals have woken up to this fact, yet they still dont know how to combat it. The Republican disinformation machines of Breitbart, Fox News, Newsmax, et al, plus Trumps own Twitter account, have created a scenario in which we are no longer battling on the same field, yet liberals keep acting as if opponents motives are just as pure as theirs and that they are just as informed.

But were not debating David Frum, George Will, or William F. Buckley anymore.

I have a crazy idea: When Kayleigh McEnany or Jason Miller or Sean Hannity lies, we should call them on it not later or off-screen, but right to their faces the moment they do it.

Weve entered this dystopian world wherein being a bigot or a liar is OK, but calling someone a bigot or liar is not.

Respect is something thats earned. Youre not supposed to respect anothers opinion when its insincere or based on prejudice. If you pretend to respect opinions that you know are dishonest, you yourself are being dishonest.

Liberals have to stop congratulating themselves for being so civil and concentrate instead on being 100 percent honest.

FDR famously declared (about the monied interests) that they are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred. He didnt sit around and worry over hurting his opponent's feelings. And his successor, Give em Hell Harry Truman, was no different, once stating, I never gave anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

Liberals should learn how to give a little hell.

Ross Rosenfeld is a political pundit who has written for Newsday, the New York Daily News, Charles Scribner's, MacMillan, Newsweek.com, Primedia and The Hill.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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It's time liberals start calling out conservatives for 'alternative facts' - The Hill (blog)