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Gideon Resnick: Its Friday, January 28th. Im Gideon Resnick.

Priyanka Aribindi: And Im Priyanka Aribindi, and this is What A Day, where were pleased to announce that our boomer allies have finally found out about Wordle.

Gideon Resnick: I think they will find it much harder to fall down alt-right rabbit holes on the cute word puzzle than in the Facebook hellmouth.

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah. A five-letter word for insurrection? Trick question, there isnt one?

Gideon Resnick: Ideas show workers at an Amazon facility raise concerns about a mailbox again ahead of another union vote. Plus athletes are told to use burner phones at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Priyanka Aribindi: But first, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer formally announced his retirement yesterday and delivered a brief remarks at a White House ceremony, including this one on the American experiment:

[clip of Justice Stephen Breyer] I say I want you to pick just this up. Its an experiment thats still going on. And Ill tell you something, you know who will see whether that experiment works? Its you, my friend. Its you, Mr. High School student. Its you, Mr. College student, its you, Mr. Law School students. Its us, but its you. Its that next generation and the one after that, my grandchildren and their childrentheyll determine whether the experiment still works. And of course, I am an optimist, and Im pretty sure it will. Does it surprise you that thats the thought that comes into my mind today? I dont know. But thank you.

Gideon Resnick: Wow.

Priyanka Aribindi: Wow, that is right. I know he is not threatening us. It just felt a little, a little threatening to me. Its fine. President Biden reaffirmed his commitment to nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court and said that he would announce his choice by the end of February.

[clip of President Biden] I will select a nominee worthy of Justice Breyers legacy of excellence and decency. While Ive been studying candidates backgrounds and writings, Ive made no decision except one: the person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity. And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court.

Priyanka Aribindi: So now that all of this has been formalized, lets talk about some of the responses that weve heard so far.

Gideon Resnick: Yeah, this is really only the beginning, but theres a lot. Here is just a brief overview. Some civil rights organizations are already gearing up to support the eventual nominee and really to counter any likely campaigns against her from conservatives. And already, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that Biden should not be influenced by the quote unquote radical left in making his decision. All right. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said again that the confirmation process is going to move quickly. Senator Kyrsten Sinema said that she looks forward to quote, thoughtfully examining the nomineeand this ones interestingSenator Joe Manchin said that he wouldnt mind if the nominee is more liberal than he is, noting that from his perspective, Priyanka, it is not hard to be more liberal than he is.

Priyanka Aribindi: And on that, he is correct.

Gideon Resnick: He is correct right there. Manchin and Sinema has voted to confirm all of Bidens nominees to the lower courts so far, which is an encouraging sign for how they might end up voting here. So all that being said, on yesterdays show, we went over Breyer, the replacement process, and the general future of the court. And today we want to dive in on all the potential political ramifications this could have in the near and long term.

Priyanka Aribindi: Yes. And for more on that, I spoke with the one and only Dan Pfeiffer, former White House Communications Director during the Obama administration and one of the hosts of Pod Save America. I started by asking him about the impact that this could potentially have politically for Democrats as we head into midterm election season.

Dan Pfeiffer: Well, I think it will have a galvanized effect for Democrats. We need a win. Its been a rough few months for Democrats. Getting to appoint a qualified history-making nominee with the first Black woman ever, I think, will be a boost to Democrats political fortune. I think it will give us something to rally around. One of the reasons why Bidens approval numbers have taken a hit is hes lost ground with Democrats, and I think hell be able to get some of that back by delivering on a core campaign promise.

Priyanka Aribindi: Do you think its too far out from the midterms to have an effect? Or do you think that this type of thing kind of carries on into, you know . . . ?

Dan Pfeiffer: I dont I dont think its a game changer per se, but I think we need to build some momentum towards the midterms. And so having some success over the next couple of months to get this confirmation in I think is pushing us in the right direction. So I dont think this is going to be like necessarily the Kavanaugh fight was for Republicans or the Amy Coney Barrett one was happening like minutes before the election, but it will certainly be helpful to Democrats, presuming everything goes the way we want it to go.

Priyanka Aribindi: OK. Also in the news this week: yesterday, we got some promising new numbers. The economy grew 1.7% in the last quarter, bringing the total growth in 2021 up to 5.7%. I believe thats the largest figure since the mid 80s. So good numbers there. Based on polling on the other hand, the public has not been too happy with Joe Biden in recent months. But how do good job numbers affect the president, the party in power, and how do those kind of square with the economic realities that most people are facing right now?

Dan Pfeiffer: This is probably the most narratively complicated economy in modern political history. You have 2021 was the year with the greatest private sector job growth in history, you have these growth numbersall the macroeconomic factors look incredibly strong. And particularly when you put it in the context of what President Biden was able to get us out of so quickly of what he inherited from President Trump. Yet people are pissed about the economy. Theyre incredibly angry. In every poll, people are more frustrated, angry about the economy than the pandemic. They believe that Democrats are not focused enough on the economy, and it is one very specific thing, it is inflation. And people are feeling inflation in their pocketbook and their wages are not going as far as they were before, they are paying more, particularly last year, at the gas station, grocery prices are upand that is clouding out all the other economic good news. People dont care about any of the other stuff because their dollar, their hard-earned dollars, are not going as far as they would like them to go.

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. Lets switch gears a little bit and talk a little more broadly about the midterms, which, like it or not, theyre coming later this year. Always a crazy realization for me every time I think about it. Traditionally, midterm elections have, um, shit turnout. Theyre known to be really tough for the party in power. Turnout was actually pretty high during the Trump years midterm, but it still wasnt great for him, obviously, in terms of outcome. Can you set the stage a little bit for us? What are Democrats and the president kind of walking into the midterms with? Whats it looking like?

Dan Pfeiffer: If you look at all the various factorsand I promise this will get a little bit better, but its going to start really hardall the various factors, Democrats are in a terrible position. This is the first midterm of a president, which is almost in every single case other than George W. Bush 2002, devastating for that president. Its happening in a redistricting year where Republicans control more of the maps than Democrats. Now there is some good news in this. One, with two thirds of the redistricting process done, I wouldnt say its been favorable to Democrats, but its been a lot less bad than we thought. And Democrats have opportunities to pick up a lot of seats in states like New York and Illinois that have been very aggressive in the redistricting process. The Senate map, to our great fortune, is very favorable to Democrats this year. We can not only keep the majority, but also expand it by a couple of seats, by only winning states that Joe Biden won in 2020that is Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Thats six states. The Senate map generally is very bad for Democrats, and so it is a great fortune that we end up this year with a good map. That only happens every decade. We also have a very legitimate chance to hold on to key governors races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and pick one up in Georgia, where in Arizona, where we have great candidates running with Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Katie Hobbs, among others, in Arizona.

Priyanka Aribindi: Got it. OK. Actually, Im very glad were talking because Im feeling a little bit better than I was 10 minutes ago. In the House and the Senate, democrats have very slim majorities at the moment. What is kind of the worst-case scenario? Obviously, well talk about the good stuff, dont worry, but what happens if they lose these majorities or the House majority?

Dan Pfeiffer: So if we lose the House, theres two things that we have to be very clear about. One, Joe Biden will not pass another bill of substance in his first term. And I think it is highly likely the House will begin impeachment proceedings against Biden for some trumped up, made up, thing.

Priyanka Aribindi: Right.

Dan Pfeiffer: And there will be endless investigations that would make Fox primetime blush in terms of its absurdity, will all happen in the House. If we were to lose the Senate, it is likely that Joe Biden would not confirm another judge of consequence in his first term. The Republicans are definitely favored in the House, and I think the Senate is a coin flip, but thats because the map benefits us, and what will really determine what happens in the Senate is what happens in the Republican primaries. You know, they are more electable Republican candidates facing off against some pretty Trump-y Republican candidates, and who wins those primaries could help determine how we do there.

Priyanka Aribindi: Got it. OK, so lets talk about the flip side. What if they win? And obviously Im not a hater, but its been a tough few months watching a lot of the priorities that Joe Biden ran on get shot to the ground by members of, you know, his own party. So whats the case the Democrats are trying to make to keep their jobs and, you know, expand their majorities? What happens for us in the best-case scenario?

Dan Pfeiffer: Well, the best-case scenario in the Senate is that we get up to 52 senators, which is very mathematically possible because we have pickup opportunities in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Ron Johnson is running for reelection in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is quite a Republican primary. Dr. Oz, the head of one of the worlds largest hedge funds, whose remade himself into a MAGA candidatetheres a whole bunch of crazy stuff happening there. But if you get the 52 senators, we never have to say the words Manchin and Sinema again. In both the Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Senate primary, the major candidates have said they would be for getting rid of the filibuster. So you can see a world where we get to 52 and could eliminate the filibuster. And if we still have the House to pass legislation, could deal with voting rights on day one.

Priyanka Aribindi: Got it! OK, you dont have to tell me twice. Good to know. OK, but thanks to Republicans and a couple Democratic senators, we do not have federal voting rights legislation as we head into this election. You wrote about this in your last issue of Message Box, your newsletter. But in the face of all these voting rights restrictions that are going on around the country, how do Democrats win elections now? Is there something specifically that we should be focused on? How is this possible?

Dan Pfeiffer: Well, were going to have to win in an environment of voter suppression. That is the world were going to live in. There will continue to be some measure of court cases to try to push back on some of those efforts, but we have to recognize that the environment that Joe Biden won Georgia in, in 2020, is going to be tougher for Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock because of voter suppression. And its going to require hard work and organizing and getting people on the ground as soon as they can and educating voters about these new rules. And its going to be a ton of work. And its completely unfair and its probably unconstitutional and its wrong, but were going to have to live in that environment. But we also have to think not just about voter suppression, but about election sabotage, because we know that Republicans are running these 2022 elections to put themselves in a position to ensure that no matter what happens in the Electoral College or the popular vote in 2024, they will have the opportunity to install Donald Trump or whoever the Republican nominee is in the White House despite losing the election. Parts of the Freedom to Vote Act would have dealt with that. The best way to fight that is at the local level by electing governors, secretary of state candidates, and even in some states like in Arizona county recorders of deeds are the local election officials. And so Run For Something, a group that we have worked with the Crooked Media at lot, has been recruiting and training candidates to run in those races to try tobecause Republicans have been doing this. Theyre recruiting believers in the Big Lie to run up and down the ballot everywhere.

Priyanka Aribindi: Yikes.

Dan Pfeiffer: They are pouring money and resources into this because they know thats where political power is, and we have to do the same thing on our side.

Gideon Resnick: Youll be hearing more about all of this very soon. We are quite sure of that, but that is the latest for now. Its Friday WAD squad, and for todays temp check, we are back on our favorite beat, which is Sarah Palins battle with the New York Times by way of her battle with the novel coronavirus. So as we know, Palins defamation trial against the Times was postponed this Monday after it was revealed that she had tested positive for COVID. She had not gotten the vaccine, probably under the impression that she could outrun COVID aerosols on a snowboard. The story got even more interesting after the postponement, as it became clear that Palin had eaten inside the pricey Italian restaurant Elios in Manhattan on Saturdaythis is a place I was not familiar with quite honestly until this story

Priyanka Aribindi: Me either.

Gideon Resnick: Now I am deeply familiar with itleading many to question how she had managed to get around New York Citys COVID vaccine mandate.

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah, it is not known if Palin had tested positive before or after her Saturday Elios trip. But since her diagnosis, she has continued to sample New Yorks finest restaurants, eating at a different fancy Italian place on Tuesday, though this time she was outside, and returning to Elios eat outside on Wednesday. Back to the original scene of the crime.

Gideon Resnick: What!? OK.

Priyanka Aribindi: So as we go to record, she is surely working through a tray of hot lasagna on a Manhattan sidewalk somewhere. Her new status as the Typhoid Mary of pasta places is so undeniable that even the mayors office has had to address it, with a spokesman for Eric Adams saying quote, We encourage any New Yorker who came into contact with Sarah Palin to get tested.

Gideon Resnick: Dear Lord.

Priyanka Aribindi: I mean, she comes with a warning. Now Gideon, you and I are not public health experts, so weve been reluctant to offer too much pandemic guidance in the past, but this seems like one topic where we are uniquely qualified to weigh in. So my question is how would you advise someone who is seated next to a COVID-positive Sarah Palin at a restaurant?

Gideon Resnick: Well, I would say its unfortunate that you are in this position, but I hope that you have a syringe on you, because if you put a syringe on the edge of the table in eyesight of Sarah Palin, she could be led to think that it may be a vaccine and she may not want to be near said vaccine and may very well leave. And that gives you the opportunity to finish your lovely Italian dinner. Priyanka, what do you think about all of this?

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah, OK, if you find yourself in this scenario, you are seated next to COVID-positive Sarah Palin, one, get the fuck out of there. Two, question everything that has ever happened in your entire life to lead you to this point. What are you doing dining at the same place as her? Youre messing up somewhere.

Gideon Resnick: Its true.

Priyanka Aribindi: I hate to break it to you.

Gideon Resnick: Just like that, we have checked our temps. They are at a normal temperature because we dont have fevers from contracting the novel coronavirus near Sarah Palin at this time.

Priyanka Aribindi: Havent been in contact with Sarah Palin, so were all good.

Gideon Resnick: We can affirm that, and well be back after some ads.

[ad break]

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Supreme Courting The Voters with Dan Pfeiffer - Crooked

Within my lifespan I have witnessed democracys ebb and flow, from the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and bipartisan support for the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to the attack on our nations Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. I am as concerned today about democracys survival in the U.S. as anytime during my adult life.

I moved to Atlanta in 1973. Despite the progress achieved by the landmark legislation of the previous decade, it was a time when Black Americans, along with other moderates and liberals, were still grieving the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose 93rd birthday we recently commemorated. In addition to Kings death, we had lived through and mourned the assassinations of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Sen. Robert Kennedy and Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.

I began to feel hopeful that democracy might have a chance after Georgias governor, Jimmy Carter, was elected president in 1976. Among other encouraging steps, Carter appointed civil rights activist Andrew Young as U.N. ambassador and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founder and leader John Lewis as associate director of the national volunteer organization ACTION. Over the ensuing decades, I remained relatively positive over the possibility that our republic could become a more inclusive, just and equitable nation, despite the limitations of what was achieved under the two terms of President Barack Obamas administration.

As I write today, I feel less sure that our democratic institutions, not to mention the idea of democracy itself, will survive what we are now going through.

Progressives and Democrats in Georgia and elsewhere did a superb job in 2020 getting voters to the polls, which resulted in historic wins for the presidency and the Senate. But, egged on by the former presidents big lie that he won, in 2021 19 states enacted at least 34 laws that will make it harder for Americans to vote, according to the Brennan Centers tally.

My skepticism over democracys survival is not based just on the cowardice on the part of some federal elected officials or their refusal to place the countrys interest over that of their party. I am equally disturbed over what state officials are doing, particularly those with safe Republican majorities, to make it more difficult for even conservative voters to cast a ballot. Nowhere am I hearing bipartisan opposition to these anti-democratic developments.

Even Georgias Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, both of whom refused to yield to pressure from the former president to overturn the 2020 Georgia election, have repeatedly defended the Republican-controlled Georgia General Assemblys voter-suppression laws on the grounds that they make for better voter integrity.

These are indeed scary times in the U.S., and things will not get better if all of us who see what is going down give in to fear. It is also important, however, to remember the five purple states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that voted blue in the 2020 elections, as well as the prospects this year for Democrats to win governorships now held by Republicans in states including Arizona, Georgia, Maryland and Massachusetts due to the strength of minority and blue-trending suburban votes. To protect those victories and support these possibilities, there are some things that I believe elected officials and the public in general can do to better safeguard democracy.

First, all people of good will must wake up and recognize that the country is in grave danger of being taken over by antidemocratic forces. Then, constituents should screen candidates for public office based on their steadfast support of Americas bedrock principles of democracy. This wont be easy in an alt-right environment where a large percentage of voters has had politicians prey upon their fears and feed them lies as to the reasons they are economically insecure.

Second, Republicans who are not afraid of or indebted to the former president must carefully weigh the cost of remaining silent against the dangers of losing democracy as weve known it and to what this loss could mean to the ruin of the American economy they depend on for wealth.

Finally, and unfairly, it will probably continue to fall on the backs of racial minorities, workers and women who have historically and persistently been denied the fruits of full participation in Americas democratic institutions to double down on their efforts in fighting racism, fascism, and voter suppression and subversion of all types.

By doing so, they might end up saving democracy not just for themselves but for us all.

Read more:
The Threat to Our Democracys Survival, and What We Can Do About It - Governing

Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Don Huffines said Wednesday he will not fire a campaign staffer who said on his YouTube channel in 2020 that he wants to restore historical American culture by maintaining a supermajority of the original stock of the United States, and maintaining a homogeneity, referring to white people.

The staffer, Jake Lloyd Colglazier, has previously done fieldwork for the campaign, Huffines said, adding that he will not take any action against Colglazier.

On his YouTube channel, Colglazier warned that were nearing the demographic cliff, a reference to an increase of people of color gaining more political and economic power. On another livestream platform, he mocked a woman who appears to be Asian, saying she needed to be in China getting the shit beat out of her by her husband. In another post, he said, I spit on George Floyd.

If I were to go through the social media history of any young Texan I would find something I disagree with, Huffines said in an emailed statement. My campaign will not participate in cancel culture.

Huffines did not respond to questions about whether he condemned Colglaziers comments or whether he condemned white nationalism.

Colglazier, 24, a self-proclaimed American nationalist, previously worked for the far-right conspiracy site Infowars, owned by Alex Jones. While at InfoWars, he interviewed white supremacists such as Vincent James Foxx, who founded the now-banned alt-right Red Elephants site, and Faith Goldy, a conspiracy theorist who was fired from a conservative Canadian website for talking on a podcast hosted by the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer.

Political Research Associates, a social justice think tank, first reported evidence of Colglaziers connections to the America First/Groyper movement on Friday. So-called Groypers make up an alt-right network of people who advocate for a majority white, Christian nation and identify as American nationalists. They coalesce around their support of Nick Fuentes, a white supremist podcaster who has been banned from Twitter, YouTube and the streaming platform DLive for violating hate speech policies.

Until Friday, the True Texas Project, a conservative nonprofit, had a biography for Colglazier on its website that identified him as currently the Deputy Communications Director for the Don Huffines for Governor campaign. That sentence has since been removed, and the True Texas Project did not respond to a request for comment.

Huffines, a former state senator from Dallas, said in his Wednesday statement that Colglazier is not his deputy communications director, but acknowledged hes done work for the campaign.

America First started as a conservative TV commentary series by Fuentes. With episode titles such as Combating Anti-White Hatred, Diversity Is Code for Anti White and Modernity Kills Women, the series also boasted guests including Foxx, Goldy and Patrick Casey, a leader in the Groyper white nationalist movement. The show also featured Colglazier, who went by Jake Lloyd at the time, on an episode about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Colglazier was one of three speakers at an America First conference in December 2019, when he called on the Groypers, to overtake the countrys conservative party.

The greater political establishment of the United States will crumble at the hands of the Groypers. History will remember the Groypers and the movement that followed, that flowed from America First, Colglazier said at the conference.

Colglazier could not be reached for comment.

Regardless of his staff position, Colglazier publicly remains a strong supporter of Huffines for governor, as he said in a December interview with Current Revolt and as seen in his Twitter profile.

Huffines is running to the right of Gov. Greg Abbott, whom he criticizes frequently for not being conservative enough. Among Huffines top campaign platforms are bans on critical race theory and building a wall at the Texas-Mexico border to try to block illegal immigration.

Abbott did not respond to a request for comment.

View original post here:
Texas GOP gubernatorial candidate says he won't fire staffer tied to white nationalist movement - The Texas Tribune

When an armed man stormed a Texas synagogue on Saturday, taking a rabbi and three worshippers hostage, it seemed fairly obvious that the victims identity had something to do with the attack. But in a press conference after all four hostages escaped Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, FBI special agent Matthew DeSarno seemed to deny that, telling reporters the attacks motive was not specifically related to the Jewish community.

DeSarno was attempting to communicate that the hostage takers core demand the release of imprisoned jihadist Aafia Siddiqui wasnt about Jews. But interviews with the hostages themselves revealed a clear connection: Their captor believed that a Jewish conspiracy ruled America and that, if he took Jews hostage, he could compel the US to release Siddiqui.

He terrorized us because he believed these anti-Semitic tropes that the Jews control everything, and if I go to the Jews, they can pull the strings, hostage Jeffrey Cohen told CNN. He even said at one point that Im coming to you because I know President Biden will do things for the Jews.

Perhaps DeSarno wasnt aware of this when he made his comments, which the FBI has since walked back. But major media outlets ran with his line, blaring headlines that downplayed the anti-Semitism at the core of the attack. It was as though the attacker had chosen Beth Israel at random, rather than targeted a Jewish community near where Siddiqui was imprisoned.

The coverage only underscored a creeping sentiment that spread among us last weekend. Many Jews, myself included, already felt like few were paying attention to the crisis in Colleyville as it unfolded over the weekend; that we Jews were rocked by a collective trauma while most Americans watched the NFL playoffs.

This is not a new feeling.

In the past several years, American Jews have been subject to a wave of violence nearly unprecedented in post-Holocaust America. If these anti-Semitic incidents garner significant mainstream attention a big if attention to them seems to fade rapidly, erased by a fast-moving news cycle. The root causes of rising anti-Semitism are often ignored, especially when politically inconvenient to one side or the other.

There are always exceptions: In the wake of the Colleyville attack, for example, many Muslims have been particularly vocal allies. But for the most part, the world has moved on. American Jews, on the other hand, cannot for good reason.

Lets recount what the past few years have been like for American Jews.

In August 2017, the torch-carrying marchers at Charlottesville chanted, Jews will not replace us, as they rallied to protect Confederate iconography. Armed individuals dressed in fatigues menaced a local synagogue also named Beth Israel while neo-Nazis yelled, Sieg heil! as they passed by.

In October 2018, we saw the deadliest mass killing of Jews in American history: the assault on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, which claimed 11 Jewish lives. The far-right shooter believed that Jews were responsible for mass nonwhite immigration and wanted to kill as many as he could find in retaliation.

In April 2019, another far-right shooter preoccupied by fears of a Jewish-perpetrated white genocide attacked the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, killing one and injuring three.

In December 2019, New York and New Jersey the epicenter of American Jewry were swept by a wave of anti-Semitic violence.

Two extremist members of the Black Hebrew Israelite church, a fringe religion that believes they are the true Jews and we are impostors, killed a police officer and three shoppers at a kosher market in Jersey City. A man wielding a machete attacked a Hanukkah party at a rabbis home in Monsey, New York, killing one and injuring four. Orthodox Jews in New York were subject to a wave of street assaults and beatings.

In May 2021, the conflict between Israel and Hamas led to yet another spike in anti-Semitic violence, including high-profile attacks perpetrated by individuals who blamed American Jews for Israels actions. In Los Angeles, for example, a group of men drove to a heavily Jewish neighborhood and assaulted diners at a sushi restaurant. The attackers were waving Palestinian flags and chanting, Free Palestine!

This sort of violence is certainly not the norm. In absolute terms, most American Jews are still quite unlikely to be targeted by anti-Semitic attacks. But both quantitative and anecdotal data suggest that there has been a sustained rise in anti-Semitic activity.

The following chart shows data on anti-Semitic incidents of all kinds, ranging from murders to harassment, from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish anti-hate watchdog. The ADL data, while not perfect, is one of the better sources of information on the topic and it shows a spike in the past several years.

The explanation among scholars and experts for this rise tends to focus on Donald Trumps presidential candidacy and the concomitant rise of the alt-right.

In this telling, Trumps ascendance shifted the Overton window for the far right, leading to a rise in anti-Semitic harassment and violence. (Trump himself repeatedly made anti-Semitic comments despite having Jewish family.) Recent academic research finds that, in the United States, anti-Semitic beliefs are more prevalent on the right.

The attacks in Pittsburgh and Poway suggest this diagnosis is in large part correct. But the past few years of anti-Semitic violence demonstrate clearly that its not the full story.

The Colleyville siege seems to have been perpetrated by a British Islamist. The 2021 attacks seem to have emerged out of anti-Israel sentiment, a cause more associated with the left. The 2019 violence in New York and New Jersey doesnt really connect to politics as we typically understand it, emerging in part out of a radical subsection of the already-small Black Hebrew Israelite group and local tensions between Black and Jewish residents in Brooklyn.

What this illustrates, more than anything else, is the protean and primordial nature of anti-Semitism a prejudice and belief structure so baked into Western society that it has a remarkable capacity to infuse newer ideas and reassert itself in different forms.

Today, we are seeing the rise not of one form of anti-Semitism but of multiple anti-Semitisms each popular with different segments of the population for different reasons, but also capable of reinforcing each other by normalizing anti-Semitic expression.

There is no mistaking the consequences for Jews.

In a 2021 survey from the American Jewish Committee, a leading Jewish communal group, 24 percent of American Jews reported that an institution they were affiliated with had been targeted by anti-Semitism in the past five years. Ninety percent said anti-Semitism was a problem in America today, and 82 percent agreed that anti-Semitism had increased in the past five years.

Synagogues have had to increase security spending, straining often tight budgets that could be spent on programming for their congregants. Measures include hiring more armed guards to patrol services, setting up security camera systems, and providing active shooter training for rabbis and Hebrew school teachers.

Some of this is familiar; there have been armed guards at my synagogue as long as I can remember. But much of the urgency is new. For a community that has long seen America as our haven, a place different in kind from the Europe so many Jews were driven out of, its a profoundly unsettling feeling.

Dara Horn, a novelist and scholar of Yiddish literature, spent 20 years avoiding the topic of anti-Semitism. She wanted to write about Jewish life rather than Jewish death.

But the past few years changed things. In 2021, Horn published a book titled People Love Dead Jews, an examination of the role that Jewish suffering plays in the public imagination. Her analysis is not flattering.

People tell stories about dead Jews so they can feel better about themselves, Horn tells me. Those stories often require the erasure of actual Jews, because actual Jews would ruin the story.

One of the more provocative examples she mentioned is the oft-repeated poem, attributed to German pastor Martin Niemller, citing attacks on Jews as one of several canaries in the coal mine for political catastrophe. Youve probably heard this version of it, or at least seen it on a Facebook post:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out

Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for meand there was no one left to speak for me

In theory, the message is one of solidarity: What happens to Jews should be of concern to all of us. But Horn argues that theres a worrying implication to this message, one that instrumentalizes Jews rather than centering us.

What youre basically saying is that we should all care when Jews are murdered and attacked because it might be an ominous sign that real people might be attacked later, Horn tells me. I get that thats not what its trying to say, but it plays into this idea that Jews are just this symbol that you can use for whatever purpose you need.

In American political discourse, anti-Semitism often gets treated in exactly the way Horn fears: as a tool to be wielded, rather than a problem for living, breathing Jewish people.

Among conservatives, support for Israel becomes equated with support for Jews to the point where actual anti-Semitism emanating from pro-Israel politicians, from Donald Trump to Marjorie Taylor Greene, is treated as unimportant or excusable. The Jewish experience becomes flattened into a narrative of Judeo-Christian culture under shared threat from Islamist terrorism, eliding the ways in which Americas mostly liberal Jewish population feels threatened by the influence of political Christianity on the right.

Colleyville is already being deployed in this fashion. In a public letter, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) turned an attack on Jews into an attack on admitting Afghan refugees.

I write with alarm over reports that the Islamic terrorist who took hostages at a Jewish synagogue in Texas this past weekend was granted a travel visa, Hawley claims. This failure comes in the wake of the Biden Administrations botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and failure to vet the tens of thousands who were evacuated to our country.

Never mind that the attacker came from Britain, not Afghanistan. Never mind that he was not a refugee. Never mind that Jews are some of the staunchest supporters of refugee admittance in the country, owing to our own experiences as refugees after the Holocaust.

There are also problems like this on the left, albeit less common among mainstream political figures.

Incidents of anti-Semitic violence are mourned and then swiftly deployed in partisan politics, turned into a brief against MAGA America, rather than serving as an opportunity to confront the way many progressives fail to take anti-Semitism seriously as a form of structural oppression. Similarly, Jewish concerns about anti-Israel rhetoric crossing the line into anti-Semitism are ignored or even dismissed as smear jobs. I have had brutal, sometimes even angry conversations with progressive friends and acquaintances on this very topic.

The throughline here is that Jews dont own their stories; that anti-Semitism means what others want it to mean. And thats when people pay attention to anti-Semitism at all, which they often do not except for the few days after incidents like Colleyville.

A common refrain from Jews I know during and after the Colleyville standoff was a sense of total alienation, that they were glued to their phones and TVs while most others had no idea that American Jews were in crisis. It wasnt that we had been made into object lessons for others, at least not yet; it was that our suffering was barely worth noticing.

What American Jews need from mainstream American society right now is to be listened to, for our fears about rising anti-Semitism to be heard and, once heard, taken seriously on their own terms.

This does not require the false assumption of a monolithic Jewish community, where all of us agree on how to tackle anti-Semitism. What it does require is a mental reorientation among Americas non-Jews: a willingness to reckon with the fact that anti-Semitism remains a meaningful force in American society, one that requires a response both unfamiliar and politically uncomfortable.

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The world has moved on from Colleyville. American Jews cant. - Vox.com

Mike Cuffe blends in. Sitting in a chair that almost matches the color of his suit, which almost matches the gray Montana sky outside, the state senator looked a lot like the other legislators in a state administration committee meeting last February. He calmly grasped a stack of papers and leaned back to listen to Cindi Hamilton, a member of the public, who, with her yellow hair, leather jacket and cherry red tartan blouse, very much did not blend in.

After witnessing the national election a couple of months ago, some of us feel that it was the most corrupt, third-world, banana republic election we could even imagine, Hamilton said.

Hamilton was speaking in favor of a Montana bill that Cuffe sponsored, part of a suite of six election integrity bills passed and signed into law last spring. Senate Bill 169, the one Hamilton went to the committee hearing to support, requires photo ID to register and vote, with some exceptions. Other laws limited ballot harvesting, ended same-day voter registration and mandated yearly voter roll purges, instead of every other year. Cuffe voted yes on all of them.

Its clear Hamilton had been influenced by the Big Lie the inaccurate claim circulated by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election was rife with voter fraud. Cuffe said he doesnt believe there was something fishy about the 2020 election, but he acknowledged the bills he helped pass into law were influenced by voters like Hamilton.

MPAN / Thom Bridge / Independent Record via AP

There were concerns from a lot of folks, a lot of my constituents, about voting issues, Cuffe said. People went to sleep on election night believing that one candidate was well ahead and was pretty much assured a victory, and then when they woke up the next morning, his opponent had won. And some people still believe there was something funny there. I dont. I didnt then and I dont. But I felt we could do some things to help reduce potential issues and/or beliefs.

Cuffe has a warm timbre to his voice and asked me to let him know if he started to ramble too much. Hes a conservative, pro-life Republican and a Second Amendment advocate. Hes not the kind of local politician who garners national attention for fringe views or frothing fealty to Trump. But as a result of the legislation he helped pass last year, Cuffe has become one node in a broader network of Republicans reshaping democracy.

Since the 2020 election, hundreds of new voter restriction bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country, and dozens were enacted into law. In many cases, these bills were a response to the Big Lie. Those incessant claims of fraud created an appetite among Republican voters for answers, solutions and, most importantly, justice. In response, a vast network of right-wing influencers bothemergent and established began feeding that appetite by investigating dubious claims and concocting new election laws.

State legislators have heeded the call. FiveThirtyEight created a database cataloging these acts at the state level, including every voter restriction bill introduced and every third-party partisan audit conducted. (We have fun around here you can join in by seeing the full data set on our Github.) Whats revealed is an anti-democratic shift among the GOP, catalyzed by the Big Lie and ushered in by a network of right-wing power brokers.

When I spoke to more than a half-dozen individuals who are inspiring and enacting these legislative changes, there was a prevailing refrain: Theyre just trying to respond to an eroding trust in elections. Some believe that trust has legitimately eroded because of widespread fraud, while others believe it has been eroded by messaging about widespread fraud. None of them feel they are responsible for that erosion, only for its cure.

The suite of bills Cuffe helped pass in Montana, by definition, makes it more difficult to vote. Theyve even attracted lawsuits from voting rights groups that claim the laws make it prohibitively hard to vote, particularly for students, rural voters and Native Americans. Cuffe doesnt mind criticism hes been working in politics a long time but rejects the notion that the intent behind the bills was to disenfranchise voters. He said they only wanted to make a good system better in order to build back trust among voters who were now questioning the election system.

Were painted with a big, black brush that says were trying to curtail somebodys right to vote. Thats not at all the situation. It never was, Cuffe said. We had good things at heart.

Regardless of the intentions of those involved, the problem is only getting worse. Over the last year, Republican voters have become even less trustful of our elections, questionable amateur research is driving actual policy decisions, and many states have introduced or passed what experts call frighteningly anti-democratic legislation. The Big Lie has created an environment in which Republicans feel obligated to respond to fears of election fraud. But their responses both legislative and rhetorical are eroding democracy, not bolstering it.

The evolution of the Big Lie was the product of a vast catalog of politicians, pundits, true believers and benefactors financing and promoting claims of voter fraud and efforts to overturn the election. This includes lawyers like Lin Wood and Sidney Powell who filed pro-Trump lawsuits, Republican politicians who actively embraced the Big Lie like Georgia Rep. Jody Hice (whom Trump has endorsed in the race for Georgia secretary of state) and others who, while not embracing the Big Lie, refused to condemn it. It included political action committees and conservative groups that financed these efforts. And it included alt-right personalities like Steve Bannon and Mike Lindell, who have amassed huge audiences as they continue to promote the Big Lie.

The players in this network include a wide range of personalities. Theres a world of difference between Lindell, with his conspiracy theory-fuelled, feverish pleading for those in power to take his claims seriously, and Cuffes avuncular small-town sincerity. Yet each has represented a node in the network of the Big Lie, and its effect on our democracy.

Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Image

Among this group, there are a handful of people who you may not have heard of, but who are veritable celebrities among those who believe the Big Lie. They have amplified the Big Lie, inflaming voter fears and inspiring legislative action.

Matt Braynard is one of these people. Braynard worked on Trumps 2016 campaign but rose to prominence after he began a grassroots, crowdfunded investigation in 2020 that looked for evidence of illegal ballots cast in several swing states. It started with a tweet two days after the election (and before the presidential election had been called), explaining how he wanted to compare voter registration data to the Social Security Death Index and the National Change of Address database to look for evidence of fraud. All he needed was funding to cover the cost of the data. He went on to crowdfund nearly $700,000 to conduct the investigation. The results were compiled into a series of reports published online that claimed to have uncovered tens of thousands of illegally cast ballots from voters who had, for example, moved out of the state or registered at a non-residential address like a post office box or business. It secured him a position among those pushing hardest against the 2020 election results: His analyses and testimony were used in challenges to election results in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and he presented his findings to state legislators in Georgia.

ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty Images

But upon closer inspection, the analysis didnt hold up. The methods Braynard and his team used have been criticized by experts, including in a review by the conservative Hoover Institution. Simply identifying two voters who share the same name and birth date doesnt necessarily indicate that they are the same person. And while Braynards political group, Look Ahead America, did attempt to verify those identities, they used iffy methods that, when demonstrated to me, appeared to be little more than creative Googling. They also only reviewed a sample of suspected ballots, and then projected what they believed the total number of illegal ballots to be based on that sample. This has led to several errors in the reported findings being uncovered by journalists and lawmakers.

Braynard vehemently defends his findings and is particularly frustrated that they were never tested in a court of law. (Braynards findings were filed as part of some Trump lawsuits, but the lawsuits were thrown out for other reasons.) Ian Camacho, the director of research for Look Ahead America, spent over an hour walking me through examples he selected to demonstrate their method for verifying that a suspected illegal ballot was in fact illegally cast. While I have not personally reviewed every instance, the examples and methods demonstrated to me were sloppy and inconclusive. For instance, he showed an example of what he claimed was a voter using their business as a residential address, but it was unclear if the voters name was the man Camacho identified, or his son, who shared his name and helped run the business. He also could not definitely prove that the business address was not also residential. Put it this way: If I used their methods to try to make a claim in a story for FiveThirtyEight regarding a specific instance of an illegal ballot being cast, it would not meet our standards for publication.

Marvin Joseph / The Washington Post via Getty Images

Talking to Braynard, he seems convinced he has genuinely uncovered a problem that renders 2020 election results in dispute. Braynard said he knows for a fact that his work has inspired some of the bills introduced in state legislatures. He pointed to a bill introduced in New Jersey that would mandate the use of ballot-counting machines with open-source software one of Look Ahead Americas policy suggestions which he said was introduced following a meeting between the state senator who sponsored the bill and one of his organizations volunteers. (State senator Joe Pennacchio, who introduced the bill, confirmed to FiveThirtyEight that he had met with a volunteer who helped point him to useful material when writing the bill.) Braynard said while Look Ahead America isnt lobbying for specific laws, they have a network of more than 3,000 volunteers that have been meeting with state legislators to educate them on the groups findings and policy suggestions. He said he did not believe his work has contributed to eroding confidence in elections.

I think that a lot of other peoples work has, but the bottom line is this: What we have identified as problems with the election are indisputable and theyre also the kind of things that can be easily remedied, Braynard said. We just want to restore confidence in elections.

Another popular figure in the Big Lie circuit is a former army captain named Seth Keshel, who drew the attention of figures like Bannon and even Trump after releasing a report that he said showed evidence of voter fraud. The report compared actual voter turnout to Keshels own prediction of voter turnout, which he made using his own model that included voter registration, population growth and other data. He claims that major deviations from his predictions indicated likely voter fraud. (Keshel also says this same model enabled him to accurately predict the outcome of all 50 states in the 2016 election, but did not provide evidence to support this claim.)

Since then, Keshel has been on a speaking tour including stops at campaign events for congressional candidates and meets regularly with state legislators to share his analysis and views, including at a meeting emceed by Montana Republican state Sen. Theresa Manzella. Keshel told me he doesnt believe his work is contributing to public distrust in elections, either, and that he was also motivated by a desire to restore that trust.

You have at least half the country that believes our election was decided by fraud. That is a crisis in and of itself, Keshel said.

But when the root of that crisis is a lie, any attempt to respond to it is just as baseless. And the cure can end up worse than the disease.

The more brightly people like Keshel and Braynard lit up their nodes on the network, the more seriously legislators like Cuffe felt they had to respond. They did so in droves, introducing hundreds of pieces of legislation and a wide range of tactics deployed for improving election integrity. Of the 579 pieces of voter restriction legislation FiveThirtyEight tracked, 50 have been signed into law, which we further categorized into seven types (many bills fell into more than one category). The majority of these bills, 330 in total, limited voting options in some way, whether that was eliminating ballot harvesting or placing more restrictions on absentee voting. The next largest category, with 128 bills, expanded voter ID laws. The smallest category was the most concerning: 14 bills made election roles more partisan, and some of these were enacted into law, such as Arizonas law to strip its secretary of state (currently a Democrat) from the authority to defend state election laws in court, and instead hands that power over to the state attorney general (currently a Republican). Some state legislators, in places like Montana, introduced only a handful of bills. Others, like in Georgia and Arizona, brought forth dozens. Texas legislators introduced over 100.

And the bills accentuate other measures that capture an anti-democratic shift among the GOP. States where voter restriction bills are being introduced and passed are often home to Republican members of Congress who voted not to certify some of the 2020 election results, and who have a below average pro-democracy voting record.

This is probably the most widespread and sustained wave of voter restriction legislation since the Voting Rights Act, said Alexander Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy at Harvard University. But Im not sure that quantifying the number of pieces of legislation is the best measure.

According to Keyssar, voter access laws have ebbed and flowed throughout history, and a certain amount of clawing back of voter access was expected after the widespread expansion that took place during the pandemic. But whats troubling to Keyssar is not the number of bills, but the type of legislation being proposed and passed. In particular, he is concerned about bills that strip authority from election officials and grant it to partisan legislative bodies.

This is something different, he said. If your completely partisan state legislature is going to end up counting the votes, thats a lot more efficient than voter suppression.

Nic Antaya / Getty Images

The possibility of election subversion where one party overrules the results of an election through these newly created legal levers is of particular concern to several experts. Last September, Richard Hasen, a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine, wrote a paper outlining the risk of election subversion. In it, Hasen makes the case that the Big Lie itself is a powerful enough force to open the door for election subversion, even without new laws in place.

It has already led to the harassment of election officials, who are quitting their positions around the country. In their place, Big Lie-believing Trump loyalists are running for their jobs, and some have already won. It opened the door for multiple partisan audits, which stoke the fires of distrust while putting election infrastructure at risk. It creates an appetite and acceptance among the public and politicians to use existing means to overturn election results, just as Trump attempted to do following the 2020 election. When combined with the new laws passed to give greater partisan influence over election administration, Hasen says it creates a dangerous environment. (Hasen also outlined what he believes to be guardrails against this kind of subversion, including the universal use of paper ballots and federal rules limiting the over-politicization of election administration.)

I never thought Id be writing a paper like this about the United States, Hasen told me. Im very worried. Its like being an epidemiologist right as a pandemic is starting to emerge.

Other experts emphasized that laws making it more difficult to vote should not be brushed aside as harmless, especially at the scale seen over the last year. Jake Grumbach, a political science professor at the University of Washington who studies the democratic performance of states, said that any law that increases voting barriers or removes voting options but is not in response to a clear and direct threat to election security is, by definition, voter suppression.

Those involved in pushing these bills through, like Cuffe, argue they strike a balance between preventing future potential security risks and not making it significantly more difficult to vote. But critics question the need for the legislative response in the first place.

What they said in Georgia and in many states is that we need to enact these election laws to reassure our citizens that the elections are safe, said Jennifer McCoy, a political science professor at Georgia State University. But, of course, the citizens only believe the elections are unsafe because of lies that Donald Trump and other politicians have said. So they caused the anxiety and then theyre justifying their actions by saying they need to reassure voters.

Courtney Pedroza / Getty Images

And it doesnt even seem to be working. Polling from Monmouth University before and after Arizonas partisan election inquisition found that the so-called audit did more to reinforce concerns around election fraud than to alleviate them. And as laws have been passed under the banner of improving voter trust, Republican voter trust in elections remains low. Just 35 percent of Republicans said they had at least some trust in the U.S. electoral system in a poll conducted by Morning Consult on Dec. 30, 2021. Thats down from 43 percent in January of last year, and 69 percent prior to election day 2020, according to prior polling from Morning Consult.

Trust remains low even when asked about future elections. Thirty-four percent of Republicans said they have a great or a good deal of trust that elections are fair in an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted Oct. 18-22, 2021. In that same survey, 60 percent of Republicans did say they were confident or very confident that their state or local government will conduct a fair and accurate election in 2022, but 36 percent also said that they would not trust the results if their preferred candidate doesnt win in 2022. And 59 percent of Republicans said they would not trust the outcome of the 2024 election if their preferred candidate lost. (By contrast, for the 2024 question, only 13 percent of Democrats said they would not trust results if their candidate lost.) Like Trump, many Republicans views on election fraud are directly tied to whether or not they like the result.

This is not what at least some of those involved in this network had hoped for. In my nearly two-hour conversation with Cuffe, the state senator from Montana spoke persuasively about his desire to do the right thing. He was, in his view, trying to avoid laws that would make it unnecessarily difficult to vote. And its true that the laws passed in Montana did not approach the most grievous examples collected in our catalog.

Even still, Cuffe demonstrates just how effective and far-reaching the Big Lies web has become, and how insidious it is not only Trump loyalist firebrands pushing bills in response to it, but your friendly neighborhood state senator. The laws Cuffe championed do make it harder to vote. Registering on the same day you cast your ballot is easier than having to register in advance. Voting without a photo ID is easier than voting with one, if you dont have a photo ID. Multiple voting rights groups including the League of Women Voters and the Native American Rights Fund opposed some of the laws, such as Cuffes voter ID law, and other groups have filed lawsuits challenging four of the new laws. Cuffe believes the laws will prevail because of how much effort went into ensuring they would not disenfranchise voters. He said he cares deeply about the right to vote, but that he felt voters fears around election fraud had to be addressed in some way and that election infrastructure needed to be protected against future issues that could arise.

That dynamic is what makes the Big Lie and its network of promoters so effective: People from many walks of life from conspiracy theorists to national legislators to local administrators and state senators are recruited to weaken democracy, all while believing theyre strengthening it.

I asked Cuffe if the laws he helped pass legitimized fears around election fraud rather than soothed them. He paused. He told me he cant say whats going through everyones mind, but that legitimizing the claims was never his goal.

The whole purpose was to make a good thing better, Cuffe said. Im not on the way to the graveyard or anything, but theres a lot more sand in the bottom of my hourglass than there is on the top. And it reaches a point where you realize the stuff youre doing is not for yourself, its for the time going forward.

Additional reporting by Nathaniel Rakich and Mackenzie Wilkes. Art direction by Emily Scherer. Copy editing by Maya Sweedler and Curtis Yee. Story editing by Chadwick Matlin.

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