Mediaboss Marketing

The world does not yet know exactly what happened in Alexei Navalnys final hours. We do know that he was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020, then after returning to Russia to continue his public opposition to Vladimir Putin and his regime, was immediately arrested and spent years isolated in abusive conditions in prison. His death last month in a remote Russian penal colony was almost certainly an assassination.

Navalny left a legacy of courageous advocacy against corruption and in favor of a free Russia. He also left behind a large number of fellow imprisoned activists whose lives are in grave danger.

There are lamentably too many political prisoners in Russias jails to name here. One who faces perhaps the greatest risk is our colleague, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a politician, journalist, and historian who has advised and advocated for the human rights organizations that we lead, the Free Russia Foundation and Human Rights First, respectively. The U.S. government imposed a handful of new sanctions in connection with Navalnys killing. We believe the United States also must urgently act to prevent the killing of another important voice for democracy in Russia: Vladimir.

Like Navalny and others, Vladimir has faced shocking persecution from the Russian government for his advocacy, including poisonings in 2015 and 2017 that investigators have linked to the Russian intelligence services and to Navalnys poisoning. Vladimir barely survived those attacks.

It is not hard to see why the Kremlin has targeted him. He forcefully condemned the Putin governments invasion of Ukraine, just as he opposed its repressive policies at home. Like Navalny, when he returned to Moscow in April 2022, he was quickly arrested. In a sham trial, he was convicted of high treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison. No opponent of Putins war has been given a longer prison term.

Vladimir has managed to continue writing in prison. He urges opposition to Putin and his war in Ukraine, and he seeks to hold the Russian government to account for failing to investigate his poisonings. But under harsh conditions and without proper medical care for polyneuropathy, a nerve disease he has suffered since the poisonings, a quarter-century in the hands of his persecutors amounts to a death sentence for him even more clearly after Navalnys death.

U.S. diplomacy has secured the release of many Americans in recent years, including three from Russian custody since February 2022, and, as Vladimir himself often observed, during the Cold War the U.S. government played an important role in helping negotiate the release of Soviet dissidents. Negotiating for Vladimirs release would fit with both these traditions. In addition to being a modern dissident, Vladimir is a legal permanent resident of the United States. For more than 10 years, he has divided his time between Virginia where his wife and three children, all U.S. citizens, live and his native Russia. The Kara-Murza familys home-state senator, Tim Kaine, and representative, Jennifer Wexton, have called for the Biden administration to immediately engage with the Russian government in order to secure his release.

Hostage diplomacy can be unsavory, and Congress has created a legal and policy framework for when and how the U.S. government should pursue such negotiations for U.S. citizens or residents. Vladimirs case meets the criteria: most critically, the U.S. State and Treasury Departments have recognized that he is being arbitrarily detained for exercising his rights; the Russian judiciary that sentenced him is not independent; and U.S. engagement is almost certainly necessary to secure his release.

Given these facts, we and other organizations that have worked with Vladimir over the years have been urging Secretary of State Antony Blinken to use his authority to find that Vladimir is indeed unlawfully or wrongfully detained. That conclusion is needed to refer Vladimirs case to the U.S. governments hostage-affairs envoy, Roger Carstens, and it would signal to the Russian government that the United States is invested in his fate.

Of course, when it comes to Russian-held political prisoners, the bigger picture includes U.S. citizens whom the Kremlin also has detained. Many of them, including the journalists Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal and Alsu Kurmasheva of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, face patently trumped-up charges. Blinken recently designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained by Russia, and advocates for Kurmasheva, including members of Congress, are seeking the same determination for her.

Energetically seeking Vladimirs release as well is the right thing to do and would reflect a serious American commitment to protecting political prisoners abroad. Last month, citing Navalnys killing, the organization Freedom House organized a letter that we joined asking President Joe Biden to include Vladimir as an additional focus of any negotiations with Russia on prisoner releases. Especially after Navalnys killing, the United States should provide moral leadership by helping protect voices opposing the human rights-abusing Putin regime and advocating for freedom in Russia.

The fate of democracy in places where it is under brutal attack depends on supporting those who are willing to fight for it. Even knowing that a fate like Navalnys might await them, Vladimir Kara-Murza and other activists have carried on that fight in Russia at great personal peril. They must survive, and the United States must do its part to help.

(Authors note: Vladimir Kara-Murza was vice president of Natalias Free Russia Foundation from 2019 to 2021, and is a senior advisor to Michaels Human Rights First.)

Alexei/Alexey Navalny, Biden administration, Department of State, detainee treatment, Diplomacy, hostages, Human Rights, journalism, political prisoners, Russia, Russia-Ukraine War, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vladimir Putin

More:
A Simple US Step Can Help Protect Another Imprisoned Democracy Activist in Russia - Just Security

Seven years ago, when author Tom Nichols was still a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island, a student approached him on the first day of class and told him his course syllabus was poorly designed. Nichols, who has a PhD in political science and government, replied that perhaps the student should wait until after the course was over to critique it. Nichols kept the syllabus intact, but the young scholars unearned self-confidence stuck with himand in his telling, this wasnt an isolated incident. Another exchange on social media, in which a young person said, Tom, let me explain Russia to you, was the last straw for Nichols, who went on to write a book about a dangerous and growing disregard for expertise in American life.

You may have noticed this blinkered perspective in the Facebook posts of a conspiratorial relative who does his own research on vaccines, or heard it emanating from a Trump administration official talking about alternative facts. (The Simpsons was prescient, as it has so often been, when it had Homer assert the following in 1997: Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything thats even remotely true!) Nichols, now a staff writer at The Atlantic, titled his book on this malaise The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. Now more than ever, he views the collapse of trust between citizens and experts as driving a death spiral of American democracy and, as he writes in the book, representing an immediate danger of decay either into rule by the mob or toward elitist technocracy. Both outcomes, he warns, are authoritarian in nature.

Nichols (who, for what its worth, is also a five-time undefeated Jeopardy! champion) recently spoke with GQ about the newly expanded second edition of The Death of Expertise and why the nations widespread contempt for experts has only gotten worse since the book was first published in 2017.

GQ: The book, to me, is you sounding an alarm about the root cause of a rot that has taken hold of American democracy. At its core is this widespread public dismissal and distrust of expertise, which is preventing voters from making informed decisions based on agreed-upon facts. Do I have that right?

Tom Nichols: Its even worse than that. Its not just hobbling the ability of citizens to make informed decisions, its breaking down the bonds of trust that democracies rest on. None of us are willing to listen to anybody else about anything. And thats not just an attack on knowledge, thats basically an attack on the division of labor, in a way.

As you write in the book, society functions by different specialists and professionals doing different tasks. And in order for the whole thing to work together, there has to be a mutual trustwhen you get on a plane, you trust that the pilot is trained and knows what hes doing. Youre not questioning whether hes some sort of false-flag actor.

And the pilot trusts that the people who designed the switches on the knobs are engineers who know what theyre doing, and that the people who control the air traffic system know what theyre doing. There are all different forms of expertise, and they require a lot of trust. When you think about the amount of trust we put in each other every dayand not just for superspecialized thingsI mean, you trust when you put your kids on a bus that the bus driver has a bus license, and that they actually know how to drive a bus, and do it better than someone who doesnt know how to drive a bus.

You identify a number of reasons for how we got to this place: the coddling of college students at universities that are driven by profits to treat them like clients; the surfeit of information on the internet; the fractured media landscape; the widespread, arrogant narcissism of Americans thats been exacerbated by social media; and even the mistakes made by experts themselves. Am I missing anything?

Yeah, but narcissism is the thread that binds them all together. The first time I ever wrote anything called The Death of Expertise was over 10 years ago. And back then I was still a professor. And I was mostly sort of bristling at people who would take my field of expertise and try to lecture it back to me. Normally, I get paid to talk, and you pay to listen. But as I wrote it, and as the years went on, I came to realize that there was a much more serious social malady underneath all of this. And it was narcissism.

Because in a republic, where you elect people to represent you to make independent decisions on their own, on a range of issues on which no one can be the single expert, we have to be able to have some kind of trust among ourselves. And we simply dont. And its not because the powerful have abused their station, and so many things have gone wrong, and there have been so many disastersyeah, those things happen, and they happen in every government throughout history. Whats different now is instead of demanding accountability, or electing better people or asking intelligent questions, the average citizen says, I could do that job better. I know how to run foreign policy. Ask me about how to end the war in Ukraine. And its just this incredibly narcissistic viewpoint that is abetted by all the things in the book that you just mentioned, about education, about the news media, about the internet.

How do we go about correcting the course were on, if the people who really need to understand the value of expertise are unwilling to listen at all?

That is, I think, one of the failings of the book, and one that Im not sure I really remedy in the new edition, which is when it got to the end, I sort of said, Well, this is all terrible, isnt it? [Laughs.] I probably should have said something more about what to do about it. In the ensuing yearsand this is in the new versionI dont think its that helpful to call on the average citizen to be more epistemically humble. They dont want to hear that. But I have told experts that they need to get out there and engage and to be forceful, and to plant some flags.

A lot of whats going on, when I mentioned narcissism, I think another thing thats happening is the epidemic of loneliness, where people do this because its basically attention-seeking. Like, Im gonna go on the internet and say, the earth is flat, and maybe I dont believe it myself, but at least people will talk to me for hours on end, and give me engagement.

And through that, some of them have also found a sort of tribe, the biggest one being the Republican Party.

Not just in the political realm, but everywhere. The internet allows people to create these add water and stir communities ex nihilo, just by going online and saying, Who out there agrees with me? Experts need to stand up and say loudly, I dont care what you believe, youre wrong. Im not your therapist! You know? Experts have to stop being therapists and enablers and simply say, There are some things that are true and some things that are false. There are things that only experts can do and other things that experts shouldnt do. But this kind of postmodern equivocation where, you know, we all have something of value to contribute has overtaken even the experts. And one of the messages of the book is that not everyone has something of equal value to contribute on everything.

Was there a point as you were working on this book where you started to think the 2006 movie Idiocracy was prescient?

Idiocracy is perhaps one of the most brilliant satires that never got the love it deserved. Yeah, I thought of that all the time. Especially with the interlocking of the news and consumerism and entertainment. But you know, the guy that really saw this coming was Neil Postman, when he wrote [the 1985 media polemic] Amusing Ourselves to Death. Because part of the way that you become that self-centered, and that narcissistic, is that you have a very high standard of living with a lot of leisure time and a huge amount of entertainment at your fingertips. Because then you think everythings easy.

Donald Trump seems to be the embodiment of so many of the dysfunctions you explore in the book, and now hes a coin flip away from being president again. I agree with what you write in the book about how it is nearly impossible to persuade someone who has refused to listen to any contradictory information. But is there anything you would say to a voter who is still undecided?

I guess the first question I would ask is, What are you undecided about? What is it that you dont know? What is the one more piece of information you think that you dont have that would clear all this up? Because in 2024, Im reluctant to believe in the undecided voter. Both of these men have been president for four years. Right? This is, again, that I must do my own research nonsense that paralyzes so many of us. Well, I know, theyve both been president for four years. And Donald Trumps been around and on TV for decades, and Joe Bidens been a senator since forever. But I still need one more piece of information. Its ridiculous! If youre an undecided voter who thinks that you dont know enough about either of these men by 2024, thats a problem in itself.

What would you say to people who are fearful of what Trump would do with a second term and want to stop that from happening? Do you have any advice as an expert about how they can direct their energy?

Well, I think one of the things that has broken down is the way people talk to each other about politics and elections. We dont sit around in the bar anymore, or if were in a bar, were probably in a bar with a lot of people who agree with us, because weve so siloed ourselves. And we dont want to have that argument. And so we retreat to our castles, and we dont engage with anyone. What Ive told people is there are things that are true, and there are things that are false. There are things that are good, and there are things that are evil. And Im not going to just nod my head and say, Yes, Uncle Ned. The vote was stolen by Venezuelan voting machines guided by Italian computers that work with Jewish space lasers. You have to put your foot down and be an example to the people around you. You cant just stroke your chin and say, Well, you know, thats one point of view.

More here:
How 'Do Your Own Research' Might Have Doomed Democracy - GQ

Voters are divided on whether they think the system of democracy in the United States is working, as 46 percent say it is working and 49 percent say it is not working, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.

There are big differences along party lines.

Democrats 66 - 31 percent think the system of democracy in the U.S. is working, while Republicans 62 - 33 percent think it is not working. Independents are split, with 45 percent thinking it is working and 49 percent thinking it is not working.

When voters were asked whether they think democracy in the United States will end in their lifetimes, voters 68 - 21 percent think that it will not end in their lifetimes.

When asked who they think is better suited to preserve democracy in the United States, 48 percent of voters think President Joe Biden and 44 percent think former President Donald Trump.

In a head-to-head presidential election matchup, 48 percent of voters support President Joe Biden and 45 percent support former President Donald Trump. This is virtually unchanged from Quinnipiac University's February 21 poll.

When the matchup is expanded to include independent and Green Party candidates, Trump receives 39 percent support, Biden receives 38 percent support, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. receives 13 percent support, Green Party candidate Jill Stein receives 4 percent support, and independent candidate Cornel West receives 3 percent support.

There is no clear leader in either of these matchups because the leads are within the margin of error.

Voters were asked how it would impact their vote if Donald Trump were convicted in the criminal trial in New York City where he stands accused of falsifying business records, including a hush money payment to an adult film actress. If Trump were convicted, 29 percent say they would be less likely to vote for him, 55 percent say it would not make a difference, and 12 percent say they would be more likely to vote for him.

Ten percent of Trump voters say if he were convicted they would be less likely to vote for him, 62 percent say it would not make a difference to their vote, and 26 percent say they would be more likely to vote for him.

Voters give President Biden a negative 37 - 59 percent job approval rating, compared to a negative 40 - 57 percent job approval rating in Quinnipiac University's February 21 poll.

Given a list of 10 issues and asked which is the most urgent one facing the country today, immigration (26 percent) ranks first among voters followed by the economy (20 percent) and preserving democracy in the United States (18 percent). No other issue reached double digits. This marks the first time that immigration has ranked as the top issue in this election cycle.

Among Republicans, the top issue is immigration (52 percent) followed by the economy (27 percent), with no other issue reaching double digits.

Among Democrats, the top issue is preserving democracy in the United States (32 percent) followed by climate change (11 percent) and gun violence (11 percent).

Among independents, the top issues are the economy (23 percent), immigration (23 percent) and preserving democracy in the United States (19 percent).

Voters were asked about Haiti, which is in the midst of a violent takeover by gangs. A majority (55 percent) say if Haitians flee to seek safety and attempt to reach U.S. shores, the United States should provide safe haven for these refugees, while 36 percent say the United States should not.

Voters give the United States Supreme Court a negative 34 - 58 percent job approval rating, compared to a negative 36 - 56 percent job approval rating the High Court received in Quinnipiac University's July 2023 poll.

Seven out of 10 voters (70 percent) say it should be possible to charge a former president with a federal crime for alleged crimes committed while in office, while 24 percent say it should not be possible.

Democrats (94 - 4 percent) and independents (74 - 21 percent) say it should be possible to charge a former president with a federal crime for alleged crimes committed while in office. Republicans are divided, with 44 percent saying it should be possible and 47 percent saying it should not be possible.

Among Trump voters, 42 percent say it should be possible to charge a former president with a federal crime for alleged crimes committed while in office and 48 percent say it should not be possible.

A plurality of voters (47 percent) oppose a national ban of TikTok, while 41 percent support it.

Voters 18 to 34 years old, who are more inclined to use the social media app, (71 - 26 percent) oppose a national ban of TikTok.

However, a slight majority of voters (51 percent) support legislation recently approved by the U.S. House of Representatives meant to ban TikTok if the Chinese technology company that owns it does not sell it to a buyer from the United States or another U.S. ally, while 40 percent oppose this legislation.

Voters 18 to 34 years old (60 - 35 percent) oppose this legislation.

Roughly three-quarters of voters (74 percent) are either very concerned (45 percent) or somewhat concerned (29 percent) that there is potential for a foreign government to have easy access to users' information on TikTok, while 23 percent are either not so concerned (12 percent) or not concerned at all (11 percent).

Among voters 18 to 34 years old, a majority (53 percent) are either very concerned (20 percent) or somewhat concerned (33 percent) that there is potential for a foreign government to have easy access to users' information on TikTok, while 48 percent are either not so concerned (30 percent) or not concerned at all (18 percent).

Voters 52 - 43 percent support the United States sending more military aid to Ukraine for their efforts in the war with Russia.

Thirty-seven percent of voters think the United States is doing too much to help Ukraine, 29 percent think the U.S. is doing too little, and 28 percent think the U.S. is doing about the right amount to help Ukraine.

Voters 52 - 39 percent oppose the United States sending more military aid to Israel for their efforts in the war with Hamas.

When it comes to the relationship between the United States and Israel, 33 percent of voters think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, while 21 percent think the U.S. is not supportive enough of Israel, and 37 percent think the U.S. support of Israel is about right.

Forty-three percent of voters think the United States is doing too little to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, while 14 percent think the U.S. is doing too much, and 30 percent think the U.S. is doing about the right amount.

Roughly three-quarters of voters (76 percent) think that it is a bad thing for the world that Vladimir Putin will serve another term as Russia's president and will be in office for another six years, while 11 percent think it is a good thing for the world, and 13 percent did not offer an opinion.

Democrats (93 - 2 percent), independents (77 - 9 percent), and Republicans (63 - 22 percent) think it is a bad thing for the world.

1,407 self-identified registered voters nationwide were surveyed from March 21st - 25th with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points.

The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Doug Schwartz, Ph.D. since 1994, conducts independent, non-partisan national and state polls on politics and issues. Surveys adhere to industry best practices and are based on random samples of adults using random digit dialing with live interviewers calling landlines and cell phones.

Visit poll.qu.edu or http://www.facebook.com/quinnipiacpoll

Email poll@qu.edu or follow us on X (formerly known as Twitter) @QuinnipiacPoll.

Read the original post:
3/27/24 - Is Democracy In The U.S. Working? It's A Toss-Up, But Voters Don't See It Ending In Their Lifetimes ... - Quinnipiac University Poll

The owner of a Kansas newspaper outlines a litany of violations in a 100-plus page federal lawsuit claiming a police raid at the newsroom was an intolerable violation of their constitutional rights.

Its the fourth legal action taken in the wake of the Aug. 11 raid at The Marion County Record, which drew condemnation from around the world.

Police also executed search warrants at the home of Joan Meyer and her son Eric Meyer, who own the newspaper, and former City Councilwoman Ruth Herbel.

The suit was brought to deter the next crazed cop from threatening democracy the way Chief (Gideon) Cody did when he hauled away the newspapers computers and its reporters cell phones in an ill-fated attempt to silence the press.

The Record had been investigating Codys previous tenure with the Kansas City Police Department. He resigned from the agency while under investigation for allegedly making sexist comments to a female officer.

Cody, the City of Marion, former Mayor David Mayfield, Acting Police Chief Zach Hudlin, the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Marion, Sheriff Jeff Soyez and detective Aaron Christner are listed as defendants in the lawsuit.

They did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The raids were carried out under the pretense that a reporter had illegally obtained information about the DUI conviction of local restaurateur Kari Newell. That information was later confirmed by the Kansas Department of Revenue to be open to the public.

According to Eric Meyer, the raid was also conducted to settle personal scores. The newspaper had a turbulent relationship with Cody as well as Mayfield and Soyez, he said.

In a statement Meyer said, the true plaintiff is American democracy.

The last thing we want is to bankrupt the city or county, but we have a duty to democracy and to countless news organizations and citizens nationwide to challenge such malicious and wanton violations of the First and Fourth Amendments and federal laws limiting newsroom searches.

The 127-page lawsuit was filed by attorney Bernie Rhodes, who has represented The Star in past litigation.

Rhodes said he expected additional claims, including wrongful death, to be added to the lawsuit.

During the raid, Joan Meyer told the police officers at her home, Whats going on is illegal as hell.

She also told them, Boy, are you going to be in trouble.

The 98 year old died the next day after suffering a heart attack.

My job is to make sure Joans promise is kept, Rhodes said.

The lawsuit seeks more than $10 million in damages. Eric Meyer said any punitive damages will be donated to community projects and causes that support freedom.

In early August, Eric Meyer notified police that he was concerned information reporter Phyllis Zorn had received from a source about Newells DUI conviction had been obtained illegally. He also wanted to know why authorities allowed Newell to drive even though she did not have a valid license.

Cody told Newell that a reporter had stolen her identity in order to access her drivers license record, the lawsuit said.

Police began investigating The Record.

Christner drafted the search warrant application for the newsroom and Cody submitted it to Judge Laura Viar. The documents contained false statements, the lawsuit said, about the Kansas Drivers License Status Check tool, which is a public website.

Had Chief Cody been truthful, the affidavits would have failed to state even arguable probable cause, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also said Soyez reminded Cody that Eric Meyer worked from home and a search warrant for the residence was added.

During the raid, the lawsuit alleges Cody yanked a reporters cell phone from her hand, injuring her. The officers were also supposed to conduct a preview search on electronic devices to identify information related to the alleged identity theft.

But the lawsuit alleges officers conducted a sham search with overly broad keyword searches that turned up irrelevant hits, including information about a haunted hotel in Arkansas and a drive-in showing of the movie Finding Dory. Then the officers abandoned the preview searches because they were taking too long.

During the search, Cody called Soyez and is heard saying, Alright, well just take them all.

According to the lawsuit, police seized cell phones from reporters even though preview searches were not carried out.

Also during the search, Hudlin located a file in a reporters desk and alerted Cody.

On a body camera recording, Cody said, Hmm ... keeping a personal file on me.

Later, the lawsuit said, Cody could not recall the wording when he attempted to give Zorn her Miranda warning.

During the search at the Meyers home, Joan Meyers was visibly upset and told officers, If I have a heart attack and die, its going to be your fault.

Hudlin thought about arresting her for interference, but didnt.

The lawsuit also said Cody and Christner drafted probable cause affidavits to arrest Eric Meyer, Zorn and Herbel four days after the raid.

The search warrants were withdrawn the next day by the county attorney.

The lawsuit goes on to allege that Cody asked Newell to delete text messages with him.

If attorneys or kbi go digging and see I deleted the texts as you asked me to, will I get in trouble? the lawsuit said Newell asked Cody.

The lawsuit lists violations against the First and Fourth Amendments in addition to the Privacy Protection Act, which protects reporters materials from seizure; the Kansas Open Records Act; and alleges the city and county failed to train, supervise and have proper policies.

Cody resigned in October. Hudlin was then named interim police chief.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation. Documents showed that the KBI had knowledge of Codys investigation of The Record prior to the search warrants. The investigation was later handed over to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

Two of The Records reporters and the papers office manager have also filed lawsuits.

Continue reading here:
'Duty to democracy': Kansas newspaper files lawsuit after police raided the newsroom - Yahoo! Voices

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In the summer of 2000, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of the Democratic Party dynasty, took time out of his schedule as an environmental attorney to write an op-ed for the New York Times. In the piece, Kennedy hailed consumer advocate Ralph Nader as his friend and hero, but he lambasted him for mounting a third-party run for president. Nader could siphon votes from Vice President Al Gore, who was running against Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Kennedy warned, saying it was irresponsible for Nader to argue that there was little distinction between the Democratic and Republican nominees. A vote for Nader, Kennedy asserted, is a vote for Mr. Bush and for what he considered a disaster: the Republicans anti-environment agenda.

That was then.

Twenty-four years later, now an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist, Kennedy has broken with the Democratic Party and is running for president as an independent. He insists that unlike Nader, hes no spoiler, and he dismisses the notion that his presence in the race will help either former President Donald Trump or President Joe Biden. Political analysts are uncertain which candidate will benefit more from Kennedys campaign. The Kennedy brand could hold appeal for some Democrats, but his paranoia-drenched attacks on the public health community could also be catnip for Trump voters. I think Americans should have a choice, Kennedy told NBC News, that they shouldnt be forced to choose the least of two evils.

Democratic and Republican political pros have good cause to be jittery about how third-party or independent presidential candidates might impact this race. The reason is simple: The last two elections have been decided by extremely narrow margins in a tiny number of states. The odds are strong that this years contest will be similarly close. If so, theres potential for one or more of the third-party or independent contenders already in the raceKennedy, Green Party leader Jill Stein, or author and professor Cornel Westto influence the outcome by drawing a small slice of voters from Biden or Trump. Given the circumstances, it is far easier to view these outside presidential bids as potential threats to a major candidate rather than as well-intentioned movements to expand the horizons of American politics. That is especially true considering that an outsider campaign can be weaponized by other political players pursuing quite different agendas than those of the third-party candidates themselves. With the 2024 election shaping up to be a referendum on American democracy, a minor candidate might end up helping to determine the future of the republic.

For decades, voices across the political spectrum have railed against the party duopoly. Occasionally, a serious independent or third-party presidential candidate has emerged, but none have won a presidential contestor even come remotely close. Only a few insurgents have significantly shaped the final outcome. Notably, Theodore Roosevelts post-presidency run in 1912 under the banner of the Progressive Party (a.k.a. the Bull Moose Party) essentially doomed the reelection campaign of Republican President William Howard Taft and helped New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, win the White House.

Other third-party presidential candidates have fared worse but still gained notoriety and attention for their ideological agendas. Socialist Eugene Debs was on the ballot in five presidential races between 1900 and 1920. (During his last bid, he ran while imprisoned after being convicted of sedition for urging resistance to the military draft.) Progressive Wisconsin Gov. Robert La Follette sought the presidency in 1924. South Carolinas white-supremacist governor, Strom Thurmond, was the candidate for the States Rights Democratic Party (otherwise known as the Dixiecrats) in 1948. Twenty years later, Alabama Gov. George Wallace campaigned as the head of the pro-segregationist American Independent Party. Businessman Ross Perots independent 1992 bid drew 19 percent of the votethe best outing by an outside-the-system candidate since Roosevelt. To this day, political scientists argue about whether Perot pickpocketed more votes from Bill Clinton or George H.W. Bush.

The Nader effect was clearer. In 2000, running on the Green Party ticket, he pulled in 22,198 votes in New Hampshire, more than three times the 7,211 vote lead George W. Bush had over Gore. In Florida, where Bush edged out Gore by 537 votes, Nader bagged 97,488. While impossible to prove, it is a reasonable hypothesis that had Nader not been on the ballot, Gore, a noted environmentalist, would have picked up enough of those Nader votes to win. (Also complicating that election was ultra-conservative commentator Pat Buchanans Reform Party; his vote total in Florida was boosted by a poorly designed ballot in Palm Beach County that likely cost Gore more than 2,000 votes.)Had Gore triumphed in 2000, you can imagine the United States taking vigorous steps to address climate changewhich President George W. Bush did notand avoiding the catastrophic invasion of Iraq that yielded the deaths of more than 4,000 American troops and more than 200,000 Iraqi civilians. In 2000, RFK Jr. was right.

During the 2016 showdown between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Trump, Green Party candidate Jill Stein bagged 1 percent of the national vote, and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson collected 3.3 percent. In key swing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida, these candidates combined vote totals exceeded the marginby which Trump beat Clinton. Theres no telling how many of the Stein and Johnson voters would have pulled the lever for Clinton had those other choices not been available. Stein justified her campaign by arguing Clinton and Trump were equivalent: We have two ways to commit suicide here, she said, and I say no thank you to them both.

The years since then have demonstrated just how stark the differences between those two candidates really were. The list of consequences of that election result is long and includes the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Trump inciting a mob to lay siege to the Capitol in an attempt to illegally remain in office.

The stakes are even higher this year, and outsider candidates may be better positioned to affect the outcome. Third-party and independent presidential candidates could play a more significant role in 2024 than in most presidential elections in recent memory, says Bernard Tamas, a political science professor at Valdosta State University and the author of The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties. He explains that the growth of third parties over the last 60 years is the result of the rising contentiousness of a steadily more polarized conflict between the two major parties. During the 2024 election cycle, the mutual hostility has escalated to the point where each party accuses the other of subverting democracy. The result? This combination of high public dissatisfaction with well-known candidates could fuel a significant increase in the protest vote against both Biden and Trump, Tamas says.

Understandably, then, the prospect of third-party spoilage is a source of dread for political strategists. For much of the past year, Democrats and never-Trumpers fretted over No Labels, a dark-money group that used millions of dollars raised from anonymous sources to win spots on state ballots for a supposed centrist, bipartisan ticket. (Mother Jones and other news organizations have revealed some of its funders; as a group, they tilt toward the GOP.) Founded by former Democratic fundraiser Nancy Jacobsonher husband is Mark Penn (once a top strategist for President Bill Clinton), who advised Trump during his first impeachmentthe No Labels project was generally seen by political insiders as unlikely to succeed in running a viable candidate and widely regarded as being more beneficial for Trump than for Biden.

Democrats and other anti-Trumpers who considered No Labels something of a pro-Trump front took steps to neutralize this venture, decrying the group, challenging its petition drives, and putting pressure on prospective donors. In response, No Labels called on the Justice Department to investigate its opponents for trying to prevent it from obtaining ballot access. Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia and the potential No Labels candidate mentioned most often, eventually withdrew from consideration, noting that he did not want to help Trump win. That left the group with no obvious standard-bearer and the lingering question of whether it would field a surprise candidate or fizzle.

A less-organized and less-funded third-party endeavor still could throw sand into the gears this year and alter the course of the race. Once again, Stein is seeking the presidency as a Green Party candidate. (She skipped the 2020 election. Howie Hawkins, a longtime progressive activist and trade unionist, garnered a measly 0.3 percent of the vote for the Greens.) Theres no reason to believe Steins appeal has widened since 2016, but the Green Party does have ballot lines in at least 20 states and Washington, DC, including the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida. So she could be a factor in a tight race.

As could Cornel West. The celebrity academic (formerly of Harvard and Princeton), fiery anti-racism campaigner, and onetime leader of Democratic Socialists of America has mounted a long-shot bid as an independent. In January, he announced he also was forming the Justice for All Party to help him gain ballot access in several states, particularly Florida, Washington, and North Carolinathe last of which could be a key BidenTrump battleground. (In some states, its easier for a party than a nonaffiliated candidate to win a line on the ballot, which partly explains Wests desire to form a party.) As of February, he had only qualified to be on the ballots of Oregon, South Carolina, and Alaska. His success in Alaska illustrates the strange-bedfellows world of third-party politics. His campaign paid $10,000 to Scott Kohlhaas, a state ballot access expert who has run and lost races for the US Senate and the Alaska legislature as a Libertarian Party candidate. Kohlhaas also has spearheaded an effort for Alaska to secede from the United States.

Per usual, the national Libertarian Party plans to have a candidate in the 2024 hunt. The partys past efforts have been uneven. In 2016, the Libertarian ticket of former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld appeared on the ballots in all 50 states, but the partys nominee in 2020 is now a trivia question for politicos (A: Jo Jorgensen). At the end of May, upward of 1,000 delegates will gather for aconvention to choose to choose the partys candidate. Kennedy has held talks with Libertarians about possibly heading their ticket, though there were wide ideological differences between his crazy-quilt collection of policy stances and the Libertarians anti-government positions.

It is Kennedy who may well be the true X factor in 2024, even if its unclear which candidate his presence could hurt more. When Donald Trump Jr. slammed Kennedy as a radical liberal, it suggested that the Trump camp feared his impact on the contest.

The Democratic National Committee is also worried. In February, it filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that a super-PAC supporting Kennedy (which has received millions of dollars from a Trump funder) and his campaign had illegally coordinated their workan allegation Kennedys campaign denied. The DNC also hired a veteran political operative to lead its opposition to third-party presidential bids, with Kennedy as a top concern.

Third-party and independent candidates always talk about the legitimate need to enlarge the political debate. But they also present the major parties, billionaires, and even foreign governments with opportunities for political mischief.

In 2000, a Republican group aired ads featuring Nader attacking Gore. Four years later, when Nader ran again and drew less support, conservative outfits helped him win ballot access, and Republican funders donated directly to his campaign. This was before Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited amounts of anonymous money from billionaires, corporations, and unions to pour into the political system. The profusion of dark money makes it easier for political conniversdomestic and foreignto secretly influence elections, including by using third-party or independent candidates for their own ends.

These days, there are many ways to exploit such a candidate. Heres a possible scenario: West makes it onto the ballot in North Carolina. Then, in the closing days of the campaign, a Republican donoror several donorssets up a private corporation, which doesnt have to reveal its owners. This entity pours a large amount of cash into a newly created super-PAC. This super-PAC then uses those funds to air ads on radio stations in, say, Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, and Durham that slam Biden for not doing enough for Black voters and urge a vote for West. Could that cause several thousand voters to defect from Biden to West? Could a difference of several thousand votes decide the election in that state? Could the results in North Carolina swing the entire election? Sneaky moves like this could be attempted in any swing state.

Nor should we forget the history of Russian interference in our elections. In 2016, Russian trolls ran a social media blitz to boost Stein, as part of Moscows clandestine scheme to undermine the US presidential election and help Trump. This operation included the hack-and-leak operation that targeted Clinton, via the release of emails and documents stolen from the Democrats, and, no doubt, contributed to her loss. In 2020, Russian operatives colluded with Rudy Giuliani, Trumps personal lawyer, to spread false information about Joe Biden and his son Hunters activities in Ukraine.

This year, Moscow will undoubtedly try to intervene in the American election. Third-party and independent candidateswho, of course, have the right to run and be considered on their meritsoffer the Russians and other bad-faith actors avenues for meddling. These schemers can exploit attempts to expand democracy in order to undercut it.

Americans drawn to a third-party or independent candidate might have all sorts of worthy reasons for doing so. Some may see their vote as a blow against the duopoly, while others view it as a means to embrace a purer ideological agenda. Voting for an outsider candidate could be perceived as a way to express a particular frustration with a major-party candidatesay, with Bidens approach to the IsraelHamas war. A lifelong Republican who is fed up with a corrupt would-be autocrat who encouraged an insurrection might want an alternative that does not entail marking the ballot for a Democrat. Yet, given the hard-and-fast realities of Americas political systemand the ability of political operatives, big-money donors, and foreign governments to utilize these candidacies for their own purposesa vote for one of these candidates could lead to results on Election Day and beyond that run counter to third-party voters aims for the nation.

It is inconceivable that a candidate whos not a Democrat or a Republican could win the 2024 presidential contest. But it is not inconceivable that one or more of these outsider candidates could change the course of the election and determine the victorin other words, be a spoiler. This will likely be a contest that hinges on a small number of swing voters in a handful of states. With the scales evenly balanced, it might not take much to tip them. And if the main choice is indeed between a candidate who threatens democracy and one who abides by its rules and norms, these other presidential wannabesand their votersmay play a crucial role in deciding the fate of the United States.

See the original post:
Will RFK Jr. and Other Third-Party Candidates Help Doom Democracy? Mother Jones - Mother Jones