A Hard-Won Victory: The will of the American people is clear, yet there is much work to be done | Southern Poverty Law Center
Category: News & Politics
Via: jbb • 4 years ago • 25 commentsBy: splcenter (Southern Poverty Law Center)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
November 07, 2020
Seth Levi Chief Program Strategy Officer
Americans representing the diverse fabric of our nation turned out in record numbers over the last two months for an historic presidential election - standing with and for each other to overcome unprecedented challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic and widespread voter suppression efforts.
Our democracy came under strain and attack, but we emerged with a result that undisputedly recognized the will of the people.
Despite attempts in some areas to make the process needlessly difficult, voting was orderly. While there was little time to plan, elections officials nationwide successfully responded to the pandemic, dramatically expanding in-person and early voting opportunities. Though we were prepared for it, threats of widespread voter intimidation by extremist groups did not materialize.
As the last remaining ballots are being counted, it is clear that the American people have chosen Joe Biden and Kamala Harris - the first woman, Black woman and Asian-American to be elected vice president - to lead the nation. And while some of us may be disappointed in the wider results, the fact is, a majority of voters rejected another four years of Trumpism in favor of a new path.
Beyond the historic events unfolding in Georgia, Americans ushered in significant change across many states.
In Mississippi, voters replaced a state flag bearing a Confederate emblem with one featuring a magnolia and also removed a discriminatory Jim Crow-era requirement that statewide candidates receive both the majority vote and the most votes in each House district. In Florida, a gradual increase to a $15 minimum wage was approved. In Delaware, the nation's first transgender state senator was elected, and for the first time in Kansas, a transgender candidate won a seat in the state House. In New York, voters elected the first openly gay Afro-Latino and openly gay Black members of Congress. In New Mexico, voters chose a U.S. House delegation composed wholly of women of color, another first for the country.
In Alabama, voters authorized the Legislature to remove racist language from their state's constitution, and in Montgomery - the birthplace of the modern civil rights movement - a property tax was approved to raise critical funds for a public school system with a majority-Black student population. In the Sunbelt states, new, multi-racial voter coalitions formed that could finally shift the balance of power. And throughout the nation, we saw rollbacks of the failed war on drugs, which succeeded only in filling prisons - disproportionately with people of color - in a country that is the world leader in incarceration.
We know this election season has been exhausting and overwhelming - mentally, emotionally, even physically, as so many of us put in long hours working and volunteering to ensure that everyone would have the opportunity to be heard at the ballot box.
But we must remember these hard-won victories are only one step in a long journey for our nation. There's a great deal of work left to do.
It's time for all of us to tackle the very real challenges our country faces, from the unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic to longstanding issues related to health care, economic justice, racial justice and corrosive white nationalism.
We have an opportunity to bring deep, meaningful change to our nation and people's lives. As our presidential transition memo - Our Vision for a Just Future - outlines, we look forward to working with the Biden administration, our allies and the communities we serve to:
- Confront hate and build trust in democratic ideals;
- Promote a fair and equitable criminal justice system while working to end mass incarceration;
- Promote a just, humane and welcoming immigration system;
- Expand ballot access and eliminate discriminatory barriers to voting;
- Combat discrimination and promote health, safety and opportunity in the workplace, schools and communities.
We expect the Biden administration to bring a sense of fairness, humanity and decency to the White House and to the policies it implements.
We expect the attorney general and Justice Department to promote racial justice and represent the interests of the people. We expect administration officials to actively combat the pandemic, and to trust science and reason. We expect strong federal policies that protect women, immigrants and LGBTQ people from discrimination. We expect a president who works to heal our country's wounds and stop the destructive spread of far-right extremism and dangerous conspiracy theories.
We want to thank each and every one of you for all you've done - no matter how big or small your actions may seem to you personally - to help create a national culture that demonstrated its unwavering commitment to democracy this week. We will never take that for granted. The work we do would not be possible without you.
We hope you're able to find some time to rest and recharge in the coming days - because we'll need you ready to join us as we work to ensure this victory fuels our movement to create a nation where there is justice and equity for all.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reminded us, "Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time."
Photo by Andrea Raffin / Alamy Stock Photo
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"The arc of a moral universe is long but it bends towards justice" - Dr Martin Luther King Jr
Looking at history, I wonder how anyone can think so. Perhaps he's thinking of an imaginary universe?
Insulting a great thinker and commenter like Martin Luther King Jr. - wow! The message in the quotation is clear, sooner or later the long trek to greater refinement of freedom can be reached. It reminds me of the biblical 40 years trek in the wilderness (going around in circles until a straight path appeared).
Indubitably!
The SPLC is a terrorist inspiring hate group rife with racism, misogyny, and corruption.
And Christian terrorists aren't filled with racism, misogyny, and corruption on steroids?
How about we start with this rock star of the Christian right.... Fred Phelps.
By comparison to religious terrorists, the SPLC are a bunch of teetotalers at a quilting bee.
That comment is neo-fascist propaganda.
No, it is an organization dedicated to the principle that all people are equal under American laws!
Well, as you know, some people are opposed to equality. Remember the opposition to same sex marriage?
Did you hear or read Alito's speech to the Federalist Society from last night? Hard-core radical reactionary extremist.
Are you referring to his complaints about perceived threats to religious liberty and free speech?
Yes
Yeah, I caught a little of that. Sounds like delusional ramblings.
Meanwhile, in news that Democrats want to quickly sweep under the rug, the referendum on Trump did not translate to down ballot success. Democrats lost seats in the House. Democrats did not capture a Senate majority (and seem unlikely to do so). Democrats did not flip state legislatures that will draw the new district maps before the 2022 midterm election. The Democrat's blue wall will be losing electoral votes and House seats because of shifts in population. Even California proposition 16 failed by a large margin. The Democratic Party has erupted into open hostility between factions within the party.
Democrats have little to celebrate from the 2020 election. Democrats made removing Donald Trump from the White House their top priority. But it seems the price for that accomplishment has been rather high.
The price is that there is a mandate against socialism.
What do you mean by 'socialism'?
A mandate against Rural Electric Associations and Farmers Cooperatives? Both are pure examples of socialism already in America...
The republican party is in scalding hot water. Why? Because the never Trumper republicans and conservatives are going to tear Donald Trump a new "Trumphole." That misfit Trumphole goes back into central casting crippled and worn out by the Coronavirus and a piss pour set of results! Oh the society that could have been under Donald had he not been a Trumphole.
This is the Republican Party exit ramp coming up in January 2021! Save yourselves! Save your party!
As for maps, well democrats have sufficient time to take republicans to courts and see to it that their I's are dotted and their t's crossed properly!
This is Biden's change to do good; and the Never Trumpers chance to expose a fraud like Donald Trump for all the Trumphole he really is!
You can 'shake and bake' it all day long, but Obama/Biden won't cook, serve, or taste like a Trumphole.
It's comments like this that I believe show most what is wrong with politics today. That the limited victory of the left in electing Biden as president reflects the will of the American people. It is absolutely insane to state such. The truth is, it reflects the will of approximately half of the American people. It doesn't recognize that Americans turned out in record numbers to oppose Biden. Rather than take this truth into account, I guess we are supposed to pretend unanimity?
The worst part about this is that both sides do this. It's all or nothing today and it's getting worse.
Actually the worse part is some people of faith don't get it. Bitter bitts is not we are supposed to be as a people of faith. And pining away after a vindictive, bellacose, fraud, hypocrite who can't even be trained or equipped to lift his voice in solidarity with the sick, dead, and dying from a runaway pandemic on his 'watch.' We are not protected by our president. Hell, we are possibly more exposed than ever in our history and that Trumphole some of you are angry over could care less. I can tell you it speaks volumes about that Trumphole in the presidential office - what does it say about those who countenance his lack?
This is the white Evangelicals opening to #walk away from their failed impostor who misrepresented our Jesus, would not manifest any true expressions of love for widows and orphans, or sit with the afflicted (even having caused and sustained the disaster which flourishes). That their are "better angels" in the Republican Party who want, maybe deserve a look at their "best practices" and some want to perpetuate political devotion to a Trumphole is stupendously astounding.