#election 2004

— Rahm Emanuel at the Washington Post (archived).

Some people may screech "OMG, Rahm Emanuel!". But he and his frenemy Howard Dean were the co-architects of the 2006 blue wave landslide which saw Dems flip both the US House and Senate.

2004 had been a worse year for Dems than 2024. George "Dubya" Bush had gotten re-elected and is still the only GOP presidential candidate to get a majority of the popular vote since 1988. Dems lost four seats in the Senate including that of their leader Tom Daschle; Dems lost 3 House seats and were down to 202.

In 2005, Dubya thought he had a "mandate" from his re-election. In a fit of overreach, he went gallivanting around the US to push his plan to privatize Social Security. But his proposal was so unpopular that even local Republican members of Congress found excuses to miss Bush when he came to their states.

By November of 2006, Dems were in the ascendancy. And Rahm, who was in charge of the House campaign committee, deserves credit for that along with DNC Chair Howard Dean with his "50 state strategy". The two politicians were occasionally at odds but they paved the path to a victory which set the stage for the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

If different wings of the Democratic Party could work synchronously in 2005-2006, the same can be done now. The bickering inside the party needs to cease.

My own takes are that we need to personally engage with the communities we live in rather than rely on social media. And we need to listen to those people more than preach to them to understand what voters themselves consider important. Personal interaction is a strong way to get around MAGA media dominance and to fine tune our message.

Video:  2/2 Crowds Storm the White House the Night Before Obama's Inauguration! 1/19/09

A bright spot.  Exactly eight years ago, I went down to the White House to soak in the atmosphere of the crowds coming from ALL OVER THE WORLD to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama (honestly, what reason would anyone from anywhere else have to come to THIS one? Unless they voted for Brexit...)  That night, I wrote:

“The excitement in the air is ridiculous. The out-of-towners, the in-towners, the swarms of people walking around the White House and Pennsylvania Avenue just buzzing about Barack Obama's impending inauguration, and Bush's last day in office - forever!”

The first election I voted in -- 2000 -- at 19 years old, we lost, and thus began eight miserable years with an idiot for a president.  I felt hopeless and helpless.  I went to protests against him.  I wrote papers in college and law school about the stupidity -- and unconstitutionality -- of his decisions and policies.  I wore a shirt every time I left the country that said, “I’m sorry my president’s an idiot; I didn’t vote for him” in six languages.  I campaigned against him in 2004, and my girlfriend cried when he won, again.  I had never been political before 2000, but having a president that sought to ban same-sex marriage by AMENDING THE US CONSTITUTION TO BAN IT and the factions of the country that supported him played a role in my decision to go to law school to focus in civil rights work and GLBT advocacy.

In 2008, when I had graduated and moved to DC to do that work, I got to SEE THAT ERA (ERROR) END.  I got to be there to witness the excitement of the world of him leaving, to be part of the crowd that was booing him during Obama’s inauguration when the helicopter came to take him away (somehow, that made me feel a tiny bit bad for him.  But just a tiny bit).

And so that’s my bright spot.  That dark, hopeless time ended.  And this one will too.  And this video reminds me of what it looks (and feels, and sounds) like when it happens.  Many people believed that if we had not had someone as awful as Bush, we would not have had someone as magnificent as Obama.  Just imagine: We don’t even know who might come next.  And all of us now?  We’re going to make that happen.

Mainstream acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community continues to grow in the United States. But Republicans and their fellow travelers on the far right still think that homophobia is a winning issue for them.

It's true that trans acceptance is lagging, but even that is headed up rather than down.

In 2004, GOP-controlled state legislatures used anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives to try to drive up far right voter turnout in the presidential election that year. While all 11 ballot initiatives succeeded, it's unclear how much effect they had on the actual presidential vote.

So the use of homophobia by Republicans to excite their base is nothing new. But this far into the 21st century it will bring them diminishing returns.

Small but hyperactive groups of hatemongers have taken it upon themselves to engage in high profile activities designed to undermine support for the LGBTQ+ community. Their pressure on Bud Light and Target are examples of such actions.

Republicans incite homophobia whenever they think it will help them energize bigoted voters to make sure they vote in an upcoming election.

The classic case was 2004 when Republicans in collaboration with far right groups placed anti-LGBT voter initiatives on the ballots in 11 states. They reckoned correctly that the initiatives would boost the vote totals of GOP candidates across the US including that of George W. Bush who was in a tight race for re-election.

In fact, these ballot initiatives helped Bush win — despite being the president who ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden in order to go bass fishing. 2004 is the only time a Republican presidential candidate won a majority of popular votes since 1990.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thinks there are enough homophobes in Florida to boost his own re-election chances.

Florida was one of the last states to make gay sex legal – and only did so involuntarily in 2003 when the Supreme Court struck down the sodomy laws of Florida and 13 other states in its Lawrence v. Texas decision. So DeSantis may think there is still an appetite for anti-gay repression in his state.

Last week, a Florida House committee approved a bill that would ban discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.

The so-called Parental Rights in Education bill—which isn’t yet a law but is apparently being fast-tracked to a vote in the House as part of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “parents’ rights” agenda—would forbid educators from “encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary” school, or at any grade level “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”

The wording is tactically vague, but the intent is clear.

Part of a class of legislation colloquially known as “don’t say gay” bills, which have been introduced in several state legislatures in recent years, the Florida bill, if passed, could easily be construed as a directive to educators to erase all mention of marginalized people’s lives from the classroom.

Its implication—that the mere existence of LGBTQ people is an inappropriate topic for children—draws on a long history of homophobic legislation that portrays queer identities as hypersexualized and perverted. But by prohibiting discussion of any sexual orientation or gender identity, including presumably, the straight and cisgender ones, the legislation could evade being struck down by anti-discrimination laws.

^^^ emphasis added

This is along the same lines as the Republican attempts to prevent teachers from talking about race or (heaven forbid!) slavery in the classroom.

DeSantis is attempting to turn schools into propaganda factories and benefit politically from the process.

DeSantis is up for re-election as governor in 2022. And he’s interested in running for president in 2024. If you are in Florida, you can derail his ambitions and put the state on a path to sanity.

But it’s necessary to be active in the effort to unseat him. Votes and donations for the eventual Democratic nominee are fine. However volunteering time to do person to person campaigning is what is most needed.