POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Montmorency]

White supremacist officers fired over genocidal rantings. There's a recording out there too.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/bu...243779512.html

Three members of a North Carolina police department have been fired after a department audit of a video recording captured one of the officers saying a civil war was necessary to wipe Black people off the map and that he was ready.
[...]
At the 46-minute mark of the video, Piner and Gilmore began talking from their respective cars, at which time Piner criticized the department, saying its only concern was “kneeling down with the black folks.” About 30 minutes later, Piner received a phone call from Moore, according to the investigation, a segment in which Moore referred to a Black female as a “negro.” He also referred to the woman by using a racial slur. He repeated the use of the slur in describing a Black magistrate, and Moore used a gay slur to describe the magistrate as well.

Later, according to the investigation, Piner told Moore that he feels a civil war is coming and that he is ready. Piner said he was going to buy a new assault rifle, and soon “we are just going to go out and start slaughtering them (expletive)” Blacks. “I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait.” Moore responded that he wouldn’t do that.

Piner then told Moore that he felt a civil war was needed to “wipe them off the (expletive) map. That’ll put them back about four or five generations.” Moore told Piner he was “crazy,” and the recording stopped a short time later.

" Negro magistrate" etc.

I think this take is missing major context of what was going on at the time and a "tough on crime" stance was electorally justified. In 2004 when she first took office as DA of San Francisco, they were in the middle of a major crime wave with a homicide rate of 11.57. By her last year in office, 2010, the homicide rate was 5.86. So basically cutting it in half. Her predecessor Terence Hallinan (who was regarded as super progressive) had a terrible conviction rate of just 50% which frankly means that he was pretty bad at his job. Harris on the other hand had a conviction rate of the mid to high 80 percentage range. But I digress. I can list you 40 different actions she's taken as either DA or AG that were pretty significant progressive initiatives. Things like the country's first Back on Track program that reduced recidivism and was later adopted by other jurisdictions across the country. As DA she created the LGBT Hate crimes unit, the environmental justice unit, and the child sexual assault unit. As AG, Harris created the Bureau of Children’s Justice; Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-Entry; Mortgage Fraud Strike Force; Human Trafficking Work Group; Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory Board; eCrime Unit; Privacy Enforcement & Protection Unit. The list goes on and on if you want me to expand on this.

Of course there will be missteps. Nobody in the DA or AG position has a spotless record. I think it comes with the territory. For example, progressive Keith Ellison is the current AG of Minnesota and we all know whats been going on there. Where I think Harris tends to trip up on is explaining some of the actions shes taken. Like let's take the whole truancy thing. Despite being on the books as a law since the 70's, shes still being criticized for it even though a lot of those criticisms are being made with incorrect or missing information. But the thing is, studies show that fighting truancy helps kids stay in school which then helps prevent them from ending up in prison or worse. In SF, 94% of homicide victims under the age of 25 were dropouts. Where Harris was involved was refining the current law to make it so the school district could better identify at-risk children and find the best times to intervene to make sure they stayed in school. It wasnt about throwing parents in jail, it was about making sure that schools, students, and parents had the resources to fix the truancy issue with harsher penalties only being used as a last resort. But the narrative is already past this sort of explanation and I think a big part of it is Harris' inability to effectively counter these sorts of misconceptions. That being said, I do think she is the frontrunner for the VP spot (its clear she really wants it despite being the best at hiding it *cough cough Stacey Abrams*) since shes the only one who seems to be doing events with not only Joe, but his wife and top advisors too. So I guess we will see in the next month who gets picked in the end but my money is on Harris.

I really don't want to refresh myself on a topic that is now moribund, but to preface with my take from 1.5 years ago:

The clip is somewhat-dishonestly presented. She's not hailing the threat delivered - which would make her look like a Saturday-morning cartoon villain - she's expressing pride that the mother was found, so that she could be offered services and the children placed in school.

Stick with the good point that the immediate and only response in that case should have been the provision of services; the threat of criminal liability should (almost?) never play a role.

The "evil cop" narrative is silly. Her record is mixed (no innuendo intended), but from what I've seen she's certainly been one of the more liberal DAs in the country (not sure as compared to blue states). Not liberal enough for you, or you don't think she'll change to be liberal enough if promoted to President? Fine. But don't fall for mischaracterizations her past.

1. The instinct toward caution that Harris and many other Democrats have displayed with respect to electoral politics was IMO not indicated for the constituencies Harris sought to represent at the time she did, smounting IOW to over-cautiousness.

2. That's a list of offices, some of which have no political valence, without reference to results or practices. In what sense was Harris progressive according to some independent, or even contextual, metrics of progressive law enforcement (to the extent one accepts such a thing can exist)? The benchmark should not be 'less punitive than the most traditionally conservative Democratic DAs or AGs in the country,' such as the Queens County DA or (so I heard) the Oregon AG - or else everyone becomes almost definitionally progressive.

3. Other than the multiple parents prosecuted, the truancy policy of threatening parents was overall not overtly harmful beyond the psychological component (!), but the justice system did not offer material assistance to parents who needed it (e.g. addressing problems leading to childrens' nonattendance) because social services are outside the justice system's remit; it does not determine what services are available nor provision them, though it can integrate administratively to some extent with what is available. That situation is a failure of state and society that Harris had no control over, but critics have contended it would have been better for her not to use the coercive nature of her office at all in the way she did. She certainly had the discretion to avoid the big stick.

4. Part of her cautiousness manifested in the admittedly-near universal habit of avoiding interfering with constituencies more powerful than poor minorities. Compare:

While the Attorney General has made it clear that consumer protection and application transparency are top priorities for her office, Harris pointed out that her office seeks not to aggressively go after all application developers with a “big stick,” but rather make sure that application developers are knowledgeable of what the law is and are empowered to take steps to make sure they are compliant with the law.

In San Francisco, we threatened the parents of truants with prosecution, and truancy dropped 32 percent. So, we are putting parents on notice. If you fail in your responsibility to your kids, we are going to work to make sure you face the full force and consequences of the law.

A useful lens would be to reckon with which of Harris' dispositions in DA and AG offices should be considered substandard in all blue states today, including to Harris herself.

Pessimistic...yes. Every interviewee voting for Biden...yes. But my main take was for all those blacks who won't vote at all because as a 78 year-old, rich white man, Biden is just 'more of the same'.

Of course that is a narrative frame that will influence the behavior of some, but what are you comparing to?

In 1964, black turnout was 58.5% according to this.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/u...nd-beyond.html

That was the presidential election in which the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act were on the line, at the height of the civil rights movement in the country. Here is Census Population Survey dataset on black turnout in recent elections, back to 1986. I'll refer to the overreport-correction weighting (presidential in bold).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ecY/edit#gid=0

1986: 35.8%
1988: 46.8%
1990: 33.0%
1992: 50.6%
1994: 33.2%
1996: 48.1%
1998: 36.0%
2000: 52.9%
2002: 37.7%
2004: 61.4%
2006: 36.6%
2008: 69.1%
2010: 41.6%
2012: 67.4%
2014: 36.4%
2016: 59.9%
2018: 51.3%

Presidential Average: 57% (2004-16 pres elections higher than average; 1964 too, but I don't have data on hand for other elections prior to 1986)
Midterm Average: 38% (only 2010 and 2018 above average)

Black turnout in 2016 was about the same as in 1964, and in 2018 it was potentially the highest ever for a midterm. We can't judge these things against some hypothetical super-Obama Mr. Unbeatable pulling 80% turnout.

More than being turned off or unenthused by any particular candidate, our concern about black turnout should be centered around the intense and continual suppression, which we know manifests when Republicans control the electoral infrastructure, of eligible black people who would like to vote.