Tag Archives: Common Cause

Doxxing Nazis

A recent essay from The Bulwark defended the act known as “doxxing”–revealing the identity of people who make controversial (or in this case, horrifying and hateful) assertions online.

Anyone who follows such matters can hardly be unaware of the steep rise in the magnitude of online hate, much of it facilitated by Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. The essay repeats some of the tweets Musk has promoted, and notes–quite accurately– that “this isn’t winking and nodding. It’s goose-stepping.”

The essay began by noting that the Texas Observer had doxxed four Twitter users who had authored those “goose-stepping” posts, and defended the publication’s decision to unmask those individuals.

“Doxxing” has long had negative connotations. Supposedly it’s a bad thing.

I’ve never understood that.

My general view is that if you say things in public, you are accountable for your words. It’s fine to hide behind anonymity, but no speaker should reasonably expect that to be absolute. If someone pulls the mask off, the speaker has no grounds to cry foul.

Musk isn’t the only prominent person to follow and amplify explicitly neo-Nazi posts. According to the article, Republican U.S. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky follows three neo-Nazi accounts and GOP Arizona state Senator Wendy Rogers follows two, while the account belonging to Sebastian Gorka, former and future deputy assistant to Donald Trump, follows one of the most “out there” neo-Nazis and Chuck DeVore, an executive at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, has retweeted at least one post from that account.

Which leads to my first point: Nazism/white supremacism has been mainstreamed to a degree that many people may not quite realize. This stuff isn’t just buried on obscure message boards or circulating via photocopied handouts. It’s just out there. And the social stigma about interacting with it is shrinking by the day.

The author then makes an important point about the anonymity offered by these internet platforms:

None of these four wadbags would have been willing to say this stuff out loud if they’d had to have their names attached to it.

It was only the warm blanket of anonymity that permitted them to enjoy the fruits of liberalism while secretly poisoning liberal society.

Liberal societies require robust codes of social stigma precisely because you can’t legislate morality. Morality has to emerge from the society itself. How does that happen? It’s not because of laws. It’s because of social mores.

If you walk around your neighborhood wearing a Nazi t-shirt and shouting “Sieg Heil!” at people, no one will talk to you. The people at the coffee shop won’t serve you. Steady employment will be difficult. Good luck finding a date.

Internet anonymity allows people avoid social stigma by leading dual lives. This is toxic.

I have been one of those people who enthusiastically welcomed the Internet, believing in its multiple social benefits. And those benefits are very real. But we are now seeing the downsides–the ability of small groups of disgruntled, resentful, bigoted and hateful individuals to connect with others who share their anti-modern, anti-American world-views.

The Nazis–“neo” may be a misnomer–can now connect to and make common cause with other fringe groups, including the emerging White Christian Nationalists, in an effort to disrupt and reverse an increasingly inclusive culture. They want to take America “back” to a time when straight White Christian males were dominant.

Although I wouldn’t call it “doxxing,” exactly, an important film that sheds light on “Christian” Nationalism is “Bad Faith,” and for those interested in seeing it, it will be presented by Indianapolis’ Common Cause chapter at the Kan-Kan Cinema on January 8th. You can get tickets here. (Common Cause chose the date because that is the day that Micah Beckwith–Indiana’s own White Christian Nationalist– and his fellow travelers take office.)

These allied fringe movements represent a minority of Americans, but gerrymandering, the Internet and social media have allowed them to gain power vastly disproportionate to their numbers. They have captured the GOP, and they are a significant part of Trump’s base. In order for the rest of us to counter them, we need to engage in our own form of “doxxing.” We need to make them truly visible to the millions of Americans who simply haven’t noticed.

Most of us don’t follow people on Twitter/X. Unfortunately, most of us don’t follow the news, either–especially political news. (That’s why so many Americans who do follow the news were shocked by Trump’s election–surely no one who understood what he was could vote to put him in the Oval Office.)

We need to shine a very bright light on these anti-American movements. Call it “doxxing.”

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The Scorecard

There’s a standard sentence in investment prospectuses: past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

That is obviously a fair point when you are considering the purchase of stock; it’s far less persuasive when you are casting a vote. In fact, when one candidate is an incumbent, checking past performance is usually an excellent guide to the positions that candidate will take in the future.

Recently, an article in The Indiana Citizen highlighted a Common Cause scorecard on an element of past performance of Indiana’s Congressional delegation–their votes to protect the country’s democratic institutions.

The fifth biennial scorecard compiled by Common Cause rated seven of Indiana’s nine U.S. representatives and two U.S. senators as doing little to preserve democracy during the 118th Congress.

Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog, focused on 10 democracy-related bills in the U.S. Senate and 13 in the U.S. House, covering such topics as voting rights, election security, ballot access and ethics reform for the U.S. Supreme Court when rating the federal lawmakers in its 2024 Democracy Scorecard. Then the organization examined the record of every congressional member to determine whether he or she took a “pro-democracy” stance on these issues.

Reps. Frank Mrvan and Andre Carson, Democrats representing  the 1st and 7th congressional districts, respectively, were the only members in Indiana’s congressional delegation who achieved near-perfect scores. Carson took a pro-democracy position on 12 of the 13 bills while Mrvan took a pro-democracy position on 11 of the 13 bills, according to the Common Cause scorecard.

Unsurprisingly, three Hoosier Republicans –- Sens. Mike Braun and Todd Young and Fifth District Rep. Victoria Spartz– rated a zero. Braun is currently running for Governor, and Spartz–despite indicating earlier that she didn’t intend to run again– is once again a candidate for the 5th district seat.

The other six members of Indiana’s congressional delegation – all of whom are also Republicans – received low scores, although not zeros. Reps. Rudy Yakym, of Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District, Jim Banks, of the 3rd District, James Baird, of the 4th District, Greg Pence, of the 6th District and Erin Houchin, of the 9th District took pro-democracy stances on just one of the 13 bills. Retiring Rep. Larry Bucshson, of the 8th Congressional District, earned a score of 2 out of 13.

The article quoted Aaron Dusso, chair of the Department of Political Science at IU-Indianapolis, and his reference to the 2018 book, “How Democracies Die.” That book was published in 2018 by Harvard University political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, and it was widely reviewed and discussed. It focused on measures of democratic health, and especially on four major threats to democracy– rejection of democratic rules; denial of political opponents’ legitimacy; tolerance of political violence; and willingness to curtail freedoms, particularly of the press. Since 2016, MAGA Republicans have increased their support for all four, ramping up efforts at vote suppression and gerrymandering, supporting Trump’s “big lie while making phony claims about non-citizens voting and his threats to jail political opponents, telling pollsters that violence “may be necessary” and unremittingly attacking the mainstream media.

Elected GOP officials aren’t doing the people’s work, either.

The scorecard is rating the members of the 118th Congress, which Common Cause called “one of the most dysfunctional in American history.” Through Aug. 15, 2024, just 78 standalone bills – or 0.5% of all the bills introduced in the 118th Congress – have become law, according to Common Cause. This compares to the 116th and 117th Congresses, in which 2% of the bills introduced became law and the 114th and the 115th Congresses in which 3% of the bills passed to the president’s desk.

In fact, Common Cause asserted that in its first year, the 118th Congress turned in the least-productive first year performance of any Congress in nearly a century.

Dusso pointed out that politicians typically act and vote in ways they think their constituents want. When lawmakers continue getting elected, they are justified in thinking that they are fulfilling voters’ wishes.

“It’s probably our fault that this is what’s happening,” Dusso said. “We’re willing to tolerate these types of things and we continue to elect individuals and we continue to elect a Congress that isn’t able to pass bills in any real serious way. And, that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.”

I know Aaron Dusso to be a brilliant scholar, but I’m hopeful that his last sentence is wrong–that this will be the year when We the People begin a long-overdue change, the year we eject incumbents who have failed to respect either the Constitution or the democratic process.

Mike Braun and Jim Banks are clearly unworthy of the promotions they seek, and the others who have failed to protect American democracy should not be returned to Congress to do more damage.

We can do better.

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An Idea Whose Time Has Definitely NOT Come

Periodically, I come across reports updating progress toward a so-called “Article V” Constitutional Conventions. The last time I looked, twenty-eight states had called for one; only thirty-four are needed.

I’ve shared my concerns about that movement previously–in mid-2014, in a column for the Indianapolis Business Journal, and again, on this blog,  in 2017. The major forces behind this effort to convene what proponents call an “Article V” convention are ALEC and the Koch brothers, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the motives of the proponents..

My original arguments against calling such a convention were rooted in history, which tells us that major changes in government rarely reflect the relatively benign and/or limited expectations of people who agitate for that change.

In this case, state lawmakers who favor a new constitutional convention argue that it would allow delegates to devise a framework for reigning in overspending, overtaxing and over-regulating by the federal government and would move the U.S. toward a less centralized federal government. Many of them insist that an Article V convention could be limited to consideration of those goals.

Warren Burger, former Chief Justice of the United States, begged to differ, writing

[T]here is no way to effectively limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention.  The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda.  Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey.  After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the Convention if we don’t like its agenda.

But even if a convention could be limited, the enumerated goals are Pandora-box wide.

For example, Wall Street bankers argue that financial laws are “overregulation;” if polls are to be believed, most taxpayers view the same rules as barely adequate.

My definition of “overspending” would include the massive subsidies enjoyed by fossil fuel companies and the obscene amounts we spend on the military; yours might be Medicare or farm subsidies. 

“Less centralization” could justify virtually any limitation of federal government authority, from FDA regulation of food and drug quality to laws against discrimination.

I could go on. And on. But the risk isn’t simply that a Convention could rather easily be hijacked by people who disagree with the conveners about the nature and extent of needed changes, or even the  predictable influence of well-heeled special interests. The real danger is in calling together a representative group of Americans and asking them to amend a document that few of them understand.

Even bright graduate students came into my classes with little or no knowledge of American history or government. Most had never heard of the Enlightenment or John Locke or Adam Smith. A truly depressing percentage of my undergraduate students were unable to explain what a government is, and had no idea how ours operates. Separation of powers? Checks and balances? The counter-majoritarian purpose of the Bill of Rights? Blank stares.

The danger inherent in calling deeply polarized and depressingly under-educated politicians together to “improve” the Constitution should be obvious. Do we really want people like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Paul Gosar—or their Red-state-level clones–deciding how the American Constitution should be changed?

In the years since I first became aware of this effort, I have seen no reason to revisit my original concerns about such a convention. As Common Cause has warned,

With no rules and complete uncertainty about the constitutional process, an Article V convention would cause political and economic chaos. There is no language in the U.S. Constitution to limit a convention to one issue, no guidelines for rules to govern a convention, no rules on who picks the delegates and how they are selected, no guarantee that the American people would be equally represented, and no limits on corporate special interest influence.

I can only imagine what sorts of regulatory changes the Koch brothers hope to make, or what the armies of anti-journalism “Trumpers” would do to the freedoms of speech and press. Proponents of Pence-style “religious freedom” (a/k/a the privileging of fundamentalist Christianity) would see this as a God-given (!) chance to dismantle the Wall of Separation between Church and State.

We should also remind those who see such a convention as their chance to get rid of all those pesky constitutional provisions that keep them from installing a government more to their liking, that they are also at risk. A convention might also end up with participants reflecting  the majority of Americans who think it’s time to get rid of the Second Amendment and the Electoral College, and a great idea to outlaw gerrymandering…

In other words, such a convention would be a monumental crap-shoot.

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A Lawsuit Worth Supporting

Yesterday, the NAACP, Common Cause and several individual plaintiffs brought a lawsuit that I consider overdue.

A bit of background: Indiana law allows early voting, and also allows counties to establish satellite voting centers to make casting those votes more convenient. The law requires a unanimous vote by the County’s Election Board members in order to open a satellite center. Some Boards establish several  in order to accommodate their voters. Lake County, with fewer residents than Marion County, has eight.

Marion County is the most populous county in the state, but for the past several years, the lone Republican on the three-member board has adamantly opposed opening any satellite sites.

As the Complaint notes,

  1. Marion County had 699,709 registered voters in 2016 but because of the MCEB’s refusal to approve satellite voting locations, it had but a single early voting location due to the MCEB’s failure this decade to approve a resolution establishing satellite sites for early voting, a ratio of one (1) early voting site to 699,709 registered voters.
  2. By contrast, Hamilton County had 230,786 registered voters in 2016. Its election officials unanimously approved two satellite voting locations in addition to the office of the circuit court clerk, a ratio of one early site for every 76,929 registered voters.
  3. Hendricks County had 109,903 registered voters in 2016. Its election officials approved three (3) satellite voting locations in addition to the office of the circuit court clerk, a ratio of one early voting site for every 27,476 registered voters.
  4. Johnson County had 107,546 registered voters in 2016. Its election officials approved five (5) early voting sites in addition to the office of the circuit court clerk, a ratio of one early voting site for every 17,924 registered voters.

The refusal to open satellite sites in Marion County has caused  long lines and extended wait times at the sole available site–the office of the circuit court clerk in Indianapolis.

The refusal to approve satellite voting sites has also resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of voters who cast an early in-person absentee vote in 2012 and 2016 as compared to the numbers of voters who voted early in 2008 when satellite locations were approved and used, which has the further effect of causing a higher percentage of Marion County voters to cast an in-person ballot on Election Day, thus resulting in increased lines and wait times at precinct polling places.

Moreover, because Marion County has the highest percentage (28%) of African-Americans in Indiana, and because African-American voters are more likely than other voters to utilize early voting, the MCEB’s refusal to approve multiple satellite locations for early in-person absentee voting as permitted by Indiana law has disproportionately resulted in the denial or abridgement of the right of African-American voters to cast an early in-person absentee ballot.

The suit asks the Court to find that the Republican member of the Election Board has caused the Board to violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses, the Voting Rights Act and the Indiana Constitution, and to issue an order “enjoining Defendants from continuing to obstruct, interfere with and block the establishment of at least two satellite voting locations in Marion County for the federal elections in 2018 and beyond.”

It’s bad enough that Indiana’s polls close earlier than all but one other state, and that our Voter ID law operates to suppress the votes of the poor and elderly. But to limit early voting to a site inconvenient to so many and where parking is so difficult is just another way of giving the finger to minority and Democratic voters in Indianapolis.

If you agree that this suit is meritorious and overdue, join me in supporting the crowdfunding effort that has been established to cover litigation expenses. The estimable Bill Groth (a local hero!)–is handling the case pro bono, but Defendants are sure to run up the expenses that will have to be covered.

This cynical effort to suppress votes rather than competing for them “fair and square” needs to be defeated.

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