July 2016 – theLiberalOptimist

DNC: the true LiberalOptimist venue

The Democratic National Convention was brimming with optimism, hope, pragmatism, and the theme of “Stronger Together.”

Barack Obama may have captured these sentiments best, delivering an inspirational speech:

“The America I know is full of courage, and optimism, and ingenuity. The America I know is decent and generous… America has always been about what can be achieved by us, together, through the hard, slow, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately enduring work of self-government. And that’s what Hillary Clinton understands.”

More substantively, he spoke of what’s been accomplished during his presidency: jobs, healthcare, etc. This blog post captures 371 accomplishments under his presidency, accomplishments easily overlooked in today’s political climate.

Other highlights from the Democratic National Convention:

Michelle Obama

“When they go low, we go high.”

Bernie forced the issue of inequality

Whether you’re a Feel the Bern kind of person or supported Hillary throughout, we should all agree that Bernie brought an important issue to the conversation that had otherwise been largely ignored in institutionalized politics: economic inequality.

The Tea Party Movement that began in 2009 started as something of a populist revolt, though skeptics, and rightfully so, also saw the big money behind it: The Billionaire’s Tea Party. All the same, by 2010, dozens of self-proclaimed Tea Party members were in Congress. By contrast, the 2011 Occupy Movement lived hard and died fast, never making real headway in DC, with the exception of a brief stint on K Street where protestors occupied the buildings of lobbyists as a statement against the influence of money in politics.

Without Bernie’s unwavering, and, for some, somewhat relentless hammering of the issue, outcry against America’s widening economic chasm would not have made its way as it did into campaign debate, news coverage, and everyday conversation.

Granted, several obstacles remain: we have yet to see the extent to which a Hillary Clinton administration will continue to push for that progressive of an agenda (I’m too desperately optimistic to even consider a Trump agenda), and the ability for any sort of substantive policy change to take root, a steep obstacle in today’s partisan politics.

But in this moment, there is reason to recognize and appreciate that inequality, which is at unprecedented levels since the eve of the Great Depression, is at least on the agenda in ways that have largely escaped institutionalized politics outside of the usual nod to the “middle class.”

(Dis)Enfranchisement in Virginia

Updated post:

Unfortunately, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s efforts to reinstate voting rights to ex-felons, those who have served their sentences and are no longer on probation, was overturned on Friday by the state court system. The ruling stated that the governor does not have the “authority for the blanket restoration of voting rights.”

While fully acknowledging the setback, there are three reasons I’m holding to my optimism:

1. McAuliffe has vowed to continue signing on an individual basis; he has already re-enfranchised some 10,000 voters this way.

2. The fact that the Governor is making headlines brings attention to the issue (more below).

3. And, this is actually an issue that has had bipartisan support. In 2013, former Republican Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell issued an executive order making it easier for nonviolent felons to regain their voting rights. Nationally, the issue has had some bipartisan support as well, including from states most restrictive of voting rights for former felons. A bipartisan committee has put forward the Democracy Restoration Act (still pending).

Felon Disenfranchisement

Why is this issue important? Disenfranchisement of felons and ex-felons has implications for political equality in the same way that efforts to restrict voter registration undermines a fundamental principle of democracy: participation in the democratic process. Some 5.8 millions citizens are currently excluded from the political system, the majority of whom have completed their sentence and, in the words of Governor McAuliffe, “paid their debt to society.”

Moreover, and made more visible through the Black Lives Matter movement, are the racial inequalities and injustices in our criminal ‘justice’ system. The Sentencing Project has done extensive research on the subject, some of which is highlighted in Michelle Alexander’s provocative book, The New Jim Crow. This short documentary captures the sentiment: The New Fight for Voting Rights.

Barring a more exhaustive review of the topic here, some insights include:

One in three black men is likely to be incarcerated at some point in his life; that number is one in six for Latino men, and Black Americans are more than five times as likely to go to prison than whites.
The “incarceration epidemic” in this country is reflected by the 500% increase in the number of people incarcerated over the past three decades. Today, roughly 716 out of 100,000 are imprisoned making the U.S. the leading jailer in the world. (See Deeply Divided, Chapter 8 & Figure 8.10).
Most Western Democracies maintain the voting rights of those incarcerated, or at least under some circumstances, and, quite the contrast, the United States is among just a few countries globally to restrict those rights even after release from prison.

Posted July 6, 2016

From NPR: “More than 9,000 former felons have registered to vote in Virginia since April, when the governor issued an executive order restoring voting rights to more than 200,000 ex-offenders. Democrat Terry McAuliffe said the residents, who are no longer in prison, had paid their debt to society.”