Trump's Response to "Invasion" Is the Real Threat

US troops prepare to deploy to the US-Mexico border on October 27, 2018. (photo: Staff Sgt. Nathan Akridge/US Department of Defense)

By Mort Rosenblum, Reader Supported News

05 November 18
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asting $100 million to send more U.S. troops to the Mexican border than are now in Afghanistan is plainly a cynical campaign stunt. Less obvious is what it shows about where Donald Trump’s hollow heart is leading America and the world beyond.

That piteous march, hardly an “invasion,” will stop at a secure fence. But writ large, it reflects 68 million people on the move. If global leaders ignore the reasons why, their numbers will soar. And as more desperate fathers see children sicken and starve, expect the worst.

This last week sharply defined the real Donald Trump: a deceitful manipulator who exploits the gullible. Unless a new Congress can curb him, he has two more years, maybe six, to unmake America and encourage despots who follow his worst instincts.

Like all nations, the United States must control who crosses its borders with case-by-case screening. But a rich democracy built by immigrants fleeing famine or fear needs to set an example by doing that with human empathy.

Trump just told troops that if someone throws a rock they should “consider it a rifle” and shoot. Nigerian authorities echoed that message to police in the capital, Abuja, who Amnesty International reports then shot dead 45 protesters.

U.S. law says firing needlessly on unarmed people is murder. Yet it appeals to a frightening new mood in America.

Earlier this year, a Tucson, Arizona, jury acquitted Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz, who pumped 10 bullets into 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriquez back in 2012. Jurors decided it was in self-defense. I went down to the Nogales border to look at the scene.

The fence is 36 feet high with vertical bars so close together that a gun barrel can barely fit through. A group of young men lobbed rocks over it from 70 to 90 feet away.

Prosecutors argued “malice aforethought” because Swartz fired 16 shots in 34 seconds from three different locations and reloaded after Elena Rodríguez had fallen to the ground. The defense countered that the teen was alive for most of the shots.

Those “bad hombres” Trump evokes don’t storm fences or knock at the gates to ask for asylum. Criminals and terrorists find other ways to circumvent walls if they don’t find a way in through the front door.

When Trump says he hears that Islamist terrorists have infiltrated that Central American column, he channels Sean Hannity, not the U.S. intelligence agencies, which know otherwise. And that resonates. One woman at a rally told a TV camera, “There are people from the Middle East!” Like Jesus?

Americans who prefer reality can judge for themselves. Video and photos show suffering mothers with kids who seem nothing like murderers and rapists. Reporters with them spend hard days and nights gathering hard facts.

Will Grant on BBC lets migrants tell their stories. One man said disease wiped out the coffee crop; his family would starve if they stayed. Others said they were fleeing brutality that has hardened since Ronald Reagan supported military dictators and “freedom fighters,” whose death squads suppressed leftist opposition.

Targeted economic aid could help families stay where most would prefer to be – at home. But World Bank figures show U.S. assistance to Honduras was cut by 63.3 percent in 2018 to $52.9 million, about three days’ cost of the army deployment.

Trump boasts that he has brought unemployment to 3.7 percent, the lowest it has been in half a century. That, too, is a reason why it is crucial not to slam shut borders, cutting off labor for agriculture and the menial jobs that underpin prosperity.

“Migration,” part of a new world disorder, is growing fast. If rich governments do not address its causes – climate chaos and senseless conflict – policing borders will be no more effective than rent-a-cops on hemorrhoid cushions guarding gated communities against committed intruders. Appeals to xenophobia and racism heat this crisis toward the boiling point.

There are solutions. The discontinued Bracero Program, for instance, allowed migrants to come in when needed, be taxed and traced, and then return to where most would rather be – with their families in their own societies. But Trump is rousing rabble, not addressing problems.

Trump denies bigotry and calls himself “the least racist person you will ever meet.” Yet again, those pesky facts.

At one rally, he said Democrats “want to turn America into a giant sanctuary of violent predators and MS13 killers,” adding, “A blue wave is a crime wave.” To bang away at Islam, he mentioned Barack Obama, pausing between first and last name to draw a large “H” for Hussein with his finger.

Michael Cohen, in Vanity Fair, described a conversation with his former client in 2013 after Nelson Mandela died. Trump challenged Cohen to “name one country run by a black person that’s not a shithole.” The United States comes to mind.

Anyone who still blocks out reality and takes Trump at his word is beyond hope. The question now is how Republicans who see him for what he is, yet still cheer him on, will step back to see where he is taking America.

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Mort Rosenblum has reported from seven continents as Associated Press special correspondent, edited the International Herald Tribune in Paris, and written 14 books on subjects ranging from global geopolitics to chocolate. He now runs MortReport.org.

The President* Is Rooting for a Bloodbath

Trump supporters. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

05 November 18
readersupportednews.org

Trump brags he's authorized the troops deployed to the border to shoot anyone holding rocks.

ack when I thought I knew something about politics, and back when I thought I knew something about this country, I believed that, if a President of the United States made regular appearances as an utterly fact-free monster, it largely would be accidental. That was before 2016, when we discovered that a president* could get elected because he was an utterly fact-free monster. That was before 2016, when we learned that 40 years of a political party's constructing an utterly fact-free monster could be such a successful project.

On Thursday, the president* gave another completely non-political talk on his favorite among the things about which he knows less than nothing: immigration. It was entirely about scaring old white people that MS-13 is coming to dominate the town council and order them all to be eaten to celebrate some foreign holiday—and he, alone, can save them.

Before we pay this performance the several seconds of attention it deserves, we should note another triumph for local journalism: The Sacramento Bee leaves the president*'s racist cartoon of a campaign ad as a smoking pile of meat in the breakdown lane. This likely will have no impact on anything but it's important to keep a careful historical record in advance of the president*'s going off into the haunted places of his mind again, the way he did Thursday afternoon. This was perhaps the darkest of the many dark corners.

"I will tell you, anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to Mexico and the Mexican military, Mexican police, where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico, we will consider that a firearm. They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. We'll consider — and I told them — consider it a rifle. When they throw rocks like they did at the Mexico military and police, I say consider it a rifle."

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a rock is a good guy with an M4 carbine. There are already reports that paramilitaries are gathering down at the border in anticipation of a turkey shoot. I suspect fire control will not be a priority. I suspect the president* doesn't care. He's rooting for a bloodbath.

Monstrous.

Five Things You Should Know About the US Progressive Surge

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (photo: AP)

By Al Jazeera

5 November 18
readersupportednews.org

After the election of US President Donald Trump, the US saw an historic uptick in interest in left-wing groups.

rotests enveloped Washington, DC and other cities, where the streets teemed with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on January 20, 2017, when Donald Trump was sworn in as the United States's 45th president.

Angry rallygoers stuffed airports nationwide the following month, when the newly minted Trump administration introduced an executive order banning entry to the US for travellers from several Muslim-majority countries.

With public furore generated by the president's anti-immigration programme, anti-Muslim policies, controversial remarks about women and flirtation with white nationalists, the political landscape was primed for change.

In the early months of Trump's presidency, membership in several left-wing outfits flourished, while progressives vied to chart an alternative path within the Democratic Party.

More recently, Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates garnered a flurry of media attention in primary elections, during which many of them challenged - and some bested - centrist Democratic incumbents.

On November 6, Americans will cast their ballot in midterm elections largely understood to be a referendum on Trump's presidency.

But after months of upheaval in the Democratic Party, with young progressives seeking to displace party longtimers, there is heightened attention on a surge in left-wing newcomers.

We break down the five things you should know about the US progressive surge:

1. Trump's presidency has fueled a left-wing surge

When Trump became president after a heated campaign taking aim at immigrants, Muslims, women and others, the US saw an historic uptick in interest in left-wing groups. 

Bernie Sanders, who unsuccessfully challenged Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries, describes himself as a democratic socialist and has been a senator for Vermont since 2007. His 2016 primary campaign saw a swell in support, particularly from young people.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), founded by Michael Harrington in 1982, more than doubled from May 2016 to February 2017, reaching 16,000 members. The growth continued at a breakneck pace, touching 32,000 by the end of 2017.

Now, the group estimates that it has 50,000 members across the country and describes itself as the largest socialist outfit in the US.

Though not a political party, the DSA endorses candidates with politics that align with the organisation's. Those candidates share the DSA's views on broadening access to healthcare and education, opposing capitalism and US wars, and advocating for labour rights, among other issues.

Earlier this year, DSA-backed candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Democratic incumbent Joe Crowley in the Democratic Party primary election for New York's 14th District in the House of Representatives.

Her victory was celebrated by advocates as a step in the direction of creating a society more broadly able to provide a decent life for the many.

But while the DSA has received the lion's share of attention in discussions about socialism in the Trump era, several other groups and parties reported increased membership in the wake of the president's election. Among them were the International Socialist Organization, Socialist Alternative and the Socialist Party USA.

2. Socialism has a long history in the US

Socialist organising is nothing new in the US. Its roots can be traced back to the 19th century, when immigrant communities arriving in the country played a vital role in its inception and growth.

In 1901, the Socialist Party of America was founded after a merger of previously existing socialist groups. During that era, several socialist politicians landed in office.

In 1910, Victor L Berger became the first socialist elected to US Congress after winning Wisconsin's 5th District Congressional seat. In New York, Meyor London became the second socialist elected to Congress in 1914.

In the 1912 and 1920 elections Eugene V Debs, a socialist icon who ran for president five times, pulled in more than 900,000 votes. His Socialist Party of America's membership peaked in 1912 at around 118,000.

During that period, socialists played an active role in campaigning against the US's entry into World War I. Many of them were jailed over that advocacy, owing to the Espionage Act.

In June 1917, more than 2,000 protesters were jailed for rallying against US participation in the war. Debs himself was arrested and put on trial in September 1918 on 10 counts of violating the Espionage and Sedition acts. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and campaigned for the presidency from behind bars in 1920. His sentence was commuted, and he was released from jail in 1921.

Crackdowns on socialist organising continued throughout the 20th century, most notably during the "Second Red Scare", a period during which US Senator Joseph McCarthy led a far-reaching campaign against leftists.

At the time, with the Cold War in its early years, McCarthy's efforts led to the highly publicised trials - and imprisonment - of many people merely suspected of being socialists or communists.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the New Left saw socialists and other leftists participate in struggles for civil rights and against US wars abroad, such as the war in Vietnam. Many prominent black rights groups, such as the Black Panthers, were self-described as Marxist organisations.

Later, socialists played important roles in the pushback against a slew of wars, including the first Gulf War in 1990 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq under President George W Bush.

3. Many famous Americans identify as socialists

Actor Mark Ruffalo is one of many famous Americans to embrace democratic socialism in recent years, along with fellow actor Wallace Shawn, acclaimed author Angela Davis, writer Barbara Ehrenreich, and many others.

But they follow in the footsteps of largely celebrated socialists and others who embraced elements of socialism.

Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr was a staunch opponent of capitalism, who often sang the praises of socialism and an end to the class system. "I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic," he famously told a girlfriend.

Later, he called for a politics that waged war on both racism and poverty, supported a guaranteed annual income, advocated constitutional amendments to secure economic equality and pushed for an expansion of public housing.

Hellen Keller, the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree and celebrated writer, was an active socialist until her death in 1968. A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, Keller actively campaigned for women's suffrage, labour rights and anti-war causes, among others.

Albert Einstein, the legendary physicist, admired Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin and called for the establishment of a socialist economy. Writing for the Monthly Review, a socialist publication, Einstein stated: "I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion."

These views led to the FBI keeping a file on him that eventually amassed some 1,400 pages.

4. Young Americans are moving away from capitalism

Less than half of Americans between 18 and 29 embrace capitalism, according to an August 2018 poll by Gallup. The poll marked a 12-point decline from a previous survey in 2010, when 68 percent of young Americans viewed capitalism positively.

That same poll found that 51 percent of young people view socialism favourably. The increase came owing to growing costs of living, stagnant salaries, increasing healthcare costs, dwindling pensions and the need to take on second jobs to make ends meet.

Earlier this year, a University of Chicago GenForward Survey of Americans found that 62 percent of respondents between 18 and 34 years old believe that the US needs "a strong government to handle today's complex economic problems".

That survey concluded that 45 percent of young Americans view socialism favourably, contrasted with a previous poll that found that 26 percent of their parents' generation would prefer to live in a socialist country.

Meanwhile, a 2016 survey published by Stanford University found that Americans entering the job market "are far less likely to earn more than their parents when compared with children born two generations before them".

5. Can the current socialist surge last?

Although the current surge has elicited widespread attention, not all of it has been positive. When DSA-backed Ocasio-Cortez's decried Israel's response to Palestinian protests in the Gaza Strip and was criticised, she replied by admitting that she is not "an expert on geopolitics on this issue". It led critics to lambast the faces of the nascent left-wing surge as unserious.

The primary campaign of Julia Salazar, another DSA-backed candidate for New York State Senate, was marred in controversy after a string of news reports accused her of falsifying her background, a charge she rejected and chalked up to misreporting and confusion.

Others have charged the left with either being implausible in the US, where history has been less than kind to self-described socialists, or out-of-tune with the priorities of most American voters. In a country whose history and ethos are so intimately tied to capitalism and individualism, critics say, socialism could not work in practice.

For his part, Trump has attempted to brand his opponents as radicals, alleging on several occasions that his detractors were "paid" protesters or "professional anarchists".

With US midterms approaching, Trump's current approval rating hovers just below 43 percent, a fact large enough to cast hesitation on the longevity of the progressive uptick. Unemployment is low, sitting below four percent, and it remains unclear how widespread a traction the new progressives can command.

A Party Defined by Its Lies

At this point, good people can’t be good Republicans.

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist
readersupportednews.org 

During my first year as an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, I wasn’t allowed to use the word “lie.”

That first year coincided with the 2000 election, and George W. Bush was, in fact, being systematically dishonest about his economic proposals — saying false things about who would benefit from his tax cut and the implications of Social Security privatization. But the notion that a major party’s presidential candidate would go beyond spin to outright lies still seemed outrageous, and saying it was considered beyond the pale.

Obviously that prohibition no longer holds on this opinion page, and major media organizations have become increasingly willing to point out raw falsehoods. But they’ve been chasing a moving target, because the lies just keep getting bigger and more pervasive. In fact, at this point the G.O.P.’s campaign message consists of nothing but lies; it’s hard to think of a single true thing Republicans are running on.

And yes, it’s a Republican problem (and it’s not just Donald Trump). Democrats aren’t saints, but they campaign mostly on real issues, and generally do, in fact, stand for more or less what they claim to stand for. Republicans don’t. And the total dishonesty of Republican electioneering should itself be a decisive political issue, because at this point it defines the  party’s character.

What are Republicans lying about? As I said, almost everything. But there are two big themes. They lie about their agenda, pretending that their policies would help the middle and working classes when they would, in fact, do the opposite. And they lie about the problems America faces, hyping an imaginary threat from scary dark-skinned people and, increasingly, attributing that threat to Jewish conspirators.

Both classes of lie are rooted in the real G.O.P. agenda.

What Republicans truly stand for, and have for decades, is cutting taxes on the rich and slashing social programs. Sure enough, last year they succeeded in ramming through a huge tax cut aimed mainly at corporations and the wealthy, and came within one vote of passing a health “reform” that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would have caused 32 million Americans to lose health coverage.

The G.O.P.’s problem is that this agenda is deeply unpopular. Large majorities of Americans oppose cuts in major social programs, while most voters want to raise, not reduce, taxes on corporations and high-income individuals.

But instead of changing their agenda to meet voters’ concerns, Republicans have resorted to a strategy of deception and distraction. On one side, they have gone full black-is-white, up-is-down on policy substance. Most spectacularly, they are posing as defenders of protection for people with pre-existing conditions — protection that their failed health bill would have stripped away, and which they are now trying to take away through the courts. And they’re claiming that Democrats are the ones threatening Medicare.

On the other side, they’re resorting to their old standby: race-based fear.

But selling racial fear was easier in the 1980s and early 1990s, when America really was suffering from high levels of inner-city crime. Since then, violent crime has plunged. What’s a fearmonger to do? The answer is: lie.

The lies have come nonstop since Trump’s inauguration address, which conveyed a false vision of “American carnage.” But they have gotten ever more extreme, culminating in the portrayal of a small caravan of refugees still 1,000 miles from the border as an imminent, menacing invasion — somehow full of diseased Middle Eastern terrorists.

And now there’s the added insinuation that sinister Jewish financiers are the real culprits behind this invasion. Because that’s where people doing this kind of thing always end up.

The crucial thing to realize is that these aren’t just ugly, destructive lies. Beyond that, they shape the G.O.P.’s nature. It is now impossible to have intellectual integrity and a conscience while remaining a Republican in good standing. Some conservatives have these qualities; almost all of them have left the party, or are on the edge of excommunication.

Those who remain are either fanatics willing to do anything in pursuit of power, or cynics willing to go along with anything for a share of the spoils. And it’s foolish to imagine that there are any limits on how far a party of fanatics and cynics will be willing to go. Anyone who might have had a sticking point, some uncrossable red line of bad behavior, has already taken the offramp.

That’s why a Republican campaign built entirely on lies should itself be a political issue — a reason to vote Democratic even if you want tax cuts. For we’re not just talking about a party selling bad ideas on false pretenses. The addiction to lies has also — let’s be blunt — turned it into a party of bad people.

So what will this party do if it retains full control of Congress next week? What we’ve seen over and over again is that for these people there are no limits and no bottom. If they pull this midterm election out, expect the worst. 

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman

Vanishing Witch Hunt: Trump's been scared off tweeting about Mueller's Russia probe. Here's why!

News Corpse  

Community

Wednesday October 31, 2018 · 10:00 AM PDT
 

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For most of the past two years Donald Trump has been bellowing like a banshee stuck in a time loop that made him repeat the same tedious whining continuously: witch hunt, Witch Hunt, WITCH HUNT! It's been a mantra that he hopes the recitation of which will cause his recurring nightmares of treason and prison to subside. But despite his commitment to constant verbal regurgitation of the phrase, he has not found any comfort or relief.

Trump is a trembling wreck whose every public comment is drenched with the fear that consumes him. He is a non-stop fountain of complaints, criticisms, and most of all, whining (Although he also brags about being the "most fabulous whiner"). But there has been a curious change in his recent behavior.

Taking a look back at Trump's Twitter feed reveals something that requires some explanation. Back in May, Trump tweeted twenty times about what calls the "Witch Hunt." Of course, he's referring to the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller of his unsavory connections to Russia, obstruction of justice, and other assorted crimes. Mueller has already found numerous "witches" who have been indicted, convicted, and/or pleaded guilty. Trump's tweets continued in June with twenty-seven more. Then there were twenty in July and twenty-five August.

However, that was the end of the Witch Hunt Tweetstorming. In September Trump tweeted about the Witch Hunt only five times. And in October it was down to one single Witch Hunt tweet. And that one was more about his dissatisfaction with his own Justice Department than with Mueller's Russia probe. What could have caused this frightened retreat from a refrain that he was singing so incessantly.

Well, Politico is now reporting a possible cause of Trump's backing off his Witch Hunt obsession. And it's a blockbuster, if true. They are asserting that Mueller may have already subpoenaed Trump to appear before a Grand Jury:

"Since mid-August, [Mueller] may have been locked in proceedings with Trump and his lawyers over a grand jury subpoena - in secret litigation that could tell us by December whether the president will testify before Mueller’s grand jury." "We know that on August 16th (the day after Giuliani said he was almost finished with his memorandum, remember), a sealed grand jury case was initiated in the D.C. federal district court before Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell. We know that on September 19, Chief Judge Howell issued a ruling and 5 days later one of the parties appealed to the D.C. Circuit. And thanks to Politico’s reporting, we know that the special counsel’s office is involved (because the reporter overheard a conversation in the clerk’s office). We can further deduce that the special counsel prevailed in the district court below, and that the presumptive grand jury witness has frantically appealed that order and sought special treatment from the judges of the D.C. Circuit."

The circumstances surrounding these vents suggest that a particularly important witness is the subject of thest court proceedings. Whether or not it is Trump it's too soon to confirm. But it is more than speculation. And the timing coincides with Trump's reduced Witch Hunt tweeting. That would make sense because if negotiations like this were taking place, even Trump wouldn't be stupid enough to foul it up with deranged outbursts on Twitter. Would he?

Plus there's another peculiar affair that was reported on Tuesday. Some nefarious pro-Trump shills appear to be trying to smear Mueller with phony charges of sexual misconduct. But it's blowing up in their faces. Note also that Trump's attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, have been mysteriously out of the public eye. And if Giuliani isn't shoving his way in front of a TV camera, something serious has to be going on.

Time will tell if this story pans out. And the period following the midterm election would be the perfect time for these legal disclosures to take place. Mueller, the consummate professional, would not have interfered with the election within the sixty days that is traditionally a quiet period for these sort of proceedings. But after the election he's free to make whatever disclosures are appropriate. And that is probably what is giving Trump the frights this Halloween.

New poll shreds GOP's entire doctrine of financing tax cuts for rich by stealing from everyone else

Kerry Eleveld  

Daily Kos Staff

Friday November 2, 2018 · 12:17 PM PDT

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An NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll released Friday offered virtually nothing but bad news for Republicans, the worst of which centers around the tax cuts they passed for the nation's wealthiest. Not only do more Americans consistently oppose the law than support it—with most also saying they haven't benefitted from it—a strong majority of registered voters prefers to roll back the cuts in order to shore up the nation's ballooning deficit.

Fully 60 percent of registered voters said "it was better to roll back the tax cuts passed by Congress than to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," according to NPR. That number includes a plurality of Republicans:

• Reverse tax cut: 43 percent
• Cut SS/Medicare/Medicaid: 32 percent

And strong majorities of both Democrats (80 percent) and independents (58 percent) favor reversing the tax cuts to cutting social programs.

In the strongest possible terms, this poll shreds the GOP's entire economic doctrine of financing tax cuts for the richest Americans by stealing from the nation's neediest to shore up the deficit. The revelation comes on the heels of GOP Leader Mitch McConnell’s pitch last week for making cuts to the critical programs just last week in order to reduce the deficit/debt, both of which have ballooned due to the GOP tax law.

On the midterm front, the poll also included troubling news for Republicans that might either prove to be an outlier or could perhaps foreshadow a shift toward Democrats.

• Despite recent news that Trump's approval rating is peaking, his approvals in the NPR poll dropped to 39 percent, down from 41 percent in the same poll earlier this month
• Democrats also expanded their lead over Republicans in the poll’s generic ballot to 10 points, 50-40 percent, a sizable increase from the their 6-point lead earlier this month

The poll was conducted Oct. 21-23, so well after Trump began plugging the supposed "caravan" crises but before the real scope of the “MAGA bomber” crisis had unfolded.

Republicans Are Working Feverishly to Stop Minorities From Voting

Stacey Abrams, Georgia's Democratic nominee for governor, and Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the GOP nominee, debate in Atlanta on Oct. 23, 2018. (photo: John Bazemore/AP)

By Eoin Higgins, Vice

1 November 18
readersupportednews.org

Ahead of the most hyped midterms in recent years, progressives are fighting to turn out their voters while Republicans are trying to block them.

he effects of 2018 voter suppression laws are being felt, state by state, as Republicans work across the country to restrict the number of people—with policies that disproportionately target minorities—who can cast ballots in the midterm elections on November 6.

In Ohio, voters who have been inactive for a few cycles can be purged from the rolls, a decision upheld last year by the Supreme Court. A new voter ID law in North Dakota will disenfranchise minority voters and seems aimed specifically at Native Americans, who often don’t have residential address and thus won’t be able to vote under the new law. In New Hampshire, students are facing barriers to participating in the state's general election thanks to a new law requiring voters have in-state driver’s licenses. And Dodge City, Kansas, which is 60 percent Hispanic, has moved its only polling place outside of town and a mile from the nearest bus stop in a move seen as calculated to depress turnout among the 27,000 residents.

But Georgia, where thousands of voters have been purged from the rolls and African Americans involved in get out the vote efforts are being harassed, might be ground zero in the fight. A confluence of voter suppression activity in the state is attracting attention in part because of the Republican nominee for governor is the one in charge of state elections.

As Secretary of State, Brian Kemp has power over voting in Georgia. He's already made use of that power, suspending over 53,000 voters—70 percent of whom are black—and purging more than 107,000 voters for not voting in the last election. That Kemp was recorded saying he had concerns "if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote," as Rolling Stone's Jamil Smith reported on Tuesday, has only added to the controversy over his actions.

"The suppression in Georgia has created a firestorm due to Kemp's position and the close race for governor," said Sophia Lakin, a staff attorney with the Voting Rights Project.

That firestorm might generate some unintended consequences, however. Voters are showing up to the polls for early voting in record numbers across the country, and in Georgia over 300,000 early ballots have already been cast, 30 percent of which have been by black residents—a higher portion of the electorate than the comparable number in 2014.

Georgia-based progressive political analyst Anoa Changa said that she's seeing a massive surge in political activity from people in the state as more information becomes public about Kemp's behavior. Georgians don't want to see Kemp get a promotion, said Changa, and despite the lack of faith in the voting process in Georgia, people are determined to fight.

"Kemp is emblematic of the attacks on voting rights we have seen in the last several years," Changa said.

While Lakin acknowledged the possibility that voter suppression could drive reactive turnout, she said that the negative consequences would likely outweigh the benefits of such a backlash. When it's harder to vote due to the concerted efforts of the state, the barriers to the ballot can be insurmountable. "Unfortunately, no matter how much work you do to get people out to vote, if you're purged you lose your rights," said Lakin.

Danielle Lang, senior legal counsel for voting rights and redistricting at the the Campaign Legal Center, agrees. She told VICE that the barriers to the ballot are creating a number of negative effects on the electorate—and though some of those effects are hard to quantify, so too are the positives.

"Even if turnout goes up," said Lang, "we can't understand what turnout would be without voter suppression, it's a counterfactual argument."

The current battle over voting rights goes back a decade. After the election of Barack Obama in 2008, efforts began in earnest on the state level to roll back the Voting Rights Act, enshrined into law in 1965. While 2008 didn't mark the beginning of the struggle by the right to undo the advances of the Civil Rights movement—that effort began immediately after the successes of the 1950s and 60s—it was the dawn of a new era in political regression. "There was a shift after the 2008 election," said Lakin.

After that, Lakin said, a new wave of voter suppression laws began to be instituted in states around the country, with the effects falling disproportionately on voters of color. The reason for that is clear, Lakin said, if you look at the demographics of the voters in 2008.

"It was the most diverse turnout with the most young voters in history," said Lakin.

The Voting Rights Act was the first line of protection, but after the law was gutted by the Supreme Court’s five conservative justices in in 2013, the floodgates opened. By 2014, new laws limiting voting rights were in place in 15 states for the federal election. Voter ID laws and restrictions on registration were among the tactics used to set back the right to vote in these states, presenting new hurdles. "2013 and 2014 were difficult for voting rights advocates," said Lakin. A recent VICE News analysis found that a disproportionate number of polling stations closed in jurisdictions previously governed by the VRA, especially in minority neighborhoods.

The destruction of the legacy of the VRA is definitely being felt in Georgia, said Changa. She told VICE that the history of what's being done is resonating with many people in the state, both for the older population—like the elderly people on a get out the vote bus who were harassed last week—and the new generation.

"For a lot of young people, myself included, I never imagined we would be fighting for access to the ballot like this," said Changa.

In the five years since the Supreme Court gutted the act, new laws and procedures targeted at the right to vote have been put in place across the country. It's a variety of voter suppression tactics that are combining in 2018 with high turnout and tight races to create the conditions for unprecedented challenges. And the hits just keep on coming.

"In this cycle the pace of issues have been a bit breathless," said Lang. "There's a new report of a problem at every corner."