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      Truck convoy loops around Washington DC to protest Covid restrictions

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      Truck convoy loops around Washington DC to protest Covid restrictionsThe ‘people’s convoy’ of around 1,000 vehicles threaten a week of traffic disruptions around US capital A long line of huge semi-articulated trucks, recreational vehicles and cars was circling Washington DC, on Sunday, in preparation for what their protesting drivers have pledged will be a week of traffic disruption around the US capital aligned around a loose collection of demands, including the end to all coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions.From its temporary base at a speedway vehicle racing site in Hagerstown, 80 miles north-west in Maryland, organizers of what they term the “People’s Convoy” of around 1,000 vehicles have said they plan to welcome the new work week by driving slowly around Washington on the already notoriously-congested Beltway, or ring road, at the minimum legal speed in an attempt to get their message across to national politicians.The convoy, a spin-off of trucker protests further north that have snarled Ottawa and disrupted Canadian transport arteries to the US, began assembling in California last week.As it has made its way east, it has picked up similarly mobile, ideologically-aligned, fellow-travelers along the way.But America is already rapidly releasing its citizens from a patchwork of pandemic restrictions and Covid mandates as the most recent surge of infections subsides in many states and officials and the public begin talking of the waning pandemic.The changing circumstances is now prompting convoy organizers to adapt their demands to a more free-ranging basket of aspirations and motives.Some participants said the destination was reason enough to make the trek. At the speedway on Friday night, one participant who described himself as the lead trucker told a cheering crowd he would drive his truck into the heart of the American capital.But it remained unclear if the convoy plans to drive into the small area occupied by Washington DC, itself, or snarl masses of government workers and lawmakers on their morning and evening Beltway road commutes across the states immediately neighboring the District of Columbia as they head for their offices where they run the nation’s affairs of state.US law enforcement agencies are paying attention. A previous mobile protest called Stop the Tires [denoting the US spelling of tyres] morphed into a “Stop the Steal” demonstration supporting Donald Trump’s false claim that he had been fraudulently denied victory in the November 2020 election.And that in turn became part of the January 6 insurrection riot at the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Trump, the then Republican president, as they tried to overturn the official certification by the US Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory.“I decided to create a Facebook page where me and my buddies could gather to shoot the s**t about the policies that will be implemented if Trump is no longer the president,” StoptheTires2020 founder Jeremy Rewoldt told The Trucker publication in November 2020.At the speedway site, the drivers said their frustrations included workplace vaccine mandates and other pandemic measures. The crowds chanted anti-Biden slogans and displayed support for Trump.The gathering appeared much like a Trump rally, with a giant American flag slung between cranes attached to the beds of semi-articulated trucks.Many vehicles bore license plates from across the US; many drivers were honking their horns, a tactic that drove Ottawa residents to near distraction and caused an Ontario superior court to issue a 10-day ban on horn blowing.The US Department of Homeland Security has said it is coordinating with local authorities to prepare for the convoy’s arrival and warning that the truckers could hinder emergency services.At their Hagerstown meeting point, an estimated 1,000 protesters gathered Sunday to hear details of the plan. Kicking off with a prayer service during which a pastor told them they were “heroes”, the truckers heard from organizer Brian Brase who instructed them to drive between 45 and 55 miles per hour and stay in one line on the roads to and around Washington in order to best show the size of the convoy.They raised their morning coffees in salute before setting off for the capital, reported The Washington Post.Brase said the drivers planned to circle the capitol’s ring-road twice on Sunday and repeat that pattern on successive days. “We don’t want to shut DC down,” Brase told the newspaper.“We’re not anti-vaxxers. We’re not. We just want freedom, freedom. We want to choose. We just want the choice. So tomorrow is a basically a show of just how big we are and how serious we are.” Brase added that it was not clear how long the protest convoy would last.But he told the drivers, who are mostly white, middle-aged men, to celebrate the distance they had traveled, without instructions about what to do at their destination or what that destination might be.Without a destination or denouement in mind, the truckers on Sunday appeared destined to circle until further notice.Above the blare of horns, Brase described the situation as “very fluid”.TopicsWashington DCProtestCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      In an era of rightwing populism, we cannot destroy democracy in order to save it | Jeff Sparrow

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      In an era of rightwing populism, we cannot destroy democracy in order to save itJeff SparrowDemocracy isn’t an institution – it’s a practice that becomes stronger through use. The key to defeating Trump lies in mobilising ordinary people to articulate their real needs The recent anniversary of the Trumpian riot at the Capitol building highlighted a growing anxiety about the state of democracy both in America and around the world.In a widely circulated article, the Canadian professor Thomas Homer-Dixon warned of a rightwing dictatorship in the US by 2030. At the same time, a Quinnipiac University poll found nearly 60% of Americans believed their democracy is “in danger of collapse”.Internationally, the Stockholm based-NGO International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance says more nations than ever before faced “democratic erosion”, while Freedom House argues that “in every region of the world, democracy is under attack by populist leaders and groups that reject pluralism and demand unchecked power”.Trump’s ‘cult-like control’ of Republican party grows stronger since insurrectionRead moreUnfortunately, in response to that rightwing populist threat, many centrists fall back to the bad arguments of the past.In the wake of the first world war, US journalist Walter Lippmann claimed the mass media and its techniques of persuasion rendered the ordinary voter so susceptible to propaganda as to render democracy unworkable.“The world about which each man is supposed to have opinions,” he complained, “has become so complicated as to defy his powers of understanding.”Lippmann drew explicitly on a critique made by Plato in The Republic, where the philosopher described the Athenian assembly as giving liberty to demagogues. Such men, Plato explained, used rhetoric and emotion to whip up the masses behind power-hungry rogues, rather than allowing competent leaders to rule.Following Trump’s shock election in 2016, a modern-day version of this argument became a kind of centrist common sense, neatly captured in a viral New Yorker cartoon by Will McPhail. The drawing showed an airline passenger addressing others in the plane: “These smug pilots have lost touch with regular passengers like us. Who thinks I should fly the plane?”One from this week’s @NewYorker. Hello politics, my names Will. pic.twitter.com/5LfNYnOgMA— Will McPhail (@WillMcPhail) January 2, 2017
      The gag was widely circulated by liberals aghast at Trump’s policies. Yet, as I’ve argued elsewhere, rather than critiquing his racism and sexism the cartoon implied that the problem lay with a system that allowed ordinary people to opine on matters they weren’t qualified to adjudicate. Running the country, the image suggested, was like flying a plane: a matter best left to the experts.That was pretty much Plato’s argument – the basis on which he advocated a dictatorship by philosopher kings.Yet, contrary to what centrists claim, the real problem with rightwing populism is not that it’s populist but rather that it’s not – and can’t be – populist enough.The evolution of the Republican party into a vehicle for Trumpian populism provides a good illustration. The Washington Post recently noted that at least 163 politicians who accept Trump’s false claims about fraud in the 2020 poll are now running for “statewide positions that would give them authority over the administration of elections’”.That matters because legislatures dominated by Trump supporters have already been cracking down on mail-in ballots, imposing onerous ID requirements and otherwise making voting more difficult, with the nonpartisan Brennan Centre for Justice reporting at least 19 states imposing laws in 2021 that restricted voting access in some way.Why do those associated with Donald Trump seek a restricted franchise?A movement dominated by the super-wealthy and exploiting racial and gender anxieties relies upon exclusion. Despite its “populist” rhetoric, Trumpian demagoguery appeals to a minority: it cannot offer solutions to the population of an increasingly diverse nation.The key to defeating Trump thus lies in mobilising ordinary people to articulate their real needs.But across the United States, the legislative response to the Capitol riot pushed by Democrats has centred not on extending democratic rights but on laws criminalising demonstrations.As Branko Marcetic points out, the aftermath of 6 January saw “a crackdown on dissent: a dramatic increase in anti-protest bills around the country, including at least 88 that have been introduced since the Capitol riot; a massive buildup of the Capitol police into a national force to target ‘terrorism’; as well as the rollout by the Biden administration of a sweeping domestic counter-terror strategy.”Covid will not be our last global health crisis – we need a long-term plan | Jeff SparrowRead moreThe strategy includes on its list of “domestic violent extremists” groups such as environmentalists, anti-capitalists and animal rights activists, all of whom you’d expect to play an important role in a movement against Trump to cultivate.During the Vietnam war, an American commander supposedly explained the necessity of destroying a village in order to save it. In an era of rightwing populism, we need to ensure that the defences of democracy doesn’t follow a similar logic.Instead, progressives require a program that, as Nicholas Tampio puts it, treats “people as citizens – that is, as adults capable of thoughtful decisions and moral actions, rather than as children who need to manipulated”. That means entrusting them “with meaningful opportunities to participate in the political process” rather than simply expecting them to vote for one or another leader on polling day.Democracy isn’t an institution. It’s a practice – and, as such, it becomes stronger through use.That’s the real problem. When’s the last time you felt your opinion actually mattered in your daily life? How often do you take part in democratic debates in your workplace, your neighbourhood, your trade union or your community group?The withering of opportunities for ordinary people to exercise meaningful power over their collective affairs gives the Platonic critique of democracy an unwarranted credibility.Conversely, the more we practise governing ourselves – by debating, by organising, by demonstrating and protesting – the more natural democracy seems and the more isolated demagogues become.
      Jeff Sparrow is a Guardian Australia columnist
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      US Capitol attack: is the government’s expanded online surveillance effective?

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      US Capitol attack: is the government’s expanded online surveillance effective?The Brennan Center for Justice explains how the US government monitors social media – and how ‘counter-terrorism’ efforts can threaten civil rights and privacy In the year since the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, federal authorities have faced intense scrutiny for failing to detect warning signs on social media.After the 6 January insurrection, the US agency tasked with combatting terrorism and extremism, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has expanded its monitoring of online activity, with officials touting a new domestic terrorism intelligence branch focused on tracking online threats and sharing information about possible attacks. A senior DHS official told the Guardian this week the department aims to track “narratives known to provoke violence” and platforms that have been linked to threats. The primary goal, the official said, was to warn potential targets when they should enhance security.In the days leading up to the anniversary of the riot, for example, the agency saw an uptick in activity on platforms tied to white supremacists and neo-Nazis and warned law enforcement partners when appropriate, the official said. This monitoring relies on DHS analysts, not artificial intelligence, and doesn’t target “ideologies”, the official added, but rather “calls for violence”.The Guardian spoke with Harsha Panduranga, counsel with the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a not-for-profit organization that has tracked police and government entities’ online surveillance programs, about the US government’s monitoring of social media in the wake of 6 January.Although DHS says its online efforts are consistent with privacy protections, civil rights and civil liberties, the expansion of social media monitoring still raised concerns, Panduranga argued. Without proper safeguards, a new report from the center warns, the expanded social media surveillance could be both ineffective at preventing attacks and harmful to marginalized groups that end up targeted and criminalized by “counter-terrorism” efforts.The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Which US government agencies monitor online activity?Many federal agencies monitor social media, including DHS, the FBI, the state department, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the US Postal Service, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US Marshals Service and the Social Security Administration (SSA). Our work has primarily focused on DHS, FBI and the state department, which make extensive use of social media for monitoring, targeting and information collection.Revealed: LAPD used ‘strategic communications’ firm to track ‘defund the police’ onlineRead moreWhy do these agencies monitor civilians’ social media?The FBI and DHS use social media monitoring to assist with investigations and to detect potential threats. Some of those investigations do not require a showing of criminal activity. For example, FBI agents can open an “assessment” [the lowest-level investigative stage] simply on the basis of preventing crime or terrorism, and without a factual basis. During assessments, FBI agents can search publicly available online information.Subsequent investigative stages, which require some factual basis, open the door for more invasive surveillance, such as the recording of private online communications. The FBI also awarded a contract to a firm in December 2020 to scour social media and proactively identify “national security and public safety-related events” not yet reported to law enforcement.DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division says it relies on social media when investigating matters ranging from civil immigration violations to terrorism. Government entities also monitor social media for “situational awareness” to coordinate a response to breaking events.How broad is this surveillance?Some DHS divisions, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the National Operations Center (NOC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), keep tabs on a broad list of websites and keywords being discussed on social media platforms. The agencies’ “privacy impact assessments” suggest there are few limits on the content that can be reviewed. Some assessments list a sweeping range of keywords that are monitored, including “attack”, “public health”, “power outage”, and “jihad”. Immigration authorities also use social media to screen travelers and immigrants coming into the US and even to monitor them while they live here. People applying for a range of immigration benefits also undergo social media checks to verify information in their application and determine whether they pose a security risk. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents can also look at publicly available social media content for a range of investigations, including probing “potential criminal activity” and are authorized to operate undercover online and monitor private communications.How has this surveillance expanded in the wake of the insurrection?The main new DHS effort we’re aware of is an initiative monitoring social media to try to identify “narratives” giving rise to violence. DHS says they’ll use social media to pinpoint tips, leads and trends. In September, for example, DHS warned there could be another attack on the Capitol in connection with a Justice for J6 rally. But reports showed that law enforcement personnel [and journalists] outnumbered the protesters, and there was no indication of violence at the protest. This shows how difficult it is to predict violence relying on social media chatter.How concerned are you about the potential for civil rights violations in the wake of 6 January?January 6 seems to be accelerating this emphasis on social media monitoring without sufficient safeguards. And the monitoring to identify “narratives” that may lead to violence is broad enough to sweep in constitutionally protected speech and political discussion on various issues. We’ve long seen that government monitoring of social media harms people in a number of ways, including wrongly implicating an individual or group in criminal behavior based on their online activity; misinterpreting the meaning of social media activity, sometimes with severe consequences; suppressing people’s willingness to talk or connect openly online; and invading individuals’ privacy. Authorities have characterized ordinary activity, like wearing a particular sneaker brand or making common hand signs, or social media connections, as evidence of criminal or threatening behavior. This kind of assumption can have high-stakes consequences.Can you share some specific examples that illustrate these consequences?In 2020, DHS and the FBI disseminated reports to law enforcement in Maine warning of potential violence at anti-police brutality demonstrations based on fake social media posts by rightwing provocateurs. Police in Kansas arrested a teenager in 2020 on suspicion of inciting a riot reportedly based on a mistaken interpretation of his Snapchat post, in which he was actually denouncing violence. In 2019, DHS officials barred a Palestinian student arriving to study at Harvard from entering the country allegedly based on the content of his friends’ social media posts. The student said he had neither written nor engaged with the posts, which were critical of the US government. In another case of guilt by association, the NYPD was accused of wrongly arresting a 19-year-old for attempted murder in 2012 in part because prosecutors argued his “likes” and photos on social media proved he was a member of a violent gang. That same year, British travelers were interrogated at Los Angeles international airport and sent back to the UK reportedly due to a border agent’s misinterpretation of a joking tweet.Is social media surveillance effective at identifying legitimate threats?Broad social media monitoring for threat detection purposes generates reams of useless information, crowding out information on real public safety concerns. Government officials and assessments have repeatedly recognized that this dynamic makes it difficult to distinguish a sliver of genuine threats from the millions of everyday communications that do not warrant law enforcement attention. The former acting chief of DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) said last year, “Actual intent to carry out violence can be difficult to discern from the angry, hyperbolic – and constitutionally protected – speech and information commonly found on social media.” And a 2021 internal review of I&A reported that searching “for true threats of violence before they happen is a difficult task filled with ambiguity”. The review observed that personnel collected information on a “broad range of general threats” that provided “information of limited value”, including “memes, hyperbole, statements on political organizations and other protected first amendment speech”. Similar concerns cropped up with the DHS’s pilot programs to use social media to vet refugees.US citizens v FBI: Will the government face charges for illegal surveillance?Read moreWhat groups are most impacted by this kind of surveillance?Black, brown and Muslim people, as well as activists and dissenters more generally, are especially vulnerable to being falsely labeled as threats based on social media activity. Both the FBI and DHS have monitored Black Lives Matter activists. In 2017, the FBI created a specious terrorism threat category called “Black Identity Extremism” , which can be read to include protests against police violence. This category has been used to rationalize continued surveillance of Black activists, including monitoring of social media activity. In 2020, DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis used social media and other tools to target and monitor racial justice protestors in Portland, Oregon, justifying this surveillance by pointing to the threat of vandalism to Confederate monuments. DHS then disseminated intelligence reports on journalists reporting on this overreach. Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities have often been particular targets of the US government’s discriminatory travel and immigration screening practices, including social media screening.How do you think the government should be responding to the intelligence failures of 6 January?A Senate committee report from last year found that DHS failed to produce a specific warning connected to what would happen on 6 January. An FBI field office had circulated a warning about an online threat with a specific call for violence, but it didn’t convince officials to better prepare for the attack. I think one takeaway from these failures is that broadly monitoring social media for scary things people are saying, without any further reason to suspect wrongdoing, tends to flood warning systems with useless information. This makes it harder to pick out what matters and sweeps in thousands of people who haven’t or wouldn’t do anything violent. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies already have ample and potent tools to investigate far-right violence without relying on indiscriminate social media monitoring, but they are not using these tools as effectively as they should. Instigators of the 6 January riot, for example, were members of groups that were already known to law enforcement. Some of them had previously participated in organized far-right violence, yet authorities did not bring charges or fully investigate the criminal activities of these organizations. So more indiscriminate surveillance isn’t the answer – in fact, such measures are much more likely to harm the very communities that are already at greater risk.TopicsUS Capitol attackSurveillanceUS politicsProtestActivismRacefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Kyle Rittenhouse verdict declares open hunting season on progressive protesters | Cas Mudde

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      Kyle Rittenhouse has walked free. Now it’s open season on protestersCas MuddeDemonstrators in the US must fear not only police brutality but also rightwing vigilantes

      Kyle Rittenhouse acquittal: follow the latest
      Kyle Rittenhouse – the armed white teenager whose mother drove him from Illinois to Wisconsin to allegedly “protect” local businesses from anti-racism protesters in Kenosha, whereupon he shot and killed two people and injured another – has been acquitted of all charges. I don’t think anyone who has followed the trial even casually will be surprised by this verdict. After the various antics by the elected judge, which seemed to indicate where his sympathies lay, and the fact that the prosecution asked the jurors to consider charges lesser than murder, the writing was on the wall.I do not want to discuss the legal particulars of the verdict. It is clear that the prosecution made many mistakes and got little to no leeway from the judge, unlike the defense team. Moreover, we know that “self-defense” – often better known as vigilantism – is legally protected and highly racialized in this country. Think of the acquittal of George Zimmerman of the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013.In essence, the Rittenhouse ruling has created a kind of “stand your ground” law for the whole country. White people now have the apparent right to travel around the country, heavily armed, and use violence to protect the country from whatever and whoever they believe to be threatening to it. Given the feverish paranoia and racism that has captured a sizeable minority of white people in the US these days, this is a recipe for disaster.In the coming hours and days, many media outlets will eagerly await riots or other potentially violent reactions from the other side – from the anti-racists and progressives of all colors and races who are disturbed by this verdict – and use the existence of those riots, if they occur, to push a misguided “both sides” frame. If there is protest or rioting, don’t expect the police to be as courteous and supportive as they were towards Rittenhouse and his far-right buddies.The most worrying effect of this verdict may be this: giving rightwing vigilantes a legal precedent to take up arms against anyone they consider a threat – which pretty much runs from anti-fascists to so-called Rinos (Republicans in Name Only) and includes almost all people of color – means it is now open hunting season on progressive protesters.‘A travesty’: reaction to Kyle Rittenhouse verdict marks divided USRead moreDon’t get me wrong; this ruling alone did not start this kind of lopsided law and order. It is just the latest in a centuries-old American tradition of protecting white terror and vigilantism. Civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, particularly but not exclusively in the south, were not just denied police protection; the demonstrators were attacked and abused by the police. That was also the case at many Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year.A Boston Globe investigation found that “between [George] Floyd’s death on 25 May 2020 and 30 September 2021, vehicles drove into protests at least 139 times”, injuring at least 100 people. In fewer than half of the cases the driver was charged, and only four drivers have been convicted of a felony. Moreover, in response to these attacks, Republican legislators have proposed laws to protect the drivers from legal action in case they hit a protester. Florida, Iowa, and Oklahoma have already passed such laws.It takes courage to publicly protest in any situation, particularly when protesting state powers. Now protesters in the US will have to fear not only police brutality but an emboldened and violent far right, fired up by the Republican party and the broader rightwing media and protected by the local legal system.All of this comes at a crucial point in US democracy. From Georgia to Wisconsin, the Republican party is attacking the electoral system, while their supporters are terrorizing poll workers and those signing up to be poll workers in the next elections. In the event that Democrats win important elections in conservative states in 2022 – think Stacey Abrams in Georgia or Beto O’Rourke in Texas – there is a big chance that these results will be contested and judged by highly partisan forces protected by state politicians.Similarly, should President Biden or another Democrat win the 2024 presidential election, the result will again be challenged in conservative states, but this time independent poll workers could be absent or outnumbered and the few Republicans who withstood Donald Trump’s pressure in 2020 will have been replaced or have fallen in line.At that point, Democrats, and indeed all democratic-minded citizens, will have to go into the streets to protest. They will confront an alliance of heavily armed civilians and police and national guard, who can attack protesters with effective immunity. Remember: Kyle Rittenhouse has just been acquitted after killing two people and injuring a third at a protest.In my home country, the Netherlands, we have a saying that is used regularly in political discussions: “Democracy is not for scared people.” Most of the time when it is used, we mean that democracy is not for people who are afraid of change or of critique. In the US, in the wake of today’s verdict, this saying has become both more real and more sinister.
      Cas Mudde is Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, the author of The Far Right Today (2019), and host of the podcast Radikaal. He is a Guardian US columnist
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      Washington voting rights march marks Martin Luther King anniversary

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      US voting rightsWashington voting rights march marks Martin Luther King anniversaryNearly 60 years after the I Have a Dream speech, crowds came to the capital again to protest attacks on minority rights Ankita Rao in WashingtonSat 28 Aug 2021 16.25 EDTLast modified on Sat 28 Aug 2021 16.31 EDTTheodore Dean marched in Washington DC in 1963, somewhere in the crowd behind Martin Luther King Jr. Exactly 58 years later, he decided to drive 16 hours from Alabama to do it again.Will America’s latest redistricting cycle be even worse than the last? Read more“I’m here because I’ve got grandchildren and children,” the 84-year-old told the Guardian as he and his son made their way past the White House.Dean joined thousands for March On for Voting Rights, an event organized by a coalition of civil rights groups and nonprofits. Speakers included Rev Al Sharpton and Cori Bush, a Democratic congresswoman from Missouri.The US Senate will soon vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a measure passed by the House which would restore protections from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 at a time when minority voters are the target of concerted Republican efforts to restrict access and participation. Furthermore, lawmakers across the US are set to redraw electoral districts, a process open to partisan abuse.In Washington on Saturday, however, it was clear that voting rights was not the only issue on people’s minds. While some marchers carried posters supporting the end of the filibuster and gerrymandering, weapons wielded to great effect by Republicans in state and federal government, others chanted about police violence toward Black people, worker’s rights, the Afghanistan withdrawal and minimum wage.In many ways, the spectrum of issues reflected Dr King’s agenda 58 years ago, when on 28 August 1963 he told a crowd at the Lincoln Memorial: “I have a dream.”“The original march on Washington was not just about Black people and voting rights – it was for jobs and justice,” said Rev William Barber II, a prominent activist and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, after his own speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, at a “Make Good Trouble Rally”.“It was about brutality, poverty, voting rights. There was unfinished business.”Barber said the US was facing issues that had little to do with Donald Trump, the Republican president beaten by Joe Biden but still an active force in national politics from the far right.“In some ways Trump not being president is forcing the movement to have to understand this was never about a person,” Barber said. “All Americans should be worried, concerned, mad and dissatisfied. We may be a civil oligarchy and not a democracy, and the next step is autocracy.”Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign have held marches and rallies across the US, particularly in states like Texas, where lawmakers passed a sweeping elections bill this week that would curb access to voting, and West Virginia, where both cities and rural areas are seeing high rates of poverty and joblessness.West Virginia is home to Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat who along with Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has refused to end the filibuster, a procedural rule Republicans have used to block key voting rights legislation.“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Rev Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, adding that a summer of action had given her hope. While the coronavirus pandemic further exposed deep economic disparities, she said, it also gave rise to temporary legislative solutions, such as an eviction moratorium and stimulus checks.“We can take our experience here and make it work for everybody,” she said.On Saturday, thousands braving 93F (34C) heat were holding on to optimism too.“Our ancestors did these walks and talk so this is something I’m supposed to do,” said Najee Farwell, a student at Bowie State University in Maryland who rode a bus to the march with fellow students.“I feel as though if I don’t stand up, who else is going to?”TopicsUS voting rightsUS politicsCivil rights movementMartin Luther KingRaceUS CongressProtestnewsReuse this content More