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      in Elections

      'Truly remarkable': Arizona activists celebrate as conservative stalwart shifts blue

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      Ten years ago in Arizona, a night like 3 November 2020 would have seemed impossible.
      Back then, the conservative stalwart of the south-west was not just a state with strong Republican leadership on almost every level – it was a state whose staunch anti-immigration stance would go on to shape policy in the party for years to come, and would gain a reputation as the birthplace of Trumpism.
      A Republican super-majority state legislature had passed SB1070, a law requiring local law enforcement to ask for proof of legal immigration status from anyone deemed suspicious. Hardline anti-immigration sheriff Joe Arpaio – the Donald Trump of Maricopa county before Donald Trump became the Donald Trump he is today – was not just in power, he seemed near untouchable.
      “We would host know-your-rights sessions, with backyards full of over a hundred people because there was so much fear,” said Alejandra Gomez, co-executive director of advocacy group Living United for Change in Arizona (Lucha). “There were literally checkpoints that we would have to go monitor that Sheriff Arpaio put in common intersections. There were phone trees that the community had to give each other heads up of when Arpaio and his posse were going to be there.”
      Gomez smiled. “We don’t have that any more. And that’s because of the resistance of Arizona and the strategic calculations that this community has made.”
      On Tuesday, Arizona began to shift blue. While a number of ballots remained to be counted, the Associated Press called the race for Joe Biden, who was leading by 5 percentage points, saying that the remaining ballots would not be enough for Trump to close the gap to victory in Arizona. With 99% of precincts reporting, Democratic candidate Mark Kelly leads Republican Martha McSally with 52.63% of the vote in the race for John McCain’s former senate seat. Alongside Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who won her US Senate seat in 2018, this marks the first time Arizona would have two sitting Democrats in the US chamber in a lifetime. The state legislature is also expected to flip to a Democratic majority in both chambers for the first time since 1966, though with narrower margins in some races than previously hoped.

      “In 10 years, we went from a super-majority Republican state, and now, in 2020, we’re going to flip the legislature to a majority blue, our electoral votes will be a deciding factor in electing Joe Biden, and we are going to have not one, but two United State senate seats going out to Washington DC to represent our voices,” said Democratic state representative Athena Salman, who won her re-election bid Tuesday.
      “It is truly remarkable and so exciting to be living in this state right now.”
      But Tuesday was no fluke. It was the culmination of more than 10 years of tireless boots-on-the-ground organizing, campaigning, marching, protesting and door-knocking.
      It was never about politics for these organizers and activists. It was never about Republican or Democrat, red state or blue state, conservative or liberal.
      “This was not a state where you got involved in politics because you wanted to do work in politics,” said Tomas Robles, co-executive director of Lucha. “For us, it wasn’t about attaching ourselves to a political party. In 2010, both political parties deserted us. There were Democrats who did not vote against SB1070, folks who did not even bother showing up.”
      For them, it was a fight for their lives. It was a fight to keep families together, to prevent the deportation of loved ones, the criminalization of an entire race.
      “The 10 years of this, it’s a sign that Arizona is moving in the direction that we envisioned since 2010,” Robles said. “You have eight-year-olds who experienced the heartbreak of watching their families stand there in fear because of SB1070. They’re now 18-year-old voters. You have a ton of people that have grown up experiencing what it is to organize and what it is to build collective political power in a state that used to have none of it.”
      In the pandemic, 90% of the members of Unite Here Local 11, a union representing predominantly Latinx and immigrant hospitality workers in southern California and Arizona, lost their jobs. So instead, they took to the streets, knocking on doors to campaign for Biden and Kelly, sometimes in the sweltering 120-degree Fahrenheit Arizona heat.
      In July, union organizers met with epidemiologists specifically to find ways for their members and volunteers to safely continue knocking on doors. Since then, they estimated that they’ve knocked on 800,000 doors and had at least 250,000 conversations.
      “People know,” said Unite Here Local 11 co-president Susan Minato. “They’re not stupid. They know there are a lot of negative things going on and our country is way worse than it was before Trump started. That’s why people are here. There are children today, 550 of them, who are in cages. No one even knows who they are, who their parents are. They were taken from their parents arms. If we live in a country where that can happen, then anything can happen.
      “If people know that in their gut, then they’re here in the heat, they’re here, separated from their own children and loved ones temporarily, they’re here knocking on the doors of strangers in a pandemic, and they’re loving it because they know this is how we save our country.”
      Local organizers and activists have much to celebrate after Tuesday. Beyond the wins, beyond turning Arizona blue, the state saw historic youth and Latinx voter turnout, they said.

      Vivian Ho
      (@VivianHo)
      “Tonight, we claim victory. We claim victory because we were told that Latinos don’t show up. And we showed up.” @LUCHA_AZ pic.twitter.com/VMpnhw5vym

      November 4, 2020

      But they’re also already looking ahead. Minato noted that they have just two years to go before the governor’s race. And Robles pointed out that winning the election is just half the battle.
      “This is a marker in a very long marathon,” Robles said. “We’re going to have to prepare our members and prepare our leaders and also prepare our elected officials that our voters put in those seats. Election Day is just when you get the job. The job has only just begun. We’re ready and prepared to deal with whoever is in charge with crafting policy that will affect our families.” More

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      in Elections

      Record number of Native American women elected to Congress

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      The 117th Congress will have a record number of Native American women after voters elected three to the House of Representatives.Democrats Deb Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo member representing New Mexico, and Sharice Davids, a Ho-Chunk Nation member representing Kansas, both retained their seats after becoming the first Native American women elected to Congress, in 2018.They are joined by Yvette Herrell, who is Cherokee. Herrell, a Republican, beat the Democratic incumbent Xochitl Torres Small for her New Mexico congressional seat.The wins for Herrell and Haaland mean that New Mexico will be the first state to have two indigenous women as congressional delegates. The state also became the first to elect women of color as all three of its delegates in the US House of Representatives.According to a Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) report, 18 indigenous women were running for congressional seats this year – a record in a single year. Native American women made up 2.6% of all women running for Congress this year, the highest percentage since CAWP started collecting data in 2004.There have been four Native Americans in the US Senate and a handful of indigenous US representatives. All were men until Haaland and Davids were elected in 2018.In Kansas, Stephanie Byers, who is Chickasaw and a retired teacher, became the state’s first transgender lawmaker when she won her race for a seat in its house of representatives.“We’ve made history here,” Byers said on Tuesday. “We’ve done something in Kansas most people thought would never happen, and we did it with really no pushback, by just focusing on the issues.”Also in Kansas, Christina Haswood, a Navajo Nation member, became the youngest person in the state legislature at 26. A third member of the Kansas house , Ponka-We Victors, a Tohono O’odham and Ponca member, won her re-election campaign.The US House of Representatives will have its highest number of indigenous representatives after Tuesday’s election, according to the independent Native American newspaper Indian Country Today.Six candidates, including Haaland, Davids and Herrell, won their elections. Two Oklahoma representatives, Tom Cole, who is Chickasaw, and Markwayne Mullin, who is Cherokee, won their re-elections, and Kaiali’i “Kai” Kahele, who is Native Hawaiian, won an open seat for Hawaii. There were previously four indigenous members of Congress, all in the House of Representatives. More

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      in Elections

      Mail-in ballot tracker: counting election votes in US swing states

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      This piece is published in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive their biggest stories as soon as they’re published
      An unprecedented number of Americans have voted by mail this year to avoid Covid-19 risk. Joe Biden’s supporters said they were more likely to vote by mail while Donald Trump’s supporters said they were more likely to vote in person. With postal delays, rejected ballots and a dearth of funding, the process isn’t always smooth – ballots can be rejected for multiple reasons, and due to court challenges, election rules are changing even while voting is underway. Meanwhile, Trump and other Republican officials have spent the last months casting doubt on the mail-in voting process, paving the way for legal battles during the vote count.
      Propublica badge
      With data from University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald, the Guardian and ProPublica are tracking votes in politically competitive states through the election to find out how many people are voting by mail, how their votes are counted, and what it means for the 2020 election. Our tracker will be updated as we obtain updated information, as well as other state data. We will also be investigating any aberrations and issues in the mail-in voting process as we find them, and telling the stories of the people and communities affected most.
      Georgia
      16 electoral votes
      Democrats believe Joe Biden may be able to win a state long seen as a Republican bastion, which would be a coup for the campaign. More people have already returned their ballots than voted by mail in total in 2016. The state has thousands of outstanding ballots to count, and liberal cities like Atlanta are expected to skew more towards Biden. Voters must return their ballots to election offices by election day in order to have them counted.

      Wisconsin
      10 electoral votes
      Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes, a year when voter turnout in key cities such as Milwaukee was also low. This year, voting rights groups are pushing the state to count ballots if they are postmarked by election day but arrive afterward. Currently, mail-in ballots must be received by 3 November at 8pm.

      Pennsylvania
      20 electoral votes
      Home to some of the most intense legal battles of the election, the state where Joe Biden was born could be the deciding factor in 2020. Pennsylvania had been a Democratic stronghold for six presidential elections until Trump carried the state by 0.7% in 2016. It’s very possible that the election result in Pennsylvania will not be known for days. That’s because Philadelphia, the state’s biggest city, could take days to count its mail-in ballots, according to officials there. Ballots must be postmarked by election day and received by 6 November at 5pm to be counted.

      Florida
      29 electoral votes
      Few states were more important on election night than Florida, where Trump has already been projected the winner. Voters must return their ballots to election offices by 7pm on election night to have them counted. Local election officials are required to contact voters if the signature on their ballot does not match the one on file.

      North Carolina
      15 electoral votes
      A battleground state Donald Trump carried in 2016, North Carolina is in the spotlight for being still too close to call. The state has seen an unprecedented surge in mail-in voting, not typically used widely in the state. Ballots must be postmarked by election day and received no later than 12 November at 5pm.

      Michigan
      16 electoral votes
      Michigan is one of the midwestern states that offer a clear path of victory for Joe Biden. The state has seen a massive change in voting procedures since 2016, including a constitutional amendment that gives everyone in the state the right to vote by mail without an excuse. Ballots must be postmarked by election day and received that day by 8pm.

      Ohio
      18 electoral votes
      Trump won the swing state easily in 2016, and was declared the projected winner on Tuesday night. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by 2 November, or in person on election day, and received by 13 November at 7.30pm.

      Iowa
      Six electoral votes
      Donald Trump won Iowa on election night, while Democrats failed to oust the first-term GOP senator Joni Ernst. Anyone in Iowa is eligible to vote by mail and must return their ballot to election officials by the close of the polls on election day to have it counted.

      Minnesota
      10 electoral votes
      Trump claimed he could win Minnesota this year, though he lost the reliable blue state in 2016 by 1.5%, because of rural voters who favor the president. But after police killed the unarmed Black man George Floyd in the state earlier this year, it also launched the biggest protest movement and civil unrest in decades – a factor that could play into voter turnout. Ballots must be postmarked by 3 November, and received by 10 November. More

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      in Elections

      Vote totals expected to swing back and forth as key US states continue to count

      by

      Many Americans woke up bleary-eyed Wednesday morning after a late night of watching presidential returns as key places in battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia, continue to count votes.The message from experts and election officials to Americans have been to stay patient as the votes are counted because there’s nothing unusual about the ongoing count. Election officials and experts have said for months that counting was likely to extend past election night because of a surge in mail-in ballots that take longer to tally.Donald Trump falsely claimed early Wednesday morning that he won the election and pledged to go to take legal action to stop counting, including going to the US supreme court, even though there were still a significant number of ballots to be counted.Vote totals are expected to swing back and forth on Wednesday in key states as different places report their counts. The president suggested Wednesday the swings were evidence of nefarious activity, but that’s not true. The swings reflect the fact that different parts of a state that have different political leanings are reporting their results at different times.Democratic-friendly areas such as Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia have been slower to report their results than other jurisdictions in their respective states because of the higher volume of ballots. Republicans who control the state legislatures in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania also refused to move up the deadline to count absentee ballots, contributing to the delayed counts Wednesday.To win the presidency, Joe Biden needs to win at least the states of Wisconsin and Michigan, key battlegrounds that Trump won in 2016. In Michigan, Biden holds a narrow lead, but officials in some of the state’s largest places, including Detroit, are still counting ballots. It’s difficult to know when the state will have final results, but Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, said Wednesday there should be a more “complete picture” in the state by the end of the day.As counting continued, the United States Postal Service (USPS) released new data Wednesday morning showing poor on-time delivery rates for ballots across the country. In the Detroit postal district, about 79% of ballots were delivered within the agency’s window for on-time delivery, and in the area that covers most of Wisconsin, 76% were delivered on time. In the Philadelphia district just 66.3% were on time. Michigan and Wisconsin both require voters to return their ballots by the close of polls on election day in order to have them counted.But USPS said in a legal filing the numbers are “unreliable” and do “not reflect accurate service performance” because they don’t reflect mail taken out of normal process to be delivered faster closer to election day.A federal judge in Washington DC is also set to hold a hearing Wednesday after USPS failed to comply with an order to perform a last-minute sweep of election facilities after the agency said there were 300,000 ballots that did not have an outgoing scan. The agency has cautioned these ballots may not contain that scan because they were expedited.Democrats had urged voters to avoid the mail and return their ballots in person, and that message appears to have successfully gotten that message out in Milwaukee.In recent weeks, a sorting facility in the overwhelmingly Democratic city was processing about 3,000 absentee ballots daily, but only sent through 44 ballots on Tuesday, said Ron Kania, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers branch 2. The deadline for ballots to count in Wisconsin was 8pm on election day.“We trickled down to practically zero the last couple days,” Kania said. His facility conducted regular sweeps for ballots throughout election day and expedited any that they found.“As far as I know, everything we received went out,” he added.If Biden does carry Wisconsin and Michigan, he only needs to carry Nevada to win the presidency. Biden holds a narrow lead in the state, but the secretary of state’s office said Tuesday no more vote totals would be reported until Thursday morning. Trump’s campaign foreshadowed legal action in the state Wednesday morning, saying it was confident the president would carry the state if all “legal ballots” were counted.In Pennsylvania, vote totals at 1pm showed Trump leading by about 469,000 votes. But the state still needs to count “millions of ballots”, Kathy Boockvar, the state’s top election official, said Wednesday. In Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold, the city’s top election official said officials had counted 141,000 out of 351,000 mail-in votes Wednesday morning.In Pennsylvania, there’s also an additional complication. Because of a state supreme court ruling, the state is legally required to count ballots that arrive by Friday. It’s unclear how many ballots will arrive between now and Friday.There are also about 200,000 votes that still need to be counted in Georgia, the state’s top election official said Wednesday. The state, long seen as a Republican bastion, is considerably closer this year. Trump led as of Wednesday morning by 109,000 votes and there are at least 107,000 outstanding votes in Democratic-leaning counties, the Journal-Constitution reported.Tom Perkins contributed to this report More

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      in World Politics

      Who Are the Men Hoping to Succeed Angela Merkel?

      by

      The decision of who will follow Angela Merkel to become Germany’s next chancellor is still up in the air. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party conference to elect a new leader has been postponed until January next year.

      Merkel’s approval ratings have skyrocketed during the pandemic. Recent polls show that 72% of Germans are either satisfied or very satisfied with her performance. The last time Merkel enjoyed such high popularity was in January 2015, shortly before the refugee crisis, which saw her approval ratings plummet. The refugee crisis divided German society and eroded trust in democratic institutions and the political class. Recovery from this, at least during Merkel’s tenure, appeared unlikely. But it seems another crisis was needed to reignite the love between the German public and the chancellor, a relationship that is entering its 16th — and final — year. 

      The Downward Spiral of Angela Merkel’s CDU

      READ MORE

      Since Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her resignation as party leader in February this year, three potential successors have been waiting in the wings. They will find it hard to live up to Merkel’s qualities that endeared her not only to the German, but also the global, public. Merkel’s unagitated, unpretentious and clear-headed governing style that proved particularly effective during the pandemic threatens to overshadow the three men itching to succeed her.

      Friedrich Merz: Merkel’s Antithesis

      Leading the polls among the three candidates is Friedrich Merz, a lawyer and former supervisory board chairman of the asset managing firm Blackrock. He comes from the economically liberal and conservative wing of the CDU, endorsing less state regulation of the economy. In 2000, before Merkel ousted him as CDU whip in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, Merz demanded a so-called “German leading culture” as a counterweight to the model of multiculturalism. Even today, he proposes cuts to social benefits for immigrants. Furthermore, he set off controversial intra-party debates during CDU regional conferences in 2018 by questioning the individual right to asylum. 

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      His appeal: Despite losing to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in his first attempt to become the CDU leader in 2018, Merz is a popular figure among party members and has a devout group of supporters. He is a good speaker and can draw large crowds. Merz comes across as authentic and a straight talker. Furthermore, he embodies the times of the 1990s and the early 2000s, when the world seemed less complicated. That could give him an advantage, especially among older male voters.

      His Achilles heel: Merz is an old foe of Angela Merkel and hasn’t occupied political office for almost 18 years. Hence, he cannot count on much support among senior party figures in the CDU, which is vital to securing the leadership. He recently underlined his intra-party role as a divisive lone warrior by stating that the cancellation of the conference on December 4 was the latest part of a concerted effort to prevent him from becoming party leader.

      How he has fared during the pandemic: Without a government position and after catching COVID-19 in March, Merz struggled to get much public attention during the first few months of the pandemic. That has not changed despite his attempts to initiate a debate about the post-coronavirus economic recovery. Only his recent accusations around the delay of the party conference caught attention, probably not to his advantage.

      Armin Laschet: Merkel’s Man

      Merz’s closest rival, Armin Laschet, is the minister president of Germany’s most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia. He represents a continuation of Merkel’s policies and is known for defending her controversial stance on refugees and migration policy. Concerning national issues, Laschet tends to strike a moderate rather than conservative tone. Nonetheless, he has shown to be capable of appealing to the conservative wing of the party by buckling down on crime in his home state.

      His appeal: Laschet is a candidate for cosmopolitan, left-leaning swing voters. Also, he has an ace up his sleeve: Laschet has teamed up with Health Minister Jens Spahn, whose conservative profile appeals to voters in rural Germany. This double ticket, which speaks to a broad voter base, and the support of the largest and influential CDU state association from North-Rhine Westphalia, make him a favorite to win the leadership.

      His Achilles heel: Laschet’s attributes of being a unifier and striking moderate tones has its flipside. He is not a charismatic leader who can capture people’s hearts, which might be a disadvantage in the final weeks of the leadership race. 

      How he has fared during the pandemic: As head of a state government, the COVID-19 crisis was a chance for Laschet to get an advantage over his competitors. He failed to seize it. In his attempt to take a more light-hearted approach to the virus, Laschet exuded nervousness. It came across as a desperate attempt to distinguish himself from his adversary, the Bavarian Minister President Markus Söder, who implemented more rigorous measures to fight the pandemic. But with time, as people become weary of constraints, his strategy might come to fruition.

      Norbert Röttgen: Merkel’s Smartest

      Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, represents the left-wing of the CDU. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, he instigated the phasing out of Germany’s nuclear power as federal environment minister. He also favors a yet unprecedented coalition between the CDU and the Greens on a national level. Regarding foreign policy, he demands a more decisive and self-assured role for Germany in international affairs.

      His appeal: As a former member of Merkel’s cabinet, Röttgen was referred to as “Muttis Klügster” — Mother’s Smartest. His strength is a profound knowledge of policy, coupled with rhetorical skills that allow him to come across thoughtful and precise.

      His Achilles heel: Röttgen has no noteworthy supporter group within the party and is having trouble distinguishing himself from the other two candidates. On the one hand, his policies resemble Laschet’s too closely while also not appealing to conservative party members. He is the clear outsider in the race.

      How he has fared during the pandemic: Not very well. Without inhabiting any political office, Röttgen was hardly visible during the pandemic.

      What About Markus Söder?

      Regardless of how the leadership race unfolds, Markus Söder, the party leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is touted as Germany’s next chancellor. Most Germans would prefer him over the three candidates running for the CDU’s party leadership. According to opinion polls, 37% of the German electorate would choose Söder as chancellor over potential competitors from the Greens and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Despite being the second choice among CDU members after Friedrich Merz, 53% of the membership regards Markus Söder as the candidate with the highest chances of winning a general election. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Söder’s rising popularity is nothing short of unexpected. In his younger years, Söder came across as an overambitious agitator and a vain self-promoter. But he has masterfully used the COVID-19 crisis as a stage to demonstrate a statesmanlike demeanor with a supposedly firm grip on things. Remarkably, above-average coronavirus case numbers and failures in Bavarian testing centers have not affected his high approval ratings. But Söder himself has remained tight-lipped about his ambitions. When asked whether he rules out running for chancellor, he typically replies with the phrase, “My place is in Bavaria.” Until now, this non-committal strategy has proved to be shrewd. While the three candidates might wear themselves out in petty skirmishes, he can enhance his idealized self-image of the caring and resolute Bavarian chief minister.

      Nevertheless, his opportunity to run for chancellor is dependent on the outcome of the leadership race. An equally ambitious fighter, Friedrich Merz would hardly give the chancellorship a miss if elected party leader. Only a victory for Laschet or a surprise candidacy of his running mate, Jens Spahn, would open a clear window of opportunity for Söder.

      The delay of the party conference has added a new dimension to the race. It has given candidates in public offices like Laschet and Söder more time and opportunity to shine. In contrast, other candidates, particularly Friedrich Merz, are scrambling for the limelight. That has led to resentment as Merz sees the delayed party conference as a plot to thwart his chances. He might have a case.

      The longer Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer remains party leader, the more she can pull strings toward a more favorable outcome. It is an open secret that she, as well as Angela Merkel, would prefer Laschet over Merz. Also, Kramp-Karrenbauer warned against possible surprise candidacies to avoid a “ruinous competition.” Rumors suggest that Jens Spahn, who is increasingly popular among CDU members as well as voters, could enter the race.

      As the infighting in the party commences, the CDU should not forget why the leadership race is taking in the first place. The CDU is at a crossroads and under severe pressure from the right. As the pandemic continues to create problems for Angela Merkel’s government, her party has to decide whether it wants to win back conservative voters from the far-right Alternative for Germany party or stay on a liberal course set by Merkel.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Muslims Will Not Kill God for Marianne

      by

      Two conflicting narratives have been clashing anew in extremely heated debates amid what we may call “a new cartoon crisis.” On one side, there is a sizable portion of orthodox Muslims with a strong aniconism tradition and who perceive the representation of sacred characters as unpardonable blasphemy. On the other are defenders of secularism who consider freedom of expression a holy human right. The world is witnessing the confrontation of two epistemologically divergent civilizations: a humanist one that killed God and put the human at its center, and a metaphysical one ready to die and kill for its deity and sacrosanct icons.

      Is Peace Religious or Secular?

      READ MORE

      “Islam is a religion that is in crisis,” stated French President Emmanuel Macron, as he unveiled his plan to defend French secularism against Islamic extremism in early October. This prompted a backlash from Muslim communities around the world. The events escalated further amidst the beheading of a French teacher who shared with his class derogatory caricatures featuring Prophet Muhammad. In an act of defiance, Macron insisted the French will make no concessions and would “not cease drawing caricatures” as Paris displayed gigantic reproductions of the cartoons in question on government buildings.

      Post-Truth Era

      The current situation is a classic case of a post-truth-era dilemma. Each camp firmly believes it is the keeper of a universal, irrefutable truth, while in reality it lives inside its own ideological bubble and refuses to accept that there are other truths out there and probably a transcendental one that is beyond all opposing paradigms.

      Post-truth — which was named the Word of the Year in 2016 by the Oxford Dictionary in the midst of the divisions caused by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump — is a philosophical concept that signals a context where shared rational facts are replaced by subjective and emotional beliefs that shape public opinion. French humanism is rooted in centuries of reforms ending in a rupture between the state and the church. Muslim societies lived a completely different historical reality, where metaphysics are central and populations still romanticize the theological concept of the umma (global Muslim community).

      Embed from Getty Images

      In an ideal world, both “truths” would be able to coexist peacefully. Nevertheless, France never overcame its colonial mindset with its good old “civilizing mission.” Macron arrogantly insinuates that it is the white man’s burden to modernize and secularize a Muslim world “in crisis.” Acts of terror committed by Muslims are indubitably repugnant and humanly unacceptable, but so is radical secularization and the extremist modernization dogma that blindly attempts to assimilate citizens into the fifth republic’s grinding machine.

      Defenders of the French perspective would say: Why don’t followers of other religions get angry when we draw Jesus or Moses? This is a shallow and simplistic comparison that does not take into consideration the cultural and anthropological particularity of the Muslim community, nor the sanguinary colonial encounter it had with France just decades back in Africa. It also characterizes the obstinate myopia with which the country of Marianne continues to deal with its almost 6 million Muslims.

      Maybe the most revealing inconsistency in the French discourse can be summed up in a saying repeated by those who call to boycott French products: “Insulting a black person is racism, insulting a Jew is anti-Semitism, insulting a woman is sexism, but insulting a Muslim is freedom of expression.”  

      Both Sides Demonize the Other

      Of course, not all French people are rigid defenders of the values of the republic. Many philosophers, artists and journalists came out to condemn the French president’s provocations. However, as in many post-truth dichotomies, both antagonists compete to demonize the other, which fuels further hate and animosity. Moreover, instead of fighting violent extremism, it can do just the opposite, such as with the previous Danish cartoon controversy of 2005 and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015. Meanwhile, Muslims are flooding the internet with hashtags and memes against Macron, while countries like Kuwait removed French products from its shelves and the Turkish president even questioned the mental health of his counterpart in Paris.

      To answer Macron’s statement, we can regrettably say that France is a country in crisis because of its failure to address systemic racism against Muslims and its refusal to embrace cultural plurality and hybridity. In the French context, Edward Said’s “clash of ignorance” can no longer be used as an excuse to hide the clash of truths between radical secularism and Muslims refusing to kill God for Marianne.

      *[An earlier version of this article was published by Raseef22.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      US elects first trans state senator and first black gay congressman

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      A deeply polarised US electorate has given the country its first transgender state senator and its first black gay congressman – but also its first lawmaker to have openly supported the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory.
      All four members of the progressive “Squad” of Democratic congresswomen of colour – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib – have been comfortably re-elected, and Sarah McBride’s victory in Delaware has made her the highest-ranking trans official in the US.
      “I hope tonight shows an LGBTQ kid that our democracy is big enough for them, too,” McBride, 30, who easily defeated the Republican Steve Washington to represent Delaware’s first state senate district, tweeted after the election was called.
      McBride, a former spokesperson for the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, was a trainee in the White House during the Obama administration and became the first trans person to speak at a major political convention when she addressed Democrats in Philadelphia in 2016.
      “For Sarah to shatter a lavender ceiling in such a polarising year is a powerful reminder that voters are increasingly rejecting the politics of bigotry in favour of candidates who stand for fairness and equality,” said Annise Parker of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which trains and supports out candidates.
      In Vermont, Taylor Small, 26, has become the state’s first openly transgender legislator after winning 41% of the vote to make it to the House of Representatives, making her the fifth “out” trans state legislator in the US. More

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      in Elections

      Could Trump really settle US election result in the supreme court?

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      Given Donald Trump’s lifelong predilection for tying up opponents in the courts, and his long-stated threat to do the same with an election result that threatened to go against him, his call to have the 2020 election settled in the supreme court is not a surprise.
      So can he do it?
      Trump may, with this in mind, have filled the supreme court with conservative appointees, but things aren’t so straightforward. The supreme court is the final court of appeal in the US and has discretion over which cases it should hear, largely relating to challenges to cases heard in lower courts on points of federal law and the constitution.
      So a lot of action will happen initially at state-level courts – the election has prompted a spate of new cases in the hotly contested battleground state of Pennsylvania, including two due to be heard later on Wednesday.
      What has made the current election landscape more of a minefield is the fact the coronavirus pandemic has led states to look for ways to make voting safer, including expanding absentee ballots, which has opened states up to challenges in the courts over issues such as proposed extensions to the period in which late mail-in votes are counted.
      It is important to remember that election challenges in state courts are nothing new, sometimes without merit, and often have little impact in the end. However, one important exception to that was the 2000 election where a series of legal challenges over faulty voting procedures in Florida handed the election to George W Bush.
      What’s the thrust of Trump’s tactic?
      With more than 40 pre-election cases by Republicans, Trump’s strategy is to argue that any measure to make voting easier and safer in the midst of a pandemic is unconstitutional and open to fraud, a framing aimed at the supreme court.
      A second argument that has been deployed several times is that many of the measures to ensure voting is easy have been made by state officials – like governors – rather than state legislatures, opening a path, say conservatives, for a constitutional challenge.

      How could this work?
      The most common scenario is for lawyers to challenge the way an election was conducted locally and seek to have votes discarded. In the key state of Pennsylvania, conservative groups have already ramped up cases to ensure late mail-in ballots are not counted, with two cases due to be heard on Wednesday.
      However, Pennsylvania requires an unusually high burden of proof for challenging elections, including written affidavits detailing wrongdoing.
      Pennsylvania is already on the supreme court’s radar in this respect. Republicans in the state have already appealed against a Pennsylvania supreme court decision ordering state election officials to accept mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after the election, relying on an interpretation of the state’s own constitution.
      The US supreme court deferred hearing this case before the election but in a case that it did rule on, the court sided with a Republican challenge saying the state could not count late mail in ballots in Wisconsin. The supreme court chief justice John Roberts made clear, however, that “different bodies of law and different precedents” meant the court did not consider the situation in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as the same.
      Isn’t that good news for Democrats?
      It’s difficult to know. The Wisconsin decision was delivered before Trump’s third pick for the supreme court, Amy Coney Barrett, formally joined the bench last week, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority.
      Trump’s hope, as he has made very clear, is that this would help in the event he challenged the election result, but it is also unclear how Barrett would respond given Trump’s comments. And she could recuse herself from hearing any election-related cases because of a perceived conflict.
      Where else could we see challenges?
      Michigan, if it is close, is an outlier in that it has no formally laid-out system for a challenge, although any recount is automatically triggered by a margin of less than 2,000 votes.
      North Carolina, for instance, also has a challenge to a late voting extension before the courts. It all becomes something of moot point should Biden secure enough of a lead in the electoral college.
      What’s the worst-case scenario?
      The closer the outcome in the electoral college, the more messy things become, with the memory of Florida in 2000 looming above everything. The closest of results led to 35 messy days of legal challenges and laborious hand recounts, which gave the election to George W Bush after the state was originally called by news organisations for the Democratic challenger Al Gore.
      Bush took 271 of the 538 electoral votes, winning Florida by fewer than 600 votes, after a recount was halted by the supreme court, making Bush the first Republican president since 1888 to win despite losing the popular vote. More