More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has succeeded in getting Donald Trump’s co-conspirators—especially key insiders Sydney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro—to plead guilty and testify against the former president and others.
This move is the latest example of Black women leading the way in defense of our endangered democracy.
While the U.S. is making slow progress toward political parity, other countries are making more significant gains over time.
This month, RepresentWomen released the Golden Year Analysis, which identified the factors influencing global progress toward gender parity in politics in 2021 and 2022. Of 85 countries that held elections in these years, 43 achieved a “golden year” by electing a record-high number of women to their national legislatures.
While this is certainly cause for celebration, gender-balanced governance remains far from reach for many countries, including the United States.
As a young girl in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran, I never expected to be fighting for democracy in the United States.
We are linguistic and ethnic strangers, yet we are family and are at home in the United States. And we are one among many here. That spirit of welcome is the spirit that should propel us toward the new democracy we want—and need. It’s what should animate us as we build a new democracy that we can all call home.
“If someone is willing to block their partner’s access to political information in front of volunteers at their door, what else could they be doing, behind that door?”
This excerpt from Survivor Injustice: State-Sanctioned Abuse, Domestic Violence, and the Fight for Bodily Autonomy by Kylie Cheung, out Aug. 15, details how domestic abuse can lead to coercion or denial of voting rights for women.
As soon as next month, a grand jury out of Georgia will be tasked to consider charges against former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Already, the Department of Justice has indicted former President Trump with 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice, making false statements and conspiring.
“The worst thing you can do for a democracy is just let it slide when people try to do a coup and undermine democracy. That is how democracy dies. It is worth pursuing the fight to keep people accountable under the laws for undermining our democracy,” said Leah Litman, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, on a recent episode of Ms.’ On the Issues With Michele Goodwin podcast.
The Department of Justice has recently charged two men with making threats whose targets included Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel.
“Sometimes threats are enough. People don’t have to commit direct violence for there to be a real chilling environment on civic participation and these essential parts of our democracy.”
Under the direction of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in August arrested 20 people with felony records for breaking Florida’s elections laws during the 2020 election—even after several officials had explicitly told them that they could legally cast ballots. Some fear these public arrests will have a chilling effect on voter turnout in future elections. Already, the 2022 midterms were the first election in Florida’s history in which registered Republicans outpaced Democrats at the voting booth.
“It’s jarring to think about a grandfather getting pulled from his house by SWAT team for voting in our state,” said Neil Volz, deputy director of Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.
In the last several years, a popular narrative has emerged: The rise of right-wing extremism has been fueled by a surge in Latino support. María Teresa Kumar, head of Voto Latino, says this is simply untrue.
Ms. spoke to Kumar to try to understand the proliferation of the ‘Latino Republican voter’ myth. As the head of an organization focusing almost exclusively on engaging young Latino youth in the U.S. political process, she helped me make sense of the election aftermath, the messages she thinks Latino voters sent through the way they voted, and why it’s time for progressives to double-down on Texas.
Young people can play a crucial role in saving U.S. democracy and defeating candidates that threaten our future of free and fair elections.
Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election inspired threats and harassment against election officials—most of whom are women. As we head into the midterms, here’s how we can support these essential workers.
