How will the Moral Monday movement affect politics in NC & the South?

[KingOrfeo]

The Nation article here; Wiki article here.

Since taking over the Legislature in 2010 and the governor’s mansion in 2012—controlling state government for the first time since 1896—North Carolina Republicans have transformed a state long regarded as one of the most progressive in the South into Alabama virtually overnight. They eliminated the state earned-income tax credit for 900,000 people; refused Medicaid coverage for 500,000; ended federal unemployment benefits for 170,000; cut $200 million to public education; slashed taxes for the top 5 percent while raising taxes on the bottom 80 percent; passed one of the country’s most draconian anti-choice laws; and enacted the country’s harshest voting restrictions, which mandate strict voter ID, cut early voting, eliminate same-day registration and ax public financing of judicial races, among other things.

Last April 29, after the new voting restrictions were introduced, Barber and sixteen other ministers and civil rights veterans were arrested inside the State Legislature for trespassing and failure to disperse. Barber called it a peaceful “pray-in.” The next week, thirty more people were arrested. The numbers grew quickly. By the end of July, when the Legislature adjourned for the year, thirteen protests had been held at the General Assembly and nearly 1,000 people had been arrested, most for the first time in their lives.

So far, all MM has tangibly accomplished is to file a lot of lawsuits. But they have high hopes.

The biggest question for the movement will be the impact it has at the polls. The momentum created by the protests last summer for Democratic candidates has been erased by the rocky rollout of Obamacare, says pollster Jensen. Over the summer, Democratic candidates enjoyed a nine-point advantage over Republicans; now it’s even. And because the Republicans ruthlessly gerrymandered state legislative districts following the 2010 elections, Democrats need to win the statewide vote by fourteen points in order to take back the Legislature. “The big things the Moral Monday movement can do is help increase turnout and interest in the midterms from people who usually drop off,” Jensen notes, “and then just generally keep in the news the things that the Republican Legislature has done over the past few years that are so unpopular.”

Moral Monday organizers plan to target forty swing counties for voter registration and mobilization and will deploy fifty young organizers in the field for twelve weeks this year in what they’re calling Moral Freedom Summer 2014. (They’re also planning to field sixty full-time organizers across the South for a much longer period.) “What we don’t know is what happens in an off-year election with this kind of intensity, because we’ve never seen it before,” Barber says. Yet he’s quick to stress that electoral politics will not define the movement. Moral Monday is most frequently compared to Occupy Wall Street and the 2011 Wisconsin protests, though neither one really captures what’s happening in North Carolina. Moral Monday is far more diverse, disciplined, broad-based and leadership-driven than Occupy was; nor is it focused on a single issue, like the protests in Wisconsin, which centered around labor rights and were closely connected to the state Democratic Party. Moral Monday inhabits a place on the spectrum somewhere between Occupy and Wisconsin—not disconnected from electoral politics but not defined by it, either, which gives it a better chance at longevity.

<snip>

A day after the first Georgia protest, South Carolina launched its own weekly demonstration, called Truthful Tuesday, when 1,000 rallied at the Statehouse in Columbia for Medicaid expansion, public education and voting rights. “There’s a sense of enthusiasm,” said Brett Bursey, executive director of the South Carolina Progressive Network. “The opportunity is pushing people to move beyond the traditional hurdles that impede us.” The Alabama NAACP has started Truth and Justice Tuesdays, and the Florida NAACP will launch the newest Moral Monday spin-off in March. Meanwhile, Arizona is holding its own Moral March on March 29.

So: Will this movement fizzle out like OWS, or will it get somewhere, perhaps even transform politics all across the South?

 

[ChinaBandit]

The direction forward is clear.

 

[KingOrfeo]

The direction forward is clear.

A back-country farmer named Hollis
Used snakes and opossums for solace
The offspring had scales
And prehensile tails
And voted for Governor Wallace!

-- Isaac Asimov

 

[Dazzle1]

The Nation article here; Wiki article here.



So far, all MM has tangibly accomplished is to file a lot of lawsuits. But they have high hopes.



So: Will this movement fizzle out like OWS, or will it get somewhere, perhaps even transform politics all across the South?

Well ike the OWS or those loser in WI who shut down the legislature for 1 day or the three people who protest every Friday in Jerusalem not much

Sound and Fury signifying nothing

 

[bill-pix-trade]

We will survive just fine.

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

"because the Republicans ruthlessly gerrymandered state legislative districts following the 2010 elections"

I especially love comments like this. Why is it only the Republicans gerrymander? The implication is no Democrat has ever participated in redrawing voting areas to give them, the Democrats, a political advantage.

In case you are curious I am not a Republican, I am, and have been for a long time, a registered Independent.

If there is a problem the voters dislike enough they will rise up and throw the rascals out then the Dems will run the place until they piss off a sufficient number of voters and the cycle will repeat.

 

[KingOrfeo]

"because the Republicans ruthlessly gerrymandered state legislative districts following the 2010 elections"

I especially love comments like this. Why is it only the Republicans gerrymander? The implication is no Democrat has ever participated in redrawing voting areas to give them, the Democrats, a political advantage.

There is no such implication, and I'm sure the author would never suggest such a thing. The Republican gerrymandering is mentioned in the story because that's the problem MM and the NC Dems have to deal with now.

For my part, I think redistricting in every state should be done by nonpartisan commissions.