Tuesday Open Thread [6.11.13]

Kyle Trygstad at Roll Call talks about the Democratic prospects in Georgia:

“Blacks now make up 31 percent of Georgia’s population and about 30 percent of its active voters, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. Hispanics now account for 9 percent of the population but remain underrepresented in the voter rolls at just 2 percent. Similar demographic trends are also occurring in states such as Texas and Arizona.” In other words, if the Democratic nominee can win one out of four white voters, a Democratic pick-up is a good bet.”

There are two spins on this: 1) the South’s politics is so racially polarized now that the GOP is expected to win over 75% of the white vote, and/or 2) the GOP is so screwed that if they do not win over 75% of the white vote, they will lose statewide elections, even in Georgia. These two spins are not mutually exclusive, and I think they are both right. Which is why the GOP is becoming an apartheid party that denies the vote to minorities so that it can stay in power.

This is interesting:

This is proof of the home team affect. When President Bush was President, Republicans marched in lock step. And now that President Obama is President, many Democrats have changed their minds and support surveillance, while an equal number of Republicans have changed their minds and now are libertarians. But…

Clearly, Democrats are more comfortable with NSA surveillance under a Democratic administration, and Republicans are more comfortable with NSA surveillance under a Republican administration. There is, however, one small catch — it’s not an apples to apples comparison.

In 2006, the poll question dealt with a warrantless surveillance program in which the Bush administration exceeded its legal authority with no judicial check or congressional approval. In 2013, the Obama administration, at least given what we know now, appears to be acting within its legal authority, relying in part on the courts, and acting within a law approved by bipartisan majorities.

For critics of government snooping, that’s cold comfort, but when it comes to gauging public attitudes, the bipartisan hypocrisy comes with an asterisk.
Nevertheless, the larger point is that the American mainstream is far less concerned with federal surveillance programs than civil libertarians had hoped. Indeed, the Post/Pew poll found that 45% of the public — very nearly half — believe the government should be able to go even further than it currently is when it comes to spying on Americans, so long as the goal is to prevent terrorism.

And with results like these, the political appetite for changing the law will likely be non-existent.