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Adam B. Ellick – New York Times Editorial
September 21, 2022
Remarks from Choose Democracy Now’s Dale Anderson:
Choose Democracy Now advisor Arlene Sweeting pointed out this New York Times article and associated Opinion Video about a new and more aggressive MAGA strategy to disrupt and delegitimize our upcoming elections. The video is an interview of Times writer Michelle Cottle by Johnny Harris where Ms Cottle describes in detail a planned GOP tactic that could further undermine confidence in our elections and thus in our democracy. Read an excerpt from the article below and be sure to watch the video. Quite chilling!
Adam B. Ellick – Every day seems to bring yet another worrisome news account of a political maneuver that undermines our faith in American democracy. Strict limits imposed on ballot drop boxes, voter rolls purged, harsh penalties created for election workers who might make mistakes on the job. It can be difficult to gauge whether these are isolated, petty cases, or if they hint at a broader challenge to the American electoral system. How are we to measure the threat?
I turned to Michelle Cottle, a veteran political reporter on The New York Times’ editorial board. She explained how voter suppression stories disproportionately grab the spotlight because people can easily grasp the idea of obstruction, especially when policies are racist. Michelle also told me that voter suppression is not the most dangerous challenge to American democracy. She said there’s a far bigger menace, though it gets fewer headlines because it’s happening largely out of sight, at the lowest levels of government, where the Republican Party has historically had a huge advantage.
Michelle’s opinion inspired me to commission a short film. So I paired her with Johnny Harris, one of the godfathers of video explainers and a YouTube phenom with a policy background to create an Opinion Video.
To see the full video, click here to go to the Michelle Cottle page of the New York Times website.
About Michelle Cottle
Michelle Cottle is a member of the The New York Times editorial board, focusing on U.S. politics. She joined the Times in 2018.
She had previously work for The Atlantic, where she covered the culture and politics of the nation’s capital as a contributing editor. Before that, she was a senior writer at National Journal, specializing in in-depth profiles. From 2010 to 2014, she served as a Washington correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
She’s also been a longtime senior editor at The New Republic and an editor of The Washington Monthly, as well as a frequent television and radio commentator.
Michelle grew up in Alabama and Tennessee, with stints in Georgia and Mississippi — in other words, she was, as she puts it, reared “red state to the core.”
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