In an 11th-hour change, Atlanta approved new rules for citizen-led petitions to include signature matching—a practice decried by Cop City protesters and voting rights advocates.
Many onlookers have struggled to understand why the city has invested so much energy and risked so much bad press in continuing to block a vote.
I’m one of those people? Why is the group supposedly elected by the people of the city, to serve the people of the city, going to such lengths to deny them from having their voice heard?
These obstructive actions leave people little alternative to civil disobedience. Every effort needs to be made to obstruct and delay construction efforts, and further to name and shame the contractor companies, insurance companies, politicians and other figures that support this police pet project.
In the USA, most politicians don’t seem to feel like they are really elected by their voters. They pretend that they do, when they are at the podium addressing crowds during election season, but they really don’t feel that way. Thanks to gerrymandering, most state and local elections lean strongly towards one party or the other. Because of that, the candidates really win the game when they win the primary, not the general. The general election is often a foregone conclusion. The candidates suck up to their donors, not making promises of course, because that would be illegal if it’s too blatant, but strongly suggesting to those donors how they will vote if elected. The donors, for their part, strongly suggest the results they would like should the candidate win, with everyone carefully avoiding making anything looking too quid pro quo. If they suck up enough and they get the bulk of the donor’s they get a very large edge in the primary.
By the time the general election rolls around, the candidate is only running against a foe from the other party who is already at a disadvantage because of that. If the district/state/whatever leans red and their opponent is blue, then they are fighting an uphill battle. If they’re an incumbent, then they have another big advantage. Finally, those donors are back again paying for everything they legally can, and probably a few less-than-legal things too. When they have advantage because of party, name recognition, and money, they are very likely to win unless there is some big wedge issue that upends things.
Because of this, most politicians think voters are people that they just have to appease, or at least just avoid pissing off, because if they can do that bare minimum they are probably going to get (re)elected. Other than doing that, they don’t need to worry much about the voters. What they really have to work on is keeping the donors happy. Candidates nowadays are not out shaking hands and kissing babies, other than during the occasional staged promotional appearance set up to make it look like that’s what they are out doing. What they are really doing is spending the vast majority of their time meeting with donors and lobbyists and shaking their hands and kissing their asses. When you are the right party, have name recognition, and are the incumbent, money is the only variable. That’s what they generally need to do to win, appease the donors not the voters.
In this case, I have to assume that the politicians feel that they have all the advantages. They are clearly not worried about pissing off the voters. It’s not like they are going to vote for the other party in enough numbers to matter. They are only concerned with pleasing their donors who must have a very huge stake in Cop City for some reason or another.
First of all, Atlanta has a “strong Mayor, weak Council” system. With the Mayor apparently having come out as a vehement card-carrying fascist (despite giving basically zero hint of such before the election, by the way), there are a lot of tricks he could use to push this shit through even against the opposition of Council.
Second, the Council basically has three factions: the rich white people from Buckhead, the mostly-poor (but not entirely poor – a point I’ll come back to) black people from Bankhead (more southwest Atlanta, but I liked the symmetry), and the and the middle-class progressives from the east side.
The Buckhead people are perfectly happy to support Cop City – and its location as far away from themselves as possible, along the dividing line between the progressives and the poor blacks – because of course they are.
The poor black people are (perhaps surprisingly) often also inclined to support it because they’re so beaten-down by both crime and institutional racism that they think more police presence + “development” (even shitty development) will help them. Moreover, Atlanta is called “the city too busy to hate” for a reason, and that reason is because of the long-standing alliance between the black leadership of the city (centered on HBCUs like Morehouse, plus the black churches) and the Buckhead business community.
So, the east side progressives are the pretty much the only faction in strong opposition (in part because it’s a fascist training camp, but also because the location for it is close to some of the east side neighborhoods).
In other words – and less charitably, but accurate – too many poor black people in Atlanta are class traitors.
I’m one of those people? Why is the group supposedly elected by the people of the city, to serve the people of the city, going to such lengths to deny them from having their voice heard?
These obstructive actions leave people little alternative to civil disobedience. Every effort needs to be made to obstruct and delay construction efforts, and further to name and shame the contractor companies, insurance companies, politicians and other figures that support this police pet project.
Take a look at how much the Fraternal Order of Police gives them for their campaigns.
In the USA, most politicians don’t seem to feel like they are really elected by their voters. They pretend that they do, when they are at the podium addressing crowds during election season, but they really don’t feel that way. Thanks to gerrymandering, most state and local elections lean strongly towards one party or the other. Because of that, the candidates really win the game when they win the primary, not the general. The general election is often a foregone conclusion. The candidates suck up to their donors, not making promises of course, because that would be illegal if it’s too blatant, but strongly suggesting to those donors how they will vote if elected. The donors, for their part, strongly suggest the results they would like should the candidate win, with everyone carefully avoiding making anything looking too quid pro quo. If they suck up enough and they get the bulk of the donor’s they get a very large edge in the primary.
By the time the general election rolls around, the candidate is only running against a foe from the other party who is already at a disadvantage because of that. If the district/state/whatever leans red and their opponent is blue, then they are fighting an uphill battle. If they’re an incumbent, then they have another big advantage. Finally, those donors are back again paying for everything they legally can, and probably a few less-than-legal things too. When they have advantage because of party, name recognition, and money, they are very likely to win unless there is some big wedge issue that upends things.
Because of this, most politicians think voters are people that they just have to appease, or at least just avoid pissing off, because if they can do that bare minimum they are probably going to get (re)elected. Other than doing that, they don’t need to worry much about the voters. What they really have to work on is keeping the donors happy. Candidates nowadays are not out shaking hands and kissing babies, other than during the occasional staged promotional appearance set up to make it look like that’s what they are out doing. What they are really doing is spending the vast majority of their time meeting with donors and lobbyists and shaking their hands and kissing their asses. When you are the right party, have name recognition, and are the incumbent, money is the only variable. That’s what they generally need to do to win, appease the donors not the voters.
In this case, I have to assume that the politicians feel that they have all the advantages. They are clearly not worried about pissing off the voters. It’s not like they are going to vote for the other party in enough numbers to matter. They are only concerned with pleasing their donors who must have a very huge stake in Cop City for some reason or another.
First of all, Atlanta has a “strong Mayor, weak Council” system. With the Mayor apparently having come out as a vehement card-carrying fascist (despite giving basically zero hint of such before the election, by the way), there are a lot of tricks he could use to push this shit through even against the opposition of Council.
Second, the Council basically has three factions: the rich white people from Buckhead, the mostly-poor (but not entirely poor – a point I’ll come back to) black people from Bankhead (more southwest Atlanta, but I liked the symmetry), and the and the middle-class progressives from the east side.
The Buckhead people are perfectly happy to support Cop City – and its location as far away from themselves as possible, along the dividing line between the progressives and the poor blacks – because of course they are.
The poor black people are (perhaps surprisingly) often also inclined to support it because they’re so beaten-down by both crime and institutional racism that they think more police presence + “development” (even shitty development) will help them. Moreover, Atlanta is called “the city too busy to hate” for a reason, and that reason is because of the long-standing alliance between the black leadership of the city (centered on HBCUs like Morehouse, plus the black churches) and the Buckhead business community.
So, the east side progressives are the pretty much the only faction in strong opposition (in part because it’s a fascist training camp, but also because the location for it is close to some of the east side neighborhoods).
In other words – and less charitably, but accurate – too many poor black people in Atlanta are class traitors.
Thanks for the local context. So of course the group most supportive is the wealthy area least affected by the development.
Sounds similar to me to up north in the Canadian province of Ontario, the Conservatives gave cities’ Mayors veto power, but only where it’s in the interest of the province..
Toronto responded next year by electing progressive Mayor Olivia Chow, of course.