Kill The American Dream Before It Dies

Gutting Out The Vote, Redux

The Voting Booth At The End Of The Universe
October 28, 2018

Republican’ts across America are once again working feverishly to stop Democratic voters from casting their votes.  This is the totality of the Republican’t playbook.  Well, that and gerrymandering out the wazoo.  Oh, and lying better than everyone else.  And let us not forget the mountains of dark money made available to them by their Supreme Court lackeys.  So to recap, Republican’ts win elections by voter suppression, gerrymandering, lying, dark money and fomenting fear and insanity among their own.  In reality, who could blame them?  They cannot win fair and/or square, and they damn sure cannot run on the issues.

In Georgia, the Republican’t candidate for governor is currently Secretary of State.  Last year he disqualified 670,000 voters – considerably more than the typical margin of victory in that state.  This year he has purged another 53,000 – mostly (70%) black, therefore mostly Democratic – voters from the rolls.

Kansas Secretary of State, and gubernatorial candidate Chris Kobach is also busy interfering with voting by people unlikely to vote for him.  To be fair, Kobach has made a career of fighting a Don Quixote-esque fight against non-existent voter fraud.  He would have been much better off tilting at windmills – which he also despises.  After being smacked down in the courts, Kobach was appointed vice chairman of a short-lived commission on (fake) voter fraud, which lasted approximately one or two Scaramuccis.

Kobach displaying evidence of his plan to deport millions, and his stupidity

Also, a busload of forty elderly black early voters in Georgia who had been dancing in the streets prior to boarding the bus, was stopped at the polling place and made to get back on the bus and go home without be allowed to vote.  The reason given for the Get-Out-And-Don’t-Vote incident was not given, but it is assumed by most that the transgression was attempted voting while black.  To be fair, the bus was easily and admittedly the blackest bus ever.  And perhaps the most beautiful since Ken Kesey’s.

The Black Votes Matter bus

In Texas, there was an attempt to disenfranchise college students by not allowing them to vote where the live – on college campus.  Fortunately for democracy, they went a step too far, and got caught, spanked and caused to reverse course.

In North Dakota, two historically Democratic counties have been targeted with new, blatantly racist and transparently partisan last-minute changes in registration requirements.  These new changes require street addresses for Native Americans, who typically have only post office box numbers – the way it has been forever.  This has never been an issue before, but it turns out that this voting bloc is critical to the re-election bid of Heidi Heitkamp – who bravely opposed the confirmation of Burp Kavanaugh – and the already slim chances for Democrats to flip the Senate.  These shameless vote-suppressing scumbags must be brought to heel.  They should not be in the seat of power.  They should be in jail.

Over the years, numerous Republican'ts have publicly proclaimed that they do not want too many people voting.  And who could blame them?  Conservative icon Paul Weyrich, co-founder of conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation (Heritage of what exactly?) who also helped to establish the staggeringly inaptly named Moral Majority spoke directly to this issue in the fall of 1980.  While I can unfortunately understand the connection between voter suppression and our Heritage, I'm a little less clear about the Moral aspect.

Weyrich bemoaned the fact that “many of our Christians have what I call the ‘Goo-Goo Syndrome.’  Good government.  They want everybody to vote.  I don’t want everybody to vote…As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”  At least Mr. Weyrich had the courage, if not the good taste to speak his incredibly un-democratic mind in public. 

This anti-vote philosophy, spoken or hidden remains at the core of the conservative movement.  Conservatives know that higher voter turnout still hurts their chances (as does running on actual issues). This will become even more likely as the American citizenry becomes less and less dominated by white males.  Not sure, but maybe this is because Republican’ts keep shitting on everyone who's not white, straight, rich and misogynistic.  Especially since Chrump has made America a great place to openly hate people of color and women again.

The voter ID laws that cropped up across the country after Chief Justice John Roberts proclaimed the end of racial discrimination in America, were clearly designed, despite all the denials, to disenfranchise the poor, the elderly and the non-white – historically non-conservative groups for some reason.  One group taking a major role in this massive effort to Gut Out The Vote is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an ideologically conservative group, founded by none other than Paul Weyrich and consisting of business interests and conservative state legislators. ALEC says they are just protecting the integrity of the (white male) vote.  MALICE ACCOMPLISHED.

Let us not forget Florida’s then-Secretary of State and co-chair of George W. Bush's Florida election campaign, Katherine Harris who, along with George’s brother Jeb (then Florida’s governor) hired a private firm to create a list of ineligible voters in her state. Ms. Harris managed to purge the rolls of tens of thousands of eligible African American voters just in time for the 2000 presidential election, in which George W. Bush was eventually alleged to have 537 more Florida votes than Al Gore, giving him an Electoral College victory without winning the nation’s popular vote. Of course the Florida votes were never actually counted once the renegade Supreme Court illegally halted the count, preferring instead to appoint the man who would become the Worst President In American History.

These weasels will stop at nothing to prevent actual democratic processes from taking place.  It's already hard enough to maintain any semblance of democracy in this country, without the already-too-powerful raining on our façade.  Republican’ts have become the masters of vote suppression and losing the popular vote and still taking the White House.  They are not shy about having a Republican’t president with an asshole asterisk after his name.  Why the hell would they ever want anyone to vote?

Last two Republican’t/Electoral College presidents*

It Can't Happen Here…Just Kidding

There were at least 180 vote-restricting bills introduced in 41 states between January 2011 and June 2012 – thanks to the Roberts-led Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act – and it did not stop there.  Fourteen states already passed laws making voting more difficult during that time.  Those 14 states represent almost 70 percent of the electoral votes needed to "win" the presidency.  Thankfully, that will not save the Republican’t party criminal enterprise during the midterms.  That is why they are ratcheting up their other vote-suppressing schemes.  Naturally these laws were proposed by Republican'ts, passed by Republican't controlled state legislatures and signed into law by Republican't governors.

The number-two House Republican’t, Kevin McCarthy tweeted the following – singling out three Jews – shortly after Holocaust survivor, financier/philanthropist, activist George Soros was targeted with a MAGA-inspired IED, delivered to his home.  With all this wining, one would think Republican'ts aren't literally kept afloat by billionaire donor/activists like the Koch Brothers.  One would be very, very wrong.

When all else fails, go for the Jew-gular.

I. Mangrey reporting and re-reporting.

Thanks for listening. Responsible comment and Blue Wave invited. 
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* Actually, Bush did not even win the Electoral College, but was appointed by the Extreme Court.