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| Democalypse 2012 - Cockblock the Vote - Ohio's Voting Laws | |
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Does this remind you of something? For a century after the Civil War, the South - solidly Democratic - kept black people from voting.
Of course, back then they didn't have to pussyfoot around, worrying about legalities. They just did it. And if black people tried to vote, well, they wouldn't try it more than once.
Oh, for the good old days, huh? When Democrats finally stood up for racial equality, outlawing state-sponsored segregation with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Republicans saw only opportunity. And their 'Southern strategy' of deliberately wooing white racists was wildly successful. Now, the South is solidly Republican.
And that kind of mindset has spread to the rest of the nation. You don't want all Americans to vote, because they might not vote the way you want them to.
Of course, you could always persuade them with an ad blitz from anonymous billionaires. You could persuade them with superPACs funded by anonymous corporate money. You could persuade them with non-stop propaganda from Fox 'News.'
But isn't it just easier to keep them from voting? After all, it's not hard. We Americans are embarrassingly lax when it comes to performing our civic duties. And note that Barack Obama leads by more than 2 to 1 among people who aren't going to bother voting anyway.
This is the modern incarnation of the poll tax. Republicans don't want to bother convincing an American citizen, not if they can win some other way. After all, to convince us, they might have to tell us what they plan to do.
And they really don't want to do that! Republicans have discovered that they're better off keeping things secret - not just Romney's taxes, but pretty much everything.
Well, that's because polls show that Americans hate nearly all of their policy positions (maybe because those same policies failed so disastrously during the Bush years?). So they're better off keeping quiet about them and just getting white Americans to vote against that scary black man in the White House.
And as far as voter suppression goes, why not? After all, the ideal for Republicans is a handful of billionaires deciding everything. The wealthy know what's best for us, don't they? Heck, we heard it constantly during the Bush years, about how we didn't need regulations, because corporations would just naturally do what was right.
And look how that turned out.
Unbelievable! I live in PA and the only place I have seen any kind of ad for the new registration law was a poster in the post office. No mailings, no tv ads, no radio. Nothing!
ReplyDeleteAnd this doesn't have to happen in every state, John, not to have an out-sized impact, because the presidential election is going to hinge on a handful of swing states.
DeleteRepublicans aren't even bothering to deter voting in Nebraska, because they don't have any competition here, anyway. This is pretty much a one-party state. But if they can keep Democrats from voting where it really matters, our country will be in a world of hurt.
Unfortunately, as I noted above, some Democratic-leaning constituencies are piss-poor at voting anyway. It won't take much to cut their numbers even further.