<"Too Much Democracy
Is A Dangerous Thing..."/
Take I
The Reckoner>
<i.>
You'd think Republicans would feel giddy, given all the relentless gaming of the system they do to permanently tyrannize the rest of us. To put it in perspective, we're talking about a party that's a) lost the popular vote in six of the last seven Presidential elections, b) hasn't represented a majority in the Senate since 1996, and c) crammed three Supreme Court Justices down the national gullet under a President (Donald Trump) who lost the popular vote, thanks to a bloc of Senators representing less than half the country.
Cue the standard issue movie image of a gangster crowing in the courtroom, after beating his latest rap in the courtroom: "America, ya gotta love it, right? What a beautiful country. What a beautiful system."
You'd think they'd be flipping cartwheels and doing jumping jacks, right? Guess again. As anybody with an IQ above room temperature knows by now, the inability of Trump and the mob he incited to storm the Capitol has apparently convinced Republicans across the nation to ramp up their Voter Suppression Project, after their State Capture Project -- as in, pack the courts with rubber-stamping allies -- didn't get the job done.
At last report, the Brennan Center for Justice counts a mind-boggling 541 bills pending nationwide, all aimed at suppressing or restricting votes of the Republicans' apparent enemies (anybody who's not an angry, fiftysomething white guy who hates anybody that's not -- you get the idea). The measures range from the standard (curbing or eliminating absentee ballot drop boxes and polling places) to the truly twisted and evil (making it a crime, as Georgia proposes, to give food and water to all those nonwhite enemies that you're forcing to stand in line for hours on end -- because, hey, you want them to earn their vote!)
Now comes Michigan's turn in the voter suppression barrel. Michigan, like many states, has remained yoked under a Republican supermajority for decades -- since the 1980s. Michigan has long been considered one of the most one-sided examples of gerrymandering, or the redrawing of districts to favor one party or the other. One of the more commonly cited examples is the 2016 Presidential election, in which Trump eked out a 10,000-vote victory, while Republicans took nine of the state's 14 Congressional districts. (See the link below, for more in-depth info.)
Just this week, I happened to see an overview -- in USA Today, I think -- that contained an unintentionally humorous punch line, one that seemed hard to beat, for sheer naivete. The reporter sought to contrast the more extreme voter suppression efforts underway, notably in three states that lifted Biden to victory over Trump last fall -- Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania -- with Republican-dominated states like Ohio, that hadn't introduced such legislation. Ergo, not all GOP-led legislatures are bad, right? Or so the reporter claimed.
"O ye of little foresight," I hissed under my breath. "How little you understand, especially when you're dealing with people determined to win at any cost, and wield raw power at any cost."
<"Too Much Democracy
Is A Dangerous Thing,"
Take II/The Reckoner>
Take II/The Reckoner>
<ii.>
My feelings got a little bit stronger, once I saw a brief summary of what's in this so-called "election reform" package. Mr. and Ms. Michigander, take a look at what your Republican supermajority has in mind for you, all 39 bills of it. Here's a brief rundown on "the most restrictive and alarming provisions," according to Voters Not Politicians (VNP), the group that worked to end gerrymandering by creating an independent citizens' commission to redraw districts*:
Senate Bill 285: Will make voters supply a specific type of photo ID in order to request an absentee ballot (including every person on the permanent absentee ballot list!), also removing voters’ ability to request an absentee ballot by mail or online.
Senate Bill 286: Will remove the ability to return an absentee ballot to a drop box after 5 p.m. the day before election day and require voters to return their absentee ballot at their clerk’s office.
Senate Bill 287: Will require voters to pay to return their absentee ballot by mail by removing prepaid postage on absentee ballots.
Senate Bill 289: Will shift the power to use federal funds earmarked for elections to the legislature instead of the Secretary of State.
Senate Bill 290: Will limit who can serve as an election challenger.
Senate Bill 291: This removes “filing certain false statements” from the list of election related felonies, "removing accountability from bad actors who spread misinformation to voters," in VNP's words.
Senate Bill 303: Will require voters to carry a specific type of photo ID with them to vote on Election Day and removes voters’ freedom to sign an affidavit if they do not have the specific ID with them.
Senate Bill 310: Will ban the freedom to mail voters an absentee ballot application or even to provide voters with a link to the AV (Absent Voter) ballot request webpage.
Bridge Detroit (below) has a more in-depth roundup and analysis than I want to go through here. What strikes me, at first glance, is the absurdly granular detail in so much of this language.
Senate Bill 273, for example, would require video surveillance on absentee drop boxes -- that is, if any of them are left standing, once this legislative wrecking ball hits them -- while Senate Bill 309 would allow "poll watchers" to stand a "reasonable distance" behind election workers. I guess the spectacle of Trump's cult chanting "Stop the steal!" outside in less than accommodating weather isn't enough for the Michigan GOP, who apparently want to give future intimidators a free pass inside the building.
<The Reckoner>
<iii.>
Republican contempt for anyone who opposes them is hardly a new phenomenon. We saw this happen in 2017, when they mounted their attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and acted like they were in the witness protection program, once angry voters descended en masse on their town halls -- which, of course, dried up like so loose corn stalks in the wind.
What is different though, and feels different, is the zealous single-mindedness that the GOP is bringing to its voter suppression efforts. This feels personal, because it is personal. The driving theme behind these so-called bills is pretty simple. Having almost achieved the impossible through Trump's attempted putsch, his GOP allies want to game the system so that we, those pesky "people" that they blather about so much, don't ever get in their way again.
After all, they're white, (mostly) rich, privileged, big business-friendly fundamentalist Christians who have a direct pipeline to the Almighty. How could we possibly know better than they do?
But we do. And therein lies the rub, as that Shakespeare guy used to say. The two voting rights bills pending before the Senate -- which would replace the gerrymander of old, with independent commissions, and require states to offer early, same-day and online voting, among other measures -- would go a long way restoring the balance.
Getting those bills across the finish line also requires killing or modifying the filibuster that stands in their way, something that so-called Democratic and Republican moderates, and their spines of Ramen, have claimed to feel skittish about doing. We'll see if they summon up the gumption, but if nothing else, the current debate over the filibuster's future has definitely put Republicans on the defensive.
You know something funny's going on when Napoelon from Louisville, a/k/a Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, bleats that taking away his favorite obstructive toy would amount to a "power grab" -- this, coming from the same guy who jammed through those last three Supreme Court justices, and Trump's tax scam bill? This, from the same reptilian politician who worked hard to change the Kentucky state legislature's process of filling Senate vacancies, so he can push through his hand-picked replacement? This, from the same character who brags about his role as the "Grim Reaper" of bills that enjoy wide popular support?
That's why Mitch the Mummy maintained, with the usual pious I'm-just-doin'-my-defender-of-the-Constitution-bit poker face that he always puts on for the occasion, that voter suppression isn't happening. The two bills, he claimed, "are a solution in search of a problem."
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure!
And if you believe that? I've got some choice swampland you can help me drain. I'm sure that we haven't heard the last word on Michigan's voter suppression package, or any of these other batshit crazy laws that the GOP vampires are working overtime to push. I just keep coming back to one point: The personal is political. Trite as it sounds, it's true. As rotten as they are, these legislative products -- if that's what we want to call them -- tell us, loud and clear, what they really think of us.
<The Reckoner>
<Coda>
We are their enemies, because we don't assume Christianity is America's default religion, or buy the premise that our nation was founded on any religious basis. (Don't believe me? Check out the list of agnostics, atheists and Deists who made up a good chunk of the Founding Fathers, a/k/a, Those Guys In Stockings and Wigs.)
We are their enemies, because we don't want to join them in some nostalgic fantasyland, where some Donna Reed figure always had a pot of meatloaf humming on the stove, and waited meekly for her man, while those pesky minorities were nowhere in sight, because they knew their place. We are their enemies, because we don't believe that the majority of people should accept "permanently cornered" as their status, so that Big Business can keep its hellish thing, however you define it.
I think LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said it best:
"We’re in this hamster wheel of doing the work to register to vote. People exercise their vote, particularly Black voters, and then they’re punished for exercising that vote. When Black people exercise our right to vote, there is some kind of punitive measure that is inflicted upon our community."
But that's how it always works, doesn't it? First, the bad actors go after the nonwhites. Then, little by little, they scoop others into their grimy little net. Elderly people who let their licenses lapse, because they're not driving anymore, only to get an unpleasant surprise when they go to vote. People with disabilities, and people who live on thinner margins than you and I can ever imagine, who suddenly discover they have to shell out out a notary fee as the price of participating in our so-called system. And so on, and so forth.
That's how democracies die. Not necessarily with tanks and riots in the streets, but "thousand cuts" legislation, like Michigan's voter suppression package. If this doesn't motivate us to get out and fight, nothing ever will. If the Republicans get away with even a tenth of this stuff, guess what? We won't have a democracy left to defend anymore. Because, remember -- the personal is political. And vice versa. --The Reckoner
Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before They Run What's Left
Of Your Rights Through The Shredder):
Of Your Rights Through The Shredder):
Brennan Center For Justice
Voting Laws Roundup; February 2021:
Bridge Detroit
Michigan GOP Mounts "Election Integrity" Push:
Democrats Fear Suppression:
Democrats Fear Suppression:
Bridge Michigan
Gerrymandering In Michigan
Is Among The Nation's Worst, New Test Claims:
MLive
Michigan Senate GOP Debuts Election "Reforms"
(Sorry, but the latter word is going in quotes -- I don't have to play the "both-sides-ism" games of the mainstream media. I'm calling it for what is. Reform, it isn't. Simple as that.)
The Guardian
US Democracy On The Brink
Vox: America's Anti-Democratic Senate,
By The Numbers:
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/6/21550979/senate-malapportionment-20-million-democrats-republicans-supreme-court
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