Trump and the Republicans are Willing to Damage America to Hang Onto Power - What Will Happen in November?
Donald Trump just tweeted his outrage that the State of Nevada is going to make it easy for all their registered citizens to vote by mail.He knows, as Republicans have known for 40 years since Americans first started rejecting Reaganomics in widespread numbers, that when everybody can vote in America, Republicans lose elections.
Because Republicans can't win when elections are fair, they cheat. In Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin, for example, the majority of those states' voters cast their ballots for Democrats, so each one of those states got a Democratic governor. But in each of those states, Republicans still control the legislatures because they gerrymandered the states so heavily that Republican politicians could pick their voters, rather than having the voters pick the politicians.
In the 1980 election Paul Weyrich, cofounder of the Heritage Foundation, was working on the Reagan campaign and said, "I don't want everybody to vote. ... Our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
That became the mantra of the Republican Party for the next 40 years.
They started out with ID laws that would make it hard for students, older people and low income people who live in cities and don't own cars to vote. Then, in the late '90s, they started aggressively purging the names of Black, Asian and Hispanic voters from the voting rolls. Then, when John Roberts and the Supreme Court gutted the voting rights act in 2013, they started shutting down polling locations in minority neighborhoods.
Now they have gone to war against mail-in voting. Even though about a quarter of all Americans voted by mail in the last election, and five states have voted entirely by mail in some cases for over 20 years, Republicans are telling us today that voting by mail is suddenly now dangerous.
"Nevada's clubhouse governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state," Trump tweeted when Nevada's legislature passed a law to send a mail-in ballot to every registered voter in the state.
Now that his $2 million donor, Louis DeJoy, has taken over the Post Office and slowed down mail delivery, Trump bragged in his tweet, "Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes [in Nevada]..."
Then, Rona Romney McDaniel, who runs the RNC, tweeted: "@realDonaldTrump's supporters are out in force today protesting Nevada Dems' attempts to ram through mass mail-in voting & ballot harvesting. Dems want to use the pandemic to destroy election integrity."
The institutions of a republic's governance and elections only work if people trust them. Republicans are actively and aggressively trying to destroy that trust.
Republicans are so desperate to hang onto power, and their billionaire backers are so nervous that Democrats might get elected and raise their taxes, that they've collectively resorted to explicitly damaging our democracy.
The damage Trump, McDaniel and rightwing media are doing to our republic and its democratic institutions will last far beyond this election.
The best way we can minimize that damage is to turn out this November, and in the weeks before via mail-in voting, in absolutely overwhelming numbers. Double check your voter registration!
-Thom
Comments
How is Trump able to destroy the Post Office by appointing someone who's mission is to destroy it? Why isn't every Democrat raising hell over this? Is there any developed country without a postal service? Privatizing will send rates through the roof with zero recourse. He's effectively turning us into one of the s*hole countries he is so fond of deriding.
If we found the 2000 election crazy with the usual suspects storming the doors in Florida, that will seem like a cake-walk twenty years later. It too was compliments of the Supreme Court.
EDUCATE is the only solution. If you know someone young, try to make them understand politics affects everything thing every day their whole life long.
Apathy is not an option. Neither is equivocation concerning the parties. I call people out on that and try to explain the damage they are doing by saying things that make folks think voting doesn't matter.
Strides were made in 2018....let's finish this Trump "episode" with the bigly-est vote ever.
A raging pandemic killing hundreds of thousands and a devastating economic collapse ravaging hundreds of millions is quite the education. The most important aspect of voting is understanding who is responsible, who to vote out of power. The choice is clear.
I think the best educator is Accountability. No matter how much good a president does, if the next president is able to come in with a wrecking ball and sledge hammer and destroy that good, how good was it? By not seeking accountability for the abuses of the Bush administration, Obama left the door open for the likes of Trump and his abetters.
After all, if there are no repercussions for bad behavior and it is wildly profitable, why would anyone think that there are those that wouldn’t follow this path? Has history taught us nothing?
As about any kid knows, it is much easier to tear things apart than it is to build or rebuild them. Trump is an unrestrained brat from hell, not only undoing any good done in the Obama presidency, he is taking a blowtorch to the US Constitution and is doing all that he can to undo any good done in the 200 plus years of this countries existence.
The “Build Back Better” that Biden is campaigning on, must feature Accountability as Issue Number One. Maybe, for political reasons, he cannot campaign that way, but if elected, that should be his first priority. Democrats are always saying they can "walk and chew gum at the same time,” therefore it should be no problem to hold Trump and his abetters accountable while rebuilding the country.
I know my repeated cries for accountability are getting old and believe me, I think the Obama presidency was inspiring and as productive as any in modern times and in many ways he did the impossible by rescuing the American auto industry, solving the mortgage and banking crisis and instituting the ACA. But what good is it if there was no secure foundation to insure those accomplishments.
Accountability is the most important part of that foundation. To repeat a phrase I once heard, “The Past Is The Future.”
If the Post office can handle Christmas cards, they can certainly handle mail in votes. The Post Office must raise their prices to cover the cost of doing business. That's the first thing a private company would be allowed to do if they took over. Either that, or severely degrade services....Or both.
They have banned overtime at the Post Office. Now it will be interesting to see the excuse to not hire additional help (part time, full time, temporary etc.) with 50 million unemployed.
Thom, why do you always run from a voter ID? This whole thing is easy,
National two day holiday with polls open 12hrs/day.
Photo ID required
Machine with Paper ballot backup
Each voter will have a finger dipped in ink as proof of voting.
Crap like this makes me question "mail-in voting"
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/07/25/usps-fails-mail-in-ballot-test-n697455
http://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2020/06/25/fraud-charges/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/4-la-men-admit-to-skid-row-voter-fraud-scheme-da-announces
As for your constant bleating about Khris Kobach and the voter fraud commission,
It wasn't "Kobach's" program. It was developed by Ron Thornburgh and was put under the administration of Kansas's Secretary of State, which happened to be Kobach. Unless you can prove that Kobach intentionally messed with the program to bring about a determined outcome then you have no evidence of anything. Such was never determined. Except perhaps by conspiracy theorists using their imagination.
As for the voter fraud commission, the entire purpose of the commission was to find out if illegal immigrants were voting. Kinda hard to find such when you're blocked by states like California which has the most illegal immigrants living in it. Don't you think? In any case that Trump appointed him head of that program in no way proves that Trump gave him any blessings. And it's not much of a blessing anyways. It's not like it actually benefited him in any way. He had a higher position as Kansas's Sec State.
That said,
Based on the crime statistics that have been increasing proportionally with the rise of the blm movement and given those numbers are up over 100% in long time democrat run cities all over the US,
why would anyone be so stupid to vote democrat again anyway?
I apologize for the long rant.
Yes indeed!!! Voter Photo IDs!! No one has ever forged a photo ID. Have they? For instance, no one has ever forged a passport. Have they? At least no qualified voter that is too poor or unable to obtain a “Voter ID.” They are not likely to fake “Voter IDs” because they don’t have the money or means to even get a “Voter ID” in the first place. But corporatists Republicans will have the money and means to obtain fake ID’s.
Want a minute!!!…now I know why Republicans want “Voter IDs.”
My God!!! Four men in LA indicted for “Voter Fraud.” Send in the National Guard!! Never mind that they didn’t get away with it. Hell, before you know it, Right Wing internet sites may find three or four more cases of “Voter Fraud” even though those frauds would probably be foiled too.
Still, you can’t be too careful! By the way, what the fuck does dipping you finger in a bottle of ink prove? How do I know that Republican Homeland Security Storm Trumppers won’t kidnap Democrats and dip their fingers in a bottle of ink before they vote? Much safer to vote from home like the president!
Yes, why would anyone vote “Democrat?” Hell, were so fucking great now I can hardly stand it. Well, gotta grab my face mask, disinfect my hands and go shopping and then disinfect my purchases when I get back home. How much better can it get?
DAMN RIGHT WERE GONNA OPIN OUR SCHOOLS!!! WERE GONNA EDGYKATE R KIDS TA DEATH!!! Weather they like it er knot!
whatabout, Re: your links. “Crap like this makes me question mail-in voting.” And that is exactly what those articles are designed to do. Rightwing sites scour the media looking for any iota of irregularities that they can amplify and twist into red-meat to serve up to the cult of believers.
That is what Fox News is all about. Not to educate, inform or enlighten. But to enable. Fox News does not brainwash, they enable those, that for whatever their reasons, want to be told what they want to believe. Before the “Fairness Doctrine” this was difficult and unprofitable. But since then, Fox News realized that their was a motherlode to be mined from catering to those that were starved for the comfort and security of Rightwing propaganda. And like artificially flavored, greasy, salty comfort food, the Trumpers have gorged themselves on Fox News and the 24/7 buffet of Rightwing internet sites pandering to their insatiable appetite for validation.
deepspace:well-meant. I agree that understanding is the first part. For me, and given that i can never be 100% sure of the correctness of my understanding, the second step is to vote in. Still waiting for Biden's actions to convince me. There is still time, of course.
stopgap: And as junk food leads (statistically) to shorter life spans (natural selection), so voting in incompetent politicians leads to minor (replacing them with competent ones) or major (social & financial lockdown) collapse (political and/or socio-economic selection). In all cases evolution as usual. I also agree with the accountability, and see no reason why Biden should not raise it at least for HIS presidency. Trust and accountability go hand in hand. Without trust (and accountability) things have no forward thrust. Usually lack of trust slows progress and eventually regresses back to the law of the jungle.
I'm really interested in how these millions of illegal folks vote. They just stroll into any polling place, without being vetted, and cast a vote?
Maybe some DJT/Republican leg humper could explain how you vote without being vetted, or, is it when you register, no one checks birth files from your place of birth to confirm the info given?
Enlighten me please. One would think if voter fraud was that common, more than a handful in this country's history could be found.
IMO election fraud is much more common.
As COVID 45 stated recently;" If we allow "mail-in voting" the Republican party would never win another election."
That's why voter suppression is the life's breath of the modern Republican party.
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Very hard to understand how GOP crooks have gotten away with this criminality for 40 years!?!?