4/1/21
If a political party in some theoretical nation cannot muster a majority of votes in free elections, it has two choices: It can broaden its appeal to voters to get those votes, or it can take steps to prevent the groups voting against them from getting to the polls. The first is the democratic model. The second is, for nations that bother to have elections at all, the authoritarian standby. A new Brennan Center For Justice report tallies the new number of statehouse bills intended to restrict voting rights in this country at 361, encompassing 47 states. Five have already been signed; 29 have been passed by at least one state legislative chamber; 55 others are "moving" through those legislatures. As one would expect, it's Texas, Georgia, and Arizona taking the lead. All three have Republican officials increasingly desperate to gain new footholds after elections proving their state dominance to be tenuous. In Arizona, the party has turned to conspiracy theory to explain their losses. In Georgia, efforts have been targeted specifically at undermining the ability of Black community leaders and churches to rally voters to the polls. The most popular measures for vote suppression are variations of the ones Republicans have focused on through past decades of suppression.
There are 361 new attempts to restrict the vote and counting in the immediate aftermath of a Republican Party-sponsored effort to fraudulently claim that the last election was rigged against them. It led to groups of violent fascism-promoting militia freaks storming the U.S. Capitol in an effort to have that election nullified, kill officials who opposed their demands, or both. This is a party that has pretty much had it with the American notion of elections. If you tune into the now astonishingly fascist Fox News, they will tell you so themselves. It ain't subtle. It appears the House and Senate efforts to protect voting rights had better move along with some speed. (In the meantime, some Democratic-led states are expanding voter protections.) To repeat: It appears the House and Senate efforts to protect voting rights had better move along with some speed. It is a given that the Republican senators most supportive of the premises of the coup will absolutely, positively take every possible procedural step to block any such protections moving forward. They have no intention of giving up the sole apparent means by which white nationalism can retain control over the rest of us.
