A ray of hope from Kansas

My concerns about deadly threats to democracy, inconvenient truth, the rule of law and civil liberties are well known to everyone here. Lately there have not been many hopeful signs. But one hopeful sign came from Kansas yesterday. Voters there were unwilling to given up a personal right to decide to have an abortion. 

What was hopeful was a couple of things. First, the margin of pro-abortion rights sentiment, 58.8% compared to people who voted to terminate abortion rights, 41.2%.  

That was from a deep red state. That was not too far off of national sentiment of 61% in favor of retaining abortion rights.

Second and more importantly, voter turnout was high, and barriers to voting were also high. To insure a win with the loss of abortion rights, Kansas radical right Republicans put this ballot measure (1) in a primary election, not the general election, (2) in a midterm election, and (3) worded the ballot measure confusingly such that a no vote meant yes to keeping abortion rights and yes meant no. All three of those tactics heavily favored extremist Republicans. 

That is because, (1) independents and Democrats tend to have lower turnouts in primary and midterm elections, and (2) Republican extremists tends to vote heavily in all elections, (3) confusingly worded ballot measures tend to favor the interests who write the measures, and (4) Kansas is a state with closed primary elections, leaving independents there with only ballot measures to vote for, which disincentivizes independent voters. That indicates that at least for important issues where Republicans are taking rights away, there is significant voter sentiment in opposition to loss of rights and people are willing to take action to vote, even if it is inconvenient.

See the confusion inherent in the Republican attack?

Of course, the fascist Republican Party will learn from this. One lesson is to double down on getting rid of voter power in elections. To accomplish the radical right Christian nationalist goal of imposing Christian Sharia law on everyone, elections have to be subverted and neutered. Voters simply cannot have the power to influence policy by direct elections, which is what ballot measures are. The radicals are OK with indirect elections where their influence is diluted by gerrymandering voting districts. They are not OK with raw voter power. The Republican Supreme Court is going to make sure that voter power will be greatly reduced in a decision that will be handed down next year, most likely in June.

The open question is whether voters will oppose Republican Party attacks on democracy, inconvenient truth, the rule of law and civil liberties with the same level of intensity.