A wild card in the 2024 elections will be how effective Republican Party efforts to suppress non-Republican voters and rig elections in their favor will be. That alone could tip the election to Trump. The NYT writes in an opinion piece:
When Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, announced her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in February, she remarked that the Republican Party had “lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections.” That, she said, “has to change.”
Her fellow Republicans appear to disagree. Across the country, Republican officeholders and activists have abandoned any pretense of trying to win over a majority of voters. Last week, for example, Cleta Mitchell — a top Republican lawyer, strategist and fund-raiser — told donors to the Republican National Committee that conservatives had to limit voting on college campuses and tighten rules for voter registration and mail-in ballots. Only then, she said, could Republicans level the playing field for the 2024 presidential election. “The left has manipulated the electoral systems to favor one side — theirs,” she said in her presentation. “Our constitutional Republic’s survival is at stake.”
The Republican Party’s hostility to popular government is most apparent on issues where the majority stands sharply opposed to conservative orthodoxy. Rather than try to persuade voters or compromise on legislation, much of the Republican Party has made a conscious decision to insulate itself as much as possible from voters and popular discontent.
In the face of public opposition to their unpopular views on abortion, Republicans had three choices: make the case to voters that tough abortion restrictions were worthwhile; compromise and bend to public opinion; or change the rules so that their opponents could not protect abortion rights against the will of a legislature that wants to ban the procedure.
Ahead of an effort to enshrine abortion rights into the state Constitution with a ballot measure that would go to voters in a November general election, Ohio Republicans are advancing a ballot measure that would raise the threshold for passing such a measure to 60 percent. If they get their way, the measure could go to voters in an August special election (previously, Ohio Republicans had opposed August special elections). This new rule requiring a supermajority would take only a simple majority to pass.
This is what the American tyranny of the minority looks like. Elections have to be subverted. Contrary public opinion has to be blocked from manifesting itself, e.g., in the form of voter initiated ballot measures, which is what the GOP is doing right now.
The point is simple: American radical right authoritarians have not given up on subverting elections. In their minds, the job is not done yet. Subverting the 2024 elections is a high priority fascist Republican Party goal. The fascists are right about one thing here. Our constitutional Republic’s survival is at stake.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
From the Clueless Democrats Files: The AP writes:
AP Interview: Pelosi says Ukraine, democracy ‘must win’The steady stream of arrivals in Kyiv has served to amplify a political and military partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine for the world to see, one that will be tested anew when Congress is again expected this year to help fund the war to defeat Russia.
“We must win. We must bring this to a positive conclusion — for the people of Ukraine and for our country,” Pelosi said.
“There is a fight in the world now between democracy and autocracy, its manifestation at the time is in Ukraine.”
Pelosi truly does not understand where the main threat to democracy lies. It lies here in the US. The leader of the radical right GOP has made his opinion on this completely clear. If he is re-elected in 2024 as president, he will let Putin annex the entire Ukraine.
If democracy falls in the US, it will fall everywhere else. The leadership of the Democratic Party either simply does not understand the domestic authoritarian threat to democracy and elections, or it does not believe it is a serious threat. Either way, the clueless Dem leadership is tragically wrong.
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
Poll on gun safety laws: A recent poll indicates that solid majorities of Americans want some significant gun safety laws passed. Recent politics indicates that (i) Americans in red states are not going to see any significant gun safety laws passed, and (ii) the Supreme Court will continue to overturn existing gun safety laws nationwide. That is how tyranny of the minority deals with inconvenient public opinion.
That poll also indicates that 61% favor banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. 52% oppose the idea of encouraging more people to carry guns to defend against attackers, while 45% support it.
No comments:
Post a Comment