Hey, you, get away from those polling places! No trespassing! We don’t want your kind here! Scram!
How’s that for a winning political message? It is stupid, shameful and ultimately self-defeating, yet being blatantly anti-democratic and anti-voter is the official electoral strategy being enthusiastically embraced nationwide by Republican officials and operatives. Admitting that they can’t get majorities to vote for their collection of corporate lackeys, conspiracy theorists and bigoted old white guys, the GOP hierarchy’s Great Hope is crude repression — rigging the rules to shove as many Democratic voters as possible out of our elections.
They’re banking on a blitz of bureaucratic bills they’re now trying to ram through nearly every state legislature, using government red tape and the iron fist of government autocracy to intimidate, divert and otherwise deny eligible voters the ability to exercise their most fundament democratic right. The main targets of the GOP’s vote thieves are people of color, but they’re also pushing measures to keep students, senior citizens, union households and poor communities from voting. Continue reading.