It's easy to watch the chaos in the GOP Presidential field and have a good chuckle. It's easy to tally up name after name of unqualified and (hopefully) unelectable candidates, characters looking to milk a few bucks from their supporters and maybe score a sweet deal on Fox News when the dust has settled.
But we really shouldn't do that.
We shouldn't laugh because it's not funny. Well, it's funny, but what's really going on isn't funny at all; it's utterly terrifying, and it's nothing more than another example of the GOP working to disenfranchise voters and discourage people from showing up to exercise their right to vote.
Follow me below the squiggle (if I've done this right -- it's my first diary) and I'll tell you why.
The old truth we all cling to is this: "If people show up to vote, Democrats win."
Certainly the GOP has shown its dedication to discouraging or outright preventing people from voting. Arcane voter registration laws litter the country like shell casings left in the sand by Bush's wars. But beyond actively working to stop people from voting is the sneakier strategy of chipping away at people’s desire to vote at all.
I’ve seen it in forum discussions all over the web – from political sites to gaming sites to entertainment sites. It mostly looks like this: “Don’t tell me you support Hillary because she’s better than Republican Candidate X; tell me why you think Hillary herself should be President.”
It’s the old argument, writ new: “Your side is as bad as ours.”
And we chuckle and shake our heads and think how wrong they are, how they don’t know anything about Hillary at all. We think of all she did as First Lady, as a Senator, and as Secretary of State. Sometimes we even list some of those accomplishments.
But that’s not the point.
The point is the suggestion. The point is making folks question whether there’s any point to voting at all.
Look at the Republican field. It’s a vast wasteland of unqualified and possibly unbalanced individuals who have no business running a lemonade stand, much less the country. Now look at it again and realize that, for a significant portion of the country, the “Republican field” is interchangeable with “The Candidates”.
And there you go.
The GOP wants us to laugh at their “candidates”. They want the country to be disgusted by the travesty that their Presidential Primaries have and will become. Because if we’re disgusted then some of us will throw our hands up and decide it’s not worth the trouble.
Some of us won’t bother to vote in 2016.
Think about the polling numbers we see for Congress and its approval rating. Think about how many people don’t differentiate between the Republicans in Congress and the Democrats in Congress. Think about how little the country seems to think about Congress as a whole – now ask yourself how many people feel that way about the Presidential race, too.
If the GOP can convince folks that the entire field is a joke, people won’t vote. They won’t. They’ll shake their heads and tell their friends it’s just a big pile of stupid and what’s the point. But the thing is, 2014 showed us the GOP base will show up no matter what. Rain or shine, right?
Have a laugh at Rand Paul or Donald Trump. Roll your eyes as Jeb! tells us he’s going to have W acting as his foreign policy advisor. But realize that we’re doing their work for them. Realize that the very act of ridiculing the GOP Clown Car may be helping strengthen their chances in 2016.
And if that's not a sobering thought, I don't know what is.