Primarily in response to the re-election of America's first African-American President, there are nefarious, anti-black, anti-Hispanic, anti-Democracy, anti-voter...just plain anti-freedom election rigging schemes going on in virtually every state government controlled by Republicans.
One can only conclude that these crafty actions are designed to prevent the election of future Democratic presidential candidates and to keep white conservatives in power by any means necessary in the face of America's changing demographics. In a nustshell, the GOP is trying to change our electoral process so that the white minority of the not-so-distant future can still pick America's Presidents.
GOP national and state leaders won't admit it, but in the aftermath of President Obama's resounding electoral college victory, most of them are probably scared shitless and feeling like hate monger Pat Buchanan, who left no doubt about the racist toad he is in an interview published the day after Election Day titled "Buchanan: ‘White America’ Died Last Night." (http://dailycurrant.com/...).
This excerpt from that article might as well be the GOP's manifesto/blueprint for the next year or two as it strives to limit democracy to a chosen few and stymie election fairness. I'm just surprised Buchanan was so open and honest about how he and so many in the GOP feel. Check out the crazy:
Conservative political pundit Pat Buchanan stoked controversy today by claiming that Barack Obama's re-election has "killed White America."
But the former Nixon advisor was more explicit on the G. Gordon Liddy Show this morning. When asked for his reaction to Obama's victory, Buchanan replied brazenly:
"White America died last night. Obama's reelection killed it. Our 200 plus year history as a Western nation is over. We're a Socialist Latin American country now. Venezuela without the oil."
Stunned by his clear racisim, Liddy tried to walk his guest back from the ledge:
"With what you just said right there...You seem to imply that white people are better than other people. That's not really what you're saying is it?"
"Of course that's what I'm saying," Buchanan replied "Isn't it obvious? Anything worth doing on this Earth was done first by white people."
"Who landed on the moon? White people. Who climbed Mount Everest? White people. Who invented the transistor? White people. Who invented paper? White people. Who discovered algebra? White people."
"And don't give me all this nonsense about Martin Luther King and civil rights and all that. Who do you think freed the slaves? Abraham Lincoln. A white guy!"
"But we're not led by Lincoln anymore, we're led by an affirmative-action mulatto who can't physically understand how great America once was."
"I cried last night G. I cried for hours. It's over for all of us. The great White nation will never survive another four years of Obama's leadership."
Liddy tried to reason with Buchanan, reminding him that he shares similar positions with the President on Afghanistan, Iraq, and relations with Russia: "Of course I agree with half of what he does," Buchanan answered, "He's half white! That's not the half I'm worried about."
Yep, that Bozo was brazen enough to go on the record with that crap. But I'm glad he did because it puts on full display the insanity of Right Wing Nut Jobs that reasonable Americans who truly love this country have to confront and defeat.
Considering the mindset of Buchanan and those of his ilk, it's easy to understand how desperate the GOP is and why they're willing to stoop to anything to retain political power--even if it means installing an Apartheid-like election system that minimizes the voting power of non-white, non-Christian American citizens.
That desperation was manifested recently in Virginia, when on the day of President Obama's inauguration, the Virginia State Senate underhandedly passed a bill by a 20-19 vote that would redistrict the state’s senate seats. The vote would have been a tie if Democratic Senator Henry Marsh been present, but he was attending the inauguration.
Had Marsh been present, however, the state’s Lieutenant Governor, Democrat Bill Bolling, would probably have broken the tie and defeated the bill.
The Virginia gerrymandering bill now goes to the heavily Republican House of Delegates for a vote, where it will likely face little opposition. If it passes, it could ultimately mean Virginia will be another "swing state" that could have its electoral split based on Congressional districts.
What Republicans are trying to do is reshape the political landscape in such a way that even if they lose popular vote, they still have a route to winning the White House, much like the way they won the U.S. House in 2012.
Even that tool Joe Scarborough admitted that the GOP cheated via Gerrymandering to keep control of the U.S. House, given that GOP candidates got 1.5 million less votes than Democratic candidates for House seats in 2012.
Voter suppression efforts in 2012 in so-called swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Virginia failed to deliver those states to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. This gerrymandering scheme appears to be Plan B.
So, how does this GOP scheme work? Here's an excerpt from a recent article by by Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks from Truth-Out.Org (http://truth-out.org/...) that explains it:
The plan works like this: Instead of giving all of a state’s Electoral College votes to the popular vote winner of that state, Republicans want Electoral College votes in a small number of states to be doled out based on who won each Congressional district, plus two votes going to the popular vote winner.
Of course, those Congressional districts in several traditionally blue states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan were drawn by newly-elected Republicans state legislatures after the 2010 census. And they were drawn in a way that already gives Republicans an advantage by carving up Democratic strongholds and creating “safe” Republican seats.
I'm not sure what if anything, other than legal action, can be done to stop the GOP from enacting its wicked, un-American agenda before the 2014 mid-terms. But we the people have to step and find a way. Otherwise, we might be looking at the preservation of "Pat Buchanan's America" for at least a couple of more generations.