Want to see a Movement Conservative pushing Voter ID laws flummoxed into just stammering?
Tell them flatly that all forms of mandatory voter ID required by law to vote in an election anywhere in the U.S. must be 100% free. Or else, they are instituting an illegal poll tax.
Attack not just the GOP, but also Movement Conservatism itself, via outfits like ALEC, as both the architects and the engine of new poll taxes and for establishing a 21rst Century Jim Crow.
This is not the fight they want to have right now. It's reasonable, easy to understand/explain, and it makes them put up or shut up about their real priority in having voter ID laws put in place across the nation. Is it about voter "fraud" or is it about denying people you don't want to vote their vote? We know the answer, sure, but millions and millions of low-information voters that you simply cannot ever trust to just know, based on common sense and what they see and hear with their own eyes and ears, who is helping and who is screwing them in American politics.
The Movement Conservative Right has essentially declared that they are going to deal with being at a demographic disadvantage by trying to reset our democracy so that only Movement Conservatives can enjoy easy access to the polls. Long term? This is nothing short of utterly suicidal and it is so tactically and strategically stupid that it makes about as much sense as drinking Drano to deal with an ulcer. But in the short term? They are going to get to do some real damage as it is not so clear that voter suppression laws are going to be swept away by courts stuffed with decades of Movement Conservative activists in robes.
Nobody should hesitate to politically punch any Movement Conservative or Movement Conservative outfit in the mouth from here on out. From ALEC to individual Republican candidates. The staggering level of tactical and strategic stupidity of this cannot be understated. This is a disaster for them. Coupled with the open white nationalist nativism of the Teahadi on the most conservative-friendly immigration reform bill they are ever going to get (when you consider the demographic changes to come fundamentally altering what is possible in terms of public policy in America) that is actually still able to be called reform, we are in for a rough decade to decade and a half and then a new day.
If the Democratic Party becomes vastly more confrontational with the Right, and forces them to drown in their own stupidity, I suspect the Right will face an existential crisis far sooner. I'm not an Occupy basher, as anybody who has read me over the years here can confirm, but one thing that I did learn from the critics of the Occupy Movement was that you have to have something, public policy specific, to ground and focus your energy and outrage into, else, the heat of raw outrage and anger dissipates over time.
I'm looking for every opportunity to wed policy ideas, ideas that have political value on multiple levels in a fight, to the pressure and temperature of people's justifiable ire and outrage. Heat rises and falls, and having a crucible to reheat the metal in when it cools is a tactical and strategic must when considering the vast wealth the other side has at its disposal.
I've been thinking about the free voter ID and calling voter ID laws meant to suppress people of color a poll tax at every opportunity, for a while now. I think it's a force multiplier, and it does good in establishing who is right and who is wrong to millions of people you just can't trust to know who is the good and who is the bad guy. Ever. Even if it is ultimately defeated by the Right, it helps get us to that ultimate victory.
So. A policy-based attack on voter disenfranchisement. Equating a Voter ID that must be paid for to a 21rst century poll tax, and then fighting for a free and easily acquired voter ID in all 50 states.
If you need an official ID to vote, then a Voter ID must be easily accessible and free, or else, it is a poll tax and it is an un-American assault on democracy in every way.
It hits the Right on multiple levels.
1. Even if you lose the policy fight in Red Red States due to a lack of numbers in state legislatures, you are cementing the idea that it's not just wrong, but fundamentally corrosive to democracy and constantly reminding the public that the GOP is cheating and dishonest. Democrats want everybody to vote, the GOP just wants GOP voters to vote. You are going to get party-line votes with every Tea Party Republican on the wrong side of history and (hopefully) every Democratic vote on the right side. Repeatedly. Across the nation.
2. It reveals the lie that this is about voter fraud and not disenfranchisement. If the GOP is so afraid of fraud, and fraud alone, they will of course support a new and free ID for voting.
3. Conservative states with no state income taxes make up for their lack of a state income tax via fees and additional surcharges. You are threatening a revenue stream that the Grover Norquist crowd do not consider a tax, and the Right cannot afford to have threatened.
4. It gives every Democrat, in every state, the opportunity to "ACORN" ALEC and specifically attack Movement Conservatism as being the problem. Every shitty state-level Movement Conservative think tank experiment on real human beings in pimped or pushed, in some way, by ALEC or ALEC sympathetics. Equate ALEC with voter disenfranchisement. Make them radioactive. Every low-information voter in America should think ALEC=unAmerican.
5. It gives people something specific to rally around, a goal, a weapon besides outrage directed at an outcome that is easy to understand and explain to low-information voters and the media alike. Democrats, liberals, and moderates can all agree and rally around fighting something as a poll tax. As the new corporate and OverClass endorse and implemented Jim Crow.
6. It gives you an option, as policy, to serve as a bridge to ending voter ID laws. The fight to repeal may take years, and may linger in areas for a long time, so you need public policy options that short-circuit the toxic policy while it is still in place being fought. It's a plan-B, and we need more tactical and strategic plan-Bs as non-conservatives.
7. Republicans, especially the Teahadi, are loathe to defend their tactics on substance. Adding "Poll Tax" and "21rst century Jim Crow" into the public debate is going to make them utterly miserable on an area, attacking minorities for the "crime" of not being conservative, a policy discussion is a more solid foundation to adding that to the discourse than just throwing it out there.
8. It doesn't cost you money to talk about it, and it's an idea that is worthy of debate and "Require ID? Then it must be Free", I don't believe, can or will be easily dismissed by the wingnuts and Villagers as overreach or hyperbolic partisanship. It will help everybody vote easier, Republicans and Democrats alike.
9. It can be argued on both the Federal and State Levels as public policy at the same time.
10. No matter how much money the Citizen's United folks throw at attacking it, it still has them talking about their bad behavior, about how they are denying people their rights, deliberately for partisan purposes, and that the people they are attacking who are fighting for it are trying to fight for everybodies right to vote.
Oh. One last thing. Please don't get me wrong.
I'm not naive enough to think that the same Movement Conservative activists in robes who help the GOP deny non-GOPers easy access to the polls won't strike down this kind of policy. That's why it was important that this have use no matter what the outcome of this particular battle. Also, you, of course, still fight to get rid of the voter ID laws, tooth and nail, and other voter suppression tactics, fang and claw, but in states where they have been rammed in, or could be, you have to find a way to make this a fight that they don't really want to have. You also have to find a way to make them pay, to hurt them, financially as well as politically, for Movement Conservative policy overreach.
The public has to always see this as always being not just an abuse and an outrage, but a Republican, and more importantly, a Movement Conservative abuse and outrage. The GOP is good at muddying the waters for low-information voters and the Village courtesans, so, find a way to make it hurt if we can't kill it. If we can find a way to make the policy work the exact opposite way they intend it to, or to cost them money, or both, you make this less and less worth it to them.
And what if we win? What if we get a best-case outcome short of striking down voter ID laws meant entirely to deny non-Movement Conservatives the right to the ballot easily and fairly?
A non-profit pro-voting non-partisan charity that has free Voter Photo ID services, oh, and by the way you can register to vote there as well, would be a nightmare for the Right as well. Finding ways to put them on the defensive, or to put them in a position to be passing laws that actually blow up in their faces rather than suppress the vote they way they intend it to, has to be a back-up plan with the Supreme Court and hoards of conservative judges around the nation are. Even if the only benefit to be gained is that millions of people who are not otherwise paying attention and don't get its a scam now get that it is a partisan scam. That is is all about denying people their right to vote for who they vote for and who is to blame. That's a win too.