The Republican Party loves the racist “voter fraud” dog whistle. It serves two purposes by allowing them to be super racist and rev up their bigoted and fearful base, while also providing them with the excuse for suppressing the vote in their areas—usually targeting people of color. And Wisconsin’s democratic system is as corrupt as a Republican-led state can be.
Brad Schimel was Gov. Scott Walker’s choice for Wisconsin attorney general. That’s almost all you need to know about Brad Schimel—that and the fact that he has a history of being about as straight-shooting as a circle. Mother Jones reported on Monday that AG Schimel was blabbing away on conservative radio when he defended the state’s voter ID laws by basically admitting that Republican candidates couldn’t win Wisconsin without a little help from crooked laws.
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“We battled to get voter ID on the ballot for the November ’16 election,” Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, who defended the law in court, told conservative radio host Vicki McKenna on April 12. “How many of your listeners really honestly are sure that Sen. [Ron] Johnson was going to win reelection or President Trump was going to win Wisconsin if we didn’t have voter ID to keep Wisconsin’s elections clean and honest and have integrity?”
“Clean and honest and have integrity?” That’s a triumvirate of opposite-day lies. Gov. Walker and his minions have worked tirelessly to suppress the vote in Wisconsin, since they are unpopular among the democratic majority of people in their state. Republicans everywhere know the deal—voter suppression tactics like voter ID laws target communities of color and other underserved communities. These are the communities that react most positively to more liberal and humane government policies—things that are anathema to the Republican Party’s bootstrapping, bigoted hypocrites. We have had some victories since that time with Judge Rebecca Dallet getting a position on the state’s Supreme Court. But more needs to be done.
Get out—and get out your friends and family out—and vote.
