This website and a million like it are chock full of alarmists. I tend to be one of them. But there are reasons for alarm. For all the good liberal advocates on this site, I think it’s important that we maintain focus on some of the most important issues. It’s going to take a lot more effort than what we’re expending now to get some change going.
More than electing the blue team. But I’m not going to write a cool lead in to this story like my usual stuff (please check out my usual stuff) because I’m tired and need to get to the point.
This is about voting rights.
We all can give John Roberts a pat on the back for trying to keep his Supreme Court from jumping into controversial stuff, but the fact is he’s been one of the most effective tools in weakening Democrat voting power.
Last year’s Brnovitch vs Democratic National Committee was a 6-3 decision saying that states could put up moderate barriers to voting such as Arizona enacting strict “ballot harvesting” laws that are aimed directly at Navajo voters, a bloc that tended to vote Democrat in 2020.
Shelby County v Holder was a huge blow to the Voting Rights Act. It gutted a provision that required areas with a history of discrimination to get clearance from the Department of Justice before enacting voter restrictions.
It’s not just the court though. We all remember watching Georgia’s Secretary of State, the official in charge of administering elections in the state, administer his own election in 2018 despite the gigantic conflict of interest.
It’s watching predominantly black people wait hours and hours outside their polling places because states keep reducing the number of polling places in large cities where Democratic voting blocs lie.
It’s the steadfast refusal of anyone to attempt to make Election Day a national holiday so people who work regular jobs don’t have to miss work waiting in line for an hour to vote.
In Pennsylvania the legislature is pushing through “Voting reform” that would allow poll watchers from any part of the state to travel to any other part of the state to watch people vote. It’s a big concession to the Big Lie that somehow big team D managed to bamboozle the country by slipping in ballots in Milwaukee, Philly, and Atlanta. That provision was not written so some Pittsburgh suburban liberals can travel to Forest County to make sure everything is on the up-and-up. It’s so some good ol boys strapped with their open carrys can drive from Bradford County to Harrisburg and intimidate the non-white voters.
It’s gerrymandering suddenly getting its time in the spotlight, with the largest percentage of Americans ever calling for gerrymandering reform and everyone punting on it.
In 2019 Roberts really pulled off his greatest victory, when the court ruled 5-4 that federal courts have no reason to entangle themselves with partisan gerrymandering. Despite the fact that it effectively steals millions of Americans rights to free and fair elections, gerrymandering could continue unababted.
AND IT DID. Texas actually showed real restraint in not torpedoing its growing Democratic population. Instead it essentially locked in 35 of its Congressional districts so there’s no chance of a different party winning. Meanwhile Dems continue to lose ground with Latino voters and look to lose the few swing districts left in the state. Ohio is doing a brilliant job gerrymandering an 11-4 Republican rout which is honestly impressive given how hard that actually is in that state. They even broke their own constitutional amendment to do it.
All in all it looks like Dems will lose a net of 3 seats just to redistricting this year according to cook political report.
A lot of this could have been avoided by passing HR1, the first bill the Democratic House put on the floor when they took power in 2018. Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema blew that up.
So we see what’s going on right? As Republican legislatures neuter their Democratic governors or straight up wrest control of elections away from secretarys of state in service to the Big Lie, the ground work for a 2020 redux is being built.
All the while I read the headlines and think, “Is no one else seeings this? Orange man’s coup failed in 2020 and so the GOP helpfully tore down several of the guide posts to make it easier next time.”
The GOP is poised to seize power and the Democrats are going to outflank them by just straight up conceding it to them.
Look where we are, the party had 2 months to plan for Roe v Wade’s overturn and they sang a song and read a poem about it. In other countries their politicians throw rocks. Ours sing and take a knee. Joe Biden is a man terrified of being labeled a socialist despite billing himself in the 2020 primary as the next FDR, the most socialist president the country has ever seen.
He’ll NEVER forgive any meaningful amount of student debt because he believes America is still the 70’s where you can bootstrap your way through college loans.
He’s old school anti-marijuana, if anyone here seriously believed he would do anything positive on that front I have a bridge to sell you.
In the heart of George Floyd protests he decided the best way to reform the police was to give them more money.
When the Speaker of the House says the country “needs a strong republican party” who is that for? A weak republican party took away the right to an abortion, they’re attacking LGBTQ communities, passing laws allowing drivers to run over and kill protesters.
The other party is drinking the fash koolaid and loving it and the Dems failed to pass the voting rights reform bill that bare minimum would have curtailed them.
History is not kind to the party in power during midterms.
If the party is going to try and tweet through it and just keep saying “We’ll get them next time” they’re going to lose and lose badly.
And with Biden fully powerless to a hostile congress he’ll have nothing but an infrastructure bill to run on in 2024. Kamala Harris will have even less if she replaces him.
President DeSantis will absolutely codify more anti-democratic laws with a united congress and supreme court. By the time 2026 rolls around I’m not even sure there will be a structure in place to allow Democrats to win the midterms.
The other team is puncturing the Dems tires before the race even starts, while national dems are complaining to the judges and looking at clouds.
Get in the streets. Demand action on voting rights because this very well may be the last election that we’ll be able to participate in. Someone egg Manchin’s house.