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“This morning, conservative pundit
William Kristol wrote in The Bulwark what a number of us
have been saying for a while now, and it dovetails cleanly with the current
Republican attempt to suppress voting. “Kristol warns that our democracy is
in crisis. For the first time in our history, we have failed to have a
peaceful transfer of power. The Republican Party launched a coup—which
fortunately failed—and ‘now claims that the current administration is
illegitimately elected, the result of massive, coordinated fraud. The logical
extension of this position would seem to be that the American constitutional
order deserving of our allegiance no longer exists.’ So, he notes, ‘we are at
the edge of crisis, having repulsed one attempted authoritarian power grab
and bracing for another.’ “Claims that American democracy is
on the ropes in the face of an authoritarian power grab raise accusations of
partisanship… but in this case, the person making the claim is a
conservative, who goes on to urge conservatives to join behind President Joe
Biden to try to save democracy. Kristol warns that ‘a dangerous,
anti-democratic faction’ of the Republican Party ‘is not committed in any
serious way to the truth, the rule of law, or the basic foundations of our
liberal democracy.’ “Kristol’s call is notable both
because of his position on the right and because he warns that we are
absolutely not in a moment of business-as-usual. Perhaps because it is
impossible to imagine, we seem largely to have normalized that the former
president of the United States refused to accept his loss in the 2020
election and enlisted a mob to try to overturn the results. Along with his
supporters, he continues to insist that he won that election and that
President Joe Biden is an illegitimate usurper. “This big lie threatens the survival
of our democracy. “At the Conservative Political
Action Committee (CPAC) conference this weekend in Orlando, Florida, Trump
supporters doubled down on the lie that Biden stole the 2020 election. From a
stage shaped like a piece of Nazi insignia, speakers raged that they were
victims of ‘cancel culture’ on the part of Big Tech and the left, which are
allegedly trying to silence them. To restore fairness, they want to stop ‘voter
fraud’ and restore ‘election integrity,’ and they want to force social media
giants to let them say whatever they want on social media. “In the Washington Post,
commentator Jennifer Rubin said the modern conservatives at CPAC had no
policy but revenge, ‘resentment, cult worship and racism,’ and no political
goal but voter suppression. It is ‘the only means by which they seek to
capture power in an increasingly diverse America,’ she notes. A poll showed
that ‘election integrity’ was the issue most important to CPAC attendees,
with 62% of them choosing it over ‘constitutional rights’ (which got only
48%). “Trump himself packaged this lie in
words that sounded much like the things he said before the January 6 insurrection.
He claimed that he had won the election, that the election was ‘rigged,’ and
that it was ‘undeniable’ that the rules of the election were ‘illegally
changed’—although none of his many court challenges stuck. He attacked the
Supreme Court in language that echoed the attacks on his vice president, Mike
Pence, that had rioters searching him out to kill him. ‘They didn’t have the
guts or the courage to make the right decision,’ Trump said of the justices. “The purpose of this big lie is not
only to reinforce Trump’s hold on the Republican Party, but also to
delegitimize the Democratic victory. If Democrats cheat, it makes sense to
prevent ‘voter fraud’ by making it harder to vote. ‘We must pass
comprehensive election reforms, and we must do it now,’ Trump said. “Republican reforms, though, mean
voter suppression. Currently, Republican legislators in 43 states have
introduced more than 250 bills to restrict voting. They want to cut back
early voting and restrict mail-in voting, limit citizen-led ballot
initiatives, and continue to gerrymander congressional districts. Arizona is
trying to make it possible for state legislatures, rather than voters, to
choose the state’s presidential electors. Rather than try to draw voters to
their party’s candidates by moderating their stances, they are trying to win
power by keeping people from voting. “I cannot emphasize enough how
dangerous this is. We have gone down this road before in America, in the
South after 1876. The outcome was the end of democracy in the region and the
establishment of a single, dominant party for generations. In those decades,
a small body of men ruled their region without oversight and openly mocked
the idea of justice before the law. A member of the jury that took only 67
minutes to acquit Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam for murdering 14-year-old Emmett
Till in 1955 famously said, ‘We wouldn’t have taken so long if we hadn’t
stopped to drink pop.’ White men dominated women and their Black and Brown
neighbors, but their gains were largely psychological, as the one-party
system created instability that slowed down economic investment, while
leaders ignored education and infrastructure. “Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will
hear arguments in a lawsuit concerning Arizona election laws. The case is
from 2016, when Democrats argued that two Arizona voting laws discriminated
against Hispanic, Black, and Indigenous voters in violation of the 1965
Voting Rights Act, which prohibits laws that hamper voting on the basis of
race. The laws called for ballots cast in the wrong precinct to be thrown
away and allowed only election officials, letter carriers, household family
members, or caregivers to return someone else’s mail-in ballot. A violation
could bring a $150,000 fine. The court’s decision in this case will have big
implications for the legitimacy of the restrictions Republican legislatures
are trying to enact now. “Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to
shore up voting rights with H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021. This
sweeping measure would make it easier to vote, curtail gerrymandering, make
elections more secure, and reform the campaign finance system. “They are also proposing the John R.
Lewis Voting Rights Act, H.R. 4, which would restore the parts of the Voting
Rights Act the Supreme Court gutted in 2013 in the Shelby v. Holder decision,
limiting changes to election laws that disproportionately affect people of
color. After Shelby v. Holder, a number of states immediately enacted
sweeping voter suppression laws that disproportionately hit minorities, the
elderly, and the young, all populations perceived to vote Democratic. “Neither of these bills will pass
the Senate unless the Democrats modify the filibuster rule, which permits
Republicans to stop legislation unless it can muster not just a majority, but
a supermajority of 60 votes…” –Heather Cox Richardson |
Notes:
https://thebulwark.com/the-facts-of-life/
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/28/trump-gop-cpac-voter-integrity-restrictions-471831
https://www.vox.com/2021/2/28/22306318/trump-cpac-2021-speech-election-lies
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