On Voting Rights Republicans Have Told Us Who They Are. We Should Believe Them

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

America’s democracy is imperiled, and as we approach a coming crucible with a vote on the For the People Act in the Senate, we would all do well to remember: when someone tells you who they are, believe them.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1378592

On Voting Rights Republicans Have Told Us Who They Are. We Should Believe Them

And I’m not sure what it is about some Democrats that they haven’t figured this out yet. The evidence is all staring them in the faces, but has no impact.

This is going to be a costly loss when it comes. Voters will not forget who put them in the spot of their votes no longer counting, when this legislation or anything like S1 or John Lewis fails. It will be a forever legacy.

13 Likes

But what have we voters done to let the pols know how seriously we take this? Where are the large rallies and marches in every state? Why isn’t a Million Voter March being organized in DC? And yes, I am a part of this as I sit and peck away at the keyboard.

Politicians will act or not act based on what their voters give them.

3 Likes

Rand Paul, longing for the Antebellum, or, at least, the years after Reconstruction ended: (ed.)

“The idea of democracy and Majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) recently said.

No wonder he thinks a return to the Gilded Age is the path forward.

8 Likes

Republicans have been busy and are successful at achieving their goal: to make it harder and keep the people who normally don’t vote for them from voting.

Meanwhile Democrats are incapable of any sort of legislative response. It’s breathtaking and surreal.

11 Likes

What are they supposed to do if Manchin and Sinema won’t change/remove the filibuster? Please give an actionable answer.

5 Likes

“America’s democracy is imperiled,…”

image
Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.

5 Likes

When losing a free and fair election, Repugnicants response is to attempt to subvert the results of said election. When that also fails, they attempt to subvert democracy itself and insure there are no more free and fair elections for them to lose.

That Manchin and Sinema cannot see this plainly is evidence of their complicity.

12 Likes

Are you sure they don’t see it quite plainly?

5 Likes

There are no answers until peoples’ lives are made miserable enough to vote. End of story. In 2020, 53% of the voting populace voted. So until we figure out a way to get people out, there is nothing much to do. Corporate boycotts would be much more effective than protests.

8 Likes

File under: “none are so blind as…”.

1 Like

Biden needs to hold a prime time press conference and give the country some ‘straight talk.’ Tell the nation that he had high hopes and big legislative plans. He should say that he’s sorry that none of that will materialize. He should go on to explain that unfortunately because the legislative filibuster is being abused by the minority (soon to be majority) party in congress nothing else will be passed under my tenure as president. He should name senators Manchin and Sinema as the senators that are blocking all progress at reform. He should say that he will do all he can as president using the tools of his office but also note that will be limited. He should end by saying I’m sorry things didn’t turn out the way we all would have liked but life is unfair and he hopes that we don’t end up under fascism in the next couple of years.

4 Likes

This is more than a little contrarian, but many of the states where Republicans have rammed through repressive voting restrictions and pre-empted for the legislatrue the right to determine the validity of elections have done so on simple majority votes without any way for the Democratic minority to at least hold up the final vote and perhaps buy some time to organize a more effective opposition.

Instead they are left weaponless unless they can pull off a trick like in Texas where, by shear luck, the Domcratic members were able in the last hours of the last day they to walk out and deny the quorum needed to pass a truly awful bill.

Most state legislatures have nothing resembling a fillibuster, and in Georgia, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa, etc. Republican legislatures are able to easily pass extremely reactionary bills, strip other government bodies of their authoriy (Wisconsin and North Carolina governors, e.g.), and hold mock hearings, “audits” and other stunts to try to impose their will or at least poison the context for rational governance.

I most definitely wish to see the current form of the US Senate fillibuster destroyed. Nevertheless, I am a bit leary of doing so without any more rational ways to give the minority at least some ability to prevent someof the awfulness that takes place in many of the state legislatures controlled by the Republicans. Maybe the Democratic Senate caucus needs to come up with some well thought out alternative and take the time to sell that the the public at large so when it is put in place there will be wider support and harder for Fox News, etc. to lie about it.

Mitch McConnell et al. will destroy the current fillibuster system if and when they become the majority again. Democrats need to find a better way to deal with this issue before that happens.

3 Likes

Sounds like a nice scene in a movie or an episode of the West Wing.

2 Likes

You must know that it’s probably because the effort would be wasted. Sadly, great movements like this have little impact with all the dark money in politics. Good Lord, the polls show upwards of 70% support for voter rights and the GQP is still digging in its heels and saying no to it. What good would a rally do now?

8 Likes

Meh. This is nice and all, but if you think this is all getting resolved by elections now that the elections systems have been thoroughly undermined and dismissed as corrupted and wide swaths of the public think that the elections simply no longer count, you’re fooling yourselves. You do realize that with all the rigging the GQP has now done across the country that we have already lost and that we will be the ones complaining that the elections were illegitimate next time, right? It’s over. The entire thing is already completed, finished, achieved. This spirals in a swirling feedback loop until it explodes. The GQP Trump KKKult is absolutely 100% done with American democracy…and that’s 100M or more people. And the rest of us, as the majority, cannot and should not accept being ruled over by a racist, theocratic, plutocratic, neofascist minority who will do everything they can to obtain and maintain permanent power, which GUARANTEES that they will have to go increasingly fascist over time. This doesn’t end with a whimper but in millions of bangs.

This all ends with us having to choose between our own subjugation or violence…and maybe still getting nothing but both…BUT only one option gives us a chance of avoiding the other.

And for those who don’t get it: WE will be the ones who end up having to shoot first because WE are the cowards unwilling to use the levers of power to prevent the GQP from succeeding. And when that happens, the GQP will have all the excuses it ever wet-dreamed of to commence the crackdown. That’s how it ALWAYS works.

3 Likes

It will be worse than 1994. Much much worse.

2 Likes

Not during baseball season or the Stanley Cup finals. We’re in the bread and circuses time of our history. Not sure the media would even interrupt CSI for this.

6 Likes

OT

Bye bye Matt.

15 Likes

Where are the large rallies and marches in every state? Why isn’t a Million Voter March being organized in DC?

The nice thing about minority rule is that you only need to keep your voters in your corner. The rest you can shoot in the street if they dare to march or rally.

1 Like