One of the big reasons I’m as loyal to TPM as I am has to do, indirectly, with this argument. When Republicans were making the first big stink about requiring Voter ID, I wrote to Josh and asked if he could explain why Democrats were opposed to requiring Voter ID. I had one, everyone I knew had one, how big of a deal was it? Shouldn’t we just let them pass their Voter ID requirement laws and move on to other fights?
Josh actually responded to me and knocked a little sense into me. It wasn’t about me or my friends. It was about other people that weren’t like me. Sure, I had always considered myself to be empathic and I was a Democrat because I didn’t want to pull up the ladder behind me on the way up the socioeconomic ladder, but in some ways I was giving lip service to the ideals. In reality I wasn’t looking out for others, I was only being benignly neglectful. I wouldn’t actively hurt them, but I wasn’t actually trying to help them either.
What does all this have to do with your comment? Not much except indirectly. If we are only worried about helping or supporting the middle class or Liberal professionals, the idea of making election day a holiday sounds really good. The problem is, it does nothing to address the needs of the working class. Think retail workers, gas station workers, and service industry workers everywhere else. How does making election day a holiday help them? I don’t see that it does, and I believe we need to consider that before pushing for it.