The GOP Election Plan Is Simple: Even When You Don't Win, Cheat
Three months have passed since that fleeting, anonymous New York Times op-ed from a Trump staffer claiming that she or he was busy trying to save us from the president’s agenda and “his worst inclinations.” The piece was largely useless, but it was entertaining. Conservatives who have remained silent about Republican disenfranchisement were inspired, in their own way, to defend voting rights.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the House Majority Leader, declared in a letter to the Times that the writer was “thwarting the wishes of the legitimately elected president from within the executive branch.” The Federalist’s David Harsanyi, a Libertarian, argued that the op-ed “celebrates the idea of nullifying an election.” Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s press secretary, wrote in his own op-ed that “if the American people don’t like what Donald Trump is doing, they can elect a Democratic House and-or Senate this fall,” adding that this is “how our system was meant to work and be responsive to the will of the people.”
There is often an inherent whiteness, maleness and heterosexuality associated with the term “people” when Republicans use the word. The party has only one demonstrated strategy for competing in a browning America: Whiten it, physically and electorally. Republican cheating has grown so pervasive that we have come to expect it, especially since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. We now expect these abhorrent laws, and to see “Voter Fraud is a Felony!” billboards in black neighborhoods. The genius of their persistence is that we get used to this nonsense.
It is why we are failing, as a country, to show concern about what is happening in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina right now. The voter disenfranchisement on display in these three states is an extension of broader Republican efforts to reject the will of those citizens who vote in ways they don’t like, the same people who are most likely to block their path to power in future elections. The devil takes many forms, as does voter suppression.
Mark Harris, a Baptist preacher who considers Islam to be “Satanic,” won May’s GOP primary for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. After the November 6th general election, the Associated Press prematurely called the race in his favor. Leading by a mere 905 votes over his Democratic opponent, Dan McCready, Harris’ win seemed close but certain. However, the state’s Board of Elections has twice refused to certify the victory, citing irregularities with absentee ballots. The board may order a new election on December 21st when it meets to review the mounting evidence that Harris and his campaign engaged in illegal activity that disproportionately affected voters of color.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/wisconsin-republican-tactics-763592/
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