Republicans have a choice: Keep suppressing the vote -- or improve their product

[applegrove]

Republicans have a choice: Keep suppressing the vote — or improve their product

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-have-a-choice-keep-suppressing-the-vote--or-improve-their-product/2020/04/14/1084df12-7e82-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html?utm_source=reddit.com

By Editorial Board 

April 14, 2020 at 5:08 p.m. EDT

"SNIP.....

Though they failed to swing the race for Mr. Kelly, Republicans’ voter suppression strategy was hardly victimless. More than 11,000 voters asked for but were not sentabsentee ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that mail-in votes had to be postmarked by Election Day, but hundreds came in with missing or marred postmarks, leaving election officials to argue about what to do with them. Untold numbers of people understandably declined to vote in person. Others may have contracted covid-19 from staffing or waiting in line at polling places. Further litigation is a certainty.

Led by President Trump, who has railed recently against mail-in voting, Republicans may conclude that their best hope lies in suppressing turnout even further than they tried to in Wisconsin. That would be a mistake. Many states still require residents to have a valid excuse in order to obtain an absentee ballot, cumbersome witness signature requirements or strange deadlines by which mail-in votes must be received. GOP leaders should join in removing these barriers. If people cannot vote safely in person, the only reasonable option is to let them vote by mail.

Imagine the confusion Wisconsin has seen over the past couple of weeks, 51 times over, in November, heightened further if presidential election results are too close to call. If Republicans continue to act on the calculation that lower turnout favors them, this chaos might be the result.

Ultimately, the Republican Party faces a choice. It can continue to devote its efforts to suppressing the vote because it knows that it loses when more people turn out. Or it can try to appeal to voters through more attractive policies and candidates. It seems obvious which path leads to a brighter future, not only for the party but also for democracy itself.

.......SNIP"

[Beartracks]

1. Republicans always extol the virtues of the free market, yadda, yadda, but...

... they have to cheat in the marketplace of ideas. Another example of their utter hypocrisy.

============

[abqtommy]

2. reTHUG corruption has worked for them so long and so well that they're incapable of change

now. Their lockstep support of tRUMP is one of the indicators... They've decided that their best course of action is to go down on/with him...

[Skittles]

3. not many ways to make a shit sandwich taste better

so, they will continue suppressing

[Hortensis]

4. They made that choice. Take and consolidate power

so we can't remove them. Reinterpretation of teh constitution to support authoritarian government and make progressive programs unconstitutional. Hold the pretend elections of faux democracies that only the authoritarian conservatives in power can win.

[The Magistrate]

5. Someone Put It In a Nutshell A Few Years Ago, Sir

"If conservatives find their views cannot prevail in elections, they will not give up their views. They will give up Democracy."

We have been seeing this happen now for some while.




"Defeat of a hated enemy is something to be for."

[Caliman73]

6. Their product is worthless for anyone but the rich or bigoted.

I have seen nostalgia for "the Republican Party of old" even here on DU. The time when Republicans were "sensible" and moderate. Yeah, maybe there were those Republicans once upon a time.

The problem for the modern Republican party is that it took over the conservative mantle from the Democratic Party from the time when FDR began transforming (or trying to transform) the party into one of Social Democracy in the style of his Marshall Plan and guided by his Second Bill of Rights.

Conservatives believe in a "natural hierarchy" where people are where they are because that is where they are destined to be. The natural hierarchy is White Christian Men with wealth at the top, and everyone else serving that top echelon. Poor and middle class Whites had historically operated in the levels beneath the Wealthy, but at least not at the level of people of color. They think that Liberals want to destroy society by using government power to put people into the wrong levels of society, where they do not belong, which is why they so vehemently oppose Affirmative Action or raising taxes to fund social programs.

The "Product" of the Republican Party/Conservatives is to shift the tax burden away from the wealthy and cut social programs allowing the "cream" to rise to the top. Even most non-wealthy Republicans know that the policies are cruel and ridiculous, but they have been brainwashed into thinking that they may have a place higher up on the pyramid one day. They are also afraid of having to compete with women and minorities on a truly equal playing field so they cast their lot in with the wealthy. This is why Republicans have to keep suppressing the vote. There is NO way to make their product better without fundamentally changing their ideology, which would basically make them not conservative and not Republican anymore.

[Brother Mythos]

7. Bravo! Yours is a well written reply.

I agree that "Their product is worthless for anyone but the rich or bigoted."

And, as the megarich fund the party, and knowingly pander to the bigoted, I don't believe there's much hope for any real product improvement.

Further, I doubt that either group is really all that enamored with this whole "republic thing" of ours in the first place. I think the megarich would be much, much happier if they could actually form a real aristocracy, and become titled barons, counts, dukes, and royals. And, I see nothing in the behavior of the bigoted that leads me to believe they would adamantly oppose destroying the republic, as long as "those other people" are oppressed in the process.