https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/senate-to-vote-on-s1-for-the-people-act-bill.html
Just two days ago the Democrats attempted to push along the For The People Act voting bill by getting it approved for consideration in the Senate. But Senate Republicans, every single one of them, voted against allowing it to proceed.
To be clear, the vote was not to approve or disapprove the bill, it was only to consider discussing it. But the Republicans did not even want a discussion. Even when Joe Manchin offered up a version of the bill that was less expansive and inclusive, the Republicans, every single one of them, still voted to not even discuss the bill. So much for compromise.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/senate-to-vote-on-s1-for-the-people-act-bill.html
The Republican party is reactionary at its core and is deeply, deeply, racists. It is also deeply frightened of what is happening in our country and aware of the electoral dangers it faces if it can not control access to the voting booth.
Here’s a breakdown on the situation that will help make it clear why the Republicans are so terrified of anything that increases voting For the People.
-Republicans never, ever, ever want to expand voting rights - only shrink them.
On the face of it, the voting rights bill, even the reduced version offered up by Manchin, should have been appealing to Republicans. After all, there was no provision in the bill that would give any democrat (or other politically - affiliated voter) an advantage over any Republican voter. Automatic voter registration and early voting could help Republicans as well a Democrats. And of course creating nonpartisan efforts to eliminate gerrymandering and creating more transparency in political donations - well, everybody is in favor of that, right?
No, not right! The Republican party does not want, can not afford, and will never do anything to expand voting rights or opportunities (or even make it more convenient) because more people voting will destroy them. Less voting will save them.
The Republicans are a dying party. Their core constituency, older, rural, high school graduate level white people, is dying off. The older people die off, the rural areas are becoming depopulated and stagnant, more people are getting advanced educations and white people are dwindling in number compared to “minorities”.
For awhile Republicans could keep going by gaining votes in the suburbs. Not now, and not in the last election. The repulsiveness of Trump and the Republicans, their lack of good governance in providing health care (oh - wasn’t Obamacare just upheld again?) and their incompetence and indifference to suffering during the Covid-19 pandemic wiped them out in the suburbs in last election.
The Republicans have no where to go to expand their natural constituency: they hate and fear blacks, hispanics, Jew, Asians, native Americans, Pacific Islanders, LGBTQ people, transgendered people, atheists and foreigners in general (except, maybe, attractive Eastern European women with big chests). As these people increase in number the Republicans lose them because their policies are designed to help conservative white people - especially rich white ones. And when many of your loudest supporters make it clear their philosophy of America is that it is a white, European, Judeo-Christian civilization, there ain’t even room for anyone else.
For the Republicans, there is absolutely no electoral advantage to increasing enfranchisement or expanding voting opportunities. They have their core group of supports. As long as they keep them all together and viciously angry (all the better to drive them to the polls, especially in low turn out elections) they have a chance to win. Just keep the damn minorities away. For them, less voting and fewer voting opportunities means survival of a dying party.
-The last election showed the Republicans that they must cheat harder than ever in order to survive.
Whenever Republicans get control of a state legislature, they immediately begin to cheat in order to maintain their power. If you look at states like Michigan and Texas, for instance, you can see clear signs of extreme partisan gerrymandering. At election time, they have laws designed to make it hard for poor people, urban people, people away from home (i.e., students, people who must travel a lot) and people who have previously been disenfranchised (black people in the south and former prisoners) to get to the polls. And wherever possible, they will use legal or other forms of intimidation to scare away poor and vulnerable people. In short, Republicans cheat like hell because it makes it easier to win. Or maybe to win at all.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/presidential-election-results-2020-electoral-college-same-2016/
That’s why the 2020 election was so shocking and discouraging for Republicans. The Republicans should have won, and fully expected that they would. And why not, they were using all of the standard tricks of inconvenience, intimidation and possible disenfranchisement to keep minorities and others away from the voting booths. Moreover, they had a wildly popular (or so they thought) president, an energized base of voters, and lots of money. They even had record breaking turn out of voters all across the country on election day. Why wouldn’t they win, especially in the crucial battle ground states.
But they didn’t. They lost, and they lost big, and the lost safe seats and they lost in traditionally conservative states. And their champion, Donald Trump, got utterly humiliated by losing both the electoral college vote and the popular vote.
The Republicans cheated and they still lost.
There is not much, or anything that they Republicans can do to increase the natural size of their core constituency. They have insulted and abused too many of the “minorities” to make them good reliable Republican voters. And their natural constituency of old white, rural voters would not allow them to reach out to those people even if their leaders wanted to do it.
What can they do?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/i-used-think-gop-should-be-saved/616189/
Cheat more, cheat harder, cheat in new ways, and keep as many people who might vote for a Democrat (or anyone else) away from the ballot box.
In virtually every state controlled by Republicans, especially in the states of the old, treasonous confederacy (think Georgia, Florida and Texas) state legislatures are trying to pass bills that would make it harder for people to vote, more intimidating to vote, and to give the Republican dominated state legislatures the right to revoke election results they don’t like. They are even trying to give themselves the right to overturn a decided election if their state legislatures feel the results show “irregularities” or were “suspicious”.
They’re not gonna get more voters, so for the racist, Reactionary Republicans, it just a matter of cheating harder, cheating smarter, and cheating all the time. Because, in fair elections (like the last one, the “fairest election we have had”) the Republicans would lose. And once they begin to lose, they are on their way to extinction.
Vote for fair and free elections, vote for honest candidates, vote for Democrats, vote progressive. It’s time for the Republican party to die.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/i-used-think-gop-should-be-saved/616189/