Dylan in America

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the Republicans are intent on keeping their Congressional and state legislature majorities by any means necessary.  Probably the most egregious example is Georgia, where the Republican candidate for governor is the current Secretary of State and he is doing what ever it takes to purge the number of registered voters ahead of the November election.  Reports vary widely but the number being floated around now is 340,000 persons dropped from the voter rolls. 

These efforts date back to a 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted the pre-clearance provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Republican administrations have been busy clearing the voting rolls ever since under the guise of eliminating potential voter fraud, where persons are registered in more than one state.  Of course, determining who these persons are seems to be rather selective, as minorities tend to be hit the hardest by these purges.  This is especially the case in Georgia, which is why the Democratic candidate, Stacey Abrams, is crying foul.  In a state where the two candidates are virtually tied in the polls, every vote counts.  Republican Brian Kemp appears to be taking no chances.

Another method of reducing the number of voters is to be slow in reinstating voting rights to former felons.  Florida is a particularly egregious example of this, where Gov. Rick Scott sits on the commission himself, denying an unprecedented number of applications.  John Oliver did a painful episode on this process entitled Felony Disenfranchisement. 

What makes all this interesting is that Republicans love to proclaim they are the "moral majority" in this country.  If so, why are they trying so hard to disenfranchise voters across the country by purging rolls, refusing to reinstate felons who served their time, requiring picture IDs, cutting back on the number of voting sites, and creating deadlines for voter registration months ahead of an election?  If they are the majority, they should be encouraging more voting, not discouraging it.

Yet, one finds it is Democratic states like Oregon that go out of their way to encourage more participation by automatically registering anyone who applies for a state driver's license, essentially killing two birds with one stone, as the person will have both a picture ID and be registered to vote.  Since Oregon's initiative, 12 states and DC have passed similar laws.  Of course, this still leaves many persons out of the loop, as not everyone applies for a driver's license.  So, why not automatically register everyone when they turn 18, and have them present their social security card at the ballot box?

This would be too easy, and no doubt Republicans would scream voter fraud.  Many conservatives like to think voting is a privilege, not a right, which is why they go out of their way to make the process more difficult.  This slaps of Jim Crow era laws that disenfranchised a great many Blacks throughout the South, which is what led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  The Supreme Court had steadfastly supported this act until 2013, when Justice Kennedy surprisingly joined the conservative majority in undercutting this historic act. 

Justice Kennedy should have known better.  For that matter, so too should have Justice Roberts, but they both went along with the decision that so obviously favored a particular political party, as these purges were taking places in mostly conservative states.  Of course, they had their arguments, which they are so good at providing, but they held little water given that voter fraud is "vanishingly rare."

This is why the Supreme Court is so important.  They can weigh in on any legislative act and determine its "Constitutionality."  Because you have justices like Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito who firmly believe in the Constitution's "original intent," they can question all the amendments that have occurred since the initial Bill of Rights.  Roberts has been slightly more liberal in his interpretation of the Constitution, as was Kennedy.  We have yet to see how Kavanaugh will interpret the Constitution, but it is pretty safe to say he will similarly base his decisions on "original intent."

Conservatives don't see the Constitution as a living document but rather one set in stone, in some cases literally, which is odd since the Founding Fathers outlined the provisions for amending the Constitution as they weren't fully satisfied with what they had written.  As with any political document, there were many concessions made, like the 3/5 provision that allowed Southern states to count slaves as part of their population so that they would have greater representation in Congress, despite these slaves having no representation in government.

But, don't tell this to conservatives.  In their mind, the Constitution is this beautifully formed document like the gauzy pages of the Bible and shouldn't be touched in anyway, lest it fall apart.  Rather, it should be interpreted in a Judeo-Christian sense as David Barton and other religious conservative "scholars" have done.

So, here we are nearly 230 years later, and we are reverting to many of the old state laws when it comes to voter registration.  Some state legislators and even US Congressmen, like Ted Yoho, are proposing that the old property rights provisions be restored.  Again, if the GOP is the "moral majority," as Republicans so often like to claim, why is it being so restrictive when it comes to voting rights?  Surely, not every conservative owns property.

These Midterms are an important bell weather for so many reasons.  It isn't so much Trump as it is a toxic view of government that emerged in the 2010 Midterms that is being brought to light.  The GOP has moved so far to the right that it no longer represents mainstream America, but rather a religiously drenched view of our early post-Colonial government.  It basically wants to repeal everything that has happened since the so-called liberals rewrote the Constitution in the 1960s and return our country to its "roots." 

Being Anti-Politically Correct is a code word for gutting the Civil Rights Act, and recreating not so much a 1791 America but rather a 1630 "Shining City Upon a Hill," as Ronald Reagan famously evoked in 1989 Farewell Announcement. This is a puritanically white vision of America that most religious conservatives have, which is why you see so few Blacks and other minorities in their churches. 

They have made some states into religious conservative strongholds, particularly in the South, and will do anything to maintain a white majority government.  This is why Georgia and Florida are so important to them as the Democrats have put forward Black female and male nominees for governor.  Something not seen even during Reconstruction times.  So, Brian Kemp and Rick Scott will do whatever it takes to suppress minority voters in their states to make it that much more difficult for Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum in November.

These Midterms are every bit as important as the 2010 Midterms as they allow voters to undo the heinous conservative policies that emerged from the earlier Midterms and put this country back on track, not make it the slave of religious conservative interests.