. . . they’re dangerous.
What’s going on right now is that there is a pernicious effort across several states to make voting more difficult. The Republican Party has evidently decided if fewer people can vote, they’ll win. The move to make voting harder is based on the lie that there was widespread voting fraud. There wasn’t, of course.
Some examples of this kind of voter suppression: The Iowa governor has signed a bill shortening early and election day voting. In Georgia, the legislature is passing a law eliminating no-excuse absentee voting. From a reporter in Atlanta: In practical terms, this means a wealthy Georgian will still be able to vote from their second home in Florida, but a poor person who can’t get time off from work won’t be able to use mail-in or drop-off balloting.
This kind of thing is happening literally in dozens of states. In the words of political scientist Michael McDonald of the University of Florida, we’re witnessing the greatest rollback of voting rights in this country since the Jim Crow era.
In particular, the Republican Party wants to suppress the vote in lower-income and minority communities. There was a reason Donald Trump went on about Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
What this new legislation will do is make it harder to vote. It will make the lines longer, particularly in highly populated areas. It will make people in these areas jump through two or three or four hoops, instead of none. It will make it literally impossible for some people to vote if, for example, they can’t get the day off work and they are not allowed to vote absentee.
The reason the Republican Party wants to suppress the vote is simple: They are a minority party and they don’t think they can win without suppressing the vote. The problem the Republican Party has, of course, is that the message of white supremacy and tax cuts for the rich has limited appeal. They enact policies that hurt a lot of people, and a lot of voters don’t like that.
Remember, the Republicans won the popular vote in a presidential election once since 1988. They won the popular vote in 2004. Every other presidential election, the Democrats won the popular vote. After the Capitol insurrection, the indications are that the Republican Party is shrinking even more. Not too many people want to be associated with a party that thinks it’s okay to storm the capitol and stop the counting of votes.
The changing demographics in the US are also working against the GOP. These stats are from Harvard Professor Steven Levitsky:
So the challenge that the Republican Party faces is dealing with a shrinking coalition. While they have an obvious disadvantage, they have several advantages. They appeal to those with an authoritarian personality. (For more on that, see this post or this video.)
One advantage of an authoritarian party is that those with an authoritarian personality like to fall in line behind a leader. That’s one reason these far right-wing, White nationalist parties have always punched above their weight. Lining up and moving in lockstep gives them strength. The leader signals the message and they all repeat it. They don’t mind if it’s a lie. That’s why they have a well-oiled media / propaganda loop: Fox News, conspiracy theorists, elected Republican leaders repeating lies, sometimes starting them.
In Max Boot’s book, The Corrosion of Conservatism, he says that “in the name of unity,” those on the right will overlook all kinds of things:
Those with an authoritarian personality like order and dislike complexity and diversity. If you have a non-diverse party, it’s easier for everyone to be on the same page. That’s why Tucker Carlson said it’s never true that diversity is a strength. Another advantage: Authoritarians want to dismantle democracy and put one person in charge. Dismantling, or destroying, is always easier than building or preserving. They’re willing to lie and cheat because they want to destroy and the lies destroy democracy.
Authoritarianism also has a lot of appeal, more than you might realize. There’s no gridlock. Change can happen quickly because there are no checks and balances to slow things down. Democracy is harder. Ziblatt and Levitsky, in How Democracies Die, say that democracy is grinding work. It requires negotiation, compromise, and concessions. All those checks and balances slow things down. It can be frustrating. Setbacks are inevitable.
So the Republicans have a disadvantage: shrinking numbers. They also have an advantage: they fall in line behind a leader.
The Democratic challenge is the opposite. The Democratic base is growing. It’s becoming more diverse. Now that the Republican Party is a full-on white nationalist party, the Republicans naturally exclude a lot of people. This means the Democratic party potentially includes all of those people who are excluded by the Republican Party.
The Republican Party includes people who are cool with white supremacy. That leaves everyone else. Who finds a home in the Democratic Party?
- Latino communities in Texas
- African American communities in the South
- Democratic socialists from Queens
- Democrats from more conservative areas of the country
- Asian communities in California
Some of these communities are traditionally a little more conservative than others.
To beat back authoritarian threats, Democrats and all people opposed to authoritarianism need to pull together. This isn’t so easy because you have to pull people together who don’t naturally fall in line. Non-authoritarians like nuance, so they dislike simple messages. That’s why they tend not to stay on message. Sometimes people on the left also want change to happen fast and they’re impatient with the slow working of democracy. Some people who say they want democracy don’t really like it: They want rapid changes and they want everything their way. They don’t want to compromise. My way or the highway is autocracy.
The other problem is that non-authoritarians tend to get complacent. They’re often not as motivated. Why? Because they tend to see history as an upward slope cruising toward a better and more inclusive future. I talked about that here (video) or here (transcript).
There are two solutions to the sweeping voter suppression legislation being enacted in these states. First, Congress passes federal voter protection legislation, which Congress have the power to do under the Constitution. To do this, Congressional Democrats will have to get around the Congressional Republicans, who will fight tooth and nail against such legislation. We saw how hard they fought to keep people from getting COVID relief. I have not given up hope that such legislation can happen. Biden has been president under two months, and COVID relief was the first item on the agenda.
If national legislation can’t happen in the next few years (and if it doesn’t, it will be because of Republican obstructionism) we have to then organize voter protection teams to get people registered and to the polls around these barriers. Stacy Abrams is teaching the world how to do that. If the Republicans put up a barrier, we need to figure out how to get people over it. That’s why my own volunteer work the past few years has been in the area of voter protection. It’s also why I keep saying the most important thing people can now do is organize locally. If you need ideas, see my list here.
The content in this blog post is here as a video:
