Stephan: Yesterday I did a story on a growing attempt by Republican state legislators, in a blatantly racist move, to limit the ability of non-Whites to vote. This is part of what is beginning to look like a permanent schism in the GOP. If you live in a state governed by Republicans and are a person of color the Republican Party is trying to cut off your access to democracy. In fact, many Republicans at both the state and national level see democracy as a. threat. Race struggles in the Whig Party are what created the Republican Party and ironically, race is what may split the party again.
Within about 20 years the United States will be a majority-minority nation and, at the same time, male dominance will no longer be culturally acceptable. Whites will no longer be the majority race, and men will no longer be deferred to simply because of their gender. For many Whites, particularly White males, this is simply unacceptable, and that is the reason the Trump base exists and will continue even though Trump is no longer in office. Trump, as I have said many times, has always been a symptom more than a cause.
Gwinnett County election workers handle ballots as part of the recount for the 2020 presidential election at the Beauty P. Baldwin Voter Registrations and Elections Building on November 16, 2020 in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Credit: Megan Varner/Getty
Since former President Donald Trump failed to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, Republicans in more than two dozen states have introduced over 100 bills to restrict voting access, an alarming development that voting rights advocates have pointed to as yet another reason for Democrats to abolish the filibuster, an anti-democratic tool currently allowing the GOP minority to block the enactment of a suite of popular pro-democracy reforms.
Mother Jones journalist Ari Berman on Thursday reported on the GOP’s ongoing nationwide push to make voting more difficult—particularly for communities of color and other Democratic-leaning constituencies—and in some cases to empower state legislatures to overturn election results. He called state-level Republicans’ efforts “a huge scandal that should be getting as much attention as Trump’s plot to overturn the election.”
“Republicans are taking their assault on voting rights to the next level… trying to accomplish through legislation what Trump […]
