QOTD -- Republican Voter Suppression Will Escalate

 

"This election witnessed new and destructive attempts by the GOP to win: Instead of merely trying to suppress the votes of Black people, the party tried to nullify those votes altogether. In predominately Black city after predominately Black city, Republicans urged courts, state boards of elections, and secretaries of state to throw away ballots cast by legitimately registered voters on the basis of “voter fraud.” They offered no evidence for these allegations but expected officials to throw out literally hundreds of thousands of votes anyway. [snip]

"The Trump legal team is so incompetent and the courts have been so consistent in rejecting his campaign’s amateur-hour lawsuits that people may be tempted to think that the courts, at least, will reject similar threats to democracy in future elections. But I wouldn’t be so sure. The next phase of the Republican project to own our electoral system is now clear. Having seen the obstacles to throwing out the votes of Black people, conservative law professors and their Federalist Society coconspirators can be expected to start cranking out legal justifications to do just that." -- Elie Mystal in The Nation.  

The few Republican officeholders who've been lauded by many in the media for doing their jobs aren't necessarily heroes of democracy.  Two Trump punching bags who aren't, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger and Gov. Brian Kemp, are already investigating voter registration groups and placing more restrictions on mail- in voting to make it more difficult for Democratic constituencies (read Black voters) to vote in future elections.  They're not heroes and they're not turning the page or giving up.  Neither must we.

Always remember one of Masha Gessen's warnings about surviving autocracy: institutions will not save you.

BONUS:  Infidel 753 has a good companion read on "No Republican Heroes."

 

QOTD -- Her Job

"... [B]y refusing to answer these questions, Barrett has already told us everything we need to know. She won’t recuse herself, because she doesn’t think voter intimidation is illegal, and she won’t commit to asking the president to peaceably transfer power. She’s already decided to crush the ACA and Roe v. Wade should she get a chance.

"Barrett is here to do a job. That job is not to be an impartial arbiter of cases and controversies. That job is to help Trump and the Republican Party push their antidemocratic agenda through the courts. And she admitted to all of it, right out in the open, to those who were listening closely." -- Elie Mystal, on Amy Coney Barrett's revealing confirmation hearing.  This is a great read that gets to the core of Coney Barrett's radicalism and her barely disguised evasions that still showed how out- of- the- mainstream her jurisprudence has and will be.