You Fill Out My Census Not Distortion, Suppression - Widening the Gaps

You Fill Out My Census    Not

Distortion, Suppression - Widening the Gaps

It came to the attention of the Republican Party decades ago that they were a group of very wealthy individuals (and their corporations) who were interested in conserving and growing their wealth, a value that by definition was in the interest of the very few with enough wealth to matter. Their mandate focused on lower taxes, less regulation, fewer entitlements and lower government spending… except in industries where the rich could invoice the government for billions. So, the notion of benefits for most of us was an expensive and unwanted inconvenience to those who loved money more than democracy, fairness or equality. How could they get enough voters to vote against their own self-interest to let the rich have their way?

When the GOP got slammed in the 1964 presidential election (Barry Goldwater was the ultimate fiscal conservative and lost badly; see the above map with the results), they looked for political opportunities to reverse their obvious fate. They found it in the Democratic corrupt hold on the entire South, cronyism and gerrymandering on steroids. Racist Democrats, those opposed to civil and voting rights for minorities (most of the large African American population was still mired in post-Civil War Jim Crow poverty), were running the show. Dixiecrats even embraced the Klan and drafted and then enforced Jim Crow laws with a vengeance. Even purported liberal Dixiecrats, like President Woodrow Wilson who pushed blacks out of the federal civil service, towed the racist line until much, much later.

What the Dems missed, however, was a power far greater than the Southern Democrat political machine that seemed unbreakable. Religion. Evangelical Christianity. The GOP did not. God and Country! The new GOP rallying cry. Give them all the social restrictions and controls they want if they will vote for lower taxes (and lots of loopholes), massive government corporate spending (that “military-industrial complex” Republican President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about), deregulation and lower government spending when it related to individual entitlements of benefits. Abortions? Who cares?! The rich could always find a doctor who would perform the operation or fly baby girl to a state or country that simply permitted the procedure. School prayer? White tradition as the core value? Give it to ‘em!

The Republican Party was so successful in these efforts that its rising constituency was actually convinced that deregulation, lower taxes and massive military spending were core “American values,” and that Social Security, public education, universal healthcare and Medicare were the devil’s creation. Since these later programs were social benefits and America was fighting the communist/socialist domino theory all over the world, they seized on that word. Social programs were now left-wing socialism… even though they really were just social programs. Socialism was an entirely different construct: government ownership of land, factories and all manner of economic value creation. Their voters were soon convinced there was no difference, and since social programs cost rich folks tax dollars, the tiny minority of GOP Scrooge McDucks were deeply satisfied at that conflation. Business-friendly values simply became part of the evangelical view of America. And racial injustice gave too many rich Americans an easy “blame someone strategy.”

Cut to the late 20th and early 21st century. There was a demographic shift in the wind. That lovely southern rural-values voter constituency, which had long since expanded into majority rural America, was rapidly becoming overwhelmed in an America that was well north of 85% urban and reaching a point where racial, ethnic, religious and gender minorities were about to become a majority. What was worse, the rising generations (Millennials and younger) had no understanding of the “evils” of communism or socialism. They did not live through the “red scare” or watch the battle against communism during the Vietnam War. “Socialism” wasn’t a bad word when they were facing staggering student debt, narrowing job opportunities (artificial intelligence and robotics were accelerating) and steeply unaffordable housing. Hey, Bernie?!

They also were not particularly attracted to “organized religion.” “Tolerance” and environmental concerns were their core values. And that was before the pandemic and an obvious (to the majority of those younger constituents) mishandling of the impact of the virus. Republicans, now distancing themselves from their clown-prince leader, were moving in a new direction. The only younger voters the GOP could count on were those who believed the system was leaving them behind (read: educational qualifications) and committed evangelicals.

The GOP is not a stupid gaggle of blithering idiots, no matter what many Democrats may believe. Many earned their wealth though hard work, education and risk-taking brilliance. But it was equally clear that that uber-religious constituency that they had relied on, that immoveable bevy of voters (roughly 30% of the vote) that Trump completely usurped, was being overruled by a tsunami of voters with very different political agendas. Coopting the evangelical, rural values constituency – if it were still able to work at all – was no longer enough to protect GOP interests. 

The perceived “next era” GOP mandates were (1) to stack the Supreme Court (with lifetime appointments of younger judges) to make sure liberal legislation would be dead on arrival even if a vast majority of Americans wanted otherwise and (2) to marginalize and suppress voters likely to reverse the Republican fiscal policies at the polls. Undermining liberal states, hobbling them fiscally and politically, was crucial. The GOP, which still controls the majority of state governments and currently the presidency and the Senate, had three clear vectors to implement those goals: (i) voter suppression, (ii) stacking the judicial system with ultra-conservatives and (iii) making sure the Census undercounts components necessary for Democrat-friendly representatives and budgetary allocations.

We’re watching the Republican rush-rush effort to place Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court through a late term appointment once decried by the GOP in the waning year of the Obama administration. So what! We need that appointment, because we might lose. Voter suppression, through restrictive voter qualifications (voter IDs), gerrymandering, moving polling stations far from minority communities, culling voter rolls of likely liberal constituencies, voter manipulation and intimidation, making remote voting increasingly difficult and literally creating last minute rules (thank you Texas with one early vote ballot box per county) to keep non-white traditionalists from being able to vote.

Writing for the October 24th Los Angeles Times, James Rainey presents just one set of examples: “A Memphis, Tenn., poll worker turned away people wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts, saying they couldn’t vote. Robocalls warned thousands of Michigan residents that mail-in voting could put their personal information in the hands of debt collectors and police. In Georgia, officials cut polling places by nearly 10%, even as the number of voters surged by nearly 2 million.

“The long American tradition of threatening voting access — often for Black people and Latinos — has dramatically resurfaced in 2020, this time buttressed by a record-setting wave of litigation and an embattled president whose reelection campaign is built around a strategy of sowing doubt and confusion.

“Voting rights activists depict the fights against expanding voter access as a last-ditch effort by President Trump and his allies to disenfranchise citizens who tend to favor Democrats. The administration insists — despite no evidence of a widespread problem — that it must enforce restrictions to prevent voter fraud… ‘We have an incredibly polarized country and we have a political party whose leader thinks it’s to the party’s advantage to make it harder for people to register to vote and to vote,’ said Richard L. Hasen, a UC Irvine law professor and authority on voting. ‘So that is where we are.’

“Trump’s efforts to tamp down turnout, particularly among voters of color, stands in stark contrast to other recent GOP presidential candidates, including John McCain and Mitt Romney, who spoke of a ‘big tent’ party and expanding support among Black, Latino and Asian American voters… ‘There are two strands in the Republican Party,’ Hasen said. ‘There is one that has tried to be more inclusive, as a means to win elections, and there is a voter-suppression wing. With Trump in office, it’s clear the voter-suppression wing is dominant right now.’”

And as for that Census, in an election environment where tiny margins can swing critical districts in swing states, it does not take much to change results. The October 24th Associated Press summarizes the status of the current Census, which has come to an end: “From tribal lands in Arizona and New Mexico to storm-battered Louisiana, census workers were unable to reach all the households needed for a complete tally of the U.S. population, a count ended last week by a Supreme Court ruling.

“Community activists, statisticians and civil rights groups say racial and ethnic minorities are historically undercounted, and shortcomings this census could hurt their communities for years to come… The count determines the number of congressional seats each state gets, where roads and bridges are built, how schools and healthcare facilities are funded and how $1.5 trillion in federal spending is allocated annually… ‘An undercount in our community means schools are overcrowded, hospitals are overcrowded, roads are congested,’ said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

“The census ended last week after the high court sided with the Trump administration and suspended a lower-court order that let the count continue to Oct. 31… The Census Bureau says it reached over 99.9% of households, but in a nation of 330 million, the remaining 0.1% represents hundreds of thousands of uncounted residents. In small cities, even handfuls of undercounted residents can make a big difference in the resources the communities receive and the power they wield.

“And door-to-door census takers fell short of 99.9% in many pockets of the country… In large parts of Louisiana, which was battered by two hurricanes, census takers didn’t even hit 94% of households… In Window Rock, capital of the COVID-19-ravaged Navajo Nation, census takers reached only 98.9%... Other areas where the count fell short of 99.9% include Quincy, Mass.; New Haven, Conn.; Asheville, N.C.; Jackson, Miss.; Providence, R.I.; and New York’s Manhattan, which many residents left in the spring because of the coronavirus.” 

The big casualty in all this is democracy, which is why the prestigious The Economist considers the United States to be a “flawed democracy” were popular representation is significantly distorted, and where several recent elections have produced successful presidential candidates who lost the popular vote. Do you care? Prove it! Vote if you have not already.

I’m Peter Dekom, and in my United States, it’s time to MAKE DEMOCRACY GREAT AGAIN!