Terrified of Democracy

Excluding major constituencies from participating in the political process is the time-honored method whereby incumbents (or at least those with appropriated designated power bases) are able to pretend they embrace democracy while insuring that those they oppose never have a chance of rocking the vote. You can see how the military in Egypt is touting upcoming "free elections" (with one of their own the likely victor), just as they repress, prosecute (even sentence to death, even in abstentia), arrest and torture the Muslim Brotherhood party constituency that actually elected their last president. Whether or not you have the slightest sympathy for this radically conservative faction, they do represent a large segment of the potential vote… and they are now effectively excluded from their nation’s political system.

But before we get smug in the United States, that same time-honored system of diluting and excluding those who might threaten the incumbency is as American as apple pie and a hunting rifle. In the post-Civil War era, it was carpetbaggers who slowly built a gerrymandered and closed shop political machine in the old South, a structure that insured the dominance of the Democratic Party for decades to come.

Today, these tools of exclusion now reside with those states where Republicans hold sway. Gerrymandering and voter exclusion (those likely to lean to the Democrats like the elderly, minorities, etc.) are now standard tools of a Republican party whose unbending immigration and conservative social policies have rendered them a distinct minority that could never win a national election based on the new "majority of minorities" that make up the largest segment of the U.S. population. Never win if they were relegated to true "one person, one vote" democracy.

But rather than compromise their platform to embrace diversity, the GOP has instead set itself on a course of buying publicity (rich folks with unlimited wallets saturating the airways with their right wing message, a vast multiple of those on the liberal side able to afford the cost of such marketing), implementing restrictive voter registration laws to exclude voters who might oppose them, and gerrymandering districts to marginalize their opponents. The success in this space can be measured by noting that urban (and less-likely GOP) voters have 5/8 of the effective voting power of their rural (and likely GOP constituents) brethren.

And to make sure they impact elections at the most vulnerable inflection points, Republicans are targeting the important swing states that make or break any national election. "Republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin this winter pushed through measures limiting the time polls are open, in particular cutting into weekend voting favored by low-income voters and blacks, who sometimes caravan from churches to polls on the Sunday before election.

"Democrats in North Carolina are scrambling to fight back against the nation’s most restrictive voting laws, passed by Republicans there last year. The measures, taken together, sharply reduce the number of early voting days and establish rules that make it more difficult for people to register to vote, cast provisional ballots or, in a few cases, vote absentee.

"In all, nine states have passed measures making it harder to vote since the beginning of 2013. Most have to do with voter ID laws [older folks and city dwellers are less like to have drivers licenses]. Other states are considering mandating proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport, after a federal court judge recently upheld such laws passed in Arizona and Kansas. Because many poor people do not have either and because documents can take time and money to obtain, Democrats say the ruling makes it far more difficult for people to register.

"Voting experts say the impact of the measures on voter turnout remains unclear. Many of the measures have yet to take effect, and a few will not start until 2016. But at a time when Democrats are on the defensive over the Affordable Care Act and are being significantly outspent by conservative donors like the Koch brothers, the changes pose another potential hurdle for Democratic candidates this year.

"Republicans defend the measures, saying Democrats are overstating their impact for partisan reasons. The new rules, Republicans say, help prevent fraud, save money and bring greater uniformity to a patchwork election system." New York Times, March 29th. Of course, since there is almost no measurable voter fraud anywhere in the country, and it is the GOP that has fomented the patchwork system, these arguments belie the real reason for the laws. In a world of unyielding rigidity, the GOP cannot win without manipulating our voting system to disenfranchise those who disagree with their policies. In short, they are terrified at genuine democracy.

I’m Peter Dekom, and democracy really needs a government that actually believes in that form of government to work.