A Republican Challenge<\/p>\n
Note: this is the 350th Post on Trump World. \u00a0 I was going to write maybe once a week when I started in February of 2017, but like any other good exercise, writing and thinking becomes an addiction. \u00a0And the subject, our politics and history, is compelling and constantly changing. \u00a0 This is the first time I’ve actually asked for a response — though there have been plenty responses before. \u00a0Enjoy!!<\/i><\/p>\n
So this is a challenge.\u00a0I am looking at our politics, and what I am seeing is a dramatic attack on our American ideal of democracy.\u00a0These attacks are not the ones made by the Trump Administration: \u00a0anyone who has read \u201cTrump World\u201d knows I\u2019ve already written volumes about that.\u00a0These are more subtle, done state by state by the Republican Party.<\/p>\n
I have made it clear from the beginning that I am NOT an impartial observer.\u00a0 I have constantly shared my opinions about our political world.\u00a0But I try to keep a balance, and \u00a0am struggling in this particular essay, because I am unable to think of the counter-argument, a tit-for-tat that the Democratic Party has done.<\/p>\n
It started in 2008, with Karl Rove\u2019s (former Bush campaign manager and later nicknamed \u201cBush\u2019s Brain) Redmap plan.\u00a0 The Redmap plan was a Republican effort to take over the state governorships, statehouses, and other state elective offices that controlled the re-districting systems in each state by the 2010 election cycle. \u00a0By getting control of the levers of power, or more appropriately, the pencils that drew the maps after the 2010 Census, the Republicans were able to gerrymander Districts to their elective benefit.<\/p>\n
Gerrymandering is nothing new, it was named for Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts back in 1812. Politicians have always known the basics:\u00a0 concentrate the opposition into a few districts, or dilute them among many districts, so that your party wins the majority in most Districts.\u00a0 But the Redmap plan took gerrymandering into the age of computers, using targeting data down to the block and house, in order to maximize the power of the Republicans over the Democrats.<\/p>\n
An outstanding example of the power of Redmap is in the Wisconsin state legislature.\u00a0 In the 2018 November election, Democrats won 55% of the votes for the State Assembly, while Republicans cast 44%.\u00a0 However Republicans won 63 seats to Democrats 35 (64% to 36%.)\u00a0\u00a0 As anti-democratic (the ideal, and in Wisconsin at least, the Party) as it seems, Gerrymandering works.<\/p>\n
In addition to Redmap, the Republican Party has made a national effort to keep the voting population Republican by making it more difficult for minorities and the poor to vote.\u00a0This has been done through a variety of ways, including:\u00a0 stricter voter identification requirements, reducing voting opportunities, complicated voter registration procedures, scrubbing the voting rolls, and voter intimidation at the polls.<\/p>\n
While voter suppression has been done in many states, it is best exampled by the Georgia Governor\u2019s race in 2018.\u00a0 The Republican candidate, Brian Kemp, was the serving Secretary of State in control of the state\u2019s election apparatus.\u00a0 His work to suppress the Democratic vote was obvious, and successful enough to get him to the Governorship.\u00a0 Other states, from Kansas to Michigan to Ohio have legally suppressed the vote at some level, though the Georgia election was the most drastic.<\/p>\n
A third emerging Republican action is the \u201csore loser\u201d plan.\u00a0 This is occurring right now in Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina.\u00a0Many of the statewide elective offices in those states have turned over from Republican to Democratic, and in response, the \u201clame duck\u201d Republican legislatures and Governors are working to reduce the powers of the incoming Democrats.<\/p>\n
In Wisconsin, the Republican controlled legislature and Governor Scott Walker are working to reduce the power of both the Governor and the Attorney General.\u00a0 They are attempting to remove the power of the Attorney General to determine what lawsuits the state will support or not (specifically, the previous Republican Attorney General joined the Federal lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, a key issue in the Attorney General\u2019s race that the Democratic winner pledged to change.)\u00a0The Republican legislature will demand that the state continue to support the lawsuit, wresting control of this power from the Attorney General and ignoring the expressed will of the voters.<\/p>\n
This only works in states where both houses of the state legislature and the governor are in Republican control, and Democrats will take over the executive offices while Republicans maintain control of the legislature, so they can protect the restrictive laws they created.<\/p>\n
Redmap gerrymandering, voter suppression, the \u201csore loser\u201d plan:\u00a0 none of these actions are illegal.\u00a0 But all of these seem to fly in the face of American traditions of \u201cfair play\u201d in politics; our tradition of encouraging voter participation and respecting the voters\u2019 decisions.\u00a0\u00a0 Republicans would say they are only playing “hardball\u201d and \u201cfor keeps\u201d (please note:\u00a0I have NOT included the North Carolina absentee ballot scandal \u2013 I think Republicans there are just as appalled as Democrats.) But it seems to me that they are playing a more dangerous game \u2013 one that attacks the basics of democracy.<\/p>\n
But maybe my \u201cblue tinted\u201d glasses are so dark, that I can\u2019t see the other side.\u00a0 So the challenge I make is this:\u00a0 what has the Democratic Party done that rises to the same level in the past decade?\u00a0 Besides voter registration drives, ones that I would argue increases democracy by increasing voter participation, I\u2019m not coming up with any.\u00a0 Please educate me (and us all): \u00a0comment to make your views known.<\/p>\n
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