Intuitively Shredding Democracy

Because it's an election year and lying white guys gonna lie, Repubs are feverishly working to cheat their way to power by getting rid of all the pesky "voters," real or imaginary, who don't like them. In their demented campaign for "election integrity," they're hounding "illegals" - who already can't vote and aren't - "busting" Biden for trying to "rig" the election by registering voters, shrieking we're "devolving" into a democracy and otherwise mindlessly, scarily "fingerpainting on the Constitution."

Predictably leading the patriotic charge with what Jon Stewart blasts as their "monarchy shit" is crypto-fascist MAGA Mike Johnson, who's been pushing the false narrative of hordes of "illegals" - JFC the ugliness therein - and other poors flooding the voting booth to risk five years in prison, a $10,000 fine and deportation for the infinitesimal gain of voting for the good guys. Thus did Johnson showily announce a redundant Voter Eligibility Legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections - though it's already a felony for a non-citizen to vote, multiple states have mechanisms to validate voters' citizenship, repeated studies show the number of those illegally voting is tiny, and most of them are Republicans, usually seeking to purge minority votes from the rolls. Asked how many migrants were purportedly casting those nefarious votes, Johnson admitted, "The answer is that it's unanswerable - that is the problem." While they've been deliberately "spread out everywhere" by devious Dems, he charged, "We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but (it's) not been something easily provable." Aka, we have no evidence, but crackpot "truthiness" will win out.

"Here’s an intuition for you,” wrote T.J. Stiles. "People terrified of contact with government because they don’t want their lives destroyed by deportation don’t register to vote illegally and then (vote) for the reward of having a tiny tiny influence on federal electoral outcomes." The acerbic Ted Lieu also chimed in. "I will be introducing a bill to ban elementary school students from voting even though it’s already illegal for them to vote in federal elections," he wrote. "I intuitively know young kids are voting in federal elections but can’t prove it. However my cousin’s friend read it on the Internet." Still, a GOP with only racist fear-mongering on its plate has plowed ahead supported by the windbag, stop-the-steal likes of Texas' Chip Roy blustering, "The most fundamental thing you can do (to) destroy our republic is to undermine faith in elections." R-i-g-h-t. Having wildly inflated the number of migrants - Johnson pegs it at 16 million, while DHS says it's perhaps half that and Trump only claims 3 to 5 million to explain his popular vote loss - he calls rounding up and deporting these unpatriotic, brown-skinned perps "the greatest challenge of our generation" - adding deadpan that to suggest "this is some sort of revenge tour" is "silly."

Also silly: Continuing their unholy crusade, the House just passed an equally pointless Equal Representation Act that would ask about citizenship on and bar non-citizens from the 2030 Census, though SCOTUS has blocked the move as unconstitutional, the Census historically undercounts minority communities when apportioning Congressional seats, and the Senate will kill it. The vote prompted a non-sequitur burble from GOP Rep. Glenn Grothman about Ben Franklin's "A republic, if you can keep it" - the fuzzy point something about the Pledge of Allegiance warning against riff raff - which in turn gave us Constitutional law scholar Jamie Raskin, who was "inspired" by Grothman's remarks on the Pledge, which he'd written a paper about it in 6th grade. The Pledge, he noted, was written by an abolitionist Baptist minister upset that Southerners were still saluting the Confederate flag; its core truth, he asserted through a shaggy-dog Ben Franklin story, is that the census includes "the whole number of free persons." "We count everybody," he said. "It's been like that since 1790, and we don't need to start fingerpainting on the Constitution...This is a land that's built on immigration, (a) place of refuge to people seeking freedom (from) oppression. That's who we are."

Or at least these days who we aspire to be, a staunchly racist, increasingly totalitarian GOP notwithstanding. See the response of loathsome Stephen Miller to Democrats blocking the census move. Votes "WILL BE added to areas with the most illegals," he screeched. "Invasion by design." The extent to which a beleaguered GOP now openly leans into its anti-democratic bent can startle. Rachel Maddow just reported on a move by Washington State Repubs to remove from their party platform the word "democracy" - which means your side can lose - for "republic," which evidently precludes that distasteful result. "We are devolving into a democracy," said one fiercely. "Bad idea." Members later incorporated into their platform, "We encourage Republicans to substitute the word 'republic' where we once used 'democracy.' Every time the word democracy is used favorably, it serves to promote the principles of the Democratic party, the principles of which we ardently oppose...We oppose legislation which makes our nation more 'democratic."' Maddow, stunned: "What's going on here?" Fox News' Jesse Watters: We are saving America from Democrats who plan to "rig" the election by encouraging people to vote and counting their votes, so what's your problem?

In a darkly nonsensical segment, he slammed a first-in-the-nation voter-registration collaboration between the Small Business Administration and Michigan officials, part of a Biden plan asking federal agencies to promote "access to voting." House Repubs' response: "Busting" and subpoenaing officials for possible "improper" efforts "to funnel resources to a key swing state." "Nothing is going right" for a flailing Joe Biden, Watters argues, so he "needs a backup plan: Find more Democrats." Now, they'll come via contact with resources for health care, food stamps, free lunch, even, gasp, homeless people! "Biden is using your tax dollars to register Democrats to vote in the election," he intones, before turning to icky liar Kellyanne Conway. He: "Kellyanne, this looks shady. Is it?" She: "Yes, of course it is." "Biden again is weaponizing (the) federal government (to) undermine democracy and swing an election his way," she rants, just like paying off student debts, "overly persecuting" Trump, inflation, migrants, "everything. Here's what's scary about it. We won't know if all of this works until it's too late, and you see all the shenanigans, the mechanics, the process, the ballot harvesting, the early vote....So many ballots floating out there. It creates chaos." Yup. Democracy = scary. More scary: Fascism. Take your pick.