Please stop electing Republicans

Republicans have been pressure-testing the strength and limits of democracy, seeing where they can violate and erode the rules and norms of democracy in order to gain and hold office and push through conservative laws and policies.

The ACLU says since 2021, 10 states have enacted anti-critical race theory laws that attack “our First Amendment rights to read, learn, and discuss vital topics in schools”, with over two dozen additional anti-CRT laws proposed in 2022 alone.

The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law which tracks legislation that “restricts the right to peaceful assembly” reports that seven states have enacted anti-protest laws since 2017. These laws, among other provisions, enact harsh penalties for blocking traffic and some states’ laws provide immunities for drivers who hit pedestrian protesters. These laws have also been employed to crack down against journalists covering protests.

In addition to suppressing vital civil rights, Republican governors and state legislators are also actively engaged in efforts to undermine the power of voters, efforts that Brennan Center fellow Zachary Roth calls “legislative anti-democracy”. These moves have included heightened efforts at gerrymandering; reconfiguring the way Electoral College votes are allocated to favour Republican candidates; making direct democracy, such as ballot initiatives, more difficult to achieve; and using state laws to negate or undermine more liberal local municipalities.

The Republican-appointed majority of the Supreme Court, in tossing aside the principle of stare decisis to overturn Roe vs Wade despite it being “settled law”, has now emboldened conservative judges to engage in the type of judicial activism that liberals have often been accused of conducting.

  alJazeera

A reminder that evey Republican acccusation is really a confession.

It is not just that conservative Republican officials are pursuing their agenda through various branches and levels of government. It is that they are doing so in ways that disregard or even actively violate fundamental principles upon which American democracy was founded – they appear willing if not eager to damage that democratic bedrock in order to enact their agenda.

[...]

Donald Trump’s refusal to admit defeat in 2020 spawned copycat election deniers from Arizona to Michigan. Such claims did not stick, however, and most deniers eventually failed to win state-level elected office. However, several leading supporters of Trump’s “stolen election” narrative managed to gain power within their state GOP machinery anyway, with several becoming GOP party chairs and continuing to pull the party further to the right with new strategies and tactics.

[...]

Republicans have convinced themselves that their grabs for power are necessary tactics furthering a righteous cause. Framing themselves as the last defenders of the country, the GOP has justified any and all tactics to achieve victory, even a Pyrrhic victory that destroys the democracy it claims to defend. Under this mindset, we can expect a lot more [outrageous and diabolically creative] political manoeuvres.

Please, please stop electing Republicans. While that will help, it won't stop the country's move toward fascism as long as someone can file lawsuits that make it to the Supreme Court.  Court reform has to occur along with a halt to Republican office holders. And then it will be necessary to stop electing whatever party they create to take the place of the GOP.  This is no longer hyperbole.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.