I gotta tell
you, I’m tired of waiting. Ever since President Obama killed it winning a
second term and demolishing old Mittens
in the process, Republicans have been promising to reach out to minority voters. They insist that they’ve seen the error of their ways and will be a more
accepting, diverse, inclusive party going forward. Unfortunately, all I’ve seen
is the same message of greed, homophobia, and racist voter disenfranchisement.
Prominent Republican politicians such as Michelle Bachman, Ted Cruz and Mario
Rubio continue to spew hate, intolerance and bigotry. The party persists in its
practice of pandering to the extreme right racist and tea party baggers within
the party. So where’s the outreach?
Perhaps their idea of reaching means to
reach out and hold back minorities, women and the elderly. Just days after the
Supreme Court’s ruling striking down a key part of the Voting Rights Act, which had required certain states and
jurisdictions with a history of voter discrimination to clear all voting
changes in advance with the Justice Department or federal court, the Republican legislation in red states
such as Texas and North Carolina quickly sought to marginalize and discourage
minority voting by attempting to enact restrictive Jim Crow era voter laws requiring I.D. to vote, slashing the number of
polling precincts, minimizing precinct voting hours and slashing Sunday voting
and same day registration provisions. You may recall the gargantuan lines
created on Election Day in Florida and Ohio when they cancelled early voting
resulting in voters waiting for up to eight hours to vote. Now, I know we all
like to think that everyone has some form of I.D. but they can be very
difficult and expensive to obtain for the poor and elderly. They may not have access
to documents like birth certificates without incurring major expense,
especially those who are over the age where all birth certificates were in an
automated system. Then there would be the hassle of getting a state recognized
photographic I.D. For elderly, handicapped people getting to all these offices
can be exhausting if not prohibitive as well as expensive if they can no longer
drive.
But
it’s not just about I.D. In Texas they plan to reduce polling places from 84 to
12! The predominately "white"
area polling places will serve about 6,000 voters while the most "minority" polling places will
be expected to serve 86,000. In North Carolina they went as far as canceling
the program which allowed 17 year old students enrolled in high school civics
classes to pre-register as voters prior to their 18th birthday. They
also are currently seeking to penalize college students with a bill to raise
taxes on families with college students who choose to vote at school rather
than at home, effectively discouraging college students from voting. In an
effort to purge voter rolls for the 2012 election, Florida officials identified
voters they suspected to be non-citizens and sent their information to county
election supervisors who then mailed letters to voters requesting proof they
were U.S. citizens. If no response was received, the voter was dropped from the
rolls. Of course an excessively large majority of those identified were either
Black or Hispanic. Way to reach out and touch Repubs.
At some point, the Republican Party must
be held accountable for catering to the racists, the birthers and those calling
the President a communist, socialist, Muslim, America-hating terrorist. They
must also be taken to task for not denouncing those within their party who support
and promote these crazy conspiracy theories and group based cultural generalizations
such as the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Becks and O’Reillys. Oh, and let’s not forget
the bigoted racist crackpots like Ted Nugent and Ann Coulter. If Republicans
truly wanted to reach out they would champion economic issues that support the
middle and working classes and they would actively promote the idea of equal
justice for all people, which would allow them to cast a much wider net. Instead
they continue to be in favor of cutting programs that benefit middle and
working class families, adamantly oppose health care for the poor and elderly and
can’t seem to stay out of the bedrooms of individual citizens or the wombs of
grown ass women all of whom are completely capable of making decisions about
the most intimate part of their lives. They persist in stereotyping, victim blaming
and advocating the dismantling of programs that disproportionately affect the
poor and minorities while keeping those that provide tax breaks for the rich
and powerful. Their idea of reaching out appears to be keeping the poor, women
and minorities in their place. They may as well just say it, "We hate you. We don't want you to vote. We want to cut out
every government dime that helps the poorest among you cope with a grossly
unfair economy. Now, why won't you stupid people vote for us?"
