Out Of Reach

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 18^th 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?"