Then read this.
The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to permit the extreme
Texas voter ID law to remain in effect pending a final ruling by the Court to
take place after the election, has caused a massive denial of the right to vote
by the poor and minorities in Texas. This is the inevitable result of a law
designed solely to achieve that purpose. These horrors, these insults to
democracy, are summarized in the cited article in Huff Post. It is the latest
(but certain
None of the many State voter ID laws which were passed on
the excuse of avoiding vote fraud (in the face of no evidence whatever that
vote fraud is even a small problem) have the faintest whiff of an honest
purpose. They are in service of a naked power grab. The events that lead up to
this catastrophic wounding of the American democracy began long ago, but we
might start with the utterly fraudulent decision by the Supreme Court in Bush
v. Gore. That decision, by a party-line vote of 5-4 was one of the shortest on
record, and may have been the shortest in any case as important as that one. It
cited few precedents, none of which seemed applicable, and created a new
definition of “equal protection” that was so spurious that the court said the
case was not to be used as precedent in any later case. That is enough to show
that the Court knew it was struggling to justify a purely political decision
with no legal foundation or excuse.
President Bush appointed two more extreme conservative
Republicans who have pushed the Court to the far right on matters effecting
politics and power.
History has several examples of despotic governments that
gained power by taking over a democratically elected one. The Republican Party
controls the courts, partly through appointments by Republican Presidents, and
partly by refusing to confirm Obama appointees. It controls one House of
Congress by legitimate means and the other by manipulating procedure to prevent
the majority from approving appointees and from passing their legislative
agenda.
After President Obama took office, Mitch McConnell said his
top priority was to make him a one-term President. The oath of office for every
Senator is to “support and defend the Constitution.”
McConnell’s top priority was, and is, to subvert the constitutional functioning
of the government, something he and his fellow Republicans did most diligently,
while blocking performance of legislative duties that would promote the
successful functioning of the government. For a Senator to declare that the next
election, not the success of the nation, is his top priority, is surely a
violation of his oath of office and comes perilously close to treason.
In 2009 President Obama took
office with a Democrat-controlled Senate and House. He was prevented, at almost
every turn, from getting his legislative agenda passed and from getting his
appointees approved for judicial and administrative positions. The result is
that numerous judgeships and administrative positions remain unfilled. His one
major legislative success, the so-called “Obama-Care,” has been the subject of
numerous repeal efforts, even as it has become effective and popular.
The irony is that the halting
progress of the government caused by recalcitrant Republicans, maneuvering for
more power, is now blamed on Obama by the very perpetrators of dysfunction.
What can we do about it? For starters vote on Tuesday and get everyone you know to do it.
