Rejecting Democracy

[Kevin]

David Frum said

Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.

David Frum, "Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic".

New voter ID laws are abounding. Here's a statistic: Number of Voting Age Citizens in US Without a Government-Issued ID. Black - 25%. White - 8% In North Dakota, the statistics are: Native American - 19%. Non Native American - 12%. Who is getting turned away? Non-white Americans, who do not tend to vote for Republicans.

Early voting restrictions are also on the rise. In North Carolina, early voters are 64% Black, 49% white. North Carolina has been particularly fertile ground for this type of restriction, where the Republican legislature has proposed a boatload of laws that make early voting harder. Many were struck down by the courts but the ones that survived had the effect of decreasing polling places by 20%, disproportionately affecting African American districts. But, because of the Shelby vs. Holder decision, such laws are no longer reviewed by the federal government.

Speaking of that decision, since 2013, when Shelby was decided, mass purges of voter registration rolls in the counties that were once covered by the VRA are up by 40% over counties not covered. The Shelby decision has been a godsend for restricting access. In 2018, Brian Kemp, now Governor of Georgia, purged the registration rolls of hundreds of thousands of names and instituted and "exact match" system for determining if there was a signature match for a registration, right down to hyphenation. By doing this, he was able to suspend the registrations of 53,000 more Georgians, 80% of whom were African American. Just for good measure, he used the Secretary of State's website to accuse Democrats of "hacking" the election. How was he able to do this? Because he was the Secretary of State, in charge of registration rules and verifications and the content of the Secretary of State website. He was in charge of overseeing his own election.

You gotta love North Carolina, though. They really take the cake. For example, before cutting early voting by one week, GOP lawmakers had requested data showing who would be affected. They specifically asked for racial data. When they found that African Americans tended to utilize early voting more than whites, they amended the law to cut early voting hours. It was blatant racial discrimination. They used other measures to discourage early voting, such as passing a law that stated that if even one polling location was open for more hours in a specific county, every other polling location in that county had to also be open those hours, to discourage having longer hours in urban areas, where African Americans tended to vote Democratic.

In Tennessee, in 2018, there was a large "get out the vote" effort among the African American community. In 2019, Tennessee passed a law to make it harder for "third parties" to engage in such actions.

Thirty-three states have filed 165 bills to restrict voter access in response to the lies about voter fraud Republicans have perpetrated. You can read all about it here.

[Mike]

It really doesn't matter because we have no one to vote for, only candidates to vote against. I think that I am done with that. Our government is broken beyond repair by voting. All voting does is keep the same bunch of scalawags in power. I'm glad to be nearing end of life so that I won't be here when it all comes tumbling down. Rest assured, it will.

[Kevin]

Apart from the content of your post, allow me to give a shout out for using the word "scalawag" in a sentence. Very

When enough people are convinced that the tools they are given to enfranchise them no longer do so, historically, that's when the real trouble begins.

[UTAH]

...only candidates to vote against.

Works for me (literally).

You know it's working when the ones you voted against lose. We all have our personal victories.

Hunter

[CactusCurt]

I am calling complete BS on the claimed percentage of native Americans “without a government issued ID”. I spent decades working closely with Indians, and I have NEVER met one who didn’t have a census number and/or tribal ID.

We gave the entire day off for them to vote because the polling places were so far away in some cases. I wish people would learn a little before they started lecturing the rest of us who actually worked to make the situation better.

[Kevin]

I will never forget the Navajo grandmother who spoke only Navajo and could not vote after Arizona passed its voter ID law in 2004. She tried several times to obtain an Arizona ID on her own but was denied because she was born at home in a hogan, and the boarding schools changed her Navajo name to English. She lived in a modest home on the Navajo Reservation without electricity and running water, and lived a traditional lifestyle taking care of her sheep. She was embarrassed and devastated when she was turned away from the polls for not having an ID. Working with her, a team from the Indian Legal Clinic traveled five hours to meet her at multiple agency offices to obtain her delayed birth certificate; we then went to two separate Motor Vehicle Division Offices. The first one did not issue same-day photo IDs, and the other initially denied her request. The office rejected her delayed Navajo birth certificate, until I was able to intervene and demonstrate to them that it was an acceptable document. The system failed to consider her reality as a Navajo woman and failed to value her as a voter. Fortunately, she was persistent in exercising her right to vote, but not all voters are, nor should they have to be.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/c...be-suppressed/

Maybe your experience is not as universal as you imagine.

[Kevin]

n the weeks leading up to the 2018 midterm election, Native American groups in North Dakota scrambled to help thousands of tribal citizens obtain a proper identification card if they wanted to lawfully vote.

That requirement, which activists said amounted to a form of voter suppression, had been challenged in the courts.

On Thursday, North Dakota officials announced a proposed settlement agreement with two of the tribes involved in a lawsuit, addressing many of the lingering concerns that the state is enabling "mass disenfranchisement" of tribal members.

"This settlement, if finalized, will make it easier for Native Americans to vote," Tim Purdon, a lawyer for the Spirit Lake and Standing Rock Sioux tribes, said Friday.

To vote in the last election, tribal members had to obtain either a new state-issued or tribal ID showing their street address. That affected an estimated 5,000 tribal citizens with IDs showing a post office box instead — used more commonly than home addresses.

Some of those tribal residents live in rural areas with no proper street signage or obvious address.

North Dakota doesn't require residents to register before voting, and since 2004, voters have had to provide their IDs at the polls. State officials said the home address rule was meant to combat potential voter fraud.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...voter-n1137141

Lots of evidence out there lending credence to the statistic you are questioning, Curt.

[CactusCurt]

They have “government issued ID’s”. To claim they don’t is absurd, and another example of fast and loose with the facts. Whether it allows them to vote is not my point. Although I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if their federal ID was determined to be inadequate by another agency.

When the new “I-9” regulations were rolled out a couple decades ago, we were required by law to obtain proof of their citizenship. Even the simple country boys saw the irony in that.

My real objection to the matter is the current portrayal of the feds as the savior of Indians from the bureaucratic system. Their circumstance is a result -at least in part - of being born into the arms of the feds.

We also have a local illegal who is a bit of a celebrity since she has taken refuge in a church. Long story short, the system is alleged to have screwed her because she made no effort to obtain citizenship over the last 20 years.

Driving and old lady 5 hours to get her set up to vote 18 years ago isn’t suppression.

[Kevin]

Kinda nitpicky, Curt. The first quote showed how some don't have government ID and how difficult it was to get it. The second showed how the ID they did have did not meet the voter ID laws and kept thousands from voting.

That's the point - voter suppression.

Driving and old lady 5 hours to get her set up to vote 18 years ago isn’t suppression.

Well, I disagree but look at her total experience to try to vote. She had to make long trips, visit multiple agencies, get denied several times and eventually, enlist outside help from lawyers to finally be allowed to do something she had been doing right along until Arizona changed its laws. Sounds as if Arizona made it exponentially harder for her to vote and I think that qualifies as voter suppression. How many people would be willing to do all that?

I have a simple rule - if a new law makes it harder for a specific demographic to vote but not others, I suspect that was the intent. And in North Carolina, the federal courts agreed. They said that the Republican legislature there had targeted the African American community with almost "surgical precision".

[Kevin]

Voter suppression, in U.S. history and politics, any legal or extralegal measure or strategy whose purpose or practical effect is to reduce voting, or registering to vote, by members of a targeted racial group, political party, or religious community. The overwhelming majority of victims of voter suppression in the United States have been African Americans.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/voter-suppression

Just so we are clear on terms, Curt. I think that a law requiring the sort of ordeal that Arizona's voter ID laws put that "old lady" as you dismissively call her qualifies as voter suppression. Especially when other demographics can just flash their driver's license and walk right in to vote.

[CactusCurt]

There is no point in trying to educate you. So I’m going to jump off for my zoom meeting with a bunch of tribal officials and lawyers. Since I’m not totally retired, I should anyway since I’m probably bumping up against a couple of NDA’s.

I’ve spent the better part of a career on the front lines you and some other activist want to obnubilate in support of an agenda. Well, I’ve had mutton stew in a traditional hogan with the old ladies you think I’m denigrating, and have had the honor of taking part in countless other Native American traditions. As they say, walk a mile in my moccasins.

The sad thing is, I don’t have any agenda at all but to tell you honestly the way things are. But you know better.

[Kevin]

Well, I don't know if I "know better" but at least I'm presenting more than just personal anecdotal information to support my position. I'm sure you have quite a lot of experience but objectively, 5000 Native Americans in North Dakota were disenfranchised because their "government ID" did not meet the standards of the voter ID laws and they had to go to court to win back what should have been their right by birth. You worry about "agendas". I'll worry about people's Constitutional rights.

And if you called my Mom an "old lady", she'd smack you with her cane. It is dismissive language. Yes, she is old, but "old lady" means more than a description of her age.

[Honda]

There is no point in trying to educate you. So I’m going to jump off for my zoom meeting with a bunch of tribal officials and lawyers. Since I’m not totally retired, I should anyway since I’m probably bumping up against a couple of NDA’s.

I’ve spent the better part of a career on the front lines you and some other activist want to obnubilate in support of an agenda. Well, I’ve had mutton stew in a traditional hogan with the old ladies you think I’m denigrating, and have had the honor of taking part in countless other Native American traditions. As they say, walk a mile in my moccasins.

The sad thing is, I don’t have any agenda at all but to tell you honestly the way things are. But you know better.

Well Curt, I find myself frustrated also. The following remarks DO NOT apply to any particular poster or board member it is a general comment. I find myself in a position that replying to some of the ideologies and positions espoused recently is not productive. Many times I can't find a way to respond without the potential of offending a member. In the spirit of the continuity of this forum as a wonderful place to exchange ideas I have decided on many issues just to let them pass. I so extraordinarily disagree that I guess I'm admitting I don't have the energy or desire to counter some of the arguments. There have been no less than 5 news items today that I have passed on posting. I sometimes like to argue but my appetite for that is waning.

[Kevin]

Yep, been there at times myself.

I don't always live up to my own expectations but I have found that if I try not to take things as personally directed towards me, it helps me find a way to respond in a noninflammatory manner. In this thread, I'm talking about a subject that is extremely important to me. My parents were heavily involved in registering African Americans to vote in Georgia after the VRA and my mother helped African American mothers learn to read after their time in segregated schools. She did this just as someone helped her grandmother read and become a US citizen after 25 years as an unregistered immigrant (we didn't have registries back in the 1920s) so it is in the family so to speak. Both my parents got into trouble but it was "good trouble".

Now, again in Georgia and other states (all run by Republican legislatures), I see the same sort of issues they did - laws meant to keep people powerless, to treat a disfavored population as "less than". Yes, even in my state, a few bills have been introduced to restrict access but they are introduced by Republicans again and have no chance of becoming law. This generalized attempt to keep people from voting is a Republican agenda, speaking of agendas. The same legislatures that would never allow any encroachment on their favored rights - namely, the Second Amendment - are busily trying to encroach on the most basic right we have, the right to vote.

So I am very heavily emotionally invested in this issue. Basic human rights and civil rights are very close to my history. The first few responses I wrote to Curt's last post, where he accused me of trying to somehow "obnubilate" him, were tart. I re-wrote them to stick to the facts. His posts showed he was more concerned with verbiage than people losing their basic right to vote and he dismissed the extreme efforts by someone trying to get that right back, calling her an "old lady". I was pretty angry. But I toned it down because I have respect for the site. I'm sure Curt did his part in toning down what he would have liked to have said as well.

To me, that's civil discourse. The site is working as it was designed because we are trying to talk rather than fight. In that, I think we are doing better than most these days.

[CactusCurt]

In Indian Country, when we are talking about elderly women it’s common to refer to them as “grandma’s” or “old ladies” (it’s a matriarchal society here anyway, so the old is soft). When discussing them with anglo’s we would refer to them as the “elderlies”. I think it’s because of the anglo tendency to be way too dramatic about innocuous things.

I pass on many discussions here as well. Sometimes it reminds me of those campus preachers I used to see in college. It’s more about saying your piece. Some people probably view this place as a stage. I think of it more like a barroom with no profanity.