Wisconsin shows clearly the battle plan of the Republican Party in the coming November presidential election as well as other local & state elections. The background is simple: Covid-19 is raging, liberal voters are most predominant in urban areas and the Republicans do better in rural areas. It will be easier & less stressful to vote in person in the latter where there is space for social distancing (or else no regards for it), while urban areas are the exact opposite: tight spaces, stay-at-home orders & liberal voters. So Republicans – as they have shamefully & eagerly shown they are willing to do a la Wisconsin – will gleefully endanger the health & even the lives of fellow Americans by a barrage of voting strategies. These include primarily:
- Reducing the number of polling stations in urban areas.
- Mandating more & harder requirements on absentee voters.
Absentee voters with health issues are more likely to be conscious of the health-care debate, as well as live close to larger medical facilities ie. cities. Black Americans will be an especially targeted group by Republicans because they overwhelmingly vote Democratic in urban areas. Republicans will chiefly concentrate on depriving black neighborhoods of polling stations. States with Republican atty-generals, governors or even just state assemblies will try to mandate additional paperwork for absentee ballots – often close in time to elections – to make it harder, more discouraging, if not downright impossible for those voters to comply. Naturally any attempt to accommodate absentee voters, such as extending mailing deadlines, will immediately face Republican lawsuits.
We had wondered why the Chief Deplorable had gone on a rant against absentee voting in general on one of his recent daily “Watch Me, watch me” shows. Maybe just another rant against anything to do with democracy, we pondered. But then learning what happened in Wisconsin it was easily recognizable that there is a Republican strategy behind this new campaign against holding fair elections.
The strategy will backfire. It won’t work just like it did not in Wisconsin. But nevertheless it gives us trepidation as to November. If Republicans are willing to sacrifice the health and even lives of Americans who want to exercise their most valued democratic right, will they shy away from a drastic enough disruption of the presidential election as to cause a constitutional crisis? Maybe not recognize the results should it go against them? Postpone the election if polls are not favorable? Yes! They have obviously shown they are ready to do anything.
There is another option – one that deserves special consideration:
This author is the same age group as the Chief Deplorable. One of the political axioms I learned in that long-ago era of Eisenhower / Nixon et al was that an incumbent President always wins re-election in time of war (VietNam doesn’t count. It wasn’t a war, it was a national disaster – inflicting as much damage here as it did there.) and we say it here & now: This egotistical, self-serving fake in the White House will not hesitate to drop the big one (Iran is the current obvious choice) or otherwise start a war – any war – if a November defeat starts looking unavoidable.