"Suppressing votes is not merely a racist act, nor it is simply the last resort for a party out of ideas. Voter suppression is traitorous. Intentionally restricting access to the ballot is a violation of the ideals that we have been told are inherently American. The United States government is of, by and for the people. Yet we are barred from the fundamental democratic process by those in power merely because our skin color predicts our political persuasion. The Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby vs. Holder decision should have had people marching in the streets to restore that landmark civil rights legislation to its full powers — or at least made that a key topic of the subsequent presidential election. We are lucky if outlets use “racially tinged” or other cowardly terminology to reference it. Voter suppression is not an accident, as Chief Justice John Roberts would have us believe, some benign exclusion from the small-d democratic process. It is a form of violence.
Mitch McConnell is okay with this. The Senate Majority Leader, the longest-serving Republican to ever hold that position, all but admitted on the Senate floor Wednesday that having more Americans vote is bad for the Republican Party. H.R. 1, the omnibus package of ethics and civil rights reforms proposed by the newly elected House Democratic majority, was McConnell’s target. "
snip McConnell does not seem to be similarly animated about the continued threat of foreign interference in our elections. Earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats released a new worldwide threat assessment in which he argued that Russia, China and Iran “probably already are looking to the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests” and “will use online influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions, undermine U.S. alliances and partnerships and shape policy outcomes in the United States and elsewhere.” The Daily Beast also reported that Russia’s GRU, its military intelligence agency, has been caught trying to infiltrate the computers of a Washington think-tank called the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Many are still wondering why Republicans blocked $250 million in funds last fall to enhance election security, but then months later cheer on a president who shuts down the government over $5.7 billion for his fantasy border wall? It doesn’t matter whether Republicans were complicit in foreign election interference. That interference helped elect Trump, and it is allowing the GOP to continually destroy our democracy. Whatever moral compromises and treachery is necessary to help McConnell and his party confirm conservative judges at a manic pace, they seem all too willing to do it.
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