'Voter fraud' claims are a racist attack on Black voters so let's act like it

[marmar]

'Voter fraud' claims are a racist attack on Black voters so let's act like it
Our outsized contribution must not be erased by establishment figures on either side of the aisle.

Nov. 11, 2020, 5:30 AM EST
By Brittany Packnett Cunningham


(MSNBC) Historically, voter fraud seems to be a consistent complaint when two things happen: when Republicans lose, and when Black people are the ones to defeat them. The idea that Black, brown and Indigenous voters could deliver a decisive blow to the white supremacist political aspirations of the Trump administration is, in some ways, an offense to those who’ve spent their careers — and certainly this election cycle — ensuring that would be nearly impossible.

Digital disinformation targeting Black communities has been a central part of President Donald Trump’s strategy from the start. More traditional GOP suppression tactics, like gerrymandering, polling place closures and false mailers, continue to abound. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia continues to insist that fraud was the culprit for the state’s surprising flip from red to blue, assuming that tricks similar to those he leveraged when he ran his own election in 2018 would be successful. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s dismantling of a U.S. Postal Service staffed by committed public servants in order to sway election results has been criminal. And of course, Trump himself continues to rally Republican troops and voters with dangerous rhetoric of election theft that threatens to, at the very least, upend even fragile faith in our electoral processes or, at most, amount to an oft-warned attempted coup.

The left is being told to extend an olive branch to a right spoiling for a fight. But instead of telling us to hug the people who insist our voices are fraudulent, the Democratic Party should be doing everything it can to secure this election and the safety of the voters who participated in it. We must not confer legitimacy on the Republicans’ behavior or on Trump’s attempts to undermine the rule of law — which he seems to support except for elections and his own taxes. Such credibility is not something our frail democracy can afford to award him, and the marginalized communities who won this election can’t afford the violence that may accompany his worst tactics. .............(more)

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/voter-fraud-claims-are-racist-attack-black-voters-so-let-n1247249?icid=msd_topgrid