Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

conix's party's rejection of American democracy is their biggest basic problem. If it doesn't catch up with them then we know too many in the American electorate also don't see American democracy as valuable.

"hey have not listed as a hate crime, yet, but again this is supposed to be America, the land of the free, and that is what upsetting. This new republican party wants to support freedom, as long as you fit a certain profile."

See again -- Good article. It sure puts Roberts in clear view:

"Liberals in Congress and voting rights advocates swiftly rallied around an amendment to the Voting Rights Act that would undo Mobile and rescue Section 2 plaintiffs from the task of trying to read lawmakers’ minds. That amendment banned any voting practice that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” Thus, even if a plaintiff could not prove racist intent, they could still prevail if the law had a disparate negative effect on voters of color.

It was this amendment that the young John Roberts fought so hard to kill. As the voting rights journalist Ari Berman writes, “Roberts wrote upwards of 25 memos opposing an effects test for Section 2 .. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/john-roberts-voting-rights-act-121222 .” He “drafted talking points, speeches and op-eds for” senior Justice Department officials opposing the amendment, and “prepared administration officials for their testimony before the Senate; attended weekly strategy sessions; and worked closely with like-minded senators on Capitol Hill.”

But opposition to the Section 2 amendment fizzled in Congress. As Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) told Reagan in October of 1981, conservative lawmakers feared that “anyone who seeks to change” an expansive voting rights renewal that had already passed the House “will risk being branded as racist.”

Ultimately, Reagan signed the bill, extending preclearance for another quarter century and trashing the Mobile decision in the process.

The same dynamic played out once again in 2006. Although President Bush initially displayed some ambivalence toward Voting Rights Act renewal, and some members of his Justice Department advocated scrapping preclearance, legislative opposition to the renewal never got too far off the ground.

As Edward Blum, a wealthy anti-civil rights activist who would go on to be the driving force behind the Supreme Court case that gutted preclearance in 2013, complained in a 2006 National Review article, “Republicans don’t want to be branded as hostile to minorities, especially just months from an election.”

[...]

Now here is a perfect time to jump to a third excerpt from one first introduced yesterday ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173294108 . The 2nd excerpt is here:
And, all must understand Trump's supporters don't care about any of Trump psychopathy or his narcissism. They only care
about fixing America to more back in their own image. In that sense they dislike democracy, and see themselves as Gods.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173294212 . The 3rd:

The conservative movement is rejecting America

[...]

The state-level Republican lawmakers were often quite honest about their aim of locking Democrats out of office.

“I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” former North Carolina Rep. David Lewis, who chaired the state’s recent redistricting committee, once said. “So I drew this map in a way to help foster what I think is better for the country.”

[...]

The January 6 attack on the Capitol was a pure expression of Ellmers-ism, a violent lashing out against a system that conservatives believe to be fraudulent and corrupt. The new round of voter suppression bills represents the more subtle 2010 variant of Republican anti-democratic attitudes: that the system can be rigged such that the Democratic threat is locked out of power for good.

There are at least eight proposals from Republican lawmakers in state legislatures around the country to seize partisan control over electoral administration. One of the most egregious examples, in Georgia, was passed into law last week. More broadly, there are over 250 state bills .. https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/voting-reform/state-voting-laws .. under consideration that would curtail voting rights in one way or another.

That these proposals are justified in the language of “restoring confidence” in elections and “preventing fraud” does not make them actually defensible in democratic terms — anymore than Ellmers’s thinly-veiled pining for a civil war is “democratic” because he wants to wage it in defense of a warped conception of liberty.

In a sense, Ellmers is right that America’s political system no longer works. He’s just wrong about who broke it — and why.

https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173297074

"They have not listed as a hate crime, yet, but again this is supposed to be America, the land of the free, and that is what upsetting. This new republican party wants to support freedom, as long as you fit a certain profile."