It's About Suppression, Con't

Republicans are still screaming about HR 1, the For The People Act, now saying the quiet part out loud: if it passes into law, Republicans will be hurt in elections because it will be easier to vote, and more people voting means more Democratic votes, something Republicans will do anything to stop from happening.

In the aftermath of the GOP's assault on the integrity of the 2020 presidential election and amid a torrent of Republican measures aimed at restricting voting rights in the name of security, Democrats are pushing for a far-reaching solution to counter attempts at narrowing access to the ballot box.

H.R. 1, known as the For the People Act, seeks to abolish hurdles to voting, reform the role of money in politics and tighten federal ethics rules. Among the key tenets of the bill to overhaul the nation's election system: allowing for no-excuse mail voting, at least 15 days of early voting, automatic voter registration and restoring voting rights to felons who have completed their prison sentences.

Democrats' comprehensive bill passed the House -- for the second time -- nearly along party lines earlier this month and was introduced in the Senate this week. But it faces steep opposition from the GOP over its potential implications for future elections, including the 2022 midterms, with some Republicans openly fretting that broader access to voting will harm the party's chances.

For Republicans, H.R. 1 represents a Democratic "power grab" that could tilt elections in their favor for years to come, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., put it. One Arizona state lawmaker called it "anti-Republican."

"H.R. 1 is an attempt to use the Democrats' slim majority to unlevel the playing field and take away the rights of roughly half of the voters in the country," said Mark Weaver, a GOP consultant based in Ohio and an election law attorney.

Other Republicans condemn the bill as a naked federal overreach of states' rights, saying the legislation will usurp the decentralized electoral system in favor of a nationalized, one-size-fits-all approach.

And some Republican lawmakers, officials and strategists go even further, signaling the GOP's opposition to such extensive electoral reforms is based on the fear it will cause them to lose elections.

"If the Democrats pass H.R. 1, it's going to be absolutely devastating for Republicans in this country," said Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in Georgia, a state seeing one of the most aggressive campaigns to restrict voting. "They're just going to basically just shaft so many Republicans in places where they would actually have opportunities to pick up."

Straight-up Goebbels tactics here: accuse your political enemies of being guilty of what you are actually doing, and use the manufactured outrage to justify any and all measures to defeat them.

As I explained yesterday, Republicans want an America where everyone who isn't one of them is reduced to a second-class citizen at best, and removed from America by whatever means necessary at worst, and they are willing to employ terrorist violence until that comes to pass.

It's an astonishing admission that the GOP has no real solutions about how to fix America and no hope to win the "marketplace of political ideas"  other than "get rid of anyone who isn't a Republican".

They don't want elections. They don't want democracy. They want single-party fascist rule. Obtaining that starts with exactly what they are doing now: making elections so onerous that only the rich and idle have the opportunity to ever vote again.

It's about suppression.