The Republican Party is no friend of democracy. When they
don’t have the votes to support their
unpopular policies, they try to force them on
us anyway. When the GOP doesn’t get its way,
the MAGA agenda wins, and democracy be damned.
For all of their claims that they love
democracy and care about the Constitution,
Republicans show us that this is not the case.
We only need to look at the Jan. 6 Capitol
insurrection, when the Trumpian faithful
decided that when their candidate did not win
reelection, they would choose violence and
take matters into their own hands. One of
those would-be lynch mob members, the “QAnon Shaman,” is fresh out of federal prison and
running for Congress, no doubt to
replace George
Santos as the most absurdly criminal
lawmaker in Washington. Because why not?
And speaking of criminals, Trump — who
has caught more cases than a mob boss — is
running for the White House once again,
promising to go full fascist with mass
deportation raids, a purge of thousands of federal
employees, an end birthright citizenship, and
a return to the Muslim travel ban. This, as
the Heritage Foundation and sketchy
conservative groups who stole the Supreme
Court are pouring money into Project
2025, a “government-in-waiting” for the next
GOP White House, also known as a fascist
takeover of the U.S.
government.
On the state level, the GOP is working
hard to subvert the public will and do its own
thing. For example, in Alabama, after the Supreme Court threw out the
Republican-drawn state electoral map and
ordered the creation of a second district of
Black folks, state lawmakers simply ignored
the court. Now, a federal court is intervening
and drawing the district. For all their talk
about following the law, Republicans will
break the law if following the law means
giving Black people the voting power they
deserve.
After Ohio voters enshrined abortion rights in
their constitution in the last election, state
Republicans began scheming to override the
will of the majority of their voters. Citing
what they call “mischief by pro-abortion
courts” and claiming the measure passed due to
“foreign election interference,” Ohio
Republican lawmakers want to strip state
courts of their jurisdiction and their duties.
Judges would be impeached for simply doing
their job and upholding the state
Constitution.
In a blatant power grab in Michigan, the Republicans filed a lawsuit to try
to overturn voting rights after voters
approved the changes. With support of at least
60%, voters in 2018 and 2022 approved
constitutional amendments to expand voting
rights with absentee voting, same-day
registration, nine days of early voting and
other major reforms. Republicans in Michigan
and other states throughout the nation know
that when more people vote, fewer Republicans
are elected. So, why would the GOP want people
to exercise their democratic rights?
Wisconsin Republicans have only recently
backed down from talks to impeach Justice
Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal judge who was
elected earlier this year with Democratic
support. Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of
the State Assembly said
in a recent press conference that they wait to see what she does
while “in office” and that impeachment remains
“on the table.”
And in the Sunshine State, Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis — Trump with all the racism and
cruelty but none of the charisma, or
height — schemed with state Republicans
and robbed felons of their voting rights.
This, even after the Florida voters passed
Amendment 4, a law restoring voting rights to
most people with a felony record in 2018. That
measure, a remedy for Jim Crow-era laws that
deprived Black people of their right to vote,
received overwhelming support.
However, that was not enough for
DeSantis, who signed a law requiring all
felons to pay back restitution to restore
their voting rights, yet put no state system
in place to determine if people are eligible
and track whether they have paid. Then
DeSantis had 20 people with felony records arrested for allegedly voting illegally, a
stunt to show he was cracking down on alleged
voter fraud that does not exist. The DeSantis
administration is challenging a federal
lawsuit claiming Florida’s implementation
of Amendment 4 violates the Voting Rights Act
and has blocked people from voting or finding
out if they are eligible. Florida claims the
suit’s plaintiffs want an “unprecedented
judicial takeover” of the state’s voter
registration process.
But DeSantis didn’t stop there. Not only
did he prevent voters from exercising the
franchise, but he also eliminated elected
Democratic prosecutors. DeSantis removed Orange County state
attorney Monique
Worrell, a Black woman, for “prosecuting their
cops,” as she describes it. Last year,
DeSantis removed Hillsborough County state
attorney Andrew Warren for saying he would not
enforce an abortion ban.
Meanwhile, other states have attempted to
stop democracy in its tracks by going after
Black elected officials. Some Georgia
Republicans wanted to come for Fulton County
district attorney Fani
Willis for her prosecution of Trump in the
attempted theft of the 2020 election. And Jim
Crow Republicans in the Blackest state of
Mississippi have tried to take over a whole
Black city, the state capital of Jackson, by colonizing the city’s court
system.
All of this is proof that when democracy does not work for
the Republican Party, they will simply throw
it in the trash and throw out the rights of
Black people in the process. The so-called
party of Lincoln really is the party of the
neo-confederates and the neo-Dixiecrats, and
their goal is to keep our numbers down if they
want to have any remote chance of winning
elections on their offensive policies. As more
voters reject the GOP assault on voting
rights, abortion rights and other basic rights
— especially if Republicans retake the White
House and Congress — expect more of this
foolishness.
This commentary is also posted on TheGrio.com.