Banana Republicans want to weaken your vote

Another great example of how terrible republicans are, and why it's so baffling that anyone is still stupid enough to vote for them.
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Banana Republicans want to weaken your vote

Electing presidents via a national popular vote, writes David Sirota, is elegant in its simplicity. If and when it happens, America finally gets what should be a fundamental democratic guarantee: that our president is the candidate who received the majority of votes.

By David Sirota

Syndicated columnist

When the Senate minority leader of the United States calls something "a genuine threat to our country," everyone — regardless of party — should listen. Even in the post-9/11 era of overheated language and hyper-partisanship, that kind of declaration from such a powerful public official is not to be taken lightly.

So, what horrible menace to our way of life was Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., talking about when he recently uttered those words? Communism? Al-Qaida? Hostile extraterrestrials?

None of the above. He was referring to democracy.

That sounds hard to believe, but it's absolutely true. In a speech last week to the Heritage Foundation, McConnell used that War on Terror-flavored jeremiad about an existential "threat" to describe a grass-roots effort aimed at electing presidents via a national popular vote.

Prompted by frustration with swing states' disproportionate power, the national popular vote idea is elegant in its simplicity. States commit their Electoral College votes to the national popular vote-winner, regardless of the outcome of the presidential contest within their boundaries. The plan does not go into effect until a majority of Electoral College votes are signed on, but if and when that happens, America finally gets what should be a fundamental democratic guarantee: that our president is the candidate who received the majority of votes.

To most readers, that seems like a nonideological no-brainer — it means every vote is equally important, regardless of geography. And why shouldn't it be that way? After all, there's no moral or substantive reason that a vote in liberal Denver should be more valued by a presidential election system than a vote in rural Idaho just because the Denver vote was cast in the swing state of Colorado. Similarly, there's no democratic justification for candidates reaching the Oval Office when they didn't win the most votes.

Yet, despite those nonpartisan truisms, McConnell billed the accelerating national-popular-vote campaign as a nefarious liberal plot. While such a paranoid theory sounds like a "Saturday Night Live" spoof of a Fox News diatribe, the Senate minority leader was dead serious, which made his statements all the more hilarious — but also painfully revealing. They highlight the fact that Republicans are now openly defining themselves as opponents of the most basic democratic ideals.

In the states, the onslaught against voting has been unselfconsciously overt. As civil-rights lawyer Judith Browne Dianis told CNN, "Through a spate of restrictive laws passed in Republican-led legislatures, a disproportionate number of African Americans, Latinos, people with disabilities, the elderly and the young will find voting difficult and in many cases impossible." These statutes, she notes, "require a state photo ID to vote, limit early voting, place strict requirements on voter registration and deny voting rights to Americans with criminal records who have paid their debt to society."

Now, with 132 electoral votes signing onto the national-popular-vote compact, there's the real possibility of more-democratic presidential elections. So the highest-ranking Republican in America is mobilizing the opposition.

Taken together, this coordinated war on democracy leads to a frightening question: Why is it being waged?

Republicans claim they are moved by (totally unproven) fears of rampant voter fraud, but their obvious motivation is authoritarian self-interest. With polls showing the party's policy goals wholly out of line with public attitudes, the GOP is trying to limit the public's democratic rights. In other words, Republicanism is at odds with public opinion. So, rather than bend to that opinion, Republicans are trying to disenfranchise it.

Such fanatical ends-justify-the-means-ism was once the exclusive hallmark of foreign banana republics. Should our own Banana Republicans succeed in their assault on democracy, that's exactly the kind of backward country America will become.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2017033940_sirota18.html

 

So to hell with the people who live in the rural states?

The US is not a democracy.

 

Liberals, like Sirota, have no interest in American people. They're interested only in power. I would consider the insistence on maintaining corruption in the electoral system by the Democrats to be more in common with Banana Republics than is following the rule of law.

 

Right, let's just ignore the fact that we're a Federation of sovereign states and not a populist democracy where the mob rules.

 

Representative democracy, why do you guys always ignore that?

I fail to see how democratic elections are a threat to states. Presidents don't run on regional issues (usually).

 

No. We're a Representative Republic. You clearly have no knowledge of the purpose of the Electoral College.

 

Representative REPUBLIC, why do you guys NEVER know that?

The Electoral College is designed to prevent people who DO NOT live in urban sprawls from being dominated by, and freeloaded off of, those who DO.

 

We don't ignore it, it simply isn't true, no matter how often you shriek it to the heavens. The United States is not any type of "democracy", thankfully. The US is a constitutional republic!

 

Hey Carl, look at the map showing the concentration of blue states to see where the democraps/liberals get their votes. You''ll notice that the highly populated areas of those blue states are concentrated in the big cities like Chicago, Boston, NYC and LA etc usually on border or coastal states where there is a high influx of illegals. These inner city people overwhelmingly vote for democraps and liberals. These inner cities are rife with welfare sluggards, criminals, druggies and mayors that set up sanctuary cities for illegals to come in and enjoy the benefits that our nanny state government hands over to them. This is your so-called democracy at work.

So for you to get your panties all bundled up in a wad over our system of an electoral procedure that inclues the entire United States in true Republic fashion is not only silly but it shows that your liberal mind set is in dire need of a tune up, or perhaps a complete overhaul..

 

There were no giant cities full of minorities and illegal immigrants when the constitution was written.

We should have a constitutional ammendment to get rid of the electoral college which serves no legitimate purpose.

 

Each state should represent the will of it's own people.

 

There is no such a problem as "Voter fraud"! It simply does not exist. It is just an excuse by republican crooks to suppress the minority vote.
Lets look at New Hampshire, for example. In 2004, there were only two proven cases of voter fraud, which amounts to 0.0006%! None could have been resolved by requiring photo ID at the polls!
There is no such a thing as "voter fraud". It is a made up issue by right wing propaganda machine to make sure that "certain types of people in certain regions who usually vote democrat" are having a harder time voting.

http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_state/

 

ID is required for every action dealing with governments? Yet it shouldn't be shown for voting? Citizens allowed to vote are accustomed to showing ID. Voter ID is very prevalent, otherwise please explain how dead people and Mickey Mouse are eligible?

 

Oddly those progressives in Ca, were complaining with Prop 8, when the vote went against them, twice! Then appeal the majority vote you're, now railing for. Do you just want majority vote when you want it. Then change it when it goes against you?

 

I'd like to know what mob is guilty of physically abusing you guys in the past, there must be some reason you have this phobia of large groups of Americans.


Politicians and corporations are pissing all over you with near unlimited power but no, mob rule, that's what we need to worry about.

 

Because prop 8 wasn't decided by native Californians, more by masses of religious zealouts from Utah, Nevada and the like spurred on by a multi-million dollar anti-gay marriage campaign perpetuated by the Church of Latter-Day saints.

 

truthaboutfraud.org? Do you have anything from a real news source or should we just consider it just more crapola propaganda?

Like this from a real news source....Voter fraud is real

 

Not even liberals appreciate mob rule. It appears homosexuals hate it when their agenda is voted down! LaRaza hates it when the public votes for making illegals leave the country. It seems mob rule sounds wonderful for those who expect the public to follow their lead, but despise it when they don't. Actually the Republic allows for both to have a say in public policies. Maybe that is the problem for progressives, they can't seem to decide which they really want to govern. We can take of both with real informed populace.

 

That's bull crap. There were rare problem with voter "registration" where dead people were registered to vote. none actually "voted".
Voter fraud does not exist! Numbers do not exist! Even if they did, Voter ID laws do nothing to prevent those. Voter ID laws are introduced by republican crooks to discourage "certain people" from voting.

 

It was the voters who decided it! Then all gays were complaining against majority rules! you can't it both ways! This is why Progressives will never pick up steam with a straight democratic votes. You seem to change your mind when they vote against your ideas for society!

 

How does it do that? Most "certain people" don't have bank accounts. In order to cash checks at a check cashing place they need photo ID. In order to obtain welfare even EBT they need a photo ID. so what "certain people" are you talking about?

 

How about some numbers to show us how "illegals" vote to make a difference in a presidential election?

Something on that scale should be resulting in THOUSANDS and TENS of THOUSANDS of arrests!

And sorry, BS voter registrations submitted by Democrat OR Republican recruitment services does NOT mean "votes".

 

Please post for the forum how to get a tag without ID. If you have kids parents must show ID to schools. If you apply for a loan, or open a bank account ID MUST BE SHOWN! Applying for food stamps show ID. ID is required if your stopped. Every legal citizen shouldn't have a problem showing ID! Yes, certain people aren't allowed to vote.... illegal immigrants nor dead people, again nor Mickey Mouse. Voting isn't a right for all people!

 

Not at all.

Many elderly people and poor people establish and account somewhere and no longer need ID, and if you stop driving due to age, health, or affording a car etc., you don't need to spend your last precious change on somehow renewing an ID.