Confrontation isn't a political philosophy

Confrontation isn’t a political philosophy, despite what either conservative or liberal may tell you. When is the last time you heard a lick of sense coming from someone who is screaming in your face?

In fact, the screamers are never interested in being sensible. What they really want to do is to intimidate you, cower you into being quiet by being louder than you.

This tactic has had far too much success over the last five or six years. When are we going to stop doing it?

Maybe never. When something works in politics — no matter that it might be uncivil or even immoral — people rarely stop doing it. It’s for sure that today, as this is being written, it is still going on full force.

In political discourse, this kind of confrontation is bad enough but when it becomes the basis for new law, it is downright dangerous.

The election laws proudly passed by the Republicans in the Texas Legislature — they’re still crowing about it — were really based on confrontation politics. Though there is absolutely zero evidence that elections have ever been anything but fair and honest.

Yes, a few dozen people statewide are probably cheating. They will continue to find ways to cheat under the new laws and, just like before, it will not change any results one whit.

But there was screaming and gnashing of teeth — mostly by the former Dear Leader and his minions — that outrageous numbers of votes were fake: Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions!

 Now, “election integrity” laws — more appropriately described as voter suppression measures — are already having their desired effect. That is, regular voters across the state are being rejected as they attempt to get mail-in ballots for the upcoming party primaries.

Mail-in ballots have been a target for Republicans for some time, which is a bit odd since there is plenty of evidence that many Republican voters use and appreciate this process.

Nonetheless, like lemmings to the cliff, they followed their Dear Leader Donald Trump in denouncing mail-ins. There’s not even any clear evidence I know of that shows that mail-in ballots favor Democrats, or liberals, over Republicans.

It doesn’t matter. Trump has never needed any evidence before to get people to dance to his tune. Heck, he hasn’t even needed much of a tune. Let him hum a few bars of “Hokey-Pokey” and that’s what it’s all about.

Democrats, by contrast, even to their own detriment, want to get people out to vote. They revel in a heavy turnout. This is partly because, traditionally, those who usually vote Democratic have been targeted to be kept from voting

As soon as African-Americans got the vote after the Civil War states across the nation — not just in the South, either — looked for ways to make it difficult for Blacks to vote.

For a few years, some Blacks were elected. The Greenwood Cemetery in Marshall has the graves of some high-ranking Black politicians, but it did not take many years for that to come to a halt and for the white majority to take back over.

Hurdles, hoops, tests, and taxes were all used to limit the Black vote. Now the tactics have become much more subtle and aren’t quite as focused as before. The result will be that some people of all political philosophies are going to get shut out of the process.

That does not make this a better system. It’s just flat wrong to deprive any qualified citizen of their right to vote. If we could ever get the masses of people vote — say 75 percent of those registered — I could live with whatever the outcome.

The new laws will likely be more burdensome on people who have fewer resources, are old or infirm, are single parents, or who work multiple jobs.

That does not completely describe Democrats but it is as close as Republican lawmakers could aim.

What about here behind the Pine Curtain? How will marginal voters here be impacted?

Rural voters have a significant disadvantage compared to urban voters. There are far fewer opportunities for public transportation here. There are also laws that hamper political campaigns or parties from driving voters to the polls.

In such situations, mail-in ballots would be a lifesaver except requests for ballots are problematic. Fortunately, elections administrators in Smith County and Gregg counties say they have approved most of the applications that have come through their offices.

It’s tough to know if that trend will continue for the primary or if it will last through the general election. Congress has already blown its chance to protect voters.

Instead of working to keep people from voting, both parties should be working to find ways to work around the law to get people to vote.

That would be a switch for some Republicans but with a little effort they can probably manage to do it.

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They may not have worked voluntarily but they were forced to do all kinds of things as the United States worked toward its 100th year.

They were certainly heroes, even if not willing ones and they deserved to be remembered.

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