We were told Mexico would pay for the wall and China would pay for the tariffs. We were told Trump had the largest inauguration in history, even when our own eyes said otherwise. We were told the virus was “under control” months before 500,000+ Americans would end up dying from it. We were told people are only paid what they’re worth, yet people can simultaneously be “heroes” and not worth paying living wages. We were told that we had to be armed to the teeth to prevent tyranny, and then those doing the telling became the tyrants. The lies Republicans manufacture play on Americans’ sense of fairness, hard work, and patriotism...but somehow, they never end up coming true. For a party that continually rails against “alarmism” and “fearmongering,” Republicans sure seem to thrive on scaring their voters to the polls.
If you thought the lies would stop once Trump left office, you might want to sit down for this one. In Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and across the country, we’re now told there is a threat against democracy itself. We’re told the only way to ensure “election integrity” is to deny every potential “fraud” food and water in voting lines, easy access to drop boxes and postage-paid return envelopes. To make them verify their identities time and time again. To make municipalities rush through absentee ballot processing and scavenge for tax dollars to fund a solution in search of a problem. Republicans want immediate, unfettered access to guns, but when it comes to another constitutional right, the more restrictions that lead to only “certain people” voting, the better.
Since November 2020, the warnings have become direr and the lies more elaborate, but they are lies nonetheless. For one, bipartisan election leaders have validated the 2020 election results and asserted that minimal fraud occurred despite accommodations due to the pandemic. Five recounts, countless state audits, and 50+ lawsuits later, we know that the concerns were never about making sure the vote was fair, but were a reaction to exactly who was turning up at the polls in record numbers. Even after Georgia spent four years shuttering polling places in strategic districts, thousands of African American voters waited in line for hours to exercise their right to vote. Across the electorate, disgust and despair over Donald Trump’s political tactics, divisiveness, and condoning of dictators and white supremacists turned out more voters of all persuasions in favor of now-President Joe Biden. And then, it happened again, when Democrats mobilized to win Georgia’s special election and flip control of the U.S. Senate. So it’s no surprise that the latest efforts target those who handed Trump his loss last year—people of color, lower-income people, and those living in highly populated cities and towns that are more likely to vote Democrat.
Republicans have spent much of the past several years bemoaning fair voting—the decisive loss in 2020 just increased their sense of urgency. Throughout Trump’s re-election campaign, Republicans admitted that increasing voter turnout would hurt their chances of winning elections. Lest we forget that President Trump himself vouched for limiting mail-in ballots, tried to negotiate with Republican election officials to toss out perfectly valid votes, and then essentially called in his own “troops” to the January 6th insurrection, we’ve had enough evidence that they will stop at nothing to win.
In Michigan alone, Republicans have introduced a whopping 39 bills proposing voting restrictions under the guise of “election security,” despite no evidence of significant voter fraud. It’s a wake-up call for those of us who may have been comforted by a Whitmer governorship, a Biden presidency, and a hefty Democratic turnout in 2018 and 2020. Those things are great, but they’re a bandaid over the gaping wound Trump and his enablers exposed. There are people in this country who are fine with depriving “certain people” of their right to vote (among other things), and they must not become our representatives in any office. At The Guerrilla Politic, we work with candidates at every level because we know winning up and down the ballot is critical to making Democratic policies happen. It doesn’t matter if we have a Democratic president if our state governments have the power to suppress citizens’ votes and shape our day-to-day lives. So start gearing up for our state and local elections this year and in 2022...volunteer for Democratic campaigns, make your plan to vote, and help us secure a “blue future” for Michigan where we are each valued and empowered.