Are The Republicans Slitting Their Own Throats? Do You Care?

I Can't Breathe by Nancy Ohanian

Every time Trump starts flapping his gums about the imagined evils of vote-by-mail-- which makes one wonder if he hasn't been counting on massively rigging the electronic voting systems-- Republican Party officials shudder-- and Democrats jump for joy. Let's take Florida as an example. Yesterday Gary Fineout and Marc Caputo reported that Democrats have opened up a 302,000-voter advantage over Republicans in vote-by-mail enrollment. "Five months before Election Day," wrote Fineout and Caputo, "more than 1.46 million Democrats have signed up to vote by mail compared to 1.16 million Republicans... By comparison, in 2016, Democrats held an advantage of about 8,800 in vote-by-mail enrollment." Is that important? Oh, yes; it's gigantic. Just consider these previous presidential election results:

• 2000- Bush beat Gore 2,912,790 (48.85%) to 2,912,253 (48.84)-- 537 votes
• 2012- Obama beat Romney 4,237,756 (50.1%) to 4,163,447 (49.13%)-- 74,309 votes
• 2016- Trumpanzee beat Hillary 4,617,886 (48.60%) to 4,504,975 (47.41%)-- 112,911 votes

I'm sure you've noticed that all of those decisions were considerably less than the 302,000 advantage the GOP has ceded to the Democrats by paying attention to their moron-in-chief.

The reason for the success is twofold. Democrats have put heightened emphasis on getting more people to cast ballots from home, an effort that preceded the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. And Trump has demonized this type of voting so much that Republicans, who once dominated mail-in ballots, are souring on it.

Florida's vote-by-mail enrollment gap is among a number of warning signs for Trump, who carried the state by fewer than 113,000 votes, or 1.19 percentage points, four years ago.

...[Florida Democratic Party executive director] Juan Peñalosa marveled at Trump’s “insane” success in dampening GOP enthusiasm for mail-in voting because it has worked so well for Florida Republicans.

“They’re going to have to turn out more people-- maybe 300,000 more voters-- on Election Day,” Peñalosa said in an interview. “They haven’t had to turn out that many more voters in one day in more than a decade that I’ve been in Florida.”

...Trump’s rhetoric appears to be dampening Republican enthusiasm for voting by mail.

In Florida, the number of Republicans signed up to cast vote-by-mail ballots has declined by 186,000 since 2018, while Democrats have increased their numbers by 69,000, according to the latest state data. It’s a stark turnaround for a party that famously won a 1988 U.S. Senate race thanks to mailed-in ballots.

The margin has increased since the March 17 presidential primary, when Democrats had an advantage in of 47,000 people enrolled to vote by mail.

Alan Grayson started building this strategy among Florida Democrats when he was running for office in Orlando. He used to talk with me about it with tremendous enthusiasm. He told me that "Presidential turnout among Florida absentee voters runs around 80%, while election-day turnout is around 35%.  COVID will make that difference even greater." He deserves a lot of credit for how this has been developing. He told me that when he started, the GOP had a 3-to-1 advantage in Florida vote-by-mail. In fact, the McCain campaign sent two vote-by-mail applications to every Republican voter in the state. I had my campaign go door-to-door among Democrats to sign them up to vote by mail. At one point, ¼ of all the Democratic mail voters in the entire state were in my district, even though there are 27 districts. Over time, the other 26 districts have caught up. One of the reasons why Democrats won in CD 7 and CD 10 is that I had represented parts of those districts, and had signed up the Democrats there to vote by mail."

I asked several Democratic candidates running in November. Bob Lynch, an old friend in Miami Dade running for state House, told me that "It isn’t even necessarily about strategy, Florida residents have a right to vote. This is sacred and I believe we should do everything we can to make this as easy as possible. Vote By Mail has taken on added importance given that we are in the middle of a Pandemic. Whoever I wind up facing in the General Election, they will be a Republican. A party whose entire platform is based on suppressing voter turnout. Nationwide, they have also made it blatantly obvious that they don’t care about putting people’s health at risk if it means an extra dollar for their donors. We believe in protecting people’s health while ensuring their constitutional rights don’t face unnecessary obstacles."

Adam Christensen is running for Congress southwest of Jacksonville (FL-03) for a seat being vacated by Trumpist nut Ted Yoho. Encouraging voters to cast their ballots by mail is an integral part of his campaign. This morning he told me that "For a lot of progressive campaigns, voting by mail could be a game changer. We believe that it will act as a catalyst to increase the number of young people who vote in each election. In Florida the number of 18-24 year old’s who voted in the presidential primary grew by 338% from 2016-2020. Because of the Pandemic it has been essential to get the word out to everyone who is eligible because their voices will be the difference in flipping districts across the country. Historically, wait times at college campuses have hindered the number of college students who end up voting. Students in the presidential primary in Texas waited upwards of 4-6 hours just to vote. Anything that makes voting easier, especially for those who are first time voters is a fantastic thing and we need to do everything we can to promote it. The Republicans running against us want as few people as possible to vote (especially college students). Which is why they have fought to decrease the number of polling locations open especially in north central cities like Gainesville, Ocala, Jacksonville and Orlando. Currently there are multiple organizations that are focused on this effort, including Vote From Home 2020 and various college campus clubs and Democratic organizations including the University of Florida College Democrats and the surrounding DEC’s. Campaigns need to be using their social media presence to educate and let people know how to vote by mail. Progressive campaigns also should have policy points focused on expanding vote by mail. And the Democratic Party should be doing everything in their power to make sure that every registered voter can receive and vote early, by mail, or without any wait time."

Fineout and Caputo noted that "It’s not just Florida where the vote-by-mail gap has widened between the two parties. In swing-state Michigan, Republicans this month burned mail-in ballot signup forms in protest. In Texas, Rice University political science professor Bob Stein said support for mail-in voting dropped in real time among Republican voters in Harris County as he conducted a survey that gauged attitudes about voting methods while Trump criticized vote-by-mail. In Pennsylvania, Democrats cast a disproportionate number of mail-in ballots during a June 2 primary. Wisconsin Democrats have focused more on mail-in voting after its disaster of a primary, as have Georgia Democrats following that state’s problematic June 9 primary."

To John Pavlovitz, this GOP fear of the voters is something important people need to understand by election day. "With every panicked and quivering move," he wrote, they are clearly testifying. They are confirming how frightened they are right now. There is no other logical conclusion to be reached. There is only one reason they cull down the polling sites for thousands of people, to only one. It’s the same reason they condemn voting by mail-- after repeatedly voting by mail. The same reason they continually gerrymander themselves a more favorable playing field. The same reason they oppose paper ballots and absentee votes. The same reason remove active voters from the rolls. The same reason they continue to attempt sleight of hand legislation to sneak in more restrictive voter ID laws: The reason they do all of these things-- is that they are mortally terrified of American voters."

We are their only outstanding obstacle to unabated rule.

We are the single remaining line of defense Democracy has left here.

We the People, are the last-gasp breath of a dying Republic being slowly suffocated beneath the weight of institutionalized racism and disdain for the poor and contempt for diversity.

These leaders do not want Americans to speak.

They know that if the voices of the people are heard, they will in one glorious, sprawling, clarion choir-- declare them fraudulent and malignant and unequivocally undeserving of stewarding this nation a single day longer.

And they know that if they lose their current, tenuous stranglehold on this nation they will likely never get it back, as the swift current of changing demographics will soon swallow them up, taking with them the unearned spoils of privilege that once seemed permanent.

Me The People by Nancy Ohanian

They know that this could well be their last moment of unmolested barbarism, and so like cornered, wounded animals they are frantic and flailing and unpredictably violent in saving themselves.

Which is why we need to show up now: in numbers that cannot be manipulated, in a show of strength and revolve that is simply unalterable, in a moment so immune from pollution that it will be undeniable.

We need to throw aside our petty semantic squabbles and our minor skirmishes of preference and our lesser battle purity politics and our litmus test deal breakers, because these things only dilute the full potency of our collective presence-- and that is what the fearful people want. They want us to not only have to overcome their malfeasance, but our fatigue and ego and apathy as well.

Because that is the great truth of these days and they know it: that despite their every jittery, panicked attempt to stack the deck and tip the odds, despite every clandestine legislative maneuver, despite this President’s unapologetic efforts at perverting the system-- we still have the numbers and we can still save this flawed but promising experiment in liberty, and find out what it might be capable of if the full expanse of humanity was welcomed at the table for the first time.

We can see if the old parchment promises can still yield a new promised land of equity for everyone, without caveat or condition; if it still has enough life and liberty and happiness for all of us to have a full helping.

I think that would be something beautiful to behold, I think it might alter the history of this planet, and I think it’s worth whatever is required between now and November to see it.

Friends, this is not about defeating people who have voted and normally would vote Republican. They are not the enemy. This is about defeating this President and these Republicans, who have no love for America or Conservatism or Jesus, who are historically corrupt and uniquely parasitic and who threaten good people of every distinction.

I firmly believe that decent and disparate people of every political leaning, religious tradition, and value system can navigate those real and profound differences, if we create a space where that is the sincere desire and honest objective. I also believe that this cannot happen with this President and with these particular leaders in power and it’s as simple as that.

Yes, these Republicans are fully terrified of us, America.

Let’s make them right to be afraid.

Let’s make November their worst nightmare.