Saul Alinsky. A name that too few lefties and liberals recognize. He was an old-fashioned lefty, an organizer, and as such ignored or condescended to by the “new” left. But he was right.
He was the inspiration for ACORN, the idea that the best path to political power lay in the most modest and least glamorous methods: voter registration being the most prominent. The dull, dreary path of shoe leather, door to door organization. Register one hundred voters tomorrow, one hundred more the day after, and eventually you erode the power of the, ah, Forces of Darkness.
And it was working. That’s why they murdered ACORN, they were the sappers nibbling away at the foundations of power. As the elections got closer and closer, those efforts were bearing fruit.
So, the establishment Republicans pressed for voter id, not to disenfranchise hundred of thousands of voter, but just a few percentage points, here and there, just enough to get Republican candidates over the line. It was a shrewd and workable plan, depending on a simple formula easy to sell. “Well, you need ID to buy cigarettes and beer, why not to vote?”
But the inmates have taken over the asylum. They favor the blatant, in-your-face approach: curb voter registration, do away with as much early voting as possible, eliminate Sunday voting for black people. Credit where credit is due, friend Bricker nowhere defends such blatant skulduggery. Of course, he is not inclined to spend a lot of time renouncing, denouncing and condemning such, but that is because he is so busy with his campaign against the scourge of liberal hypocrisy.
And, of course, defending such undemocratic rot is nearly impossible, no reasonable person could stoop to that. Even a reasonable Republican, who might be tempted to employ the voter id ploy to trim a few votes here and there, will scruple at such debased tactics, Barry Goldwater would rise from his grave and puke his guts out.
Today’s Republican Party faces a cruel choice, an honest and idealistic position as the minority party, the Loyal Opposition, to criticize and oppose such liberal overreach as may arise (and certainly will, as we are composed entirely of humans…). Or throw themselves into a take no prisoners last ditch struggle for power by Any Means Necessary.
I hope they come to their senses, and accept the ethical choice. A car needs brakes just as much as it needs an engine. We need a conservative party. Besides, who could we blame if anything does wrong? When somebody proposes funding an English as a second language program for gay whales, we need to be able to say “Well, good idea, but the Republicans won’t go for it!”