Not to minimize the effect of such voter supression, understand, but by way of comparison there are a TON of nonvoters out there. If a decent percentage of them show up-and vote Democrat-almost anything could happen.
Well, I guess I can go ahead now and reveal the plan. It is too late to stop it.
Yes. As you figured out, just a little too late, our plan has indeed been total and complete control of the House, Senate, and White House for 1,000 generations, and with this election we have all the pieces in place. Checkmate, Democrats.
And now, Mr. [del]Bond[/del] cuauhtemoc, having revealed the plan to you, I intend to leave you strapped into this fiendish device while I leave.
Or, and this is just an alternative hypothesis… your concerns are hyperbolic.
I think what happens to Social Security and Medicare will have a big impact on how the elderly will vote in the future.
I know that it’s very unlikely the Republicans will mess with SS or Medicare for those who are currently receiving benefits or for those who will be receiving them in the near future, but many of us are very concerned about what this will mean for younger people. Those of us who have children in their 40s know that between providing some support for college for their own children and just taking care of the needs of their families, they won’t have all that much saved for their own retirement. And the Republicans can with a wave of their hand speak of 401k and Roth IRA plans, but even those who can afford to put money in these may well end up with an inadequate sum for their retirement years, especially when they now estimate that a couple retiring today will need more than $250,000 just for health care over the course of their retirement.
I took my SS at age 62 even though I didn’t need to primarily because I wanted to lock in some income with the thought that even at their most greedy the GOP won’t discontinue or lower the payments of people already receiving them. Because if they say today they won’t change Social Security for those over the age of 50 now, I have little confidence that they won’t start chipping away at the benefits for that age group.
It’s not just being smart enough.
If my mother had been required to provide valid photo ID in the 2006 election, she would not have been able to vote. She gave up her car, and then let her driver license lapse – renewing her license meant taking a road test, and she didn’t have a car. Getting a state ID meant going to the DMV, which was a couple of bus rides away from her home, and she was in her 80s with spinal stenosis.
When my husband and I visited her in late 2007, we discovered she had no valid photo ID. We insisted she get one, and since we had rented a car for our visit we drove her to the DMV. Even with the ride there and the two of us available to provide assistance to her (she had bad hearing and didn’t understand the announcements), she found the whole thing pretty tiring and admitted she may not have been able to manage doing it on her own.
It was lucky we did this, because near the end of our trip she fell and broke her wrist, requiring surgery. Because of that she decided it was time to give up her home in California and move to a senior facility in Illinois to be closer to me and my brother. She didn’t receive her new ID until sometime in January, but in February she had the ID she needed to fly to Chicago. (I mention this because at least at that time and in California, it took six weeks to actually get her photo ID. I was very surprised since people coming in to get their driver license got their ID before they left.)
I think we need it institute a new test: If <insert latest hyperbolic claim here> is true, you’d be organizing or at least participating in a rebellion to overthrow the government, or making plans to leave the county. Are you doing any of those things? If not, then no, you’re hyperbolic claim is just that.
I think that people do become more conservative from a fiscal and social stability standpoint as they get older. But as people get older, I don’t think they transform into xenophobic ignoramuses.
While there are and always will be people who grew up racist, someone who is in their 70s or 80s might still be harboring anger from when they let Blacks drink out of their water fountains.
Just because you can’t think of alternatives other than violence or fleeing doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t.
You just described the two main components of political orientation. The impression that aging leads to conservatism has also been disproven. It’s too long for me to quote here, but this is a good place to start on that particular concept:
Aging, Society, and the Life Course, by Leslie A. Morgan, Suzanne R. Kunkel, p. 312
I know two people who have done precisely that. Neither knows the other, but I’ve known both for decades, in one case since I was born. In both cases the transformation was gradual, but the results really are that extreme. It’s a bit mind-boggling to watch them carve out illogical exceptions to excuse their own friends and family from the xenophobia.
I seriously think this is a form of mental illness associated with loss of neurons as they age.
If you have, then you must be equally upset at laws requiring ID for engaging in any other right or engaging in any other activity.
Too much oversimplifications in all this.
Just my sense of things, but I think that the Republican Party has a long established habit, almost an addiction, to petty self-delusion.
Especially about voting rights. They think that because Democrats have spent decades helping people to gain the ability to vote (especially poor people), that expanding voting rights “causes” Democrats. That’s actually not supported by the actual voting evidence.
So they have dedicated themselves to RESTRICTING voting rights, so as to reduce the imaginary number of Democratic voters. The trouble is, the more they attack voting rights, the more people take their opponents side.
Basically, in the sixty years I’ve observed voting in America, I’ve never seen any indication that it’s possible to rig an entire series of elections in spite of the people doing the rigging, promoting policies and ideas that the majority of Americans don’t like.
I live in Virginia, which was thought to be irretrievably “RED” for a very long time. But when the GOP screwed the country up with their idiocy in the Bush years, first one, and then the other Republican Senator was replaced with Democrats. Virginia even voted for Clinton in this last election. But the state has not “gone BLUE,” by any means, and Republicans still hold sway in local elections.
If the GOP screws the pooch again, as they did to put Obama in office, they will lose Congress again. Spend too much time and money on side issues, such as pursuing another meaningless attempt to jail Hillary, while the country is falling apart, and the voters, be they nominally Democrats or not, will boot the GOP out again.
Because…
Which is it: a or b? Or is there a ‘c’ I haven’t thought of? I can hardly wait for your sarcastic response.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Ironically, this same over the top reaction seems to happen every time someone gets elected that others don’t like. 
So, when Regan got elected you saw over the top gloom and doom. Then when it was Clinton it swung the other way. Then Bush II got elected. Then Obama. Now it’s Trump. It’s kind of like watching a ping pong match as one side or the other is either euphoric about taking control or despondent that the end is nigh, gloomdoomgloomdoomgloomdoom!!
So, no…I don’t believe it will be the ‘last free election in my (or your) lifetime’…I fully expect that Trump will fuck up so badly that he will be a one term wonder and we can spend the next few terms trying to fix all the stuff he and his merry men will fuck up for us domestically as well as internationally. Obama seemed to have been able to fix 8 years of Bush II screwups relatively quickly, so I’m pretty confident that regardless of what Trump does or tries to do it can be fixed. Eventually.
Stop that!
You cannot compare any modern president with Trump. It’s not a matter of “not liking him,” fer Chrissakes!! Open your eyes. Look at the man.
I hope you are right.
Yes, it’s very apparent to all of us that you REALLY don’t like him. What do you want? More “REALLY”'s in there?
Really? How long will it take to ‘fix’ SCOTUS? (God forbid that another liberal Justice should retire or die before he’s out.)
Or our relationships with titular allies, let alone the ones that might have joined the loop if it weren’t for a guaranteed heavy-handed approach for the next four years?
Trade relations and mopping up the remains of trade wars? The biggest danger there is that these countries decide to look for trade elsewhere and four years down the road have given up their dependence on the US. That doesn’t get fixed. Ameliorated, maybe, but ask yourself what it does to American jobs in the long term.
Of course, there’s always the chance that Trump backs down. Heh, good luck with that.
ETA: Added one more ‘really.’ And, of course, Trump will tell you not to believe what your lyin’ eyes tell you.
So are you saying that you see no major difference in Trump’s words, actions, or attitudes compared to previous presidents?
No. Of course I see differences. I voted for the guy precisely because I was hoping to see some of those differences to come to pass. If I’d wanted a continuation of Obama’s policies, I would have voted for the other candidate.
Well, what I was trying to get at is, you obviously don’t see Trump as particularly mentally/emotionally unstable or prone to fascism, so you can’t understand why other people would be worried about either of those things. But that’s why there’s the reaction to Trump now.