I was arguing the merits of voter ID, which is not what this thread is about, so I tried to steer it back.
For the purposes of this thread, the merits are irrelevant. The GOP did not lose, and is not likely to ever be hurt by, support for voter ID laws. Which BTW are the law of the land in a majority of states.
I would absolutely love to see Democrats run on dismantling the voter ID laws of the 30+ states that have them. What do you think, do they have the balls?
Bolding mine.
If anyone is curating a list of** adaher **predictions gone wrong, I suggest you keep this one on watch.
There are at least three things the GOP must do to remain a nationally viable party:
I truly don’t really care about who was racist when. It matters not when one party can act as if it is quite proper to speak about any segment of the populace in bigoted terms without their core constituency not raring back and saying, “Hey, wait this is the 21st century, you dinosaurs!” The current GOP exists so that the current GOP will continue to exist. Not for some ideals. Not to maintain a status-quo that does the most good for the most people. It stays in power because it is tapped into the moneyed interests that want nothing more than for the plutocratic elements of the GOP to continue to absorb more power election cycle after election cycle. There is a growing push-back that is coming from the people that the GOP abandoned years ago.
Any party that opposes a woman’s right to choose the destiny of her reproductive system, that systematically disenfranchises entire segments of the population through gerrymandering and voter suppression, that actively opposes known and established scientific principles has no reason to pretend it has the support of the majority. If so, then we should all just pack it in and return to a preindustrial society. That would be a conservative model that many in the party would completely support. As long as the landowners still retained the technology to maintain their control of the general populace, I can imagine many of the current GOP leadership would be quite happy to return to feudalism.
I would hope by now, that you who have read my posts here know me to not be some young firebrand filled with righteous anger against ‘The Man’. But as time has gone on, I have see the GOP go from the corruption of Nixon to the current obstructionist malaise that has led to this muddied situation. The reactionary, sexist, racist and homophobic elements of the Republican party must make a shift back to sanity and reason.
And, it would genuinely help if the GOP leadership started actually choosing people who were NOT hateful, mean-spirited people who HATE ‘The Other’.
And, I also want a pony.
Let me know when the polling changes. But in order for that to happen, Democrats have to actually support rolling back voter ID laws first. Right now, even Democratic voters support voter ID laws, and will continue to do so until told to think differently.
Is that going to be part of the next election campaign? Please say yes.
This is a useless, even misleading summary of the concept if American exceptionalism. You have set forth two characteristics that almost every American, left or right, would admire about our country.
The concept of American exceptionalism is not about the benefits or freedoms or desirability of being American. It is about the attitude or policy that the Inited States, unlike any other country in the world, feels free to take action on an international level without any consideration of the legal, moral, ethical, etc., constraints that every other national government must adhere to. It means that the U.S. government feels free to do things in or to other countries that we would not tolerate being done to us.
Thus, we send drone missiles into Pakistan, a country that is nominally our ally. We kidnap Canadians from airports and send them to remote locations without any dud process or evidence or even notification to the Canadian government. And so on.
The Voter ID attempts in 2012 backfired- many people were convinced that the GOP was trying to take away their vote, so they were more motivated to vote against them.
If the Republicans don’t want this to happen again, then they need to convince minorities that they’re not trying to take away their votes. So far, they’ve failed, utterly, at this- whether or not a majority of Americans approves.
Then the Democrats lose again, because BOTH parties believe in unilateralism, the Democrats just in practice try really hard to be multilateral. But as Obama said again and again during the campaign and continues to say today, we will act alone if necessary.
Now many of the specific things you mentioned, a lot of Americans oppose that, but regarding the idea that America can and should act alone when its in our interest to do so, it’s a position both parties hold because those that don’t hold it are a tiny fringe group on the left.
That’s an interesting theory, but if we’re talking about the kinds of poll numbers I’ve seen, even most minorities favor voter ID laws.
There are many ways that Republicans turn of minority voters. I see no evidence that voter ID laws are one of them.
Not for the Dems it won’t, because it’s ultimately a losing strategy. But with the rich GOP history of being on the right side of social change, I’m sure it’s nothing for you to worry about.
Were you alive in 2012 during the election? :dubious:
You’re on the wrong side of this one. As we’ve gone through our history, our elections have become tighter and less prone to fraud. That’s how the world has been going as well. There was a time when voting requirements were loose enough that people voted many times. If Democrats want to go back to those days they should say so.
And as far as being on the wrong side of social change, the Republicans’ history of being wrong is vastly exaggerated. You should look into the things the progressives advocated that were defeated, primarily by conservatives.
Voter ID laws were a big part of the election, or even a small part? No. They were a teeny-teeny part. Didn’t come up during debates, wasn’t a part of campaign speeches, wasn’t mentioned in ads. Rather, it was a battle fought in the courts and the lowest Democrats on the totem pole were drafted to speak out, and then only to selected, receptive audiences.
A courageous stand it’s not.
This issue is obviously of great importance to Democrats, so let’s make it THE issue of 2014. Along with the health care bill, of course.
Really? That was an argument for the merits of voter ID laws? Well, color me magenta with three question marks over my head, 'cos I couldn’t get “the merits of voter ID laws” out of that to save my life.
[del]Maybe you’ll need to walk me through it.[/del] You know what, never mind. I’ll take my chances with the BEM.
Yeah, you know, assuming that the democrats can not walk and chew gum at the same time is indeed a problem with Republicans like you. 
It was an issue, not the most important one, but it was also discussed and as Florida, Arizona and others showed, it is important in several locations. The point stands, many minorities like me did notice the moves that delayed and reduced the votes of the minorities in the last election, it is indeed another reason why Republicans will not get it.
It did nothing of the sort, and Hispanic voters favor voter ID laws by a wide margin:
Heck, Hispanics even favored a voter purge supposedly targeted at them by Gov. Rick Scott in Florida:
Maybe Hispanic voters believe in the integrity of elections more than whites do because they are used to having elections stolen.
And voter ID, which you admit will not prevent much fraud, and which most reasonable people understand it will add barriers for the poor, is in your mind a winning issue. And you think the only Dem alternative to this winning plan would be to loosen the rules like way back in the olden days.
The longer this thread goes, you continue to find new and surprising ways to answer the OP, I’ll give you that.
Does ID in ANY situation substantially reduce fraud? You can’t prove it, because with ID laws there’s little fraud and without ID laws you can’t prove fraud.
As for adding barriers to the poor, poor people must have ID already. They need it to get benefits, they need it to work. So try again.
Sounds like an anti-elephant charm to me.
Because “disenfranchised” doesn’t mean “I can’t be asked to take the day off of work (which I really can’t afford anyways), take a bus into the inner city, spend all day at the DMV, and maybe do it again next week”, it means “I was literally unable to get the ID, despite doing everything in my power”. Luci put it best when she pointed out that the whole “disenfranchisement” issue is just a big fat canard - it’s not the point, it was never the point.
Wait, hang on. This special interest group gave them 1,500 cases that they found to be problematic, actual investigation turned up a mere 38, and you think this is “just the tip of the iceberg”? What more do you want? There was an investigation, a handful of votes (mind you, this is 38 out of a state of how many?) were discounted, and we went our merry way. Also, side note - do you have any idea which safeguards are in place to prevent voter fraud?
Eeeeeehhhh…
German here, no.
Spend a year or two in German political science classes, then get back to me about how “untouchable” the US’s bill of rights are, and how extensive.
Dude, do you have any idea what you’re saying? Have you ever actually taken the time to look at the rights in other countries? Because the entirety of this passage is completely wrong.
Damn good thing we don’t have a significant portion of the population screaming about how those damn dirty foreigners need to pack up and leave.
Oh wait.
…Citation needed on that last point. How can you even assert that without ID laws, fraud can’t be proven? And even then, as Czarcasm pointed out, it does very much sound like an anti-elephant charm. Especially when you consider how incredibly unimpactful individual votes are in our system. Okay, I duped my vote. Best-case scenario, it’s a tough district, I made 1/700th of the difference necessary in order for my politician to win. And this assumes that there’s only one side abusing the system as well - which is kinda… Bullshit.
:roll: Okay, so where’s your citation on the idea that the poor “must already have ID”? It sure disagrees with the Brennan Center’s analysis, which documented higher, not lower rates among low-income voters.
Also, Adaher, what’s your opinion on requiring the notarization of absentee ballots?
Only that everyone can see that you are replying to nothing of what I mentioned that Hispanics looked at the last election, supporting ID does not mean that they have to like the other reprehensible behavior employed by the Republicans in the last election.