Author Kevin DrumPublished on April 13, 2024 – 10:05 pmApril 14, 2024 – 4:46 pm5 Comments on How to win in West Virginia? Fake MAGA outrage, of course.
The performative bullsh*t just never stops. Here's a press release from Mac Warner, the West Virginia Secretary of State:
In March of 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 14019 (the “EO”), which improperly claims, “it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information[.]”
....There is no such responsibility enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.... “Article 1 Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution says the times, places, and manner of holding elections, shall be left to the state legislatures,” said Secretary Warner. “West Virginia will emphatically not give up our State’s duty to register voters in a nonpartisan manner to the Federal Government, nor will we accept voter registration forms collected by Federal agents. White House overtaking of State responsibilities is something we will fight all the way to the Supreme Court,” Warner promised.
Needless to say, Warner has left something out. Article 1 Section 4 of the Constitution says:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.
And guess what? Congress did indeed alter these regulations in the NVRA, known to its friends as the Motor Voter Act. It directs states to:
designate specific government offices as one-stop voter registration agencies — including federal recruitment offices for the armed forces, as a means to facilitate electoral participation by servicemembers. Those recruitment offices are part of the Biden Administration. And contrary to the Secretary’s email header, it’s hard to imagine that Secretary Warner, himself a veteran, plans to refuse the servicemembers’ voter registrations collected there.
That's from Justin Levitt at Election Law Blog. Even small children are familiar with this, since DMV offices throughout the country are now the main place where people register to vote. Nor does anyone in the Biden administration have any intention of forcing West Virginia to do anything new. Federal entities can become voter registration sites only with the state's blessing.
But Warner—do I even need to bother saying he's a Republican?—apparently needs something to rile up the base. It's an election year, after all, and Warner is looking to upgrade himself to governor. The primary is only a few weeks away, so it's time to break out the MAGA outrage, even if he has to invent it out of whole cloth.
D_Ohrk_E1 April 14, 2024 – 12:15 am at Is the GOP an outlier of assholes among all political parties in democracies around the world?
It's unfathomable how a political party in a democracy would deliberately do everything in its power to restrain the core value of the democratic republic, voting.
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- dfhoughton April 14, 2024 – 5:02 am at
> Is the GOP an outlier of assholes among all political parties in democracies around the world?
Eh, I don't think so. Running against democracy itself seems pretty common in quasi-fascist conservative parties. I'm thinking of Fides in Hungary and the Party of Regions in Russia. You just declare the political activity of the opposing parties to be influenced by foreign agents -- George Soros, say -- and their partisans to be fake members of the polity, and then your efforts to suppress their votes are patriotic. Also, you demonstrate a propensity to violence and mob justice so less politically active opponents of your position are cowed into voting for you. And once they've made their bones by voting for your party of murderers, they're bound to you by cognitive dissonance and shame.
As a bonus, once you declare your opponents to be controlled by foreign agents, you are free to act as foreign agents in other countries' elections! You see, they started it! You're just playing by their rules. As long as you accuse your opponents of skullduggery you are free to perpetrate it yourself with a free conscience, because they changed the rules and you're just playing catch-up.
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- Yehouda April 14, 2024 – 5:14 am at
" I'm thinking of Fides in Hungary and the Party of Regions in Russia. "
Russia and Hungary were both young democracies.
For well established democracies. the Republican party is very exceptional.Log in to Reply ↓
- jamesepowell April 14, 2024 – 8:41 am at
The GOP seems to be an outlier in that of all the right-wing lunatic parties, theirs is the only one that controls the national and most state governments.
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- faledal543 April 14, 2024 – 8:52 am at
Just another example of…
Without bad faith…
….republicans would have no arguments at all..
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