They Just Keep Moving The Line
No Me Digas. Op-Ed: Keith Price
The small contingency of Texas legislators that escaped giving a quorum to the ass backwards regime of Governor Abbot in his quest to continue voter suppression efforts, are America’s latest heroes. As a person of color in this country, watching the back and forth that is happening in Texas and nationwide over our Constitutional right to vote in a free and fair electoral process is maddening. I am angry that the Democrats in our nation’s House and Senate are not fighting with gravitas similar to the Texas delegation to protect the ONLY fundamental right that we have that makes us ALL equal in this country. Once we as a nation actually used it and showed our might, and pushed our candidates over the finishing line, the state oppositions still in power are moving that line.
It is clear that the Republican party nationwide is on a mission to dismantle every aspect of free and fair elections. Many of their efforts are so dastardly. The most heinous of them all is to simply refuse to accept the results of elections they do not like. The judicial system is already set to legally facilitate a complete undoing of the efforts of our representative, constitutional, democratic republic.
Thanks to the efforts of Mitch McConnell and his majority of the Senate, the courts are stacked to handle the fight from the lower courts all the way up to the Supreme Court. So as the Democratic Senate majority continues to dilly and dally over going up against the filibuster, millions of voters, both BIPOC and White, both Democrats and Republicans, are having their right to vote kicked around like a soccer ball. Why? Because The Chosen Two, like Senators Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema, have some questionable notions and theories about the history and usage of the filibuster. The oppositional minority has used the Achilles heels, aka The Chosen Two’s public resistance to touching the filibuster, as their free ticket to shamelessly keep their knees on the neck of progress and equality, all while moving that line.
That evil plan has been well underway since before the COVID-19 Pandemic threw a monkey wrench in the original efforts. Because those in charge gambled with the health of our nation in exchange for money and power, they underestimated the magnitude of viral damage while aligning themselves with folks like the My Pillow Guy, and leaving over 500,000 dead Americans in their path. This cabal also kneecapped the US Postal Service to ensure that the absence of prompt delivery and return of mail-in ballots would hamper elections everywhere. Polling places were closed in many states. Lines to vote were literally being moved all over the country, especially in those hotly contested, urban areas.
I guess vote tampering is different from voter suppression. Those hurdles, plus the early endorsements of Rep. Clyburn from South Carolina, along with the national efforts of women like Stacey Abrams and LaTasha Brown, delivered President Biden, Vice-President Harris, the House and Senate the win. We now see how that energy forced Republicans to double down against the real American majority.
Like most Americans who have lived long enough to see a few transitions of power, I get confused between majority and minority factions. Many of us have to admit that the most recent transition of power was unlike anything we have ever seen. To be honest, up until 1/6/21, many of us never even knew that there was a whole big transitional “to do” when it even happened.
Thanks to gangs of angry, misguided individuals who view themselves as “patriots” being misled by a kabal of selfish people, we now see their platform for what it is, a dragging of this country back to the days of post-Civil War, Reconstruction, America. There is really no other way to view it. From this vantage point alone our elected officials with their majority, albeit slim, need to do something. Instead, they are worried about optics and being accused of partisan politics. Isn’t that what all of this Democrat/ Republican stuff is about?
Although this is not new news, the Republican State legislatures are doing the foundational corruptive and corrosive work that will help flip the national House and Senate, in addition to destroying everything else in its wake that resembles a true democracy. When I compared Donald Trump to a virus, folks thought that I was being hyperbolic. One of the final things a virus does after it has almost devastated the original host cell is making copies of itself to overtake the host cell’s machinery. They burst the original cell and infect the surrounding environment of healthy cells, while empowering them to continue new generations that replicate and mutate. From the original Trump infection in the White House and U.S. Capitol to the now infected state houses and governors’ mansions nationwide, does any of that really seem hyperbolic or just symbolically accurate? But I digress.
Although it may seem simplistic, here’s a thought on the filibuster. If the Democrats with their thin majority can dismantle it, then DO IT. Before any new bills pass, the Democrats MUST pull together and FIX all of these voter issues from the federal level. Make it nullify the damage that states have done to BIPOC, white Independents and Dems, and all with low incomes and their free and fair access to the electoral process, before 2022. I also secretly wish that the Chosen Two could be brought into Majority Leader Schumer’s office, given a good Three Stooges workover, and then put under a gag order on any public conversations that are contrary to the Majority’s message.
Once this is done, the current majority can pass well-intentioned legislation. After free and fair elections, if the other side has the majority again, they can reinstate the filibuster. Of course, it means that Republicans may have to have an actual platform that is so pleasing to the BIPOC, Independent, Democratic, and/or low income voters that they will drop their arms and surrender to the sweet trumpetting of the Republican mascot. Good luck with that.
To all of the Democratic Senators ( and the ineffectual, sympathetic Republicans), just remember that the U.S Senate and ending the Filibuster are like most men and vasectomies. Don’t be afraid of doing it, because it can always be reversed.
#EndTheFilibusterNow
Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay Distanced.
