Trump’s GOP takes its corruption to a whole new level
If Republicans accuse you of doing it, they’ve at least entertained thoughts about doing it themselves. All too often that happens to be the case, as we’ve seen with the actions of the Trump administration, engaging in the very same actions that the Republicans long falsely insisted the Obama administration was doing. It’s hard to say how much of this is deliberate. It’s a perfect way of delegitimizing any criticism against them, dismissing their own wrongdoing as “just politics” and getting the average, middle of the road voter disgusted and thinking that both sides are “just as bad.”
A favorite issue of the GOP over the last decade has been the largely nonexistent problem of voter fraud – using it as an excuse to make it harder for people who rarely vote Republican to vote at all. Of course, in 2016, the only known incidents of people trying to vote twice were a handful of Trump supporters, but 2018 revealed a harrowing case of election fraud in North Carolina’s 9th district.
Republican candidate Mark Harris solicited a known fraudster to help with his campaign, who filled out empty absentee ballots illegally. Donald Trump had nothing to say on the matter, which may be for the best, as he’s been known to openly encourage thugs and hucksters, so long as they support him. The only one who spoke up on this matter was Mitch McConnell, who blamed it all on the Democrats for being against voter ID laws. This makes no sense, because North Carolina has notoriously strict voter ID laws already in place and the fraud was being perpetrated by Harris’ own campaign.
Although Republican tactics backfired and Harris was pressured to withdraw from the special election which takes place on September 10, they did succeed with part of their plan. The people of the 9th district won’t be represented in Congress for another five months, meaning they’ve gone almost an entire year with no voice in government. Even if Dan McCready does win this election, and it’s crucial that he does, the Republicans will have left a number of people apathetic and disgusted with the system.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making