Suppressing the Vote

Former Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer has renewed charges that state party members engineered a new law to suppress voter turnout, falsely touting voter fraud concerns to advance their mission. Now, other former Republicans and consultants are backing Greer up, The Palm Beach Post reports. It is just the latest chapter in a saga that has been going on for years, ramped up after Obama's landslide victory in 2008. The pressure will only amplify in the coming years as the GOP struggles to remain viable with their huge losses among not only African Americans but Latinos and Asians as well. From the attempt to reestablish a poll tax in Georgia and the infamous disenfranchisement of 30,000 black voters in Florida in 2000 to the efforts to eliminate early voting, under-invest in voting equipment in inner cities and voter-ID requirements, the GOP has been engaged in a long-running attempt to undermine the ability of minority voters to cast their vote.

While it is understandable given the fading effectiveness of their Reagan strategy -- essentially playing on white male frustration with affirmative action, feminism and new immigrants -- the new reality is one in which minorities, gays and women are moving dramatically to the Democratic side. However many of them have been there for a while, the difference now is that they are a growing proportion of the overall population. In fact, Asians are currently growing at a more rapid rate than Latinos, with the recent exodus of over a million back to Mexico. Latinos are still the biggest "minority" in America, and the future of American politics resides in the ability to attract these voters. But Asians are also an important constituency and while Republicans presumed their relative wealth, family values and conservative stance would make them ripe for the picking, it turns out that they still align themselves with the more progressive side of the two-party system. 

How can the GOP win them back and start to attract more young voters who are more open to gay marriage, diversity and even the role government can play in improving our lives? There are only two answers. One is to convince them that government is the problem, not the solution. But after 30 years of increasing wage inequality, growing unemployment and less opportunity, this is not as easy to accomplish as it was in the less-than-halycon days of the second oil embargo and stagflation. The other is to hope that enough of them don't vote. And it is not surprising that the cynical party has decided the latter is the more effective strategy. Clearly it didn't work this time around and one wonders if the party will actually do the soul-searching that some advocated after the disappointing election results. While some are even thinking of breaking ranks and supporting a tax increase, the early signs from the talking heads are less than sanguine. This could be good news for democrats, who may just be heading for a new long-term majority that could control American politics for decades. The more important question in a broader sense is whether anyone should support a party that doesn't want to give everyone the right to vote.