Republican Party in Our Time Is Now: Power
On Corporations:
OpEd:GOP replaces scientific fact with profit-driven opinion
Convincing Americans not to trust the government was the first step. Grover Norquist famously explained the ultimate conservative mission, "to get government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." For decades, Congressional Republicans
have executed this second step by stripping crucial bureaucracies of funding, sometimes aided by cowed Democrats. Waves of privatization, deregulation, and sequestration had their desired effects: fewer hand on deck. The third step has been replacing
scientific fact with profit-driven opinion. From the climate change deniers to the congressional prohibition of unpopular scientific studies, modern conservative ideology has rejected research as a necessary ingredient for decision making. The
weakening of our public administration infrastructure has reached its pinnacle in the Trump administration. Trump's actions have built on the GOP's intentional destruction of institutions, and has left America weakened in a time of international crisis.
Source: Our Time Is Now, by Stacey Abrams, p.256-7
Jun 9, 2020
On Government Reform:
NC 2008: Slashed early voting to fight "souls to the polls"
Republicans have targeted early voting operations that have helped increase voter participation, to their apparent dismay. In North Carolina, following Barack Obama's successful 2008 campaign, Republicans slashed early voting from 17 to 10 days and
curbed or eliminated Sunday voting due to popularity of "souls to the polls" campaigns that encouraged black voters to turn out en masse after church. Florida Republicans responded to the wide use of early voting by cutting from 14 to 8 days after the
2012 election. Wisconsin eliminated early voting hours at night and on the weekends: the precise times used by low income and minority voters. For Ohio's GOP majority, the cuts to access included chopping off six days of in-person early voting,
jettisoning Sundays and evenings, and eliminating early voting the day before the election.Policy makers who propose these cuts have a standard playbook. First, point to the costs of early voting and then appeal to the fear of voter fraud.
Source: Our Time Is Now, by Stacey Abrams, p. 88-89
Jun 9, 2020
Page last updated: Oct 09, 2021