We Know What the Majority Supports; Will It Vote?

By JOHN YOUNG

Poll after poll after poll.

Name your indicator and know the Republican Party is completely out of touch with the majority of thought in America. Completely on the wrong side of history. Completely wrong. Period.

Abortion rights. Sane gun laws. LBGTQ rights and social advancement. Voting rights. The Affordable Care Act and other steps to insure more Americans.

Not to mention the desire never to see Donald Trump in a position of power again.

It’s a rout. So how is it possible that the Party of Trump could reclaim control of Congress in the fall?

We all know how – the same way Trump became president in the first place: voter apathy — miserable, unforgivable non-turnout by people who support all the above.

Republicans knew where the prize was when they looked at the bankruptcy king and said, “What the hell?” in 2016.

The prize was the Supreme Court. Trump got fewer votes, but thanks to the Electoral College, he got the prize.

Now Republicans hope – assume – that by way of voter apathy and gerrymandering they can have control of Congress with the new year.

For those very reasons, prospects are not good in the House.

A principal reason is a Supreme Court sculpted by the forces of backsliding and racism. Fair districts and much of what came from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have been flushed down the toilet.

Things are looking less bleak in the Senate, thanks to – drum roll – Donald Trump.

Trump’s hand-picked celebrity candidates (Dr. Oz? Herschel Walker? Don’t make us laugh.) and made-to-order election deniers aren’t doing too well. Meanwhile, the abortion issue is proving to be exactly the kind of voter motivator Republican strategists feared.

Let’s face it: The GOP’s driving cause is to keep people away from the polls. When turnout goes up, Republican candidates go down.

Off-year elections are notoriously low turn-out. The party in power almost always gets punished by the “anti” vote – voters motivated by grudges and momentary concerns.

Inflation is the biggest concern of the moment, and Republicans hope to hang it around Democrats’ necks.

Too much of the reporting on inflation has been a disservice (“What’s the stock market saying?”) Too few Americans understand that this is a global problem driven by two factors: supply-chain problems worldwide related to the pandemic and stunningly sweeping sanctions against Russia for the horrors it has wrought in Ukraine.

It’s going to hurt the Democrats, without question.

Other issues are going to motivate people, however, headed by Republican policies to empower states to order every pregnant woman to gestate to term.

It’s been stunning and revealing how quickly red-state legislatures have taken this step. Republicans will not profit from this politically.

Poll after poll after poll shows this to be true.

The horrifying carnage in Uvalde, Texas, once again has drawn a focus on the fact that the GOP is motivated not by public safety but the needs of commerce when it comes to gun-happy constituents — and the gun lobby.

The organic grassroots protest in Uvalde demanding that Texas lawmakers convene in special session to age-restrict the purchase of assault weapons shows the desire among the masses to shed nutty Old West inclinations about killing machines.

The US House was representing the majority of Americans when it voted to ban assault weapons last week. Of course, the gun lobby will ride the filibuster in the Senate, and dependable Republican lap dog obedience, to have the final say.

This is a scary time. Suddenly lawmakers must protect such things taken for granted, such as contraception and the right of privacy. The highest court has become an adversary of basic and long-held rights.

The majority must stand up. It must assert itself by voting. It must put the minority in its place this November, not in control of Congress.

John Young is a longtime Texas newspaperman who now lives in Fort Collins, Colo. Email jyoungcolumn@gmail.com. See johnyoungcolumn.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2022

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