Voter fraud is largely non-existent
JIM HIGHTOWER for Creators.com
Not silly as in fun — but as in asinine, stupid and pernicious. Forget any notion that America's periodic plebiscite should be about lofty ideals, important issues and real ideas.
Instead, right-wing screwballs have turned the GOP into
the Goofy Old Party, running campaigns based on frat-boy stunts, horror movie
scaremongering and moronic games of hate-your-neighbor.
In
that last category, the GOP reached a new level of political degradation this
year by literally gamifying its obsession with nonexistent voter
fraud. Party honchos have repeatedly been humiliated by screeching long and
loud that Democrats are running a massive illegal voting operation across
America — yet, golly, they can't actually produce any proof of this electoral
horror. So, they've turned their snipe hunt into a national game.
Using
several social media platforms, online posses of GOP voter fraud vigilantes
compete to find and out illegal voters. Post the name of an unqualified person
supposedly scheming to cast a ballot, and you get two points. Name a group
planning to bus illegal voters to the polls — Bingo! — you get 50 points. There
are also bonus points if you report someone trying to vote by using the name of
their pet or a dead person. Isn't this fun?
But
the funnest part of this "sport" is that you score simply by posting
names — no need for any evidence that it's a real person, much less an illegal
voter. What's the prize? If you get enough points, you get to be called a
"master." Wow, this isn't just silly... it's pathetic.
Far worse, though, given the screwball fantasies of today's right-wing extremists, this "game" is deadly dangerous. Some of the GOP's vigilantes say they'll personally go door to door to get proof of fraudulent voting. What could possibly go wrong with promoting such unhinged confrontational zealotry? Ask Paul Pelosi.
After
years of failed Republican efforts to uncover any proof of widespread voter
fraud by Democrats, Republican Gov. Ron "Tough Guy" DeSantis of
Florida has found not one, but 20 ineligible people casting ballots!
Like
former President Donald Trump and a gaggle of other GOP governors, DeSantis has
used the phony bugaboo of an illegal voting epidemic as a political ploy to
keep true believers believing. They spend millions of taxpayer dollars on partisan
wild goose chases, and DeSantis even created a new police bureaucracy, the
"Office of Election Crimes," to snoop on voters. It was all just silly political nastiness, but
then — aha! — Ron's dragnet scooped up 20 of the diabolical culprits.
Vindication!
Who
were they? All are former convicts who had previously been stripped of their
right to vote, but each one unwittingly cast a ballot in 2020, wrongly
believing that their rights had been restored after serving their time. Who
cares what they thought, bellowed the bullish governor? He trashed them as
"election criminals" (conveniently ignoring their constitutional
right to be presumed innocent unless convicted by a jury).
Well,
gosh, why did all 20 think they could vote? Because each one had properly submitted
voter registration applications that went to DeSantis' own state agency
responsible for determining eligibility. But — oops — Ron's own administration
boo-booed, erroneously authorizing all 20 to get official voter ID cards. In
short, the governor himself effectively told them they could vote — then he had
them arrested and publicly condemned for doing so!
This
self-serving political thug now wants to be our next president, even claiming
in a PR video this month that God has chosen him to rule because he's "a
fighter." But — hello — Saint Ron fights the people, rather than
fighting for them. He's a bully — and there's nothing godly
about that. Nothing presidential, either.
©
2021 Creators Syndicate
Jim Hightower is
a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the books
"Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With
The Flow" (2008) and "There's Nothing in the Middle of the
Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion"
(1998). Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf
of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists,
small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
