The GOP and the road to autocracy

One person, one vote. That is the benchmark for a true democracy. Unfortunately, when observing the United States’ electoral process, one does not see this guiding principle being applied equally in America.

The Republican Party, with the help of corporate funding, has implemented a hands-on political process to exert control of the legislative powers in individual states, as well as power in any or all of the three branches of government.

There’s an old country saying, “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” Likewise, “There is more than one way to keep people you don’t want voting from voting.”

For example, following the 2010 Census in Wisconsin, the Republican-controlled Legislature redrew the maps for the state’s districts explicitly in the GOP’s favor. In 2012, despite receiving only 48.6 percent of the vote, Republicans won 60 of 99 Assembly seats. Democrats won an outright majority of votes cast but secured just 39 seats. Known as gerrymandering, this is one illustration of how Republicans undermine fair and lawful voting practices.

In certain Republican-controlled states there has been a systematic effort to close polling stations that have a history of traditional Democratic voters—non-white, low-income and elderly. From 2016 to 2018, Georgia and North Carolina purged 10.6 percent and 11.7 percent of registered voters, respectively, from predominantly black districts. Repressive voter identification requirements by Republican-controlled states have likewise targeted voters likely to support Democrats.

Foreign disruption and data manipulation in the 2016 election were especially harmful to the integrity of our electoral process. Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election in favor of the candidacy of Donald Trump is well-documented. Trump has since publicly stated he would welcome future election influence from foreign countries.

America has long been the world’s beacon of supporting human rights, a free press and the rule of law, all of which are under assault by the Trump administration. But voter suppression is amongst the most egregious forms of suppression: It is undermining citizen participation in government and putting us on course for devolving into an autocratic government.