I am now in the midst of my 71st summer, which would be a depressing thought even if there were no pandemic and/or the White House was not occupied by a blithering idiot. But there are advantages to everything, and in this case my march toward senility gives me the right to pontificate about how much better were the olden days. And, for once, I’m not just talking about the fact that our music was so much better than the dreck being produced today, though that remains as true as ever.
In the olden days, politicians of both parties pretended that they stood four square for basic democratic principles, except, of course, for Southern politicians who had to patiently explain that said principles only applied to the white race, and anyway, black people in the South were happy as they were and weren’t interested in equal rights, voting, or any of those other privileges properly reserved to the descendants of Confederate traitors.But we must put that caveat aside, as it undermines my basic thesis.
In the olden days, many politicians would have been happy to engage in voter suppression or in ballot fraud, but they would have pretended to believe that the right to vote was sacred, every ballot should be counted, and every effort should be made to allow eligible voters to cast ballots.
In these modern times, the pretense has been totally abandoned! The person referred to in the press as the President of the United States (never so referenced at this humble blog) has admitted that he is destroying the Post Office in order to suppress the vote. Criminal presidents of the past would never have come right out and said such a thing. Richard Nixon would have used much more subtle and deniable techniques, like, for instance, breaking into his opponent’s campaign headquarters. To cite another example, who knows if Mayor Daley actually stole the election for JFK? If he did, he was principled enough to do it on the QT. That was the American way.
Yes, those were the days.
We’ve seen the present situation coming for a while, though fessing up to election tampering in real time is still unprecedented. For instance, while W and his gang publicly stole the 2000 election from Gore, they got Scalia and the gang to give that theft a veneer of legality, and we’ll probably never know what went on in Ohio in 2004, for even in 2004, the Republicans, who by that time had monopolized election theft, were still observing the proprieties and covering their tracks.
Alas, no more. The irony is that the man who lies about everything else is also the first politician to admit that he intends to steal an election. That would never have been possible in the good old days. In the good old days politicians of both parties would have been aghast at such an admission, particularly those that were stealing elections themselves. They would have presented a united front against such a person, regardless of party, while vociferously proclaiming their own fealty to truth, justice, and the American Way. Today, the boldest (not quite sure that adjective is appropriate) of Republicans tells us she is concerned, while the rest hold their tongues.
In the olden days, election thieves knew what they were doing. They targeted the voters for the other guy. Nowadays, it’s not even clear that preventing vote by mail will benefit the party doing the preventing.
In the olden days a politician might very much want to suppress the opposition vote, but in order to keep up appearances, that same politician might likely vote for bills making voting or voter registration easier. Now, in these days of decline, without suffering any adverse consequences, Republican politicians can be completely upfront about the fact that they have no interest in streamlining the voting process.
I say, when it comes to election tampering, lets bring back hypocrisy.
