How many enemies can they afford?
by digby
It seems that Republicans are determined to antagonize every demographic except conservative white males and the elderly. Do they think they will be able to win consistently this way?
New Hampshire’s new Republican state House speaker is pretty clear about what he thinks of college kids and how they vote. They’re “foolish,” Speaker William O’Brien said in a recent speech to a tea party group.
“Voting as a liberal. That’s what kids do,” he added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack “life experience,” and “they just vote their feelings.”
New Hampshire House Republicans are pushing for new laws that would prohibit many college students from voting in the state – and effectively keep some from voting at all…
The measures in New Hampshire are among dozens of voting-related bills being pushed by newly empowered Republican state lawmakers across the country – prompting partisan clashes akin to those already roiling in some states over GOP moves to curb union power.
I’m sure by now that everyone has noticed that since taking power across the country in November, the Republicans have concentrated on one specific thing, nearly across the board: defunding and dismantling any institutional support for Democrats from systematically attacking voting rights to specific constituencies to their most essential organizing institutions. This isn’t Tea Party politics or social conservatism or even a direct result of plutocratic economics although they will all certainly benefit. This is a hard core partisan attack on the organizing and funding functions of the left.
They’ve never been shy about trying to do this before. Certainly vote suppression is a very old right wing tactic. But they seem to have taken all this to the next level in the last couple of years. The question is whether or not they launch a coordinated attack on every constituency but their own base and expect to continue to win elections. It looks like we’re going to find out.
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