They’d rather sabotage the republic
People rock-solidly committed to their principles often refuse to participate in activities that violate them. Like people who refuse to eat beef out of concern for climate change. Or people who boycott a hated company’s products or services.
One would think people opposed to democracy who vigorously promote the idea elections are a sham would refuse to particpate. If they had principles. Which they do not. So they do.
In the name of “election integrity,” Republican operatives are recruiting and training thousands of election workers in how to intimidate fellow election workers and voters. Sugar in the gas tank. Sand in the gears.
Politico obtained recordings from training summits this spring that reveal sabotage is the goal. RNC National Election Integrity Director Josh Findlay identifies Cleta Mitchell, an attorney central to former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, as a key player:
Publicly, the RNC has insisted its goal is to ensure there are enough trained poll workers to protect the electoral process and ensure partisan parity at polling centers. The recordings, however, indicated that the RNC is relying heavily on people who have spread false or unproven claims of irregularities and conspiracies. The recordings feature Findlay speaking at a number of Mitchell’s “Election Integrity Network” summits, which her group has hosted in battleground states including Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The RNC is just “part of the team,” he told a Florida summit the same month.
While Republicans have said the aim of their “election integrity” effort is to ensure there are well-trained poll workers during the next election, the recordings also feature Mitchell speaking openly about the need to challenge efforts by nonprofit groups aligned with Democrats to create a “new American majority” of young voters, people of color and unmarried women.
“It’s a place the left sees as a great target of opportunity, and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said, referring to Democratic efforts to register voters from traditionally underrepresented voting blocs.
[…]
At an April 5 Arizona summit, Mitchell spoke mostly about an emerging “new American majority” of people of color, young people and unmarried women that could make conservatives “obsolete.” Her private comments are significant because Democrats have long insisted it is these fears of displacement — and not legitimate election administration concerns — behind the GOP drive to tighten access to voting for certain groups, including through mail.
A party committed to the democratic process might work to expand its appeal to a wider national audience rather than to make the process more exclusive. Democrats do that (for the most part). The GOP, not so much. Instead of boycotting elections, the GOP works at once to undermine them and to elect members who will.
The lunatic fringe is now the establishment in the Republican Party. See Mark Fincham who, after Tuesday’s primary, would as the GOP’s nominee for secretary of state in Arizona, administer elections there in 2024. Fincham attended the Jan. 6 insurrection, believes the Covid pandemic was a hoax, played a part in Trump’s fake electors scheme, and wants to empower the state’s legislature to overrule the will of the people. Among other things.
“With Arizona’s Republican primary voters nominating a full slate of election saboteurs, it cannot be denied that democracy is on the ballot in November,” writes Dana Milbank:
And this isn’t just happening in Arizona. Even before Tuesday’s primaries, six election deniers had already prevailed in gubernatorial primaries this year, according to a tally by the States United Democracy Center. (This includes Doug Mastriano, GOP gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania, who crossed police barricades at the Capitol on Jan. 6.) Another five election deniers won primaries for attorney general, and five have advanced to general elections for secretary of state. Those numbers will grow as the primary season advances.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday to spotlight threats to election workers. Democrats called election officials to describe the challenge to their work from the flood of MAGA threats and intimidation since 2020. Rather than address the subject and implicate their base, Republicans invited witnesses to minimize those threats by promoting a narrative of rising crime in general.
If their policies and opinions are so unpopular that they cannot win elections freely and fairly, Republicans with integrity might moderate them, or else just take their ball and go home. But no. They’ll wrap sabotage in the flag of the republic for which they no longer stand.
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