Comment

Voter Suppression Backfires Memo to GOP: Blacks get stronger like the Incredible Hulk if you deny their voting rights

1
LadyPugilist11/10/2012 11:02:14 am PST

I couldn’t have said it better myself. The GOP tried to suppress the vote of people whose grandparents were lynched and intimidated for deigning to exercise our rights as citizens. Even though I believe these vote suppression tactics are illegal, I will wait in line for 4 hours if need be (as I did in northeast Ohio in 2004, outside in the cold rain), to prove these people wrong. Also, memo to GOP vote suppression machine: now that we’ve mobilized and experienced success at the ballot box in defeating voter suppression, don’t waste your time on this tactic again. Instead, you just might have to retool, embrace diversity and accept power-sharing with your fellow citizens—an ever-increasing number of whom are people of color, and figure out how to pitch your message in a non-dog-whistle-to-racists manner that might convince potential voters of whatever color to consider your policies. I’m black, generally left-of-center, open-minded, and, for the record, I occasionally have voted for GOP candidates in the past. But when someone insults me and disrespects our nation’s first black President in unprecedented manners (i.e., “You lie!” birtherism, etc.), and apparently forgets the struggles that my forebears endured just to vote, I will turn out, come hell or high water, and vote against this agenda.

I am completely serious when I say that in the 2 week run-up to the election, I was not worried at all about the outcome. (Why? Because I read Nate Silver, I trust real data, and I’ve been an Obama campaign volunteer in the swing state of Virginia.) I was relaxed, confident that Obama would win. My only question (as in ‘08) was what Obama’s margin of victory would be. So I was truly surprised that the opposition was surprised. I honestly thought that the Romney campaign’s confident projections of victory during the last week were just bravado to keep their base in good spirits to turn out to vote so that the outcome wouldn’t be so lopsided in Obama’s favor.

The fact that the GOP and the Romney campaign were shocked just demonstrates how they must have no voices in their inner circles who are attuned to on-the-ground dynamics within U.S. communities of color.