STEALING/SUPPRESSING VOTES, A LONG, “PROUD” TRADITION

by Ruth A. Sheets

Last evening I watched a documentary, “Vigilante, Inc,” a film by Greg Palast. It was a story of the racism, fearmongering, and unamerican behavior of people, mostly Republicans  in Georgia whose efforts are designed to stop people of color from voting.  The mostly white legislature passed bills to let any citizen challenge any voters on the rolls, as many as they wish, without even a legitimate reason, and Governor Kemp signed it into law.  Kemp is a major proponent of this voter suppression project. 

In addition to purging the voter rolls, the voter suppression team uses fear and intimidation to silence anyone who questions this clearly unconstitutional project.  The ultimate goal seems to be to get county election boards to refuse to certify elections if the candidate who won was not the person the governor and his buddies want to win, including for President of the United States.  This is just the modern version of the well-practiced KKK voter-suppression of yore. 

Gov. Kemp has been using his various positions to reinstate the old Jim Crow laws, referred to by Black leaders as “Jim Crow 2.0.”  Kemp regularly does and says things that are pure racism and has no shame in doing it.  He does claim this voter purge is for the good of the state but his explanation is lacking. 

in the film, I learned that Brian Kemp’s family was one of the largest landowners in Georgia.  He uses their land for his own personal gain no matter how it harms the state or its communities.  His family’s wealth was built on the labor of enslaved persons.  At first, slavery was illegal in Georgia, but one of Kemp’s ancestors forced slavery into Georgia and it shaped the Georgia economy for generations.  A descendant of the first enslaved people in Georgia commented, “if you suppress the history, you suppress the vote,” and suppressing history of everyone but white men is on the chopping block in Georgia and numerous other states and so is voter suppression. 

Through this disturbing but important film, one can see that white supremacists have decided that attacking, intimidating, threatening, even  killing Black people and other people of color, young folks, and their allies are mostly successful tactics they can use to maintain their power and to keep certain people from voting.  Purging the voting rolls and arresting people who help citizens vote are also powerful suppressors. 

“True the Vote” is a master mind for the Vigilante movement.  They originate in Texas but have whipped up MAGAs all over the country, getting them to believe they had the right to attack voters as non-citizens, criminals, or with no stated excuse at all.  The group has signed up 40,000 vigilante volunteers monitoring potential voters of color and young people, getting names and addresses to challenge their right to vote.  Once Vigilantiism gets started, there are scared white people desperate for attention who will jump in to do their party’s bidding.  They choose names that sound Black or Hispanic or Asian, and claim those people are “illegal aliens” or some other such nonsense since lying is acceptable in this project.  They get a thrill and get away with it because they are white, mostly women.  Those women seem especially vulnerable to the Republican Lying and blaming.  In some districts, law enforcement is being used to intimidate voter registration programs, confiscating equipment, arresting the workers, etc., all of which are unconstitutional unless one believes “free speech” is only for Republicans. 

For me, there is no excuse for challenging voters and denying them the right to vote.  Voter registration should be automatic from the moment a citizen turns 18 and the registration should be till death.  Only change of address or political party should affect voter registration.  Our Constitution says everyone has the right to vote.  If our courts actually had decent people serving, people who understand the requirement of our Constitution, little to none of this bad behavior on the part of Republicans would be permitted, but even our Supreme Court Republican majority won’t stand with our Constitution.  That is truly scary.  It would help if all of us who are not brainwashed into the Trump/Kemp cult would stand up and call out the efforts of the purgers, those anti-American actors who would deny their fellow citizens the sacred right to vote in our democracy.

NAR AND OTHER THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT. I DIDN’T!

By Ruth A. Sheets

Yesterday, I attended an online workshop about a religious entity I had no knowledge of.  One would think a Christian minister would be acquainted with most of the religious movements in this country and many of those in other countries.  I have knowledge of many, but not this one, and it’s functioning right in our neighborhoods and growing. 

NAR stands for New Apostolic Reformation.  If you think that sounds radical, you are right.  If you think that sounds like a name someone would give to a group of Christian Nationalists, you are also right.  NAR is a collective of mostly white Evangelicals who believe this nation must be Christian and that their brand of Christianity is the one to take over all aspects of our lives.  Some of their principles include: 

• Only Christians get to vote
• Women are inferior to men in all things and should not vote
• Public schools must be eliminated because children must be educated in the NAR’s weird pseudo-christian principles instead.
• Violence for their version of god is acceptable and even encouraged.  They will identify the targets and what should be done about them.
• Their goal is to take over our government at all levels from school boards and town councils to the presidency and our courts.
  

For a branch of this collective, Pennsylvania is where they believe the center of the Christian world is, and they should be in charge.  One of the big proponents of that is a woman.  I guess like the Phyllis Schlafly movement of the Republican anti-abortion actions, this woman thinks she will somehow be the one woman who does not have to be as submissive as all the other women, perhaps even in charge of getting those other women under control.  She would be  the specially anointed one, well, until her usefulness wanes.

This “movement” has been active in some form since the 1950s but has blown up in the past 2 decades, including members of the Tea Party and other right-wing radical groups.  It is clear that Donald Trump is one of their boys, but even if Trump should lose in November, their movement will continue, grabbing power where they can.

One of their proud acolytes is Doug Mastriano.  You might remember him as the Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2022.  He seems to be one of those true believers.

One potential member is J.D. Vance who spoke at a recent Pennsylvania NAR event.  Mike Johnson, our House Speaker says he is inspired by them.  It seems that for both, the power the NAR and its affiliates plan to wield is more than tempting, as it is for other Republican legislators.  Powermongers that they are, they are moving toward full participation since they already hold most of the NAR’s ideas of "governing.”

The group’s precepts come nearly exclusively from the Hebrew Scriptures rather than the Christian gospels and letters.  It seems the leaders are creating a religion that encompasses the things they like and the punishments and controls their brains imagine them doing to others, in the name of god, of course, just like Medieval times and the Inquisition.  In my reading and listening I heard nothing in their message that involves love, being a neighbor, caring for poor and other disadvantaged persons.  Jesus is hardly mentioned, but people on the “left” are being proclaimed as demons and for the NAR cult, it is not a metaphor.

The NAR’s racism is sometimes covered up by their attempts to recruit members and leaders of color.  None of the basic beliefs are impacted in any way by having token others.  Women as mentioned previously are essentially handmaids who bear children for years, raise them, and bow to every male whim.  Yes, it has the hallmarks of a cult, but on a large scale.  Maybe it’s a collection of cults with a similar purpose, which seems to be, “take over government and do whatever you want to those people, while claiming it is for god and naturally, somehow they have god’s ear, a god who is OK with a fascist rule, all white men in charge of course.

Ah, white men are truly terrified of everyone, just as their ancestors were, so want to control everything.  It appears they want to remain toddlers and do as much harm to others as they can while not being harmed at all or held accountable.  Those few women in leadership will take care of every little need for those toddler-men while enduring the disrespect of those toddlers.  Other religious groups have tried this and some made it last for centuries, but the world has changed.

This is just an introduction.  I still don’t know how to effectively address this, but I plan to learn.