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Trump adviser: Expect more aggressive poll watching in 2020

Since 1982, the GOP has been prohibited by a consent decree from engaging in certain kinds of "poll watching" and other forms of voter intimidation and suppression. That decree was lifted last year, so Trump and his henchmen are gearing up for some very aggressive voter intimidation and suppression initiatives next year. The article says they used to hire off-duty to cops to stand around wearing their guns and armbands that said "National Ballot Security Task Force." There are independent groups that could still do it, but the GOP itself was prohibited. Now that they're allowed, they're going to be spending millions.

I wonder where the GOP got the idea to say that the Democrats needed an unfair advantage to win the election.

Oh, I know. It's another one of their own problems they're projecting, because that's the party of Trump. I remember now.

Yeah, this is a Wisconsin story. To summarize, what he was saying is that traditionally they try to win by suppressing the vote of Democratic voters where they are, but with the consent decree gone and significant funding coming in from the RNC, they can start engaging in aggressive "poll watching" statewide.

After getting caught, the excuse version of this is funny.

It's gonna happen, though. The upshot is it's a relatively minor thing.

Perfume on my Mind wrote:I wonder where the GOP got the idea to say that the Democrats needed an unfair advantage to win the election.

Oh, I know. It's another one of their own problems they're projecting, because that's the party of Trump. I remember now.

This has been going on well before Trump. It's a post 2006 phenomenon. Or, rather, that's when it accelerated. Remember the focus on stamping out voter registration tools that advantaged Democrats, such as ACORN? Or the rash of voter ID bills, voter purges, union breaking laws, etc. after the 2010 Republican landslide? Those were all backed by the argument that they're trying to stop unfair election practices.

One of the reasons why Ukraine as an issue isn't like to persuade institutional Republicans to have a sound basis for impeachment is they regard underhanded methods to sway elections in Republicans' favor as a good thing and Trump was just leveling up.

The post 2010 era echos the Gilded age when Democrats won a major series of victories in the South, then used their advantages and backing of friendly courts to build a corrupt political system through legal and extra-legal means that was dominated by one party and only quasi-democratic in nature. Only this time, instead of it being localized to the South, it's localized to any states where Republicans had an advantage at that point in time and is very much the national agenda of the Republican party.

There are independent groups that could still do it, but the GOP itself was prohibited.

Perhaps this is why the charges against the New Black Panther party for voter intimidation in 2008 were dropped. It's not racially motivated voter intimidation if it's a black militant intimidating a white person. What other conclusion would one expect from an Obama appointed "apolitical" justice department official.