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Republicans Can’t Beat Democrats’ Election-Industrial Complex By Adopting Its Strategies
corbe:
Republicans Can’t Beat Democrats’ Election-Industrial Complex By Adopting Its Strategies
BY: JOSEPH ARLINGHAUS AND WILLIAM DOYLE, PH.D.
MARCH 16, 2023
The sudden rise of well-funded election activist nonprofits represents a paradigm shift away from persuading and motivating voters, and toward manipulating the election process to benefit Democrats.
Over the last several months, a growing number of Republicans, including Donald Trump himself, seem to be having a change of heart about universal mail-in voting and ballot harvesting.
While few Republicans are ready to completely abandon policies that support election integrity and transparency, more and more seem willing to follow the old adage “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” and suggest that Republicans become significantly more reliant on universal mail-in voting and ballot harvesting to win elections. There is no worse idea in politics today.
Conservatives do not have the institutional or financial support to match Democrats in election activism and ballot harvesting, nor are they likely to be able to any time in the near future. The advantages Democrats have accrued over the last 20 years in election manipulation and “lawfare” are nearly insurmountable.
But this is not necessarily a portent of gloom and doom. The growing number of ultra-left Democratic candidates are deeply unpopular and would be unelectable outside deep-blue areas under the election norms that prevailed prior to the Covid-19 lockdowns and the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats’ performance in 2020 and 2022 would almost certainly have been far worse under conditions that involved persuading voters to go to the polls on Election Day, rather than relying on a complex web of wealthy nonprofits and armies of election activists to churn out mountains of mail-in ballots, submitted by indifferent voters, during greatly extended early voting periods.
Raw Institutional Power
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https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/16/republicans-cant-beat-democrats-election-industrial-complex-by-adopting-its-strategies/
Free Vulcan:
He's not offering much in the way of solutions here.
Kamaji:
It takes a two-pronged approach - first, argue to make things like mail-in voting and ballot harvesting illegal, but second, until such time, one has to use the means and tools that are available to accomplish one's ends.
If the Dems engage in legal ballot harvesting, then so too should the GOP until and unless the practice is made illegal.
Maj. Bill Martin:
--- Quote from: Kamaji on March 16, 2023, 03:47:41 pm ---It takes a two-pronged approach - first, argue to make things like mail-in voting and ballot harvesting illegal, but second, until such time, one has to use the means and tools that are available to accomplish one's ends.
If the Dems engage in legal ballot harvesting, then so too should the GOP until and unless the practice is made illegal.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. We may not be match the Democrats use of those tactics, but using them ourselves can help mitigate some of their advantage.
Kamaji:
--- Quote from: Maj. Bill Martin on March 16, 2023, 04:04:26 pm ---Exactly. We may not be match the Democrats use of those tactics, but using them ourselves can help mitigate some of their advantage.
--- End quote ---
And also, in a perverse way, increase support for outlawing them because if the GOP gets good at using them, Democrats will start crying about that and that, in turn, will help to build support for getting rid of them.
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