Matt Walsh recently wrote an article with the title "In Order To Save America, We Must Legally Prevent Oblivious People From Voting." Because so many people are sharing and agreeing with perhaps the most Un-American sentiment I've ever heard come from a Conservative's mouth, I feel it is my civic duty to inform the public about just how incredibly wrong he is. Matt has offered up three ways we can therefore keep uninformed people from voting:
1. Require Every Voter To Take And Pass A Fifth Grade Civics Exam
This seems like a good idea, sure. I too want my fellow voters to be informed and educated, and yet the very thing that made our democracy so revolutionary in its time is that it took the power from the rich, ruling, educated class and gave it to the poor, working, and yes, UNEDUCATED class. This forced politicians to earn the people's votes and do things that helped the majority of the citizens, not just themselves and their rich friends, and it opened up the political process to the average American, and in time minorities and women as well. Matt's suggestion to require a civic's exam is eerily similar to how white Americans were able to suppress the votes of African Americans after they first received the right to vote by requiring voters to take a literacy test, knowing full well that the majority of African Americans could neither read nor write. In fact, this put the governing bodies in a bit of a debaucle, as many poor whites also could not read or write either, so they decided that they would extend mercy to the illiterate by merely reading to them and seeing if they could understand what was being read to them, usually of course claiming that whites could understand them and blacks could not, even if they really could. Voter suppression has been a favorite tactic of both political parties throughout our history, targeting poor and minority demographics, knowing full well that their sheer numbers have the power to bring about real change and, yet again, forcing politicians to earn their stay in power and do the will of the people, not just the ones backing their campaigns and filling their bank accounts. To learn more about the history of voter suppression and how it is still being enacted today through methods such as purging and creating stricter voter ID laws, please visit the website for America's Black Holocaust Museum or really, just google "voter suppression" and see what's there. It is alive and well, and it is looking more and more like the last thing politicians want is for more and more people who look and think differently than they do to vote.
2. Abolish Early Voting
Matt makes the point that people should not even be voting before a candidate has finished their campaign, and more importantly that it shouldn't be so easy for people to vote---voting should be a "bit inconvenient" and requires "a small smidgen of sacrifice, energy, and effort." Apparently Matt is one of us priveleged Americans who are able to get off work to go vote, because many can not sacrifice even two hours of pay to get themselves to the polls because they are literally living paycheck to paycheck. Of course, these are likely either the elderly, who do not easily get out of their homes, or the poor, minimum wage workers who might now have the education he would prefer to be allowed to cast a vote, who are typically part-time and not earning vacation time or sick leave to put towards their absence. Some states have laws requiring employers to allow employees time off to vote, unless there is a 2 hour window before or after their shift starts that would enable them to vote apart from working hours, but few restrict them from deducting the hours from employees' paycheck. And unfortunately, a whopping 19 states do not have any laws at all requiring employers to give employees the time off that they need to vote. You can see those laws here. The fact is that in a true democracy, every citizen should not only have a right to vote, but also an opportunity to vote that is not economically prohibitive to any citizen of any class. This is why it makes far more sense to declare voting day a national holiday, ensuring a high voter turnout and that true democracy is in fact taking place. But again, most politicians do not actually want a high voter turnout from the poor working class, thus the lack of reform.
3. Only Grant Voting Privileges to Tax Payers
Matt makes the point that people should not even be voting before a candidate has finished their campaign, and more importantly that it shouldn't be so easy for people to vote---voting should be a "bit inconvenient" and requires "a small smidgen of sacrifice, energy, and effort." Apparently Matt is one of us priveleged Americans who are able to get off work to go vote, because many can not sacrifice even two hours of pay to get themselves to the polls because they are literally living paycheck to paycheck. Of course, these are likely either the elderly, who do not easily get out of their homes, or the poor, minimum wage workers who might now have the education he would prefer to be allowed to cast a vote, who are typically part-time and not earning vacation time or sick leave to put towards their absence. Some states have laws requiring employers to allow employees time off to vote, unless there is a 2 hour window before or after their shift starts that would enable them to vote apart from working hours, but few restrict them from deducting the hours from employees' paycheck. And unfortunately, a whopping 19 states do not have any laws at all requiring employers to give employees the time off that they need to vote. You can see those laws here. The fact is that in a true democracy, every citizen should not only have a right to vote, but also an opportunity to vote that is not economically prohibitive to any citizen of any class. This is why it makes far more sense to declare voting day a national holiday, ensuring a high voter turnout and that true democracy is in fact taking place. But again, most politicians do not actually want a high voter turnout from the poor working class, thus the lack of reform.
3. Only Grant Voting Privileges to Tax Payers
This point is very clearly yet another dig at the poor---particularly those on welfare, though he never even actually mentions them---and surprisingly enough, it is also a dig at the young, stating "A college kid who has never worked or paid a bill or lived as an independent adult does not yet possess the experience and comprehension necessary to be granted the power to vote. She has been, up until this point, a taker not a maker. A receiver not a contributor." It's funny that he says that while pointing his finger at the 70% of working college students and the 73% of working welfare recipients. Apparently holding a job no longer counts as contributing to society either? And he seems to be forgetting that the reason welfare recipients do not pay taxes is because their annual income places them below the poverty line, thus exempting them from a burden that, for them, prevents them from being able to pay their rent or buy groceries, and for us, prevents us from buying cable TV or a 2nd car. We just looooove to point our fingers at them, though, don't we? How DARE they take OUR tax money and use it to buy groceries for their family and pay the rent that gives them shelter! And along these lines he goes on to say "It’s been warned for centuries that democracies collapse when voters learn they can vote themselves money and entitlements from the public treasury." I'm glad you brought this up Matt, so yes, let's talk about instances when voters learn that they can vote themselves money and entitlements from the public treasury. I am MORE than happy to oblige, because popular to contrary belief, the greatest instances of this have not been through welfare and SNAP cards, but rather through government bailouts, tax deferrals, and multi-million dollar tax write-offs by the very politicians that are supposed to be working on our behalf. You tell me, which person is contributing less to society? Is it the person working two part-time minimum wage jobs, trying to work their way up the ladder so that they can finally reach the financial point of even being able to pay taxes? Or is it perhaps the multi-national corporations that are backing many of our candidates campaigns, funneling their company's billions of dollars in profits to an off-shore account in a country that has a 0% tax rate to avoid the 35% U.S tax rate, thus legally cheating the government of what amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars every year? Funny how that law has never been changed despite us losing out on the amount of money that would actually enable us to pay off our national debt, huh? Or how about that time the government offered those same corporations a tax holiday of 5% to encourage them to bring their money back to American soil and invest in the crumbling economy, an opportunity which they then used not to invest in the American economy or even their own company, but rather to forego research and development and invest in the projects they were already working on, lay off thousands of workers rather than create new jobs, and most abhorrently of all, buy back their own company stock, thus increasing the already exorbitant wages of their CEOs, who are payed in company stock, a practice which also apparently qualifies their CEOs' multi-million dollar income to be used as a tax write-off for the company. Or do you mean Wall Street, who politicians have been working tirelessly to deregulate so that they can cheat taxpayers by creating fraudulent stocks and loans, such as the "inpenetrable" loans that caused the housing bubble and the subsequent Great Recession of 2008 and beyond, costing millions of Americans their jobs, homes, and even their 401ks? Or perhaps you mean the ever-increasing number of corporations, whose fiscal irresponsibility, laziness, and dishonesty have led them to cook the books and create fraudulent reports of profit, thus creating an increase in company stock (and again increasing their own pay), bringing about their inevitable collapse, and whom the government doesn't hesitate to give hundreds of billions of dollars of OUR tax money to in bailouts---tax money which they again used to lay off workers and reward their CEOs' dishonesty and failure with bonuses and unearned severance packages. Do you mean THOSE voters? Because believe me, they're informed and they know exactly what they're doing. They're the ones who spend millions of dollars each year to hire lobbyists for their corporations---lobbyists who have essentially weeded out any lobbying on behalf of unions or organized groups of taxpayers lacking the financial means that they have---because corporations are able to spend the money needed to employ hundreds of lobbyists in multiple locations at the same time with the time, resources, and connections to sit in on congressional meetings and set up countless meetings with our politicians to present their side. And often they are even hired because they already have a close personal relationship with our current politicians and hold a large amount of sway. Lobbying is a constitutional right, but the people are no longer being heard because of this corporate usurpury of politics. You mean those voters, though, right? But please, go right ahead and pretend that it's the welfare recipients and college students that are taking all the handouts.
Let me clear something up for you, Matt. You are benefitting from other peoples' taxes just as much as the people you are pointing your finger at are benefitting from yours. Those taxes are repairing your roads, bridges, and dams, funding your libraries, schools, police and fire departments and the military that protects you, they are giving stability (in spite of curruption) to the very government that is granting you YOUR voting rights, and are providing countless other benefits that extend to you and every citizen in this country. So next time you decide to write a post about suppressing the rights of every American who does not meet your standards of being "informed," perhaps you yourself should try being informed before you do so, and maybe even use your platform to inform them about things that are actually true.
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