Let’s get ‘em (the voters) out
Impeach Trump? Have we lost our minds? That’s the last thing in the world we should want to do. Donald Trump is merely a symptom of what’s gone wrong with our country; he’s an effect, not a cause. Impeachment would only give Mike Spence and his Tea Party crowd a blank check to go on a reactionary binge.
Yes, Trump is mildly dangerous, but he is too disorganized and confused to accomplish very much administratively or legislatively. But, left to their own devices, Pence and some of his more ideologicallypure libertarians could quickly pauperize Social Security, privatize Medicare and further weaken an already shaky Veterans Administration before the 2020 elections.
The country would be better off with Trump completing his term of office but stripped, as he is now, of enough if his legislative majority to keep him out of mischief.
With their House majority the Democrats can defeat every bill the GOP submits for the next two years. That’s a stupid, asinine, polarizing thing to do. But that’s exactly what the Republicans did to Obama to prevent him from making needed changes to his Affordable Care Act.
Stymied, paralyzed and emasculated with no future in sight, Trump would be forced to bide his time until November 2020. The Democrats’ House majority is nothing to crow about. It’s normal for the party in power to lose House seats in the midterm elections. George W. Bush, Obama and Clinton suffered even worse losses than Trump.
Now is the time to organize and get more nonvoters registered and get them to the polls in 2020. It’s the apathetic ones who present the greatest challenge.
The numbers show that if the nonvoters had voted together in 2016 their candidate would have won by a landslide. They are very much like today’s fastest-growing religious denomination, the “Nons.”
But American voter turnout has actually been declining for decades. On top of that, Republican lawmakers are legislating to disenfranchise more and more people with new voter suppression laws. And nonvoters also make the excuse of not liking any of the candidates. But they must surely dislike some more than others. I’ve voted on that basis more than once. But there are other roadblocks as well.
The first Tuesday of November has never been a great voting day. Some have suggested voting on a national holiday when most people are off work. Others prefer the weekends, the time when most European nations vote. Both options merit consideration, but I still see our main obstacle as plain old voter apathy. We must organize, get people registered and get them to the polls. The fewer people voting, the better you-know-who’s chances of winning.
With a little time and determination most anyone can obtain a photo ID. It might require encouragement, legal help and even some intimidation, but nothing insurmountable. Then we must also get these folks to the polls on election day.
I’ve done some of this in the past and there’s no mystery to it. It takes a tank of gas and a day of one’s time once every two years, but the results are worth the effort.
Party meetings, discussions, rallies, campaign rhetoric, and debating the issues are all edifying and rewarding (and entertaining; I thrive on it!) But it doesn’t get people to the polls on election day. Organization and hard work do.
George B. Reed Jr., who lives in Rossville, can be reached by email at reed1600@bellsouth.net.