I shared your piece with a therapist friend who sees politics through the lens of addiction and recovery. The following comments are his.
I respect Snyder's argument for the addictive nature of voter suppression. I share in your admiration for his perspective and insight…For me the core addiction in our society is the use of violence in its many forms to serve in the toxic cause of obtaining and maintaining materialistic power and dominance. It’s the stubbornly irrational adherence to the “zero sum game” worldview and “might makes right” and “survival of the fittest” perversion of Darwinian thought. Voter suppression is a form of violence. So is poverty. So is segregation (which may be re-emerging in a new and ugly way with the attitudes by some toward transexual people). And homelessness. And gaslighting. And, and, and….One way or another, violence always dehumanizes both the recipient and the perpetrator. Which I believe generates shame in both and thus the need to numb the pain by whatever means available. Because some relief is better than none. The more the pain is anesthetized via toxic methods the more shame is piled on. To me, that’s the viciousness of the addiction cycle. Maybe what I’m calling materialistic power/dominance is a rough definition of the Biblical term Mammon. Richard Rohr calls it “the System.” I think it’s what’s leftover for us once we exclude spirituality from our concept of Reality. I believe that recovery is the most natural and rational response to any addiction process. On a societal level, I think it’s when and where the pain of the unsustainable addiction-fantasy falls apart. Hitting bottom. Sometimes lots of bottoms. Columbine was one. So was Sandy Hook. And Parkland. The killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were bottoms. And the recent mass murders in Atlanta and Boulder. We will continue to hit bottom as a nation until we “get it” and start to actually let go of our national fairy tales of “exceptionalism” and being the “essential nation” in the world. I have come see that stuff as just a massive ego trip…Recovery is about getting honest with ourselves. Really honest. It’s about embracing humility so we can stop humiliating ourselves. We humiliate ourselves as a nation when we keep perpetrating injustice allegedly in the “name of the law.” We hide behind our BS just like anyone caught in their world of addiction.
Friend adds: Afterthought: I think there are two really toxic lies that keep us blind and trapped. The Lie of our Separateness from each other and the Lie of believing we are Superior to anyone.
The line that got to me relates to “getting honest with ourselves” - “It’s about embracing humility so we can stop humiliating ourselves.” I feel this country has done just that - humiliated itself before our children and grandchildren and before the world writ large.
Where I live, I have a local paper so besides being up on the local news and politics, I have the opportunity to write letters to the editor and I take advantage of it. Where I live there are people in the whole political spectrum, so the paper gets a large variety of opinions. I think people having more local news might be one way to get rid of this addiction. Professor Snyder has pointed out that one of the biggest problems in our Country is the lack of local news, I.e., death of local independent newspapers. I recently wrote a letter to the White House and my Congressmen about this issue. I’m trying to find a way to communicate with one of the wealthy folks who seem to care about democracy to see if they could use some of their millions to help with the news gap.
I agree that voter suppression is at its core racist. Unscrupulous Republicans in leadership positions are turning it into a drug for those who are fearful of a future where the majority population is not white. The people Republican leadership appeal to are also fearful about their status in society. The racial bias has left these people with the idea that a person of color must have lower status and this is how they justify that some people don’t deserve the same freedoms/privileges. I am not sure how we can combat this. I do offer support to ACLU, SPLC, and the League of Women Voters because I think there is strength in combatting some of these issues through groups like that who litigate, point out hate, and promote fair voting. Another thing is that where I live, I have a local paper so I am better attuned to my city and state politics
Jan, I appreciate how you write, Republicans in leadership positions”. So many say, “Republican Leadership or leaders... which to me is such an oxymoron.
From a friend about the Georgia voting rights bill: The GOP's new law excluded some of the most extreme proposals to restrict voting such as measures to eliminate automatic voter registration and the ability of voters under age 65 to vote by mail without an excuse, and it includes a few provisions that could expand voting access, but a far larger number of measures restrict access to voting and give Republicans greater partisan control over election administration itself. I have the list of changes but will not list them here.
One of the provisions removes the Secretary of State from chairing the State Board of Elections replacing him with a legislative appointee as chair. I guess they are getting back at Raffensberger for running an honest election.
Black voter advocates have launched a federal lawsuit to contest the most restrictive parts of the Bill. I have a special interest in Georgia as I wrote letters to Democrats
in DeKalb County for the special election. I also support Stacy Abrams’ Fair Fight. Abrams is an amazing organizer and worked miracles in Georgia. I hear she is planning to run for Governor.
In The Road to Unfreedom, Dr. Snyder references a homeland security report of how election board members in key states where targeted by Russian misinformation during 2016. I’m worried about this. It seems to me that at the county level they are not all big time gamers or breakers yet, first they become true believers. And having a genuine full faith in the misinformation, they will break the law when counting and/or certifying. Does this new GA law allow for an endless cycle of never certifying counts Republican boards don’t like? Seems like that’s the “eternal politics” that we have been warned of.
I would have to re-read what you reference in the Road to Unfreedom. What was amazing to me in 2020, especially in Georgia is that 2 key people in the State, Brad Raffensberger and Gabriel Sterling, both hard-core Republicans who said they voted for Trump, held to their ethical pledge and upheld the Georgia elections as free and fair. I was an Election Judge in the 2020 election in my state and you do take an oath to uphold your position in a non-partisan way and it is punishable under the law if you break your oath. We also had 2 chief judges, one Democrat and one Republican overseeing the process in our location. I suppose some locations don’t have people of both parties being represented and then someone could cheat more easily. This is where having a local newspaper is important because accusations of cheating locally are more likely to be revealed if there is local news. So lack of the local news is a problem.
Of the provisions put into law (see below), although most are restrictive, rhe one that bothers me the most is this one:
Allow Georgians to initiate an unlimited number of challengers to voters' eligibility, which a right-wing voter suppression group unsuccessfully tried to do to tens of thousands of voters last year, and give challenged voters very little time to defend themselves;
This has to do with watchers. We had them too but none of the voters or poll workers were challenged, at least on the day I worked (which was November 3rd). I think in places that have open carry, watchers could be very intimidating.
As for Georgia’s new voting law, here are the provisions that were passed:
Require voter ID for requesting and returning an absentee ballot by mandating that voters include their ID number or a photocopy—officials would use the ID number to verify voters' identities, which some election officials argued was less secure than the current signature-verification process;
Set the deadline for requesting absentee ballots at 11 days before Election Day instead of three while also preventing counties from mailing out ballots until four weeks before Election Day, which risks some voters not getting their ballots on time;
Allow online absentee ballot requests;
Ban election officials from mailing out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms to all voters after Raffensperger did so in the 2020 primary;
Penalize third-party groups that send unsolicited absentee ballot requests if doing so includes any voters who already requested a ballot;
Significantly limit absentee ballot drop boxes by requiring they be located inside of early voting locations, making them only available during regular business hours, and capping the number of drop boxes at whichever is the fewer of one per every 100,000 active registered voters or one per early voting site in each county;
Allow election officials to start preparing absentee ballots for counting two weeks before Election Day to ensure a timely count;
Standardize early voting days and hours across counties during primaries and general elections by expanding availability in many small rural counties that are heavily white and conservative but limiting availability in larger counties that are diverse and Democratic-leaning;
Sharply reducing early voting in general election runoffs by cutting the two weeks of runoff early voting down to just five business days and no weekends; this will particularly affect Black voters, who are disproportionately likely to use weekend voting days;
Ban mobile voting buses that are currently allowed for early voting;
Require large polling places servicing precincts with more than 2,000 registered voters that experience wait times of longer than an hour to add more voting machines or be split into multiple sites; this provision doesn't appear to require similar action to relieve long lines in smaller precincts;
Ban people other than poll workers from giving food and water to voters waiting in line;
Disqualify voters from voting in the wrong polling place but in the right jurisdiction unless they show up specifically after 5 PM on Election Day and sign a statement saying they couldn't make it to their assigned precinct in time;
Allow Georgians to initiate an unlimited number of challengers to voters' eligibility, which a right-wing voter suppression group unsuccessfully tried to do to tens of thousands of voters last year, and give challenged voters very little time to defend themselves;
Limit the secretary of state's powers by removing him from chairing the state Board of Elections and replacing him with a legislative appointee as chair, additionally enabling GOP lawmakers to take greater control over local election boards on the pretext that they are "underperforming;"
Bar local election officials from directly receiving grant funding from private philanthropic organizations to help pay for election administration after many counties did so in 2020;
Shorten the runoff period for federal general elections from nine weeks to four weeks and adopt instant-runoff voting for military and overseas voters to ensure that doing so doesn't conflict with federal law that requires absentee ballots be sent to overseas voters no later than 45 days before any federal election date; and
Replace all-party primaries in special elections with regular party primaries.
Here is what black voter advocates are doing:
Quickly after Kemp—who himself owes his position as governor to his victory in a 2018 election that was badly tainted Kemp's own efforts to suppress voters and abuse his powers while overseeing his own election as secretary of state—signed the law, Black voter advocates launched a federal lawsuit that challenges the provisions that:
Add voter ID requirements for absentee voting;
Limit drop boxes;
Ban mobile voting locations;
Bar officials from sending unsolicited absentee applications;
Ok, how does one become an election judge? Can GA Democrats prevent a Lyn Wood or Sydney Powell from that? And what’s next in GA? Can GA Republicans hire Eric Princess to provide “election security”? I think the stage has been set to provide enough political cover now and hints for those lower on the totem pull to begin cheating. Corruption typically works this way.
An election judge is just a term for a person who works at the polls and is involved with helping people to vote. Where I live (MD), you apply for it, and then they contact you if you are selected. If you accept the job, you must take training which went over the various areas involved in the voting process. We also received a book describing the various areas you could work in the polls. We get paid for our work. We are sworn in after your training in MD, we are obliged to serve for 2 years. We signed up for different days. I only signed up for November 3rd, but there were opportunities to sign up to help with early voting. The day was really long: we had to be there at 5:30-6 am and we didn’t leave until all ballots were cast and checked, which was around 9 pm that evening. I worked a poll book and we sign the voter in if they are registered so that they can get a ballot . After signing in with us, they can get their ballot, and after they get their ballot, they can cast their ballot. MD offered both paper ballot and electronic ballot. Ballots are counted and the counter is in no way hooked to an outside system. Ballot count and poll book counts had to be matched or rectified. If they don’t match, the chief judges have to investigate.
I’m a Stacy Abrams supporter. I was surprised she’s not in the cabinet. I think because she wants to challenge Kemp. And I want her to win. As for leadership, she checks all the boxes.
Voter suppression is vile. Having said that, we should understand the context, at least in a presidential election, which makes it vile. There is no U.S. Constitutional right to vote for a U.S. president that is until a state allows an individual to vote for its electors. It follows that there is no national presidential election, but rather fifty individual state elections for electors which vote for President (and Vice President). Since all fifty states allow people to vote for its presidential electors the voter suppression issue is extremely relevant in our perceived democracy (although historically the U.S. is more of a plutocracy). Timothy’s argument, as always, is compelling and makes sense. Republicans and Democrats at one time or another argued the counterintuitive and, by definition, unpopular notion that a one man/one vote system is nonsense (at least for president (yes, and not using the word nonsense)). As H.L. Mencken (probably a racist) once said “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned my a downright moron.” Many Republicans support the subtleties of voter suppression based on beliefs that, for them, mimic Mencken’s belief and rouse humor from his famous remark (It made more sense to me when Trump was elected). If we collectively want a purer democracy and, more importantly, understand what wanting a democracy actual means, then we need to eliminate the electoral college. Of course, eliminating the electoral college would be very difficult since no matter if via compact (I.e., eliminating the electoral college’s effect) or via Amendment would require certain states to lose extant voting power. Georgia’s election reform law which, when referenced by Republicans will, undoubtedly and euphemistically, include the word “integrity” needs to be understood for what it is, voter suppression. Of course, not all elections are for president and voter suppression for any election may be designed to ultimately support a one party system thereby eliminating democracy from the equation. In Georgia, it appears that a Republican legislature and Governor are designing a system to keep themselves in office while taking advantage of the state’s ability to govern how Presidential electors are elected by the people (still subject to the U.S. Constitution’s XV Amendment). This intent, to me, is what is vile.
If political racism can be compared to an addiction, then reading DuBois's "The Souls of White Folk" and "Of Work and Wealth," both from *Darkwater,* might provide insight into how one gets "hooked."
No doubt this derives as well from the political and economic Slave Power whose infernal habits of thought and behavior carry on quite serenely in their pursuit of happiness.
I have been thinking of them as being brainwashed into the trump cult. Addiction works too. I’m not sure our democracy will be able to withstand them “hitting bottom” and reclaiming their brains.
I think people are afraid of the future and losing their “status”. The increasing inequality between the very rich and the rest of us has not helped in people feeling they have a future. The ones who support voter suppression may have bought into “the politics of eternity” which Trump certainly spouted, where you are a victim of the other and therefore your future is ever under threat by that other and you can only look back on a “glorious past” which of course is a lie as there has never been a glorious past for everyone. When I was young, Jim Crow laws were in full throttle. Since US leadership has not fully addressed the underlying racial issues, it has continued to fester even though some progress has happened. We are in a very bumpy and uncomfortable time now, but there is more possibility for change. Maybe if we put our concerned heads together, we can move the US in the direction of democracy. It’s hard though because I know that I am feeling exhausted after 4-years of Trump and the efforts I made to support people who represent democratic values.
Cult de-programmer Steven Hassan, who was once inducted into the Moonies and became a therapist, researcher and pioneer in techniques to get people to reject undue and illegitimate influence robbing them of their freedom, recently wrote a book called The Cult of Trump. In it he lists the techniques demagogue Trump used, which, exactly as you say, are identical to those used by cult leaders.
Behavior Control
• Control types of clothing
• Regulate diet—food and drink, hunger, and/or fasting
• Manipulate and limit sleep
• Use rewards and punishments to modify behaviors, both positive and negative
• Discourage individualism, encourage groupthink
• Impose rigid rules and regulations
• Encourage and engage in corporal punishment
• Punish disobedience
• Threaten harm to family or friends (by cutting off family/friends)
• Instill dependency and obedience
Information Control
• Deception
- Deliberately withhold information
- Distort information to make it more acceptable
- Systematically lie to the cult member
• Minimize or discourage access to noncult sources of information, including:
- Critical information
- Former members
- Exert control through a cell phone with texting, calls,
- and internet tracking
• Compartmentalize information into Outsider versus Insider doctrines
• Ensure that information is not easily accessible
• Control information at different levels and missions within the group
• Allow only leadership to decide who needs to know what and when
• Encourage spying on other members
• Ensure that individual behavior is monitored by the group
• Extensive use of cult-generated information and propaganda, including:
- Newsletters, magazines, journals, audiotapes, videotapes, YouTube, movies, and other media
- Misquoting statements or using them out of context from noncult sources
Thought Control
• Require members to internalize the group's doctrine as truth
• Adopt the group's "map of reality" as reality
• Instill black and white thinking
• Decide between good versus evil
• Organize people into us versus them (insiders versus outsiders)
• Use loaded language and clichés to constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts, and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzzwords
• Use hypnotic techniques to alter mental states, undermine critical thinking, and even to age-regress the member to childhood states Teach thought stopping techniques that shut down reality testing by stopping negative thoughts and allowing only positive thoughts. These techniques include:
What has saddened me the most since 2016, is to witness so many fall prey to the above mentioned. People who know and work with, that I have trusted with my health, finance, taxes, business legal, and my kids education. I am in a red state and a red county and I see how demagoguery affects professionals and the educated just as much as those without privileges of both means and/or an education. Examples : a doctor who tells his staff and family to welcome Covid infection, believing DT and Scott Atlas over JAMA and NEJM. The lawyer and social worker who believes it’s right to keep kids in cages at the border. The school board member and county commissioner who are anti mask for our city and schools. Another doctor who believes BLM and Antifa are going to burn cities down if DT wins 2020. The Pastor who sermons comparing Biden to a “king”. The CPA who falsely believes those in the blue states are taking more of our money in taxes than we actually get back. All people are at risk from Demagoguery. An education, a great paying job, secure family, a moral/religious/pious person; anyone can be turned into a deplorable (Jan 6th profiles). And now those true believers are altering our election board rules and voter suppression pass into laws. I don’t want to look the other way. I want to have the tools to bring these people in my community to some level of awareness.
Here are some things you can do: contact your elected representative in the House and Senate and tell them how you want them to vote on Federal Bills. There’s a free app called “Causes” that will give you information on bills before the House and Senate, give you the opportunity to Yea or Nay them, comment on them, and allow you to send your comments to your representatives. Call your Representative’s office when Bills come up and give them your opinion. Email your representatives about issues or how you want them to vote. They represent you even if you didn’t vote for them. Follow what bills your State legislature is passing and contact your State representative with feedback. Check out Common Cause to see if you can help them. Help out with local elections by knocking doors, phone banking. Believe me, Republicans are relentlessly doing all those things.
And I forgot the kicker, the HS history and civics teacher who’s an outspoken Libertarian teaching at a public school, whose professional inspiration is Candice Owens. Can’t get more mind boggling than that.
You will enjoy it in the sick way we "enjoy" things that help us to understand what we knew was horrible but not exactly why. As you look into Hannan, also know that he has written more general books than the one about Trump on the subject of cults and on how to help their adherents. I read "Freedom of Mind" and its final chapters are exceptionally practical. This one may not be his most recent general texts so check the publication date. Also, he has a non-profit and has been interviewed in the general press lately. I guess business is booming. Some of this stuff you might find on interlibrary loan. He is a good man. You will see this.
AWESOME!!!!! I am hoping to meet him in six months or a year. I would like to ask his advice on how to apply his model for cult deprogramming to the 30 - 40% of Americans currently suffering from undue/illegitimate influence, although not living in residential cult situations.
While the metaphor of addiction works here, it doesn’t align with our current medical models of substance use disorders. i think most people would give you the poetic license, since you aren’t writing about SUD, though perhaps not all.
That was a weird thread. It seemed almost as though the analogy (Voter Suppression: Addiction) underwent semantic drift as the tenor and the vehicle parted ways. The comments are oddly self-centered.
I don't see it as an addiction. I view it as a plan orchestrated to serve the dominant party and the white supremacist world view. It's not that the evil can't help themselves--it is that they know precisely what they are doing and are doubling down on the plan because it is effective for their aims.
I shared your piece with a therapist friend who sees politics through the lens of addiction and recovery. The following comments are his.
I respect Snyder's argument for the addictive nature of voter suppression. I share in your admiration for his perspective and insight…For me the core addiction in our society is the use of violence in its many forms to serve in the toxic cause of obtaining and maintaining materialistic power and dominance. It’s the stubbornly irrational adherence to the “zero sum game” worldview and “might makes right” and “survival of the fittest” perversion of Darwinian thought. Voter suppression is a form of violence. So is poverty. So is segregation (which may be re-emerging in a new and ugly way with the attitudes by some toward transexual people). And homelessness. And gaslighting. And, and, and….One way or another, violence always dehumanizes both the recipient and the perpetrator. Which I believe generates shame in both and thus the need to numb the pain by whatever means available. Because some relief is better than none. The more the pain is anesthetized via toxic methods the more shame is piled on. To me, that’s the viciousness of the addiction cycle. Maybe what I’m calling materialistic power/dominance is a rough definition of the Biblical term Mammon. Richard Rohr calls it “the System.” I think it’s what’s leftover for us once we exclude spirituality from our concept of Reality. I believe that recovery is the most natural and rational response to any addiction process. On a societal level, I think it’s when and where the pain of the unsustainable addiction-fantasy falls apart. Hitting bottom. Sometimes lots of bottoms. Columbine was one. So was Sandy Hook. And Parkland. The killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were bottoms. And the recent mass murders in Atlanta and Boulder. We will continue to hit bottom as a nation until we “get it” and start to actually let go of our national fairy tales of “exceptionalism” and being the “essential nation” in the world. I have come see that stuff as just a massive ego trip…Recovery is about getting honest with ourselves. Really honest. It’s about embracing humility so we can stop humiliating ourselves. We humiliate ourselves as a nation when we keep perpetrating injustice allegedly in the “name of the law.” We hide behind our BS just like anyone caught in their world of addiction.
Friend adds: Afterthought: I think there are two really toxic lies that keep us blind and trapped. The Lie of our Separateness from each other and the Lie of believing we are Superior to anyone.
The line that got to me relates to “getting honest with ourselves” - “It’s about embracing humility so we can stop humiliating ourselves.” I feel this country has done just that - humiliated itself before our children and grandchildren and before the world writ large.
🙏
Where I live, I have a local paper so besides being up on the local news and politics, I have the opportunity to write letters to the editor and I take advantage of it. Where I live there are people in the whole political spectrum, so the paper gets a large variety of opinions. I think people having more local news might be one way to get rid of this addiction. Professor Snyder has pointed out that one of the biggest problems in our Country is the lack of local news, I.e., death of local independent newspapers. I recently wrote a letter to the White House and my Congressmen about this issue. I’m trying to find a way to communicate with one of the wealthy folks who seem to care about democracy to see if they could use some of their millions to help with the news gap.
I agree that voter suppression is at its core racist. Unscrupulous Republicans in leadership positions are turning it into a drug for those who are fearful of a future where the majority population is not white. The people Republican leadership appeal to are also fearful about their status in society. The racial bias has left these people with the idea that a person of color must have lower status and this is how they justify that some people don’t deserve the same freedoms/privileges. I am not sure how we can combat this. I do offer support to ACLU, SPLC, and the League of Women Voters because I think there is strength in combatting some of these issues through groups like that who litigate, point out hate, and promote fair voting. Another thing is that where I live, I have a local paper so I am better attuned to my city and state politics
Jan, I appreciate how you write, Republicans in leadership positions”. So many say, “Republican Leadership or leaders... which to me is such an oxymoron.
From a friend about the Georgia voting rights bill: The GOP's new law excluded some of the most extreme proposals to restrict voting such as measures to eliminate automatic voter registration and the ability of voters under age 65 to vote by mail without an excuse, and it includes a few provisions that could expand voting access, but a far larger number of measures restrict access to voting and give Republicans greater partisan control over election administration itself. I have the list of changes but will not list them here.
One of the provisions removes the Secretary of State from chairing the State Board of Elections replacing him with a legislative appointee as chair. I guess they are getting back at Raffensberger for running an honest election.
Black voter advocates have launched a federal lawsuit to contest the most restrictive parts of the Bill. I have a special interest in Georgia as I wrote letters to Democrats
in DeKalb County for the special election. I also support Stacy Abrams’ Fair Fight. Abrams is an amazing organizer and worked miracles in Georgia. I hear she is planning to run for Governor.
In The Road to Unfreedom, Dr. Snyder references a homeland security report of how election board members in key states where targeted by Russian misinformation during 2016. I’m worried about this. It seems to me that at the county level they are not all big time gamers or breakers yet, first they become true believers. And having a genuine full faith in the misinformation, they will break the law when counting and/or certifying. Does this new GA law allow for an endless cycle of never certifying counts Republican boards don’t like? Seems like that’s the “eternal politics” that we have been warned of.
I would have to re-read what you reference in the Road to Unfreedom. What was amazing to me in 2020, especially in Georgia is that 2 key people in the State, Brad Raffensberger and Gabriel Sterling, both hard-core Republicans who said they voted for Trump, held to their ethical pledge and upheld the Georgia elections as free and fair. I was an Election Judge in the 2020 election in my state and you do take an oath to uphold your position in a non-partisan way and it is punishable under the law if you break your oath. We also had 2 chief judges, one Democrat and one Republican overseeing the process in our location. I suppose some locations don’t have people of both parties being represented and then someone could cheat more easily. This is where having a local newspaper is important because accusations of cheating locally are more likely to be revealed if there is local news. So lack of the local news is a problem.
Of the provisions put into law (see below), although most are restrictive, rhe one that bothers me the most is this one:
Allow Georgians to initiate an unlimited number of challengers to voters' eligibility, which a right-wing voter suppression group unsuccessfully tried to do to tens of thousands of voters last year, and give challenged voters very little time to defend themselves;
This has to do with watchers. We had them too but none of the voters or poll workers were challenged, at least on the day I worked (which was November 3rd). I think in places that have open carry, watchers could be very intimidating.
As for Georgia’s new voting law, here are the provisions that were passed:
Require voter ID for requesting and returning an absentee ballot by mandating that voters include their ID number or a photocopy—officials would use the ID number to verify voters' identities, which some election officials argued was less secure than the current signature-verification process;
Set the deadline for requesting absentee ballots at 11 days before Election Day instead of three while also preventing counties from mailing out ballots until four weeks before Election Day, which risks some voters not getting their ballots on time;
Allow online absentee ballot requests;
Ban election officials from mailing out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms to all voters after Raffensperger did so in the 2020 primary;
Penalize third-party groups that send unsolicited absentee ballot requests if doing so includes any voters who already requested a ballot;
Significantly limit absentee ballot drop boxes by requiring they be located inside of early voting locations, making them only available during regular business hours, and capping the number of drop boxes at whichever is the fewer of one per every 100,000 active registered voters or one per early voting site in each county;
Allow election officials to start preparing absentee ballots for counting two weeks before Election Day to ensure a timely count;
Standardize early voting days and hours across counties during primaries and general elections by expanding availability in many small rural counties that are heavily white and conservative but limiting availability in larger counties that are diverse and Democratic-leaning;
Sharply reducing early voting in general election runoffs by cutting the two weeks of runoff early voting down to just five business days and no weekends; this will particularly affect Black voters, who are disproportionately likely to use weekend voting days;
Ban mobile voting buses that are currently allowed for early voting;
Require large polling places servicing precincts with more than 2,000 registered voters that experience wait times of longer than an hour to add more voting machines or be split into multiple sites; this provision doesn't appear to require similar action to relieve long lines in smaller precincts;
Ban people other than poll workers from giving food and water to voters waiting in line;
Disqualify voters from voting in the wrong polling place but in the right jurisdiction unless they show up specifically after 5 PM on Election Day and sign a statement saying they couldn't make it to their assigned precinct in time;
Allow Georgians to initiate an unlimited number of challengers to voters' eligibility, which a right-wing voter suppression group unsuccessfully tried to do to tens of thousands of voters last year, and give challenged voters very little time to defend themselves;
Limit the secretary of state's powers by removing him from chairing the state Board of Elections and replacing him with a legislative appointee as chair, additionally enabling GOP lawmakers to take greater control over local election boards on the pretext that they are "underperforming;"
Bar local election officials from directly receiving grant funding from private philanthropic organizations to help pay for election administration after many counties did so in 2020;
Shorten the runoff period for federal general elections from nine weeks to four weeks and adopt instant-runoff voting for military and overseas voters to ensure that doing so doesn't conflict with federal law that requires absentee ballots be sent to overseas voters no later than 45 days before any federal election date; and
Replace all-party primaries in special elections with regular party primaries.
Here is what black voter advocates are doing:
Quickly after Kemp—who himself owes his position as governor to his victory in a 2018 election that was badly tainted Kemp's own efforts to suppress voters and abuse his powers while overseeing his own election as secretary of state—signed the law, Black voter advocates launched a federal lawsuit that challenges the provisions that:
Add voter ID requirements for absentee voting;
Limit drop boxes;
Ban mobile voting locations;
Bar officials from sending unsolicited absentee applications;
Enable mass challenges to voter eligibility;
Sharply limit out-of-precinct voting;
Ban giving food and drink to voters in line; and
Shorten runoffs from nine to four weeks.
Ok, how does one become an election judge? Can GA Democrats prevent a Lyn Wood or Sydney Powell from that? And what’s next in GA? Can GA Republicans hire Eric Princess to provide “election security”? I think the stage has been set to provide enough political cover now and hints for those lower on the totem pull to begin cheating. Corruption typically works this way.
An election judge is just a term for a person who works at the polls and is involved with helping people to vote. Where I live (MD), you apply for it, and then they contact you if you are selected. If you accept the job, you must take training which went over the various areas involved in the voting process. We also received a book describing the various areas you could work in the polls. We get paid for our work. We are sworn in after your training in MD, we are obliged to serve for 2 years. We signed up for different days. I only signed up for November 3rd, but there were opportunities to sign up to help with early voting. The day was really long: we had to be there at 5:30-6 am and we didn’t leave until all ballots were cast and checked, which was around 9 pm that evening. I worked a poll book and we sign the voter in if they are registered so that they can get a ballot . After signing in with us, they can get their ballot, and after they get their ballot, they can cast their ballot. MD offered both paper ballot and electronic ballot. Ballots are counted and the counter is in no way hooked to an outside system. Ballot count and poll book counts had to be matched or rectified. If they don’t match, the chief judges have to investigate.
I’m a Stacy Abrams supporter. I was surprised she’s not in the cabinet. I think because she wants to challenge Kemp. And I want her to win. As for leadership, she checks all the boxes.
We want Stacy to stay in Georgia-with her experience, she can do the most good.
Voter suppression is vile. Having said that, we should understand the context, at least in a presidential election, which makes it vile. There is no U.S. Constitutional right to vote for a U.S. president that is until a state allows an individual to vote for its electors. It follows that there is no national presidential election, but rather fifty individual state elections for electors which vote for President (and Vice President). Since all fifty states allow people to vote for its presidential electors the voter suppression issue is extremely relevant in our perceived democracy (although historically the U.S. is more of a plutocracy). Timothy’s argument, as always, is compelling and makes sense. Republicans and Democrats at one time or another argued the counterintuitive and, by definition, unpopular notion that a one man/one vote system is nonsense (at least for president (yes, and not using the word nonsense)). As H.L. Mencken (probably a racist) once said “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned my a downright moron.” Many Republicans support the subtleties of voter suppression based on beliefs that, for them, mimic Mencken’s belief and rouse humor from his famous remark (It made more sense to me when Trump was elected). If we collectively want a purer democracy and, more importantly, understand what wanting a democracy actual means, then we need to eliminate the electoral college. Of course, eliminating the electoral college would be very difficult since no matter if via compact (I.e., eliminating the electoral college’s effect) or via Amendment would require certain states to lose extant voting power. Georgia’s election reform law which, when referenced by Republicans will, undoubtedly and euphemistically, include the word “integrity” needs to be understood for what it is, voter suppression. Of course, not all elections are for president and voter suppression for any election may be designed to ultimately support a one party system thereby eliminating democracy from the equation. In Georgia, it appears that a Republican legislature and Governor are designing a system to keep themselves in office while taking advantage of the state’s ability to govern how Presidential electors are elected by the people (still subject to the U.S. Constitution’s XV Amendment). This intent, to me, is what is vile.
If political racism can be compared to an addiction, then reading DuBois's "The Souls of White Folk" and "Of Work and Wealth," both from *Darkwater,* might provide insight into how one gets "hooked."
No doubt this derives as well from the political and economic Slave Power whose infernal habits of thought and behavior carry on quite serenely in their pursuit of happiness.
I have been thinking of them as being brainwashed into the trump cult. Addiction works too. I’m not sure our democracy will be able to withstand them “hitting bottom” and reclaiming their brains.
I think people are afraid of the future and losing their “status”. The increasing inequality between the very rich and the rest of us has not helped in people feeling they have a future. The ones who support voter suppression may have bought into “the politics of eternity” which Trump certainly spouted, where you are a victim of the other and therefore your future is ever under threat by that other and you can only look back on a “glorious past” which of course is a lie as there has never been a glorious past for everyone. When I was young, Jim Crow laws were in full throttle. Since US leadership has not fully addressed the underlying racial issues, it has continued to fester even though some progress has happened. We are in a very bumpy and uncomfortable time now, but there is more possibility for change. Maybe if we put our concerned heads together, we can move the US in the direction of democracy. It’s hard though because I know that I am feeling exhausted after 4-years of Trump and the efforts I made to support people who represent democratic values.
I checked my passport’s expiration date twice this past October.
I think ur right. Demagogues and cult leaders use similar tactics with similar results.
Cult de-programmer Steven Hassan, who was once inducted into the Moonies and became a therapist, researcher and pioneer in techniques to get people to reject undue and illegitimate influence robbing them of their freedom, recently wrote a book called The Cult of Trump. In it he lists the techniques demagogue Trump used, which, exactly as you say, are identical to those used by cult leaders.
Behavior Control
• Control types of clothing
• Regulate diet—food and drink, hunger, and/or fasting
• Manipulate and limit sleep
• Use rewards and punishments to modify behaviors, both positive and negative
• Discourage individualism, encourage groupthink
• Impose rigid rules and regulations
• Encourage and engage in corporal punishment
• Punish disobedience
• Threaten harm to family or friends (by cutting off family/friends)
• Instill dependency and obedience
Information Control
• Deception
- Deliberately withhold information
- Distort information to make it more acceptable
- Systematically lie to the cult member
• Minimize or discourage access to noncult sources of information, including:
- Critical information
- Former members
- Exert control through a cell phone with texting, calls,
- and internet tracking
• Compartmentalize information into Outsider versus Insider doctrines
• Ensure that information is not easily accessible
• Control information at different levels and missions within the group
• Allow only leadership to decide who needs to know what and when
• Encourage spying on other members
• Ensure that individual behavior is monitored by the group
• Extensive use of cult-generated information and propaganda, including:
- Newsletters, magazines, journals, audiotapes, videotapes, YouTube, movies, and other media
- Misquoting statements or using them out of context from noncult sources
Thought Control
• Require members to internalize the group's doctrine as truth
• Adopt the group's "map of reality" as reality
• Instill black and white thinking
• Decide between good versus evil
• Organize people into us versus them (insiders versus outsiders)
• Use loaded language and clichés to constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts, and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzzwords
• Use hypnotic techniques to alter mental states, undermine critical thinking, and even to age-regress the member to childhood states Teach thought stopping techniques that shut down reality testing by stopping negative thoughts and allowing only positive thoughts. These techniques include:
• Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking
• Chanting
Emotional Control
• Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings—some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong, or selfish
• Teach emotion stopping techniques to block feelings of
• hopelessness, anger, or doubt
• Make the person feel that problems are always their own
• fault, never the leader's or the group's fault
• Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness
• Instill fear, such as fear of:
- Thinking independently
- The outside world
- Enemies
- Leaving
• Orchestrate emotional highs and lows through love bombing and by offering praise one moment, and then declaring a person is a horrible sinner
• Phobia indoctrination: inculcate irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader's authority
• Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, brainwashed by family or counselor
• Threaten harm to ex-member and family (threats of cutting off friends/family)
What has saddened me the most since 2016, is to witness so many fall prey to the above mentioned. People who know and work with, that I have trusted with my health, finance, taxes, business legal, and my kids education. I am in a red state and a red county and I see how demagoguery affects professionals and the educated just as much as those without privileges of both means and/or an education. Examples : a doctor who tells his staff and family to welcome Covid infection, believing DT and Scott Atlas over JAMA and NEJM. The lawyer and social worker who believes it’s right to keep kids in cages at the border. The school board member and county commissioner who are anti mask for our city and schools. Another doctor who believes BLM and Antifa are going to burn cities down if DT wins 2020. The Pastor who sermons comparing Biden to a “king”. The CPA who falsely believes those in the blue states are taking more of our money in taxes than we actually get back. All people are at risk from Demagoguery. An education, a great paying job, secure family, a moral/religious/pious person; anyone can be turned into a deplorable (Jan 6th profiles). And now those true believers are altering our election board rules and voter suppression pass into laws. I don’t want to look the other way. I want to have the tools to bring these people in my community to some level of awareness.
Here are some things you can do: contact your elected representative in the House and Senate and tell them how you want them to vote on Federal Bills. There’s a free app called “Causes” that will give you information on bills before the House and Senate, give you the opportunity to Yea or Nay them, comment on them, and allow you to send your comments to your representatives. Call your Representative’s office when Bills come up and give them your opinion. Email your representatives about issues or how you want them to vote. They represent you even if you didn’t vote for them. Follow what bills your State legislature is passing and contact your State representative with feedback. Check out Common Cause to see if you can help them. Help out with local elections by knocking doors, phone banking. Believe me, Republicans are relentlessly doing all those things.
And I forgot the kicker, the HS history and civics teacher who’s an outspoken Libertarian teaching at a public school, whose professional inspiration is Candice Owens. Can’t get more mind boggling than that.
Adding Hannan’s book to my reading list now 🙏
You will enjoy it in the sick way we "enjoy" things that help us to understand what we knew was horrible but not exactly why. As you look into Hannan, also know that he has written more general books than the one about Trump on the subject of cults and on how to help their adherents. I read "Freedom of Mind" and its final chapters are exceptionally practical. This one may not be his most recent general texts so check the publication date. Also, he has a non-profit and has been interviewed in the general press lately. I guess business is booming. Some of this stuff you might find on interlibrary loan. He is a good man. You will see this.
Great book. Enjoyed it, and learned a ton. 🙏
AWESOME!!!!! I am hoping to meet him in six months or a year. I would like to ask his advice on how to apply his model for cult deprogramming to the 30 - 40% of Americans currently suffering from undue/illegitimate influence, although not living in residential cult situations.
So glad the recommendation worked out.
While the metaphor of addiction works here, it doesn’t align with our current medical models of substance use disorders. i think most people would give you the poetic license, since you aren’t writing about SUD, though perhaps not all.
Spot on! The addiction to voter suppression is an evil one. “The forces of evil are well funded and determined”- Sen Raphael Warnock
That was a weird thread. It seemed almost as though the analogy (Voter Suppression: Addiction) underwent semantic drift as the tenor and the vehicle parted ways. The comments are oddly self-centered.
I don't see it as an addiction. I view it as a plan orchestrated to serve the dominant party and the white supremacist world view. It's not that the evil can't help themselves--it is that they know precisely what they are doing and are doubling down on the plan because it is effective for their aims.