Joy Pullmann of the Federalist offers an interesting suggestion to Republicans who are bound to be accused of racism under any circumstances.
[W]hy are we playing this stupid game? Why are Georgia’s Republicans play-acting about the reasonability of their law in response to people who very obviously don’t care about facts or reason? Why would Republicans have enacted a lax voting regime in the obviously doomed hope of demonstrating their reasonability to people who categorically oppose reason itself?
It is a scandal that Republican politicians care one whit about getting brutalized in the press for meeting Democrats halfway to insanity. Corporate media don’t vote for them. People who believe Democrat lies about “systemic racism” don’t vote for them. If Republicans were going to be brutalized over passing a relatively loose election law, they should instead have passed a law that provides rigorous and uncontestable election security.
If you’re going to get called a racist no matter what you do, don’t let the lies pay off politically for your opponents. Give them absolutely nothing. When Democrats decide they want to come to the table because they’re getting nothing from lying on TV, make them trade things they actually want for things you actually want. That’s what any political party worthy of earning votes would do.
Until legitimate negotiation can be restored after the shameless name-calling stops, Republican politicians should leave these dogs to their own vomit. Stop wasting energy on bad-faith actors who lie as a tactic to get their hands on increased government force.
Republican politicians will occasionally flirt with better strategies, usually when they don’t have political power and want to woo their disenchanted voters back with a few empty promises. That’s a scandal, and it needs to end, or the party deserves to collapse under its failures to generate a return on their voters’ political investments.
