I’m listening on C-SPAN to the Senate debate the Voting Rights Bill and at times I have to turn it off because my head will explode if I hear lies, fear, race-baiting, jingoism, and the classic psychology technique of projection used by Republicans!!!!

Let’s start off with Truth — Facts, Truth and Things like that…

1. Joe Biden won the election fair and square, with a hard-than-it should-have-been fight against the most corrupt President ever.
2. Donald Trump is … amazingly enough… still corrupt, telling lie after lie after about Biden’s victory.
3. Senators who continue to tell the same lies know that Trump’s lies are lies. Therefore, they’re in there with him, corrupt and hoping not to get caught or they’re using the lie to create fear and obtain their own political aims. Either of those is immoral and corrupt.
4. There was an attempt by Republicans to literally take over the government. WE ALL SAW IT on January 6, 2021. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a single Democrat involved in supporting the insurrection. Democrats aren’t the threat to our government. Republicans are! Not all Republicans, but a great portion of them, under the thumb of Mitch McConnell, who fashions himself as the Republican President/Power Broker.
5. In states with Republican assemblies/state senates, more and more are making it harder to vote. In Florida, the governor has proposed cutting out Black districts and — more to the point — having a group of police to “watch” polling places and arrest people they suspect — just like the Ku Klux Klan used to (and he knows the tradition).
6. The Constitution says that states can do what they want, but if things get out of whack re: people’s votes, the Congress can (and maybe “should”) make laws to straighten it out. That means that it’s not an illegal takeover of the electoral process. It’s well within Congress’ right to protect voters rights.
7. While on that topic, it’s not illegal or a power move to make people protect themselves. I hate masks, but they’re an inconvenience, not “the entire loss of freedom!” Stopping breathing would be an entire loss of freedom. That’s what masks attempt to prevent. That’s what the vaccine is meant to prevent. Taking a minor bit of irritation and conflating it with loss of life is the very “victim mentality” that Republicans have said Democratic policies advocate.

So no one is trying to overthrow the government but the Republicans. They say it’s the Biden administration and Democrats. Once again, projection is not a policy. The Republican have no policy — theirs simply is “not what the Democrats say!”.

Now, with that said, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski proved me wrong today by talking about the bill, what she liked about it, what she disliked about it and how she has tried to reach across the aisle. I thank her for that. She proves that the entire party is not morally dead. By the end of her speech, I still don’t know if she’ll vote for it, but she at least discussed and debated the idea. The reason there’s such consternation about all of this is that Republicans, under McConnell, have said they won’t even discuss it. She’s at least done that.

Now, about the filibuster: I am generally not for making a structural change unless the house is falling. Congress’ reputation is broken and falling fast. Over the course of time, I have listened to the debate and I now believe that the filibuster as it currently stands is designed to kill legislation, rather than to make things happen. People change the filibuster all the time. Mostly, it seems, has been Mitch McConnell’s Senate, when it was in the majority.

The Republicans are still not debating (except Murkowsi). They’re throwing memes into the public sphere. They’re using talking points and spin. They’re using lies and projection. Even if their mouths are making sound, they are not debating.

If they have no good ideas and they have no real debate, the bill should pass. Voting Rights should be protected. Will it pass? Everything seems to indicate “no”. Why? Because the fillibuster is standing in the way. It’s time to adjust the fillibuster. It’s time to let more people vote, rather than less. It’s time to Pass the John Lewis Act.

Resisting with more peace, now that that’s off my chest…

John