Creep. Creep. Creep.

First, they legitimized white supremacists when Donald Trump referred to “very fine people on both sides” of the violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Now, they want to bring back the poll tax and the literacy test. Well, not quite. But the COVID-19 pandemic has given Republicans their most effective means of voter suppression in decades. Those taxes and tests kept citizens from voting outright. These days, Republicans are giving them a choice: Risk your life or forfeit your right to vote.

But voting isn’t a right if it’s not protected — and instead of protecting citizens from a deadly disease, most Republicans want to expose us to it.

Here’s the breakdown of a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: 67% (two-thirds) of respondents want mail-in voting this November. Fewer than half (44%) of Republicans do.

Those Republicans’ paper-thin nonargument is being made by (to no one’s surprise) the same guy who talked about white supremacists being “very fine people.”  

“People cheat,” he says. “There’s a lot of dishonesty going along with mail-in voting,” he says.

Wanted: Taxes, not votes

Never mind that the government accepts our taxes by mail. It allows us to register for Selective Service, for driver licenses, for car licenses by mail. It runs a postal service that guarantees delivery. Never mind any of that. The mail is good enough for the IRS, but not for a federal election? Give. Me. A. Break.

Oh, and never mind, either, that Trump’s own handpicked task force found zero evidence of voter fraud. It’s routine for him to contradict his own appointees — and himself. And he makes assertions without evidence as a matter of course.

For example: People who took a drug Trump suggested for treating COVID-19 died at higher rates than those who didn’t take it. He’s not a doctor, nor did he even play one on TV. (He played a successful businessman, but he wasn’t that, either.) Still, he insists on practicing medicine without a license — and with a megaphone.

People died because of it.

Read that again: PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE OF IT.

Liberty or death?

Now, it’s possible that people will die exercising their right to vote, too. And once again, it will be because Donald Trump and his cronies are making a statement, without evidence, for the sole purpose of staying in power: “Mail-in voting invites fraud.” They don’t really believe that. They’re just using it a pretext to suppress voter turnout — something they’ve been doing for a very long time.

Don’t take my word for it. Just ask them:

“Traditionally, it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places.” — Justin Clark, senior political advisor to Donald Trump’s re-election campaign

What if mail-in voting were allowed nationwide?

“This will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives. ... (It will) certainly drive up turnout.” — David Ralston, Georgia State House Speaker

It would spark “levels of voting that, if you’d ever agree to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” — Trump

This, of course, is nothing more than hyperbole. Gerrymandering has locked in conservative districts as “safe” for years or decades to come. At worst (or, in my view, at best) Republicans would be forced to moderate positions that don’t jibe with those of the vast majority of Americans. Then, maybe reasonable-minded voters would once again have two viable options when they go to the ballot box.

Minority rule

But Republicans don’t want to change. They have no interest in wooing the majority, and they haven’t for a while. They want minority government, the same concept that sustained regimes like, oh, I don’t know, apartheid in South Africa. Gee, wasn’t that a white-supremacist government? Trump would probably argue that there were some “very fine people” in P.W. Botha’s government.

Republicans’ thirst for power is why they won’t reform the Electoral College to create a true system of one person, one vote. It’s why they consistently push voter I.D. laws. It’s why they tenaciously oppose things like motor-voter, election holidays and mail-in ballots. It’s fine to require earners to pay taxes and young men to sign up for Selective Service, but automatically registering them to vote? Oh, no! That would never do!

And it’s much better to expose them to a deadly virus than let them vote by mail!

That’s what Republicans did in Wisconsin, when they refused to delay that state’s primary election April 7. As a result, at least 19 people are sick with coronavirus. If any of them die, the Republicans will have blood on their hands

“Wait a minute,” you might say. “This doesn’t look like voter suppression not look like voter suppression to me. After all, the Republicans insisted on holding the election.”

But a closer look reveals the truth: A delay in the election would have given residents more time and opportunity to vote by mail, which would likely have driven up turnout. (Even without a pandemic, voting in person requires more planning, effort and access to transportation — something poorer people may not have.) So, yes, Republicans wanted to limit voter turnout in Wisconsin. And they used the threat of catching the virus to do so.

Health and welfare

Despite the Republicans’ best efforts, forcing people to choose between their health and their voting rights didn’t change the outcome in Wisconsin. But that doesn’t mean it had no effect: The victorious liberal Supreme Court candidate did 10 percentage points better in mail-in voting than at the polls. If more people had voted by mail, the margin could have been even bigger.

Which has led Republicans to cry foul. It’s unfair that mail-in voting works against them, they say. But if that’s true, it’s also “unfair” that votes by blacks, women and metropolitan-area voters work against them. Why not limit those votes, too? And, indeed, that’s exactly what conservatives have tried to do, systematically, for years.

Once upon a time, they tried to suppress voting by charging people a fee to vote — a poll tax, which was declared unconstitutional in 1966. Alternatively, they sought to keep people from voting by forcing them to take literacy tests, a measure outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Such tactics were aimed largely at black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.

And guess what? Black Americans are at greater risk of dying from coronavirus than the general population. How convenient for Republicans. They don’t need illegal taxes and tests to keep black voters away from the polls. All they have to do is scare them with statistics — statistics largely driven by the fact that blacks have less-stable jobs, worse medical insurance and less access to health care.

All of which would be remedied by universal health care — something Republicans (of course) oppose.

Trump’s disdain for health care has long been apparent. He has tried repeatedly, via legislation and the courts, to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. He fed the current crisis even before it began by largely disbanding the White House’s pandemic response team in 2018, and he made things worse with his inept response to COVID-19.

How the virus helps Republicans

Republicans don’t want people of color, people without health insurance and people facing economic hardship to vote, because those people tend not to support the GOP.  The coronavirus gives them an ally in the fight: If people in these categories stay home from the polls, Republicans win. If they contract coronavirus and are too sick to turn out for the next election, Republicans win. And yes, if they die from the virus, Republicans win.

This is not to say that Republicans who oppose mail-in voting want these people dead. They simply care more about staying in power than they do about voters’ health or welfare.

Or their right to vote.

Now, they get to pursue their goals without poll taxes or literacy tests. Without goons or mobs keeping blacks away from the polls, the way they did in the middle of the 20th century. They don’t need them with COVID-19 on the loose. It’s their most effective 21st century weapon in their fight against democracy.

And it’s deadly.

Featured photo: https://www.vperemen.com / CC BY-SA 4.0