Progress, Strengthening

NASCAR banned the confederate flag, that laughable, defeated emblem of traitors and racists. The NFL reversed course, and decided that NFL players protesting systemic racism in America should be heard, not shunned. George Floyd matters. He has already changed the world for the better far more than most of us can ever hope to do, in death. George Floyd will always matter. Black lives matter now enjoys the support of a vast majority of the American people, who understand that mouthing meaningless platitudes like "all lives matter' can easily conceal latent racism, just as superficial, strident displays of patriotic fervor can conveniently conceal and yet reveal xenophobic and other forms of resistance to progress. Despite the many desperate, pathetic measures undertaken by the right wing white evangelical Christian community through the Republican party, including the illegitimate election of Donald Trump, and voter suppression of various kinds, progress towards human equality, racial, economic, social, and gender continues and strengthens. the voter suppression is of particular concern to everyone who supports democracy. it often involves establishing barriers to voting, such as requiring new forms of identification hard to obtain for rural poor people, severely limiting the number of polling places in under served areas of high poverty rates, limiting teh amount of time and hours for poling places to be open, limiting the ways in which a person can vote, such as mail in ballots and computer and absentee voting, and making it difficult to run for office financially by imposing fees upon candidates, reducing the oportunity for poor people to participate in the political system. The Republican party, the party of white, wealthy Christians, does not want everyone to vote, wants to strictly limit the franchise wo people likely to vote for politicians and policies favoring conservative ideals. If every person over the age of eighteen in America voted, no Republican would ever be elected to office, and there would be not only a dominant Democratic party, but socialist and green parties as well, and they would win elections. Polls consistently show that the United States is a majority liberal country, with progressive beliefs on every issue. that's why Democrats try to expand voter participation, and Republicans try to reduce it. That is why, as its name implies, the Republicans want Democracy by indirect representation, while Democrats prefer democracy by direct citizen control. The current conservative trend is towards government by demagogue, and it msut be stopped by the will of the people, all of the people.