Resisting Progress, By Any Means

CHANGE IS NOT ALWAYS PROGRESS, but progress is always change. The more virulently someone resists progressive change, the more extreme their actions taken in opposition to it. Consider, for example, the American conservative community, the stronghold of resistance to progressivism. In 2010, the once a decade U.S. census was conducted, the results of which are routinely used to reapportion congressional and state representational districts; redistricting, based on updated population distributions. The republican party was right on top of it, and, firmly in control of most state legislatures, controlled the redrawing of electoral districts, both state and national. What emerged from this process was a redistricting map in which likely democratic voters were deliberately concentrated into fewer districts, in order to reduce their impact on all the other districts, so as to increase the chances of republicans getting elected in more at both the state and federal level. The scheme worked like a charm. Because democrats were unprepared and unable to provide a balancing influence, we will be stuck until 2020 with an electoral district map which greatly favors conservative candidates, no matter whether democrats outnumber republicans in any given region or state. That's why republicans are getting elected is disproportionate numbers across the country. The scam is called "gerrymandering", a play on the word "salamander", based on the bizarre shape which manipulated districts assume after corrupt redistricting. (see:Elbridge Gerry, revolutionary era politician) The republican party, in the great tradition of "tricky" Dick Nixon, has even more devious tricks up its sleeve. Generally, the more people who vote, the less chance of winning conservative candidates have, because the outcome of elections in America is often determined b whether the poor and the minorities vote. The ploy here consists of screaming bloody murder about election fraud, which research clearly indicates is a rare occurrence in American elections. They claim that dead people are voting, that people who are ineligible for one reason or another are voting, such as unregistered people and people with felony convictions. Again, such cases have repeatedly been proven to be exceedingly rare. Thus republican controlled state legislatures enact stringent voting regulations, requiring I.D's to be presented at the voting place, reducing early and absentee voting, eliminating election day registration, reducing voting rolls by any means possible, remindful pf the poll taxes of yesteryear. If these voting restrictions seem minor and easily met, reconsider. There are millions of poor people in America for which many basic forms of personal identification are hard to come by, for various reasons, usually financial. The fact that affluent people fail or refuse to understand this does not make it untrue. In a democracy, the easier it is to vote, the more people who vote, the stronger the democracy. We should make it easier, not more difficult to cast a ballot and participate in the very process upon which freedom and democracy is predicated. We should avoid making voting harder to accomplish. Conservative republicans of course realize all this, but to them it doesn't matter. Nothing matters when pursuing an agenda designed to preclude the forces of change and progress from having a voice in the democratic process.