Killing Democracy
Winston-Salem Journal: Our view: Wearing down democratic values
Holding people at gunpoint as they cast ballots is not the only way to undermine democracy and exert power. Some in North Carolina are just a bit more adroit in their tactics.
In the case of Moore v. Harper, scheduled to come before the U.S. Supreme Court this month, N.C. Republican legislators are arguing that they should have the unfettered right to set the rules for our state’s elections, free from any restraints exerted by North Carolina courts — or the N.C. Constitution. As we’ve written before, “In practical terms, that means that state legislators could not only gerrymander to their twisted hearts’ content, but in 2024, they could assign their Electoral College votes to whomever they please — even if their decision differs from that of the majority of voters in their state.
“At that point, our votes would no longer have any meaning.”
It’s a tactic that would lead to never-ending conservative outrage if Democrats were in charge and tried it — and rightly so.
We live in a time of extremes, in which one major political party, seeing its future electoral prospects slip away, has desperately expanded the means by which it's willing to hold onto power. Some of its leaders have indulged in extreme gerrymandering, phony myths of "voter fraud," talk of "1776-style" revolution — and the unwavering promotion of a Big Lie. Where it will stop, nobody knows.
The November elections promise to be consequential, to say the least.
