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<\/p>\nDemocrats and progressives generally believe voting should be a universal right easily available to all citizens, and it\u2019s not the government\u2019s role to decide who is knowledgeable enough, motivated enough or virtuous enough to vote.\u00a0Many conservative and Republican leaders disagree, however, suggesting that American citizens who do not meet such standards shouldn\u2019t vote, or at least should be discouraged from voting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For example, Andrew McCarthy stated in National Review:\u00a0\u201cIt would be far better if the franchise were not exercised by ignorant, civics-illiterate people.”\u00a0Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican, warned of the dangers of voting by the \u201cuninformed.\u201d Kevin Williamson, also at National Review, asked whether America \u201cwould be better served by having fewer \u2014 but better \u2014 voters.\u201d Arizona GOP state Rep.\u00a0John Kavanaugh commented: \u201cQuantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes as well.\u201d And so on.<\/p>\n
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has also articulated the view that Americans don\u2019t have a universal personal right to vote.\u00a0 As an appeals court judge (in a dissenting opinion), she claimed that voting is a civic right belonging not to all citizens but\u00a0only to \u201cvirtuous citizens\u201d who exercise it for the benefit of the community.<\/p>\n
Really, what could possibly go wrong with the government deciding who among us is “virtuous”\u00a0enough or “informed”\u00a0enough to be allowed to vote? \u00a0<\/p>\n
Some folks accuse these conservative thought leaders of being hypocrites, authoritarians and racists, whose real intent is to discourage voting by groups\u00a0who generally vote for Democrats \u2014 for instance, Black people and other traditionally marginalized communities.<\/p>\n
I say, such accusations are unfair! These edgy conservative thought leaders would (no doubt) agree that ignorant and civically illiterate Republican\u00a0supporters shouldn\u2019t be allowed to vote. For example:<\/p>\n
\u25baAccording to a Reuters poll,\u00a06 in 10 Republicans believe former President Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election (although he lost by over 7 million votes); and about\u00a0half of GOP voters believe the Jan.\u00a06\u00a0Capitol attack was a left-wing “false flag” operation and\/or a “peaceful protest”\u00a0(although about\u00a0140 law enforcement officers were injured,\u00a0one was killed\u00a0and two died by suicide).\u00a0<\/p>\n
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"I voted" stickers on Nov. 3, 2020, in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo: Chris Pietsch\/The Register-Guard)<\/span><\/p>\n \u25baEven more shocking, a poll conducted by the Survey Center on American Life showed that nearly 3 in 10 Republicans believe the QAnon fantasy (for instance, \u201cDonald Trump has been secretly fighting a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites\u201d).\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u25baAs recently as December 2017, 51% of Republicans in a YouGov survey\u00a0said they thought\u00a0former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya\u00a0\u2014 despite ample evidence that he was born in the United States\u00a0and exactly zero evidence that he was born anywhere else.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stacey Abrams: <\/strong>Corporate America must pick a side on voting rights, prevent a Georgia repeat<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n \u25baThe level of civic illiteracy and ignorance\u00a0among Republican voters regarding COVID-19 is also disturbing. For example, in a poll analysis from Brookings in early September,\u00a041% of Republicans believed the flu (about 22,000 deaths\u00a0each\u00a0year) or automobile accidents (more than\u00a032,000 deaths per year) caused more deaths than COVID-19 (which killed about 375,000 Americans in 2020). That is\u00a0impressively out of touch with reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n If citizens take so little interest in America\u2019s civic affairs that they believe this sort of nonsense, I\u2019m sure Andrew McCarthy and company\u00a0would agree they qualify as nonvirtuous, low-quality, \u201cignorant, civics-illiterate people\u201d \u2014 and we\u2019d all be better off if they didn\u2019t vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Further, I think we can agree that\u00a0“virtuous”\u00a0and “quality”\u00a0voters should get their information from reliable sources.\u00a0A majority of Republicans trust and rely on Fox News and its shows (such as “Tucker Carlson Tonight”).\u00a0Fun fact: When defending Tucker from libel charges, Fox News\u2019\u00a0lawyers claimed (and a federal judge agreed), as NPR put it: \u201cYou Literally Can’t Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You.\u201d\u00a0So, I ask you, if someone trusts and believes in Fox News and Tucker Carlson\u2019s facts (as many GOP voters do), can that person really be sufficiently informed, knowledgeable\u00a0and virtuous\u00a0to be worthy of voting in an American election?<\/p>\n Complex reality: <\/strong>Caron Nazario case shows hate is an American disease, not just a white one<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n If all this talk in GOP circles about “ignorant,” “uninformed”\u00a0voters\u00a0is code for Americans who refuse to vote Republican,\u00a0these pundits are (at best) authoritarian wannabes\u00a0and (at worst) racist bigots.<\/p>\n But in the spirit of bipartisanship, let\u2019s assume good faith on the part of these conservatives’\u00a0concerns about ignorant, low-knowledge\u00a0voters.\u00a0Surely, they\u2019d be highly supportive of efforts to discourage voting by these objectively uninformed and ignorant\u00a0Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n Personally, I look forward to future editorials and public statements by conservative leaders about the dangers of allowing low-knowledge\u00a0Republicans to vote \u2014 though that\u2019s probably about as likely as Trump admitting he actually lost the election.\u00a0<\/p>\nLed astray by unreliable sources<\/h2>\n