Griper Blade: GOP's Own Data Proves Voter ID Laws are About Suppressing the Vote

For years, the right has argued that the United States is a republic, not a democracy. The argument is deeply flawed, in that it's an "apples exclude oranges" statement. A republic is a structure, democracy is a system. To say that one rules out the other is like saying a grilled cheese sandwich is not grilled, but a sandwich. The United States is a constitutional republic that uses the system of democracy. To say anything else is simply to lie. We vote people into office, who in turn become professional voters. There's democracy all over the damned place.

I'd always assumed that Republicans made this argument as a matter of simple rhetorical dishonesty; Democrat = democracy, Republican = republic. If the United States was founded as a republic only, Republicans -- by virtue of their party's name -- could convince the weak-minded and logic-challenged that Republicans were closer to the founders' original vision. Not the best or most rational argument, but -- let's face it -- the GOP doesn't waste a lot of time on outreach to brainiacs. Think back to the Tea Party protests for examples of the deep thinkers the party attracts.

But there's a darker reason for the argument; Republicans aren't big fans of democracy. Here's the co-founder of the rightwing Heritage Institute and the Moral Majority, the late Paul Weyrich:

Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome -- good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]