Don’t let her off the hook

Yesterday Susan Collins (R-ME) said: “S. 1 would take away the rights of people in each of the 50 states to determine which election rules work best for their citizens.” But what if states enact discriminatory, anti-democratic legislation that suppresses the vote? Should the federal government and Congress sit idly by, doing nothing to right the wrong? Nothing to protect democracy and voting rights?

Collins, not surprisingly, avoided these questions. Not out of ignorance though. Cynicism doesn’t explain it either. That lets her off the hook too easily. Words like crassly anti-democratic, racist, anti-working class, and demagogic for me anyway, better capture her position and mental makeup.

It goes without saying that the position of rest of her Republican colleagues mirrors hers. And like her, they do this shamelessly, even righteously. So much so that is doesn’t strain the ears to hear echoes of the apologists of slavery in the 1850s and the Southern Redeemers in the 1870s.