REPUBLICANS CONTINUE TO SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE VOTES ARE!

 

                    …The less than honest, Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell

 

Mitch McConnell is a longtime opponent of any limits on campaign donations

 

 

Let’s face it, one of the Republicans that I sincerely do not like or trust is the Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

One of the reasons is that he is second to none in protecting First Amendment rights of corporations.  Especially, when the subject is money. 

McConnell, is a longtime opponent of any limits on campaign donations as it's what he calls “A form of speech.” 

He has often defended unlimited dark money in his lofty terms.

In 2012, The Post reported on a speech he gave to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).  The AEI  was founded in 1938, and is commonly associated with conservatism.

Per McConnell: “It is critically important for all conservatives, and indeed all Americans, to stand up and unite in defense of the freedom to organize around the causes we believe in, and against any effort that would constrain our ability to do so,” McConnell said this in the speech at AEI, the Washington group that supports free enterprise.

McConnell, long an opponent of restrictions on any political contributions, he has cited a Democratic proposal to require corporations and unions to disclose their spending on political advertising.

He said it would require “government-compelled disclosure of contributions to all grass-roots groups, which is far more dangerous than its proponents are willing to admit.”

“This is nothing less than an effort by the government itself to expose its critics to harassment and intimidation, either by government authorities or through third-party allies,” McConnell said.

McConnell has even filed multiple amicus briefs in campaign cases insisting the rights of free speech and association implicit in corporate campaign donations are “fundamental” and “of central importance.”

But when it comes to actual speech from corporations, specifically, speech denouncing Republicans’ voter suppression efforts, McConnell actually then loses it!.

McConnell, in a recent written statement, deemed the exercise of such First Amendment rights as “bullying.”  “It’s jaw-dropping to see powerful American institutions not just permit themselves to be bullied, but join in the bullying themselves. … Our private sector must stop taking cues from the Outrage-Industrial Complex. Americans do not need or want big business to amplify disinformation or react to every manufactured controversy with frantic left-wing signaling.” 

He is dismayed by consistent advocacy plainly protected by the First Amendment.  “From election law to environmentalism to radical social agendas to the Second Amendment, parts of the private sector keep dabbling in behaving like a parallel government.”  But much worse, he threatens retribution: “Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order.”

And McConnell is hardly alone.

After Major League Baseball announced it will move its All-Star Game from Georgia.  And the  Republicans vowed revenge.  Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), who is another strident defender of corporate free speech, now sings a different tune:

So, corporations can punish political opponents by giving campaign donations to their friends, but not in the adopting of business practices they believe are in their own interest?

Republicans at the state level have also gotten into the retaliation act. In Georgia, Delta Air Lines issued a statement opposing a package of voting rules that, among other things.  It imposes new barriers to voting by mail; eliminates mobile voting centers; puts a cap on the number of drop boxes and shortens the time to return absentee ballots. 

The Republicans retaliated. Forbes reports that  last week: “Georgia Republicans voted to strip Delta Air Lines of a jet fuel tax break worth tens of millions of dollars Wednesday after the company u-turned to unequivocally condemn the state’s widely-criticized voting restrictions, joining a growing list of executives who have criticized the new restrictions amid a debate over boycotting Georgia’s biggest companies.”

You must remember: Republicans sought to suppress voting by invoking the “Big Trump Lie” of voter fraud and “irregularities,” which was repeatedly debunked in more than 60 court cases brought against election results. Now, when businesses oppose those efforts and exercise their First Amendment rights, which Republicans ordinarily consider “fundamental” and worthy of protection, they seek to use the power of the government to punish those whose speech they dislike.  It seems they do not like the First Amendment any more than the 14th or the 15th when it comes to robust access to the ballot for voters they suspect will support their opponents.

So, their march to bully-boy authoritarianism continues as they prove once again that they are no friends of multiracial, robust democracy.

McConnel and his fellow Republicans are continuing to support Trump and the “Big Lie” because they think they have to support him because that’s where the Republican votes are today.  They don’t have the concept that if they were to support the real conservative truth tellers, they might just get back the original party that used to support those that tell the truth.

But then, that’s not in Mitch McConnell current attitude as he has said that if Donald Trump were to again be the nominee in 2024, Mitch would support him.

Copyright G. Ater 2021