Uh-Oh: Stacey Abrams Now Supports Jim Crow-Style Laws - Her Website Says So
A month or two ago, election integrity laws that required identification for registration or voting were the “new Jim Crow” or some permutation of that. Now, the Democrats swear they were never against it — especially since embracing it represents the only chance they have of getting voting legislation passed.
But don’t call it selling out. Quoth a Washington Post headline on the subject: “Stacey Abrams and the Democrats’ evolution on voter ID.”
Ah, yes, an “evolution,” not a flip-flop or hypocrisy. As The Post reported, Democratic Darwinianism on voter ID was touched off by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who proposed compromise caveats to the Democrats’ federal election power-grab, colloquially known as the For the People Act.
“It still isn’t clear exactly what will happen with Sen. Joe Manchin III’s middle-ground proposal on voting rights. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is planning to bring up the For the People Act, which Manchin (D-W.Va.) opposes in its current form, for a vote Tuesday, while saying he will continue working with Manchin,” The Post reported on Monday.
“But that’s just about getting to all 50 Democratic votes; getting to the necessary 60 still looks prohibitive, based on early GOP reviews of even Manchin’s friendlier proposal.
“But regardless of what happens with the bill, Manchin’s proposal has moved the needle in one significant way: signaling a softening by key Democrats on voter ID.”
One of the most notably softened was Stacey Abrams, loser of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race (although she’s yet to concede — perhaps she believes she could somehow be “installed”?) and liberal voting rights guru.
Abrams told CNN last week that she “could accept this compromise, what Joe Manchin laid out, even if voter ID was part of it” and seemed somewhat irritated anyone ever thought Democrats were against voter ID requirements.
“That’s one of the fallacies of Republican talking points that have been deeply disturbing,” Abrams said.
“No one has ever objected to having to prove who you are to vote. It’s been part of our nation’s history since the inception of voting.”
Really, now? The official Republican Party Twitter account contrasted Abrams’ supposed stance now with her stance in April, when she was on her “new Jim Crow” kick.
Democrat Stacey Abrams suddenly supports voter ID. pic.twitter.com/uMpM5bVHUe
— GOP (@GOP) June 20, 2021
“Voters without a driver’s license or state ID must surrender their personal information and risk identify theft just to receive an absentee ballot,” Abrams said at the height of the Georgia election integrity law to-do. “And then there are the 200,000 Georgia voters who don’t have either ID and the punitive free ID that is not free when you factor in the cost of transportation and the cost of an underlining document.”
This, by the way, was when she was flogging her website, “Stop Jim Crow 2,” according to Fox News — and arguing one of the most racist measures in the Georgia bill was requiring voter ID for absentee ballots.
As the New York Post noted, Abrams “has been careful to walk a fine line on voter ID, with her definition of the term widely differing from the Republican conception of photo IDs being matched to faces at the polls.”
For instance, at an April Senate hearing, she told senators that she didn’t necessarily object to voter ID, but that “what I’ve objected to is restrictive voter identification laws that narrow the set of permissible materials.”
This would have involved “voter ID” such as a utility bill or a bank statement to pass muster if a state enacted ID laws. If there were interest, one would guess Manchin would even have gone further — and Democrats would have followed him, since voter ID requirements remain popular among American voters, including minorities.
Whatever the case, this little bit of sugar sprinkled atop a poison pill wasn’t enough to move Senate Republicans; all 50 Senate Republicans voted against the For the People Act when it came up in the Senate, with the Manchin alterations not even discussed.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the bill a “transparently partisan plan to tilt every election in America permanently,” according to USA Today.
“But whichever label Democrats slap on their bill, the substance remains the same: It’s always been a plan to rewrite the ground rules of American politics.”
And if you opposed it, at least a few months ago, you were in favor of “Jim Crow 2.” That’s what Abrams’ website opposing the Georgia election integrity bill was called, for the love of Frederick Douglass. That was ridiculous enough, but now she’s going to pretend she was never against voter ID — she just thought the Republicans were doing it wrong. That’s why she essentially called them segregationists. It’s an evolution, people.
How in the world can anyone take this woman seriously? If you live by the “it’s racist” sword, you die by the “it’s racist” sword. In just one television appearance, Abrams has managed to out herself as pro-Jim Crow.
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