Wait, what the hell is a "Ni-CLANG"?
The "Ni-CLANG Event Horizon" is a moment where conservative politicians and just about anyone else who isn't particularly fond of blacks and other American minorities dispenses with the various dog whistles and code words and simply let their feelings known, either deliberately or via Freudian slip. In other words, it's a swift devolution from Lee Atwater's theory on veiled bigotry back to unabashed, open bigotry as once enjoyed in large swathes of the country.
In short, someone fucks around and calls someone a "nigger" on primetime TV.
Of course, calling someone a "nigger" is about as fashionable as having someone dragged off the back of a pickup truck - it's just something that no one in polite society would dare ginny up the stones to do, thanks largely to social ostracism and, in the right environment, a swift and solid punch to the face. Unfortunately, conservatives are quickly running out of new code words to use and those dog whistles are getting harder to hear with each passing day. It's just a matter of time before someone, somewhere rapidly approaches the dreaded "Ni-CLANG Event Horizon" and just falls right off the edge.
Today's post title comes courtesy of Franklin County, Ohio GOP Chairman Doug Preisse. No, he hasn't quite reached that dreaded event horizon just yet, but it's coming on as fast.
“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, chairman of the county Republican Party and elections board member who voted against weekend hours, in an email to The Dispatch. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”
Sorry, Doug. You're being far from fair and reasonable.
Ohio is one of several states that are a hotbed of controversy thanks to ongoing efforts to restrict and effectively disenfranchise Democrat voters through various means, from voter roll purging and voter ID requirements to restricting voting hours. After getting caught with its pants down on that latter issue, the state came up with the idea of applying uniform voting rules across the entire state. Seems reasonable, until people found out that the same restrictions Democrat-leaning counties were facing would be applied everywhere. Which brings us to Doug's unfortunate quote.
So, what's the big deal about voting hours?
34 U.S. states allow early voting. It's a good way for those who otherwise wouldn't be able to show up at the polls on Election Day to cast their vote (i.e. deployed military personnel, etc.) During the weekday, voting is restricted to 8am - 5pm, unless evening voting is allowed, which stretches on to about 7pm. Night and weekend voting allows those who are usually at work during weekday hours to come out and vote early at their convenience.
Not everyone can take off from work for the day or pop into the nearest precinct during their 30-minute or 1-hour (if you're lucky) lunch break. Eliminate night and weekend early voting and you have a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't be able to vote at all. Oddly enough, many of those folks usually vote Dem. Funny how that works out.
I have to digress - it's not just about keeping those dangblasted ni-CLANG from voting. It's about Republicans doing whatever they can to win. That's right, folks. The GOP's star candidates for the presidency are so milquetoast that the only way they can eke out a win is to outright rig the vote in their favor. Since not even the U.S. Supreme Court can tip the scales their way, Republicans are pushing effort after effort to deny those who would most likely vote Democrat the right to do just that. If that doesn't tell you how desperate these morons are, practically nothing will.
I've always thought the GOP's ultimate goal was achieving a one-party state, damn the consequences and damn the ideals of what this country is supposed to stand for. The political cap-peeling of Don Siegelman and the rest of Alabama's powerful Democrat movers and shakers was an unsung canary in a flooded coal mine. This election, shit is gonna get real with each passing moment.
