Maine Sen. Susan Collins just added her name as the 50th Senate supporter of the SAVE America Act — a massive voter suppression bill being pushed by Donald Trump.
Married women won't be able to vote without a passport because of Susan Collins.
ICYMI - ‘If there is fraud poisoning American elections, it is not at the ballot box. It is the fraud of lying and the years of false claims, distortions and misinformation perpetuated by Trump and his acolytes’
"When KS🚨did a version of the #SaveAct, it purged ~40 ineligible voters - & stopped 31K legal citizens from registering to vote (12% of all applicants). That's 775 legal voters lost for every 1 ineligible voter."
-J Reidl
"Are you one of nearly 70M American women who changed their names when they got married? 🙋♀️
Republicans in Congress want to make it harder for you to vote."
-H Clinton
69 million women shouldn't have to choose between their married name and their right to vote. The #SAVEAct is a direct attack on the 19th Amendment. Let’s stop #HR22 before it stops us. 🗳️🚫
Tweet from Rep. Mark Pocan discussing the cost and documents required for voting, including a passport, a birth certificate, and military service papers, criticizing these as modern-day poll taxes.
🚨Emergency Mobilization🚨 SAVE US FROM THE SAVE ACT! Utah State Capitol inside the Rotunda Monday, April 14th @ 2PM #RISE #RALLY #RESIST #Politics #USPol #USA #UTPol #Utah
A couple of weeks ago on the other account, I wrote a very short thread about my increasing frustration with Very Serious PeopleTM asking if Trump really means it every time he starts rambling on about all the fascist shit he wants to do. In that post I mostly noted that Trump, a fascist, literally has no idea how to tell a joke, has at least tried to do all the nazi shit people thought he was joking about in the past, and fascist in general were not known for their sense of humor. Whether or not Trump is actually able to accomplish all the nazi crap he says he wants to do, is often a matter of debate. But if he says it, he means to give it a try.
What brought that outburst on, was an article about a democracy watchdog group warning that people weren't taking Trump's threats to circumvent term limits and run for (or make himself) president again in 2028 seriously enough, and that was a bad idea - a position I agree with wholeheartedly.
I'm bringing this up now because apparently the slightly less disgusting Cuomo had noted fascist propagandist Steve Bannon on his podcast this week; Bannon remains a very close ally of Trump and a big supporter of the regime even though he's not actually working in the government this time. During that discussion, Bannon revealed that the Trumpist political movement is actively working on ways to secure a third Trump term already:
'We're Working On It': Bannon Says Planning Underway for Trump 2028
"Appearing on journalist Chris Cuomo's NewsNation podcast, far-right mouthpiece Steve Bannon demurred when asked if he had ambitions to run for president himself, replying: "No, and I'm a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028, so I've already endorsed President Trump."
When Cuomo pressed Bannon on the existence of term limits that would bar Trump from seeking a third term, Bannon said, "We're working on it. I think we’ll have a couple of alternatives, let’s say that. We’ll see what the definition of term limit is."
"We've had greater long shots than Trump 2028 and we've got a lot of stuff we're working on there," Bannon added. "We're not prepared to talk about it publicly, but in a couple months I think we will be."
Setting aside the fact that this podcast episode should not exist, because Chris Cuomo shouldn't be inviting fascists on his show to normalize fascist ideology and openly lie on behalf of the Trump regime with only mild pushback, I watched the clip; aside from what's quoted here, the only real notable addition I would make is that Cuomo let Bannon duck a question about whether or not the fascists would try another insurrection to keep Trump in power by touting how popular the regime was, and implying Trump would simply win anyway. Let's just say this wasn't Chris's finest hour, even if he did avoid literally agreeing with the nazi propagandist on his show, about nazi shit, like California Governor Gavin Newsom did.
What Bannon didn't shy away from is revealing here, is that Trump absolutely intends to run again in 2028 and his minion strategists are working on a way to circumvent the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution which would otherwise forbid that. As I've mentioned in a number of articles, we seem to be seeing a pattern of the fascist right transforming Trump's seemingly fantastical ravings, into a type of "unreality" enforced as if it were fact by the larger fascist movement, and then transformed into real and direct action by the regime itself. Given the reality that Trump has repeatedly mused about clearing the way for him to run for a third term in multiple public settings, and we now have a fascist propagandist who is closely allied with Trump revealing that the larger regime is "working on" making that a reality, I think we can safely dispense with the idea that these guys are joking.
So will the nazis get away with this? I mean, who knows; it's not easy to legally change the Constitution, but I have no idea if Trump even cares what the laws say anyway - his actions in power thus far suggest that he literally does not. Right now, the nazis seem to be in the planning and manufacturing popular support stage of this particular autocratic fuckery project, but I'd be inclined to take Bannon at his word when he says we'll be hearing more about it soon, because while Steve is a nazi liar, he rarely lies without a purpose. What I can say is that since Trump was sworn in as president, I can think of dozens and dozens of things he's done that Very Serious PeopleTM swore he couldn't do, and so far he appears to be getting away with the vast majority of it.
Whether it's acceptable to mention it in polite discourse or not, the fascist GOP's plan to formalize national targeted voter suppression based on fascist conspiracy theories designed to explain why a bloviating reality TV show nazi lost the 2020 US presidential election, is a form of election rigging. We've already discussed Der Führer's recent (blatantly illegal) executive order to do just that, but the Republican plan to fuck elections and create their own permanent Pork Reich is a multi-pronged assault. One of the key spearheads in this quest to, again, rig elections by disenfranchising millions of voters who are statistically more likely to support the opposition party, is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or Save Act, currently being cooked up in a GOP fascist-controlled Congress.
Republicans are quietly trying to disenfranchise millions of voters
"According to research by the Brennan Center for Justice, more than 21 million US citizens of voting age don’t have easy access to proof of citizenship documents, and only about half of American adults have a passport, while millions do not have access to paper copies of their birth certificates. Married women whose legal names do not match their birth certificates could be disenfranchised by the Save Act, and folks looking to obtain lost or misplaced birth certificates would face financial and logistical hurdles.
The Save Act would restrict voters’ ability to register to vote online and through the mail while also severely limiting the ability of non-partisan civic organizations to conduct voter registration drives, which have been crucial to civic engagement for more than a century. That’s because, despite voters’ ability to register to vote at the DMV and registration efforts by political parties, data shows that voter registration drives from non-partisan organizations can account for about one-fifth of voter registration applicants – roughly equal to the political power of California, Florida and Texas combined. We simply cannot sit back and allow Congress or the White House to destroy the infrastructure of our elections by disenfranchising so many voters."
Look, I know Trump's unhinged fascist conspiracy theories about the 2020 election make most liberals very leery about uttering the words "rigging elections" but at some point you have to accept that you can't stop reality from being real, just because naming the beast makes you squeamish. Targeted voter suppression by the GOP has become so normalized that in a recent(ish) battle over election maps that clearly sought to minimize the political power of African American voters, GOP operates defended themselves from charges of racial bias by saying they weren't restricting voters because they're Black, but rather because they vote Democrat. This is election rigging, by a fascist regime, headed up by a would-be King who keeps musing about violating the Constitution to seek a third term, and it's probably time to be honest with ourselves about what that actually means - an attempt to permanently install the US Republican brand of fascism in our society by preventing free and fair elections (such as those exist, in America.)
I mean let's cut the crap here for a second okay? The Save Act specifically targets voter registrations drives because the fascist GOP is openly arguing that registering people to vote, is somehow rigging elections. Let that sink in for a minute folks; a fascist regime is trying to rig elections through nationalized voter suppression because, and they essentially admit this, if everyone gets to vote they might lose power. The fact that this type of thinking and rhetoric is considered "normal" for the right wing party in America doesn't prove these guys aren't fascist, just that America has been embracing, normalizing, and ignoring fascism for a very long time before Donald Trump ran for office.
Unsurprisingly, our GOP-controlled Congress has passed an election rigging (voter suppression is election rigging) bill that mimics much of Trump's previous fascist election rigging executive order; the disingenuously named "Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act."
US House passes bill requiring people to prove citizenship in order to vote
"About half of US citizens do not have a passport, eliminating one of the main ways to show their ability to vote under the bill. Passport fees are currently $165. Joe Morelle, a Democrat from New York, responded to Republicans who spoke in support of the bill with estimates of how much money constituents would have to pay if they all had to get passports.
“Y’all, that’s a poll tax, plain and simple, and it’s blatant voter suppression,” said Nikema Williams, a Democrat from Georgia.
Some potential voters no longer have their birth certificates, or their birth certificates don’t match their current names if they changed their names in marriage or for other reasons, Democrats have pointed out. The bill directs states to come up with a process to address those who have changed their names, though Democrats contend this could be handled differently state by state, creating confusion, and it’s not clear how long it would take for rules to be put in place."
This is mostly just a "heads up" post because we've already looked at the Save Act and the GOP's quest to use fascist conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud and the 2020 election to justify blatant voter suppression in the thread above; the bill still has to pass the Senate before it becomes law. What's important to understand in the here and now, is that a national voter suppression bill that disproportionately (to a massive degree) targets folks who are highly unlikely to vote Republican, is in fact a law designed to rig elections for the fascist GOP.
"Research from the Brennan Center, VoteRiders and other groups in 2024 found that more than 9% of voting-age citizens, about 21 million people, don’t have readily available proof of citizenship. These requirements have disproportionate impacts on people of color, young voters, rural residents, tribal citizens, people who are unhoused, people born in US territories and people who have experienced natural disasters.
Other elements of the bill have raised alarms among voting rights advocates and elections officials. It would upend online and mail registration, a particular burden on people in rural areas. States would be required to purge their voter rolls based on incomplete data and potentially start the deportation process for people who unlawfully registered to vote. It also installs criminal penalties for election officials who register people without the required documentation, even if the person turns out to be a citizen eligible to vote."
So, I'm just a lady who studies the horrors of fascism and right wing extermination campaigns, but is it a good idea to let nazi propagandists completely control the narrative surrounding a fascist government's rapidly expanding pogrom against a highly-vulnerable marginalized group?
Trump’s Anti-Trans Orders Get Most Airtime on Fox News, Report Finds
"In President Donald Trump’s first month back in the White House, Fox News broadcasted more coverage of his anti-transgender executive orders than both MSNBC and CNN, according to a report by Media Matters for America — allowing the right-wing network to shape public discourse on trans people at a critical time for transgender rights.
“The shocking lack of coverage by more liberal media has allowed Fox News to push increasingly harmful narratives about transgender people,” LGBTQ legislative researcher Allison Chapman told Truthout.
In his first 31 days back in office, Trump signed a slew of anti-trans executive orders undermining the rights and protections of transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people. These policies sought to eradicate legal recognition of transgender identities, reinstate a ban on transgender people in the military, cut federal funding for hospitals providing gender-affirming care to trans people under the age of 19, withhold federal funds from schools that allow trans women to compete in women’s sports, and reverse diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives."
Folks, I'm getting pretty tired of explaining to incredulous cis-het people that the larger liberal establishment doesn't care if trans people live or die; the evidence, whether it's raw television broadcast data, a lack of organized protest to oppose anti-trans laws, or maggot collaborators like Gavin Newsome gleefully telling nazi propagandists they make some good points about trans rights, is literally all around you. As both an antifascist researcher and a target of the anti-trans pogrom, I can assure you that this is real and I'm not overreacting. When a government pursing fascist policies and using eliminationist rhetoric officially decrees that there are only two "biologically" determined "sexes" and thus trans people don't exist, they are following an eliminationist blueprint designed to make trans people not existing an enforced reality; if you want to know how that story ends, you should study the step by step process of isolating, de-personing, and demonizing Jewish people that Hitler and the Nazi Party used to justify, enable, and enact the Holocaust. Maybe you already realize this, maybe you know that the fascists aren't going to stop eliminating groups of people they don't like after they get done erasing the existence of trans people, maybe you even care about trans lives on a personal level; but your leaders don't, the opinion makers who control public discourse don't, and the politics being pursued by the larger liberal establishment in the face of an active anti-trans pogrom actually occurring as we speak, make that abundantly clear.
Or, maybe you don't care. Perhaps, like a lot of cis het people, you're not openly transphobic, but you find trans people somehow scandalous, distasteful, or disconcerting, and that's enough to buy your silence and keep you from speaking out against the silence of your leaders and media organizations. I don't know how to make folks who don't think my existence matters care about trans lives if telling them that refusing to speak out and fight back now, means their families, their children, will be next. What I can tell you is that avoiding the subject and hoping the nazis lose interest in erasing trans people from our society isn't going to work, and hasn't worked for anyone else trying to stop a fascist takeover in all of human history.
The fact is that Fox News (and every other fascist propaganda outlet in America) hasn't been pushing a moral panic about trans people (particularly trans women) while gleefully celebrating legal assaults on trans people's right to exist, for no reason; these fascists are dead serious about this, they want their base to be excited about this, and they're putting in the work every day to make sure public opinion continues to favor further marginalizing, punishing, and yes eventually eliminating, trans people. The fact that corporate media muppets and bougie Democrat political strategists can point me to polls showing that the fascists are moving the needle, and defending trans people is unpopular with suburban white voters who picked Trump anyway, doesn't prove their cowardice is justified, it just proves that the larger liberal establishment isn't working hard enough to oppose an anti-trans pogrom; and that, whether you want to believe it or not, puts everyone in danger - even you.
Although it isn't making even the fringes of the mainstream discourse surrounding the fascist GOP's election-rigging SAVE Act, the reality is that unless nazis with an eliminationist agenda towards trans people make some sort of exception, the bill will likely disenfranchise every trans person in America who has legally changed their name, and quite possibly most people who are in the process of transition and thus have ID that may be inconsistent with their presentation or other documents:
Federal Voter ID Bill Attacks Trans Voters — and Anyone Else Who Has Changed Their Name
"Much of the news coverage of the SAVE Act has focused almost entirely on the broad category of “married women” — a bloc of 69 million who may not have updated documents. But arguably, such a law is aimed directly at transgender people in addition to affecting married people who change their names. And that’s not to mention the 140 million U.S. citizens who don’t have passports and tens of millions who also don’t have easy access to a birth certificate. Regardless, the fact that trans people are at the center of this story has been easy to sideline: A story published by NPR last week listed eight things to know about this legislation — but didn’t mention the implications for trans people at all."
At this point can anyone who has been paying attention (a very small group indeed, as far as I can tell) claim to be surprised that trans-eliminationist nazis are trying to pass a law that further erases trans people from public life and social participation, yet most of American society hasn't even registered that as a potential consequence of this disastrous, anti-democratic bill? After all, when the president of the United States signed an executive order more or less saying that trans people didn't exist, which historically is a sure sign that a government intends to make that a reality, most Very Serious PeopleTM in our discourse shrugged and pointed to public polling as an excuse to not speak out to defend trans people. So why would this act of erasure and disenfranchisement be any different?
"Benfield is concerned that not naming trans people as a target of this legislation contributes to an insidious process that is ongoing: the erasure of trans people from public life in general.
“It’s going to affect lots of different kinds of people,” she said of the SAVE Act. “But the reason that the erasure of trans people worries me in this conversation is that it’s consistent with strategic erasure from the public sphere that’s already been happening.”
That strategic erasure includes President Donald Trump’s series of executive orders attacking so-called “gender ideology” and both state and national legislation that attempts to criminalize support for trans youth in physical and social transition. There are now only two genders — “male” and “female”— and anyone who falls outside of that could potentially face being pushed out of public life, including schools, sports, restroom facilities, and now voting itself. Even policies like Trump’s executive orders that aren’t immediately enforceable create a chilling effect, pushing trans people into the closet through intimidation."
I would hope that because it requires sixty votes in the Senate, the SAVE Act is a dead on arrival bill; but I can't say I'm all that confident in a Democratic Party that is openly blaming the results of an election they seemingly tried to lose on their (actually, nonexistent) support of trans rights, and its ability to protect people like me. Even if the SAVE Act is shot down however, the fact that this attempt at the mass disenfranchisement of trans people in American civic life doesn't even rate a talking point in this very public debate, strongly implies that when these bills only target trans people, the establishment "opposition" to the fascist agenda will continue to shrug, offer empty words of condolence, and simply let it happen; which is pretty much par for the course in the fascist Trump 2.0 era.
To say that living in a society where your rights and even your existence are not so much up for debate, but rather already judged to be either irrelevant, or non-existent, is surreal and unnerving, would be an understatement of massive proportions. I guess there is one upside here however, because if trans people can no longer vote, perhaps I'll finally be free of liberals who honestly don't give a rats ass about my life, screaming at me to support a Democratic Party that doesn't care whether I live or die, while pretending their party is a much better advocate for my right to exist, than they actually are.
🚨Emergency Mobilization🚨 SAVE US FROM THE SAVE ACT! - Utah State Capitol Rotunda - Monday, April 14th @ 2PM
🚨Emergency Mobilization🚨 ...
Save no to SAVE Act in a few clicks.
Act now in a few clicks at https://resist.bot/petitions/PTVCBT. ...