[jessaustin]

Please don't assume that Democrats ever consider the best interests of "black neighborhoods". There's very little evidence that's the case. The most they can really claim is that they are often less overt in their racism than the other face of the status quo party.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Please don't assume that Democrats ever consider the best interests of "black neighborhoods". There's very little evidence that's the case.

That's kind of my point. The black vote has gone disproportionately to Democrats for many years and what they get for it is not the change they're promised even when their party controls the government, it's lip service and rage propaganda like "police murders" which can't possibly be the most significant problem faced by black families, because it gets them to go out and vote for the same party again even as they don't fix the real problems -- because if they fixed the real problems they couldn't run on it again next time.

Why are cities burning over "police murders" and not the War on Drugs or school choice? Why are we de-funding the police and not de-funding the zoning board? A cynic could answer.

> The most they can really claim is that they are often less overt in their racism than the other face of the status quo party.

I think this is a trope. Democrats are desperate to paint Republicans as racists because they're so reliant on the black vote. Then we get many stories about "dog whistles" and comments taken out of context and maximally uncharitable interpretations of any linguistic ambiguity, meanwhile the biggest actual reason Republicans don't much court black people is that they don't vote for them regardless, because Democrats will spend all day telling everyone they're nothing but racists no matter what they do.

Republican President signs criminal justice reform into law and then a cop commits murder in a city controlled by Democrats and it's the Republicans who are down in the polls.

[jessaustin]

I don't care about dog whistles. I do care that many Republicans have gone to great lengths to prevent black people from voting. That they have dressed up their racist disenfranchisement efforts with concerns about nonexistent problems impresses me not at all.

https://theintercept.com/2020/05/28/pennsylvania-voter-rolls...

https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-vot...

Of course Democrats are also implicated in another source of disenfranchisement, inadequate facilities provisioning and maintenance. Even on that topic, Republicans are more to blame in e.g. Wisconsin.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/829091968/long-lines-reported...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/...

https://apnews.com/eb8c216987916586cf0b5f68c38871fa

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/09/873054620/long-lines-voting-m...

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-03/californ...

[AnthonyMouse]

We hear this all the time too, but then you look and the black voter turnout in any given election is the highest or second highest of any racial group. So if there is some widespread conspiracy to suppress the black vote it apparently isn't very effective.

It's also doesn't seem reasonable to characterize asking for ineligible voters to be removed from the rolls as voter suppression. There is a consistent narrative that voter fraud doesn't happen, as if that's a result of nobody having any incentive to do it instead of a result of groups constantly fighting against it, as though we could just stop taking any measures to try to prevent it and there still wouldn't be any.

If a demand to remove ineligible voters is also removing eligible voters then the problem is the people processing the request removing eligible voters, not the people making the request to remove ineligible voters.

They're also being incredibly disingenuous in claiming that proposed measures to detect voter fraud are unneeded because we haven't detected much voter fraud -- as if you can justify not replacing a bad smoke detector because it isn't detecting smoke.

[jessaustin]

I'm sure you believe what you've written here, but that belief comes from prejudice (or perhaps more accurately a shortage of empathy) not from a clear view of the present. You even admit in your last paragraph that we have little credible evidence of widespread vote fraud. In that context, with tens of thousands of people kicked off the voter rolls, concentrated in areas with higher minority populations, then of course the effects of these efforts are racist. Do we not need "smoke detectors" in white communities?

[AnthonyMouse]

> You even admit in your last paragraph that we have little credible evidence of widespread vote fraud.

But then where is the credible evidence of widespread black voter suppression? Shouldn't it be resulting in lower black voter turnout if it was actually prevalent? By the numbers we have a bigger problem with Asian voter suppression.

> Do we not need "smoke detectors" in white communities?

So go demand that ineligible voters be removed from the rolls in white communities. That's not an unreasonable request. Let the Republicans do it in the places that vote for Democrats and the Democrats do it in the places that vote for Republicans.

[jessaustin]

Voting rights are absolute. If Alice has lost her ability to vote, it doesn't help her to learn that lots of people who look like her or live near her have turned out this year. Maybe she doesn't share her neighbors' politics. (If we even believe this "minorities vote more" proposition for which you've provided no evidence.) It is a fact (click through the links provided above) that lots of voters have been kicked off the rolls in minority-majority communities. That would suppress votes, even if everyone who remained on the rolls voted.

So go demand that ineligible voters be removed from the rolls in white communities. That's not an unreasonable request.

First, that is absolutely an unreasonable request. We lead busy lives; when are we going to improve law enforcement in e.g. Kansas? Second, here you've given up the game entirely. Since a universal concern for vote fraud would also include a concern for vote fraud in one's own community, which concern you admit you don't have, your goal is thus not to curb fraud but rather to suppress votes in communities other than your own. You've now agreed with every accusation I've made. QED.

[pydry]

>Why are cities burning over "police murders" and not the War on Drugs or school choice?

Probably because it was the most visible and potent symbol of injustice.

If you're the underdog and you need some sympathy it's a little easier to get it by saying "please stop murdering me in my sleep when I've done nothing wrong" than "please stop putting me in jail just because I like to inject a bit of heroin".

In terms of your broader point, it's not like the two wings of the business party have ever represented the underdog.