The Republicans have been working hard to disenfranchise and suppress voters across the country for years. They have purged millions of blacks from voters roles. They have written laws to block formerly incarcerated people from voting, even after release and having served their debt to society. They are creating obstacles when it comes to identification to vote and blocking voters, such as students, who historically could vote where they attend college. They are limiting what even serves as identification, further blocking students, the poor, and the elderly. They have limited voting machines in predominately black and latino precincts, limited voting hours, limited drop boxes, limited voting places, and shortened early voting and eliminated voting on Sundays.
The current Musk/Republican administration is now moving on to its next voting block target—women.
With all of the chaos being created by Musk and his non-governmental DOGE gang of hackers, it can be hard to see what actions they are trying to sneak in while they work to distract us with DOGE (DOGE is important to track, but so is watching what they are doing in the background). If you’ve not heard of the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act), you need to brush up on what it wants to accomplish, especially if you are a woman voter.
If passed, the SAVE Act requires very specific documents in order to vote, register to vote, or re-register to vote. The documents stated are birth certificates, passports, or a limited number of other citizenship documents. A driver’s license alone will not suffice in all but around five states. Basically it will be a broad version of a Nazi tactic of, “show me your papers.”
As a starter, more than 20 million citizens do not have any of the above documents.
Next, the bill wants to essentially end voter registration by mail, online registration, voter registration drives, and automatic voter registration, which most states currently allow in some form or fashion. This means if you don’t have transportation to get to a registration site, or can’t make the long journey to a registration site, or can’t make it because the registration site has very limited hours, you won’t be able to vote.
All of these are egregious on their own. It will stop tens of millions of people from voting. With the recent close margins, it will most likely mean Republicans become the defacto rulers for a very, very long time, meaning our lives will continue to become harder.
But, the most egregious, and to me, the most, dare I say it, is a Handmaid’s Tale kind of scenario.
I reference the Handmaid’s Tale because one of the most severely affected voting blocks will be married women who change their names upon getting married. This means their last names will not match the name on their birth certificates. Since many people in the United States do not have a passport, that leaves their birth certificate as the main proof of citizenship. I wonder too how many people have original or certified copies of their birth certificates to carry around with them.
Around 79% of women, when marrying, take the last name of their husband for opposite marriages. The most recent statistic shows 1.7 million opposite sex marriages in 2019. That means for just that one year, 1.3 million women changed their last name and would most likely not be allowed to vote if they didn’t have a passport. That is just one year.
According to 2024 statistics, there where 61.4 million opposite sex married couples in the United States. That equates to a potential 48.5 million women not being able to vote in the next election if they don’t have a passport. Again, based on statistics around 50% of U.S. citizens have a passport, of which I would imagine less than half of that number are women. This equates to about 25 million women being blocked from voting. That number only represents married women; it does not reflect the number of older voters, students, the poor, and other groups affected by the so-called SAVE Act.
The approximate difference between those who voted for Harris versus those voting for Trump was a mere 2.4 million. It isn’t hard to see why Republicans are so intent on passing the SAVE Act. Taking at around 25 million voters out of the voting pool almost assuredly means Republican rule for generations to come.
This means no Social Security. No Medicare. No Medicaid. No environmental protections. No consumer protections. No climate protections. No Affordable Care Act. No accurate historical records. No infrastructure supports. No freedom of the press. No first amendment rights. No women’s reproductive rights. No fill-in-the-blank.
It also means higher incarceration rates. Higher numbers of hate crimes. Higher rates of white-washing history. Higher rates of disinformation, misinformation, and lies. Higher death rates. Higher costs of food, housing, and everyday needs. Higher unemployment rates. Higher rates of homelessness. High bank fees. Higher fill-in-the-blank.
My next question is, where are the women leaders? Where is the Harriett Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Carrie Chapman Catt, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Mary Church Terrel’s of our times rallying women across the nation to stand up and rally for their rights?
To me, strategically thinking, if I wanted to maintain power, control women, and suppress minorities, taking away voting rights would be the first step. The next, with Musk and DOGE hackers in government agencies, would be to freeze the assets of anyone not male and white at first. Musk and DOGE, after being in the Treasury Department’s computer systems, now most likely have the power to do just that. It’s just a computer programming hack, and it does seem the DOGE hackers have that skill.
It just seems a matter of time before they take this next step unless all of us, women, blacks, whites, men, gay, straight, transgender, Cuban, Mexican, Muslim, Hindi, true Christians, and all others who are in danger or appalled at the direction our great country has taken stand as one. All against Nazi white Christian-nationalists must band together to say enough is enough. To say STOP! To do so, we must work together even if we don’t fully agree 100% on everything.
United we stand, divided we fall. Let’s unite so we don’t all fall.
I’ve often said we all need to be involved in saving democracy in ways which fit our lives and our comfort levels. These can be in the form of blogging, reposting on social media, calling your elected officials, writing letters to the editor, donating to organizations, and/or marching in the streets. Nothing is too little or too much. Here are some ways to get involved over the next few weeks:
- Call your congressional members and let them know that as one of the people they represent, not to vote to confirm Kash Patel. Call this number and the switchboard will connect you to your representative or senator: 202-224-3121. Even if you don’t know who your members are, they will find them for you based on your address, which they will ask you to provide.
- Call the White House switchboard to express your disappointment in what is happening and that Musk must go: 202-456-1414 (switchboard) or 202-456-1111 (comments). I recommend the switchboard myself.
- Support the economic blackout on February 28. All day don’t buy from national chains or companies, such as Target, Amazon, or Walmart. If you must spend on that day, only buy from local small businesses to show the oligarchs we can survive without them, to hit them where it seems to hurt them the most, their pocketbooks. This time it will be for one day. If needed, the next will be for three, then more until big business realize the people are more important than the politicians to survive.
- If you are off, participate in the Not My President President’s Day protest on Monday, February 17, noon at each of our Statehouses.
Stand strong everyone! Stand together!
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 