Voter Suppression May Be the Most Important Issue of 2018

January 18, 2018
Submitted by: Love Knowledge
Category: Politics

The post Voter Suppression May Be the Most Important Issue of 2018 appeared first on WhoWhatWhy.

The Trump administration throws so many things at Americans every day that it is harder and harder to keep up with what’s important. However, according to writer and journalist Sarah Kendzior, in this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, voter suppression may well be the touchstone issue of 2018.

With irrefutable evidence of Russian efforts to influence US elections and President Donald Trump’s indifference toward the regime of Vladimir Putin, the fears of many seem well founded going into the 2018 elections. Add to this what Kendzior sees as the possibility of officials being threatened with lawsuits, a tactic that Trump has engaged in since the 1980s, and the danger is increased.

To make matters worse, the states have taken few steps to secure their voting systems. Gerrymandering remains rampant. States like Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina are, in the eyes of many, something less than true democracies.

Voter intimidation at the polls is commonplace. Voter ID rules and requirements, especially for minority voters, are on the rise.

All of this takes on even greater significance, Kendzior reminds us, when we realize that the 2018 elections are perhaps the only way to slow the slide toward autocracy.

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Jeff Schechtman:	Welcome to Radio WhoWhatWhy. I’m Jeff Schechtman.
	Sarah Kendzior is one of those people who helps us make sense of the world. Her coverage of the 2016 election helped us to understand it, even if we didn’t like the outcome. She’s a leading authority on authoritarian states, particularly in Central Asia and the former Soviet Union. She has a PhD in anthropology, an MA in Central Eurasian studies, and her book The View of Flyover Country is a must read for anyone hoping to understand the country today. In fact the book is going to be re-released this April.
	One of the other issues that Sarah has been looking at, both as it relates to the behavior of authoritarian states and despotic leaders, are elections and voter suppression. Unfortunately we’re rapidly potentially becoming a textbook case for some of those behaviors. It is my pleasure to be joined once again by Sarah Kendzior. Sarah, thanks so much for being here.
Sarah Kendzior:	Thank you for having me.
Jeff Schechtman:	You know there are so many issues that you’re talking about. So many things that we’re looking at today with respect to what’s going on in the country. What’s going on with respect to this administration. There’s almost a sense at some point of just throwing up your hands because one is so overwhelmed by it all. Talk a little bit first about how you process this and how you decide what it is on any given day that concerns you and that you want to look at.
Sarah Kendzior:	To some degree, it’s not up to me. I sort of have to respond to what comes out there. I think at this point, a year into the Trump administration, you can gain a sense of what stories have kind of a broader structural importance, and what are kind of gossipy reactionary pieces. Oprah running for president or not in 2020 as an example of something I don’t think we need to be prioritizing. Michael Wolff’s book is a kind of in-between thing where it does have actual political ramifications, but is mostly a kind of gossipy thing. I think something like voter suppression, attacks on our electoral system, attacks on the judiciary, the Russia investigation, these are all long-term problems that will set the course for what we’re able to talk about in the future, and what kind of choices and opportunities Americans have.
Jeff Schechtman:	With respect to that, certainly the one thing that can arguably move us beyond all this is elections, and this whole issue of voter suppression becomes even more critical. In fact, I think you said somewhere that you think it’s going to be one of the most important issues in 2018.
Sarah Kendzior:	Oh yeah, absolutely. With the midterms coming up, it’s the crucial issue because a lot of Trump’s future and the future of the GOP and the future of America hangs on this election. That’s because there’s a chance that the Democrats may be able to retake the senate.