EDITORIAL: In Guilford, repressing the student vote

The Rhino Times broke the news of Guilford County students being bused to the polls during Early Voting so they could exercise their newly gained Constitutional rights. Google News places it as a month ago, on Feb. 11, but it also labels the Rhino as a satire site, leaving questions of veracity all over the place.

But the Rhino actually sounds like satire in the second half of the piece, the part that begins after the quoted material from the press release: “[S]ome area conservatives have been privately expressing some anxiety about the effort…. that the League of Women Voters, while officially non-partisan, un-officially has a liberal bent.”

No names were attached to this strange pivot towards fake evenhandedness, that bastion of conservative news outlets that allows them — perhaps even requires them — to entertain even the most ludicrous positions and suggestions merely because a Republican said the words. Or, in this case, were willing to be vaguely paraphrased.

It utilizes another sleazy tactic too: Accuse others of the wrongdoing that you, yourself are committing — or would commit, if given the chance.

This is why you can find Republicans all over the country who believe the Democrat Party is the one that’s racist, despite the fact that every racist group in the country loves Donald Trump.

They say it’s because of Lincoln, by the way, completely ignoring the Southern Strategy, the Dixiecrats and Blue Dog Democrats, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and many other events of recent history.

They can do this with a straight face, because today’s GOP has exorcised the concept of hypocrisy from its playbook. Unless, of course, they’re leveling the charge at a Democrat, who might even possibly deserve it.

It all hinges on misdirection: These unnamed “area conservatives” in the original piece could be elected officials; they could be party operatives; they could be three morons in MAGA hats standing on a street corner; it does not elaborate. And the “anxiety” is first pegged to a concern: “[I]t may be difficult for the schools to be certain that the program is implemented fairly and equitably across all schools.”

But anyone who has visited more than three Guilford County schools knows that our commission as a whole is not extremely concerned with parity.

And so, they use the figurative argument of fairness to effectively quash a passel of votes that most likely would not go their way.

But disenfranchising voters has become such a strong aspect of the Republican platform these last 10 years in North Carolina, perhaps they don’t even notice they’re doing it anymore.