October 1, 2022

We have so many seditionist nut jobs out there, it's hard to keep track! Via The Takedown:

"Maggie Hassan is the current Democratic senator in New Hampshire," Cliff Schecter said.

"Very good senator, excellent. There was a primary against her and one of her opponents a man by the name of Don Balduc. He's a genuinely scary individual because a lot of former military, former CIA, former FBI have actually come out in really sort of an inspiring way on the side of democracy since Donald Trump came to power and the Republican party became insane and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobert and these folks kind of outsized voices calling for autocracy and overthrowing elections -- but yeah, Bulldog actually has a secretive plan to overthrow our democracy and to try to do it legally and I'm gonna tell you about it.

"He's a former Special Forces general. The uniform gives them some heft - he stuck to the big lie all throughout the election, when Roe vs. Wade when he was overturned he said we should, quote, 'rejoice.' And you know in general, just sort of a right wing nut on every issue. But the scary one and the one that sort of the far-right fringe of Republicans have been talking about amongst themselves and at conferences for years.

"In this particular case, it's getting rid of the 17th Amendment. Now if you knew, the Constitution up to about 1913 or so, state legislatures actually chose U.S senators. We didn't directly elect them and that was a reform by the progressives of the era, like the Teddy Roosevelts and others to give us more democracy, because the big moneyed interests had a much easier time controlling state legislatures -- sound familiar? and therefore they get their people appointed so more direct democracy.

"It was the same period time we got referenda added, which is how in Kansas we just stopped the logistics of the far right from taking away all of women's rights --in this case, the third. The 17th Amendment gave us the right to directly vote for U.S. senators. It would be considered to be an insane idea until maybe 10 years ago that anybody would even talk about getting rid of that. Don Boduk is now talking about it constantly and he's trying to hide and fudge it over a little bit now that he won the primary over the slightly less crazy Republican, because you know he wants to appear moderate.

"If they can get rid of the 17th Amendment they can start their grassroots movement and start having gerrymandered state legislatures pass this. Remember, you need two-thirds of them and they can get to a point where they can do this. Here's what I'm telling you: Democracy will end, it will end as surely as if all voting rights if we would suppress all votes."

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