You know of Republicans' love of states' rights, particularly each state's right to oversee elections, including the federal ones. Ask and they'll tell you the fundamental reason undergirding this one great love is that the U.S. Constitution's Article I guarantees this delightful little provision of electoral rectitude.
There's also a less-spoken-of reason. Historically, the firewalling of federal meddling into each citizen's right to vote was most treasured by state legislatures of redneck bigotry and backwater ignorance wholly convinced of what they saw as an undeniable truth: that only citizens of the lightest skin color were genuinely qualified — intellectually and emotionally — to hold the franchise.
Notwithstanding the Constitution's original state guarantee, there's been what some would still call federal meddling. The most powerful came in the form of Constitutional amendments; the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th for Black men; women; Southern Blacks; youth. Among direct federal "meddling," the best-known statute is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (since butchered by a Supreme Court of backwater ignorance).
The most striking characteristic of voting rights since 1787 is that whether Constitutional amendment or statutory action was involved, each (federal-only) change centered on freeing the franchise from its primordial restrictions. It may seem counterintuitive but the wording of the amendments and one statute above — each prohibits what preceded — conforms with what's known as the negative liberties of the first 10 amendments — shall make no law; shall not be infringed, shall not be violated.
Counterintuitive, perhaps, but key. From the time of this nation's founding document to the modern era of the text's atonements and vastly enhanced freedoms, our various liberties are expressed and guaranteed only in a negative manner, never positive.
How typical, then, of the upside-down mind of today's president-elect: When he proposes voting reforms, he frames "positively" what in reality would be profoundly negative — there's no enhanced freedom, not a dram more liberty, in the lot — thus rendering the three-headed imbecility profoundly ahistorical. In his words, or rather the words a Truth Social follower proudly used before Election Day:
"If Donald Trump is elected President, he will implement Paper Ballots, Same Day Voting, and Voter IDs for all 50 states."
From that, you can at least see clearly there's no conformity with the nation's tradition of expressed negative liberties. And that's telling — far more telling than it may seem on its face. His "enhancements" of voting rights are simply negative. There's no shall not, just a he will.
To put it even more clearly, his proposals are authoritarian in nature. And for Trump that is, quite literally, natural. Dictators announce what they will do; they don't tell the citizenry what their government shall not do.
What's more, as well as more important, his negativity is a throwback to what I observed earlier. For more than 200 years, all major changes to Americans' right to vote have "centered on freeing the franchise from its primordial restrictions." Same-day voting, only same-day voting, was one of them. Its return would harshly inhibit possibly millions of voters' ability to cast a ballot.
But that's the whole point, of course, the entire objective, the sinister undergrowth of what the reelected charlatan will promote as the re-blossoming of "election integrity."
If you're wondering, my answer is no — no, I am not going to spend the next four years or even the next four days discussing and analyzing in any depth (even what's here is unjustifiably excessive) what's already so bloody obvious to everyone about this satanic buffoon. Please consider this entry as nothing more than an unfortunate instance of habit.