Voter Suppression: Because Freedom Isn’t for Everyone

by Rob C.

Art by Pat Bagley

TL;DR:

Republicans have spent decades trying to stop people from voting — not because they love freedom, but because they fear it. The less democracy there is, the more power they keep. From Goldwater to Trump, the right’s war on voting has been a slow-motion coup dressed up as “election integrity.”

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The Party of “We the Few”

Republicans love to wrap themselves in the flag — but only if it comes with an asterisk. The fine print reads: “Freedom applies only to the right kind of people.”

Let’s not pretend this is new. For over half a century, the conservative movement has treated voting rights like a virus that must be contained. As early as 1980, Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, was saying the quiet part out loud:

“Now many of our Christians want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people... our leverage in the elections goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

Fast-forward to 2021, when Senator Rand Paul declared that “democracy and majority rule” actually go against American values. Ah yes, the Founders’ dream — a country where power rests in the hands of a cranky minority that quotes the Constitution while shredding it.

And if you thought racism wasn’t part of the plan, Don Yelton, a Republican leader in North Carolina, made sure to remind us:

“If it hurts a bunch of lazy Blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it.”

Just pure, unfiltered honesty — the kind you won’t find on a Fox News chyron.

From Goldwater to MAGA: The Anti-Democracy Tradition

When Barry Goldwater warned that “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice,” he probably didn’t mean “liberty for billionaires.” But that’s exactly how the right took it.

The modern GOP learned long ago that it doesn’t need to win hearts and minds — just districts and data maps. Gerrymandering, voter purges, restrictive ID laws, closing polling places in Black neighborhoods, eliminating early voting — these aren’t bugs in the system. They are the system.

Trump just made the strategy explicit. When he said,

“If you ever agreed to [expanded voting rights], you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,”
he wasn’t joking. He was confessing.

The Freedom They Fear Most

Republicans love to warn about socialism, communism, globalism, wokeism — pick your “ism” of the day. But the ideology they fear most is majoritarianism — the radical belief that government should reflect the will of the people.

That’s why they’ve spent decades pushing unpopular policies:

• Tax cuts for billionaires and corporations

• Privatizing public schools and Social Security

• Handing out subsidies to fossil fuel companies

• Gutting healthcare and environmental protections

None of these things win votes, so they do the next best thing: suppress votes.

They tell poor white voters that immigrants are stealing their jobs. They tell working-class people that unions are corrupt. They tell rural America that cities are the enemy. And while everyone’s busy fighting each other, the same billionaire class quietly buys another jet with your tax dollars.

Project 2025: The Endgame

Trump’s allies aren’t hiding it anymore. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is their blueprint for permanent minority rule — an authoritarian “reform” that guts independent agencies, politicizes the civil service, and puts loyalists in charge of everything from the Justice Department to your local school board.

They call it “taking back our country.” But from whom? Immigrants? Teachers? Voters? The real answer is simpler: you.

The Authoritarian Fantasy

This isn’t about protecting elections. It’s about protecting power. Trump’s new rallying cry — that “red states must gerrymander to stay in control” — is just the next phase in a project that began long before him. The goal isn’t to win fairly; it’s to make fairness impossible.

The same people who scream about “government tyranny” are busy designing one. They’ve just rebranded it as patriotism.

The Warning

America was built on the radical idea that ordinary people should have a voice. Every voter suppressed, every district gerrymander, every ballot access restriction — is another brick laid in the wall between us and self-government.

The truth is, the people who hate democracy aren’t hiding anymore. They’re writing the laws, drawing the maps, and cheering for a dictator.

And if we don’t fight back, they’ll prove their point — that freedom really isn’t for everyone.

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— Robert Cain
Author of Democracy for Sale: How Corporate Greed Is Corrupting Democracy and Endangering the Planet