Your grandpa didn’t get beat up by my grandpa so it could be easier for you to vote
By Can anything good follow a white southern Republican’s invocation of civil rights leaders?
No, it can’t, ever (even if he steps on a fire ant nest right after) and Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill is example number 215 dixizillion. (Thanks to commontater Rob in CT for the alert.)
“I don’t think that just because your birthday comes around, you should be registered to vote,” he said in an interview with Brian Jenkins, the director of a documentary about America’s various barriers to ballot access.
To explain his opposition, Merrill cited the efforts of civil rights leaders like Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks, and other black leaders like Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL).
“These people fought — some of them were beaten, some of them were killed — because of their desire to ensure that everybody that wanted to had the right to register to vote and participate in the process,” he said.
African-Americans had to fight for the right to use the same water fountains, toilets and lunch counters as white people. Should I have to file some paperwork before I do those things? Who knows. Bigotry is irrational, constructed of hatred. It can only be expressed with the use of logical fallacies and plain old lies. So no matter what the bigot does, how carefully he arranges his words, to the rational person it is utter gibberish.
“I’m not going to cheapen the work they did, I’m not going to embarrass them by allowing somebody that’s too sorry to get up off their rear end to go register to vote… because they think they deserve the right because they’ve turned 18,” he continued, growing angry.
The very thought of all of the African-Americans who aren’t being beaten up and killed when they try to vote makes him so mad that he made an unusual error. He mentioned people who are still around to contradict him.
My friend Sec. Merrill is wrong on automatic registration. I support making it easier to vote for every American. https://t.co/dNEKJLDZno
— Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@RepTerriSewell) November 3, 2016
Merrill’s response was a completely unsurprising Hush gal!
@RepTerriSewell @thinkprogress let's find a way to work together on real problems. This is not a problem in Alabama.
— John Merrill (@JohnHMerrill) November 3, 2016
