douglas kuehn’s Post

Voter Suppression & The Apostles     Voter suppression is clearly in the minds of Trump and the Republican Party, having lost the White House, the Senate, and failed to capture the House of Representatives in the November 2020 elections. In 2022, they narrowly took control of the House with a current voting majority of 6 out of the 435 seats. It is generally agreed by the GOP, removing the franchise or making voting difficult for potential opposition voters is the only means by which they can keep their House majority or regain the Senate and the White House in November this year. In Addlestone the first book in the series, The Addlestone Chronicles, James has been invited to deliver a discussion paper to the Marxist leaning Cambridge secret society called the Apostles. The topic he assigned to address is voter suppression. What follows is an excerpt from the novel:I’d like to propose an immutable principle: "Voting should be restricted to those who understand and actively embrace our British psyche. On this basis, we should withdraw the franchise from first generation immigrants even if they are naturalised citizens. If earlier arrivals have failed to adopt our way of life, they too must be excluded. It would be a simple matter to discover how successfully foreigners have assimilated. For example, we could require they pass an English literacy examination before being placed on the Electoral Register. It is interesting to note, a literacy test is currently employed in many American southern states where it has been particularly effective in disenfranchising racial minorities or poor whites. Our test should contain questions about British law, customs, and history. Adjusting the pass level, the difficulty of the questions, or even the intricacy of the wording could limit the amount of, shall we say, foreignness and ignorance that is allowed to influence our electoral outcomes. We should also investigate the primary language used in their household. That question presently appears on the US Federal census. If it is not English, that in itself, could justify their removal from the voting lists.” While James’s proposals are meant to be extreme to appeal to the Marxist Apostles, all have been employed at one time or another in the US and Nazi Germany. Would anybody be surprised if the MAGA planners were considering several or all of the above to try, against all odds, to secure election victories in November 2024?