For years, we’ve watched millions of Americans hop on board with early in-person voting and mail in their ballots to cast their votes. Convenient, right? Well, not if you asked the fatcat GOP leaders back at headquarters. Those dudes stuck their fingers in their ears and screamed, “la la la can’t hear you voting made easy!”
But oh, how the tides may finally be turning on that stance. We’re talking big kahunas like fresh-faced Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley straight up admitting pushing early and mail voting for their conservative base has to become a “top priority” in the future. It’s a new “Bank Your Vote” mindset, if you will.
The Struggle is Real Playing Catch-Up
Of course, making this 180-degree flip isn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the Republican hierarchy. For starters, their own diehard MAGA supporters spent what feels like forever being fed a bunch of BS doubts about mail-in ballots, in particular from their beloved leader, Donald J. Trump.
That guy legitimately claimed over and over again, without proof, that voting by mail is an automatic pathway to “crooked elections” and widespread “cheating.” No wonder so many GOP faithful started viewing mail-in voting as rigged from the jump.
So now Republican bigwigs are stuck playing a massively uphill game of catch-up, trying to convince those same misinformed folks that it’s all good to drop those ballots in the mail. As one blunt Republican campaign vet put it, “We ain’t where we need to be” on pushing early/mail tactics compared to Democrats who’ve invested tons in it for years.
Trump’s Mindless Rambling Doesn’t Help Either
But part of the core struggle is also getting Republicans’ golden child Donald Trump to shut his damned mouth and get on-message about this whole voting thing. It’s wild – in one breath, the former president will encourage his loyal MAGA zombies to “bank their vote” early via mail-in ballots to get ahead of Democrats.
Then, literally seconds later, Trump will do a complete 180 and start spewing more of his usual baseless BS claims about mail voting being a sham and a scam designed to “rig” the whole system against him and the Republican Party. It’s that kind of mindless, intelligent, Idiocracy-levels of stupid rambling that’s made it impossible for the GOP to get organized on this issue until now.
Look, while the big-shot Republicans seem to finally be wising up and realizing the error of their old-school ways, actually attempting to deprogram millions of misinformed conservative voters who were brainwashed into thinking mail voting is rigged is going to be a helluva uphill climb. Does the GOP have the commitment and organizational skills to pull off that big a 180? We’ll have to wait and see if they can walk the walk after talking all this talk!
