This article was updated on 4/7/2016 at 12:20 AM to include a link to an article in The Washington Post entitled ‘The conservative gladiator from Kansas behind restrictive voting laws.’

Will the Republican Party and conservative leaders ever stop feigning their concern for and desire to protect the American people from what they spin as the lawless Democratic Party and its freedom-hating left-wing liberals? They continually do this by making one questionable statement after another to justify their obstructionist approach to governance.  They have done it since the time that President Obama was elected.

And they are relentless in their shameless efforts as they continue to make statements like the one by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell when, according to Fox News, he said that the senate would not meet with or hold hearings on President Obama’s SCOTUS nominee because “The president nominates. The Senate confirms.  The American people should have a voice, not this lame duck president out the door.  All we are doing is following the long-standing tradition of not fulfilling a nomination in the middle of a presidential year.”

Or what about the statement that was provoked when, according to an article in The Washington Post by Robert Barnes, Democratic senator Patrick Leahy said “when the Supreme Court is evenly split… it cannot effectively perform its function to serve the people.”? Based on that article, conservatives responded that a divided court is better than one with five left-leaning justices.

The article went on to say that Curt Levey who is the executive director of FreedomWorks Foundation said that “if President Obama were to succeed in shifting the Supreme court dramatically to the left, with the Senate confirmation or recess appointment of Merick Garland or any other liberal, the court would become a rubber stamp not just for the wishes of powerful labor unions, but also for virtually the entire progressive agenda.” That statement begs the question that since over the past 45 years the Supreme Court has had five conservative Justices, has it been a rubber stamp for the wishes of big business (case in point, the Citizens United ruling) and big money and also virtually the entire conservative agenda?  Or…

What about the response from the Republicans that, according to an article in the Associated Press, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina gave when President Obama urged Senate Republicans to “give judge Garland the respect he has earned. Give him a hearing.  Give him an up-or-down vote.”  Senator Tillis who is a member of the Senate judiciary Committee said; “the president and Democratic leaders aren’t exactly thrilled with giving the American people a voice…, will they join us in doing our jobs on behalf of the American people?  Or will they instead seek to further divide our nation by turning the Supreme Court process into a blatantly partisan back and forth?  Are they going to resort to blocking and sabotaging important legislation and good-faith efforts to help the American people, all in the name of seeking to score cheap political points in an election year?”

What a masterful turnaround. What a great sleight of hand move: with flawless dexterity that, supposedly, will mesmerize voters and leave them clueless to the switch, hang all of your baggage around the necks of those who are exposing your faults and weaknesses and use it against them.  Wow (I’m rubber you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you), how innovative!  That is, unless you are an adult who, somewhere around the first grade was either the victim of that move or witnessed someone else who was and then heard the infamous verbalization of it: I’m rubber you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.

But many vintage Republican politicians have used this ploy for so long that it is all but impossible to discard it so they use it anyway. If it works, great.  And if it doesn’t, then they just pretend they never tried it and continue to press forward as if they never said any such thing.

What makes this endless verbalization of great concern to protect the American people and assure that they are not deprived of their constitutional rights so sad is that all the while that these politicians are doing this, they are at the same time working to make it harder for bona fide voters to vote. They do this at the pretense of protecting against voter fraud.  However, it has been proven many times over that this voter fraud that they are seeking to protect America against is all but nonexistent.

The Republican Party has been told that this is the case time-and-time again and that they are doing more to prevent legitimate voters from voting than they are to prevent fraudulent voters from casting a ballot. Yet, they continue to press forward.  It is therefore reasonable to assume that they are accomplishing exactly what they want to accomplish and that is to obstruct legitimate voters who want to vote.  Click here to read an article in The Washington Post by Sari Horwitz that supports this assumption.

A prime example of the kinds of problems that this obstructionist approach is creating was reflected in what happened in the recent Arizona primary election. There were long lines at many polling places and Arizona voters were angry and complained bitterly about the conditions that they were faced with during this election.

Maricopa County recorder Helen Purcell, who was in charge of running the election for Maricopa County, said that the situation was the result of a big mistake and apologized. She and other elected state officials said that this would not happen in November at the general elections.  At this point, about all that Arizonans can do is keep their fingers crossed and hope for the best.

This same kind of thing that happened in Arizona has the potential of happening in all of the states around the country with Republican held legislatures because they all appear to be falling in line in support of this item of the Republican agenda. It has already happened in some states during past elections and the strategy is gaining momentum.  Republican politicians and conservative leaders seem to view this as a win-win proposition as long as they can maintain their sleight of hand mojo.

So, is what happened in the recent Arizona primary election just a big mistake, or are Republican politicians just casing the joint, or is this a covert prelude to the inside politician who will set things up so that their Party will walk away with the White House and all of the goods in states throughout the country? It has the makings of a promising template… at least in the eyes of Republican elites and politicians.  Here’s to hoping that it does not work.

Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line