No integrity exists in Texas’ new so-called “election integrity” bill that bans drive-thru voting, 24-hour voting and restricts mail-in voting.
Webster’s New World Pocket Dictionary (fourth edition) defines integrity as “honesty, sincerity, etc.” or “wholeness.”
But based on that definition of integrity, the new restrictive Texas law that will have an adverse impact on minority voters should change its name to one of the antonyms of the word integrity because dishonesty and insincerity is the reasoning behind states like Texas, Florida and Georgia attempting to make it more difficult for minorities to vote.
Antonyms for the word integrity include words like immorality, viciousness, division, fragmentation and segregation, words that too many Republican politicians know all too well based on their record and their rhetoric.
Former President Donald Trump still pushes the big lie that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election with voter fraud.
That lie is the epitome of dishonesty and insincerity.
However, that has not stopped Republicans from across the country from trying to make it more difficult to vote, when their best course of action moving forward would be to change their platform to make it more inclusive to a country that is becoming more racially diverse by the minute.
Instead of making it more difficult for minorities to vote, Republicans should stop making it so easy for minorities to vote against them with their good ole boy politics and racist agenda.
CNN reported, “Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed into law a bill that bans 24-hour and drive-thru voting, imposes new hurdles on mail-in ballots and empowers partisan poll watchers.
“The restrictive voting measures adds Texas to the list of Republican-controlled states that have seized on former President Donald Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud and clamped down on access to the ballot box this year. Already, Florida, Georgia and other states have enacted new voting laws.
“The election overhaul in Texas comes as Republicans seek to hold onto power in a rapidly changing state where people of color make up virtually all of the population growth—and that growth is concentrated in large cities that tend to vote Democratic.”
Although many Republicans believe that so-called “election integrity” bills are about stopping cheating, anything that makes it harder to vote is racist and un-American in nature.
Furthermore, it shows Republicans fear winning elections on merit because many of the issues that are important to them harken back to a day when minorities were second class citizens and the White man had 100 percent of the political power in this country.
It is no different than what White politicians did during Reconstruction with the Black codes and Jim Crow.
Every time people of color make progress in this country, and the majority seem to be losing their immoral power, restrictions are put in place to keep those uppity colored folks in their place.
When Black people rose to political power during Reconstruction, Jim Crow reared its ugly head and set off a century of terror and discrimination against Black people.
When President Barack Obama forgot his so-called place in American society and became the most powerful man on the planet, a White Republican backlash began almost immediately, which led to the popularity of Trump and his cult of uninformed and unintelligent minions.
The lies, lack of intelligence and lack of integrity, not to mention White rage, of Trump and his minions and cult followers led to the terrorist attack, or insurrection, against the United States Capitol and America’s beloved democracy on Jan. 6.
But when none of Trump’s racist-filled rants worked to overturn an election that President Joe Biden won because of his integrity, Trump’s minions in politics turned to outright voter suppression, thinking that would keep them in power and return Trump to the White House.
None of that will happen.
If it happens, it will only be a temporary victory because this current incarnation of the GOP lacks the integrity that their predecessors like former President George W. Bush, former President George H.W. Bush and Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) possessed back in the day.
The party of compassionate conservatism and limited government has become the power of limited brainpower and constraints on democracy and equality.
As a result, very few current Republican politicians, outside of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), can actually write or speak the word integrity, because many have very little integrity.
Integrity is putting one’s life on the line to secure the right to vote for their people like the late Martin Luther King, Jr. and the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).
Integrity is driving one’s fellow church members to the polls to vote when they do not have transportation to get to the voting booths.
Integrity is what Texas Democrats temporarily did by putting their freedom on the line to preserve the freedom of the Black and Brown members of their community.
Integrity is what Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton showed when she accepted her defeat by Trump in 2016.
Integrity is what Stacey Abrams showed when she lost the Georgia gubernatorial campaign and chose to encourage her constituents to vote instead of encouraging her supporters to riot and attempt to overthrow America’s democracy.
And integrity is what Texans will show when they use voter suppression as motivation to turn out in droves against state Republicans leaders during the midterm election in 2022.
What Abbott signed is not an “election integrity” bill.
Instead, Abbott actually signed an election oxymoron bill.
And unfortunately for the GOP, they will eventually learn the hard way that no amount of immorality or divisiveness can stop the increasing diversity in America.
Only when they embrace that diversity, will they be able to hold onto power, with integrity that is.
