SAVE US FROM THE SAVE ACT

It's not a voter protection bill. It's a voter suppression bill - and they know it

Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Nothing strikes at the heart of democracy like an effort to suppress the vote. And if passed by the Senate, that’s exactly what the SAVE Act would do.

It’s important to recognize that this piece of proposed legislation is just one tree in a much larger forest. The political chaos in our midst today, while made up of a thousand individual hits on our Constitutional system, is in fact all part of a single pattern of assault. There are a lot of battles, but there’s actually only one war. Whoever is behind all this - the theories range from Peter Thiel to Vladimir Putin, from Christian Nationalists to white supremacists, to a band of Curtis Yarvin-inspired tech bros seeking to create a system of corporate feudalism, to all of the above - the effort now being mounted has one larger goal: to destroy America as we know it, and replace it with authoritarian rule.

As long as we’re seeking to defend our freedoms one hit at a time - failing to recognize the larger war now being waged against American democracy itself - as citizens we’re likely to be psychologically if not politically overwhelmed. Whoever is behind all this, their army is stunningly relentless. One day history books will record the massive, multi-tiered assault machine they’re currently leveling at us. We’re in the midst right now of deciding whether we successfully push them back, or ultimately succumb.

According to Abraham Lincoln, “While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.” The quote is particularly striking because 1) it acknowledges that an administration of extreme “wickedness or folly” could indeed come about, and 2 ) it makes it clear that only “the people” can ward off its evil. During one four-year term, there is a primary tool provided by the U.S. Constitution by which the people can make sure such an effort cannot succeed: our midterm elections.

That’s why the SAVE Act is so important, and so dangerous. The Trump team isn’t going after minor organs of democracy anymore; they’re going after the one major organ without which democracy cannot survive. Our elections have never been as fair and free as they should be, yet this is one of those areas - far too common these days - where efforts to make things better have been stymied, and efforts to make them infinitely worse are on the rise.

The President is many things, but he is not stupid. He has said he won’t sign one more piece of legislation until the Senate passes the SAVE Act, and that it must go to the front of the line in a list of Republican priorities. That’s how adamant (uh, scared) he is that the bill’s passage is needed to ensure a Republican win in the midterms.

Politics today is a war of algorithms. I recently had dinner with some very intelligent, lovely people who think Trump is the best thing since sliced bread. Part of America’s crisis is that we’re not seeing the same news reports, and certainly not viewing what we do see through any kind of common filter. Losing Walter Cronkite on TV every night was a huge crack in America’s foundation. Some people are still telling me, “Take Trump seriously but do not take him literally” while he is literally shredding the U.S. Constitution, using gestapo techniques on innocent people, building concentration camps, canceling mail-in voting, trying to federalize elections, and seeking to rig the midterm elections.

The Republican argument behind the SAVE Act is that there is rampant fraud in US elections, although not one reputable source has proven anything of the kind. When asked to give one piece of evidence that such fraud exists, Speaker Mike Johnson responded “We’re not going to litigate that now.” Of course he says that, because Johnson knows that fraud is not the issue. The problem for him is that not the right kind of people are voting.

For Trump, all this is sheer crassness and authoritarianism: if people have a problem with him, he simply wants to suppress the voices of those people so he can stay in power. But for Johnson and many like him, this problem is much more ideological - and in a way, more threatening. Johnson and his ilk sincerely believe that unless their white supremacist, Christian Nationalist agenda is forced down the throats of the American people, then this country is going to hell in a hand basket. And remember, to them hell is a very real place, filled with fire and brimstone and eternal damnation. I don’t say that disrespectfully, because they have every right to believe that. What they do not have the right to do is sabotage the democratic process, however. In the United States of America, We the People, through free and fair elections, determine what we want this country to be.

America has become, and is becoming even more so, a multi-ethnic society. To many of us that’s the full actualization of the American dream, while to many on the far Right it’s a threat of cultural annihilation. The SAVE Act is their effort to make sure that only the right people vote. And for everyone else, the plan is to make voting hard, filled with bureaucratic and expensive hurdles to the point where people are so frustrated and exhausted that we just give up.

Thomas Jefferson said the only safe repository for power is in the hands of the people. Authoritarian states - and authoritarian institutions - have a very big problem with that. One thing being made very clear by our current circumstances is how naive it is for any generation of Americans to assume our freedoms are ever rock solid guaranteed. As Lincoln reminded us, every generation must be vigilant as well as virtuous. Unfortunately we were not, and we’re playing catch up now.

Denying the vote to all but white men has been a problem in this country since our founding. From passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the vote in 1921, to the Voting Rights Act in 1965, generations before us have worked hard and sacrificed much to ameliorate that. The Trump administration represents in many ways the regression of our political consciousness, as they seek to codify in any way possible the ability of their people to have the final say in everything. One of their techniques is to nullify the rights of women. As Margaret Atwood, author of the Handmaid’s Tale, has pointed out repeatedly, suppressing the voices and power of women has been a common totalitarian technique. Scott Yenor, ironically named Chair of the American Citizenship Initiative at The Heritage Foundation and now a main proponent of Project 2025, unabashedly celebrates a world in which women shut up now and basically do as we are told. Telling half the population that the country is better off without our contributions beyond kitchen, bedroom or nursery is extraordinarily perverse. Atwood points out that fascism doesn’t happen all at once but rather through gradual, incremental changes. We can too often become accustomed to those changes, not realizing the extreme nature of such oppression until it’s too late to do anything about it.

In truth, democracy is radical. To an authoritarian regime it’s the biggest enemy, which is why over the last few years there’s been a propaganda effort to convince Americans that we’re not a democracy! You’ve probably seen this show up on your feed at some point: “We’re not a democracy, we’re a republic!” Which is like arguing that if we have windows we can’t possibly have doors. A republic is the way we organize ourselves; democracy is the way we govern ourselves. It’s true that the founders did not want direct democracy, which they rightfully felt could turn into mob rule. In a representative democracy, however, We the People elect who we wish to represent us in Washington. And without free and fair elections - either within a party or within the country - the machinery of democracy is jammed.

Voting should not be stymied; if anything it should be made easier in America. Our citizens should automatically be registered at the age of 18. Elections should be held on a Saturday, or even a holiday created to make it easier for people to get to the polls. There’s something perverse about a democratic government making it harder for its own citizens to vote, no matter what the Trump administration uses as a ruse to cover up their real intentions. In Australia, people are fined for not voting! Gerrymandering should be prohibited. Term limits should be seriously debated. The SAVE Act would simply make voting harder, less fair, and basically worse in every way.

GOP Sen. Murkowski is the one GOP Senator so far who has said she will vote against the SAVE Act , correctly pointing out that it would disenfranchise her constituents. Even if it didn’t suppress the vote, it would definitely depress the vote. If you’re a citizen of the United States, it shouldn’t be so damned hard to cast your vote or to have it count.

So the Action Alert is obvious. Spread the word as best you can, making sure that everyone you know is aware of the perniciousness of this piece of legislation. Public pressure means everything. Particularly if you have a GOP Senator, call them at 202 224 3121 and tell them NOT to vote for the SAVE Act. It’s not a voter protection bill; it’s a voter suppression bill. The people behind it know this, regardless of whether or not we do. The alarm is ringing, and we cannot afford to snooze.