As Justin Baragona reported here yesterday, Right Wing Watch revealed “recently unearthed footage of Rep. Ted Yoho speaking at Berean Baptist Chuch in Ocala, Florida, during his candidacy for Congress in the 2012 election cycle shows the Republican politician suggesting that only property owners should have the right to vote.”
I’ve had some radical ideas about voting and it’s probably not a good time to tell them, but you used to have to be a property owner to vote.
Just to be clear, Ted Yoho wants people he doesn’t think should have the right to vote in the first place, to vote him into office, where he can turn around and strip those voters of the right to vote. In other words, a vote for Ted Yoho is a vote against your own voting rights.
But he doesn’t want you to know that.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Watch courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
Yoho also wants absentee ballots done away with – he calls them “a travesty” and he didn’t think Gov. Rick Scott’s move against early voting – cutting it from 14 to eight days – went far enough: “I think it needs to be cut to less than that.”
This is a man, apparently, who wants men – almost certainly he doens’t want women – elected by secret plutocratic cabals in the dead of night, the results then announced the next morning to the un-represented and de-franchised masses. Government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. Just like God intended. This is not new for Republicans: we’ve already seen Judson Phillips, the head of Tea Party Nation propose the same thing, back in 2010. But Phillips, for all his faults, at least had the integrity to tell everybody what he was thinking.
You can see he is not speaking to a crowded house. He probably does not wish the church’s congregation to know what he is plotting in their worship area. He only wants his rich friends to know. Yoho describes himself as a “family man” and “Christian conservative.” His website claims that “Ted has spent the last 32 years in the trenches working, and is bringing the working man’s perspective to the legislative process.” Yes, the working man’s perspective he wishes to deprive of the right to vote without telling said working men what he is planning.
“I represent you, the working man!” he says, but how can he represent people who lack the right to have a voice in who represents them? In a democracy, political power derives from the people. But what Yoho is proposing is plutocracy. If his scheme was implemented, he would not be representing the working man at all, but their rich corporate bosses, who would then also become their overlords and masters.
Rand Paul gave a rather lengthy endorsement of Yoho, proudly emblazoned on Yoho’s website:
I AM GLAD TO ENDORSE MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE TED YOHO FOR RE-ELECTION,” PAUL SAID. “THE THING ABOUT CONGRESSMAN YOHO IS THAT HE HAS BEEN UNAFRAID, AND I THINK WHY HE HAS BEEN UNAFRAID TO DEFEND LIBERTY, DEFEND LIMITED GOVERNMENT AND OUR CONSTITUTION IS BECAUSE HE HAD A REAL LIFE. HE HAD A REAL JOB. AS A VETERINARIAN, HE ISN’T AFRAID TO GO BACK TO HIS PROFESSION AT ANY POINT AND TIME, SO HE HASN’T BEEN AFRAID TO STAND UP TO REPUBLICANS OR DEMOCRATS WHO AREN’T DOING THE RIGHT THING.
But he has apparently been afraid to tell the truth. And he has been afraid to admit that he thinks the right thing includes depriving his working class supporters of the right to vote. If you look at the “Issues” page of Yoho’s website, you won’t see his proposal to return voting rights to the land-owning class. He brags that he holds an “A” rating from the NRA. It’s a shame his honesty rating is a big fat “F”.”
Paul goes on:
IN WASHINGTON, WE ARE STILL BORROWING MORE THAN $1 MILLION A MINUTE,” PAUL CONTINUED. “WE KEEP ELECTING PEOPLE BUT IT’S NOT CHANGING. IT’S ONLY GOING TO CHANGE WHEN PEOPLE BEGIN TO FOLLOW THE LEAD OF PEOPLE LIKE CONGRESSMAN TED YOHO. SO I AM PROUD TO STAND WITH CONGRESSMAN TED YOHO. I AM PROUD TO ENDORSE HIM AND PROUD TO SUPPORT HIM. WHEN YOU ARE LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP, WHEN FLORIDA IS LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP, TED YOHO IS YOUR MAN AND I AM PROUD TO STAND WITH HIM.
Rand Paul doesn’t support democracy either. Rand Paul is also dishonest and like Yoho, lacks integrity. It is hardly a surprise, therefore, that he would have so much good to say about Yoho.
Yoho says that talking about climate change creates a “climate of confusion” that kills jobs, ironic language coming from a guy who belongs to a party whose unshakable focus is on creating climate confusion. Yoho says talking about climate change kills jobs. Why kill jobs when you can let the climate kill people?
Yoho says he is pro-life but if he was pro-life he would be pro-environment, because, thanks to the GOP, the environment is already killing people, and will kill ever-increasing numbers of people in the years ahead. Climate change has gone too far already to prevent that from happening.
So what Yoho is actually, is pro-death. A guy who wants to deprive you of healthcare and the right to vote, and then let his rich friends kill you and your family. Talk about death panels? Yes, you’ve found your death panels. They are GOP-funded and corporate owned, and once Yoho gets his way, you won’t have a right to vote to change any of it.
This is the Republican Party of the 21st century – secretive and extreme – a party that pretends to populism but which despises the populace and its rights, a party that depends wholly upon the support of its corporate masters.
If you want to take a huge step back in time to the Gilded Age, Ted Yoho is the guy for you. Just get some heavy work boots for your kids, because in no time at all, they will be back in the factories while you lie abed dying from diseases Yoho’s masters have no interest in treating.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
