It may look like lamb’s ear, but don’t assume it’ll vote with all the other lamb’s ears.
One of the terms that conservatives thinkers have for Dr. Kendi’s thoughts on correcting American racism is identitarian politics, which means that identifying a person on the basis of physical, or more rarely other, characteristics as a member of a given group will also give you the most reliable key to their politics.
This tends to get on the nerves of just about everyone else, and post election polling seems to confirm that it’s a broken contention. Democratic assumptions about the Latino vote has been wrong for several years, as many of them think that illegal immigration is a serious problem and illegal immigrants should be deported.
But this report might suggest something quite similar is going on in Oklahoma:
As a group pushes to make abortion a constitutional right in Oklahoma, there’s new attention on the process they’re trying to use.
State Sen. Warren Hamilton said he wants to change how many votes are needed to change laws. Right now, state questions pass by a simple majority, which he argues disenfranchises rural Oklahoma. …
The newest possible state question making headlines is State Question 828, which by a vote of the people would amend the state constitution to protect abortion rights. Hamilton announced via press release that he’s looking to file a joint resolution that would require state questions to be passed via a two-thirds majority.
Hamilton argued the current system disenfranchises rural Oklahoma, giving a voice to only the major cities. The McCurtain lawmaker also alleged it allows for voter fraud, election tampering and out-of-state influence. [KOCO News5]
It appears Hamilton has a sudden suspicion that all those anti-abortionists from the pre-Dobbs era are just not as devoted to the cause as he might have thought back then.
But his thinking is so odd. Rural Oklahomans are pro-life while city inhabitants are pro-choice? Is he so sure of that? And just because rural inhabitants are outnumbered, it’s necessary to come right out and say the votes of city-dwellers are to be discounted?
That’s one way to start a riot, to make voters, even your voters, unhappy with you.
I look forward to hearing how this works out for him.
