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TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 12:15 PM Aug 2020

Trump Made A Huge Mistake In Drawing Attention to Susan B. Anthony, A Voting Rights Activist!

Last edited Tue Aug 18, 2020, 12:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Trumpsters and Republicans love to bleet the word "Freedom" as though all it stood for was the right to be able to shoot a gun and not wear a mask. Yet, without missing a beat, Republicans happily support efforts to suppress the vote in the midst of a pandemic.

On top of that, Trump has denigrated John Lewis, who was a protester known for getting in "Good Trouble." But before Lewis, Susan B. Anthony got arrested for voting illegally because she was a woman.

After her arrest on charges of voting illegally in the 1872 federal election, Susan B. Anthony undertook a speaking tour . The title for her lecture was "Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?" In her lecture, she explained why the right to vote and exercising that right is essential to freedom. In short, Susan B. Anthony asked how can the consent of the governed be given, if the right to vote be denied?

So, if Trump is going to pardon Susan B. Anthony after her death, why not ask him about why he and Republicans are trying so hard to reverse and to suppress the rights that Susan B. Anthony fought for? How can the consent of the governed be given, if the right to vote is denied?

Susan B. Anthony's words are as true today as they were a hundred years ago:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/anthony/anthonyaddress.html

Friends and Fellow-citizens: I stand before you to-night, under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny.

Our democratic-republican government is based on the idea of the natural right of every individual member thereof to a voice and a vote in making and executing the laws. We assert the province of government to be to secure the people in the enjoyment of their unalienable rights. We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. Before governments were organized, no one denies that each individual possessed the right to protect his own life. liberty and property. And when 100 or 1,000,000 people enter into a free government, they do not barter away their natural rights; they simply pledge themselves to protect each other in the enjoyment of them, through prescribed judicial and legislative tribunals. They agree to abandon the methods of brute force in the adjustment of their differences, and adopt those of civilization.

Nor can you find a word in any of the grand documents left us by the fathers that assumes for government the power to create or to confer rights. The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the constitutions of the several states and the organic laws of the territories, all alike propose to protect the people in the exercise of their God-given rights. Not one of them pretends to bestow rights.

"All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Here is no shadow of government authority over rights, nor exclusion of any from their full and equal enjoyment. Here is pronounced the right of all men, and "consequently," as the Quaker preacher said, "of all women," to a voice in the government. And here, in this very first paragraph of the declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for, how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be denied. Again:

"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such forms as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
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TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
3. If Susan B. Anthony Were Alive, Trump Would Be Calling Her a Nasty Woman
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 12:33 PM
Aug 2020

If she was getting arrested for fighting for her right to vote like modern day activists opposing voter suppression, Trump would be calling her an antifa terrorist.

tanyev

(42,360 posts)
4. Sounds like a Jarvanka stunt.
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 12:34 PM
Aug 2020

“Oh, yeah, if you pardon Susan B. Anthony, the women will love it and they’ll all vote for you!”

Pretty much the same thoughtful logic that got Sarah Palin a VP pick.

JHB

(37,133 posts)
14. It's a sop to the "pro-life" zealots. Like other bad RW history...
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 02:07 PM
Aug 2020

...they've declared her a founding mother of their cause based on weak and/or distorted history and just wanting it a lot.

So now they hold up a historical figure and women's rights advocate (who can no longer speak for herself) as a symbol of the length and rightness of their crusade... "and can't call us misogynists, neener neener!"

Trump's "pardon" is a mutually-useful-fest between him and another set of zealots destroying the country.

TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
10. Trump Is Pardoning A Dead Voting Rights Activist While...
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 12:51 PM
Aug 2020

...undermining the USPS in an effort to suppress the vote while also doing his best to undermine confidence in U.S. elections.

I am glad that Trump did this stunt, because we can use this to highlight his own actions to attack and undermine voting rights.

Kota

(901 posts)
8. Trump said that she got other women pardoned but did not want herself pardoned.
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 12:42 PM
Aug 2020

If that's true, he's probably doing this to take away her badge of honor?

TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
9. Next Trump Will Grant Citizenship to Detained Immigrant Children Who Died...
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 12:45 PM
Aug 2020

...in cages to show that he respects Latinos.

duforsure

(11,882 posts)
11. No, I think he'll soon be claiming
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 12:58 PM
Aug 2020

He's the greatest President for promoting voting right more that any other President in this country's history. He loves projecting he's something he clearly isn't. He does it almost daily now, or projecting his faults onto others, knowing its a lie.

TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
12. Of course he will lie, but he normally tries to distract...
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 01:00 PM
Aug 2020

...by drawing attention to Susan B. Anthony, how can you avoid drawing attention to voting rights, which Republicans are trying to suppress.

musette_sf

(10,184 posts)
13. This is all a giant pander to the evil RWNJ gestational slavery advocates.
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 01:55 PM
Aug 2020

It's a hate speech shitshow for the forced birthers. This was done as a deliberate FUCK YOU to the sacred civil, human and Constitutional rights of innocent female citizens to the protections of the 14th Amendment. The RNC has announced that two notorious anti-American enemies of the Constitution will be featured speakers at their hate speech hate festival: depraved, amoral grifter Abby Johnson, and depraved, amoral smirker Nicholas Sandmann.

The evil Marjorie Dannenfelser, who co-opted Anthony for her gestational slavery cabal, was in the room, leering at the cameras. I hate these people with a fire of a thousand suns. REAL Americans stand to protect the sacred rights of their fellow citizens - these domestic terrorists are anti-American to their shriveled, black core.

Read and learn who these enemies of the Constitution are:
https://www.sba-list.org/

TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
16. Maybe Trump Will Issue an Order to Retroactively Free Slaves Prior to the Civil War
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 02:41 PM
Aug 2020

Take that Lincoln! The slaves were retroactively freed before you took office!

Totally Tunsie

(10,885 posts)
15. THIS is what he's wasting his time doing?
Tue Aug 18, 2020, 02:37 PM
Aug 2020

With all that should be occupying him time right now, THIS is where he concentrates?

He does realize she's dead, right?

What a pandering fool.

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