CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Russell Vought Says “We are in a post constitutional moment in our country.” He’s Not Wrong.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

“There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections,” US president Donald Trump declared in a February 13 Truth Social rant,  “whether approved by Congress or not!”

While I oppose government ID mandates for any purpose — as did “conservatives,” at least as late as the 1990s,  when it came to national requirements of the sort — I don’t consider voting a special case for which my objections need be stronger or weaker.

Voting in America is a ritual through which we flatter ourselves that we’re engaging in “democracy,” even “self-government,” when 99% of participants periodically choose between two convergent (and nearly identical) wings of the single state-approved political party.

As for the other 1%, which includes me (I’m a partisan Libertarian), we enjoy the freedom to cough during communion, to whisper “I rather prefer freedom” as the crowd yells........

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