The Texas GOP decided today was a great day to get out this heartless message:
“If you can wait in line for hours for testing…you can vote in person.”
The baffling comparison was tweeted by the official Texas GOP Twitter account, over an image of a line of people waiting to receive a Covid test:
If you can wait in line for a covid test, you can wait in line to vote. pic.twitter.com/Y8YrKEspYP
— Texas GOP (@TexasGOP) January 7, 2022
Texas Republicans last year passed Senate Bill 1, a sweeping new voting law which, among other things, bans 24-hour and drive-thru voting along with candidates sending unsolicited mail-voting applications. The state also “limits mail-in voting to residents who are 65 and older, sick or disabled, out of the county during the election period, or confined in jail but otherwise eligible to vote.”
Critics see the restrictions as a way to further infringe upon Texans’ voting rights, and they were not happy to see the party cavalierly compare voting to the current Covid crisis.
“Except for COVID, laws & regulations weren’t created to make it harder for people to get a test,” wrote one commenter.
“Hot take,” wrote another, “both of these are evidence of cataclysmic policy failures and exactly nobody should be flexing on them, least of all the ghouls of the Texas GOP.”
Here are some more of the many, many reactions:
Citizens should not have to wait in line for hours to exercise their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO VOTE! pic.twitter.com/A3sc14QLdP
— Rocky Mountain High (@hippotx) January 7, 2022
Lol ,”If you put up with us making it hard for you to access life-saving healthcare, you should accept us also making it hard for you to exercise your democratic rights!”
Not sure this is quite the own you think it is.
— Taliesin & Evitel (@TaliesinEvitel) January 7, 2022
I’m in my 60s. Before 2020, I never had to stand in line for hours to vote. Why is it that only Republicans want to make Voting in America harder ?
— NTRBarackObama (@NtrObama) January 7, 2022
What is the benefit of having to wait in line for either?
This line of thinking does not work towards making it easier for Texans to vote, nor does it help mitigate the pandemic.
And you wonder why more people are going to vote blue… pic.twitter.com/1QKwwR4iy0
— Justagirl (@hollym1126) January 7, 2022
You’re not making the point you think you are.
— Jorge A. Caballero, MD (@DataDrivenMD) January 7, 2022
Or, now stick with me on this one I know it’s a revolutionary idea, why not make it easier to vote rather than making it more difficult?
— Andy McLean (@Andy_McLean) January 7, 2022
Texas closed 750 polling places since Supreme Court gutted Voting Rights Act, more than any other state, and had 6 hour lines to vote in 2020.
Don’t pretend Texas cares about ALL people being ABLE to vote in person.https://t.co/JZaq2d9dE0
— (@stinaxlynn85) January 7, 2022
Translation: “The more people that vote, the less chance we have of winning.”
— John Desrocher (@JohnDesrocher1) January 7, 2022
What is it with you guys and actively trying to make it harder to vote?! It’s almost as if your mostly rural mostly white voters don’t have to contend with the same lines and delays as Democrat voters. But surely you couldn’t be pushing this for pure partisan advantage?!
— Tom Coates (@tomcoates) January 7, 2022
If I can test at home, I guess I should vote at home, right? pic.twitter.com/ODymCvodMB
— Abe Connally (@abeconnally) January 7, 2022
Vile messaging
— David S (@Cchord_david) January 7, 2022
If you’re good enough to win an election, then you’re good enough to win it without gerrymandering. Right, @DanCrenshawTX ? pic.twitter.com/2V04MNlvIx
— Travis Martin (@travisjmartin) January 7, 2022
In response to the backlash, the Texas GOP account wrote: “wow, this made the pronouns in bio people big mad. Masks are dumb”.
Yes, really:
Masks are dumb
— Texas GOP (@TexasGOP) January 7, 2022
James Hart
2022 is going to be a great election for Republicans.
All they have to do is show videos of the 2 million illegal aliens coming over the Texas border since January, 2021. Biden doesn’t even have them tested for Covid-19 or its variants, and then they are secretly flown in the middle of the night to swing states.
The left overreached again. They will lose in November.
Cam
If the right wing troll is panic commenting on how great the election is going to be for Republicans, it must be very worried. If you truly believed that you wouldn’t be on this site under 15 different screenames trying to convince people of this.
Your trolling is sad and boring.
Kangol2
And here we go again. James Hart, a right-wing concern troll masquering as a “moderate Democrat,” is spewing skewed figures he/they/it encountered from right-wing sources. As with the lies about Democrat Lucas Kunce, James Hart is again wrong.
From a conservative news site, the Washington Examiner (October 22, 2021): “Nearly 2 million people were encountered by federal law enforcement while attempting to enter the United States illegally over the past year.
Data released Friday afternoon by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that federal law enforcement officials stopped 1,956,519 noncitizens who tried to gain entry to the U.S. by walking across from Canada or Mexico, entering by way of the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, or passing through an air, land, or sea port.”
Let’s state that again: Federal Law Enforcement STOPPED 1,956,519 noncitizens who tried to gain entry to the U.S by various means. You do not have to be a math genius to grasp that 2 million MINUS 1.9 million does not equal 2 million!
Additionally: “The large majority of the 1.9 million, 1.66 million, were stopped by the Border Patrol, whose officers work in the land between ports of entry.” I.e., MOST were stopped by the Border Patrol and did not enter the US.
Yet the right-wing troll “James Hart” actually posted that in response to the Texas GOP’s extreme anti-democratic and anti-science tweet.
Seriously, James Hart, just admit you are a right-wing troll and be done with it. Whether you are a prior poster masquerading under a new name or a brand new Queerty poster, you are clearly mainlining right-wing claptrap and many here just aren’t buying it.
novadude
“… show videos of the 2 million illegal aliens coming over the Texas border since January, 2021 …”
That would be wonderful!! Can you show such a video? No? Why not?
Because, like with the 2020 election lie (and the 60+ lawsuits the GOP lost in court due to lack of evidence), IT’S NOT TRUE!
Troll gonna’ lie. It’s what they do.
James Hart
In response to the left-wing hypocrites above:
2022 is going to be a great election year for Republicans.
New York Times: A Gallup poll was taken New Year’s Day: 84% of Americans believe that the Republicans will win control of the House and Senate in November.
Don’t cry fellas. 🙂
smehalko0102
Kinda like that Gallup poll that had HRC with a 80+% chance of winning in 2016, amirite? Anyways, I thought you Trumptards didn’t believe in polls?
cliche guevara
Predicting the GOP will make gains in congress during the 2022 election doesn’t require elaborate racist conspiracies about immigrants being used to spread covid or whatever that nonsense was. Midterms almost always favor the party that doesn’t hold the presidency.
What you are missing is the GOP is struggling to hold on to Texas. The trending here (and yes I live in Texas) is not good and getting worse. They have done all they can do with gerrymandering and now they have resorted to keeping residents from voting. These are the actions of a party that feels confident in their prospects. Their desperation is understandable if Texas moves to blue then Republicans won’t ever take the presidency.
James
SHUT UP YOU STUPID NAZI TRASH.
barryaksarben
So then why don they make it easier for all these oh so upset people to sweep them into office? LOL You and the gop CAN NOT WIN A FAIR ELECTION. WE KNOW IT < YOU KNOW AND THAT is all that is needed to know about your non-existent platform that is nothing but a hate filled culture war on other AMERICANS GFY
wikidBSTN
Yes Jimmy – all the GOP has to do is lie and hope that people believe it. It’s all the GOP has. One TRICK pony.
Creamsicle
Democracy is allegedly America’s whole thing. If we’re not going to prioritize and make voting more accessible, then what are we doing?
American politics are in crisis. The Republicans want to retain their power despite representing a base that is shrinking because of demographic shifts. Democrats want to keep pretending it’s 1996, and tell the Progressive wing of the party to shut up and raise more campaign money.
Meanwhile there is a huge swathe of the population who feel alienated by the top-down dictation of values that the two major parties have become. There is no room for people who have their own viewpoint that isn’t informed by a party platform. It’s idiotic and the antithesis of democracy.
We need to kill the duopoly. Get rid of First Past the Post voting, and switch to some form of Ranked Choice voting so that nobody gets into office without popular support. That will give 3rd parties a fighting chance, and move the focus away from party purity tests, and more towards discussing actual policy instead of virtue signaling.
Ronbo
THIS
Brian
“Masks are dumb” is a very stupid thing to say. There must be more than 100,000 studies agreeing that they work. That’s why they’ve been used in hospitals for more than a century. I really hate that American voters get just two options and this is one of them.
barryaksarben
It is beyond stupid. Maks have not only been tested for decades but even during the 1918 flu epidemic and all the VALID studies PROVED they work in the slowing of infection rates. ONly idiots who are too stupid to understand science would say something this stupid
Cam
The Republican Party.
Masks, Medicine, and Education are dangerous.
Guns in schools and dying from Covid, Not dangerous.
novadude
Or my recent favorite where the GOP mouthpieces say that Biden is politicizing Jan 6.
Sooooo, a violent insurrection mounted by a sitting president to overturn a valid election is not political…. but *talking* about such an insurrection is?
Tombear
The facts are this. When a large number of voters show up at the polls Democrat candidates tend to win. Republicans know this and try to interfere with voting as much as possible.
Fahd
My heart goes out to the individuals and local governments in Texas that consist of decent people who are not focused on taking away individual liberties and making voting as difficult as possible. The state government there seems to be controlled by an undemocratic right wing cadre of election-stealing wackos who are imposing their will across the state. I thought local control was a Republican talking point. There ought to be an investigation; otherwise there just might be a revolution.
Jim
You don’t have to be heartless to be a Texas Republican, just clueless.
bluewindboy
You don’t HAVE to be heartless, but it sure is a selling point!
James
REPUBLICANS ARE LOSERS. I HATE THEM.
Mack
I’m waiting for the Texas Republicans to require you to dip your finger in ink to show that you’ve voted. But then again they’re the ones who keep getting caught voting multiple times. ROFLMAO.
scotty
so it is true about piles and cowboy hats…sooner or later every asshole gets them. looking at you ted.