GOP strategists plot anti-media strategy (+massive voter suppression) for 2018 elections

[CousinIT]

Conservative radio hosts mock a physical assault on a reporter. A GOP governor blasts a reporter on Twitter as "a sick man." The president accuses the media of being an “enemy of the people.”

This is not run-of-the-mill Republican criticism of the press anymore. It is now a deliberate strategy to help GOP candidates win elections fueled by public hatred of reporters.

“Does anyone want to see a reporter badly injured? No,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University advertising expert who advises congressional and gubernatorial election campaigns. "But there are some people who think this is their comeuppance: ‘You’ve been strutting around with no accountability and maybe you should be held accountable.’”

A party that traditionally has had a fraught relationship with the media has become outright hostile, led by a president who picks more fights with journalists than any GOP leader since Richard Nixon.

But interviews with Republican strategists and party leaders across the country reveal that what started as genuine anger at allegedly unfair coverage — or an effort to deflect criticism — is now an integral part of next year’s congressional campaigns.

The hope, say these officials, is to convince Trump die-hards that these mid-term races are as much a referendum on the media as they are on President Trump. That means embracing conflict with local and national journalists, taking them on to show Republicans voters that they, just like the president, are battling a biased press corps out to destroy them.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article154106459.html

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Kris Kobach, the ‘King of Voter Suppression,’ Will Lead Trump’s Sham Voter Fraud Commission.

What was your first thought when the news broke today about President Trump’s executive order on election integrity?

Dale Ho: That this was the first step in a plan to suppress voting in this country. There is no evidence that we have a problem with election integrity. You can tell that this is a sham commission just by the appointment of Kris Kobach, someone who has devoted much of his professional life to suppressing the vote, to vice-chair. It’s a circus show, designed to undermine confidence in our system and to reach a pre-determined result and to justify laws that make it harder for people to register and vote as a result.

Is this preoccupation with voter fraud new to the 2016 election and Donald Trump?

The American people should demand that elected officials and election administrators not participate in this phony commission.

Ho: No, not at all. There was a similar wild goose chase to root out voter fraud during the George W. Bush administration. It was a five-year investigation nationwide that cost millions of dollars and turned up a few dozen reported instances of fraud over a period of time in which hundreds of millions of ballots was cast. It was a political agenda that led to the improper firings of a number of United States attorneys. It was one of the biggest scandals of the George W. Bush administration, and it eventually resulted in the resignation in disgrace of Alberto Gonzalez as attorney general.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/kris-kobach-king-voter-suppression-will-lead-trumps-sham-voter-fraud-commission-be

[beachbum bob]

1. The antidote is GOTV effort and education and getting all voters the proper

Voting credentials needed....and not whining about it. It takes action by all of us. The democratic wave won't be stopped.

[geek tragedy]

2. Worked great last time they used it

[Fluke a Snooker]

3. This proves that Republicans are far worse

If any group needed to be extinct, this is it.

[Binkie The Clown]

4. They know they have no chance of winning a fair and honest election. n/t