Damage

I don't know what I expected in my life. But I never expected, NEVER, one of our major parties to discredit voting.

PA Republicans subpoena voters' PERSONAL info (SSN, Voting History, Name, Address, etc) 

My trigger for leaving the country (helpfully named Get The Fuck Out Of Dodge) was;

 2. Serious talk of "postponing the next election" occurs and / or legislation is introduced (my guess is this would occur - IF it occurs - due to a terrorist attack and we should "all come together).

What has happened is less obvious. more insidious and heartbreaking. The Republican Party has called doubt on our very system of democracy by delegitimizing our elections. 

Americans used to believe in voting, democracy and the will of the people. Even when it didn't bring the results we wanted, we never questioned it. Even when Republicans won the Presidency while losing the popular vote (twice!), Americans believed in the system we had.

But this Republican party, encouraged but not ruled by Trump, has decided on a two fold response to a rising Democratic electorate.

Originally it was excessive and racial gerrymandering. Which the Supreme Republican Court upheld as totally legal. NSOt fair, but legal.

For the past year, Republican states have passed legislation making it harder to vote. It will take longer, be less fair and makes it illegal to hand out water or anything while people wait longer. The Supreme Republican Court overturned decades (and in some cases centuries) of precedence to allow. In they overturned a Congressional law to allow this.

And now they have called into question our very democracy by trying to overturn elections. These attempts include derided them as "flawed".  As we saw with Larry Elder, the "fraud accusations" are ready and sometimes released before the election occurs.

One third of our country has lost its damn mind. And a second 1/3 is okay with this, or doesn't see a problem. Arizona subpoenaed voting records in general. Pennsylvania has just SUBPOENAED PERSONAL RECORDS, that are definitely illegal to share. voting history, voting times, voters' names, voters' social security numbers and home addresses.

This is illegal (yet that hasn't stopped the courts from upholding this). This is what scammers and identity thieves look for. This should be beyond the pale. This is something we would deride in other countries. This is well and truly both unAmerican and the new Republican normal.

Note: My Get The Fuck Out Of Dodge list was in response to a woman who fled Communist regimes. She said detail what you can't take and leads you to believer a Fascist takeover is coming. Becau it happens so slowly you won't see it coming.

I think waiting until the next election is fine. I need to make sure their disgusting attempts to subvert democracy do not work.