A modest proposal regarding voting rights
On Aug. 18 we marked the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.
I didn’t say “celebrated” because the occasion didn’t attract much attention.
Which is unfortunate, because it’s time for us to reconsider who is allowed to vote in this country. For decades we’ve expanded voting rights. We might be better served by restricting them instead.
We live in an age of turmoil, terror abroad and troubles at home.
Yet we remain mired in gridlock even as the times demand decisive action.
The fact is, we can no longer tolerate a huge bloc of voters who, perhaps for hormonal reasons beyond their control, have proven themselves easily manipulated, overly fearful, too often ruled by their emotions.
It’s time to admit the obvious: granting suffrage to middle-aged and older white men was a mistake and must be reversed.
I realize that not all my readers will agree.
To which I answer: Donald Trump.
Time and again, we’ve been told, it’s a summer fling. Voters will come to their senses.
Recall those innocent days before Trump’s announcement. After Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012, Republican strategists studied the problem and came up with a solution: We need to broaden our appeal among Latino voters, they said.
And then Trump began building his wall.
No, not the one on the Mexican border, the one between Latino voters and the Republican Party.
Describing Mexicans, Trump reached out to Latino voters by saying, “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Crazy, right? I mean, Worst Launch of a Presidential Campaign in History. Exactly what the Republicans DIDN’T want to do.
It was even reported as such.
And then something strange happened. Trump’s poll numbers began to rise.
Pundits pondered. Trump, they said, had tapped into something deep in the gut of the American voter. Anger, lactose intolerance, no one seemed to know what.
His next “gaffe” was to insult Sen. John McCain for being captured by the North Vietnamese, a fate Trump avoided despite scores of successful missions behind enemy lines in Manhattan.
Still, among the oldest planks in the Republican platform is one that says, “John McCain is a war hero.”
Even Democrats agree with this one.
This was a Big, Big Mistake, we were told. Trump’s summer surge was over.
But it wasn’t.
Then came Trump’s all-night Twitter Tantrum aimed at Fox’s Megyn Kelly, an attack weird enough to have doomed a seventh grader’s chances for class president at Crazy Town Junior High.
But it wasn’t even a bump for Trump in his run for the presidency.
Trump, to his credit, has had the insight to exploit one of the great, unnoticed demographic waves of the 21st century.
All across America, millions of older white male voters are facing manopause, which begins striking men in their later 40s.
While a perfectly natural condition, manopause can cause men to experience a disorienting loss of power and influence.
Many also report hot flashes. At first, men feel feverish; more severe symptoms include an inability to reason; in the final stages, men express overwhelming support for Donald Trump.
There is no cure.
But should these men be allowed to vote?
The answer, clearly, is no. But taking away their vote seems problematic.
Many older, white males are “birthright” citizens. They were born here.
Constitutional scholars, however, note that the 14th Amendment contains no explicit provisions saying men with manopause can’t have their voting rights rescinded, much like those of a felon.
Another option would be mass deportation, done as humanely as possible.
But, my fellow Americans, we must understand that we have entered New Territory.
We’ve reached a point where if Trump announced Batman was going to be his secretary of defense the only complaint from his supporters would be, “What about Iron Man?”
Which I have to admit makes sense. Why not a whole cabinet filled with Super Heroes? The Fantastic Four. The Incredible Hulk.
Who would mess with us then? Nobody, that’s who!
Captain America would kick China’s ass. The Mighty Thor would bring the hammer down on Putin.
The cabinet would be so awesome, almost as awesome as their leader, the Greatest U.S. President/Casino Builder in the History of the World, Donald Trump!
Uh-oh, I almost forgot, I’m an older white male myself. I may be coming down with manopause. I can feel myself succumbing to the siren song of The Donald.
Help! Stop me before I vote again!
Don Flood is a former newspaper editor living near Lewes. He can be reached at floodpolitics@gmail.com.
