Taylor Swift, Democratic Governor Make Moves to Expand Democracy

The Republican Party’s longstanding allergy to democracy is at serious risk of becoming untreatably chronic, if their reaction to recent moves by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Taylor Swift—yes, that Taylor Swift—is any indication.

Recently, Governor Shapiro made good on a major campaign promise by making automatic voter registration a reality in Pennsylvania. Previously, the commonwealth employed an opt-in system in which eligible citizens had to go out of their way to avail themselves of their civic right to vote. Now, eligible citizens are automatically registered when they engage with certain government agencies (such as when getting a driver’s license or state ID card) and have to go out of their way to opt out of the process.

Shapiro’s action—which was made by proactively sidestepping bad faith Republicans in the state legislature—allows Pennsylvania to join 23 other states and Washington D.C. Election experts agree that this will almost certainly increase eligible voter turnout and democratic participation.

In parallel, pop music titan Taylor Swift via Instagram encouraged her fans to register to vote on National Voter Registration Day. Vote.org noted an enormous spike in website engagement and the registration of 35,000 new voters. And when you consider the fact that the margin for President Biden’s victory in 2020 was attributable to 44,000 voters in a handful of swing states, those numbers matter.

And yet right wingers—ranging from prolific transphobe Matt Walsh to Federalist Society founder Sean Davis to Donald Trump himself—are furious with these developments.

Why, one might ask? It’s simple: they think they’ll lose more often as a result Trump, Lindsey Graham, and a litany of Republican politicians have openly opposed maximum eligible voter turnout and have been surprisingly candid about their reasons: they fear Republicans will be at an electoral disadvantage.

The irony, of course, is that it’s not necessarily true—and if it is true, it may very well be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Automatic voter registration and other processes that maximize eligible voter turnout aren’t inherently advantageous to Democrats. There’s no law which forbids Republicans from availing themselves of these new processes.

They can, often do, and should. They often don’t, but usually because they’re instructed not to by deranged cult leaders like Trump. Even Ron “DeSanctimonious” DeSantis has recognized the futility of such actions. If the rules change to make it easier to vote, then it would be absurd for Republicans to not avail themselves of the changed rules. Moreover, in the 2022 midterms, more people voted Republican than Democrat.

The idea that it’s impossible for Republicans to be competitive in free and fair elections is one they’ve created themselves and one which has little basis in fact.

But it’s true that facing off against Democrats in an electoral landscape in which eligible voter registration and turnout are maximized would force Republicans to step up their game, demanding they reconsider their candidates, rhetoric, and “policy agenda” (if you can even call it that) to appeal to more voters in more places.

Which is precisely why Governors like Josh Shapiro and pop culture icons like Taylor Swift should keep doing what they’re doing, even if it infuriates bad faith right wing actors. After all, the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.