Voter suppression is an old American story

SAN ANTONIO — For the past week, Democrats have lost sleep over their shellacking in Tuesday's elections. They've read political reporting and analysis deep into the night, then tossed and turned, only to get up again to read some more.

Across the country, the focus has been on voter turnout. It was down, brutal and embarrassing.

It was a mid-term. Younger voters didn't make a good showing. Neither did minorities. But it was worse than the last mid-term. The United States Election Project reports that 28.5 percent of eligible voters in Texas turned out this year, down from 32.6 percent in 2010.

Bill Israel, associate professor of journalism and political communication at St. Mary's University, says given the political machinations designed to keep voters at home, at work, preoccupied, disinterested, or elsewhere, the turnout wasn't surprising.

It will sound like a cop-out, but these potential voters, as a group, were suppressed — if not by a stricter voter identification law and redistricting, then by a cluster of forces harder to see.

It's in the rhetoric and on radio, in the message and the media, in the language of hate and a broader anxiety over rapidly changing demographics. It was in the feeling that their votes really don't count, because those who finance campaigns and buy influence are not looking out for their interests or the greater good.

Throughout the nation, a majority of voters were older, white and Republican. Eligible non-voters were younger, more racially diverse and more likely Democrats.

Israel reaches into history to analyze what happened, and he points to the careful construction of conservative public opinion over time. He starts with the creation of the American Enterprise Association, founded by an asbestos manufacturer to protect his interests, which became the American Enterprise Institute, a leading conservative think tank.

“Two years afterward, Joe Coors put down a couple hundred thousands dollars to found the Heritage Foundation,” Israel says. “Those two operations start putting out information that began to change the dialogue.”

By 1978, there were 70 conservative think tanks.

By 2000, there were 500.

They've been successful at convincing conservatives that corporate taxes are too high, the wealthy need tax breaks, climate change isn't man-made and Obamacare is an evil threat to the nation's well-being. They've even managed to convince low-income Southern white voters that this should be their agenda.

Where did Israel get such notions? From a brilliant former colleague with whom he taught a “Politics in the Press” class at the University of Texas at Austin many years ago. His name is Karl Rove, the Republican mastermind of George W. Bush's presidential campaigns.

Israel, author of “A Nation Seized: How Karl Rove and the Political Right Stole Reality, Beginning with the News,” says Rove is all too aware of the combined efforts that result in voter suppression, especially the impact of negative campaigning, which this time amounted to a simple idea: “Obama bad.”

It was repeated billions of times, while good news got little traction, says Israel, a Republican-turned-independent and former political reporter turned legislative staffer.

“Good journalism runs once,” he says. “Negative campaigning runs infinitum. What's going to be more effective?”

“Worse yet is that people don't see that this is part of why people failed to act in their own best interests,” Israel adds.The 2016 presidential election can be different. More minorities and young voters are likely to vote.

No doubt Rove is already at work on it, and Israel says he knows who his old friend will be working for in that election.

With little pause, he says it will be Jeb Bush.

eayala@express-news.net

Twitter: @ElaineAyala