Last week, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed the states new voter suppression rules into law, in hopes of keeping the state Red for a little while longer by making it harder for people — Black people in particular — to vote. Republicans claim that all they want to do is make elections more secure (except for the few who forgot they were supposed to just be dogwhistling and explicitly said that the rules need to be changed in order for Republicans to win), but have yet to explain how getting rid of drop boxes does anything to make things more secure. Or how any of it does, really.
Some people think that's bad! In fact, basically everyone with a shred of decency thinks it's bad.
On Friday, Major League Baseball announced that they would no longer be holding their All-Star Game in Georgia, in protest of the gross new voting restrictions. Commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr. said that after speaking to the various clubs and to current and former players, that the League had determined that this was the right thing to do.
Via MLB.com
Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement that the decision to move the All-Star Game was "the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport" and was made after consultation with teams, former and current players, the MLB Players Association and The Players Alliance, among others.
"Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box," Manfred said. "In 2020, MLB became the first professional sports league to join the non-partisan Civic Alliance to help build a future in which everyone participates in shaping the United States. We proudly used our platform to encourage baseball fans and communities throughout our country to perform their civic duty and actively participate in the voting process. Fair access to voting continues to have our game's unwavering support."
That's nice!
Governor Kemp issued a statement on Twitter
This is somewhat true. If a state wants to disenfranchise voters, we will come for them. This is easily avoidable, so long as they let people exercise their right to vote.
In his Twitter statement, Kemp straight up lied about what the bill does, claiming it "expands access to the ballot box" which it absolutely does not.
It's difficult to say whether Kemp is more mad that the MLB will no longer be having their All-Star Game in Georgia, or that no one believes him when he spits in their face and tells them it's raining.
Conservatives have since responded to this situation by getting #BoycottMLB to trend on Twitter, which probably means a lot of them are just going to turn their televisions to a baseball game and then throw said televisions out the window, as dramatically as possible. Donald Trump has also issued a statement encouraging a boycott of the MLB, as well as Coke and Delta, whose CEOs have spoken out against the bill.
This is a very interesting way to go, given that they are all so against "cancel culture" and get very upset when people or businesses experience consequences for their words or actions! It's almost as if what they actually want is for people to be able to say bigoted things without being publicly criticized for them or experiencing any social or economic repercussions, but have no problem with "canceling" companies who publicly oppose bigotry.
Last week, Conservatives canceled shampoo. This week, they are canceling baseball, soda* and air travel, just to push their anti-woke agenda. What is next? Are they going to cancel celebrities just for innocently not using racial slurs? Or companies that pay their workers a living wage? Clearly, this is a slippery slope we're headed down.
If Governor Kemp and Georgia Republicans are so convinced that they are so unpopular and disliked that they can't win an election without passing laws like this, they should have also anticipated that there would be negative repercussions upon passing it, just as there were negative repercussions, just as there would have been if the state had passed the LGBTQ discrimination bill Republicans (including Kemp!) wanted.
Clearly, they thought their bad law was more important.
[MLB.com]
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