Puritans headed to church in early colonial North America. Only male views really counted, all other religions including Christian ones were not tolerated, church attendance was mandated by law, sports were discouraged and prohibited on Sunday, but alcohol and married conjugal relations were approved of. The world the way that Doug Wilson, Mike Johnson and Pete Hegseth would have it.
Donald Trump has been having a major hissy fit that the Senate will not take up the SAVE Act. Senate Majority Leader Thune says the votes just aren't there.
Let's hope, and pray, they are not.
According to the misleading GOP propaganda, all the SAVE Act would require is that registered voters go to the polls with photo ids.1 That's simply not true.
It does require that, but it also requires that in order to vote at all, you present, when you register, with proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport. The majority of Americans do not hold passports. Indeed, up until very recently you could visit our nearest neighbors without either, until international paranoia changed that. A lot of people can't find their birth certificates, and getting one is a major pain that a lot of people won't bother with if they're challenged on this.
This, moreover, disproportionately impacts the poor and women, but it hits everyone else as well.
Americans are notoriously mobile. They move for jobs, work, and just to move. A lot of people eventually lose their vital records. If you move from Los Angeles to Austin, for example, you might have lost your birth certificate along the way. Those keeping track of them are amongst those who are most likely to be well established. The same for getting certified copies of the same. If you are working a low paying job, finding the time and the cash to get a certified copy won't be easy.
Women, moreover, are by far the most likely to be impacted, with poorer women most of all. This is because women are most likely to have changed names. A woman may have been born Alice Jones, but upon getting married, she may be Alice Smith. Now a birth certificate won't do. A marriage certificate will also be required.
But what if Alice is in that group, like Rachel Rodriguez-Williams was until recently, when she suddenly changed her name form her hyphenated, semi woke, moniker to just Williams (neatly avoiding the problem, perhaps, of her not being a WASP). She may have a birth certificate showing her to have been born "Sanchez", and a marriage certificate showing where Williams came from, but there's very unlikely to be an official document showing "Sanchez-Williams". That's simply a convention she likely adopted.
For that matter, I've known professional women who used their husband's last name as their own for professional reasons, but their maiden name for work in which they were well established.
The fact of the matter is that the SAVE Act would take out a lot of women voters. It would particularly take out a lot of black and Hispanic women voters.
And all to address a problem that doesn't exist. We know for a fact that the number of non citizens voting in this country is miniscule. Chances are much higher than some of the handful of "illegal" votes are actually legal, rather than there being hoards of illegal voters going to the polls.
And the GOP knows this as an absolute certainty.
So, what's up with this?
Well part of it is that the GOP is using the Nazi Party playbook of 1932, or more accurately the 1932 Nazi Playbook Plus. The Nazis hadn't actually been in power, yet, in 32, so they could legitimately claim they were going to fix inflation, etc.
But a lot of their campaign was that everything was the fault of the Jews.
The GOP has no successful record this term to run on. Everything it ran on has failed or turned out to be lies. The Republicans didn't run on "I'm going to raise your taxes in a hidden way, boost inflation, and start a new war with no plan on how to win it" but that's what they've done. So, now, in order to try to stay in power they need to create bogus issues. Communist and aliens are running amok, they claim.
No, they are not.
But it's more than that, or may at least may be more than that.
And here's the big clue:
House Speaker Mike Johnson says he grows more confident "with each passing day" that the GOP will retain control of Congress because:
This is a God thing. We have intercessory prayers who are on the ground at the Capitol praying.
That's right. They are confident that God will intervene.
Well, praying for a just victory in anything is certainly not immoral and even laudatory. Praying for victory is certainly not unheard of.
Most Christians in this context, however, would at least add the proviso to their prayer that they win, "if it be God's Will". Many more, however, would simply pray that God's Will be done in the election, and leave God's desires up to God.
Frankly not doing so here involves some rather shocking propositions, not the least of which is that those seeking God's intervention are asking God to return control of Congress to a political party that doesn't really exist in its old form, and instead to one which does not welcome the immigrant, as commanded by the Bible, rewards the wealthy, which is cautioned against by the Bible, launches unjust wars illegally, which is certainly immoral and which is headed by a serial polygamist, a condition which is completely immoral.
How can they do that?
They are doing that as people like Mike Johnson and some of the fringe elements of the Evangelical far right that are surrounding this administration sincerely believe that they have a Divine mandate to bring about an Evangelical Christian United States. Johnson claimed that God was making him a new Moses. He wasn't kidding about believing that, he does.
Now, Moses didn't lie to the Jews, but at least Johnson seems to think that his status allows him to lie to advance the cause, a shockingly anti Christian view. Others around Trump who hold these views don't openly express this as much, although Paula White has pretty clearly stated that she believes, or claims to believe, that God has created some sort of exalted role for Trump, but that doesn't mean they do not hold them. Some fairly clearly do.
But why would they sabotage voting for this goal?
Two reasons, the first being the obvious one, the second being a less obvious one that we're suggesting, but frankly can't prove, yet.
The first reason is that the Republicans can't win an honest election, and they know it. The panic on that is really starting to set in, and we're beginning to see, for the very first time, some Republicans putting distance between the GOP and themselves. Harriet Hageman just did that by voting against the budget reconciliation bill even though it means she's bucking Trump. That almost certainly must mean she's looked at polling data and knows that she's in political trouble. People backing the SAVE Act are hoping that if a lot of female and poor voters are knocked out of the electorate, they stand a better chance.3
They're probably right on that, but maybe not quite as right as they suppose.
So, the second reason?
It's the next step on the advance towards an Evangelical Christian state.
How so?
Some in his movement believe that women should not be allowed to vote.
The best example of this is Idaho based minister Doug Wilson, whom Pete Hegseth is a fan of. Wilson asserts that women should only be allowed to vote if they are the head of a household. In Wilson's view men are of course the default head of households. I suppose that this would really only come up if a woman was left being a widow, sort of.
Now, while a skeptic can see all sorts of ways around that, in an Evangelical Christian State they wouldn't exist. People aren't going to be allowed to shack up, and they're not going to be able to easily divorce either (and they certainly aren't going to be marrying a member of their own gender).2 So, if couples are going to do what comes naturally, and what naturally results occurs, at a bare minimum the original type of Common Law Marriage will come about.4
So gals won't be voting, at least not very darned often.
And if the SAVE Act passes, the next step has occurred. A lot of women simply won't be voting.
And of course, women who won't be voting, won't be standing for elected office either.
Sound extreme and conspiratorial?
It is, but people like Johnson in the Evangelical right around Trump are extreme. And many are engaged in a conspiracy to steal the 2026 election right now.
At least Wilson is honest about his goals.
Which takes me to the lumpenproletariat.
The last few years, as an observer of local politics, I've been watching the collection of individuals who support the far right in this state. They come from all walks of life and backgrounds, but they disproportionately come from the lower middle class/poor boundary, and are very often rather badly educated. This isn't always true, but where it isn't t here's some demographic information that sort of predicts their views. A not inappreciable number are women.
Some are just highly rural. Rural people in this state tend to be badly educated on politics and extremely conservative in an unthinking way. If you discuss things closely with them, they often hold views diametrically opposed to the people they're backing, they just don't realize what the people they're backing support.5 This has long been the case and can be demonstrated all the way back to the 1930s when the Democrats saved ranching while the ranchers were pissed off at them. What I've noticed about this, however, is that younger ranchers and farmers no longer fit this mold. The GOP may have a lock grip on Baby Boomer ranchers, but it doesn't have one on Gen X and Y ranchers. The bloom is beginning to fade from the rose on this one.
Others who are at least somewhat educated tend to have very strong and identifiable religious views sounding in the Evangelical far right or in the LDS. That demographic favors a much more traditional role for women than is currently common, and frankly would probably be okay with women losing their vote if that helped restore the pre 1940 status quo ante of domestic life. Natrona County legislator Jayme Lien, for example, is a Mormon who notes that: "Outside of her legislative role, she identifies as a homeschooling mother and works as a homemaker/working mother, and has historically assisted with her family's concession business at local events like the Central Wyoming Fair and Rodeo"
Am I saying something is wrong with that weltanschauung? No, I am not. Indeed, the irony of much of this is that on some things I agree with the underlying traditionalist view, while being horrified by the attack on women in public and business life. What I am saying, however, is that people vote for a candidate not really appreciating that candidate's weltanschauung, and then are surprised when we get results that reflect that. Most women in Wyoming do not identify as homeschooling mothers, and for good reason. If all of a sudden they get policies that favor that, and the crop of Charter Schools that have popped up recently are barely disguised religions schools, they shouldn't be too surprised.
A person shouldn't leap to conclusions either. A highly devout LDS family in my neighborhood has a crop of election signs up all favoring the moderate thinking Republicans.
Beyond that, however, are a group of people that are just pathetic.6 Some women are amongst them and at least one is a candidate this year. She simply has nothing in her life other than the biggest political crush going on a WFC candidate. She's literally do anything for him, and in fact has been excusing his rather upsetting court record. These people are the Rosa Luxemburgs of Republican far right. The revolution they're seeking is going to dump them like a box of rocks should it succeed, but in their pathetic semi impoverished poorly educated lives, they can't see it.
Were women to be disenfranchised from voting by the SAVE Act, and they lose their votes, and if their male fellows in the same demographic were to, they probably wouldn't even care. They're besotted the way Luxemburg was with Communism. It's all they have.
Clara Zentkin and Rosa Luxemburg, 1910.
Footnotes:
1. At one time, it might be noted, the GOP adamantly opposed the concept of a national ID which would have fulfilled all of these rolls as well as being a Social Security Card. This was probably always a good idea, but they've traditionally hated it.
2. I'm not in favor of easy divorce or same sex unions either. This is part of the way that the GOP has managed to gain power. People who have real conservative views on these things and many others, as well as strong religion based views, have found themselves voting for the Republicans as morality seems to mandate it. This has been hotly debated in Catholic circles as many well informed Catholics are horrified by Trump and his administrations, but at the same time felt they had no other moral choice.
Personally, I've never voted for Trump and the last three election cycles have voted for the American Solidarity Party.
3. While it would be folly to count on it, one thing the GOP hardly seems to notice that Republican voters are not very highly motivated as a rule and a lot of the remaining GOP voters may very well fall into a lower middle class/poor class that is barely motivated to go to the polls, while man y Democrats are highly motivated. The GOP could actually hurt itself.
4. Barely noticed, some in this camp are opposed to pharmaceutical birth control, which at least observant Catholics also are. I note this as in this context, it emphasizes not only a preference for marriage, but an absolute need and mandate for it.
5. At least in Wyoming, which is the least religious state in the US, most ranchers are actually adherents of the American Civil Religion. Whether you disagrees with their views or not, you'd find that in regards to sexual morality most only oppose homosexcuality, and are fine with everything else. Accordingly, they'd be horrified by policies that opposed pharmaceutical birth control or mandated common law marriages, the latter of which they have a particular interest in defeating. They also tend to be very provincial and intensely dislike monied interest buying up agricultural land, which the GOP is just fine with.
In short, they're actually either moderate Republicans or moderate Democrats in their actual world outlook, but don't put much thought into it.
6. I'm not going to go into two remaining categories in detail, but there are two more.
One is the Groypers. They really detest women, while longing for them at the same time. Basically pathetic early 20s basement dwellers, they sort of lust for women that they can't have, and as a result, they don't like real world women.
This group, best characterized by Nick Fuentes, feels that women and minorities have deprived them of their rightful place in society. They don't like women, and they don't like Jews. If women lost the right to vote, that'd serve them right, in their view.
The other are the flat out weird and stupid. These people have always existed, but before the Internet they didn't really have a voice. They sure do now. They don't necessarily oppose women voting, but they tend to think the whole world is one giant conspiracy.
As an example of that, I saw an instance in which a far right wing candidate attempted to defend another who has fallen into ill repute, only to see a third party race in to declare that all opposition to the far right is involved in a pro pedophile, chem trail, anti agricultural conspiracy. That's flat out nuts, absolutely everyone kind of backed away from the entire topic, but it shows how wacky things have become.
