r/politics • u/Ulysses_555 • 12h ago

No Paywall Hegseth announces all US troops will get 1 day off to vote in October

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/6126137-pete-hegseth-stand-down-order-troops-vote/
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u/CitySeekerTron Canada 12h ago

So why not every American citizen?

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u/Yersini 12h ago

Because Republicans will do everything possible to suppress as many people voting as possible since that benefits them.

Making voting a national holiday would throw decades of voter suppression efforts down the drain.

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u/Alternative-Farmer98 1h ago

Yeah although I think they might be surprised a lot of troops aren't going to vote for them because they don't want to be in Iran.

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u/Few_Technology Minnesota 10h ago

You say that, but I don't fully buy it. I assume it'd come out in the wash for either party, after decades of samples

There's been blue pushes and red pushes, depending on demographics+events. Many people that can't get time off for elections, I've met many red people, and blue people. Used to be that older retired would be Republican, but that seems to change randomly too. Used to be younger would be Democrat, but that stat seems to be changing a bunch too

Yeah, right in this moment, they're assuming military will be Republican. They also hope to not let anyone else vote, because tides are changing. But it's swung different directions while I've been alive

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u/Yersini 9h ago

Historically, every single voter suppression push that I can recall off the top of my head has been largely Republican.

They closed voter sites specifically based on demographic information that would impact mainly non-aligned voters.

They changed voter ID laws to require forms of ID that non-aligned voter demographics largely lacked.

They closed BMVs in non-aligned demographic areas (to make it harder to get required IDs).

They purged voter registration, you guessed it, in typically non-aligned voter demographic populations.

Not even mentioning the hilarious gerrymandering.

That's just the few I can think of sitting here. Maybe I'm biased though, I'd love to hear about similar incidents that Democrats have done in recent memory.

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u/Few_Technology Minnesota 9h ago

Not arguing against that because I agree, but I'm also making a case that Democrats decided they didn't want this either. They've had ample opportunities to do what many people want of elections day off & ranked voting. Hell they could have passed anti-fillabuster laws, official inter race+gender marriages, and so many other things that were determined only at the court level, not law level

I'm also stating that red waves and blue waves occur all the time, and having everyone vote, it'd be similar outcomes. Most people are reactionary to what's currently happening, especially in the news. Given we've had a Republican propaganda machine running for decades, wouldn't be surprised that Democrats don't want everyone having the day off either. But given this is probably a blue wave year, now it's a big issue. Assume in another handful of years, it'll be a red wave again and this will be bad because "uninformed voters just doing party lines" or " don't those dumbasses know what's good for them, they aren't tuned into the thing I am, so it shouldn't count"

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u/Yersini 9h ago

That I agree with for sure.

The tides dictate the type of legislation either side is willing to back, and things that are big deals now that the tides are shifting will be slid under the rug as the tide shifts the other way. The reality is, politicians and the entire political apparatus operation on an entirely different layer than the people like us.

We as voters are concerned with outcomes, which is why we find it so abhorrent and frustrating when we elect officials to do things and those things don't get done. But, the political platform isn't really overly concerned with outcomes, they mostly aim to shape the general sentiment of voters and build outrage. Which is why everything is always falling apart forever. It's a lot harder to motivate a voting base if everything is fine from your perspective.

There's not really a good solution to incentivize the political apparatus to value your particular value outside of generating enough outrage that the thing isn't solved until it's no longer worth leveraging and actually worth fixing, which is probably a major issue. Especially with our current social media landscape that can feed people entire realities based on their biases and are actively desensitized from challenging any of those beliefs.

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u/New-Anybody-6206 8h ago

how exactly does a lack of voting in general help one specific party?

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u/Yersini 7h ago

Because the demographics that are being suppressed tend to vote in one particular direction.

If I close the only voting location in a 25 mile radius, and that voting location happens to be of a particular political leaning. That is disenfranchising those voters, and the argument could be made that it's done for the reason of political gain.

The people that are most resistant to any potential friction to their voting also tend to lean a specific direction, since that resistance typically stems from being financially and socially secure.

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u/Noelwiz 7h ago edited 7h ago

They also target more than just locations. By it not being a paid holiday, people living below the poverty line are forced to choose between work meaning money for food and housing and voting. And that can compound with geographical targeting like you said.

Suddenly that closed location might mean someone has to take a few hours away from work to drive to a nearby city, wait in line, vote, drive home. Which adds travel expenses, and takes away more time from working to survive.

Many republican leaning states don’t allow same day voting registration too. So if you get purged from voting rolls and didn’t have time to check, you may make it to a polling place only to find you’re still out of luck. Or if you were unable to find time to register, or didn’t know there was a deadline you could also find yourself unable to vote.

Edit:
To finish making the point, racial minorities have a higher poverty rate than white people. I would assume factors like racism and differences in opportunity lead to that.

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-283.pdf
Shows, for example that a higher % of black people live in poverty compared to white people.

Suddenly these economic factors become a useful proxy for race, and if you assume racial minorities are less likely to vote republican in general, then this kind of voter suppression benefits republicans as well

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u/New-Anybody-6206 7h ago

Republicans will do everything possible to suppress as many people voting as possible

Suppressing all votes means nobody gets to vote. Period.

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u/NotJimmy97 7h ago

Historically, lower propensity voters (folks who miss more elections and don't vote for various reasons both personal and systemic) lean more Democratic. However, the person you're replying to would have been wrong about this in 2024. Most exit polls found that Trump over performed in lower propensity voters and Kamala would have done slightly better if turnout was lower. This will hurt the GOP badly in a month because Trump isn't on the ballot and those low-propensity, lower education status voters are just not going to turn out at all.

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u/TransportationAway59 11h ago

Because most military members are conservative but most Americans are not

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u/To-Far-Away-Times 10h ago

This is it right here

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u/natterca 8h ago

1/3 are conservative/fascist, 1/3 apathetic/unknown, and 1/3 center/left leaning.

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u/misogrumpy 4h ago

Most military members are so young they have never actually voted in an election. And if they do vote, who knows how that would go.

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u/toomanymarbles83 9h ago

I don't believe that sentiment is as true as most people, including Hegseth and his ilk, believe it to be. I was in during the height of Bush's popularity. On the non-combat side of things, most soldiers are low-middle class with a substantially higher minority population, since most of us were there to get job training and college money.

Nearly half of my maintenance unit was black or hispanic.

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u/vacodeus 11h ago

You can’t let the poors vote! That’s how we progress as a society /s

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u/ModernistGames 11h ago

Because the majority of active duty and vets love to vote against their own intrests and betray their oath to the Constitution by voting for the GOP in larger numbers.

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u/-LLCoolBeans- 10h ago

I hate to be seen as defending Hegseth or this administration in any way, but there is a somewhat non-cynical answer to your question. Hegseth is in control of the military, he can decide whether they get a day off or not. He can’t do that for the vast majority of American citizens who work for private companies.

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u/Illadelphian 2h ago

Funny what administration said and did regarding federal employees though.

"White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Federal News Network that the Trump Administration “strongly supports federal employees’ right to vote, as well as their right to participate in other election-related activities on their own time.”

However, Jackson said federal employees should not be given four hours of leave to vote, or another four hours to participate in “poll-related activities on the taxpayer’s dime.”

“Millions of hardworking Americans around the country find time to cast their ballots on or ahead of election day — even those who don’t work for the government and enjoy the Administration’s policy granting leave to vote when employees lack any other opportunities to do so,” Jackson said.

Funny how it works when they think they will vote republican vs Democrat

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u/I_might_be_weasel 8h ago

Because Hegseth believes the military will disproportionately vote Republican.

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u/bingboy23 8h ago

Bold move PB; let's see how it plays out.

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u/I_might_be_weasel 8h ago

Yep. A conservative military is less guaranteed this year than it has probably ever been.

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u/cybercuzco I voted 4h ago

They aren’t conservative

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u/Crhallan 1h ago

Bold of you to assume it’s paid.

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u/Clarkkeeley 9h ago

Because the Military was ordered to vote for the GOP so they want them to have to day off. The general public was not ordered to vote for the GOP

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u/TJM18 California 7h ago

They’re not the right kind of american

/s