Goodreads asked Alan Garner:

Can you tell us a two-sentence horror story?

Alan Garner I think what is happening in America right now is a horror story. Trump lies about believing he really won the election and many millions of people believe him. They send him money and don't believe in democracy anymore because they are sure it has cheated them. They join top the teal or MAGA. Also, I think what Republican legislators are doing to make it hard to vote or to have your vote counted is a great threat to democracy. There are fewer Republicans today, and so they have decided that in order to stay in office, they have to find ways to make it hard for Democrats to vote. They send notices to people who have names similar to Democrats (especially Blacks) who have been convicted of a felony and ask them to come in and get a DNA and a background check so they can be sure they are legally eligible to vote and have not committed a crime they have not been convicted of yet. So if Robert Jones is the felon, they will send letters to Robert P. Jones and to Robert F. Jones. And to 50 or 500 others with similar names. And guess what? None of those people are going to come in to have their DNA checked to see if they have possibly committed a crime they have not been convicted of. I wouldn't come in either if I got such a notice- and you wouldn't either. Because it's always possible that you will end up getting a false positive on your test and they will put you in jail. I believe this is how Bush won Florida. There were far more voters for Gore, but they didn't vote. they didn't show up to get a thorough going over and they just never voted again. You or I would do the same. As it turned out, the Supreme Court put aa stop to the counting of the ballots anyway and declared Bush the winner of Florida and thus the Presidency. There are many other ways the Republicans are reducing the Democratic turnout. They are reducing the hours when voting booths are open so minorities are unable to vote (say they cut out noontime voting. Lots of minorities don't have any other time when they would be able to vote. Or many Black churchgoers always used to have a bus which brought them to vote on Sundays after church. So the Republicans would cancel Sunday voting. Or they stop voting by mail, which is a way many minorities found they could vote. Or they gerrymander a district, so some huge majority of a minority will win in one district, but their side will win by just a little in 5 or 6 other districts. These tricks work and will keep them in office for many more years than they would if there were honest voting. But this trickery makes people cynical and bitter- and they should be cynical and bitter. Eventually, there will be so few Republicans that they will be unable to keep themselves in office, but that may be some years from now.

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