> If it turned out that Voter ID laws would benefit Democrats, they would support them in an instant.

This has the caché of being knowingly world-weary, but it's likely quite wrong.

Ideological positions which present an obstacle to voter willingness to support a candidate aren't exactly uncommon, and tend to break down by party. That seems to indicate that ideological positions that might present an obstacle to voter ability to support a candidate -- or, inversely, increase opposition ability -- might well be possible.

Also, your asserion ignores the existing psych research on temperamental foundations of political leanings. People are more likely to vote their temperament-based values than than their interests. And fears of a contaminating "Other" adulterating election results are going to cluster more with political conservative issues while a more open process is going to cluster with politically liberal issues. In order to get Democratic constituencies to support exclusive voting laws, you'd have to flip the temperamental polarity of each party.

To quote dril:

the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

I'm not making a value judgement.

edit: I'll also challenge you to find a policy around voting that is supported by a party that simultaneously hurts that party, just because they're principled.

Your "challenge" isn't difficult at all. Just look at every EU country where Christian democrats and other conservative parties neither trump up stories of voter fraud nor pursue policies to keep young people, women, urban dwellers or gays from voting, even though that "hurts" them (because their voters tend to be older, straight men in rural areas). This may be changing with the rise of far-right parties, but hasn't been much of an issue thus far [1].

The Brian Kemps of this world really are exceptionally malicious, and your attempts to normalize their behavior are completely misguided.

1: https://us.boell.org/2017/11/01/achtung-voter-suppression-co...

Easy: Every constitutional Amendment regarding voting, such as the 19th, 24th, or 26th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...

They all passed with overwhelming majorities. Yet each one must have cost (at least) one party in % of votes.

To take on this challenge - Isn’t that exactly the situation with the recent Supreme Court nominations? One party break the norms and refuse to vote because they want to wait until they can nominate someone. The other party could have done the same, but didn’t, because principles.

This is incorrect. The Republicans did it to Merrick Garland, and could, because they controlled enough Senate seats.

The Democrats would have done the same to Brett Kavanaugh, but couldn't, because they didn't control enough Senate seats. They instead tried numerous other tactics that I would not call "principled" to stop the nomination, and failed.

There were Democrats that voted for Gorsuch. The Democrats are absurdly naïvely playing a game of principles their opponents don't respect and don't know what “hardball” means.

Also, it just really isn't true, that democrats have been markedly more principled with respect to judicial nominations, at least in the past several decades. Its been an escalating war of attrition on both sides - neither unwilling or even reluctant to violate norms or make the process even more political.

Democrats basically pioneered the use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees during the Bush Jr era, which was a pretty clear instance of ethically questionable, "innovative", partisan obstruction.

They were forced to relent when republicans gained enough seats in Bush's second term and threatened the "nuclear option" (the elimination of the filibuster).

Republicans made every effort to outdo the democrats during the Obama years with filibusters. Harry Reid then went nuclear to push through Obama nominees with simple majorities (removing the best tool democrats would have had to oppose Kavanaugh today). The capstone for the republicans of the Obama era was blocking Merrick Garland.

Now we have Kavanaugh. There's just no great way to interpret the democrats moves as principled here, even if you think Ford's allegations are credible (I do). The democrats needed to to obstruct and delay until the midterms, and the only tools to do it were delays, scandals and public pressure on the senate swing votes.

And republicans voted for Kagan, Sotomayor, and Ginsburg. The democrat party is no more principled than anyone else.

Gorsuch didn't tip the balance of the court, nor was his confirmation within spitting distance of the midterms. The stakes for both parties were much higher in the Kavanaugh battle.

The point is it is impossible to talk about politics purely at a meta level without evaluating the stances themselves. It is bad that you are not making a value judgement there. Start making some.

To respond to your edit, it is not a coincidence that the party supporting expanded voting rights is the party that's more inclusive in other respects as well.

This is a ridiculous premise.

I made commentary without making a value judgement, and you're telling me it's impossible and that I need to.

Then you respond to my question with a value judgement rather than actually answer my question.

I don't care about your political opinions, and I don't care to state mine here now.

There are times to discuss facts and times to discuss moral preferences.

There's something wrong when you can't discuss facts necessarily bringing in a moral side. And you seem reluctant to even acknowledge the facts to begin with.

I, of course, have my own opinions around voting and Democracy. I just chose not to share them in this venue, as it's beside the point.

> There are times to discuss facts and times to discuss moral preferences.

Not in politics. Facts about politics are useless devoid of moral context. "The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln" is both true and utterly meaningless.

This is different from, say, sports, where you can talk about facts without invoking a moral context. Politics is different. Very very different. Elections have enormous consequences. Lives are at stake.

> I just chose not to share them in this venue, as it's beside the point.

It's not besides the point.