why president biden is in a unique position to do something about it. we re not going to change the constitution. we re enforcing it. and former dnc chair tom perez on the state of the dems and his big announcement on running for office. all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. ever since human beings started congregating in institutions of what we call higher learning, colleges, universities, eve monasteries, conservatives traditionalists have been freaked out by just what dangerous ideas are being shared there. i mean, really, the whole dangerous ideas are coming out of universities is literally as old as universities themselves. it has been a core reactionary concern for millennia. just like everything else, this old thing is new again. which brings us to the most recent republican freak-out in florida, which as you may have heard, has a governor there, ron desantis, calling the creepy thought police to campus. he just signed a bill tha
Republicans at every level, federal, state, everywhere, are putting in Place Step by ugly step all of the tools that they need to steal the next election and the one after that and the one after that. You get the picture . Across the country 14 republicanled states have enacted 22 laws that restrict access to voting. And theyre just getting started. At least 61 additional bills with equally restrictive provisions are snaking their way through 18 state legislatures. Most of these laws just so happen to target communities of color, the elderly, people with disabilities and the young. And if thats not repugnant enough, some of these republican laws have stripped secretaries of state of their power, clearing the way for partisan control of State Election boards and made it easier to overturn election results. Take, for example, the partisan unconstitutional and undemocratic 2020 Election Inspection happening in arizona, which republicans across the country are keen on replicating. In penns
Why President Biden is in a unique position to do something about it. Were not going to change the constitution. Were enforcing it. And former dnc chair tom perez on the state of the dems and his big announcement on running for office. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Ever since human beings started congregating in institutions of what we call higher learning, colleges, universities, eve monasteries, conservatives traditionalists have been freaked out by just what dangerous ideas are being shared there. I mean, really, the whole dangerous ideas are coming out of universities is literally as old as universities themselves. It has been a core reactionary concern for millennia. Just like everything else, this old thing is new again. Which brings us to the most recent republican freakout in florida, which as you may have heard, has a governor there, ron desantis, calling the creepy Thought Police to campus. He just signed a bill that will, and ill quote
How to appeal to this cohort, the people moving through colleges and coming out liberals, college educated voters who are moving away from us, let s just try to coerce these institutions with a possible threat of budget cuts into enforcing some kind of idealogical rugidity and litmus test. it s particularly ironic for governor desantis who is in the state of florida, has been fairly daft as a political operator, appealing to some of the people donald trump has alienated. as of last month, more thanr fld of the job he s doing. this is what the national party demands. which is why we go to war on the libs and all their institutions. institutions that now apparently include the united states military, which we will have more on later. because that s a version of the modern republican party, right, the party of the 45th president, previous president, has made it a party of the 47%. that s trump s vote percentage.
And i ll quote here, require public universities and colleges to survey students, faculty and staff, about the beliefs and view points to support intellectual diversity. not lean that, he s gone on to suggest budget cuts could take place if schools are found to be, quote, indoctrinating their students. which is to imagine, if the surveys don t produce the right answers for desantis and his buddies. on its face, this is an outrageous use of power to surveil and threaten them, to punish them if they have the wrong views. ron desantis is claiming the mantle of conscious and free speech, but what he s doing is literally the opposite of that. it didn t talk long for the masks to fall off all these folks like desantis who pretend to care a lot about free speech to start essentially suppressing it or compelling it when it doesn t say what they want. whether it s in bills and state houses looking to ban teaching about certain aspects of the history of racism and structural