GOP loses it over MLB's support for voter rights — but baseball fans are cheering

Nearly half of all Major League Baseball fans support the league’s decision to move the All-Star Game out of Georgia in protest of the racist voter suppression law, according to a new Morning Consult poll published Monday afternoon.

According to the poll, 48% of MLB fans support the league for standing up to the Peach State’s new law that makes it harder to vote by requiring ID to cast absentee ballots, limiting the use of ballot drop boxes, making it a crime to hand out food and drink to voters in line, and giving more power to the Legislature to administer elections. That’s more than the 31% of MLB fans who oppose the protest.

What’s more, “avid” MLB fans support the move by an even greater 62%, the poll found.

The poll comes as Republicans are urging a boycott of the league, even though the GOP claims to be in opposition to “cancel culture.”

Donald Trump, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, and many members of Congress like Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Buddy Carter of Georgia have all urged boycotts of the league.

But the survey shows that MLB made the best decision for its players and fans, who oppose the new voter restrictions.

Former MLB player Curtis Granderson told CNN Monday morning that the commissioner of the league reached out to a group of Black players before making the decision. Granderson suggested some of them would have refused to play in the All-Star Game had it been held in Georgia.

“I commend Rob Manfred for reaching out to different individuals, different entities, different groups, including The Players Alliance, to gauge and get a pulse of where everybody was at,” Granderson said. “I think all that went into him making that decision, which he ultimately did.”

Yet rather than work to amend the law following the outcry from the MLB and other major companies like Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, Republicans are instead threatening to punish companies who speak out against voter suppression.

South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan said he will look into removing the MLB’s antitrust exemption as punishment for its protest of Georgia’s voter suppression law. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah say they will do the same in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Republicans in the Georgia state House tried to pull a tax break for Delta Air Lines in retaliation for the company speaking out against the law. While the Georgia state House did vote to strip the tax break from Delta, the measure didn’t pass in the Senate before the Legislature adjourned for the session.

But the efforts show there’s a growing trend of Republicans turning against companies for not supporting GOP policies.

For example, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a nebulous threat on Monday, telling companies to “stay out of politics” or else “invite serious consequences” upon themselves.

It’s a 180-degree turn from his stance in the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which allowed companies to donate unlimited sums to political causes.

At the time he said, according to Newsweek, “All Citizens United basically did was to level the playing field for corporate America, and for union America, and say you like a media company can… independently express your views about anything in this country. Why shouldn’t everybody be free to do that?”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.