Sometimes you can follow the bread crumbs through the dark forest of politics and find clues to what's really going on. Today's example is the word "disenfranchisement."
If you're disenfranchised, you have in the political context been deprived of voting, either legally or illegally (although "legal" disenfranchisement may be the result of cynical political manipulation, at least until courts rule on the matter). Historically, disenfranchisement in this country has been a condition afflicting categories of voters including racial, ethnic and economic class. Felons, too, have been disenfranchised, either in whole or part, because once a bad guy you're always a bad guy, according to some.
But now, the word has been hijacked by conservatives who are applying it not just to a narrow category or set of categories of citizens, but to Republicans in general.
