Communism is dead. Al-Qaida isn't as scary as it used to be. But an American rightwing without a bogeyman to fear can't long survive. Enter Acorn – the Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now.

Finally, something for the Republican party to use to stoke fear among its constituency. Acorn is perfect. The nationwide community group is full of scary black and poor people – who tend to support the Democrats. And, most convenient of all, it registers millions of them, legally, to vote in US elections. Spooky.

Stop Acorn, and you can stop the rise of citizen democracy altogether – you know, "government of the people, by the people, for the people", as we used to like to say here in the US. Or so the Republicans have convinced themselves.

Acorn has long been a target for Republicans, who have attempted to tar and feather it with accusations of "voter fraud". They pilloried the group before the 2008 election (and several elections prior) when names like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Mary Poppins showed up on a handful of voter registration forms collected by Acorn. (Never mind the fact that none of these fictional characters actually voted and that Acorn itself flagged the fraudulent registration forms and turned them in to election officials, as required by law.) The Bush administration's own department of justice was found to have been illegally helping to target the group for political prosecutions and even John McCain, before receiving his talking points, had keynoted an Acorn convention, declaring the group is "what makes American special". Oops.

But now the vilification of Acorn is in full swing again. A couple of rightwing operatives, acting as a prostitute and her pimp, caught a few, dumb, low-level Acorn employees suggesting ways in which they could get around US law and avoid paying taxes on her "business". Acorn immediately fired the employees, of course, after the videotapes were made public. But that hasn't stopped Republican opportunists, led by Fox News, from calling for the entire organisation's destruction.

The point of the demonising is to shut down their effective voter registration operation and, in the bargain, further the Republican push for state-issued photo ID requirements at polling places, even as they know full-well that some 20 to 30 million Americans – mostly urban, elderly, minority and student (read: Democratic-leaning) – voters don't have such IDs and would not be allowed to exercise their legal franchise.

In fact, though you're unlikely to hear about it on Fox News, Republicans themselves regularly engage in actual instances of voter fraud. Superstar Republican pundit Ann Coulter narrowly avoided felony voter fraud charges in Florida and is being investigated for voter fraud in Connecticut.

The head of the California Republican party's own voter registration firm, Mark Anthony Jacoby of Young Political Majors (YPM), plead guilty to charges of voter registration fraud earlier this year. Republican outfits like YPM have actually changed registration forms from Democratic to Republican without telling voters, and even shredded Democratic registration forms altogether, disenfranchising thousands of Americans.

It's funny how when the American government itself – at its absolute highest-levels – was discovered to have tortured and abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, resulting in actual death, the very same wingnut apologists write it off as the act of a few low-level "bad apples". No accountability for those who actually instituted the policies.

But when a few actual low-level bad apples – who happen to be African-American, and working for a group fighting for the American Dream for all Americans – commit petty stupidity, the entire organisation must be brought down in order to save the country.

And Democrats, as weak-kneed and foolish as they are, can't seem to come up with the courage to fight back.