ALMOST SACRED

 

Yesterday, the Republicans in the Senate shot down both versions of the voting rights bills that the Democrats were trying to pass to counter the literally hundreds of voter suppression laws that Republican state governments have passed recently.  Although the death of the bills were always inevitable (no one expected Republicans not to filibuster bills that would stop them from having an electoral advantage), it's still heartbreaking to see how one political party has no problem in trying to prevent people, especially people of color, from exercising their right to vote.  

The late John Lewis, a congressmen and early civil rights protester, one described the right to vote in America as "almost sacred".  He was right.  Sadly, extending that right to African Americans has been a serious problem since the end of slavery.  It's hard to believe, but in the post war civil reconstruction era, thousands of former slaves were elected to public offices.  Sadly, this ended when federal troops enforcing civil rights laws were withdraw from the South and the Jim Crow era of segregation and lack of voting rights began in the South.  It wouldn't  end until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Voting Act into law in nineteen sixty five.   After signing the bill, according to Johnson aide Bill Moyers, Johnson sadly admitted that "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come."

It is amazing to think that, decades later, Johnson's words still ring true.  Oh sure, courting libertarians and fundamentalist Christians has been a big part of the Republican party's appeal in the decades since that bill was signed, at the end of the day, their  plan of using racially coded words ("war on crime", "war on drugs") in political speeches,  a plan developed during the ninety sixty eight Nixon presidential campaign (and named "The Southern Strategy"), has been a part of every Republican presidential campaign since.  (Although to be fair, Mitt Romney's and John McCain's campaigns mostly avoided it).  

Donald Trump, of course, just threw out the coding and openly made racist remarks in his twenty sixteen campaign.  Even worse, since his public refusal to accept his loss in twenty twenty has lead a majority of Republican voters to believe that that election was stolen, Republican state legislators have passed laws making it harder to vote by claiming that their constituents were concerned about "voter fraud".  Of course they don't mention the fact that the only reasons  they have those concerns is because of Trump's lies.  And these laws are targeted at making it harder for African American voters to vote, by shutting down polling places and limiting early voting.  A twenty twenty article in The Washington Post pointed out that African American voters already are seventy four percent more likely to have to wait half and hour or more to vote than white voters.  Somehow this obvious  impediment to voting isn't enough for the Republicans.

And if that weren't bad enough, conservatives on the Supreme Court have also helped out the Republican cause: in the contested two thousand election they stepped in and handed the White House to George W Bush.  In two thousand and nine, after Barack Obama set records for small donations from supporters, they decided that money equaled speech in the Citizen's United decision, opening the floodgates for the rich to donate to campaigns, a clear advantage for Republicans.  And  then, after Barack Obama won reecletion in twenty twelve, one year later the court gutted the Civil Rights Voting Act which had forced Southern states to get federal approval for any changes in voting laws.  This, of course, lead to the flood of voter suppression laws being passed right now. 

It really is a sign of just how gutless the Republican Party is that they killed the voting rights bills without even allowing them to be debated; they knew full well that one Democratic Senator after another would give examples of how the voting suppression laws were openly targeted at African American voters, and that their counter arguments were weak.  When it comes to the modern Southern Strategy, most Republicans like to just pretend that it doesn't exist even as they pass laws proving that it does.