WEBVTT - The Return of Jim Crow 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:06.320 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.000 Welcome to it could happen here a podcast where the 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:12.760 thin veneer of democracy that has hitherto veiled the settler 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.680 colony of the United States in the mask of humanity 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:22.720 is being increasingly ripped away, leaving behind. I think calling 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.480 it a new Jim Crow is that title has already 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:31.040 been used for something else. But it's a return overtly 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.680 to some of the worst discrimination of the Jim Crow era. 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.239 So I'm your host, Miya Wong. Let's talk about what 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.440 is actually at issue here, and that is a recent 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:48.080 Supreme Court ruling called Louisiana v. Kalay. On a sort 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.200 of micro level, this is about the question of can 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:57.200 Louisiana just eliminate the two majority black districts that it 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.720 had in its congressional map in twenty twenty four. Getting 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.680 to this map in the first place was a subject 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:07.840 of really intense civil rights litigation to get to the 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:11.080 point where there were two majority black districts in twenty 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.520 twenty four. On a macro level, what is that stake 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.840 here is can a state create an electoral map where 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.479 they spread all of the black voters across different districts 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.360 in order to make them a minority in every district, 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.319 thus making it impossible for black voters select the candidate 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:35.399 if they're choosing. Until now, the answer was no, because 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.960 this is specifically what the Voting Rights Act was passed 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.040 to stop. Like this, specifically like this, This is one 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.240 of the very specific things. I cannot emphasize this enough, 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.400 this specific thing which is spread out the black vote 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.520 across a whole bunch of districts where everyone else is white, 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.200 so that black people cannot choose who they want to elect. 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:57.280 This is like one of the specific things it was 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.320 designed to stop. Again, up until now, you have not 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:02.160 been allowed to do this, and this has led to 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:06.440 the creation of what are called minority majority districts. This 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.880 is a long and complicated history that frankly could be 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.399 its own. It probably is like multiple people's doctoral dissertations. 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:18.040 The short, short version of what a minority majority district 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.080 is is it's a district where the majority of voters 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.360 are from a minority group, thus allowing people from a 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.239 minority group to select a candidate of their choosing. There 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.840 are a lot of these districts in the South, specifically 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.600 to prevent Republican politicians from making it impossible for black 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:40.120 voters to elect anyone they chose. And fundamentally, what's at 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.600 stake here, right, is the constitutional right to elect the 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.280 candidates of your choosing if you are part of a 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.799 minority group. Right. This is why all of this stuff 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.000 was passed in the first place, because under what we 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.160 call Jim Crow, it was extremely easy for a white 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.720 majority to simply effectively deny the rights of black people. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:02.880 And this is other non white people too, but like 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.320 this is primarily black people. It was it was very, 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.320 very easy to simply deny them from ever getting to 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.960 elect anyone by just drawing maps where a candidate they 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.720 would vote for can never be elected. This is one 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:21.840 of the basis of Jim Crow over discrimination. The Supreme 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:28.359 Court has decided no, Actually, what they decided is that 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.920 if the Republican party that controls the legislature draws a 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.839 map that does the thing we've been talking about, where 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.400 they spread out all of the like specifically the black 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:40.960 vote into a bunch of districts, so that black people 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:45.240 can't elect a representative. In order to challenge this as 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.240 violation of your voting rights, you have to prove definitively 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.960 prove that the intent was racism and not literally anything else. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:56.560 So for example, and this is this is the thing 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.440 that's really at issue here, right, you have to prove 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.680 that they specifically wanted to do this out of racism 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.640 and not just because they want to elect Republicans by 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.760 jerrymandering it partisan lee, which is amazingly a thing that's 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:12.840 legal to do in the United States for reasons that 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.880 are incredibly baffling. And also you have to be able 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.760 to prove that they created this map specifically out of 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.960 the intention to disenfranchise a minority group. And also you 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.320 have to create a map that would allow them to 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:30.160 achieve whatever other goals they supposedly want, like, for example, 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.400 again making sure that Republicans have all the seats in 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:38.280 a state, but also would not be racist. So you 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.400 have to create a map for them that would allow 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:42.920 them to do this in order to prove that there 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.800 could be another map that achieves their goals of like 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:52.200 partisan jerrymandering that isn't also racist. It's completely unhinged legally, 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:57.159 this this is a shambles. We have covered some downright 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.400 like hideous nonsense on this show in terms of Supreme 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.720 Court decisions, right, Like this Supreme Court has just the 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.599 lowest level of legal literacy in like living memory of 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.760 any Supreme Court. It is astounding the kinds of just 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:17.920 absolute horseshit they are popping out with this. This is 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.479 maybe their worst ruling, which is difficult to prove because 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.560 there have been so many abhorrent ones. Even just from 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:30.400 a pure legal perspective, this one is so bad it 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:35.080 defies belief. So, okay, one of the main issues here 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.000 is Section two of the Voting Rights Act. I'm just 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:43.240 gonna read what it says, Quote, No voting qualifications or 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:49.039 prerequisite to voting, or standard practice or procedure shall be 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.840 imposed or applied by any state or political subdivision in 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.479 a manner which results keep that in mind later, which 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.360 results in a denial or a bridge of the right 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.120 of any citizen of the United States to vote on 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.279 account of race or color, or in contravention of the 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.600 guarantees set forth in section nineteen seventy three B. So again, 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:13.719 I kind of emphasize this enough, right, So, the way 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.960 this is written is that it says that you can't 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.600 apply qualification or prerequisite to voting, or have any standard 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.640 or practice or procedure cannot be imposed by the state, 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:28.200 or any other political subdivision that results in the denial 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.240 or abridgment of the rights of citizens, vote and account 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:30.840 of race. Right. 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.719 It specifically says results. It does not say intent. Now 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.560 this is incredibly important because Alito is like, no, fuck that, Actually, 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:41.560 you have to proven intent. 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.240 I'm going to quote from a piece of Scotus blog 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.120 by Edward Foley, who has an extremely long title of 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.159 the Charles b Ever Sold in Florence Whitcomb Ever Sold 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.600 share and constitutional law. As the director of Election at 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.760 Law at Ohio State University, You're written a book on 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.760 like poral law. He is a constitutional law professor who 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.359 specifically does election law. He is like, by no means 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.800 a leftist. He's coming into the right of Justice Jackson 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.320 in her dissent in this case. Right, but even he 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.400 I'm going to quote what he writes about this. He 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.800 calls this ruling an abomination, which is like a thing 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:23.720 that you don't really get from like legal people. They 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:25.600 don't say shit like that. I'm going to quote what 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:28.880 he says about this quote. The ruling purports to interpret 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.440 the Voting Rights Section two, but it destroys the central 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.960 meaning of the section, converting it into the exact opposite 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:37.720 of what Congress meant for it to do. 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.840 The one thing that is unambiguous about Section two is 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.360 that the nineteen eighty two amendment to the section's test 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:49.480 creates a quote results test for determining whether there is 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:54.520 liability under the section, replacing the intent test that the 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.680 Supreme Court had previously adopted for Section two claims, as 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.280 the tech states, quote, no standard practice or procedure shall 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.920 be imposed which results in a denial or abridgment of 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:07.360 the right of any citizen to. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.880 Vote on account of race. Yet the case defiantly converts 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.280 Section two back to an intention inquiry rather than a 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.280 results analysis. So what happened here, right, To make this 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.400 extremely clear, is that Congress in nineteen eighty two had 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.600 amended this. They amended what this thing said, right because 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.560 Supreme Court had been adopting a standard of intent, right, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.280 which means that you have to prove that, like these 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:35.160 people were like mustache whirling saying the N word in 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.520 fucking clan robes, doing Nazi solutions. You have to like 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.640 prove that they intentionally did this for racist reasons and 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.319 not any other reason. And Congress went back and went, no, 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:50.480 fuck that if the result of it is racist, then 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.200 you can't do it, even if, like nominally, what you're 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.520 saying out loud is that you're doing this for non 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.120 racist reasons. If the result is racism, then you have 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.400 to not do it. And Alito goes, yeah, no, fuck that, 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.920 We're just like flipping it back to an intent standard 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.800 for no reason other than I want to be able 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.720 to do racism and help Republican Party win seats. The 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.000 other thing that fully talks about is the Court is 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.360 arguing that, like, Congress can't draw from the fifteenth Amendment 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.080 in order in order to like have the Voting Rice 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.800 Act work in the first place, I'm going to quote 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.280 him again. Yeah, the Court in this decision did not 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.319 need to consider the question of Congressional power to enforce 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.720 the fifteenth Amendment. That is because the power of Congress 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:36.640 to enact Section two with the Voting Rights Amendment for 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.440 the purposes of the case could have been sustained not 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.080 under the Fifteenth Amendment, but under Article one, Section four 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:48.280 of the Constitution. Congress has full power under Article one, 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.000 section four to enact laws governing the quote, time, place, 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.720 and manner of congressional elections. Thus, Congress can enact a 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:01.439 prohibition against minority vote dilution for congres national districts under 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.640 a dispriat impact theory without any consideration of discriminatory attent, 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.679 and not rely on the Fifteenth Amendment at all. So, okay, 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.320 what does this mean? Right? What Alito is saying is that, like, 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.920 oh well, actually, Congress doesn't have the authority to like 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.440 write the secution of the Voting Rights Amendment. They don't 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:19.600 have the authority to do it under the fifteenth Amendment 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.280 because it like oversteps the rights of states to you know, 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.079 like run their own elections. Right, So I'm gonna do 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.120 the thing I did last time with Fully's thing, and 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.040 just read the full Article one, section four of the Constitution. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.120 By the way, when something says like Article one, section four, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.040 you have to remember that all of the amendments, right, 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.040 the amendment that got rid of slavery, even like the 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:41.559 first Amendment, right, the freedom of speech, that's an amendment 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.520 that's not in the original text that had to be 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.079 added onto it. And obviously we have something called the 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.040 Bill of Rights that like you know, was like the 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.400 first ten amendments that was passed with the Constitution. But 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.200 that's not stuff that was like put like a freedom 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.080 of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of worship that was 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:01.360 not in the original texts of the Constitution. That was 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.480 the amendments put on. This is something that the people 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:06.120 who were at the Constitution were like, fuck if this 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.240 is gonna be in the original thing, right, So Article one, 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:11.560 Session four, this is from like the original fucking body 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.600 of text of the Constitution says, quote, the times, places 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.319 and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.679 be prescribed in each state by the Legislature thereof. But 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.320 the Congress may at any time, by law, make or 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.679 alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators. 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:36.080 So yes, obviously they could fucking do the Voting Rights Amendment. 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.400 They literally have the ability, Like it says in Section on, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:44.080 Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.880 such regulations. By such regulations they mean the times, places 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:52.240 and manner of holding elections. They could just do this, right, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.040 So obviously they can fucking do the Voting Rights Amendment. 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.720 It's it's literally just there in the cunstumitation. It just 0:11:57.720 --> 0:11:58.960 says that if. 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.199 All like this, it's gibberish. 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.760 It's like, oh my god, you can just read the 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.960 text of the Constitution and it says you can do this. 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.840 It's God holy shit. 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:12.160 Even from the. 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.680 Perspective of like if you treat the law as real, 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.960 this is just pure Calvin Ball shit, Like I mean, 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:23.200 it's just Jesus Christ. Okay, you know what's real and 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:37.320 not Calvin Ball. It's it's these products and services we 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:42.240 are back. So, okay, what has the result of this been. 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.040 It's been about two weeks since the Court did this decision. 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.880 The Court immediately followed this up by allowing Alabama to 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.439 jerrymander the shit out of their upcoming election. They're doing 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.800 this via again, the shadow docket, which is their ability 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.440 to just be like, no, fuck you, we're not ruling 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:02.920 on this case out actually issuing a decision, an unsigned, 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.720 one paragraph thing from the court can just dictate what 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:10.120 the law is. It's great, it's amazing, and by amazing, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.640 I mean Jesus fucking Christ. This happens about a week 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.640 after the original screw Court decision. This shadow docket allows 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:21.320 Alabama to put in place a map that was already 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:22.000 found to. 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:26.480 Be explicitly racially motivated, a thing Alito said in a 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.559 decision that he wouldn't do right. Alito says in a 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.920 decision that he won't overturn a cases that are like 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.480 avert discrimination and b that he wouldn't. 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.800 Overturn this exact case, and then they did it. 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:47.760 Anyways, It's like Jesus Christ, I're. 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.360 Just like, oh my God. So the short version of 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.320 the Alabama conflict I'm drawing here from Slat's story on 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.440 this thing is that Alabama tried to do a map 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.280 that would let them get rid of like both of 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.160 the congressional black Congression candidates in the states by jerymandering 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.320 the black vote. There's a whole bunch of court cases 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.120 about this. In twenty twenty three, the Supreme Court said 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.079 that they couldn't do this and they had to make 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.760 fairer districts that didn't like violate the Voting Rights Act. 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.080 So this was three years ago. This, like the Supreme 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.440 Court said they had to do this. Here's some Slate quote. Alabama, however, 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.840 refused to comply with that order. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:26.760 Again, like they got an order from the Supreme Court 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:27.840 and refused to do it. 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.760 Quote. So the lower court imposed its own map featuring 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.120 two districts where black voters had a real shot at 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.000 choosing their representative. The court also found that, in defying 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:43.119 its previous mandate, the Alabama legislature had engaged in intentional 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.280 racial discrimination, violating the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause in 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.600 addition to the Voting Rights Act. Up until Monday, this 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.880 decision had prevented the legislature from joining the former Confederate 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.960 States now racing to eliminate black representatives from their congressional delegations. 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.600 Alabama Republicans pressed the Dish Act Court to lift its bar, 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.160 but it refused, so they filed an emergency request at 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.680 the Supreme Court asking permission to read jerrymander black communities 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.600 in light of this decision. Now, I can't emphasize enough 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:14.920 this vote from when they were granted this position. This 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.840 vote is in like eight days, right, people had already 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.400 started voting for candidates and primaries, right, And Streme Court 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.080 was like, yeah, sure, yeah, you can. You can fucking 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.160 rejerrymander this thing eight days before the election. That's absolutely fine. 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.880 Even though again I canna emphasize this enough in the ruling, 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.000 Alito specifically said in the majority opinion that they wouldn't 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:39.640 overturn this exact case, and then they did it. It's 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:43.520 mind boggling. It used to be, like it really truly did. 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:45.360 Used to be that if you were going to do 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.080 shit like this, you had to like sort of like 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:52.240 pretend that you were following some kind of legal order. 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.400 And now you just don't. You can just fucking do 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.080 Calvin ballshit. You can just literally lie about what you're 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:03.080 doing and you're just saying and then just fucking do 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.400 whatever you want about it. And obviously, you know, as 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:07.800 Slave points on. This has been pointed out by a 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.840 whole bunch of different outlets. The Supreme Court also had 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:13.880 used another legal principle to prevent states that would have 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.520 we're trying to like make more democratic maps, both in 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:18.880 the sense of like not being racist and also that 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.200 would elect more democratic politicians. And even though it was 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:24.720 three months before the election, the court was like, well, 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.360 it's actually too soon, like it's too close the election 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:29.160 for you to be changing this stuff. But then also 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.480 now they're just letting Alabama do one of these like 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.440 eight days before an election. So it's so incredibly clear 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.560 about what's happening here is that the Court is trying 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.720 to allow Republican politicians to just straight up rig elections. 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.200 For them by doing gerrymandered districts in a way that 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:48.800 lets them eliminate the ability of non white people to vote. 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:54.240 And this is a huge fucking deal. Getting the nineteen 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.800 sixty five Voting Rights Act was one of the major 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:58.920 achievements of the Civil rights movement. Right, It's like, one 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.040 of the biggest goals of the moderate wing of the 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:07.080 movement was to have elections in which black people got 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:11.400 to actually fucking vote and not have their vote intentionally 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.119 diluted so they could never actually elect a candidate. And 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:19.520 that's what's being done here, right, And this has been 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.520 pointed out. It's like anyone who's read any kind of 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.600 analysis of racial politics in the US. One of the 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.439 consistent themes of the sort of you know what you 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.160 would call, I guess like the era of black uprising, right, 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:36.000 the sort of modern era stretching from roughly Ferguson I thought, 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:37.679 I guess you could talk about the stuff in the 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.399 Bay before that, or roughly from Ferguson through twenty twenty, 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.480 was that the US was not a democracy before the 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.159 nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act because the principle of 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:51.920 one person, one vote was not real because you could 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.560 simply disenfranchise anyone from a minority group, and that was 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.840 the status quo of the South, and also like a 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.320 lot of other parts of the country too, was this 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:08.440 very overtability of these people to you know, not only 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:10.080 just like this is this is one of the components 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:14.480 of segregation. Right. It's not just like imposing segregation legally 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:19.320 in public spaces, right, it's also you know, like preventing 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:25.040 it's preventing black people from voting. And this is the 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:30.360 thing that the Supreme Court ruling has just effectively destroyed. Right, 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.600 It's the thing that like made it possible to even 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:37.280 sort of like in the loosest sense possible, called this 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:42.199 country a democracy. And it's gone. It's just gone. And 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:45.040 now you know, it's like okay, like what what fucking 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:47.960 is this now? And you know, I don't know, it's 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:52.120 like it's it's an even more just extremely overt Jim 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.800 Crow state, this is what the goal of the Republican 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.520 Party has always been, Like they want resegregation. It's been 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.879 the basis of modern Republican politics forever. Right, It's you know, 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:05.199 dating back to you if you want to look at 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.199 like what trump Ism dessentdsful We've talked about this at 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:10.840 length on the show. The thing that became the sort 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.359 of religious right was originally born out of like the 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.879 school choice movement. And the thing about the school choice 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.480 movement was that it was an anti integration thing. After 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:21.800 losing their fight to be able to have whites on 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.760 these schools, a bunch of these sort of right wingers 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:26.760 were like, Okay, well, we'll just do private schools where 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:31.200 we can do that. And that's the basis of modern 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.199 Republican politics, right, you know, sort of both evangelicalism and 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.320 sort of the Bush administration and trump Ism and Reagan too. 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:43.400 Is this shit, and this has been what the Republicans 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.720 have done when they've been in power. Right, this is 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.159 a lot a lot of the Trump administration, like what 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.080 they're doing, like all of the stuff about DEI, all 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.280 this stuff about wokeness like this is also a lot 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:53.879 of what doche is doing was trying to make it 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.480 so that black people like couldn't work for the US government. Right. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:59.320 It was a huge purge of black women from the 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.760 US government. And you know, now we're seeing this on 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:09.280 the level of elections and on this level what Republicans 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.920 are trying to do with these gerrymandered maps, is remove 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.439 non white people and especially black people from Congress so 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.280 they can just have untrammeled white supremacist rule. And they're 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.560 doing it by claiming both that it's actually partisan. It's 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:26.359 just partisan jerrymandering, which is legal to disenfranchise black vetters 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.760 because black vetters won't openly vote for the party of 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:33.560 white supremacy. And they're also claiming that like, not doing 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.159 this is like infringing on the civil rights of white people, 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.080 a thing that like is completely you know, just gibberish 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.080 world turned upside down nonsense. But if they can just 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.760 do that now because they're in power, because the court 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.560 will just let them do this shit. And so I 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.919 think in a way that really has not been conveyed 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.120 in the media in the discourse, like this is one 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:03.080 of Bleak's moments of this administration, right you know, on 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:07.000 top of just the multiple gedocides they're committing, right on 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:08.960 top of you know, just like the ethnic cleansing of 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:11.480 no white people from the US that ICE is doing. 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:14.360 They're what they're doing right now is attempting to end 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:19.840 multi racial democracy in the US. And obviously, politically, I 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.880 have my critiques of like electoral democracy as a concept, 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:27.080 but having it just revert back to only white people 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:32.120 get to decide who politicians are is something even worse 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.280 than what we've had so far. You know, it's a 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:42.800 seismic shift in just literally what this country is towards 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:49.359 something that unbelievably an unfathomably weak state of pure white rule. 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.359 And the people who are talking about this think that 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.439 it can be reversed just by voting more, but no, 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:00.720 it can't. The whole point of this right is to 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:03.880 make sure that elections and you know, whatever the will 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.879 of the people is is incapable of actually affecting the 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:13.159 white supremacist state because not white people just don't get votes. 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:16.240 You can't just vote harder your way through all of 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:21.199 this shit. You have to actually do things. And you know, 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.880 if we don't want to live in a white supremacist society, 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.840 we're going to have to actually take action to combat 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:33.119 and actually resist the fact that this is like this 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.959 is just a pure white supremacist Jim Crow state. Now, yeah, 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.200 so this has been cold happened here. I don't have 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.760 a nonbleaque way to end this, but the common refrain 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.080 is if you've ever asked yourself what you would be 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.480 doing in Nazi Germany, it's right now, and I think 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:53.480 you can also add to that right if you've ever 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:57.399 asked yourself what would you be doing during Jim Crow, 0:22:57.600 --> 0:22:59.720 The answer is whatever the fuck you're doing now, and 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:02.880 if if you're not happy with that answer, then it's 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:08.680 time to move. It Could Happen Here is a production 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:11.960 of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:15.360 visit our website Coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:18.840 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:21.520 to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.960 Happen Here, listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.