When Republicans blocked the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act on January 19, 2022, they removed the last safety net preventing the U.S.’s plummet toward authoritarianism. We are now in a state known as free-fall. This is the culmination of a state level crisis. legislative and enforcement landscape that directly mirrors Jim Crow — or as fascism scholar Jason Stanley recently put it, “America is now in fascism’s legal phase.” Although we do have ways of fighting back, the situation is dire.
We often hear that the U.S.’s founding documents, courts and institutions make it immune to despotism, but this claim is simply false and erases our country’s troubling history with white supremacy — one the GOP is poised to reinvigorate. Louisiana was the victim of numerous coups and massacres during Reconstruction. These escalated after white supremacists refused state election defeat in 1872 and instead chose to establish a shadow government under the losing candidate John McEnery. The paramilitary arm of the shadow government — the White League — tried (and failed) to oust the legitimate governor and his allies in the “Battle of the Cabildo” in 1873. Instead of prosecuting and arresting the conspirators state and federal officials let them plan their next coup. successfully toppled the state government in the “Battle of Liberty Place” in 1874.
Failing to prosecute the white vigilantes and the insurrectionists of Reconstruction, the U.S.’s first attempt at multiracial democracy, all but ensured their eventual success. This is the result. across the SouthAs the old enslaving race spread racist fears of Black insurrections, they succeeded promote a frenzy of racist violenceIn a bid to gain power. Perhaps we might tell ourselves that white vigilantism is “unconstitutional” and would never survive the courts, but the unfortunate truth is that the Supreme Court has historically condoned these tactics. In the 1876 Cruikshank rulingThe justices ruled in favor of the white paramilitaries. murdered roughly 150 Black LouisianansTheir civil rights were not violated by 1873, as the Bill of Rights only applies to states and not private individuals. White conservatives understood that the ruling granted them immunity from prosecution for killing Black Americans. wave of racist violenceSeveral months later, in the election of 1876. formally ended Reconstruction.
We are at such a critical moment, where Donald Trump’s administration and his associates tried repeatedly to reverse the results of the 2020 elections. Now, we know that Trump officials, lawyers campaign staffThere are many strategies that can be used to reverse the election results. including a mid-December unsigned executive orderThe Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller was directed to seize voting machine by the newly installed. Trump allies in the meantime met withTwo days before the mob attack at the Capitol, Republican senators met to discuss the now-notorious coup PowerPointExplanating how Republicans might install Trump in January 6 and declare martial law. Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, texted at least one member of Congress, “I love it” regarding the planned coup. While it is true that some of Trump’s foot soldiers who staged the Capitol breach have faced repercussions, its architects continue to hold meaningful power and influence and are successfully removing the guardrailsThat stopped their last coup attempt.
Although prominent Democrats hope that it is possible to “out-organize voter suppression,” our history suggests otherwise. After the formal end to Reconstruction, white vigilantes used violence and intimidation to defeat the 15th Amendment. However, overwhelming Black majority in certain districts allowed Black voters to elect Black state representatives. Robert SmallsSouth Carolina
White conservatives who ran under explicitly racist slogans such as “This is a White Man’s Country; Let White Men Rule,”They could not stomach such a brazen affront to their fundamental commitments to white power. Starting with Mississippi in 1890 and continuing through the South with large Black populations rewrote their state constitutionsTo destroy Black political power, use poll taxes, literacy tests, and even a grandfather clauseThat allowed poor and illiterate Whites to vote, as long their grandfather could vote during slavery, while Black Americans couldn’t.
Like today’s voter purges and restrictionsThe Jim Crow constitutions of 1890s were pushed by the Republican Party. They used race-neutral language in order to target Black voters. This ensured that even if they could vote, they wouldn’t be able hold power. Robert Smalls protested at the South Carolina Constitutional Convention in 1895, “this convention has been called for no other purpose than the disfranchisement of the negro.” The new Jim Crow constitutions accomplished precisely that, cutting Black registrationFrom 130,000 to 5,000 Louisiana, 147,000- 8,600 Mississippi, and 147,000- 21,000 Virginia. In Williams v. MississippiThese measures were declared constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1898. Despite clearly targeting Black voters, the ostensibly racial-neutral language meant that the language was not discriminatory. CruikshankThe court declined to intervene in order to preserve the verdict. 15th AmendmentAs long as it protected the rights of Black Americans.
Our political system is already skewed. deeply gerrymanderedDistricts that maximize Republican power are designed to do so, even though the majority of Americans support an end partisan redistrictingRepublicans are expanding gerrymandering to states like North Carolina, where Trump won 49 percent of the vote in 2020. But where the GOP is now positioned to claim70 percent of the House seats.
Republican legislatures are adding to this effort harder to vote, passing lawsNew voting methods and hours are created in 19 states, while some states limit voting hours. criminal penaltiesGeorgia Water Distribution Authority. Texas Mail-In ballot request. To make matters worse, Republican-controlled states including Florida, Georgia, Texas and Arizona passed laws handing control of electionsFrom nonpartisan boards to partisan officers. A new far right slate Republican candidates for secretary of stateThe people who control the certification and election returns in key battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan refuse to admit that Joe Biden won 2020. Democrats will likely face a significantly more restrictive landscape in 2022-2024 if we fail to take action to protect voting rights, and overturn these laws.
Although the situation is dire due to Republican election rigging, insurrectionary efforts, and other attempts to inflict violence on the country, we may be able navigate it with strong First Amendment protections. The mass protestsJohnson administration passed a number of reforms, including the Voting Rights Bill, in response to the civil rights movement.
That’s not to say this kind of mass mobilization would be easy or without risks, but a movement similar to the “militant nonviolence” of the civil rights era could overcome the racist authoritarianism of the GOP. Republicans passed a series of state laws to make it easier to accomplish this goal almost in anticipation. police to arrest protestersFor vigilantes run them overThey drove their cars. They did this at the exact moment it made it easier to change elections and harder to vote. In these circumstances, protesting an election that has been subverted or overturned in GOP-controlled swing state means taking great bodily and legal risk, severely restricting the right of assembly when it is most needed.
The same could be said about the Republican attack against education, which was waged again at the exact moment that the GOP expanded voter suppression laws and anti-protest laws. Republican-controlled legislatures passed or are in the process of passing laws that make it illegal to teach the U.S.’s racist history or its impact on systems of power. GOP-controlled states’ officials and administrators have banned professors from testifying in courtTo overturn voting rights restrictions for Florida banned booksTexas public libraries are able to tackle racism and promote a national response. campaign of threats and intimidation against school board members.
These attempts to ban writing and teaching about white supremacy go back to antebellum slavery when enslavers were subject to such laws. banned abolitionist teaching and literature, burned abolitionist pamphlets and murdered abolitionist authors and printers like Elijah Lovejoy. This approach to abolitionist writing was historically extremely dangerous and difficult to oppose. It also contributed to the reactionary, misinformed white Southern society, which seceded in 1860 to defend slavery.
Fortunately, our past also shows us that there are things that we can do.
We can organize a campaign for bills that will create a free, fair- and transparent democracy. We already have the exact legislation in the Senate. blocked by a Republican filibusterThat is itself a. relic of Jim Crow. Today, we can exert immense pressure on legislators for bills to protect our right to vote and guarantee a true representative democracy with strong First Amendment protections. We can also demand that DOJ investigates and holds accountable the organizers of January 6’s mob attack on Capitol Hill. We have failed many times on this front but we are trying again. 1871 Ku Klux Klan ActCreation of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ in 1957This has raised the cost of white vigilantism and shown that a genuine commitment towards justice can turn the tide against white supremacist organizing. Failure to take action against white vigilantism has been a guarantee of white vigilantism growing and the creation or continuation of an apartheid regime.
We can’t help but be proud of the institutions we have and work to make them better. AlsoEncourage a culture that promotes mutual aid and public good, which is something white conservatives can’t do. From Fannie Lou Hamer Martin Luther King Jr.To Angela Davis Keeanga-Yamahtta TaylorWe are blessed with generations of abolitionist activists and equal rights activists whose knowledge we can draw upon. They remind us that elite white minority rule is truly unpopular. Working together to care for each other not only improves your life but also forces the state to be more responsive the the people’s needs. Our history shows us that together we can defeat the white backlash and protect our democracy while building powerful new coalitions that unite organized labor and racial just movements. We must. Our future depends on it.
