Paul Waldman, writing in today's Washington Post, regarding the fight to protect voting rights against a rapacious right-wing minority, determined to hold power even as their policies and positions are rejected by the majority:
"In 2020, Democrats seized national power, winning the White House and complete control of Congress. In 2021, Republicans are determined to make sure such a thing never happens again — and the plans they’ve been laying for decades are making that not only possible but likely.
Perversely enough, a new lawsuit filed by the Justice Department — exactly the kind of forceful action in defense of democracy and civil rights that liberals hope to see — shows just how successful Republicans have been. In fact, rather than being evidence that Democrats are fighting for voting rights, the suit mostly shows what a spectacular disadvantage they face.
The lawsuit charges that when Texas Republicans redrew their state legislative and congressional districts, they discriminated against minority voters by reducing their ability to elect representatives of their choice. The foundation of the claim is that while Texas grew enough over the past 10 years to be given two additional congressional seats, and about 95 percent of that population growth came among minorities, especially Latinos, Republicans redrew the districts to guarantee even more power to White voters." (our emphasis)
The degradation of voting rights was accelerated by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which undercut the Department of Justice's power to halt discriminatory practices by states with regard to voting rights. That was followed by Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), which allowed gross gerrymandering of districts as long it was along partisan and not racial / ethnic lines, increasingly a distinction without a difference.
Now states with Republican-controlled legislatures are busily enacting new gerrymandered lines for Congressional districts, proposing to carve Dems out of their seats and controlling the House of Representatives. That and passing laws making it harder for targeted demographics (read: Democrats) to vote. With all of the House up for election in 2022, Republicans are stacking the deck to make sure they flip it to Republican control. And with that, the slide toward minority authoritarianism will be closer to completed.
