"Hours later, New Yorkers danced and honked car horns to celebrate the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. The street parties reminded me of when Barack Obama won the presidency after eight years of Geoge W. Bush, or Joe Biden against Donald Trump. You could feel the people sigh in relief. Now, six months later, it's hard to imagine such elation after an election - not after the right wing's latest act of legal warfare on democracy with the Supreme Court's further gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act."
"Not wasting time, Republicans in Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina redrew maps to end Black-majority districts immediately after the decision. Next, the Virginia Supreme Court cold-stopped Democrats from redistricting four more seats to fight Republican gerrymandering. Even before the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration had the FBI raid a voting center while pushing the SAVE America Act."
"The legislation, currently stalled in the Senate, would erect high walls to voting - such as demanding a passport or birth certificate, rather than just a driver's license. It could cut off more than 21 million Americans from voting, including the poor, married people with changed names, the elderly, and people of color."
"After the Supreme Court ruling, grief swept our community. On the phone, my friend, a Black activist, cried. I heard the fear of a 21 st-century Jim Crow regime. Could we see legal resegregation? These fears obscured the real future that the right wing is trying to build: the end of democracy. The far right wants techno-feudalism, or what some of its members have dubbed a "Dark Enlightenment.""
A voter experience and celebratory street parties contrast with later fear after Supreme Court actions further weaken the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Republicans redraw district maps in multiple states to eliminate Black-majority districts, while courts block additional Democratic redistricting efforts. Federal actions and proposed legislation add barriers to voting, including requirements for documents such as passports or birth certificates. The stalled SAVE America Act could prevent more than 21 million Americans from voting, affecting people with limited resources, people whose names have changed, older voters, and people of color. Community grief centers on the possibility of legal resegregation and the broader goal of ending democracy through far-right techno-feudalism.
Read at Truthout
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