What the GOP are trying at the state level and the conservatives on the Supreme Court by judicial fiat is an all out destruction of the Civil Rights Movement accomplishments and an institutionalization of Jim Crow election laws.
Pure and simple.
Justice Scalia today said that some parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 smacked of “racial entitlement”. You read that correctly. A supreme court justice in the 21st century just claimed that the enforcement of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution is an example of “reverse racism”, the insidious racist apology that legitimizes Jim Crow institutional racism. I have to say that I am honestly stunned by this. I cannot believe I am seeing a return to the sort of ignorance and stupidity that marked the legal decisions of the Supreme Court during the era of Dred Scott and Plessy. The congress updated and reconfirmed the Voting Rights act as recently as 2006 with near unanimous support. What has changed between then and now? The election and reelection of an African American President by an electorate that is made up of more minorities than ever before. This is the worst nightmare of the GOP and conservative whites in the south and midwest. They will do anything they can to stop states like Georgia, Texas, Arizona, and South Carolina becoming viable battleground states in future elections. They will do anything to keep the United States from becoming a pluralized racially diverse democracy. It will not stop there of course: they will try, and are already trying, to limit the voting rights of students, women, latinos, naturalized citizens and young people. They want the past, the Jim Crow nadir of the first half of the 20th century, to return with the full force of the Supreme Court behind it. This is racism, this is fear. If the court invalidates this law the United States will cease to be a democracy.
Pure and simple
I will write more on this it unfolds