While attempting to cement conservative political power, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appears to have exposed him to major electoral peril, but as a prominent Democratic activist wrote for MS NOW, this backlash must be the start of a much larger battle.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority and three justices appointed by Trump, issued a ruling that effectively gutted the remaining power of the Voting Rights Act, allowing GOP-led states to create racially discriminatory district maps to try and further entrench Republican power in Congress. As early voting data has poured in for the midterms, however, this move seems to have backfired in the immediate term, with Black voters, particularly in the South, turning out in massive, record-breaking numbers, seemingly inspired to push back against efforts to diminish the power of their votes.
Writing for MS NOW on Sunday, Stacey Abrams, the prominent voting rights activist and one-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate, suggested that this trend poses a question about the continuing fight against voter suppression: “If Black voters show up en masse, do the barriers placed before them matter?”
“Participation does not erase discrimination,” Abrams explained. “A voter can cast a ballot and still have her community divided among districts designed to weaken its influence. A neighborhood can turn out in extraordinary numbers and still be denied a fair opportunity to elect someone who will answer to its needs at the local, state and federal levels. They may start with Congress, but the effects reach deep into where we live.”
She added later: “After Election Day, we must sustain the organizations that defend voters between campaigns. We must keep showing up when districts are drawn, and election rules are debated. We must demand that legislators at the state and federal levels enshrine strong, enforceable protections against racial discrimination in voting, ones that look at actual effect rather than explicit intent. We all have a stake in this, and thus the responsibilities belong to all of us. Black communities should not be expected to rescue American democracy while bearing the greatest burden of its failures. The donors, institutions and neighbors who celebrate Black turnout must also invest in the work that makes equal participation possible.”
Abrams further warned that, under the Trump administration’s “authoritarian” project, no state will be safe from voter suppression campaigns, even ones with Democratic leadership and that are not located in the South. She also warned that this agenda will not stop at targeting Black voters, as “Latino and AAPI and Native American voters are also in their crosshairs.”