You Do the Math
The latest and most ridiculous Justice Department indictment of James Comey claims that his sharing of a photo of shells spelling out 8647 amounted to a threat on Trump’s life. Trump followed up with the claim that 86 is a mob term for putting a hit on someone. While many hospitality workers claim they use 86 to refer to items they’ve run out of, a noted prosecutor who spent his career listening in on the conversations of the five families says he has never heard any of them use the term 86—and even as a mere layperson, I feel confident making the definitive statement that no mob boss has ever ordered a hit by arranging pretty seashells on the beach. Fuggedaboud eighty-six. America’s most dangerous number is actually 6-3, represented by the SCOTUS majority that is systematically stripping away cherished freedoms and hard-earned rights, now including the Voting Rights Act. These rights were painstakingly earned during some of the most significant moments in American history, from Freedom rides, to Freedom Summer, to the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech watched by 70 million Americans, to his signing the act into law with the words, “Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.” This makes SCOTUS crushing the Voting Rights Act an equally huge defeat. To understand what was undone, let’s look back at how we got here. NYT (Gift Article): Why Is There a Voting Rights Act? A Timeline.
+ “Consider the effect in Louisiana. That state had no Black representation in Congress for more than a century after the end of Reconstruction, and finally elected one Black member in 1990. A second Black member served from 1993 to 1997. In 2001 Louisiana redrew its map to revert to only one majority-Black congressional district out of six, in a state where the Black population is now about one-third of the total.” NYT Editorial Board: The Justices Acted as Partisans in the Voting Rights Ruling.
+ “What we can expect in the aftermath of this ruling is for more Republican-controlled states to implement discriminatory maps and call them partisan so they can pass legal muster. In practical terms, this will likely mean fewer nonwhite representatives in Congress. Diminishing the power of minority voters may also allow the Republican Party to continue on its path from reactionary color-blindness to more overt racism, safe in the assumption that it will not have to answer to constituents who oppose such racism because they are its targets. There is little risk in attacking people who lack the power to remove you from office.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Voters Can Be Disenfranchised Now.
+ This ruling represents a long-term risk. And a near-term one. Louisiana postpones primaries as states rush to redraw districts after Supreme Court ruling. “More governors call for special sessions following supreme court’s decision severely weakening Voting Rights Act.” Officials were ready to pounce once this decision was made because they knew what the decision would be. The Court’s majority is doing one of the things it has been strategically designed to do: Respond to the changing demographics in America by 86ing racial progress and equality.
