I may have spoken too soon. In a January column, upon the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia, one Black, one Jewish, I wrote that Georgia had finally seceded from the Confederacy. But, while it may have seemed so at the time, the reality of the recalcitrant Southern slave/master mindset should never be underestimated.
Immediately after that historic election, in light of Georgia’s apparent shift blue-ward, the local Republican political machine busily contrived a new law to suppress the Black vote. Texas, Arizona and Florida are following suit. The GOP strategy to victory has always been to manipulate the system in its favor rather than its policies to the country’s political realities and serve the diversity of the American people. Obviously, in the face of growing numbers of Georgia’s Black voters, the logical Republican recourse is to stop them by any means available.
However, the backlash has apparently taken them surprise. And, this time, it wasn’t simply protesting voters, but rather, it was corporations, the lifeblood of the Georgian economy that rose up in opposition. Major League Baseball cried foul and promptly moved its All Star Game from Atlanta to Denver, CO. Celebrity actor Will Smith has just pulled his film production Emancipation out of the Peach State. Other Georgia-based corporations like Delta Airlines and Coco-Cola have also expressed their support of democracy and received threats of boycotts from GOP supporters, including the former president as a result. Both Georgia Governor Kemp and Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have expressed anger at the thought of corporations acting on their political beliefs to support voters’ rights.
Gerrymandered Wisconsin
Here in Wisconsin, we’re facing our voter suppression campaign. The December 2020 Wisconsin Supreme Court case in which the Republican Party sued to overturn the state’s election results was narrowly defeated in a 4-3 ruling. The crux of that suit was solely to throw out the voting results of Wisconsin’s two counties, Milwaukee and Dane, that coincidently have large Black populations. So obvious was the strategy that Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky called the Republican effort “un-American”, “racist” and “shameful”.
Given Wisconsin’s Republican gerrymandered control of the state legislature, efforts to restrict voter participation in future elections are inevitable. While a recent stratagem by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty to purge voter rolls was defeated by the state’s Supreme Court, there will other attempts , by one means or another, to stop people, especially people of color, from exercising their constitutional right to the ballot.
Essentially, it was the Black vote that won the 2021 presidential election for the Democrats. We must never forget that and that our LGBTQ rights and those of other minorities are dependent on voter turnout. Had we been subjected to another four years of Trumpnik bigotry, the abrogation of our hard won freedoms would have continued unabated. As it is, even with President Joe Biden’s embrace of the LGBTQ cause, states like Arkansas are busy passing laws allowing health care professionals to refuse treatment based on religious belief and criminalize gender confirming treatment of minors.
Hopefully, any local anti-democratic movement towards voter suppression in our fair state will meet the same financial cost as in Georgia. Perhaps just the specter of corporations and major league sports exacting a hefty toll on the Wisconsin economy will serve as a deterrent.
Meanwhile, we cannot let any group be deprived of access to the ballot. A weakened electorate threatens our democracy. We must always remain vigilant and remember to always defend everyone’s right to vote.
