Daily to reminder people in northern cities:
Alot of the southern states would be solidly blue but many of these states make it *absurdly* difficult for black people and poor people, especially poor black people, to vote. The Shelby decision was absolutely devastating.
This is pretty straightforwardly the case in purple and former purple states like North Carolina, Florida, and…others lol. North carolina was caught in an email exchange explicitly plotting to require forms of id that black people were less likely to carry.
www.npr.org/2021/09/17/1...
N.C. Judges Strike Down A Voter ID Law They Say Discriminates Against Black Voters
The state's latest photo voter identification law "was motivated at least in part by an unconstitutional intent to target African American voters," two judges wrote in their opinion.
But even in states that appear deep red, like Alabama, it’s probably worth thinking about what the counterfactual might be without voter suppression. Alabama and Mississippi have centuries old aggressive voting shenanigans, often violent. Would they bother if it would be red anyway?
For instance, Alabama required IDs to vote, then closed all the DMVs in black counties lol. Straight up Jim crow shit. The south is not a swath of backwards idiots, but a mini nation of semi feudal states rigged for minority rule.
www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...
Closing Driver's License Offices in Alabama
Alabama is planning to close 31 of its part-time driver’s license issuing offices across the state, which could make it harder for many to get the photo ID required to vote.
You don’t even need to voter suppression counterfactual to see that the backwater southern thing is false. New York City, a notorious liberal Mecca, went roughly 30% for the orange dude, and Fulton County, roughly mapping on the the city of Atlanta, came in at 25% Trump support.
I’d also add that Atlanta *feels* more liberal that New York City does, more than Chicago too, not just in a blue versus red sense. It’s a very openly loud gay city, louder than New York. It’s a blacker city, a lot less buttoned up and in some sense more free.
Yes, it’s in Georgia, which means the laws are often very conservative , we don’t have real unions and it’s hard to get funding for many of the progressive things New Yorkers enjoy. But it feels easy to imagine how different it could be without the voting…challenges.
I did not grow up in the south, but I’ve lived here for ten years now. And while there are…peculiarities…the impulse of many liberals to paint it is a toothless red backwater is ignorant and ignores a lot of very easy to verify history and political economy. Do better!
It's like how do you win, how can you get ahead? This is wrong. This is what the citizens of "the land of the free" experience? No wonder some have given up on voting. Y'all deserve better.
I come from a place that does everything to make it as easy as possible to vote for *all* eligible voters.
