Who is to blame for voter suppression and Jim Crow laws?

“It’s time to be true to ourselves and stop blaming others for the sins of our past.” – Nicole Sims

Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes passed by Southern Democrats after the Civil War that legalized racial segregation. Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws existed for 10 decades from Reconstruction until 1965. They suppressed Black Americans from voting by subjecting them to numerous, outrageous, unconstitutional laws to register to vote.

The passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act made it a federal crime to engage in voter intimidation or threaten someone who is trying to cast a vote. Vote denial, which is preventing a legally eligible voter from exercising his or her constitutional right to vote, is also a federal crime. Any intentional efforts to dilute, suppress, prevent, or deny a single group of people the right to vote is a felony.

With the rise of the progressive movement and the election of Barack Obama, antiquated terms of the past found their way into progressive political dialogue. They used these catch-all phrases to grow and distinguish their flock of identity groups. This is their progressive Orwellian “Newspeak.”

“The aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought so people think your way.” – George Orwell

The term “voter suppression” is an antique buzzword that has been redefined by the left in recent years to label Republicans as “disenfranchising identity groups” with voter ID laws. They say red states are “trying to steal elections” since state voter ID laws make it more difficult for minorities to vote. They are accusing the Republican Party of doing what the Democrats did for 100 plus years.

When Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed election reforms into law, Democrats framed a derogatory talking point for their party claiming that Georgia’s new voting laws were “Jim Crow 2.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Kemp did this to prevent his 2018 opponent, Stacey Abrams, a Black woman, from ever running for office again. She called this a “despicable voter suppression bill.”

Since the new Georgia voting laws were signed into law, Democrats can’t stop talking about Jim Crow. They are thrilled they found a new way to use the race card for electoral advantage. If voters let Democrats run from their past sins, that’s stupidity, but don’t let them blame them on the GOP.

At the end of the Civil War, Congressional Republicans passed the 1865 Civil Rights Act and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which gave former slaves equal rights with every U.S. citizen, including the right to vote. Democratic President Andrew Johnson refused to sign any of them.

During Reconstruction, over 2,000 Blacks held local and federal public office. The first 23 U.S. Black Congressmen were Republicans. Due to Southern Democratic Jim Crow laws, it was not until 1934 that the first Democrat, Arthur Mitchell, was elected to U.S. Congress from the northern state of Illinois.

Actual voter suppression was rampant following the Civil War and Reconstruction. The Democrats imposed Jim Crow laws upon freed slaves by manipulating voting qualifications. They established isolated Black voting precincts, gave them literacy tests and charged poll taxes. The Jim Crow laws made registering to vote difficult for Blacks, and the Black only precincts were a well kept secret.

In Texas, the Democratic legislature granted itself the authority to invent its own rules. The party announced it was “the party for white voters only,” and excluded Black voters from all elections. This allowed them to dominate elections and suppressed Black Republicans with Jim Crow laws.

“It’s a sad day when we are called racist for trying to enforce our state laws.” – George Wallace

The South opposed Reconstruction and the Republican Party’s support of Black civil and political rights. The Democratic Party identified itself as the “white man’s party.” By 1877, the Democrats controlled every state in the South and enforced strict Jim Crow laws to keep Blacks from voting.

The South remained a one-party region until the Civil Rights movement began in the 1960s. Most ranking Northern Democrats belonged to “party machines” and turned a deaf ear to the Southern Democrats who still enforced discriminatory Jim Crow laws, and excluded Blacks from their party.

“I refuse to change my ways no matter what left-wingers from any party tells me.” – George Wallace

The consequence of the Democratic controlled South was that most Southern Congressmen were automatically re-elected every election. Due to seniority in the U.S. Congress, Southerners were able to control the committees in both houses of Congress and killed most all civil rights legislation.

Their colleagues in the North simply went along to get along since they had no skin in the game.

Democrats were not only the party of Jim Crow but also the party of Tammany Hall, their political machine in the North. While they claim voter ID laws “suppress the minority vote” today, Congress is trying to pass Tammany-style legislation with feel good names like “For the People Act.” With a Congress split nearly 50/50 between the two parties, this is suppressing the rights of half the U.S. voters.

Fearing a red wave during the midterms, President Joe Biden and the Democrats have been rewriting history and calling Republicans the party of white supremacy and fostering Jim Crow-2 laws to disenfranchise identity groups? This is the defining movement for Common Core. Those who have not witnessed the failures of public school education need to open up a pre-Common Core textbook and revisit history.

“No other discipline has its portals so wide open to the public as history.” – Johan Huizinga

Gene Wolfe wrote “The best offense is a good defense.” Democrats know the minority vote is no longer a given after Trump got 13% of the Black and Hispanic vote in 2020. Since the left is the party of the liberal wealthy, white college grads and factions such as climaters and unions, they are desperate to hang onto the minority vote. They are turning the issue of voter fraud into an issue of “voter suppression” with new DOJ approved voter ID laws passed to enforce the Voting Rights Act.

Throughout the 2016 campaign, many GOP leaders refused to defend Trump and the media crucified him. It was voters who ultimately judged him. The secret ballot allows people to vote any way they wish. Nobody is suppressing anyone’s vote when machines are the only ones seeing and counting the votes. Democrats have forgotten 100 years of U.S. history. They passed Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, literacy tests and laws, and intimidated the Black voters. That was real “voter suppression.”

If the left controls both chambers of Congress after the midterms, they will end all state control of elections. Democrats will be able to suppress the vote of anyone they wish, since states will have no authority to write their own election laws. This will give Democrat’s more power than they had under Jim Crow-1.

“Voter suppression today is a myth. It is a term used by a political party to smear perfectly legal activities, like voter ID laws, by suggesting it is illegal.” – J. Christian Adams, DOJ