What Happens After the Death of the Voting Rights Act?

Impacted communities now must pivot fast and pivot hard in the wake of a fatal legislative blow to the Voting Rights Act

Publisher’s Riff

There is many a hot take on the smelly irony of Senate Republicans - along with two colluding, grifting Democrats - obliterating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 just 48 hours after the 36th year national holiday observance of the man who was responsible for its passage. What has not happened, however, is a sorely needed public response plan to the failure of voting rights legislation in the Senate and how the frontline communities most affected by that fight - primarily Black, Brown, Indigenous and other “communities of color” - are able to recover from that.

Wallowing in defeat is not the answer. Neither is putting all the blame on Senate Democrats and President Biden; Could they have been much more aggressive in their approach? Could their assaults on racist, anti-Democratic Republicans been a lot less conciliatory and pushed harder over a longer stretch of time versus a last minute, end-of-the-year performance? Could they have just stopped being “moderate Whites” for once? Certainly, yes to all of the above. But, ultimately, the Democratic Party is not responsible for the destruction of the Voting Rights Act. The Democratic Party did not block voting rights legislation - Republicans did. Republicans are responsible for where we find ourselves now as they’ve systematically dismantled comprehensive voting rights on the state and federal level for more than a decade now.

First and foremost, that fact must be established. Republicans, channeling their inner-Confederate in the wake of a near-successful January 6th coup attempt, blocked voting rights legislation through use of the filibuster. Not Democrats - and the two Democrats who sided with Republicans are just that … two Democrats out of a caucus of 50 or just 4 percent of the entire Senate Democratic caucus where the other 96 percent supported voting rights. It’s that simple. The sooner we’re simplifying where fault lies and being less obtuse about it, the faster we arrive at an understanding of who the real enemy is.

Next: Commiserating the death of the Voting Rights Act this week does not mean it’s time to now cancel your vote. There’s a distressingly loud segment of the Black Electorate population that thinks this, an easy position to fall into considering such high levels of frustration, trauma and collapse. But, if the response to the Republican-neoConfederate-white nationalist destruction of the Voting Rights Act is to actively & openly deride, dismiss or cancel the act of voting - especially when we just got it 56 years ago - then you're really nothing more than a fully deployed card-carrying member of white supremacy.

In 2022, the last thing we need to do or even consider is withholding votes from Democrats out of frustration or in some imbecilic bid to punish them for failure. The focus should be on punishing Republicans since they’re the ones who destroyed the Voting Rights Act. It’s like being at a crime scene where the evidence of who committed that crime is conclusive: Fingerprints and surveillance video are in heavy abundance. But, instead of getting angry at the perpetrator(s) of that crime and seeking prosecution, you’re going to, in a flash of witless anger, turn around and punish the victim of the crime because they didn’t do enough to protect themselves. Meanwhile, the perpetrator of the crime gets away and then, hours later, comes back to commit the crime again, but this time on you. How much sense does that make?

Strength in Numbers

The answer to the death of the Voting Rights Act is simply more voting.

It’s really all about numbers. Overwhelm our seditious, racist enemy with as many numbers as possible to overwhelm their numbers. Organizations, advocates, candidates & strategists tasked & paid to do the work now need to do the work - harder, but even smarter. Black, Brown, Indigenous and other voters of color combined with aligned and allied White voters can, together, easily clobber the 30-40 percent of the overall electorate that’s consistently “whitelashing.” When that coalition of voters is fractured, with certain groups increasingly less likely to turnout than others, the smaller whitelashing electorate will always win.

We're either on the playing field & pushing towards the end zone, or we're just miserable spectators. 2022 is a wide open opportunity to devise strategies to electorally obliterate anti-Black/anti-democracy Republicans on all levels.

In 2022, we simply groom, resource and elect even more people on the state, local & federal level who will not only protect voting rights - those people, as it stands, are Democrats. If you’ve found Republican incumbents and candidates who support voting rights then tell us … otherwise, be prepared to vote for Democrats and more of them. Mathematically more Democrats will make opponents irrelevant while making policy like federal voting rights permanent. You don’t cancel your vote: You elect even more people who will neutralize the opponents of all other justice agenda work. You elect even more people who will vigorously advocate your agenda. At the moment, it’s Democrats who are officially for voting rights. Republicans are not.

This is a political war. Battles are won by staying in them & through a superior leverage of numbers, smarter tactical maneuvers & brilliant strategy. We have no choice in this matter, especially since we now know who we're dealing with & what happens if they're not dealt with. It's all about numbers. If we must revive the Voting Rights Act, if you want real movement on every other existential issue that matters then you don’t step off the field.

You step back on it.