Vann R. Newkirk II — The Atlantic:
the RNC had sent sample ballots to communities of color, and then had the names for each ballot returned as undeliverable removed from voter rolls. Democrats also alleged that the RNC hired off-duty cops to patrol majority-minority precincts, wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. These details were enough to secure a consent decree between the two party organizations and the court in 1982, stopping the GOP from engaging in such voter-intimidation practices.
Except, Democrats alleged, they didn’t stop. The consent decree was updated in 1987 after Republicans created a voter-challenge list of black voters from whom letters had been returned as undeliverable, with an RNC official saying that the list could “keep the black vote down considerably.” The decree was modified again in 1990 after a court ruled the RNC had violated it by not telling state parties about its provisions, which had led to the North Carolina GOP sending 150,000 postcards to potential voters listing voting regulations, in an apparent attempt at intimidation. The GOP violated the court order again in 2004 after yet another voter-challenge list targeted black voters.
With that history of behavior in full view, federal courts moved to allow the decree to expire in December 2017, a decision that was finalized Tuesday by a federal district court. For the first time in three decades, the RNC can pursue ballot-security measures without court preclearance.
(Emphasis mine.)
Keep the black vote down considerably. Keep the blacks down considerably. Keep the blacks down. Keep them down. Down. Ladies and gentlemen, your Republican Party USA in a nutshell. If every eligible black or brown American registered to vote, and every one of them then voted, in the absence of gerrymandered districts protecting that party’s favored candidates the GOP would be dead, and the world would be a better place for it. There is no reason to be pleasant about this.
Don’t go thinking the Republican party lost its collective mind in 2016 nominating Donald Trump. They had a long history of supporting racist policies before that shyster came along.
Now they’re free to pursue the same again.
These are the folks who like to remind us that theirs is the party of Lincoln, the party that championed civil rights. They’re right, up to a point. They were the party of Lincoln until Lincoln was dead and his avowedly racist vice president, Andrew Johnson, assumed the presidency. They haven’t been the party of Lincoln in word, deed, or spirit since that day.
As for supporting civil rights, well, maybe, right up until Brown v. Board struck down Jim Crow. The gloves came off after that.
Why any person with a conscience continues voting for candidates nominated and embraced by this morally corrupt organization is beyond me. Why don’t they just come right out and say, “we hate black people, because without slavery or Jim Crow laws we don’t know how to live with them?” That, at least, would be the truth.
#GOP #racist #bigoted #immoral #party
A Random Stroll 