linnposts.com

It is not proving easy to get Donald Trump out of my head. It’s even harder to stop being angry at Republicans.

Trump is, quite simply, an awful man who was an even worse president. Yet his supporters continue to believe he walks on water.

Republicans are, quite simply, as bad as Trump, at least most of them. They keep trying to destroy our democracy through, among other things, voter suppression and Senate obstructionism.

I don’t think it gets much worse than that. Trump started the assault on America that culminated in the January 6 invasion of the Capitol and now Republicans want to finish it. 

This is serious stuff. The effort to suppress minority voting feels surreal. It’s like watching an old movie. Quite literally we have been here before. 

Voting suppression was one of the primary points of conflict during the fight for civil rights I lived through in my native Virginia. A literacy test and a poll tax were the suppression tactics racist politicians used against blacks voters.

The literacy test was not eliminated until the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and by the 24^th Amendment to the Constitution in the same year that gave every American citizen the right to vote in federal elections. The poll tax was repealed in 1966. 

In May, 1939, Wilbur C. Hall, chairman of the State Conservative Commission run by the later racist Senator Harry F. Byrd, stated the purpose of the poll tax, but he was talking about both.  

The poll tax, he said, was part of the adoption in 1902 of the state’s new Constitution. It had one main purpose, he said: “the purification of Virginia elections.” (Conley L. Edwards, “A political history of the poll tax in Virginia, 1900-1950”).

He argued that it should be continued for the same reason. Republicans today have substituted the language of “voter fraud” for “purification,” but the intent is the same. 

It is as sad as it is true that in this year of 2021 the Republican Party has revived the pre-civil rights practice of suppression of minority voters as its strategy for winning elections. 

Donald Trump came damned near to destroying the constitutional separation of powers and now Republicans want to complete the task by using phony voter suppression laws. 

Jim Crow has risen from the dead. 

I should not be the only one angry about this. We all should be.

Frankly, the fact that voters of color are not rioting in the streets speaks to the level of their respect for and commitment to our constitutional democracy few Republicans are showing.

The irony is that minority voters are the ones working to preserve the integrity of our elections for those very Republicans trying to destroy it.

The discouraging reality is that history has always told the story of most people failing to pay attention to the threat to their freedom they faced until it was too late.

War in some countries managed to save it for some, while tyranny took hold and ruled for a generation or more in others. Either choice represents a tragedy of immense proportions.

There is still time for all Americans, especially Republicans whose leaders are leading the sedition efforts, to turn back what is happening.

HR 1 and HR 4 are voting rights bills now in the Senate waiting to be passed. Republicans led by Mitch McConnell (and supported by Democrat Joe Manchin) want to use the filibuster to prevent them from passing, just as southern Dixiecrats did in their fight against civil rights. 

One small, but important thing all of us can do is to let our Senators and Representatives know that we want these bills passed. Revise them if they need it, but pass them nonetheless. The hope of remaining a democracy in practice and not just in words hangs in the balance.

In his inaugural speech as a U.S. Senator delivered this week, the Reverend Raphael Warnock, the first black Senator from Georgia in history, spoke eloquently about the challenge to voting rights our nation is facing. At one point he said this: “I feel a vote is a form of prayer concerning the world we need for ourselves and our kids. And our prayers are stronger after we pray collectively.”

Most Republicans say they believe in prayer. Well, we will see whether or not they actually do by their vote on these bills. We will see if they, too, believe voting is a sacred act wherein all Americans – all – participte collectively in giving thanks for their freedom.