Democracy and respect for the rights and freedoms of all in the United States have always been lofty statements of intent, but have never been fully realized. For several years now, American society has been retreating on several fronts. And those who believed that the end of Donald Trump’s presidency would put things “in order” must open their eyes as soon as possible: the draft opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States on the abortion that everyone is talking about this week is just the tip of the iceberg.
The republican political project is articulated on several levels. First, we use the power we have, at the state level, to bring American society back into the conservative ideal of yesteryear. In Texas and Oklahoma, for example, laws are passed that prohibit abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy. This is in reaction to a similar law in Mississippi, which seeks to ban abortion after the 15and week, that the Supreme Court is preparing the opinion that is causing so much ink to flow.
But the right to abortion is not the only target. A dozen Republican states have also tabled or adopted, since the beginning of the year, laws that undermine the rights of young trans people. In Alabama, to name just one case, parents and health professionals who seek to medically assist trans minors in their transition are now liable to a 10-year prison sentence.
We also seek to prohibit any discussion that does not go in the direction of conservative values among young people. Since last year, more than a dozen states have passed laws that aim to limit how racism and sexuality are discussed in the classroom. In Florida, for example, a bill currently under consideration would prohibit discussing gender identity and sexual orientation at school. Many observers worry about the implicit consequence of such a ban: forcing all LGBTQ students into the closet.
To carry out this kind of political reform, the Republican Party must also retain control of the states that are traditionally in its fold, and give as many of its supporters as possible access to federal bodies such as Congress, the Senate and, of course, of course, the Supreme Court. Last November, a Public Religion Research Institute poll found that 68% of Republican voters still believe the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump. This implies that, in a good part of the states controlled by Republicans, “voter fraud” is considered to be a serious problem – and is acted upon.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, at least 27 states have introduced or passed 250 pieces of legislation aimed at restricting the right to vote since the start of 2022. And already last year, 19 states had passed a total of 34 laws ranging in the same way. For example, access to voting by mail is limited, or even the provision of water and food to voters who line up in front of polling stations is completely prevented.
This series of laws comes in the wake of two recent Supreme Court judgments (2013 and 2021) which weakened the Voting Rights Actadopted in 1965 in the wake of the civil rights movement led by, among others, Martin Luther King Jr. In short, America’s highest court has ruled that racism in the United States is a thing of the past. As a result, it was deemed no longer necessary for states that had historically been guilty of limiting the franchise of African Americans to obtain judicial approval before changing their election laws. As a result, the Republican states where minority suffrage was restricted in MLK’s time are pretty much the same ones that today seek to restrict the franchise of those same voters.
Why ? Because year after year, racialized Americans overwhelmingly vote Democrats, and white Americans overwhelmingly vote Republicans. The distribution of the population on the national territory being still largely segregated, it is easy to polish the electoral maps in order to ensure that the communities which tend to vote democrats will find themselves in the majority in the fewest possible districts. And since the weakening of the electoral law of 1965 by the Supreme Court, there have been many new legislative measures aimed at stifling the Democratic vote.
The decline of democracy and the weakening of rights and freedoms therefore go hand in hand in the republican strategy. Weakening democracy makes it possible to elect a large proportion of ultra-conservative candidates who attack the rights of women, LGBTQ people and racialized people. These citizens will therefore find themselves increasingly marginalized in American society, which helps the ultra-conservative clique to stay in power.
To put it simply: America’s demographics have changed, and the Republican Party refuses to change with it. He therefore prefers that the country become less and less democratic rather than lose power. That’s also what it means, “ Make America Great Again ».
And Joe Biden, in all this? The President and Congress (mostly Democrats) have indeed proposed a law that would consolidate the Voting Rights Act, but it remains blocked, for the moment, by a Senate which refuses to adopt it. Unless a solution to this impasse is found, the midterm elections scheduled for November will be carried out with unfair rules that will make it even more difficult for Democratic candidates to be elected. And if the Republicans manage, by bending the laws, to gain even more power, the attacks on the rights of women and minorities will multiply.
The decline in the right to abortion freezes your blood? It’s only a beginning.