The New Jim Crow

If voter-ID laws look like a resurrection of old Jim Crow laws meant to exclude voting rights from certain people, it's because they are.

Voter i.d. laws are the direct successors of Jim Crow voter restrictions, with the wrinkle that they are based on class rather than race. Since, however, class in the U.S. is closely connected to race, they do double duty in squelching democracy and the political participation of the poor and working poor. If the latter category contains substantial numbers of whites, too bad. They might after all vote Democratic and need to be stopped from voting.

Today’s southern GOP is less interested in caste and more interested in sectarian politics and ensuring that the Republicans always win the elections. Thus, they are happy to disenfranchise even white voters who can’t be depended to vote Republican.

Republicans and Democrats have a big gender gap, with women preferring the Democratic Party by, typically ten percentage points. Hence, not only poor whites but females need to be put in their place.

Declaring that women are not in charge of their bodies and that elite white males will make their most intimate decisions for women underlines this sectarian, party politics.