You know they had this locked and loaded and were just waiting for the SC to give them the green light to disenfranchise black voters.

These are the kinds of things that make me want to go back and investing the end of Reconstruction in the 1800s. There was a time when (freed) blacks were able to vote, many held office, some towns had black sheriffs, mayors, there was even some modest representation in the state and national legislatures.

And then … nothing.

Blacks disappeared from voting roles. Black office holders became as scarce as teeth in moonshiners’ mouths. Total segregation became the law of the land in the South, and defacto in large parts of the North.

I am afraid we are seeing the beginning of the same kind of rollbacks. (Well, obviously we are, my concern is how far it can go; it is possible that it shrinks all the way back to a semblance of what we had from the 1900s to the 1950s?) I hope not, but given the eagerness I see among those who can, and the insistence of the USSC (or six of them, anyway) that “it’s over and there’s nothing to worry about”, I can’t help but fear for how far it can go.