So, what do we do now?
We get to tell the story of democracy, but only if we understand it.
Do you know how I started writing? I often tell people it was writing memoir-ish essays on social media, but it actually began before that, when I got hired as the Finance Manager of a natural foods cooperative in 2005.
They needed a trained accountant, but they couldn’t afford one, so they got me: a storyteller with a penchant for pattern recognition. (Basic accounting is just reading and interpreting patterns, and some very basic math.)
Most of the owners of the co-op were earnest, idealistic lefties who had never run a business in their lives, and whose eyes tended to glaze over when presented with spreadsheets. Yet, they were supposed to make decisions about budgets and strategic direction, all while keeping in mind a deeper sense of purpose and community obligation than most businesses in capitalism.
My job, on top of actually running a department, was translating numbers into stories for these clueless, well-meaning folks. The stories underneath the numbers helped them understand how things actually worked, what the implications of their choices were, and how to balance their ideals with the often unforgiving realities of being a sizable local employer running a low-margin grocery business.
I discovered I perversely loved writing quarterly and annual reports, helping people understand what was going on so they could make decisions with some integrity. It might have been the only thing I liked about that job, in the end.
I also discovered it’s impossible to act with integrity when you don’t understand what’s going on or how things work. Information by itself isn’t power, but understanding that information absolutely is.
This brings us around to what happened with the Supreme Court this week. SCOTUS ruled along idealistic lines to essentially kill the Voting Rights Act, leaving all of us here in the United States with decisions to make and work to do, hopefully with some integrity.
If you already understand what happened and what it means, you can skip to the “So, what do we do now?” section of this newsletter. For the rest of us, let’s dig in.
The story of the Voting Rights Act
The story of the Voting Rights Act is the story of an African population stolen and sold away from their homelands. Those Africans were then enslaved for hundreds of years and multiple generations, forced to build what is now the United States. Ostensibly, those now American Black folks were freed from enslavement in the wake of the Civil War.
Except, there was no real accountability for the enslavers or their supporters, so there were no reparations or repair. Instead, to replace slavery we got Jim Crow, a system of policies, practices, and laws in the South expressly created to undo the goals of what was called Reconstruction— to integrate previously enslaved folks into civil, economic, and political society.
Jim Crow was whites-only water fountains, lunch counters, and bathrooms. It was Black folks being systematically prevented from owning homes or land, and then required to sit at the back of the bus. It was segregated schools, hospitals, businesses, and neighborhoods. And, most importantly for our story, it was voting restrictions aimed at keeping Black folks from potentially amassing any kind of political power.
For nearly a hundred years, from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until 1965, when the Act was finally signed by Lyndon Johnson, Black folks fought for the right to vote. Throughout that time, but primarily during the middle of the twentieth century, a select few white people joined them. Many, many people died in that fight. People whose names you’ll probably recognize— Martin Luther King Jr. among them— and plenty of people you wouldn’t because they were just regular people. Students, shopkeepers, church-goers, mothers, and farmers who were imprisoned, beaten, hosed, attacked by dogs, and lynched, just for trying to secure Black people’s rights as citizens in the face of white supremacist resistance.
The Voting Rights Act, which created structures to enforce the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, ensuring that the right to vote not be determined by race, was one of the crowning achievements of the Civil Rights Movement. One of the structures it created was the requirement that states with a history of racial discrimination in voting systems submit any changes to election law to the Department of Justice before enactment (Section 5). This was known as “preclearance.” The other key provision (Section 2) was giving individuals the right to sue to “undo existing laws and procedures that would deny equal political opportunity to voters to elect their candidates of choice.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has openly worked to eliminate the Voting Rights Act since he was a clerk at the Court during the Reagan era. And under his leadership the Court has been working to undo the key structures of the Act for well over a decade.
Why? For the same reason Southern politicians created Jim Crow. Because they’re racists who don’t believe they should have to share political power or economic resources equitably with Black and Brown people.
The irony, for working white people anyway, is that when the voting rights of Black and Brown people are protected everyone does better. Schools are better. Roads are better. Overall health improves. Turns out, when you make sure everyone gets to freely choose their leaders, democracy works! Crazy!
But the white supremacist project has never been interested in making democracy work. It has always, ever since the founding, preferred oligarchy. And its leaders have been working systematically since the founding to turn us into one.
This week, with their gutting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Roberts’ Supreme Court took us one step closer to oligarchy. This is obviously bad for Black and Brown political representation, but it’s also bad for most white people. Because oligarchy isn’t just about race. It’s about privileging race and wealth in the distribution of power. The gutting of the Voting Rights Act will screw poor and working white people, all while the oligarchs feed them illusions of superiority.
But illusions of superiority don’t put food on the table, pay for gas, or educate children well, it turns out. They just pacify people so they don’t demand better.
So, what do we do now?
There isn’t just one thing to do, unless you count “fight like hell” as a thing. Realistically, though, there are a host of things. The following is a very abbreviated list, essentially of what I plan to do. Maybe you have other things you plan to do. Please (please!) put them in the comments, along with links if you have them, so other folks can join you.
Donate to organizations fighting in the courts. Yesterday, I set up a monthly recurring donation to Democracy Forward. You might choose the ACLU, or the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. When the Administration is losing, it’s often in court. So, if you’ve got extra to help democracy win, send it.
Register voters and vote, vote, VOTE! It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was only last month that Hungary defeated Viktor Orbán in an electoral landslide, all despite years of systemic gerrymandering and other suppression of dissent. The midterms are the first step in reinstituting some checks and balances, and stemming the tide of encroaching fascism. But only if Democrats control both Houses of Congress, which will specifically require white voters who are left of center to turn out en masse (Black folks are already doing that). Am I an enthusiast for the Democratic Party? No. But I will hold my nose and vote for anyone who I have any potential to lean on to enact change. The DNC is lean-on-able in the near term. The GOP is not.
Push to enact comprehensive voting rights legislation. Some folks are calling for Democrats, once they’ve swept the midterms, to push forward the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act. I don’t honestly know how that would work now that the VRA has been effectively neutered by SCOTUS, since what that Act does is strengthen the VRA again. Even if it passed with a veto-proof majority, legal challenges would be filed and SCOTUS would support them. It also only legislates against racial gerrymandering, which is far from the only factor undermining the integrity of our electoral process. More comprehensive legislation is needed, and it turns out it exists! In 2019 and 2021, Democrats in the House passed the For the People Act, which tackled racial and partisan gerrymandering, campaign finance reform, voter registration, felony disenfranchisement, Native American voting protections, and government ethics reform. It didn’t pass the Senate because of the filibuster and then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But it could (and should!) be revived, or some equivalent legislation introduced to protect and strengthen (finally!) our electoral democracy. Educate yourself and then start pushing your legislators.
Push for Supreme Court reform. Included in the For the People Act is ethics reform for the Supreme Court, which is needed, but not enough. Jamelle Bouie posted an extensive explanation of what Supreme Court reform should and could look like, and it’s way more than just ethics reform or expanding the court. Check it!
Share this post! If you’re not talking about what’s happening and helping folks around you to understand the stakes here, please start. As the picture says, democracy is not a spectator sport. It only survives if we engage consistently and loudly.
Okay! That was a long one, but per usual, it’s been a week. I hope this was helpful as you contemplate what you can do to defend democracy. If you have other suggestions or plans, or even questions, please share them! We are a very smart, engaged group of folks and I know someone will have answers.
XO,
Asha
Well done, Asha Sanaker! Despite voting very regularly for 65 years and being a history buff, I learned a few things from your short history lesson in the VOTE. I'll keep encouraging others to do the same and take action every time there's a ballot to fill. Thank you.
June Confer
Thank you so much for this storying, Asha, and for your exhortation to all of us to choose at least one thing we can do to engage the fight.
This decision is an enormous blow. I grew up in the South and I currently live in the West. Watching the immediate reaction of Southern states to redraw maps and further restore Jim Crow was not a surprise to me. The Charlottesville march was not a surprise to me. But none of the knowing of what this is and what it wants stops the grief and the rage and the gutted feelings in my body. I know there are thousands, millions of us, determined to keep going, to honor the people you name in your piece, who struggled, fought, died, for the VRA. Movement history is one piece of the struggle, showing us what's possible, and what it takes to keep going.