Republicans — the party of widespread election denialism — have all but conceded their futility in winning over voters through the strength of their arguments.
Their infatuation with voter suppression measures is evidence of this. But conservatives appear to have learned that even voter purges and restrictive identification requirements can’t shore up white-dominant, totalitarian rule as quickly as they’d like.
In their rummaging for a more blunt instrument to bludgeon multiracial democracy, they’ve reached back to the Jim Crow era and found a few.
I’m thinking I’ll start keeping a list of some of the most egregious, desperate power grabs undertaken by conservatives. I don’t anticipate this being an exhaustive list, but I hope it’ll be an adequate summation of the GOP’s antidemocratic efforts.
Here are just a few examples.
Mississippi
Conservatives in the Mississippi Senate recently approved a bill that would strip local officials’ control over the water supply in the largely Black city of Jackson, one of the poorest cities in the nation. Jackson has repeatedly dealt with water contamination because of poor investments in the city’s infrastructure. The new legislation would place control over the city’s water in the hands of nine unelected officials. Four would be selected by Jackson’s mayor, but — conveniently for Republicans — five would be selected by the governor and lieutenant governor, both of whom currently are white Republicans.
The proposal is being teed up for approval right as about $800 million in federal aid is set to arrive in Jackson to improve the city’s water infrastructure. White conservatives in Mississippi, true to form, want more of a say in who gets that money — and who doesn’t.
Check out this clip of Joy Reid discussing the proposal with Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré.
Washington, D.C.
At the federal level, conservatives (with the help of Sen. Joe Manchin, a…
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