Virtually every day we see new examples of our friends on the left overplaying their hands as they engage in wild exaggerations. They told us Donald Trump is a Nazi. (No, he isn’t, because a true Nazi leader would have thrown you in a concentration camp for criticizing him.) They’ve told us if we use the ‘OK’ hand signal then we’re White Supremacists. (No, that’s been a gesture which has been used for over a century indicating “all is well.”) And they accuse us of being science-deniers if we dare to question climate change conclusions or COVID pandemic propaganda. (Actually, we’re simply demanding logic and accountability.) But the most egregious of all modern leftist talking points may be with their practice of labeling any law they don’t like as akin to “Jim Crow.”
Last month, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), a man with considerable power and without whose support Joe Biden would not have been elected, said of the controversial Georgia voting law from earlier this year, “Just look through it and look throughout history, and you will know that what is taking place today is a new Jim Crow, just that simple.” In Florida, Democratic state representative Omari Hardy called her state’s recently enacted voting law, “the revival of Jim Crow.” And in Texas, another Democratic state legislator named Jessica Gonzalez asserted that the Lone Star State’s proposed voting law is merely, “Old Jim Crow dressed up in what our colleagues are calling election integrity.”
We all know “Jim Crow” was terrible, but what exactly was it? What did those laws look like? To fully understand the magnitude of these accusations by Democrats, we must first understand the laws to which they are drawing moral equivalencies.
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This was Jim Crow, and these were the actual wordings included in the laws of the land at the time. This was institutional racism. This was authentic systemic racism, not the imaginary kind. These laws were unacceptable and evil, and such laws were rendered illegal with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A law which, by the way, was passed with the support of only 64% of Congressional Democrats and 81% of Congressional Republicans.
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Can you see the similarities between these latest laws and the abominations of Jim Crow laws? Can you spot the blatant, undeniable racism? Can you identify the disgusting dehumanization of fellow citizens? No? Didn’t think so.
Not only are these laws not even close to Jim Crow, they aren’t even remotely racist. Obviously, none of these laws even mention race, because to do so would be unlawful. Each of these new laws are seeking better control over elections and to eliminate voter fraud as effectively as possible. Considering that millions of Americans questioned the legitimacy of President Trump’s election in 2016, and currently even more question the validity of President Biden’s election in 2020, such laws would seem to be not only prudent but imperative.
The only racism coming from this debate is from the left. If you put forth the idea that minority folks in Georgia are less capable of acquiring and then remembering their IDs on Election Day, then you are the racist. If you claim that minority folks in Florida won’t be able to ensure their absentee ballots are received by election officials without such assistance, then you are the racist. And if you believe that minority folks in Texas require the receipt of unsolicited mail-in ballot applications in order to vote, then again, you are the racist.
When Democrats use such tactics, comparing reasonable voting laws to Jim Crow, are they engaging in hyperbole, do they suffer from ignorance, or are they being dishonest? While there are clearly numerous examples of ignorant elected Democrats – and Republicans for that matter – we must not underestimate them. This is not ignorance, and it’s not even hyperbole. Democrats are being dishonest, and that dishonesty is driven by identity politics. They are well aware of the genuine wickedness of Jim Crow laws and the impact they had. They need to be deceptive about legitimate voting laws because they are concerned that they won’t be able to win elections without cheating. What Democrats and their accomplices in the media are banking on is that their inflammatory and fraudulent comparisons to Jim Crow will fall on ignorant ears and influence opinions accordingly. And they are counting on those opinions resulting in an America even further divided by race.