#voting rights - Forum/Discussions - TheBlackList Pub2024-03-29T15:33:34Zhttps://www.theblacklist.net/forum/topics/feed/tag/%23voting+rightsDemocrats Half-Hearted Fight for Voting Rights, Fascists Escalate Drive to Dominate or Steal Future Electionshttps://www.theblacklist.net/forum/topics/democrats-half-hearted-fight-for-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-2022-01-28T18:08:38.000Z2022-01-28T18:08:38.000ZSteve Yiphttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/SteveYip<div><p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>As Democrats Fail in Half-Hearted Fight for Voting Rights, Fascists <em>Escalate</em> Drive to Dominate or Steal Future Elections</strong></span></p><p>January 24, 2022</p><div class="addtoany_spacing"> </div><div class="field field--name-field-article-body field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden field__items"><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22610 mt-2"><p>For <em>decades</em> the Republican Party has been on a campaign to suppress the votes of Black, Brown and Native people, as well as other groups that tend to vote Democratic. This campaign has sharply <em>escalated</em> since the GOP’s defeat in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. (<a href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#sidebar">For a summary of these laws, see the sidebar</a>.) Early this month, Joe Biden suddenly decided to do something about it. He huffed and puffed, and then he folded. And <em>now the fascists show signs of going on an even more relentless offensive.</em></p><h3>Biden Ignores Assault on Voting Rights While Trying to “Reach Across the Aisle”</h3><p>One of Joe Biden’s big pledges was to take all of this on, but for nearly a year after taking office, Biden and the Democratic Party did little to push through two bills<sup><a id="fn1" href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#footnote1">1</a></sup> that would significantly counter the fascists’ assault on voting.</p><p>Biden gave one speech on voting rights—under pressure from the Democratic base—on July 4 in Philadelphia but little else. He had almost no meetings with civil rights leaders, or with activists like Black radio host Joe Madison, now <a href="https://moguldom.com/380443/talk-show-host-joe-madison-goes-on-hunger-strike-until-biden-passes-voting-rights-bill/" target="_blank">11 weeks into a hunger strike</a> to demand passage and enactment of the bill. No political arm twisting or deal making to line up needed votes. Certainly no mass mobilizations of protest against the fascists’ white supremacist drive for power.</p><p>Instead, Biden initially focused on “reaching across the aisle” and passing bills that could get bipartisan support, like COVID relief and infrastructure projects. Some of this did pass, but as Bob Avakian pointed out in his <a href="https://revcom.us/en/avakian/new-years-statement-2021/bob-avakian-new-years-statement-2021-en.html">2021 New Year’s Statement</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Biden and the Democrats cannot “bring the country together,” as they falsely claim, because there can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on <u><em>white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment</em></u>, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. <em>There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than <u>on the terms of these fascists</u>, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that!</em></p></blockquote><p>So while a handful of Republicans did vote for building highways and bridges, etc., this “bi-partisanship” did <em>not</em> extend to protecting the voting rights of people that these fascists don’t even consider to be Americans.</p></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--image-with-short-caption paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22611 mt-2"><div class="row d-flex justify-content-center"><div class="col-sm-9 col-lg-11"><div><div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-visually_hidden w-100 rc-nofloat field__item"><img class="image-style-_00-proportional rc-img-100 img-fluid" src="https://revcom.us/sites/default/files/styles/600_proportional/public/2021-07/202003_SoTexUniv_early_voting_credit_allyn_west.jpg?itok=Y36GYMq2" alt="Early voters wait in line at Southern Texas University" width="600" height="365" /></div></div><p class="rc-image-caption-space"> </p><div class="w-100"><p class="rc-image-caption">Texas already has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country, but Abbott has been pushing for a new assault aimed at effectively disenfranchising still larger numbers of Black and Latina/o people. Here people wait to vote at Texas Southern University, March 2020. Photo: Allyn West</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22599 mt-2"><h3>Biden Jerks Awake and Puts on an Empty Show</h3><p>After months of stalling, on January 11, Biden gave a widely hyped speech to a consortium of historically Black colleges and universities in Atlanta. There he rhetorically challenged Republican senators to decide if they wanted to be on the side of infamously brutal racist sheriff Bull Connor or that of Martin Luther King. This got a lot of praise from liberals and pissed off Republicans. But in reality, <em>acting </em>like this <em>is an open question</em> is a complete and total joke, just spreading illusions about the deeply embedded white supremacist nature of the fascists—they <em>are </em>the modern-day Bull Connors, Jefferson Davis’s, etc.—and they aren’t going to be “shamed” out of that!</p><p>Biden also “modified” his long-time support of the “filibuster,” a Senate rule that functions as a white supremacist veto. But after all the sudden posturing, Biden was either unable or unwilling to use presidential power and prerogatives to pressure even all of his own people to oppose these fascists, and the bills went down to defeat just a week after Biden’s speech.</p></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--containing-panel paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22604 mt-2 px-1 px-sm-2 px-lg-3 pt-2 pt-lg-3 pb-1"><div class="field field--name-field-wrapped-content field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden field__items"><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--columns-dynamic paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22603 mt-2 row"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--column paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22602 mb-4 col-lg-12 name-column-one"><div class="h-100"><div class="field field--name-field-column-content field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden field__items"><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22601 mt-2"><div class="row d-flex justify-content-center"><div class="col-sm-9 col-lg-11"><h4>Q: What Is the “Filibuster”?<br />A: The White Supremacist Veto Power</h4><p>Headlines on Thursday, January 20, gave credit to the filibuster for enabling Republicans in the Senate to stop two voting rights bills supported by the Democrats from being passed. Those bills aimed to counter attacks on Black voters' rights by Republican fascists in many states. As a revcom.us article pointed out, these moves against Black voters and other moves to control and subvert elections are “a vital part of consolidating all-out fascist rule.”</p><p>Here, I want to briefly note how, for close to a century, the Senate filibuster was used almost exclusively as a weapon of white supremacy—to protect the Jim Crow South's massive inhumanity to Black people from every attempt to challenge it through federal law. <a href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power">Read more.</a></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22508 mt-2"><h3>Biden Continues to Pump Out His Bullshit</h3><p>The <em><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/us/politics/biden-filibuster-voting-rights.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article" target="_blank">New York Times </a></em><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/us/politics/biden-filibuster-voting-rights.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article">reported</a><em> </em>that after the speech: “Mr. Biden was on his way into the Ebenezer Baptist Church when he was asked what he would say to activists who are concerned that his embrace of changing Senate rules may be too little and too late. ‘Keep the faith,’ the president replied, before ducking into the church.”</p><p>“Keep the faith”?!? In what? An unreformable white supremacist system now hurtling toward fascism? What all this boils down to is an effort to convince people who have been enslaved, exploited, lynched and betrayed again and again <em>by America</em> that they should not lose faith in this white supremacist monstrosity, nor in the possibility that the Democratic messiahs will lead them to the promised land. This is a big part of the role of the Democratic Party now—keeping the oppressed believing in the “promise of America” even as it is proven to be a lie, again… and again… and again.</p><p>“Keep the faith”? Naw. <em>How about using reason and science instead, to figure out the cause of the quickly-worsening problem and the solution? </em>If you did that—and that means going into the work of Bob Avakian—then you’d see that first, you can’t get rid of white supremacy so long as you keep the capitalist system that spawned it and <em>needs it</em><sup><a id="fn2" href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#footnote2">2</a></sup>; second, that a real revolution, aiming to bring forward a society founded on the <em>Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America</em>, <em>could </em>clear the ground and establish the basis to go to work on eliminating white supremacy<sup><a id="fn3" href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#footnote3">3</a></sup>; and third, that the chance to make such an actual revolution exists within the very conditions that today are leading to such ever-sharper conflicts and clashes.</p><p>But instead, <em>they</em> are telling you to go for the “new” and even more hopeless and absurd Democratic strategy to “out-organize voter suppression," win big in the 2022 congressional elections, and <em>then</em> pass these bills. This is like letting your kidnappers tie your hands and feet and throw you in a river on the theory that once you swim to shore you’ll be able to get the better of them.</p><p>The basic conclusion that has to be drawn is this:</p><blockquote><p>The Democrats will never, and <em>can</em> never, fight these fascists in the way they need to be fought, because that requires getting into the real nature of this system, and bringing out the fact that these fascists, as grotesque as they are, are in fact a grotesque expression <em>of the very system that the Democrats themselves are an expression of, and are working to perpetuate</em>. Most fundamentally: The purpose and aim cannot be simply to defeat these fascists, as an end in itself, with the orientation of somehow returning things to the “normal” way this horrific system of capitalism-imperialism has operated for more than a century. (Bob Avakian, from “<a href="https://revcom.us/en/bob_avakian/something-terrible-or-something-truly-emancipating-profound-crisis-deepening-divisions">Something Terrible, <em>Or </em>Something Truly Emancipating…</a>”)</p></blockquote></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22590 mt-2 rc-bg-color rc-bg-light px-1 px-sm-2 px-lg-3 pt-2 pt-lg-3 pb-1 border p-2"><div class="row d-flex justify-content-center"><div class="col-9 col-sm-8 col-lg-9"><p>Instead of being a tail on the Democratic donkey—with its attempt to keep this monstrous system going, and to deal with the growing fascist danger, by relying on the “normal procedures” of this system and doomed efforts to “heal the divisions” that are deepening every day—people need to <em>work for the revolution that is urgently needed</em>, and deal with the fascist danger as part of doing <em>that</em>.</p><p>From "<a href="https://revcom.us/en/a/708/bob-avakian-this-is-a-rare-time-when-revolution-becomes-possible-en.html">THIS IS A RARE TIME WHEN REVOLUTION BECOMES POSSIBLE—</a><u><a href="https://revcom.us/en/a/708/bob-avakian-this-is-a-rare-time-when-revolution-becomes-possible-en.html">WHY THAT IS SO, AND HOW TO SEIZE ON THIS RARE OPPORTUNITY</a></u>," by Bob Avakian </p></div></div></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22607 mt-2"><h3>Fascists Go On Renewed Offensive</h3><p>The Republicans, for their part, are not “shamed” or “chastened” by a few days of public denunciation, nor are they waiting passively for the next election. According to CNN, state legislators are gearing up “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/21/politics/gop-state-officials-prepare-new-wave-of-voting-restrictions/index.html" target="_blank">to pass a ‘tidal wave’ of voting restrictions ahead of 2022 midterms</a>.” As part of this, Florida governor Rick <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/ron-desantis-pushes-election-police-force/index.html" target="_blank">DeSantis recently asked the legislature</a> for 5.7 million dollars to fund a 52 member “Office of Election Crimes and Security,” including 20 sworn police officers, to "investigate, detect, apprehend, and arrest anyone for an alleged violation" of election laws.</p></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--image-with-short-caption paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22608 mt-2"><div class="row d-flex justify-content-center"><div class="col-sm-9 col-lg-11"><div><div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-visually_hidden w-100 rc-nofloat field__item"><img class="image-style-_00-proportional rc-img-100 img-fluid" src="https://revcom.us/sites/default/files/styles/600_proportional/public/2022-01/20201106_Arizona_Maricopa_armed_Trumpites_AP_20311727340895.jpg?itok=py8kQijH" alt="Trumpites armed to intimidate voters, Maricopa, Arizona" width="600" height="400" /></div></div><p class="rc-image-caption-space"> </p><div class="w-100"><p class="rc-image-caption">Trumpites armed to intimidate vote counting, Maricopa, Arizona, November 6, 2020. Photo: <a href="https://revcom.us/AP/index.html">AP</a></p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22598 mt-2"><p>The elections of 2020 saw no significant violation of election laws in Florida (or elsewhere), as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ron-desantis-legislation-florida-elections-a9737fcc3eab5aedc572fbcc7c19b984" target="_blank">DeSantis himself has <em>bragged</em></a>. But that does not mean, as many Democratic politicians say, that things like the Office of Election Crimes, and the voter suppression bills are “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/ron-desantis-pushes-election-police-force/index.html" target="_blank">a solution looking for a problem.</a>” These fascists are not <em>confused</em>, <em><u>they</u> </em>confront an <em><u>actual</u> </em>problem of establishing full-out fascist rule while preserving some fig leaf of “democracy”—and the “legal” suppression of <em>some </em>voters is an integral part of their solution… which has been working pretty well for them.</p><p>In line with this, what DeSantis is proposing is a <em>voter-intimidation </em>squad, to create an atmosphere where people hesitate to be involved in “get out the vote efforts,” to be neutral election workers, or to vote. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/voting-rights-election-police.html" target="_blank">As DeSantis himself said</a>, “The first person that gets caught, no one is going to want to do it again after that.”</p><p>By January 20, similar proposals were launched in Georgia and Arizona. This is likely the beginning of a new, <em>more aggressive and blatant</em> phase in the fascist drive to rig the elections in their favor. The fact that they are now talking of bringing in forces of the state—pigs, in other words—to do this adds a potential new dimension to this. And this drives home what is also said in the potentially historic new presentation by BA, in “Something Terrible, <em>OR </em>Something Truly Emancipating”:</p><blockquote><p>There are continuing moves, including with the threat or use of violence, to once again prevent Black people and other oppressed people from even exercising what are supposed to be basic rights, such as voting. (With a scientific method and approach, it is both possible, and important, to actively oppose attempts to deny people the <em>right </em>to vote, and <em>at the same time</em> win people to see that their efforts need to go, not into voting for representatives of this system that is oppressing them, but working to build up the basis to <em>overthrow</em> this whole system.)</p><p>All these attacks on people and their rights need to be powerfully opposed, and people on the good side of this need to be actively protected and defended, where they are assaulted with threats and even outright physical attacks.</p></blockquote></div></div><div class="field__item"><div id="sidebar" class="paragraph paragraph--type--containing-panel paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22594 mt-2 px-1 px-sm-2 px-lg-3 pt-2 pt-lg-3 pb-1"><div class="field field--name-field-wrapped-content field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden field__items"><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--columns-dynamic paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22593 mt-2 row"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--column paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22592 mb-4 col-lg-12 name-column-one"><div class="h-100"><div class="field field--name-field-column-content field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden field__items"><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22591 mt-2"><div class="row d-flex justify-content-center"><div class="col-sm-9 col-lg-11"><h3>Basic Summary of the Republican Fascist Assault on Voting Rights Law, 2021</h3><p>In 2021, under the cover of the false claim that 2020 was “stolen” from them, and the <em>pretext </em>of defending “election integrity,” 19 states passed 34 bills aimed at putting a heavy fascist thumb on the election scales. Some aim at further suppressing the votes of oppressed people—reducing the number of voting locations in big (mainly Democratic) cities, reducing early voting days, and making it harder to vote by mail. These measures especially target people at low-wage jobs that don’t get paid time off to vote and can’t just “step out” for three hours. Others promote “poll-watchers” (historically, white racists who intimidate and obstruct voters of color) and threaten nonpartisan election workers from distributing food or water to voters waiting on line for hours; some even criminalize helping disabled people cast their ballots. And then layered on top of this is a campaign to remove election officials and workers who stand in the way of this—whether through “primarying” them or through death threats—and expanding the ability of Republican-controlled legislatures to alter or nullify election results after the voting is over.<a href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#fn2">*</a><a id="text2" name="text2"></a></p><p>These bills have a real impact—first, in treating people of color as second-class citizens who are “under suspicion” just for exercising their most basic rights. Second, in putting a thumb on the election scales. They don’t have to stop <em>all</em> oppressed people from voting—in 2020, in states like Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin, Trump was defeated by less than 20,000 votes each. And third, in creating more “doubts” about election results… which paves the way for violent and illegal moves to override them, as was attempted on January 6, 2021.</p><p> </p><hr /><h5><sup>* For more, see “Fascists Assault Black Voting Rights and the Rule of Law, Move to Lock Down Power, While Democrats Posture and Dither,” January 17, 2022, and "Fascists Move to Bolt Down Elections to Ensure Their Rule: How to Understand It and How to Act,” October 4, 2021, both at revcom.us. [<a href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#text2">back</a>]</sup></h5></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="footnotesdiv"><div class="rc-footnotes"><p class="rc-fn">_______________</p><p class="rc-fn">FOOTNOTES:</p><p id="footnote1" class="rc-fn">1. The two bills are:</p><p><strong>The John Lewis Voting Rights Enhancement Act</strong> would require states with a history of voter suppression to get pre-approval from the Justice Department before enacting any new voting bills;</p><p><strong>The Freedom to Vote Act</strong> includes an array of measures, including making it easier to vote by mail, guaranteeing 15 days of early voting, making Election Day a national holiday, and other steps to make it easier for poor and working people to vote. [<a href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#fn1">back</a>]</p><p id="footnote2" class="rc-fn">2. See "<a href="https://revcom.us/en/a/652/bob-avakian-racial-oppression-can-be-ended-en.html">Racial Oppression <em>Can</em> Be Ended—But <em>Not Under This System</em></a>," by Bob Avakian [<a href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#fn2">back</a>]</p><p id="footnote3" class="rc-fn">3. <em><a href="https://revcom.us/socialistconstitution/index.html">Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal)</a></em>. Authored by Bob Avakian, and adopted by the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, 2010 (RCP Publications, 2010). [<a href="https://revcom.us/en/democrats-fail-half-hearted-fight-voting-rights-fascists-escalate-drive-dominate-or-steal-future#fn3">back</a>]</p></div></div></div>Q: What Is the “Filibuster”? A: The White Supremacist Veto Powerhttps://www.theblacklist.net/forum/topics/q-what-is-the-filibuster-a-the-white-supremacist-veto-power2022-01-27T13:45:25.000Z2022-01-27T13:45:25.000ZSteve Yiphttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/SteveYip<div><div class="field field--name-field-byline field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">From a reader of revcom.us</div><p>January 24, 2022</p><div class="field field--name-field-article-body field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden field__items"><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22490 mt-2"><p><strong>Headlines on Thursday, January 20,</strong> gave credit to the filibuster for enabling Republicans in the Senate to stop two voting rights bills supported by the Democrats from being passed. Those bills aimed to counter attacks on voting rights, especially those of Black people, by Republican fascists in many states. As a revcom.us article pointed out, these moves against Black voters and other moves to control and subvert elections are “a vital part of consolidating all-out fascist rule.”<sup><a id="fn1" href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power#footnote1">1</a></sup></p><p>Here, I want to briefly note how, for close to a century, the Senate filibuster was used almost exclusively as a weapon of white supremacy—to protect the Jim Crow South's massive inhumanity to Black people from every attempt to challenge it through federal law.</p><h3>What Is the Filibuster?</h3><p>The filibuster is a way for the minority party in the Senate to delay or stop passage of a bill. The minority party (or even just one or a group of senators) simply insists that the “debate” over the bill continue indefinitely by talking on the Senate floor continuously, until the bill is withdrawn. </p></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--further-resources paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22491 mt-2 rc-bg-color rc-bg-light px-1 px-sm-2 px-lg-3 pt-2 pt-lg-3 pb-1"><div class="paragraph__column"><div class="field field--name-field-further-resources-title field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">See also:</div><ul><li><p>THIS REPUBLIC—RIDICULOUS, OUTMODED, CRIMINAL</p><p>by Bob Avakian</p></li></ul></div></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22492 mt-2"><p>Unlike the House, where discussion and debate could always be ended with a simple majority vote or “cloture,” there was <em>no</em> procedure to stop a Senate filibuster until 1917. That year a provision, called Rule 22, was added to end the filibuster by a cloture vote—but requiring a vote of 67 (2/3) of the senators. That was changed to 60 (3/5) senators in 1975—still a nearly impossible “super-majority.” And since then it was further changed to the so-called "silent filibuster"—now opponents of a bill don't even have to come to the floor and talk, but proponents still have to come up with 60 votes to "end" the "discussion" that isn't even happening.<sup><a id="fn2" href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power#footnote2">2</a></sup></p><h3>Limiting Use to the Protection of White Supremacy</h3><p>Historically, the filibuster was used only rarely—and almost always by the party representing the interests of defenders of blatant and vicious white supremacy, for the purpose of preventing passage of laws that would touch the open, vicious, and <em>legal</em> white supremacy of the Jim Crow South. For half a century, they blocked passage of laws that would make lynching a federal crime, put an end to legal segregation, remove obstacles like the poll tax and literacy tests used to prevent Black people from voting, and other efforts.</p></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--image-with-short-caption paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22493 mt-2"><div><div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-visually_hidden w-100 rc-nofloat field__item"><img class="image-style-_00-proportional rc-img-100 img-fluid" src="https://revcom.us/sites/default/files/styles/600_proportional/public/2022-01/19220614_WashingtonDC_Anti-lynching_march.jpeg?itok=e3UppiYU" alt="Thousands march in Washington, DC against lynching and for civil rights, 1922." width="600" height="442" /></div></div><p class="rc-image-caption-space"> </p><div class="w-100"><p class="rc-image-caption">Thousands march calling for federal protection of civil rights, Washington, DC, 1922. Photo: Flickr</p></div></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--body-text paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22453 mt-2"><p>The first major test was in 1922, when the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill was passed in the House and went to the Senate. This was at a time when, as Bob Avakian noted, “every Black male growing up in the South during Jim Crow had a reasonable fear of being lynched.<sup><a id="fn3" href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power#footnote3">3</a></sup> A bloc of Southern Democrats carried out a filibuster and stopped the bill from being passed. It became national news. An NAACP leader called the use of the filibuster to stop the anti-lynching bill a “license to mobs to lynch unmolested.” Indeed, in just the eight days that followed, racist vigilantes lynched four more Black men. For decades the anti-lynching bills that followed were likewise killed, most recently in 2020.<sup><a id="fn4" href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power#footnote4">4</a></sup> To this day, there is no federal law against lynching!</p><p>The white supremacist Senator Strom Thurmond set the record when he stood up in the Senate for 24 hours to block passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The version of the act that was finally passed was described as watered down, without provisions for enforcement. In 1948, when Thurmond was governor of South Carolina, he made a statement that sheds light on why the filibuster was left in the hands of the white supremacist/Jim Crow South: “There's not enough troops in the army, to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.” <em> </em></p><p>Stop for a minute and let the ugliness of that quote—and the centuries of oppression it concentrates—sink in.</p><p>So the filibuster exception to majority rule in the Senate was the result of an unspoken agreement among those representing the interests of the U.S. ruling class, giving those like Thurmond veto power on matters of white supremacy—at unimaginable cost to generations of Black people in this country. </p><p>Oh, and who’s Strom Thurmond? That’s the racist that Biden can’t help bragging about being able to work with—as recently as last week’s defeat of his half-hearted attempt to pass the voting rights bill.</p></div></div><div class="field__item"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--image-with-short-caption paragraph--view-mode--default paragraph--id--22494 mt-2"><div class="row d-flex justify-content-center"><div class="col-9 col-sm-8 col-lg-9"><div><div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-visually_hidden w-100 rc-nofloat field__item"><img class="image-style-_00-proportional rc-img-100 img-fluid" src="https://revcom.us/sites/default/files/styles/600_proportional/public/2021-06/3%20strikes-85x11.jpg?itok=3Qy0HirT" alt="Three Strikes poster: Gordon; Emmett Till, George Floyd" width="600" height="753" /></div></div><p class="rc-image-caption-space"> </p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="footnotesdiv"><div class="rc-footnotes"><p class="rc-fn">_______________</p><p class="rc-fn">FOOTNOTES:</p><p id="footnote1" class="rc-fn">1. <a href="https://revcom.us/en/fascists-assault-black-voting-rights-and-rule-law-move-lock-down-power-while-democrats-posture-and">Fascists Assault Black Voting Rights and the Rule of Law, Move to Lock Down Power, While Democrats Posture and Dither</a> [<a href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power#fn1">back</a>]</p><p id="footnote2" class="rc-fn">2. For the recent voting rights bill, Senate Majority Leader Schumer tried to pass a minor rule change that would require the Republi-fascists to come to the Senate floor and s<em>peak </em>in opposition. When the “talking filibuster” ended, a simple majority could pass the bill. Schumer's motion required only a simple majority, but two Democratic “champions” of the filibuster (Manchin and Sinema) joined the Republicans in stopping it. [<a href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power#fn2">back</a>]</p><p id="footnote3" class="rc-fn">3. ”<a href="https://revcom.us/en/a/638/lynching-murder-by-police-damn-this-whole-system-we-dont-have-to-live-this-way-en.html">Lynching, Murder by Police—Damn This Whole System! We Don’t Have to Live This Way</a>!, by Bob Avakian [<a href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power#fn3">back</a>]</p><p id="footnote4" class="rc-fn">4. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/18/100-years-filibuster-has-been-used-deny-black-rights/" target="_blank">For 100 years, the filibuster has been used to deny Black rights</a>, Washington Post, 3/18/21 [<a href="https://revcom.us/en/q-what-filibuster-white-supremacist-veto-power#fn4">back</a>]</p></div></div></div>