Activist RW Court Led To 70 Yrs of Jim Crow, Gilded Age Corp Power: Dems Can't Make Same Mistake

[appalachiablue]

- Ku Klux Klan initiation, Stone Mountain, Ga., 1949. KKK men in full masks lead new members wearing small masks.

- 'Failing to rein in an activist right-wing Court led to 70 years of Jim Crow–Dems can’t make the same mistake if they win in November.'- By Nathan Newman, Sept. 21, 2020, Alternet.

When Reconstruction was established after the Civil War, Congressional leaders knew the Supreme Court was hostile to their efforts – but they failed to take action to rein in Court power. And the result was the Supreme Court killed Reconstruction and ushered in an era of Jim Crow Apartheid and Gilded Age corporate power.

Democrats should avoid a similar fate today.

If Joe Biden wins the Presidency and Democrats retake the Senate, they need to take steps to expand the size of the Court and shift the Court away from dominance by radical right wing ideologues. We have already seen the Court unleash corporate political power with the Citizens United decision, further gut the Voting Rights Act and undermine and almost kill Obamacare. They may finish that job shortly after the election. With another Trump appointee, the darkest ideological fantasies of the right-wing Federalist Society will become reality and every progressive policy will be blocked by court fiat.

The precedent of the fall of Reconstruction is instructive.

The Reconstruction Congress attained full power with the election of Ulysses Grant in 1868, passing laws to protect the black vote, shut down the Klan, and prohibit racial segregation in every hotel, restaurant, pool and public transit in the nation. It’s a bit of our history that has largely been forgotten. And the reason it’s forgotten is that, beginning in 1873, the courts overturned all of the Reconstruction laws, freeing indicted Klan murderers, striking down civil rights laws and allowing the black vote to be silenced. An unleashed tidal wave of white terrorism overthrew multi-racial governments in the South, installing whites-only “Redeemer” governments that led the way to full-on Jim Crow in the years to come.

In the North, shorn of its progressive black Southern voter base, the Republican Party shifted to favoring its pro-corporate wing, helping usher in the Gilded Age of unquestioned power by giant trusts and monopolies to dominate government policy and the economy. Again, the Supreme Court in decades to come would overturn any attempt to enact federal or state minimum wage laws or other measures to challenge economic inequality. Given the role of the Supreme Court in helping provoke the Civil War in the first place through its rulings favoring slaveholders, including the infamous Dred Scott decision, voices in the Reconstruction Congress had warned of this danger...

More, https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/failing-to-rein-in-an-activist-right-wing-court-led-to-70-years-of-jim-crow-dems-cant-make-the-same-mistake-if-they-win-in-november/

'Reconstruction,' PBS, 2019 with Dr. Henry Louis Gates. Excellent series.

'The Gilded Age,' PBS 2018, another oustanding series.

[StClone]

1. To define what is meant by, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"

Has been corrupted by Cons as "if you try to do something good it will in the end turn out bad, because, well because that is the way we see the world."

Really what is meant is that if you have ideals of doing good but don't follow through hell will arrive because you did nothing. That is the original intent of the aphorism.

I have no doubt we will not dissolve into ill will if in power. As R have inversely proven, inexplicably, they can not do good.

[appalachiablue]

2. Understanding what's at stake is critical, I hope we

don't experience more roll backs on the highway to hell fueled by power and greed. Samo.

Thanks for your post, well said; the expression was a favorite of my father.

[SophieJean]

3. Excellent article,

thanks for posting this. I will share it on fb, etc. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the Dems will do anything to stop the speeding gop fascist train by ending the filibuster, or expanding the scotus-even if Biden wins.