The Civil war did not end in 1868. Instead, it became a simmering ideological conflict that continues to this very day. The recent Supreme Court gutting of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the South’s latest victory, the continuing unwinding of a progressive process that addressed systemic racism. The effects of the decision are already visible, as Tennessee plans to eliminate its only Democratic congressional district.
That Abraham Lincoln was a Republican is irrelevant today. In a polar reversal, America’s two political parties have switched their positions on systemic racism. What hasn’t changed is the ideology of systemic racism and the sustained effort to suppress minority voting.
Ironically, attempts to compensate for America’s systemic racism have been met with charges that they are racist. This is the guiding impetus underlying the Supreme Court’s anti-civil rights decisions. The court is not denying that systemic racism that excludes minority participation in elections exists, it simply refuses to allow any change that gives any advantage to minority populations on the basis of race. Effectively, addressing historic racism by rebalancing the representational map is now illegal.
Along with Tennessee, other Southern States, like Louisiana, are rushing to redistrict their voting maps to ensure that black and minority communities cannot elect representatives. As it is, the number of minority members of Congress is already at a low ebb, and as the white Christian Nationalist Trump Administration continues to dominate Congress, and pack the court with right-wing ideologues, it’s just going to get worse.
Over several generations, the voting map of America has shifted to a nearly solid Red south from Texas to Florida. At the same time, some states are solidly Blue, almost entirely in the north. The Civil War continues, albeit on the battlefield of politics not Gettysburg. Even here in California, the battle of ideologies goes on and there’s a chance we may end up with a Trump supported right-wing Republican Governor. America, it seems, cannot escape its past.
That our democracy began with the entitlement to vote granted only to white men owning property is just part of the problem. Although our original Constitution theoretically contained the seeds of universal emancipation and one-person-one-vote, in practice it’s been a tug of war. Political representation in the form of voting has progressively been extended to women, minorities, and younger people, but only after years of violence, protest and struggle. The highest aspirations of our founders have been stymied by racism, misogyny and bigotry for centuries.
The idea of equality of opportunity is not a universally accepted ethical belief, and it was not when this country was founded. Our history of enslavement of others has led to a damaged society, and its effects can even be seen in the distorted ethical values of corporate America, where some employees are virtual wage slaves, their time and bodies subject to absolute control by others. As attempts to rectify systemic racism in America get rejected by courts and Congress, the situation indicates that we’re far from achieving the composition of a fair society. The Civil War rages on.
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