Racist Republicans in North Carolina are having a bad week. And their week just got a bit worse.
For the backstory, in 2013 the North Carolina legislature passed a law that according to the Washington Post:
“Cut a week of early voting, eliminated out-of-precinct voting and required voters to show specific types of photo ID — restrictions that election board data demonstrated would disproportionately affect African Americans and other minorities.”
Given that fact, civil rights groups sued to have the law struck down. As a part of these lawsuits, documents detailing the Republican attempt to disenfranchise minority voters were made public.
The Washington Post explained many of these documents this way:
“A review of these documents shows that North Carolina GOP leaders launched a meticulous and coordinated effort to deter black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. The law, created and passed entirely by white legislators, evoked the state’s ugly history of blocking African Americans from voting — practices that had taken a civil rights movement and extensive federal intervention to stop.”
Naturally, GOP officials in North Carolina were incensed at the charge, calling it pure political demagoguery.
Last month, a federal appeals court disagreed with GOP officials calling the law:
“The most restrictive voting law North Carolina has seen since the era of Jim Crow.”
The three-judge panel also said that a review of emails and other evidence showed that racist lawmakers targeted “African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
North Carolina’s notoriously bigoted Governor, Pat McRory (R) filed an emergency petition to restore the law, but the Supreme Court this past Wednesday refused his request.
Which brings us to the admission this week of longtime Republican consultant Carter Wrenn. Mr. Wrenn attempted to shift blame toward critics of the law, telling the Washington Post:
“Of course it’s political. Why else would you do it?”
It seems as though the word “political” is now a euphemism for the word “racist” among GOP politics in North Carolina.
He continued to devour his own foot by saying:
“Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, they would have kept early voting right where it was. It wasn’t about discriminating against African Americans. They just ended up in the middle of it because they vote Democrat.”
Black voters in North Carolina just happened to end up being the target of racist voter restriction laws.
Imagine that.
It’s like they don’t even realize they are racist as F*CK.
In a classic Daily Show interview, Aasif Mandvi talked to one such (former) Republican leader, Don Yelton; an interview which happened to cost Yelton his position. Here’s a brief section of that interview, but I encourage you to watch the entire segment here. Enjoy!
Featured image from YouTube video.
