Disenfranchise the GOP

It’s Time We Started Treating Republicans Like They Treat Black People – Don’t Let Them Vote

White supremacists have managed to keep a knee on the neck of this nation for generations because of one reason:  They are allowed to stop Black people from voting. 

Donald Trump wouldn’t be in power if it wasn’t for Jim Crow.  And he won’t be able to maintain power unless he dismantles the right to vote.  That is why Republicans have launched hundreds of pieces of anti-voting legislation, are implementing a multi-state redistricting strategy, and are cheering on Trump’s impending executive order to (unconstitutionally) ban mail in voting and voting machines.   

In an America where only white people can vote, Trump can be a king. 

In an America where Black voters are re-enfranchised, dominate the polls in states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Geogia, Alabama, and the Carolinas – states where Black folks represent 25-40% of the population – Trump and the rest of his MAGA co-conspirators can be jumped on the street, thrown in the back of a van and shipped to a concentration camp in Chernobyl. 

The Union is at a crossroads.  

Do we succumb to white nationalism and allow Republicans to turn this country into a urine stenched white supremacist hellscape or do we finally live up to the promises of justice and equality in the United States, unshackle the Black vote, and disenfranchise the ever-living Ivermectin out of every Republican we can find in the run up to 2026 and 2028? 

The only morally and strategically sound choice is to usher the Republican party into an era of electoral darkness starting with Black Codes for White Supremacists, caging and purging Republican voters, transferring election infrastructure from Republican neighborhoods to low income Black neighborhoods and aggressively repeal voter ID requirements. 

Felony Disenfranchisement: Black Codes for White Supremacists

In 2017, Alabama passed a bill formalizing 48 Laws of Moral Turpitude. Violating these laws results in disenfranchisement. And while the passage of this law might seem like a step towards the antebellum for the average vote loving American, it is actually a step towards progress for the state that brought us the likes of Bull Connor and George Wallace.

As the Harvard Law Review explains, “Until 2017, Alabama did not define which crimes involve ‘moral turpitude,’ leaving the standard for disenfranchisement open to the interpretation of individual registrars. Under this vague system, Alabama has had one of the nation’s highest rates of disenfranchisement, with seven percent of the total voting-age population and fifteen percent of the black voting-age population ineligible to vote.” 

Nationwide, felony disenfranchisement has led to 1 in 13, or 4 million, Black people being actively denied the right to vote.  Trump won by 2.3 million votes in 2024.  That should make every Democrat sick to their stomachs.  

Democrats need to move immediately to start removing felony disenfranchisement laws that target Black voters and replace them with laws that target Republicans. We need to turn the Black Codes Red. And we can start with ICE, the January 6 insurrectionists, and white nationalist organizations like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Patriot Front and Moms for Liberty.

Anti-gang legislation has been used to target and criminalize Black communities since the 1990s.  Under federal law, a gang is defined as “an ongoing group, club, organization, or association of 5 or more persons that has as 1 of its primary purposes the commission of 1 or more [listed] criminal offenses…” Related state level gang legislation can be adjusted to criminalize and include the behaviors of white supremacist organizations. Members can then be prosecuted and disenfranchised accordingly.  

Similarly, Democrats can pursue felony disenfranchisement strategies that target ICE Agents.  They can pass legislation making it a felony for ICE agents to conceal themselves, aggressively pursue convictions and use these convictions to ensure ICE agents aren’t able to cast a ballot.  Similar legislative efforts can also be taken to target, prosecute and disenfranchise participants in the January 6 insurrection.  If Black people can’t vote, why should Nazis and insurrectionists be allowed to?

As Republicans have taught us, though, felony disenfranchisement does not require organizational affiliation.  It can be applied to voters by race alone.  Democrats need to remove Blue collar crimes that disproportionately affect Black people from felony disenfranchisement lists and replace them with white collar crimes that are committed predominantly by MAGA’s favorite demographic: white male voters.  

In 2021 alone, 4,727 white collar crimes were prosecuted. 75% of all offenders are middle aged married white males.  Many more were single white men and white men of different generations.  59% of white men voted for Trump in 2024.  By adding white collar crimes to the Democratic list of Red Codes and removing existing Black codes, we can begin weaponizing felony disenfranchisement against Republicans while limiting the damage it would cost to Black communities. 

Voter Caging: Purging MAGA from the Voter Rolls

According to Project Vote, “the RNC in 1981 mailed non-forwardable postcards to predominately Hispanic and African-American districts in New Jersey; the 45,000 cards that were returned were then used to create a ‘caging list, of voters for the GOP to challenge at the polls. By doing this, the RNC tried to skirt federal law that sets up a procedure to ensure that voter registrations are not erroneously cancelled on a mistaken belief that the voter has moved.”  

The DNC sued and ultimately the two parties entered into a consent decree where the Republicans agreed to discontinue the practice.  They, in fact, did not discontinue the practice.  You can find a map of voter caging attempts here. 

Ultimately, the consent decree expired and there has been no ruling declaring the practice illegal.  

If the Democrats had applied voter caging strategies to the closest Congressional races, we would have full control of the House and Senate.  We can’t dismiss this strategy again as we approach the 2026 election.  

Election Infrastructure Divestment: If You Don’t Build It, They Won’t Come

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights reports that they “found 1,688 polling place closures between 2012 and 2018, almost double the 868 closures found in our 2016 report. Additionally, Democracy Diverted analyzes the reduction of polling places in the formerly covered Section 5 jurisdictions in the years between the 2014 and 2018 midterm elections. We found 1,173 fewer polling places in 2018…”

Just as troubling, an analysis of election infrastructure published by NPR, WABE and Georgia Public Broadcasting found that “More than half of the roughly 550,000 voters who cast their ballot using a drop box in the state's 2020 general election lived in four metro Atlanta counties — Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett — where about 50% of the voters are people of color. Under the new law, the number of drop boxes in these four counties plummeted from 107 to 25.”

Republicans have shown us time and time again that it is both legal and effective to remove election infrastructure from Black, BIPOC and Democratic communities.  

Democrats need to adopt this strategy and remove ballot boxes, polling places, voting machines and information hubs from Republican communities and transfer them to the Black communities that have been denied these resources for generations.  

In 2026 and 2028, we should see the longest lines in white Republican communities instead of Black Democratic communities.  We should hear stories about how white Republicans had to travel long distances just to find a polling location.  2026 and 2028 should endlessly entertain us with social media posts about white people being unable to vote because they were too afraid to travel to neighborhoods that they consider undesirable to find a ballot box or polling place. 

If we are truly successful, we should also see the highest Black voter turnout rates since the initial passage of the 15^th Amendment.

Removing Voter ID Restrictions: Ending the Modern Poll Tax

According to Democracy Docket, “Nearly 21 million people, or just under 9% of voting-age U.S. citizens, do not have a current (non-expired) driver’s license. Another 28.6 million (12%) have a non-expired license, but the license does not have both their current name and address. Citizens of color were 3.7 times more likely to be without an unexpired license or state ID card than white adult citizens.”  

1.2 million Black voters live more than 10 miles from a photo ID office that is open more than 2 days per week.  And as the Brennan Center explains, “These voters may be particularly affected by the significant costs of the documentation required to obtain a photo ID. Birth certificates can cost between $8 and $25. Marriage licenses, required for married women whose birth certificates include a maiden name, can cost between $8 and $20. By comparison, the notorious poll tax — outlawed during the civil rights era — cost $10.64 in current dollars.”

Thirty-eight states currently have voter ID requirements.  Many of them have Democratic governors and state legislatures. We need to immediately repeal voter ID laws in Blue territories and work to help Black communities overcome obstacles to obtaining IDs in Red territories.  We can no longer afford to allow Black voters to be disenfranchised for any reason whatsoever.  We have to repeal the laws that prevent them from voting wherever Democrats control the state government.  And we have to help Black voters overcome suppression efforts in states that Republicans control.  

America cannot free itself from white supremacy, MAGA or Donald Trump until it liberates and protects the Black vote.  The failure of the Reconstruction taught us that it is not enough to grant Black people the right to vote; we have to permanently politically neutralize anyone that tries to take it away.  We need to disenfranchise the Republican party permanently and we need to start now.