The midterms may seem far off, but Trump is already launching a full-scale assault on voting rights for working people. His regime is putting forward ridiculous voter suppression legislation, demanding increased gerrymandering in key states, and threatening to deploy ICE agents to polling stations. With increasingly low approval ratings and the threat of a “blue wave,” the Trump regime is gearing up to say the elections will be rigged.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act is a key ongoing attack from Trump to push the false narrative that noncitizens are illegally voting in elections and must be stopped. It would enact national voter ID which would require having documentation proving US citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport.
Mail-in voter registration would be eliminated: citizenship documents would need to be provided in person. Universal mail voting would end and mail-in ballots would face new hurdles, requiring application with scanned proof of identification. Married women and trans people, who often don’t have their current legal name in decades-old documents, will face significant barriers to vote. If passed, this legislation would have the impact of not only rolling back voting rights for immigrants, but all of the oppressed.
Voting Rights Act Benefits All Workers
The SAVE America Act comes on top of the Supreme Court getting ready to dismantle the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Court will be examining Section 2 of the VRA, which calls for the creation of Black majority congressional districts in areas with known racist gerrymandering and voting suppression history. If Trump wins in this case, that would open the gates for the elimination of almost all Black representation in Congress, and secure Republican control for generations.
Trump attacking voting rights is another part of the ruling elite’s longstanding campaign to curtail the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. These gains benefitted all working people, not just Black people.
The Voting Rights Act created the basis for significant improvement in the living standards across the US South and beyond. Studies have shown that in areas where the VRA implemented significant oversight over elections, there was a rise in living standards for all residents in the area, regardless of race. Voter turnout increased across racial demographics. Areas with Black representation shortly after the passing of the VRA saw increased public goods versus areas without Black representation!
The results were terrifying for the ruling class who rely on racism to maintain their power over society. It provided a basis for working people to struggle for electoral office, and showcased why empowering Black working class communities will lead to the betterment of all working people. There was also much more pressure on the political elites, some of whom no longer could rely on excluding nearly half their voters from the ballot box.
Mass Struggle For Democratic Rights
The Democrats might act like they want to protect these gains, but they are just as complicit. Obama oversaw the dismantling of VRA by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), where states with racist voter suppression history no longer needed oversight from the Department of Justice before reshaping congressional maps, creating gerrymandering hell we are living in today. During Biden 2023, the Supreme Court took away individuals’ right to sue for racist voter discrimination, leaving it solely to the Department of Justice discretion whether to sue states. This is what the Democrats do — they pretend to be worker’s friends, but prepare the ground for the right wing to eliminate hard won victories.
The only way to protect voting rights and the VRA is the same way it was won—through massive explosive struggle. It was Black people, students, workers, organizing to fight a militant battle against Jim/Jane Crow who were the reason voting rights were obtained. These activists also understood that neither major political party would genuinely fight for them, and they fought against the political establishment as a whole.
An important example of this is the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, a national student movement that organized mass actions including voter drives through the US South. Often, they organized their own independent political parties because the Southern Democrats refused to let Black people in and the Republicans were just as committed to Jim/Jane Crow. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, with organizers such as Fannie Lou Hamer, fought heroic struggles and became a symbol of Black activism.
Working people and the oppressed must reignite these traditions to defend our gains, and to win far more. Capitalism will always attempt to take back anything it gives us. We must fight for democratic rights against a system that is relentless in clawing them back. Mass movements based on strikes, rallies, and occupations are required to launch a tremendous struggle that can actually take down this rotten system.