Shorter America This Week: The past is never past; Great (bad) men; Magical thinking

This week, the Trump-aligned Supreme Court finally destroyed the 1965 Voting Rights Act – the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights movement. That decision will have an enormous impact on American democracy. Yet, it’s already fallen out of the news cycle. 

This week: 

• The past is never past 

• Great (bad) men 

• Magical thinking 

The past is never past 

Coming a century after the Civil War, the 1965 Voting Rights Act was designed to address the many ways that States, particularly former Confederate states in the South, were getting around the 15th Amendment, which provides that citizens’ right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged … on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  

As the South was forced to desegregate, the Voting Rights Act was designed to ensure racially equal electoral opportunity. By the 1980s, the Act was even more explicit: states could not use electoral rules that “results in a denial or abridgement” of voting rights on account of race – regardless of their intention. This week, in a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court just overturned all that.   

The legal language around all this can be pretty tricky to wade through. I found this explainer in the New Yorker and this one in the Guardian really helpful. We also spoke about it on this week’s episode of After America. 

For more context and analysis of what it will mean for the midterm elections and beyond, I’m reading Will Bunch in The Inquirer and (as always) Jamelle Bouie in the NYT. This Slate piece, titled “How Normie Pundits Paved the Way for the Supreme Court Voting Rights Disaster” is also great (and relevant to the Australian commentariat, too). 

More broadly, the far-right movement has always aspired to undo everything the Civil Rights movement achieved. These are the inheritors of a project that fought a civil war in order to preserve the institution of slavery. And now, they are winning. As Will Bunch puts it in another excellent piece in The Inquirer: the past is never past. 

Great (bad) men 

Speaking of history, one big historical theory is having a bit of a moment. The “great man” theory of history is an old and kind of dumb one that argues pretty much what the title suggests – that “great” men shape the course of history. Good historians have done lots of work to point out that context, and structure, and the agency of regular people, also kind of matter. 

The manosphere isn’t so into that idea. They prefer big, powerful men. Of course, Trump is into that. This great piece in The Atlantic outlines Trump’s project to be one of those “great” men that leave a mark – literally – on the world. And his supporters are convinced by it – a new poll by YouGov has found that only 46% of Republican men think they could beat Trump in a fight. Cackling. 

If you want a (sort of, not really) escape from men’s nonsense, I’ve retreated into Mary Beard’s wonderful history of Ancient Rome, SPQR, which I highly recommend. After all, what kind of security expert could I possibly claim to be if I didn’t know what some dudes thought about fighting wars several thousand years ago? 

Or, if you do want to be dragged back into the present, here are two pieces on what these self-styled great men are busy doing: bringing back execution by firing squad and profiting off wars daddy starts. 

Magical thinking 

These men (and it’s almost always men) think they’re immune from consequences, and I guess you could forgive them for it. But they aren’t, not forever. That’s the point of this brilliant Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò piece in the Boston Review: “Elite impunity has fueled the fantasy that catastrophes are for other people.”  

To give just one example – and one that’s pressingly relevant to Australia – I’ll leave you with an NPR piece outlining how the costs of fighting wildfires are going up because a great man of history is playing games he can’t win.