On April 28, the Supreme Court's fascist majority gutted the protections against racial discrimination that form the heart of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In an election redistricting case out of Louisiana—Louisiana v. Callais—the Court struck down a majority Black congressional district in that state. The population of Louisiana is about one out of three Black. But because of the history and continuation of white racist gerrymandering, only one of the state's 6 congressional districts is majority Black—one out of six. So—consistent with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which outlaws racial discrimination in voting—Louisiana lawmakers set up a second Black-majority district. 

But the white plaintiffs in the Louisiana case claimed that combating racial discrimination against Black voters would result in discrimination against them and white voters generally. The Trump-fascist Court not only agreed with them, but used the case to drive a final stake in the heart of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). Their ruling found that Louisiana’s creation of a second majority-Black district was now unconstitutional. The justices claimed that calling for redistricting to address racial disparities in the way voting districts are set up would no longer be accepted, unless it can be proven that the discrimination was deliberate. But at this point, no racist Republi-fascist politician is going to be stupid enough to admit to deliberately discriminating!

One UCLA law professor called the decision an earthquake for American politics. The ruling immediately triggered calls from Republi-fascist leaders across the south, including Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, and other states for special sessions to redraw congressional maps in their favor, ahead of the approaching elections. Louisiana even suspended an election after voting had already begun. It's estimated the Republi-fascists could gain as many as 19 additional House seats.¹ These “gains” will come by dismantling minority-majority districts which will likely lead to the defeat of many Black and other congressional members currently representing those districts.

This move would be reactionary and ugly enough to oppose in any circumstances. But the fact is that Trump is doing this as part of a whole effort to rig the mid-terms, keep his majorities in Congress, and steam ahead in fully nailing down his new fascist order.

The Bitter, Bloody History of the Voting Rights Act

People need to know the background to this. The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was not some magnanimous (kind-hearted) gesture to benefit Black people by “enlightened” forces in the power structure. Black people in the Jim Crow (segregated) South—joined by others of different nationalities—fought with determination and courage for the right to vote. As this became more intense, people came from all over the country to march and protest with Black resisters in the South. They risked their lives, and some were killed by Ku Klux Klanners (KKK) and/or sheriffs and cops for doing so. The Southern Poverty Law Center—itself now under direct (and bogus) government attack [link to article]—lists 24 people murdered between 1954 and 1968 fighting for this right.² Untold numbers of people who participated in organizing were fired from their jobs and dispossessed from their homes, or beaten and jailed for long stretches during this same period.

These barriers to Black people voting had been in place for decades. There were things like special fees (“poll taxes”) that the mostly impoverished Black people could not afford, or bogus “literacy tests” that Black people (even college graduates) somehow could never “pass” to the satisfaction of the white registrar. All backed up by KKK terror. This was in open defiance of the Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, passed after the Civil War. 

But after years of the increasingly fierce political opposition described above, the Voting Rights Act was finally passed. The coup de grâce—or final blow—came with the march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama. When the nonviolent marchers were brutally beaten by Alabama troopers, the footage went worldwide. At a time when the U.S. claimed to be “fighting for freedom” in Vietnam, when revolutionaries worldwide were leading struggles against U.S. domination, and when Black people in America itself were growing more militant and more organized, the government was forced into making this concession. 

Voting Is Not the Way to Make Fundamental Change… But the RIGHT to Vote Is Important

At the same time, while all that was important in one sense, in a more fundamental way voting within this system will always be voting for one or another representative of that same system. Election are not set up to register the will of the people, as we are told. Long before the voting happens the issues and candidates will have been selected by those who really run things—the capitalist-imperialist class and its representatives. The choices will always be for one or another representative of that system, and the masses are kept on a political treadmill that goes nowhere.

As Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism, has said, 

To state it in a single sentence, elections: are controlled by the bourgeoisie; are not the means through which basic decisions are made in any case; and are really for the primary purpose of legitimizing the system and the policies and actions of the ruling class, giving them the mantle of a 'popular mandate,' and of channeling, confining, and controlling the political activity of the masses of people. 

Bob Avakian, from Democracy: Can’t We Do Better Than That? 

At the same time, two things can be true at once. The right to vote does have some importance. First, the right to vote is seen by people as the dividing line between being a citizen (with all the rights promised by the Constitution) and not being one. In the case of Black people in the U.S., the essential social meaning of denial of their right to vote was the denial of their humanity. It is akin to denying women the right to divorce—they may not wish to divorce in any given case, but denial of the right to divorce essentially chains them into marriage. At the same time, to deny people this right is to essentially say that they are “less than”—less than citizens and, actually, less than human. It is to essentially make official their oppressed and powerless position.

Second, there are unusual times when voting can play a role, as part of a larger movement, that has real importance. This was so in 2020, when the Revcoms called on people to vote for Biden as a secondary form of activity to mounting massive struggle to drive Trump from office before the elections. (For more on this, see Bob Avakian’s social media messages 51-55.) 

Overall, the point quoted from Bob Avakian above remains the main thing: that these elections are a means of confining masses of people to the choices offered by this oppressive and murderous system. But this secondary aspect remains and—at times—can assume significant importance.

Immediate Outrage and Condemnation of this Ruling from Some, Congratulations from Trump

The decision by the Court's fascist majority again reveals how extreme the divisions within the ruling class are. This so-called “separate but equal branch of government,” the Supreme Court, has become an open tool for implementing the Trump regime's fascist program. Justice Elena Kagan, speaking for the Court's liberal minority, wrote that this decision is the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act... The ruling allows legislators to wipe out minority districts whenever they feel like it. The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave...” As a result of the majority's decision, she said, “minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process.” 

Trump's response was also immediate: “Thank you to brilliant Justice Samuel Alito for authoring this important and appropriate Opinion. Congratulations!” It is no accident that this decision by Trump's fascist-dominated Supreme Court is just what Trump called for. In August 2025, Trump asked fascist governors to redraw election maps to openly favor the fascists. Now they have Supreme Court backing to go full speed ahead. 

As we wrote recently, Trump and his regime are taking big leaps in moving to subvert what is considered one of the main ways that "people have been conditioned to accept" the oppressive and exploitative rule of American capitalism-imperialism: the U.S. elections. He has worked to remake how American elections are run and has repeatedly threatened to run for a third term. Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon said Trump should have Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surround polling places during this year’s midterm elections. Trump even sent the Director of National Intelligence (who, among other things, oversees the CIA!) to Atlanta to try to impound and “investigate” voting machines from 2020. What the hell are U.S. intelligence agencies—which are notorious for proven assassinations, coups and conspiracies and which legally are not supposed to operate within the U.S.—doing in Atlanta? 

This intensified when Trump declared that "The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” And he even spelled out what kind of places needed to be “taken over,” naming Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta—all majority Black and Latino, and majority Democratic cities—as incapable of conducting fair elections because they are all “unbelievably corrupt.” This would be a major violation and break with the U.S. Constitution itself, which says that the states oversee the elections³. 

In this setting, the point made by Bob Avakian in his important talk of four years ago, Something Terrible, OR Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed:

Once more, there is plenty that calls, urgently, for great courage and boldness in doing what needs to be done: to be part of rising up against this system and getting ready to go all the way with revolution as soon as the time is right— and, as an important part of that, supporting, and defending, people who are constantly being subjected to unjust attacks on their rights and their very being....

There are continuing moves, including with the threat or use of violence, to once again prevent Black people and other oppressed people from even exercising what are supposed to be basic rights, such as voting. (With a scientific method and approach, it is both possible, and important, to actively oppose attempts to deny people the right to vote, and at the same time win people to see that their efforts need to go, not into voting for representatives of this system that is oppressing them, but working to build up the basis to overthrow this whole system.)

It is important now that those who oppose the horrors of this system realize the depth of what’s involved in this decision and other moves by the fascists to subvert or even cancel the elections; that we grapple together with others over how to oppose this; and, even more, that we grapple together over what is the cause of the problem and what is the solution: revolution.