The Republican project isn’t to win in November. It’s to make November cease to matter

Key Points:

• Tennessee’s Republican-led legislature has redrawn the 9th congressional district, effectively ending Steve Cohen’s 19-year tenure by dividing his largely Black constituency and diluting their voting power, a move Cohen says silences Black voters in Memphis.
• The redistricting coincides with efforts in Tennessee to preserve Confederate symbols, such as the Williamson County seal’s Confederate flag, highlighting a broader political strategy intertwining racial and historical issues.
• Following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which weakened the Voting Rights Act, several Southern states including Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi are moving to dismantle Black-majority districts, threatening the political representation of Black Americans.
• The Congressional Black Caucus warns that nearly one-third of its members face electoral risks through 2028, underscoring a systematic rollback of Black political gains achieved under the Voting Rights Act.
• The article situates these developments within a historical continuum of racial disenfranchisement, comparing current Republican strategies to early 20th-century Jim Crow-era tactics, and warns that combating this requires confronting the structural nature of these efforts rather than relying solely on messaging or policy adjustments.