More than any other individual, Chief Justice Roberts has paved the way for the resurgence of racism in America.
Listen To This Story
|
This mess we find our country in is all Chief Justice John Roberts’s fault. There are many other actors contributing to our current situation, but Roberts has been the most consequential of them. His actions lead to the conclusion that he wants to dismantle the “Second Founding” and return to a Confederate/Jim-Crow-style apartheid system.
Roberts has been working his entire career to undermine the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which were ratified after the Civil War. These amendments are also known as the Reconstruction Amendments. They are considered a “Second Founding” because they reoriented the Constitution from primarily promoting states’ rights to emphasizing individual rights and federal power in protecting those rights.
In 2013’s 5-4 Shelby County v. Holder decision, Roberts concluded that racism was a thing of the past. Racial discrimination in voting, according to Roberts, simply wasn’t a major problem anymore. This landmark case — by glibly pretending that racism is no longer a factor in elections, while allowing states-sponsored voter suppression and intimidation — reveals Roberts’s own latter-day racism.
When the history of the Trump era is written, John Roberts will be featured as the man who used Trumpism to finally win what southern racists call the “War of Northern Aggression.”
While you’re here enjoying DonkeyHotey’s latest cartoon, please take a moment to read these articles on related topics:
The cartoon above was created by DonkeyHotey for WhoWhatWhy from these images: John Roberts caricature (DonkeyHotey / Flickr – CC BY 2.0), banner (Solomon203 / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 4.0), battle flag (Marcus365 / Wikimedia – PD), Supreme Court (Marielam1 / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 4.0).