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There is no point in mincing words. What the Virginia legislature is entertaining now in regards to its election laws is flatly fcking racist. That it is in response to changing demographics that make Virginia a tough get for the Republicans in presidential elections now doesn't matter. That it is what we have come to expect from Republican-majority state legislatures around the country now doesn't matter. That it's naked opportunism doesn't matter. That it may not passdoesn't matter. This is a legislature acting to devalue African American voters to the advantage of white voters. This is Jim Crow bullshit, and no politician who deals in it, and no political party that continues to support said politician, is worthy of support by decent people in the year 20-goddamn-13.

The bill would apportion electors by congressional district to the candidate who wins each of the state's 11 districts. The candidate who carries a majority of the districts would also win the two electors not tied to congressional districts. Sen. Charles W. "Bill" Carrico, R-Grayson, said the change is necessary because Virginia's populous, urbanized areas such as the Washington, D.C., suburbs and Hampton Roads can outvote rural regions such as his, rendering their will irrelevant.

Thank you, Senator "Bill," for making it plain. There are now more people in the "urbanized" areas -- and you don't need the Enigma machine to decode that baby, do you, Paul Ryan? -- than there are in the "rural" areas so, therefore, the system is unfair because white people don't win any more. It's not like we shouldn't know it when we see itm because it's not like we haven't seen this before.

In addition, Democrat Benjamin Tillman, a member of one of the most politically prominent families in the state and a vehement white supremacist, held the governor's seat, elevated to power by a potent coalition of white farmers hailing from the western portion of the state. "My Democracy means white supremacy," Tillman declared. Indeed, disfranchising laws and reapportionment had severely hampered the black voting population in South Carolina, which numbered about 31,000 more than the white voting population.However, Tillman also had a near-hysterical fear that his political rivals within the Democratic Party-primarily elite former planters in the state's coastal regions-would ally with black voters to defeat him. "If these people want to warm this black snake into life and join forces with it," Tillman warned in his characteristically colorful language, "we are ready to meet them and give them the worst drubbing they ever had in their lives."

By the way, before someone asks, to hell with what's in his heart. By his works I shall know him and, by his works, "Bill" Carrico's plan is racist. He should be shunned by decent people. He should be rejected by his party. If the decent people don't shun him, they are complicit in his racism. If his party, local and national, does not reject him, they are complicit in his racism. He should be placed in a time capsule and fired through a wormhole to 1852 where he belongs. Tell me again how the Republicans -- and the conservative movement that drives them -- are changing. Tell me again, I dare you.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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