>Democratic rhetoric about “Jim Crow on steroids” is precisely about these restrictions such as number of days of early voting—which are still generally more li

>Democratic rhetoric about “Jim Crow on steroids” is precisely about these restrictions such as number of days of early voting—which are still generally more liberal in these states than in advanced western countries. We are supposed to be the flag-carrier for free and fair elections. That means fairness with respect to the capability of all voters to "get to the polls", however that may be. We meet them where they are, not the other way around. The alternative opens the door for nominally-unrelated-but-practically-critical barriers to voting - like underfunding public transportation, for example. >But that’s exactly what’s happening. Foreigners aren’t looking at the actual laws in Florida or Georgia and comparing them to their own laws, they’re hearing Biden call those laws “Jim Crow on steroids.” >Except, apparently, the “facts” regarding the actual content of these laws. Let's be clear: I am glad that foreigners recognize the righteousness of American elections when they're at their most free, regardless of how that might impugn their own processes. But that's not where my argument draws its legitimacy. It comes instead from the appropriateness of less restrictive election laws in the face of America's particular values and America's particular history. The actual content of restrictive voter laws allow conduct that is substantially similar to the Jim Crow-era conduct - of the segregationist governments that today's Texas and Georgia and Florida and others are heir to - that the VRA was meant to curb. If you don't want to be accused of conjuring Strom Thurmond's ghost, don't pass laws he would have applauded for reasons he also would have applauded. You accuse others of not looking at the content of laws when you refuse to critically examine the content of our history.