An Alabama town stopped holding elections since 1965

Trump's attacks on democracy aren't new. When conservatives don't want to share power, they use any means to undermine the freedoms of a democracy.

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This is a crazy story that illustrates the lengths conservatives will go to deny freedom to people who aren’t white. It’s about a very small town in Newbern, Alabama, of just about 133 people, that stopped holding elections in 1965.

If that year rings a bell for you, it’s because that’s the year the Voting Rights Act was passed. And yes, 80%, a majority, of this little town are Black. And yes, you guessed it, the minority White people are holding power over the majority through tyranny.

The White minority in Newbern just stopped holding municipal elections.

According to Democracy Docket:

Newbern, a small majority-Black town, has not held an election for mayor in the almost six decades since the VRA became law in 1965. In the past, Newburn has selected its mayors by a “hand me down” system where the current mayor appoints the next mayor. In July 2020, Braxton became the only person to declare his candidacy for mayor of Newbern. Under Alabama law, as an unopposed candidate, Braxton automatically assumed office becoming the first Black mayor in Newbern. Braxton —who was informed that he could appoint town council members because no one filed to run for town council — selected five Black Newbern residents, the other plaintiffs in this lawsuit, to serve as town councilmembers.

ENTITLEMENT

Conservatives are all about stealing freedom from Others.

They are doing it with abortion, they did it by undermining the Voting Rights Act, they do it by purging voting rolls and trying to make it hard for people in non-white areas to vote, they’re trying to shut down the border even though this is a country of immigrants, and we can hardly forget January 6th, when conservatives felt so entitled to steal rights from other American citizens that they violently tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power to steal an election for Donald Trump after he lost the most secure election in modern history.

That’s a lot of entitlement. And it’s important to focus on it and see it for what it is. It’s not a policy disagreement. It’s not a legitimate argument, even. It’s pulling the ladder up after themselves and denying people their Constitutionally enshrined freedoms and liberties because they do not want to share power.

REFUSAL TO SHARE POWER

Not sharing power really sums up the entire conservative position on almost any “policy” at this point, and that’s why the principles they cite to justify taking away your rights on X matter so rarely hold or apply to Y matter. The goal post is always moving, because the issue is not about a disagreement over a principle; it’s an unwillingness to share power.