The Associated Press published an article last week on the “shadow war” that could determine the 2024 election. The report focuses on the legal fights between Republican lawyers, who are generally seeking to restrict ballot access and winnow the voter pool in key swing states, and Democrats, who are seeking to maintain expanded ballot access in those states.
It spoke to a media trend that’s been irking me: The media seems preoccupied with the narrative that disaffected liberal voters (particularly Black voters) are the biggest roadblock to President Joe Biden’s re-election this fall. Search for “will Black voters stay home?” and you’ll see examples of this sort of coverage: breathless stories about voters who may stay home instead of casting ballots for Biden. No matter how questionable the claim, outlets across the political spectrum seem eager to promote it.
The greatest obstacle to Biden’s re-election is, I think, not voter disaffection, but voter disenfranchisement. Republicans’ voter suppression schemes certainly suggest they are counting on it. And this hugely consequential “shadow war” described by the AP wouldn’t be a shadow war if news outlets gave it more sunlight.
As the AP reports:
The Republican National Committee, newly reconstituted under Trump, has filed election-related lawsuits in nearly half the states. Recent lawsuits over voter roll maintenance in Michigan and Nevada are part of a larger strategy targeting various aspects of voting and election administration. It’s not a new strategy. But with recent internal changes at the RNC and added pressure from the former president, the legal maneuvering is expected to play an increasingly significant role for the party as Election Day in November approaches. The lawsuits are useful for campaign messaging, fundraising and raising doubts about the validity of the election.
This aligns with my previous writing on the RNC ramping up its plans for “lawfare” — waging its battles in the courts — to target election systems to win elections going forward.
According to the AP, “voter ID rules, mail ballots and voter roll maintenance are among the RNC’s litigation targets.” Voter ID restrictions, mail-in ballot restrictions and purges of voter rolls are all classic voter suppression tactics that have been denounced by activists for their disproportionate impact on nonwhite voters. And Republicans haven’t been coy about how central these things are to their election strategy — they’ve been pursuing them for years.
In fact, the only people who do seem to want to downplay this reality is the pundit class in legacy media, who appear wedded to traditional horse race coverage that ignores the obvious ways conservatives are attempting to suppress the vote. Consider also that multiple states are primed to carry out elections using voter maps that have previously been deemed racist by federal courts. It’s imperative that columnists and TV hosts pay attention and give more coverage to these efforts and the overwhelming evidence of bigoted voter suppression tactics. Pretending that these things are inconsequential or mere afterthoughts is a sign that the media is either oblivious or acquiescing to the fascist forces that are permeating our political system as they have and continue to suppress nonwhite voter participation. By prioritizing the narrative of the disaffected rather than the disenfranchised voter, politics reporters are legitimizing the former while downplaying the latter. Such coverage seems to imply, essentially, that voter suppression is ingrained in our political system and it’s Democrats’ own fault if they can’t overcome it. That if Dems can’t inspire voters to navigate an increasingly tiresome, and in some cases legally treacherous, maze to cast their ballot — well, it’s their own damn fault. Watching outlets trot out the disaffected voter narrative, I’ve wondered how much more overt Republicans would have to be in their efforts to fence in the franchise for traditional outlets to admit that elections, for many people, are neither free nor fair.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. Recommended
