3647 - Racist Conservative Attack on the Second Founding of America w/ Adam Serwer

Summary

The Majority Report with Sam Seder – Episode 3647

Racist Conservative Attack on the Second Founding of America w/ Adam Serwer
May 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features Sam Seder, Emma Vigeland, and guest Adam Serwer (author and staff writer at The Atlantic) discussing the ongoing conservative and Supreme Court attacks on the Second Founding of America, specifically the legacy of Reconstruction and the 15th Amendment. The conversation explores the weaponization and erosion of voting rights, "reactionary colorblindness," the historical context behind current judicial ideology, and the consequences of recent Supreme Court decisions (notably the Calais ruling). The discussion highlights the blatant corruption of recent Trump-era policies, the dangerous normalization of racial disenfranchisement, and what the battle over the meaning of America's founding really is.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Trump Slush Fund Scandal

[06:00 – 17:30]

• Trump Withdraws Lawsuit, DOJ Creates Massive Slush Fund: Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, clearing the path for a $1.7 billion DOJ-approved "slush fund" to compensate those allegedly harmed by the Biden administration’s legal actions.

• Lack of Oversight: The fund would operate with almost no transparency or meaningful oversight. Trump associates would control disbursement, and the president could remove commission members at will.

• Who Benefits? Potential recipients include Trump himself, January 6th insurrectionists, and political allies, despite nominal rules barring Trump personally from direct payment.

• Political and Legal Reactions: Senator Elizabeth Warren called it “an insane level of corruption... a slush fund for Trump's handpicked stooges.” There are unclear paths for legal recourse; only Congress might have standing to challenge it.

• Blatant Corruption: Sam and Emma compare the move to "mob" tactics and historic abuses of public funds.

  "If somebody gives me $1.7 billion and says pay your employees. Well, I got news for you. I pay the employees. But guess where the money that would normally go to paying the employees goes? Into my pocket. I mean, it's just such an incredible joke."
  — Sam Seder (15:02)

2. The Legacy and Betrayal of the 15th Amendment

[20:54 – 32:54]

• Recap of Reconstruction: Adam Serwer emphasizes the 15th Amendment was explicitly about protecting Black suffrage in the face of violent, white supremacist opposition—primarily from Southern Democrats of the 19th century.

• Radical Intent & Loopholes: The amendment's intent was both racial and partisan, aiming to ensure Black people could vote (helping Republican power in the South). Loopholes were quickly exploited by reactionaries—via race-neutral-seeming laws (literacy tests, poll taxes).

• Supreme Court Betrayal: Early and modern courts have repeatedly undermined the radical intent of Reconstruction amendments, interpreting them as narrowly as possible to minimize federal interference in states’ racial politics.

  "And so at the time... the 15th amendment is adopted at a time of vicious, racially motivated, partisan disenfranchisement. ...If it didn't bar partisan, motivated, racist disenfranchisement, it wouldn't have done anything at all."
  — Adam Serwer (24:39)

3. Conservative Legal Movement and "Reactionary Colorblindness"

[27:43 – 32:54]

• Supreme Court’s Ideological Project: The Roberts Court, building on the backlash to “intrusive” protections of civil rights, repeatedly undermines federal enforcement of voting rights, citing states’ rights and a supposed post-racial America.

• Colorblindness as Reversed Racism: The Court treats efforts to rectify historic racism (like the Voting Rights Act or affirmative action) as equivalent to racism itself—a concept Serwer cites as "reactionary colorblindness."

• Roots in Confederacy: Emma and Adam discuss how modern conservative legal reasoning echoes the Confederacy’s vision, resisting the Second Founding and treating Reconstruction amendments as illegitimate expansions of federal power.

  "Some of the justices on the court have this idea that the Civil War amendments to the Constitution are sort of illegitimate and that they ruin the real antebellum Constitution..."
  — Adam Serwer (29:30)

4. The Racial/Economic Backlash: Obama, Trump, and the Culture War

[36:14 – 47:30]

• Racial Resentment and Cultural Shifts: The election of Obama and increased Black visibility in public life triggered a reactionary backlash, manifesting in the rise of Trump. Serwer stresses this was not just about policy but about who is "allowed" to hold elite positions.

• Economic Segregation by Culture: The culture war—over casting, representation, "wokeness"—is often really about protecting historically white economic privilege in elite jobs.

• "Vibe Shift" and Empowerment to Be Racist: Trump's election was experienced by some as a freeing from social stigma; “it was kind of cool to be a racist asshole again.”

  "[When] people complain about like the Little Mermaid is black ...that kind of stuff is actually about labor. It's actually saying, we don't think black people should have those jobs."
  — Adam Serwer (38:49)

  "There are a lot of people who absolutely voted for Trump because they felt like he was going to bring... this sort of cultural vibe shift where it was kind of cool to be a racist asshole again."
  — Adam Serwer (47:35)

5. The Outcomes and Unpredictable Future of Disenfranchisement

[47:57 – 55:59]

• Intentional Diminishment of Black Representation: The latest rulings and gerrymandering aim to reduce Black political power and representation, but Serwer notes the long-term consequences are hard to predict.

• Historical Echoes: Just as post-Reconstruction terror campaigns sought to stifle Black-white political coalitions, modern restrictions could have unpredictable effects on party coalitions.

• Persistence of Resistance: Regardless of legal setbacks or campaigns of disenfranchisement, Serwer affirms Black political struggle will always continue.

  "Black people are never going to stop fighting for their right to be free and equal. And so, you know, the fight is simply not over. It's just not the end."
  — Adam Serwer (54:08)

6. Solutions: Voting Rights, Supreme Court Reform, and "Hardball"

[55:16 – 61:49]

• Legislation and Court Reform: Serwer advocates for a new Voting Rights Act, including stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over it, and court expansion if necessary.

• Precedent: Historical examples (even from Reconstruction) demonstrate altering the size and jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is not without precedent.

• Judicial Interference: The Roberts Court is blocking the American people from true self-government, demanding an aggressive, structural response.

  "...the Roberts Court is directly interfering with the ability of the American people to govern themselves, to exercise self-determination. And that is something that requires a hardball response."
  — Adam Serwer (57:09)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the current corruption:
  "It's a mob situation... The $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, it's clear now, was always just a scam. It was to build a predicate as to why there needed to be a settlement."
  — Sam Seder (08:32)

• On the reactionary backlash:
  "There was this integration of elite America that occurred as a result of the cultural currents...swirling around Barack Obama. And that gave people the perception of a more integrated America that didn't really exist..."
  — Adam Serwer (38:50)

• On the history of white male status:
  "The Democratic Party is very much about this idea of like equality between white men who are the head of their households. You are in charge, your wife and your slaves obey. And this sort of elevates all white men..."
  — Adam Serwer (45:40)

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Timestamps for Crucial Segments

• Trump Slush Fund Discussion: 06:00 – 17:30
• Intro to Voting Rights & 15th Amendment: 20:54 – 24:39
• Partisan & Racial Nature of Reconstruction Amendments: 24:13 – 27:43
• Conservative Legal Movement and Colorblindness: 27:43 – 32:54
• Supreme Court’s Ideological Roots: 29:39 – 32:54
• Obama, Racial Backlash, and Elite Integration: 36:14 – 41:14
• Culture War as Economic Gatekeeping: 42:43 – 44:32
• Trump “Vibe Shift" and Social Stigma: 47:30 – 47:57
• Potential Unintended Political Outcomes: 50:16 – 55:59
• Solutions – Voting Rights Act & Court Expansion: 55:16 – 61:49

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is wide-ranging, trenchantly critical, and historically rich, using a mix of dry humor, empirical rigor, and moral passion. Serwer and the hosts repeatedly underscore the stakes — that current judicial and Republican actions are rooted in a long, ugly history of white supremacy, and that the nation faces a battle over whether its true “founding” is in the original Constitution or its Second Founding after the Civil War.

Listeners come away with not just a political update but a broad, deep understanding of the era-spanning struggle for multiracial democracy in America — and the urgent need to both defend and expand it now.

Transcript

[Sam Cedar]

Hey folks. That's weird. Hey folks, Memorial Day is coming up. It is the unofficial start of summer. When is the official start of summer? I don't know. It doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned, it's the start of summer. Although today is 93 degrees and we don't have an air conditioner in here.

[Adam Serwer]

Yay.

[Sam Cedar]

Here's the point. Memorial Day is right around the corner and that means summer travel season and for people who have friends, wedding season. I've been to like one wedding in my entire life.

[Emma Vigeland]

I think it was in mine.

[Sam Cedar]

Two. Three, actually. Now three. Whether you rely on Saba Day for sharper focus when vacation planning, better sleep when on the road, or easing general travel anxieties, now is a great time to stock up on Saturday tinctures. Starting today, you can get 35% off your favorite Saba Day oil tinctures with the coupon code Memorial 26. That's Memorial 26. I will tell you right now. The pet tincture, awesome for your pets, not enough for your people. And the good night oil. Those two are my go tos. And then actually. What's the matter?

[Emma Vigeland]

Brian's chair is so loud it's unbelievable.

[Brian]

I can't switch to.

[Emma Vigeland]

Sorry.

[Sam Cedar]

A couple of shots of some Sabade tincture. Just the normal stuff and maybe you'd have a little bit less anxiety about that. I didn't hear it at all. Don't miss out. Sunset Lake Sabade tincture sale ends on May 26th at 11:59pm 35% off with the coupon code MEMORIAL26. Remember, you're buying direct from the farmers with Saba Day that has been grown without any pesticides. Check them out, see their site for terms and conditions. Will of course put a link in the podcast and YouTube. Description description and now time for the show. It is Tuesday, May 19, 2026. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Adam Serwer, author and staff writer at the Atlantic magazine on the total assault on voting rights in this country. Also on the program today, Taco Tuesday. Trump postpones Today's planned attack on Iran.

[Emma Vigeland]

No.

[Sam Cedar]

We'll see. I decided to temporarily postpone U.S. grants another sanction waiver to Russia for oil sales as the world gets dangerously close to expending its total oil reserves. DOJ sets up that $1.6776 billion slush fund for Trump, causing the top lawyer at treasury to resign. Long Island Railroad reaches a deal with its union. The strike on the largest commuter rail in the US ends with a union victory. Report more than 100,000American children have had a parent detained by ICE. Trump looking to admit 10,000 more. This is a great story of America opening its arms to refugees. Incidentally, Trump looking to admit 10,000 more white South Africans as refugees. Trump demands John Thune from fires the parliamentarian after her ruling that the ballroom funding is not fit for the reconciliation bill. It's primary day in Alabama, in Georgia, in Idaho, in Kentucky, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party in the street campaign in Pennsylvania's 3rd congressional district send illegal anonymous texts in an attempt to defeat Chris Robb. Get out there and vote for him today in Pennsylvania's third cd. Speaking of polling, new polling is very bad news for Republicans. Meanwhile, the EPA is looking to rescind limits on four different forever chemicals in your water. Let's reintroduce those guys.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, God.

[Sam Cedar]

Two teenage gunmen kill three at a San Diego mosque, then themselves. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.

[Emma Vigeland]

It is News Day Tuesday.

[Sam Cedar]

You're already starting laughing. What's going on?

[Emma Vigeland]

Nothing is going on. I'm excited to be talking to you.

[Sam Cedar]

We're not on the same screen together, are we? Oh, I don't see it.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, we don't see the internal camera right now.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, I don't know what's going on with that. Matt's out sick today, but Brian's back

[Emma Vigeland]

after his illness caused by me, most likely.

[Brian]

I'm all hopped up on coffee and Dayquil and Matt not being here. So my heart rate's about 6, 640 right now.

[Sam Cedar]

All right.

[Brian]

To figure out how to fix this internal camera.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, well, we work on that. That's fine. We're all here. So it's, I think as long as it's getting out there, that, yeah, it's not a absolute tragedy. A lot to get to in the news today. We've been covering this potential for Donald Trump's slush fund for days now. And as I reported yesterday, Trump withdrew his suit a day or two before there was a deadline for the parties to justify this suit. And by withdrawing, the suit essentially took the authority to oversee any type of deal out of the hands of the court. And the DOJ has the authority to settle potential suits before they go to trial. Of course, we want that ability. This is just a clear abuse of that, that power. And it is unclear who has standing to sue against it. Congress could pass a law. That's probably not going to happen. But this slush fund has absolutely no guardrails. It is just a total giveaway. It is a much like what like Jimmy Hoffa would have done back in the day or. Well, I mean, it's sort of what Trump's been doing with just tax dollars when it comes to like, oh, I'm going to give my pool guy a huge contract to paint the reflecting pool, and then for the rest of Mar A Lago's days, there won't be any charges. Who knows?

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, it looks also like he's going to be forced to drop his BS $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, which is essential. That's right. Right. And so like the Treasury Department slush fund thing, though, I do think that it's like even bigger than that. It's as corrupt as we're talking about. But he's also trying to send a message where if you break the law on my behalf, from the brown shirts on January six to the corrupt billionaire oligarchs who have funded my campaign, you'll be rewarded as long as I'm in power, so you better keep me in power.

[Sam Cedar]

I wouldn't necessarily assume that he's going to pay out that money to anybody based on any other, but I think

[Emma Vigeland]

that's the message he's sending and he's been consistent with that throughout his presidency.

[Sam Cedar]

It's a mob situation. Understand that that that $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, it's clear now, was always just a scam. It was to build a predicate as to why there needed to be a settlement. It was never intended to actually go to court. And that's where this settlement derives from. Here is ABC News reporting On Trump's now DOJ affirmed $1.7 billion slush fund

[ABC News Reporter]

this morning, a potentially unprecedented settlement between President Trump and the government he runs. Sources tell ABC News the President is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and in exchange for potential financial compensation for allies that claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration. The deal, which sources caution is not finalized, would use taxpayer dollars to establish a $1.7 billion fund used to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration's so called weaponization of the legal system. Sources say one group that would be eligible to tap into that are the nearly 6, 1600 people charged after the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

[Sam Cedar]

Pause it for once. President, you know who else, based upon this vague notion of who was hurt by the Biden administration lawfare is Donald Trump.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's such a weird coincidence.

[Sam Cedar]

It is shocking. In fact. There's no one in Trump's orbit who he couldn't make an argument. And here's the thing is that based upon the original outlines of the settlement, all we have now is a two page reference to the settlement agreement that it establish a fund. But according to documents that were sort of reported on in the past, Blanche will will appoint these people, but Trump can fire them at will, presumably reappoint them. And there is no questioning of who they give the money to. There is no requirement they release names of people they've given money to or in what amounts or for what reason. But continue

[ABC News Reporter]

attack on the Capitol. This comes as President Trump is suing the treasury department and the IRS for $10 billion in damages over the of his tax returns during his first term in office and after sources told ABC News he was pressing his Justice Department to pay roughly $230 million for the investigations he faced during the Biden administration.

[Sam Cedar]

It's interesting because I'm the one that makes a decision, right? And you know, that decision would have to go across my desk and it's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself, according to sources.

[Emma Vigeland]

Awfully strange.

[ABC News Reporter]

Oversee the fund would have total authority on who they hand the money out to, which could amount to an unparalleled use of taxpayer dollars with little oversight. Sources say the president would have the authority to remove members of the commission without cause and that the commission would not be required to disclose how it runs or its decision making process. The proposed fund, which could face legal hurdles, would draw its money from a Treasury Department judgment fund, a permanent bucket of federal dollars used to pay court judgments and settlement. Sources said the settlement terms are expected to bar the President from directly receiving payments related to the claims of his lawsuits. But it does not explicit explicitly prohibit entities associated with him from doing so. And this morning, Democrats slamming the potential settlement Senator Elizabeth Warren calling it an insane level of corruption and dubbing it a slush fund for Trump's handpicked stooges to hand money to January 6th insurrectionists and his political allies. And former FBI director James

[Sam Cedar]

Money is going to go to Trump. I imagine the J6 people will get a little cash bonus. But let's be clear. This is Donald Trump's slush fund. He might as well have this money in his pocket. Let's play this clip that Emma just did.

[Emma Vigeland]

We're in the middle Right now of these hearings in the Senate for Todd Blanche, who is currently acting Attorney General, and he and Van Hollen have been going at it all day. Van Hollen, one of our better senators. And it appears like, based on the all caps that I'm seeing that as in captioned this a great account that people should follow holding the Trump administration accountable, that Blanche maybe got a little testy and lost it.

[Todd Blanche]

You're not going to submit this proposal to any federal judge or ind. There is no judge, any independent authority that.

[Sam Cedar]

An independent. What does that mean, an independent authority?

[Todd Blanche]

It means not somebody who's getting to pick five of the members. Who is the President's former personal attorney. That would be somebody who would be independent.

[Adam Serwer]

I'm the acting Attorney general.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay.

[Todd Blanche]

The fact that I used to be

[Sam Cedar]

President Trump's lawyer is just a fact, but I'm the acting Attorney General. So don't say the president's former personal lawyer will do something. The acting Attorney General will do something.

[Todd Blanche]

Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the President's personal attorney. And that's the whole problem. You've got his whole. You have a whole banner of his face hanging over the Department of Justice, and you and everybody else walks under it. And you are acting like you're his current personal attorney. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions.

[Sam Cedar]

I want to also remind people, and I think Van Holland should have brought this up, Todd Blanch was specifically told by the DOJ's ethics advisor lawyer internal system that you are to recuse yourself on every case that has to do with Donald Trump. He did not do that before he was acting Attorney General, and he's not doing it now that he is acting Attorney general. The idea that the former defense attorney for Donald Trump is now deciding whether to give Donald Trump control over $1.7 billion doesn't have to go into Donald Trump's pocket. If somebody gives me $1.7 billion and says pay your employees. Well, I got news for you. I pay the employees. But guess where the money that would normally go to paying the employees goes into my pocket. I mean, it's just such an incredible joke.

[Emma Vigeland]

And I mean, the settlement stuff, it's supposed to be after these cases are litigated.

[Sam Cedar]

I bet you. I bet you. Well, not necessarily. No. You have settlements. This is the thing. Right. But you come to determination that is there is the only way to stop this is for Congress to pass.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

And it should be brought up. The Democrats should be bringing up a bill over and over and over again. Because I don't know that there's anybody who has standing to sue against this. Certainly this is a practice that happens. The DOJ will settle in, you know, before now. Usually it's under the auspices of the court, but sometimes they'll settle just because it's not worth taking it to court. This is obviously a complete bastardization of that, but it's conceivable that if Donald Trump still owes Todd Blanche money from defending him against his charges that were associated with, you know, the Biden era, that money could go into this fund and then get paid to Todd Blanche.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, that's probably why it hits a little bit of a nerve when he's. Van Hollen brings up how close he is to Trump in that way. I mean, it's so nakedly corrupt. At another point in that exchange, like there will play it later, but Ghislaine Maxwell comes up. Do we, do we remember what happened with Ghislaine Maxwell?

[Sam Cedar]

We'll see if she gets her pardon. All right, well, in a moment, we're going to be talking to Adam Serwer, author and staff writer at the Atlantic. But first, a word from our sponsor. Have a lot more to say about that slush fund. This episode of Majority Report brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first baked from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, seasonal pastries and fresh pastas. Literally, when I read those words, I am thinking about the smell in my apartment this weekend when I made Saul his croissant.

[Emma Vigeland]

They are so good, those croissants.

[Sam Cedar]

It is, it is amazing what the smell of fresh baked bread does to your just whole demeanor.

[Brian]

And you're gonna bring him one to his bedroom and ate it before you got to the.

[Sam Cedar]

That happened the first time. Yeah. I'm trying to state, do you. No, it's, it's literally like 12ft. I was literally inhaled with crumbs in my beard and I'm like, buddy, I got some bad news. I got some good news and some bad news. The good news is I figured out how to really bake them well. The bad news is I'm gonna make you another one. The thing with this, though, is that not only do you get that smell, it is incredibly easy. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box. Did I say this already? For artisanal bread, seasonal pastries and fresh pastas, I did. Unlike many store bought options, Wild Grain uses simple ingredients you can pronounce and a slow fermentation process that can be easier on your belly and richer nutrients and antioxidants there's no preservatives, there's no shortcuts. Plus all items conveniently bake in 25 minutes or less. No thawing required. This is so easy. I made them chocolate chip cookies the other night. 16 to 20 minutes. I've already memorized this. 375 degrees. You got to preheat the oven. You put one of these frozen cookies on a, you know, I use parchment paper or you put it right on the baking pan and the whole house smells like chocolate chip cookies. They're delicious. Honestly, it couldn't be easier, it couldn't be more tasty. But they have things like ham and cheese, croissants, chocolate croissant, full loaves of bread, sourdough bread, biscuits. They've got pasta. I mean all of it is fantastic. Imagine having fresh bakery quality bread, pastries and pasta at home without any trips to the store. And don't just take my word for it. They have over 40,000 five star reviews and have been voted best food subscription box by USA Today for three years in a row. For a limited time Wild grain offering you $30 off your first box. Plus you ready for this free croissant for life when you go to wildgrain.com majority to start your subscription today. That's $30 off your first box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgrain.com majority or you can use the promo code Majority at checkout. We'll put the description in the or the link, I should say in the podcast and YouTube description. And at Majority FM we got a quick break and when we come back, Adam Serwer, author and staff writer at the Atlantic magazine. We are back, Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. Pleasure to welcome back to the program. Adam Serwer, author, staff writer at the Atlantic. Adam, thanks so much for joining us.

[Adam Serwer]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Sam Cedar]

So I have been on one hand very surprised at how little attention, relatively speaking the Calais ruling has gotten and the implications of it. On one hand surprised. On the other hand, this has been sort of like telegraphed by the Supreme Court for over a decade. Let's go back though, before we get there. Will you walk us through a little bit the sort of reconstruction routes of what we're seeing today. And you write in your piece about the 15th Amendment and how it's being how the interpretation of the 15th Amendment by the Supreme Court today is completely wrong based upon how it was created.

[Adam Serwer]

Well, it's really an inversion of what the amendment was supposed to do you know, at the time, you know, the south is. Black people in the south are being terrorized by racist Democrats. Democrats are making some headway arguing against black suffrage in the North. So the idea is to solve the problem by simply enfranchising everybody everywhere by, you know, by making sure that you cannot deny the right to vote on the basis of race. Now the radicals at the time had critiques of the 15th Amendment because they feared it was not broad enough. And they correctly perceived that there were loopholes in the amendment that reactionaries would use to disenfranchise the very people they were trying to protect. And that's unfortunately what happened. So after Reconstruction, the Supreme Court, which is made up of largely Republican appointees, some union veterans, even basically says as long as the disenfranchisement devices are not explicitly racial, they're constitutional. So that's how you end up with these sort of superficially race neutral laws that the purpose of which are to disenfranchise black people. Grandfather clauses, literacy tests, poll taxes, stuff like that. The explicit purpose is to get around the 15th amendment prohibition so that you can disenfranchise black people. And now it ends up disenfranchising some poor whites as well. But, you know, the purpose is to reestablish white supremacy in a way that will pass legal muster. And the post Reconstruction court essentially allows this, interpreting the Civil War amendments in as narrow a way as possible.

[Sam Cedar]

And this is because we should say the 15th Amendment says it establishes the right to vote, can't be denied on account of race, color or previous conditions of servitude, and, and then grants Congress power to enforce through legislation. And so, but the, the explicit idea of, of, of the 15th Amendment is to enfranchise black people. In other words, that it was racial in its intent.

[Adam Serwer]

It was, it was racial and partisan. And you know, there was, there were

[Sam Cedar]

people who explain, explain how it was partisan too, because you know, I'm not sure like people are fully aware of like, sort of the dynamic Democrats at that time, of course, more associated with the Confederacy, Republicans more associated with the Union. And they were the, the party of Lincoln at that time. And you knew that Lincoln was a Republican, right?

[Adam Serwer]

To clarify, like there's almost nobody at this time who you would recognize as like, you know, a modern liberal. You'd have to go to someone like Charles Sumner or Thaddeus Stevens to get someone who like, even approaches sort of that combination of economic and social liberalism. But so at the time, you know, the Republican Party is the party of The Union. And they realized that, you know, their political project is not viable without black suffrage in the South. And so a lot of guys who are pretty conservative go along with the Civil War amendments, not just abolishing slavery, but the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment, precisely because they understand that the Republican Party, if it's going to have voters in the south at this point, it's going to be black people and, like, maybe some white people, but mostly black people. And they also understand that, you know, up north, it's not the most popular idea. So the easiest way to. To ensure that black suffrage is placed beyond sort of political machination is to amend the Constitution in order to make sure that black people can't be denied the vote on the basis of race. And there are some nativist Republicans at this time who are like, well, you're going to give Chinese people the right to vote. And the radicals are like, yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. It doesn't matter. People like Representative John Bingham are saying, we are going to rid the country of the horrid blasphemy, that this is a white man's country. And of course, at the time, the Democrats, they're essentially running on white supremacy explicitly. This is a white man's country. Let white men rule. And so the 15th amendment is adopted at a time of vicious, racially motivated, partisan disenfranchisement. Black people in the south are dealing with terrorism and violence from the Ku Klux Klan. You know, they're dealing with a Democratic Party that is explicitly stating its mission is to reassert white supremacy. And so if the 15th Amendment didn't bar partisan, motivated, racist disenfranchisement, it wouldn't have done anything at all. So it doesn't make any sense to say, well, you can't disentangle race and party, and therefore, we just sort of have to let these racist restrictions go through. The Republican Party, the cause of the 15th amendment was a partisan cause. It was an ideological cause. It was a principal cause. You know, some of these guys in the, you know, radicals like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, Frederick Douglass, these people obviously are expressing moral views about race that we would recognize as very enlightened. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they also understood that the Republican Party was the only vehicle for doing this because the Democratic Party at the time was an explicitly white supremacist organization. And, you know, the idea is just to say, you know, whether you're in the Republican Party, whether you're the Republican party in the 21st century or the Democratic Party in the 19th century. The Constitution bars, you know, writing black people out of the Constitution so that you don't have to appeal to them at all.

[Sam Cedar]

It feels like the justification in the minds of, like, if you could just go back to what Scalia wrote in Shelby in 2013, and Alito's attitude today that the idea is, well, they did it for partisan. They did it. The 15th amendment was. Was. May have, like, sort of born out of a partisan sentiment that involved racial enfranchisement. So why can't we say it's okay for partisan sentiment that disenfranchises people? It's. It's almost the same, except for. I mean, that's sort of what it is. Right? I mean, they. They think, like, you did it to help win elections, so we can do it to help win elections. Completely ignoring the idea that, well, there's also this other principle of, like, we have a democracy.

[Adam Serwer]

Yes. I mean, look, the. I think you can, you know, we talk. It starts earlier than Shelby County. Right. So, you know, in the 1980s, you know, the Reagan administration is opposing a reauthorization of the Voting Rights act because it adds an effects test to the Voting Rights act that says any voting changes that have the purpose or effect of discriminating are illegal. And the reason why I did that was because there was a case that was involved, you know, that involved over racial discrimination or what was clearly racial discrimination, but you couldn't prove intent. And so in the end, what happened was that black people were being denied the right to vote, even if you didn't have, like, a smoking gun where someone's using the N word or something.

[Sam Cedar]

Right. This is like a de facto test.

[Adam Serwer]

Right. And so Roberts, you know, he's a young lawyer in the Justice Department, and he writes, you know, this is terrible. Like, this is justification for the most intrusive interference imaginable. And so I think from an ideological point of view, Roberts has always seen efforts to alleviate racism as worse than racism itself, especially because. And you can see this every time they gut a piece of the Voting Rights act, they congratulate themselves on how not racist the country is anymore. But what we're seeing with Republican efforts to sort of redraw their districts, to get rid of all their plurality minority or majority minority districts, is that the thing that was holding back explicit racism in the United States wasn't like sort of that we are so much better than our ancestors, but it was the explicit prohibitions on that kind of discrimination. And it Just illustrates why it was so important. And, you know, at the time, Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Shelby county, she's like, it's like throwing away your umbrella when it stops raining because you're no longer getting wet. And obviously we still need the umbrella, and we always needed it. But they simply didn't care because from an ideological point of view, they saw this as a kind of unconstitutional federal government interference that was unjustifiable. And I think to some extent, it really goes back to the whole states rights issue. And again, this is. I really do think that some of the justices on the court have this idea that the Civil War amendments to the Constitution are sort of illegitimate and that they ruin the real antebellum Constitution that was written by the Founders. And so as a result, these amendments need to be narrowed because they're simply too expansive. They give the federal government too much power to interfere in the authority of the states. And you could see this in the Shelby county ruling when John Roberts says that the Voting Rights act, as it was written, interferes with the equal sovereignty of the states, as though that's more important than people's constitutional right to vote. And I think for that reason, they've simply approached any federal effort to deal with racism as morally equivalent to racism itself. And this is something that the. The professor Ian Haney Lopez calls reactionary colorblindness. So it's saying affirmative action is the same thing as Jim Crow.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, I mean, this is just. But this ideology, when you distill it to that, Adam, I hadn't heard it described that way about those amendments and the illegitimacy of it, but it really does color, I think, the conservative ideology quite well. And what this court represents, which is a court of Confederates, I think if we speak about it in those terms, it strips away a lot of the, I guess, highfalutin fancy ways, the priest like ways that these. The justices believe that they, you know, that that's how they operate. They are just trying to reify almost the Confederacy to a degree.

[Adam Serwer]

Well, look, I mean, again, the Civil War amendments were explicitly meant to make sure that America was not a white man's government. That was their purpose. I know that sounds like, quote, unquote, woke, but this is what the guys who wrote these amendments thought. They were trying to correct the original flaw of the Constitution, which was that it made it possible for there to be an overclass as a result of its implicit protections for slavery. And so, in a way, it really is. The historian Eric Foner calls the Civil War amendments and Reconstruction, the second founding. And it really is the second founding because it takes that first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence about everybody being created equal very seriously. And it tries to make that a reality. And immediately after, within 10 years of those amendments being adopted, you know, a big chunk of the country says, well, we don't like that. We don't want that. We want an explicitly, a country that is explicitly, you know, sort of class based and the class is based on race. And so, you know, unfortunately this is just something that is a part of. I mean, I don't want to make it sound like it's inevitable because I don't think it is. But it is something that's like very deeply rooted in our history and it's something we've been battling, you know, since the founding of the country and arguably before.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean it. I, I mean, I do think this is really just a battle as to what constitutes the founding of the country. And I mean the past 100 years, plus at this point, 150 years nearly have been the overwhelming majority of our of like Supreme Court rulings, I think are probably somewhere between 13th, 14th, 15th amendments. And what, what, what do you think it is? Are we just really just sort of like seeing the slow motion backlash from the Voting rights act in 65, like the, like.

[Adam Serwer]

Okay.

[Sam Cedar]

Because let me just add one thing. The, the, I mean this is the thing is that, you know, Johnson famously said, you know, we're going to lose the south for two generations. And I think he just like overestimated how quickly these, what had happened would filter through to the American people. I can't remember the name of the professor. I cite this all the time we had him on years ago. But the most interesting statistic I've ever heard, I think was that up until 2008, 50% of non college educated white people thought the Republicans were to the left of Democrats. On race. Up until Obama gets elected, there is still a massive cohort of people who think the Democratic Party is the Democratic Party from 150 years ago. And it's almost as if like it just, it's just catching up now to where people are like, wait a second, when did black people get the right to vote? Or you know, like this is. There's a certain cohort that the Republican Party has, it's almost caught up with them.

[Adam Serwer]

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, the backlash to the Warren court, and keep in mind, you know, we had a liberal court for like a couple years and it completely, you know, it completely radicalized the conservative movement into like developing its own alternate legal movement for the purpose Powell Doctrine.

[Sam Cedar]

You get the federal, federal society, get

[Adam Serwer]

the Heritage foundation on all that stuff. And, you know, National Review is publishing, you know, criticisms of Brown v. Board, criticisms of Civil act, criticisms of the Voting Rights Act. Barry Goldwater is objecting in a moral sense to racism, but also saying the federal government banning discrimination is even worse. So this is a core, I think is really core to the 20th century Modern conservative movement and the conservative legal movement in particular. And I think part of the issue here is that I think it's really the reaction to Barack Obama that provides it with this sort of momentum because then they can start saying, well, the racism issue is really solved. Now we have a black president who he opposed tooth and nail and we said his health care bill was reparations or a civil rights bill, which is what Rush Limbaugh called it. And they could say, well, this racism problem has been solved. And I think to some extent the

[Sam Cedar]

reason why, literally what Scalia said, incidentally,

[Adam Serwer]

one of the attorneys who is the attorneys for Shelby county said it's an old disease and the disease has been cured. Which is like an absurd thing to say, especially at that moment where there was a racist backlash to the black president happening. But I think one of the things that happened was that there was this, particularly in the Obama era, Obama had such a massive cultural impact on public facing jobs. So in media and entertainment and particularly Congress got more diverse than it had ever been. There was this integration of elite America that occurred as a result of the cultural currents that were swirling around Barack Obama. And that gave people the perception of a more integrated America that didn't really exist because occupational segregation, for example, has not buds since the 90s. You know,

[Sam Cedar]

even though Eric Holder was DOJ, was attorney general, I mean, you

[Adam Serwer]

had that, that was real. Like, you know, you had black people in positions of leadership. You had like more black shows on television. You had more black actors being cast in movies and TV shows. Not like overwhelmingly, but there was like, you know, a significant change and there was this sort of, you know, this incredible reactionary backlash to it. I mean, whenever you see people complaining about like the Little Mermaid is black or something like that, it seems silly, but that kind of stuff is actually about labor. It's actually saying we don't think black people should have those jobs. And that's, you know, and now, you know, we're saying something like that when it comes to Congress, like this decision is most likely going to result in fewer in A less Diverse Congress, because 50% of the black American population lives in the South. So if Republican controlled states can simply wipe out all their black districts, because technically it's partisan gerrymandering, not racial gerrymandering, it doesn't violate the 15th Amendment, then you're going to see a lot of black representatives lose their districts. Now, I don't know how that plays out in the long term. I think stuff like this is sometimes difficult to game out because again, like, who knew that Donald Trump was going to crack the blue wall in 2016? I think that some people did, some people anticipated that, but very few people, I think really were anticipated it. I mean, things happen that we do not expect. So I don't necessarily know that this is going to go the way that they're planning for it to go, but it certainly motivated by a feeling of being threatened by the rise of black people in elite's place, in elite places where these people feel like they don't really belong. I mean, you can see that now with the way Hegseth is running the military, with the way the Civil Rights Division is being run, suing schools for having too many black students, like Yale Medical School for having too many. I mean, this is, I think the Voting Rights act is part of a broader agenda of elite resegregation that is itself a backlash to not just Barack Obama, but the more diverse elite class that emerged as a result of his election.

[Sam Cedar]

Do you think? I'm just curious about the idea of. Because we spent a lot of time on this program in the, in the wake of, of Trump and in 2016, and I want to say, like a lot of time, as in like four or five years, talking about the sort of, the notion of, of this racial backlash. And how much of that do you think was just a function of like, they shouldn't have this job, that it was economic as much as, like you have some form of. And not necessarily, you know, across the board, but there was an animus about not being centered in the same way in culture. Yeah, that's a big part of it. I mean, my example is just like, you know, I'm turning on the TV and all of a sudden like, why is this black guy on the Cialis commercial? That should be me, you know, who's getting that? Or, you know, because as a white kid, you're growing up in 1975, 1980, and literally everything you see, you are centered. It's either you as a dad and it's either you in the future or it's Your future. It's your mom or it's your future wife, or, you know, whether it's a commercial or a TV show, it's like almost all of them, and. And then all of a sudden, that goes away.

[Adam Serwer]

I mean, you could see it right now with this whole stupid controversy over the Odyssey, and, like, having black people in the Odyssey, like, you know, it's simply the idea. You know, it is a sort of, like, reverse cultural appropriation discourse. Almost like nobody's mad that Matt Damon is in Greek, but they're mad that Lupita Nyong' o is black. And it's really. It's just. It's explicit racism. It's like, this is our stuff, this belongs to us, and you shouldn't be a part of it. And also, you know, it extends. I mean, and I think the absurd thing about the Odyssey in particular is, like, when you start talking about, like, Shakespeare or antiquity, like, these are. These are materials that have been put on by diverse casts for generations. They've all, you know, like, Paul Robeson did Macbeth in Haiti. You know what I mean? Like, this is like a very old thing. The idea that the Odyssey explicitly only belongs to, like, white guys who were born between 1960 and today is sort of absurd. But I do think there is. You know, again, I don't wanna say that everybody who voted for Trump was motivated by that, but I do think that this ideological vanguard that surrounds Trump, when you look at their preoccupations and what they use as propaganda to sort of get people riled up and motivate people, it is this kind of, like, explicitly culture war stuff that has, like, a sort of serious economic undertone of, like, black people shouldn't have those kinds of jobs. Black people shouldn't be in Congress. Black people shouldn't be in movies. Black people shouldn't be directing movies. They shouldn't be showrunners, they shouldn't be in writers rooms. This kind of stuff, it seems silly, but then when you dig underneath, what we're really talking about is, to some extent, economic segregation in elite profession.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. And I mean, like, it still rings in my head. And this isn't specifically about the white supremacy piece, but it feeds into. It is when Trump won, there was some anonymous banker that gave a quote to the Financial Times about how we get to say the R word again. And, you know, that's about another marginalized community, but it's about a feeling of empowerment.

[Sam Cedar]

And they wanted to say, we are. We're allowed to say the N word again. They just said R word like a limited hang out.

[Emma Vigeland]

But, but the, but that banker is maybe a little bit not the base of his support, although maybe the base of his financial support. But the, the, the, the, the people, the evangelical base, the, the, the base of Christian conservatives that was always there and, you know, was Bush's base as well. That's why we shouldn't treat Trump as such an anomaly. Like he, his blondness, his whiteness and the kind of process prosperity gospel that he embodies is very much, even if he's from New York, a like cultural product of the south, the Confederacy and white supremacy.

[Adam Serwer]

I mean, if you look, I mean, the politics of, you know, if you go like sort of antebellum politics, the Democratic Party is very much about this idea of like equality between white men who are the head of their households. You are in charge, your wife and your slaves obey. And this sort of elevates all white men, regardless of economic status, to a tier of status above everybody else. And when you look at sort of, again, it's not everybody. I think a lot of people, sort of normal people with conservative views are put off by it. But when you look at sort of this ideological vanguard of the American right, they're really obsessed with this stuff, with this kind of nostalgia of this era when white men's enhanced status in American society was unquestioned. And that's not wholly an economic thing, but obviously there is sort of an economic base for it. I mean, it comes out of the culture of chattel slavery. But people, the way that economics interacts with people's ideological views is more complicated than a one to one. And I do think that that banker who you were talking about, that guy is probably not suffering economically, but he was suffering from a sense that he wasn't allowed to denigrate the people who he considers beneath him without suffering some kind of social stigma. And I think there are a lot of people who voted for that. I don't know that everybody did. I mean, you look at like they sort of the sort of broader economic trends across the world. Incumbent parties suffered similar setbacks as a result of the post Covid inflation. But there were people who absolutely voted for Trump because they felt like he was going to bring, and you saw this immediately after he won, this sort of cultural vibe shift where it was kind of cool to be a racist asshole again.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes.

[Adam Serwer]

You know, the way that they wanted it to.

[Sam Cedar]

As Elon Musk said, comedy is legal again. And so that. Let's talk, I want to talk about sort of like the the, the backlash to what we're seeing in both in terms of like, you know, what ultimately is going to be solutions are on the table. But I've seen, I think I've read something to the effect that John Lewis, when it came to those rulings in the 80s, had some hesitation because there was a sense that it would undermine perhaps the white progressive, whatever you would have called it in that era, and black progressive coalitions that would form. And I wonder if like, what your thoughts are both on the potential for that in the wake of this, but also, you know, as I read that in 2012, I think, I think it was, I had Glenn Ford on, who was the late Glenn Ford from the Black Agenda Report, who was arguing to me that, that Obama was in fact the greater of, of two evils and that the, the, the problem he had with Obama or one of the large ones was that Obama was undercutting the black radical tradition. That and I think, you know, radicalism being on a spectrum in terms of like, and I wonder if, if it was just Obama or, or if like the, the cbc, which is like surprisingly, I don't know what you want to call it, moderate, corporatist, establishment oriented, not radical, but not even on the spectrum towards radicalism in the way that we understand it today. I wonder if that's going to change the nature of black representation of the CBC or, you know, if there is like a situation where, you know, I think we could have surprises in the wake of this gerrymandering because of the nature of this cycle. Right.

[Adam Serwer]

But I'm talking, I think the serious critique of the majority minority district stuff was that these districts allowed Republicans to keep their districts rudder and to, you know, segregate off, you know, not in a racial sense, but to make blue districts in Republican states safe blue so they can make the rest of the state red. And you know, Democrats in those states were fine with it because then they had these safe seats that were sort of like fiefdoms that they could keep getting elected to. And I think that is the reason why actually that we don't know what the outcome of this is gonna be in terms of. You know, I think Republicans think that this is going to lessen the power of black voters and as a result there are going to be fewer. It will insulate them from the consequences of the Trump era politics they've embraced, which is one of overt racial discrimination. I mean, I'm looking at, I live in Texas, here in San Antonio and I'm looking at ads and it's like Chip Roy supports Sharia law. It's like really lowest common denominator, gutter racist stuff. And, you know, I'm not sure that that's going to work out precisely the way they want because as long as black people can vote, people are going to try to get those votes right. And so in a close contest, you may find some Republican politicians thinking, well, maybe if I appeal to black voters, that'll give me an edge over my opponent, especially in states like Louisiana, like Mississippi, where those populations really are substantial. So, you know, I don't know what the.

[Sam Cedar]

So wait, so do you think that it could end up moderating the Republican Party in some fashion? I mean, one of the problems we

[Adam Serwer]

have now is that possible outcome. I think the problem with that possibility or the thing that would, you know, that would prevent that possibility is that if this snowballs further than it already has, because what happened, you know, after Reconstruction was that black people were not immediately completely disenfranchised. That full disenfranchisement happens almost partially as a reaction to the coalitions that black people are making with working class white people and the populace. This really freaks the Democrats out and they go on a total rampage campaign of terror that ends in total black literal South Carolina.

[Sam Cedar]

They're killing politicians because they're trying to get Appalachian. The idea of like Appalachian whites, you know, more progressive and more populist, I should say, too economically, forming a coalition with blacks. They literally end up killing people in South Carolina and driving these politicians out of town.

[Adam Serwer]

It is an existential threat to the Democratic Party at that moment. And they respond to it, you know, with the tools that they and that the Democratic Party at the time is equipped with, which is violence and terrorism. And it works for a period of time. But I think again, there's a couple of things, you know, I don't think that they know what the long term effects of this will be both on either party, to be honest. You know, it's actually possible that the Democratic Party becomes more conservative as a result of, you know, it being of the influence of black voters being diminished in these areas. You know, that's what happened with the Republican Party when they no longer had a black constituency in the south to appeal to. But the other, you know, it really depends on like how much this snowballs. The disenfranchisement, the complete disenfranchisement of black people coincided with a campaign of terror and overt discrimination and the imposition of Jim Crow. So I think we don't know how this is going to go. I think it's unjustifiable, but I don't think it necessarily ends in a way that is easily predictable over the long term. In the short term, obviously, I think it results in a diminishing of black representation in Congress, which is the goal. But I just like the fact is that black people are never going to give up trying to be free and equal. That just, you know, that didn't happen, you know, after Reconstruction. It didn't happen with the, you know, the campaigns of terrorism that followed Reconstruction. It didn't happen after Plessy versus Ferguson. It's just not gonna happen because Alito wrote, you know, a stupid opinion justifying racial discrimination in voting. It's just, you know, black people are never going to stop fighting for their right to be free and equal. And so, you know, the fight is simply not over. It's just not the end. What effect it will have on the parties, I don't know. But I know that this is not going to be the end of the story.

[Sam Cedar]

I would also think that the dynamics in terms of white people voting for black candidates has changed in some very significant ways that both would, I think both impact Republican voters, but also, you know, like Democratic voters. I mean, I think there's just like a greater willingness by white people to vote for a black candidate in ways that we just can't predict in some of those seats. But with that said, obviously, there's going to be some type of political pushback or hopefully. What do you think are the solutions to what we're seeing now? I mean, I mean, I think there's

[Adam Serwer]

a number of solutions. One is that you need to pass another Voting Rights act and you have to strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear it. And you also have to figure out. You need to figure out a solution to the Supreme Court problem. Now, maybe that's a vacancy. Maybe that's adding seats to the Supreme Court. My view, and I expressed this years ago, was that the Roberts Court's jurisprudence on voting was interfering with the American people's ability to govern themselves. And therefore, the constitutional harbor of adding seats to the court was justified. Testify. And this is not unprecedented. Republicans will try to tell you it's unprecedented, even though they have occasionally done it on the state level. But, you know, during.

[Sam Cedar]

They've done three times in the past five, 10 years or so, I guess.

[Adam Serwer]

Yes. But, you know, even. Even during Reconstruction, you know, the Republicans take away vacancies on the court, they shrink the court so that Andrew Johnson can't appoint anybody and then they expand it after he's gone. So the idea that this is something that has never been done before is absolutely not true. And I think the issue here is not, it's not a question of policy differences. It would be one thing if the Supreme Court was simply conservative. But my view is that the Roberts Court is directly interfering with the ability of the American people to govern themselves, to exercise self determination. And that is something that requires a hardball response.

[Sam Cedar]

How do you fashion a new Voting Rights act where there is no jurisdiction like

[Adam Serwer]

the authority to, I mean, jurisdiction is stripping. The jurisdiction stripping is something I know

[Sam Cedar]

they, I know they have the ability to do that. But I mean, how does it, how do, in, in reality, how does that end up functioning?

[Adam Serwer]

I do not, I mean honestly, I do not know they're going to be like they're going there. There are a number of solutions that are much smarter people than me who have figured out, who have written up plans to sort of figure out how to get around the Supreme Court's jurisprudence in this area. I mean, when you look back at like Charles Sumner, his argument, he actually didn't think the 15th Amendment didn't, he thought it did not go far enough. And his argument was that the constitutional guarantee of a Republican government in every state already enfranchised all black people regardless of the amendment anyway. You know, I think there's a number of routes to do it. I think there is obviously no route that the Roberts, the majority, current majority of the Supreme Court would accept. They have six votes. They could do anything they want with those six votes. And they have shown a complete disregard for the effects of their rulings when it comes to voting. They've just completely ignored the effect of that they're removing the Voting Rights act protections has resulted in politicians trying to disenfranchise their black constituents. It just does not seem to bother them at all. I mean, there were a couple of voting rights activists who objected to Alito's characterization of black voting turnout increasing since Shelby county, since that wasn't actually true from Obama going forward. So it's misleading and it's misleading in a way.

[Sam Cedar]

Also cited a fact, he also cited a fake fact, I think in his ruling is my understanding as well, along those lines. Not only he said two out of the last five elections, you know, but those two were before they, they got rid of Section 5 preclearance. But I believe there was another like, sort of like statistic that he cited that came from the brief that was not, that was just not Factual. I mean, I guess the, I mean, I guess we'll. We'll see what, what the future brings in terms of this. It's going to be interesting. But the hostility. Oh, I guess I also want to add that their complete 180 on Purcell, the doctrine about like interfering with that

[Adam Serwer]

seems to totally give us two elections. Except, you know, when we want you to.

[Sam Cedar]

Unless they've already started, like, literally, unless they are. People have already voted. It's. I think it really gives away the game.

[Adam Serwer]

I mean, they sort of. Alito sort of tiptoes around the idea, but, you know, they're, you know, the outrage that a lot of people on the left felt when the Supreme Court was allowing, you know, obvious racial gerrymanders to go forward, you know, unconstitutional maps to go forward in elections on the grounds that it would be too confusing. I mean, I think their view is the reverse of that, which is that, you know, the maps that have, you know, like the Louisiana map with two black districts, that was racist. Getting rid of the second black district wasn't racist. It just, you know, adding another black district out of six in a state that is one third black, that to them was racist. I think Alito in particular, I mean, so the way to look at it and the way to understand it in my view is that it's just the old reverse racism canard, that these laws that are meant to prevent racial discrimination are themselves racist against white people. And therefore this is like a great injustice that is being righted. And that's why they're allowing these maps to go forward, regardless of their earlier rulings on the Purcell Principle.

[Sam Cedar]

Adam Serwer, author, staff writer at the Atlantic. We will link to your piece on the. On this Calais and the just sort of in general, the Voting Rights Act. Really appreciate your time today. Thanks so much.

[Adam Serwer]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Emma Vigeland]

Thanks, Adam.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break, head into the fun half of the show, as we call it.

[Emma Vigeland]

I like this. I am, if you don't mind me reading it, because I think it caps off our interview quite well. Carolina Commie says this conversation is why any leftist claiming a material analysis should participate in elections. The lazy, inane arguments that voting doesn't matter or change anything contributes to the manufactured consent for these Supreme Court decisions. And guess what? These decisions bring us no closer to any sort of Leninist revolution. We are left even more powerless, with no additional class consciousness to speak of. Lenin participated in elections to underscore their shortcomings. Abstaining altogether is just Giving the fascists an unnecessary advantage. I think that's just really well said. Voting is a defensive measure in that way, and it's defensive on behalf of marginalized communities. It's insufficient and should not be the totality of one's class consciousness, one's political participation ideally. And I know that's a lot to ask of people, but it, if you are politically engaged and you're thinking about things in that kind of way, voting is important to just protect people in a small way.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, we're gonna head into the fun half now.

[Emma Vigeland]

Okay.

[Sam Cedar]

You can support this program by become a member. Jointhemajorityreport.com when you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, but you also get the fun half. Yes, I understand it.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes, you do.

[Sam Cedar]

You can IMs and call the program also just coffee co op, fair trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use the coupon code majority get 10 off co op. Madison, Wisconsin. Matt is ill. Do we know what's on his program?

[Brian]

Yeah. Today at 2:45 left Reckoning is premiering on YouTube and Matt and David discuss AOC's take on the American Revolution before Ron Placone joins Matt to discuss AI, cluelessness, Zoron and politics in California. 2:45 today.

[Emma Vigeland]

Also just want to plug did it yesterday, but if you haven't checked out my episode of A Bit More Fruity with my dear friend Matt Bernstein, please check it out. He brought me on to interview Mallory McMurraw and it's, it's making the rounds. It's, it's. There were some, some.

[Sam Cedar]

I have like some non political friends

[Emma Vigeland]

who are like, my God, I know Matt, like knows how to market himself on social media. Not Matt like Matt Bernstein in ways that we could probably learn from. Although I guess follow Matt on Instagram. Right? That's, that's his big plug.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Follow Matt on Instagram right after you follow Mr. Brian.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

Mr. Who?

[Emma Vigeland]

Brian Vokey.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, Mr. Brian Boki. Right.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I mean, and me too.

[Sam Cedar]

I've, I've, I've reposted like three things.

[Brian]

That's amazing at all this woodworking.

[Sam Cedar]

What? No, I think I reposted one of your things. I know, I mean, that's okay.

[Brian]

I shouldn't have derailed.

[Sam Cedar]

I've done it. I've done it.

[Adam Serwer]

Hey,

[Emma Vigeland]

but please do check out that interview. I mean, I'm just, I, I love Matt so much. He's so talented and he's so good at like making people feel like. Because he's so polite and soft spoken,

[Brian]

takes their Guard down.

[Emma Vigeland]

It just takes their guard. And she hated me. It seemed like she did not like me. And her voice, her. Her tone would change when I would do the kind of more bad cop thing.

[Sam Cedar]

But.

[Emma Vigeland]

But the thing is, is that Matt's not saying anything different than I'm saying. He's just doing it in the tone that's a little bit more, you know.

[Brian]

Do you think she hated you more than she hates living in Michigan?

[Adam Serwer]

So now.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, yeah, that's. That was her big thing that she didn't like. Yeah. Hey, folks, don't forget we got merch shop.mainjuryreportradio.com People are talking about the Trump slump stickers. I'm starting to see those more at gas stations. Food aisles in the supermarket. I don't know.

[Brian]

I slapped one of my wallet.

[Sam Cedar]

There you go. Sorry about that. Brian got docked for yesterday. Also, don't forget. AM Quickie. AM quickie dot com. Get the news in your email inbox every morning at 9am Quick read. Am quickie three times a week. It's free if you want it. Five times a week. Couple of bucks, but it's free. Amquickie.com don't forget our Discord. We got like, I think close 20,000 people in there now. Maybe more. Majoritydiscord.com hype train seeing you in the fun half. Hype train Twitch. I know poggers, you are in for it. All right, folks. 646-257-3920. See you in the fun. Are you ready? Who sent us this?

[DJ D]

Alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Boy is back and the alpha males are back, back Just as delicious

[Sam Cedar]

as you could imagine.

[DJ D]

The alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Boy and the alpha males

[Sam Cedar]

are just want to degrade the white man.

[DJ D]

Alpha males are back, back I take

[Sam Cedar]

all of it to my throat.

[DJ D]

Alpha males are back, back, back, back.

[Sam Cedar]

Snowflake says what?

[DJ D]

The alpha males are.

[Sam Cedar]

You are a madman.

[DJ D]

And the alpha males are back, back.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, no.

[Adam Serwer]

Sam Cedar.

[Emma Vigeland]

What a. Whoa.

[Adam Serwer]

What a nightmare.

[Sam Cedar]

DJ D. Yeah, or a couple of them. Just put them in rotation.

[Adam Serwer]

DJ dinner. Well, the problem with those is they're like 45 seconds long. So I don't know if they're enough breaks.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's nonsense.

[Sam Cedar]

See, white people doing drugs. They look worse than normal white people. And all white people look disgusting.

[DJ D]

And the alpha males psych them them.

[Sam Cedar]

Snowflake says, what, what, what, what? What? What? What? What? What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what? Snowflake says, what

[DJ D]

a hell of a lot of bank? A hell of a lot of bank? A hell of a lot of bank? Okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of a lot of bank? A hell of a lot of bank. All lives matter.

[Sam Cedar]

Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus? I. I think that there's no reason why reasonable people across the divide can't

[DJ D]

all agree with this. Psych. And the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back? And the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, African? And the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black? And the Africans are back, back, back, back?

[Sam Cedar]

When you see Donald Trump out there, doesn't a little part of you think

[Brian]

that America deserves to be taken over by jihadists?

[Sam Cedar]

Keeping it 100.

[DJ D]

Can't knock the hustle.

[Sam Cedar]

Come on. Them things I do for the bigger game plan. By the way, it's my birthday. My birthday. Happy birthday to me, Jew boy. I have a starting point. Experiment for you.

[DJ D]

And the alpha males are back, back? Africa Are black, black? Alpha males are black, black Africans are back, back?

[Sam Cedar]

Come on, come on, come on. Someone needs to pay the price of blasphemy around here. I am in total.