South Carolina: “The South’s Inbreds Will Rise Again!”

Mitt Romney’s vulture capitalism has already spread beyond the blogosphere and into the mainstream media.  It’s part of the national conversation.  And now the same thing is about to happen to the red states’ voter suppression laws — also known as Jim Crow 2.0.

Dozens of red states have marched in lockstep to pass these so-called “Voter ID” laws.  These laws are supposedly necessary to fight the non-existent problem of “voter fraud.”  Millions of qualified voters will be prevented from voting by these new Jim Crow laws — mostly the elderly, people of low income, minorities and the young.  Be sheer coincidence, the people in those groups tend to vote Democratic.  How conveeenient.

This interstate march-in-unison voter suppression drive has been financed by Koch Industries (among others) and choreographed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  Until recently, this issue was confined to liberal blogs and a few non-mainstream news sites.

But now, with the South Carolina primary in full swing, South Carolina’s voter suppression law has burst into the mainstream media and the public consciousness.  The Justice Department has already started cracking down on South Carolina’s Jim Crow 2.0 law.  Republican candidates are dredging up the same tired “states’ rights” rhetoric they’ve been spouting since the Civil War.  This guarantees that Obama won’t carry South Carolina next November; then again he didn’t have a chance in South Carolina anyway.

But what about the rest of the country?  South Carolina voters will be perfectly happy to keep on keepin' the nigras down, as they’ve been doing since the 1800s.  But most of the country isn’t South Carolina.  When voter suppression laws are discussed over backyard fences and in coffee shops all across the country, how will the issue play out?  Or as the old saying goes, “will it play in Peoria?”

Meanwhile, back in South Carolina, the local rednecks are having a ‘bacca-spittin’ hissy-fit over the National Guard forcing public schools to allow colored children inside.  Er, I mean, the Justice Department cracking down on voter suppression laws.  Rick Perry — yesterday he was a raging leftwing populist; today he’s back to his old redneck self — said:

“Each of our states are under assault right now by this administration.  We may be under assault — South Carolina, they're actually at war with you.”

Yee Haw!  Let’s get them inbreds all fired up.

And last week Rick Santorum said the 2012 election will be the most important election since 1860.  He’s since revised that date to 1980.  Too late, Frothy — you can't un-ring a bell; you can't push the toothpaste back into the tube.