The Voting Rights Act of 1965 suffers another blow

Let's start with Make America Great Again (MAGA), that siren call to backward thinking.

- Mary Sanchez

It is a good reference point to understand the latest assault on the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A recent ruling by a panel of federal judges is threatening to pull the nation back to an earlier era, to a time when not everyone could readily exercise their right to vote.

Make America Great Again harkens to such a time in the past.

It's a motto, a refrain, a political slogan displayed on a red baseball cap. But at its core, the phrase proclaims that "back then" was better than it is now, at least for some. Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans, not so much.

Think about how poll taxes, literacy tests, and gerrymandered districts worked for decades to keep non-white people from coalescing around candidates who looked like them or who might look out for their interests if elected.

Back then, when people of color were targeted by racist practices and laws, most had few avenues to complain about the mistreatment, not realistically anyway, not in a polling place and most certainly not before a judge.

At least not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.