This is great and I wish everyone would realize it and keep stressing this. 100 people gave $50 million. How insane is that. The South was structured that way. In 1778 South Carolina rewrote their state constitution to make less whites could vote, not more. “Middle class” white landowners were eliminated; you had to be a real landowner and slave holder. In was baked into the constitution. They changed it 1795 to make it roughly the same. They started running the race of democracy by blocking blacks and “regular” whites from voting. You could say it’s cheating, of course they will win the race since they narrowed the field; or you could just say democracy was an illusion and this is really just autocracy. Did they willing change their ways in that state, one of many below the Mason-Dixon Line? No, the ruling elite seceded after multiple threats over the decades to do so if they don’t get their way. On December 24, 1860 they wrote and passed *their* version of Declaration of Independence, stating they ‘now take their place among nations of this earth equally’ because of “slavery”, the right to own slaves, slavery, and then something about *their* fundamental right to keep slaves. It’s a worth read and proves they ran their own race and would not let anyone else run in it. They were defeated. But they refused to accept defeat (sound like a story we know?).
In 1868, Congress -forced- them to adopt a democratic state constitutional constitution with equality backed into it, exactly what they fought against. They hated it. They fought literally against it, threatening, killing black American organizers and some whites who organized the vote for fair elections, until they won. Then the North, finally warn down, turned away. At the meeting to overturn the 1868 state constitution with equality baked into it, the governor stood up and said openly and proudly, victoriously, We come here today “with the sole intent” to disenfranchise the black voters (over a hundred thousand registered voters). Just before the vote took place, like in a Hollywood movie, the lone black speaker stood up to speak; it was ex-congressman Small, a champion of democracy and former slave who had literally steered his ship he captained with black slaves hiding below the floorboards in the bottom through confederate checkpoints during the war and into freedom by landing at a Union fort, freeing himself and his people from this carefully planned escaped. This lone voice of reason spoke up: Don’t do this, I beseech you. You have already killed 53,000 negroes since the end of the war, isn’t that enough” (the actual number he used was 53,000, the paraphrasing is mine).
But Governor Tillman and his white kind had killed to get to this point for mass disenfranchisement and they had no interest in turning back at the finish line. They wanted to show Mr. Small what they would do and did it. The vote went down like a guillotine blade during the French Revolution—smoothly and well practiced. And like that, as promised, tens and tens of thousands of registered black American Republican voters were eliminated from the roles. Mr Tillman had finally save autocracy from the jaws of equality and democracy. Law and Order was restored. His conservative MAGA party, as he boasted, had already won every election since the 1880s, and now, he was saying, we will win unopposed, with the majority of the voters from the other party eliminated. He was free to collect further rewards from his rich backers. The result was utter victory. His party did long an election after until 1965, and then it lost only to itself bizarrely enough. MAGA Conservative Democrat Thurmond quit in August 1964 under protest of that vile civil rights act and became MAGA conservative Republican Thurmond and then kept winning until finally he got so sick of winning he died at a 100 still senator in 2002.
The (white) state government in 1948 erected a statue outside the state capital to that great leader Tillman who fought valiantly for decades to save *his* state from the threat of “the Negro rule” (his words, not mine), where it still stands today to honor his fight against really democracy, liberty and justice for all. So do you think they will give up now? Hell no. There will be blood. The poor MAGA conservatives whites have been fighting in that army of whites for two centuries now, under Jefferson Davis and then under Tillman and under Thurmond who took his senate seat. They are conditioned to fight not to be black and keep the state white. That is their reward; and perhaps some jobs as sheriff or deputy or something. One way or another, Trump plans on winning, and the super rich keep backing him because they love his absolute white resolve to save America from the great replacement horde of darkies running over the border.
Thanks again for your struggle, your open writing to save democracy.