The only thing missing from the set of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes Thursday night was a giant whiteboard with lines connecting unrelated things. That was the manic energy Hayes gave off as he went on an unhinged rant proclaiming that the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Arizona’s election integrity laws were part of a decades-long plot by "every single faction of the [Republican] Party" designed to destroy "America's multiracial democracy."
“All six conservative Republican-appointed justices uniting to uphold voting restrictions in Arizona that would disproportionately affect voters of color,” he asserted. And according to Hayes, “making it harder” for minorities to vote “is the thing that the conservative movement is animated right now. It’s what they are radicalizing on.”
A short time later, Hayes accused Chief Justice John Roberts of orchestrating a gutting of the Voting Rights Act (Click “expand”):
You can't be against the Voting Rights Act without desecrating the martyrs who fought and died for it and the religion that built up around it. Unless – unless, you're John Roberts. The conservative, unelected chief justice of the Supreme Court. He doesn't have to have any voters vote for him, right? A lifetime appointment.
Well, in 2013 Roberts and the conservative majority invented a new constitutional principle to gut a key section of the Voting Rights Act, known as preclearance, requiring areas with historically had discriminatory voting practices to receive approval before changing any voting rules.
Roberts could do that without any political consequences. And in fact, he came up with this tortured ruling. The formula Congress came up with to figure out who got preclearance was indefensible. It offended the sovereign dignity of states. And he gave his fellow conservatives plausible deniability, because he then said, Well, Congress, you fix it. Yeah, law's still good. Congress, fix it.
“And what did we see? Predictably, a wave of voter suppression state after state after state that, otherwise, would have been stopped crucially,” Hayes suggested, without evidence but loads of Democratic talking points. “And that was the first wave. Now, it’s gotten worse. We've seen it exacerbated and turbocharged in the wake of Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.”
Decrying the reasonable provisions in Arizona election integrity laws, Hayes tried to argue “those provisions have a disparate impact across racial lines.” Adding: “They ran the numbers, they found that tossing ballots cast in the wrong precinct has the effect of disproportionally undercounting minority votes by a factor of 2 to 1.”
But that statistic was misleading because it only affected one percent of black and Native American votes each.
Hayes also suggested that “the Supreme Court's conservative majority” was “fine” with the supposedly racist provision, and openly admitted that he was refusing to share what the majority opinion actually said in favor of his baseless smear. “And I could give you the legal reasoning but here's the real reasoning. It’s because they and all other parts of the right are working in tandem against America's multiracial democracy,” he sneered.
He then spun a conspiracy theory that accused all of the conservative justices, including Justice Clarence Thomas, of taking the “polite” route to disenfranchise minority voters:
No, the polite way to do it, the way to do it if you're credentialed, if you’re a former Supreme Court clerk, or you're Mitch McConnell and you meet with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – no, the polite way is to use the official channels, to cultivate elite lawyers at the Federalist Society who get to become judges, and then become justices, and they get nice op-eds written about them – about all the people they’ve worked with, how collegial they are. And then you bring those lawsuits and those justices chip away at it.
“Just a snip here, a cut there, death by 1,000 blows until they have functionally done away with the single most important law in history of American multiracial democracy,” he said.
And as he wrapped his monologue. he parroted his own line about how “multiracial democracy is the thing conservatives are mobilizing and radicalizing against across every single faction of the party.”
Chris Hayes’s unhinged ranting and lies were made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Discover and Tractor Supply Co. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes
July 1, 2021
8:05:05 p.m. EasternCHRIS HAYES: Today, we saw it from the Supreme Court. The other branch of our government the conservative movement has taken over.
While the court made a bunch of surprising and interesting decisions throughout this term, today they reverted to party lines. All six conservative Republican-appointed justices uniting to uphold voting restrictions in Arizona that would disproportionately affect voters of color. And that's because making it harder for people to vote, particularly people of color and young people, is the thing that the conservative movement is animated right now. It’s what they are radicalizing on.
Today, the conservatives used their majority in the Supreme Court to further weaken the Voting Rights Act.
(…)
8:07:57 p.m. Eastern
HAYES: You can't be against the Voting Rights Act without desecrating the martyrs who fought and died for it and the religion that built up around it. Unless – unless, you're John Roberts. The conservative, unelected chief justice of the Supreme Court. He doesn't have to have any voters vote for him, right? A lifetime appointment.
Well, in 2013 Roberts and the conservative majority invented a new constitutional principle to gut a key section of the Voting Rights Act, known as preclearance, requiring areas with historically had discriminatory voting practices to receive approval before changing any voting rules.
Roberts could do that without any political consequences. And in fact, he came up with this tortured ruling. The formula Congress came up with to figure out who got preclearance was indefensible. It offended the sovereign dignity of states. And he gave his fellow conservatives plausible deniability, because he then said, Well, Congress, you fix it. Yeah, law's still good. Congress, fix it.
But he knew what he was doing. They’re smart people. He knew Republicans in Congress wouldn't do anything to revive the law. He just dumped the body on their doorstep and said [makes a face].
And what did we see? Predictably, a wave of voter suppression state after state after state that, otherwise, would have been stopped crucially. It would have had to go through preclearance if Roberts and the conservatives on the court hadn't gutted it.
And that was the first wave. Now, it’s gotten worse. We've seen it exacerbated and turbo charged in the wake of Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.
(…)
And then came this challenge to Arizona's law in the Supreme Court. The law requires election officials to throw away ballots cast at the wrong precinct. Let’s say you got two voting areas near you, two places to vote, you go to the wrong one, vote there, woops, it gets thrown out. It also makes it a crime for anyone except family members, caregivers, and elections officials to collect and deliver ballots to polling places.
Now we know those provisions have a disparate impact across racial lines. They ran the numbers, they found that tossing ballots cast in the wrong precinct has the effect of disproportionally undercounting minority votes by a factor of 2 to 1. Allowing someone else to drop off a ballot is particularly important for indigenous communities in Arizona.
But today, the Supreme Court's conservative majority said all of that stuff is fine. And I could give you the legal reasoning but here's the real reasoning. It’s because they and all other parts of the right are working in tandem against America's multiracial democracy.
Now, Donald Trump's version of that is more vulgar, cringe inducing whipping up a mob to go beat up cops and chant “hang Mike Pence” and storm the Capitol and go marauding through the building trying to find legislators they could beat to death maybe.
No, the polite way to do it, the way to do it if you're credentialed, if you’re a former Supreme Court clerk, or you're Mitch McConnell and you meet with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – no, the polite way is to use the official channels, to cultivate elite lawyers at the Federalist Society who get to become judges, and then become justices, and they get nice op-eds written about them – about all the people they’ve worked with, how collegial they are. And then you bring those lawsuits and those justices chip away at it.
Just a snip here, a cut there, death by 1,000 blows until they have functionally done away with the single most important law in history of American multiracial democracy.
I mean, we did this once before. The 15th amendment and it got killed. The only reason the Voting Rights Act was necessary is because a successful effort to gut the 15th amendment. And now we're watching them gut the Voting Rights Act. It's not the first time, people. And that's because multiracial democracy is the thing conservatives are mobilizing and radicalizing against across every single faction of the party.
