Historian Douglas Brinkley is terrible at historical analogies. Just ten days ago, he conflated January 6 video with Holocaust footage: "But we have film footage of what happened on January 6, we have proof. Dwight Eisenhower, during World War II made sure all the Holocaust camps were filmed."
Despite that -- or because of it -- CBS Sunday Morning brought him on to politicize the Martin Luther King holiday. He boldly suggested that voting rights is backsliding to the segregationist days. "Why is it so hard for Americans to vote these days? It shouldn't be. After all, in a free democratic society, no right is more precious. The equation’s really simple: No universal voting rights, no democracy."
He showed old black-and-white footage of voting-rights protests in Selma, and the police beating the protesters, which caused a big speech before Congress by President Lyndon Johnson, who quoted the spiritual "We Shall Overcome."
Democratic Party hack/historian Douglas Brinkley smearing big time on CBS "News" Sunday Morning:
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) January 16, 2022
The GOP is dismantling the Voting Rights Act (pay no attention to court decisions). "Sound familiar? It should. It's the new Jim Crow." pic.twitter.com/UtAxKYQ8CR
BRINKLEY: In short order, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law, loaded with provisions ensuring that federal, state, and local elections would, at last, be free, fair, and racially inclusive. In the years to come, the act proved to be a triumph for freedom.
Yet in 2022, that historic achievement is being dismantled. Republican-controlled state legislatures are passing laws that impede voter registration, reduce early voting hours, cut the number of polling places in urban areas, limit mail-in and dropbox voting, and politicize how elections are run. Meanwhile, G.O.P. Gerrymandering of legislative districts is trying to lock in Republican control at the state level, no matter how many people vote for the other person. Sound familiar? It should. It's the new Jim Crow.
Nobody reviewing these scripts at CBS thinks it's necessary to ask how poll taxes, literacy tests, or most offensively, segregationism in general can be compared to current Republican legislative proposals. You can laugh at liberals claiming suddenly, voting rights became "politicized," instead of being employed as a constant liberal scare tactic to turn out minority voters.
"News" networks like CBS rarely tell viewers anything about what's in the bills. Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler at least described the contents of red-state bills, even if he failed to throw a "Pinocchio" at the Jim Crow smears.
CBS won't allow a rebuttal, as Kessler quoted Georgia's response: “Many of the provisions of SB 202 that DOJ calls ‘discriminatory’ and even ‘racist’ are the law in many states, including Delaware, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, and Wisconsin,” the complaint says. “Yet DOJ is not suing those states, nor has it sued others controlled by Democrats that have laws far more restrictive than Georgia’s.”
Brinkley concluded by sounding like an advertisement for Democrats pushing their John Lewis bill.
BRINKLEY: That's why the national rallying cry this Dr. King holiday should be "Remember Selma." Remember the sacrifices made then to guarantee voting rights for all Americans now. And remember that other great civil rights leader, John Lewis, who had been beaten by police on that Bloody Sunday and in whose name Democrats are trying to pass the new Voting Rights Advancement Act. As Dr. King said so powerfully in 1965, yes, we are on the move --
MARTIN LUTHER KING clip: And no wave of racism can stop us.
CBS wants to go to commercial with that assertion that the Republicans of 2022 are basically a "wave of racism." It went straight to ad for Novo Nordisk's Ozempic. The drug-makers have to tell you it may cause "nausea or vomiting." There is no required vomiting disclosure for CBS commentators.
