The New Dark Ages – Part 2: Voting or “How to Rig a Republic”

By Rob C.

Art by Bruce MacKinnon

TL;DR:
Welcome to the New Dark Ages—where truth is optional, corruption is policy, and voting rights are treated like an expired coupon.

The Supreme Court didn’t “fix” voting rights—they dismantled them. By gutting key parts of the Voting Rights Act and blessing voter suppression tactics like gerrymandering and purges, they’ve made it easier for a shrinking minority to hold power. This isn’t about fairness—it’s about control. When you can’t win voters, you restrict them. That’s not democracy. That’s the playbook for the New Dark Ages.

As affordability collapses and authoritarianism rises, we’re watching something remarkable unfold in real time that should terrify anyone who still believes in democracy: a full-scale power grab by the elite class, executed not with tanks in the streets, but through court decisions written in polite legal language and signed by people in robes.

Yes, the Supreme Court—or as it’s increasingly known, the Supreme Corrupt Court—has been hard at work dismantling one of the last guardrails of democracy: the right to vote.

And they didn’t even bother hiding it.

The Supreme Court—what increasingly feels like the Supreme Corrupt Court—has been systematically dismantling one of the last real safeguards of democracy: the right to vote. And they didn’t even bother being subtle about it. It began with the gutting of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the provision that required states with a long history of racial discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting laws. Chief Justice John Roberts justified it with the argument that “things have changed.”

Translation: Racism is over. Mission accomplished. Pack it up, everyone.

Of course, what actually happened was immediate and predictable. The moment that protection disappeared, states rushed to pass restrictive voting laws with almost comical speed. It turns out that when you remove the guardrails, the car doesn’t politely stay in its lane—it veers straight into the ditch. But according to the Court, unless discrimination comes with flashing lights and a written confession, it apparently doesn’t count.

This is just a poll tax with better branding.

“Colorblindness” as Cover

But they weren’t done. The “Epstein Class” needed more insurance. So,now they’ve moved on to attacking Section 2—the part of the law that actually prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Under the banner of “racial blindness,” the Court has now essentially greenlit a “free-for-all” for states to eliminate even the pretense of fairness.

Behind the soothing language of “racial neutrality” or “colorblindness,” which sounds fair until you realize what it actually does. Makes it nearly impossible to challenge laws that clearly result in discrimination, the Court has said that as long as you don’t use a slur while you’re closing every polling station in a Black neighborhood, it’s legally fine.

Ignoring race in a system built on racial inequality doesn’t create fairness—it cements the imbalance. It’s like declaring a race fair after one group started 50 yards behind and then banning them from mentioning it. It’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for Jim Crow 2.0.

The Architect of Apathy: John Roberts’ Long War

To understand why the voting booth is currently being treated like a hazardous waste site, you have to understand the man holding the caution tape: Chief Justice John Roberts. While the media loves to paint him as the “institutionalist” concerned with the Court’s “legacy,” Roberts has been a cold-blooded soldier in the war against equal rights since he was a young pup in the Reagan administration.

Back in his early days in Arizona and DC, Roberts was already sharpening his axe, looking for ways to erode the protections that actually made the “United” part of the United States mean something for everyone. He is the ultimate protégé of Paul Weyrich, the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, who famously vomited the GOP’s true philosophy into a microphone decades ago:

“I don’t want everybody to vote... our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

Translation: when more people vote, Republicans tend to lose. It’s not complicated. It’s not even hidden. It’s the strategy.

So instead of broadening their appeal, they’ve focused on narrowing the electorate. If you can’t win more votes, you make sure fewer votes count. That’s how we got extreme gerrymandering—district maps so distorted they look like abstract art. That’s how we got voter ID laws solving a problem that barely exists while disproportionately affecting people who are less likely to have access to identification. That’s how we got aggressive voter roll purges, where eligible voters show up only to find they’ve been quietly erased. And it’s how we got polling place closures concentrated in minority communities, where exercising your right to vote can mean waiting in line for hours.

This isn’t about election integrity. It’s about control. It’s about manufacturing a system where minority rule is not a bug—it’s the feature.

The Minority Rule Starter Pack:

Why this obsession with the mechanics of the vote? Why spend billions on lawyers and lobbyists just to make it slightly harder for a college student or a grandmother to cast a ballot? Because the modern GOP is a hollowed-out vessel for corporate greed, and they know—they know—that in a fair election, they’d be extinct by Tuesday.

The uncomfortable truth at the center of all of it: they can’t consistently win fair elections. Not nationally, not without lies and distortion, not without limiting who gets to participate. Their policies are a bankrupt collection of handouts for the rich and powerful that are actively liquidating the American middle class. They are literally bankrupting the country so they can sell off the scorched earth to their cronies. Tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, dismantling public services, stripping healthcare access, weakening protections for workers and consumers—don’t exactly inspire widespread support. You don’t build a durable majority by openly favoring the top 0.1% while everyone else is told to tighten their belts and be grateful for $6 gas.

So instead of changing the policies, they changed the rules. Limit the voters. Redraw the maps. Challenge the outcomes. And when that’s not enough, turn to the courts to bless it all with constitutional language. (Bush v. Gore) They’ve deployed a “Cheat Code” starter pack that would make a third-world dictator blush. What we’re left with is not a functioning democracy, but a managed system where outcomes are increasingly predetermined.

The Destination: 1885

What we’re witnessing is not just political maneuvering—it’s regression. A slow, deliberate return to a time when voting was restricted, power was concentrated, and rights were conditional. A time when democracy existed, but only for certain people. The difference now is that it’s wrapped in legal arguments and presented as fidelity to the Constitution, rather than what it actually is: a rollback of rights that were fought for, bled for, and supposedly secured.

The war on democracy is no longer subtle, and it’s no longer theoretical. The highest court in the land has made it clear that it is willing to dismantle protections that ensured broader participation, all under the banner of neutrality and tradition. But neutrality that protects inequality is not neutrality—it’s endorsement.

They are terrified of a fair election because a fair election means the end of the grift. As we descend into these New Dark Ages, we need to realize that the Supreme Corrupt Court hasn’t just issued some dry legal rulings—they’ve issued a declaration of war. They’ve signaled to the donor class that the “demos” in democracy is officially optional.

So, get ready to fight like hell. Because the people who want to own your future have already bought the judges who are writing the rules.

F*CK ICE. RELEASE ALL THE FILES!

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Robert Cain, author of Democracy for Sale: How Corporate Greed Is Corrupting Democracy and Endangering the Planet.
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