A fellow whose son was on the Camden, NJ, police force told me years ago that white officers routinely referred to Blacks as “Democrats,” a euphemism that lumped together two groups they thought of as aliens, at best. My guess is that the Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court who crippled the Voting Rights Act last week would get along fine with those cops.

“You’re makin’ a big leap, Odd Man,” my neighbor Swamp Rabbit said after hearing me out. “Just because the Supremes demolished Black voting rights don’t mean they’re trying to demolish the Dem party.”

I told him to think it through. This is gerrymandering carried to its logical extreme. It’s the Supreme Court allowing states to make sure fewer districts have blocs of Black voters large enough to elect Black candidates, who tend to vote Democratic. It means Republican-dominated state legislatures can redraw districts to elect white Republican candidates so long as they can claim racial discrimination wasn’t their intention.

“So now the Republicans can kill two birds with one stone and pretend that they didn’t intend to kill either,” Swamp Rabbit said.

“Very good, Swamp Rabbit. Intention is almost impossible to prove.”

The new ruling (Louisiana v. Callais) is a big win for far-right “think tanks” like the Heritage Foundation, which has been trying to kill the VRA for decades. Bottom line, we’re likely to see even fewer Blacks elected in red states now that a main provision of that law has been neutered. The ruling, written by Justice Samuel Alito and backed by Chief Justice “Sneaky John” Roberts and the other rightwing justices, is likely to remain on the books as long as reactionaries dominate the Court.

On the bright side, Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas are very old and might soon be sipping mint julips with Antonin Scalia in Republican heaven (an antebellum plantation, probably). But Donald Trump will nominate other reactionaries to replace them if they die or retire while he’s still in office and Republican still control Congress.

Swamp Rabbit was half loaded, but he summed up the problem neatly: “The Dems better win big in them mid-terms or we’re all screwed.”

“Check out the big brain on Swamp Rabbit,” I said, patting him on his scrawny back. “Just don’t forget to vote in November.”