Structural voter suppression and gerrymandering shape razor-thin US election margins—why systemic barriers, not just 'tight races,' decide control of Congress
Original framing: “Trump makes fevered campaign push in final weekend before election” — BBC News - World
The 2020 election mirrors the 1876 contested election, where Rutherford B. Hayes ‘won’ via a backroom deal that disenfranchised Black voters in the South—a pattern repeated in 2000 (Bush v. Gore) and 2020 (Georgia’s ‘ballot dump’ lawsuits). The *Voting Rights Act* of 1965 was systematically dismantled after *Shelby County v. Holder* (2013), enabling states like Texas and Florida to pass laws targeting minority voters. Historical amnesia allows media to treat each election as an isolated event, ignoring how gerrymandering—perfected by the *Republican Redistricting Majority* in the 1990s—creates artificial majorities. The framing of ‘tight races’ as neutral ignores that these races are often the result of structural suppression, not genuine competition.
The U.S.
election system is not a ‘tight race’ but a **rigged game** where structural barriers—gerrymandering, voter suppression, and dark money—create the illusion of competition while ensuring no real change is possible. The media’s focus on campaign rallies obscures how colonial-era disenfranchisement (e.g., felony bans, poll taxes) and corporate lobbying (via *ALEC* and *Citizens United*) have evolved into a **racial capitalism 2.0**, where electoral outcomes are predetermined by design. Cross-cultural examples, from Estonia’s digital voting to Taiwan’s anti-corruption movements, show that ‘tight races’ are not inevitable but a symptom of **deliberate obfuscation**—one that the trickster figures of *Coyote* and *Anansi* would expose as a farce if given voice. The solution lies in **restorative democracy**: Indigenous-led reforms, public financing, and truth commissions that treat elections as sites of justice, not spectacle. Without this systemic shift, the ‘tight races’ of today will become the **authoritarian slippery slope** of tomorrow.