It’s a hopeful act to vote for a Democrat for state-wide office in Alabama these days. And an insurrectionist president, his complicit Department of Justice, and his reactionary Supreme Court majority are assisting in the dismantling of our once proud country and hard-fought election rights. They have made it easier for Republicans in state governments, like Alabama’s, to ignore both legal and moral considerations. The current American President is a scofflaw, a felon, a tax evader, a compulsive liar, a foul-mouthed misogynist, a failed businessman, and a warmonger (shall I go on?) and that makes his followers better able to follow their own worst instincts. What’s worse, they try to disguise those instincts as “conservative values” or, even worse, “Christian values.”

Whenever an election season rolls around, I think seriously about my decision to return to Alabama in the 2000s after several years away. The state is my home and I love it. But then, the political ads begin to appear and I am lectured about “Alabama values” and “Socialist liberals.” I watch images of politicians totin’ their guns and announcing their Christian values. One even says he’ll protect our Christian values alongside an image of himself aiming his rifle at something. A candidate for attorney general seems to think that the most pressing problem in the state is the “transgender agenda” while another wants to tell Muslims to Allahu Akbar their butts back to the Middle East. And the majority of them manage to sneak in an image of their orange idol, sometimes with his “complete and total endorsement,” and we know from history how long that will last if the “chosen” crosses the chooser. These 30-second indignities mortify and embarrass me and I take scant comfort in the fact that these atrocities are happening on screens nationwide.

Now, the ludicrous Louisiana v. Callais decision by the U.S. Supreme Court gave Alabama Republicans an excuse to challenge the Alabama’s court-ordered redistricting map from 2023 and stretch out this primary season from hell. That 2023 court-order resulted in a second congressional district represented by a Democrat elected in a free and fair election from Alabama. Currently, Alabama’s representation in the United States House of Representatives is seven Republicans and two Democrats. But Alabama’s Republican-led state legislature, which usually takes forever to get anything done, did not waste any time scrambling to get the gerrymandered Republican-friendly pre-2023 districts back on the table and Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, immediately called a special session to see how quickly they could overturn the 2023 map.

The Republican-compliant U.S. Supreme Court put a hold on the 2023 order and slow-talking Ivey quickly called a special primary election for August which will affect about half of the state’s counties and void the results of congressional elections for four of Alabama’s nine congressional districts held a few days ago. Kay Ivey and her Republican cronies are getting a do-over, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court. Incidentally, the two Democratic Congressional districts are represented by Black representatives. The Republican leadership talk like there’s not a racist bone in their bodies, but the facts speak for themselves.

The guv’nuh argues that “Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best. The United States Supreme Court’s decision is plain common sense and enables our values to be best represented in Congress.” Which begs the question: Whose values are “our values”? She certainly doesn’t speak for my values and I am an Alabamian. Nor does she speak for the values of most of my acquaintances. I am fortunate, I guess, to live in a purple suburb of a very “blue” city and the values I see advocated in the political ads and by the MAGA contingent in the state capital are contrary to the values I learned in Sunday School growing up with parents who, frankly, leaned Republican back in the day.

So Ms. Ivey, whose legacy of overseeing arguably the worst prison system in the country is firmly established, now has seized her “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” moment. In the past, I have been hesitant to use the “racist” label – a label which has sometimes been overused and abused. But now, I see that racism is the only explanation for much of what is happening in our country today. They may try to “pussyfoot” around it – to use one of George Wallace’s words – but Kay Ivey and her Republican legislators are now having their “stand.” This time it’s at the ballot box and, once again, it’s a sorry sight.