When you have a huge platform and shout 'Jim Crow' -- in a disgracefully dishonest and demagogic way, in this case -- some people are going to listen. Leftist heroine Stacey Abrams, who has steadfastly refused to concede her election loss in 2018, has done precisely that, along with fellow Georgia Democrats outright lying about their state's new election law. Once they realized that the ensuing boycotts and economic harm might not play well with voters, some of them shifted to loudly proclaiming their opposition to such efforts. Actually, please don't boycott our 'Jim Crow' state, they've pleaded desperately, having wielded the cudgel that was now hammering their communities. Too little, too late. The President of the United States, who has lied incessantly about the legislation, called on Major League Baseball to pull its All Star Game and draft out of Georgia in retaliation for a law he shamefully calls worse than Jim Crow. MLB obliged the very next day, having paid zero attention to the issue prior to the law's passage, then gathering zero facts from key leaders in the state after the die was cast. An estimated $100 million was yanked away from the diverse Atlanta area and shipped off to comparatively lily white Denver. For progress and justice, you see.
And in spite of more panicked begging from Abrams et al, additional pain is being visited upon to Georgia. Apple is reportedly pulling up stakes and moving its production of a motion picture starring Will Smith out of the state, taking revenue and jobs with it. The impetus, of course, is the voting law that Democrats and activists have mischaracterized and distorted beyond recognition. The horse is out of Stacey Abrams' barn, and she can't cajole it back inside. The Left built this:
Will Smith and director Antoine Fuqua will no longer shoot the movie “Emancipation” in Georgia, citing a controversial new voting law. The Apple Inc. production, in which Smith stars as a real-life fugitive from slavery who became famous for a photograph of his whip-scarred back, was set to start filming in Georgia on June 21, according to a joint statement Monday. The director and actor called the voting law “regressive” and said it’s “designed to restrict voter access.” “Emancipation” is the first major project to publicly break from the state, a popular filming destination because of its tax incentives and studio space. The move may inspire others to take a similar course of action...“The new Georgia voting laws are reminiscent of voting impediments that were passed at the end of Reconstruction to prevent many Americans from voting,” Fuqua’s Fuqua Films and Smith’s Westbrook Inc. said in the statement. “Regrettably, we feel compelled to move our film production work from Georgia to another state.” Georgia’s new voting law requires voters to provide a state-issued identification card when requesting an absentee ballot and limits drop boxes, among other restrictions.
This is deeply ignorant. The actor and director claim that the new law restricts voter access, even though it expands early voting throughout most of the state and restricts it nowhere. It maintains voting hours on election day and affords counties new flexibility to help reduce wait times at polling places. It also streamlines the process for tabulating early votes in a timely manner. It does not cut off voting hours to target working people, as Biden has claimed -- and it does not end (or even curtail) no-excuse absentee voting or restrict early voting on weekends, as Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) has falsely asserted. The Bloomberg article excerpted above correctly notes that it does require state-issued ID to request an absentee ballot, which is a common-sense provision supported by a super-majority of Georgia voters, including people of color. And while the law does limit drop boxes, that voting option was introduced as an emergency offering during a raging pandemic. Drop boxes for ballots didn't exist as recently as 2019 in Georgia, so it's a stretch to cast reasonable limitations on a new form of voting as a "restriction," especially as the law actually enshrines that new form of voting for the first time.
According to the Washington Post, the film will now shoot on location in Louisiana, where voting laws are stricter than in Georgia, in multiple ways. Louisiana also requires photo identification to cast ballots (again, a very popular proposition), permits slightly less than half the number of early voting days as Georgia now does (though still more than the zero days allowed in Joe Biden's deep blue Delaware), and does not allow no-excuse absentee voting (just like Chuck Schumer's deep blue New York). Take a bow, Apple, Will Smith, and Georgia Democrats. You've struck quite a blow for justice, or whatever. By the way, when I've made the point about how incredibly restrictive Delaware's laws are, as a point of comparison, some progressives have objected, noting that the Democratic governing trifecta in that state is moving to update their laws:
Delaware’s Democratic legislature is currently reviewing a bunch of election reforms, so this overall own (while fair rn) may have an expiration date. https://t.co/6NQFsZTDFg https://t.co/DPeHS6fXy9 pic.twitter.com/JFwRSSe9MR
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) April 7, 2021
This misses the point entirely. Democrats are moving to loosen their voting laws as an act of reactionary tribalism, just as some Republicans are tightening their laws for the same reason. Each proposal and bill should be debated on the merits. The takeaway is that for years, Delaware has operated under exceptionally strict rules in their elections -- including announcing each voter's name prior to his or her vote so anyone in earshot has an opportunity to challenge their right to vote -- without a peep of complaint, let alone unhinged histrionics, from leftists. Democrats dominate the state, and their existing elections regime has breezily re-elected figures like Joe Biden over and over again. If Georgia's far less onerous system is worse than Jim Crow, according to Biden, what does that say about his state? The fact that partisans are suddenly scrambling to pass new laws in Delaware doesn't obviate the reality that those laws have been on the books, effectively unchallenged, for years. The current hysteria in Georgia -- led by the president -- is wildly untethered from any reasonable context, and it smacks of glaring partisan hypocrisy. That's the point.
And on that note, I'll leave you with this: Has President Joe Biden weighed in on Georgia's 'President Joe Biden Jim Crow On Steroids Voting Act' yet? Has anyone even bothered to ask him? And then there's the time that Abrams voted for 'Jim Crow' voter suppression, based on her own ridiculous standards, which she can't even keep straight:
Stacey Abrams: Any changes to tighten voting deadlines or enhance security are the new Jim Crow
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) April 8, 2021
Also Stacey Abrams: It was OK when I passed legislation to cut Georgia’s early-voting period in half https://t.co/NvzTDgHuKZ