A new Morning Consult survey shows voters doubtful of President Biden’s claim that Georgia’s much-maligned elections bill represents a regression to “Jim Crow on steroids.” Forty-two percent of Americans strongly or somewhat support the measure, while a combined 36 percent somewhat or strongly oppose it. Twenty-three percent either didn’t know or had no opinion. That’s in a sample with an 11 percent representation gap between Democrats and Republicans, to the former’s advantage.
The breakdown along racial lines doesn’t fit so cleanly into the narrative you’ve been sold, either. Thirty-nine percent of Hispanics approve of the bill as compared with 33 percent who disapprove of it. For African Americans, those numbers are 28 and 48 percent, respectively — not great, but certainly not the margin you’d expect if we were returning to the days of literacy tests and poll taxes.
In the social-media age, it’s often the disinformation and not the late-coming correction that is remembered and becomes common knowledge. Sometimes, though, the lies are so brazen as to insult the intelligence of and outrage their marks. It seems that, despite the best efforts of the Democratic Party and its enablers, Americans are for the most part clear-eyed about what the legislation does and doesn’t do.