Duncan Hosie

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 did not die all at once, or by one means. It died through attrition: a Congress that was too sclerotic and polarized to defend one of its finest accomplishments, lawyers and academics who tolerated retreats on civil rights, a society that lapsed into the comfortable illusion that it had accomplished the work of the civil-rights movement. And it died through action: a series of blows from conservative justices ideologically hostile to the law’s aims.

The Supreme Court delivered a string of major losses for liberal Americans in recent weeks. Two in particular stand out: In United States v. Skrmetti, the Court’s conservative majority upheld a state law outlawing minors’ access to puberty blockers and hormones to treat gender dysphoria. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the justices created a new constitutional entitlement for religious parents to shield their children from learning about LGBTQ people in public schools.