Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), at a House Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Manufacturing Hate,” demonstrated why he believes it is absurd to compare Jim Crow-era tacticsol with Voter ID laws. “Democrats invoke the pain of the past because they have nothing to offer for the present. They don’t want an honest debate. They want emotional manipulation. They want outrage. They want division, as evidenced by our discussion in this very hearing today,” Hunt said.

REP. WESLEY HUNT (R-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The talking point for the Democrat high during the day is that Jim Crow is alive and well in America, and I am sure that some of the SPLC’s actions have helped them make this argument. My first question is for you, Ms. Swain. In the 2024 presidential election, were you required to pay a poll tax before you voted? DR. CAROL SWAIN: No. HUNT: I have another question for you. When you went to vote at the voting locations, were you intimidated in any way with baseball bats, fire hoses, or dogs? SWAIN: The only thing that intimidated me is that in my state, that you have to ask for a Republican ballot or a Democrat ballot, and if you are in a precinct that’s predominantly Democrat, I think you would have a lot of fear. HUNT: Thank you for answering that question, ma’am. For my Democrat colleagues and everyone on the left screaming Jim Crow 2.0 like I hear ad infinitum, let’s take a moment to revisit what actual Jim Crow was. Jim Crow was a time when black Americans could not sit in classrooms with white Americans. It was colored only water fountains. It was beatings in the streets. It was lynchings. It was fear. It was public humiliation. My own father, who grew up in a segregated South in New Orleans, had to walk around to the back of a restaurant just to order a sandwich in the French quarters of New Orleans because of the color of his skin. That was Jim Crow, and that is precisely why it is so offensive to compare that era of legalized discrimination and racial terror to showing a photo ID in a voting booth, and it’s just as offensive when groups and organizations like these manufacture faux hate and racial tension, requiring identification to vote. It’s not oppression. It is not segregation. It is not racism. It is the basic standard that applies equally to every single American citizen, regardless of what you look like. You need an ID to board a plane. You need an ID to cash a check. You need an ID to buy alcohol. You need an ID to enter these very federal buildings, and by the way, attaining an ID in this country is an extremely low bar, but somehow showing an ID to vote in America is now considered to be Jim Crow 2.0. This is not about civil rights. This is about political theater, and the Democrat Party survives on manufacturing grievance. Democrats invoke the pain of the past because they have nothing to offer for the present. They don’t want an honest debate. They want emotional manipulation. They want outrage. They want division, as evidenced by our discussion in this very hearing today. They want Americans to fight each other because chaos is politically useful to them. Words like racism and white supremacy and Jim Crow 2.0. For the purposes of elucidating my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, let’s take a hard look at what real Jim Crow was. Check out this one behind me. You see, this is Jim Crow. This is what Democrats call Jim Crow. Next slide, please. See, that is Jim Crow. For whatever reason, this is what Democrats call Jim Crow. Slide, please. That is Jim Crow. This is what Democrats call Jim Crow. I know that some of these images can seem to be very jarring to many of us that haven’t experienced that over the course of the past 40 years of my lifetime. I never saw these things. I never experienced them personally, but I have family members who have and who did, and that’s why it is extraordinarily important for us to be very, very careful with what we compare to Jim Crow because this country has come a very, very long way. I keep saying this over and over and over and over again until I am blue in the face. I represent a white majority district along with three of my other black colleagues here in Congress, and you know what? Nobody cares about what we look like. We are being judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character because we have come a long way from this. I don’t want to go back to that. In fact, I want to continue on the path that America has set forward in the name of Jesus Christ, and I want to let people know that we don’t need to be angry. We don’t need to be divided. We want equality for everyone. Let me be crystal clear. This is not 1960 anymore. It’s 2026, and the fact that groups like these are willing to stroke the flames of hate by funding the KKK is absurd.

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