‘American Version of Apartheid’: MS NOW Analyst Bashes Trump’s ‘Economic Attack’ on Black Americans and GOP Redistricting Victories

MS NOW political analyst Basil Smikle vented the recent redistricting battles won by the Republican Party —  coupled with President Donald Trump’s “economic attack” on Black Americans — has the United States on the verge of looking like Apartheid Era South Africa.

Smikle shared his take on The Weekend: Primetime on Saturday.

The panel was discussing the Supreme Court’s ruling that race-based gerrymandering violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as well as the Virginia Supreme Court ruling on Friday that the state’s new congressional map was an illegal gerrymander; the map would have given Democrats an advantage in 10 out of 11 districts.

Co-host Catherine Rampell worried that even if Dems “win big” in the 2026 midterms, “we may be… walking into a world in which basically we are enshrining potential minority rule going forward, where one side can win 55% of the vote and still lose.”

Smikle said the issue is even more “stark” than that. He said the recent court decisions show “intentionality” by Republicans “to make sure Obama did not have coattails.”

“When we think about what’s next for Democrats on this issue of voting rights and redistricting… I get nervous, because there isn’t a lot of room left, right, to be able to, to, fix this,” he added.

Smikle then said the court decisions add to moves that Trump has made that hurt Black Americans.

He pointed to Trump reclassifying “certain jobs” where there are a lot of Black women, “making it difficult to get student loans,” and hundreds of thousands of Black women losing their government jobs as obvious signs the president is targeting Black citizens.

“There’s also an economic, you know, an economic attack on African Americans here,” he said.

“So when you put those two things together, to me, it says you’re trying to centralize — through our entire federal bureaucracy and have it trickled down to the states — the restriction of black civic engagement and economic empowerment,” Smikle continued. “That to me rings very true to, you know, an American version of apartheid that is not easily unshakable in in the near term.”

He shared his two cents after fellow guest, Hofstra Law Professor James Sample, is a “disaster for our democracy” — even though it is “probably right” from a legal standpoint.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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