“This is not 1960 anymore. It’s 2026.”
Rep. Wesley Hunt delivered that blunt message during a fiery hearing Wednesday as Republicans unloaded on Democrats and the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center over years of “Jim Crow 2.0” rhetoric surrounding voter ID laws and election integrity measures.
And Hunt was clearly done being polite about it.
The Texas Republican tore into Democrats for repeatedly comparing modern voting laws to segregation-era America, arguing that today’s political rhetoric has completely lost touch with what actual Jim Crow looked like.
Sitting beside giant side-by-side images showing segregation-era scenes next to modern Americans simply showing ID at voting booths, Hunt described what actual racial discrimination looked like in America.
“Jim Crow was a time when black Americans could not sit in classrooms with white Americans,” Hunt said. “It was colored-only water fountains. It was beatings in the streets. It was lynchings.”
Then the hearing got personal.
Hunt recalled how his own father had to enter restaurants through the back door in New Orleans just to buy a sandwich because black Americans were barred from using the front entrance.
“That is precisely why it is so offensive to compare that era of legalized discrimination and racial terror to showing a photo ID at the voting booth,” Hunt said.
The hearing itself centered around growing backlash involving the SPLC after outrage erupted over a recent Department of Justice indictment over accusations that donor funds were funneled toward organizations linked to racist or extremist activity.
Republicans argued the controversy raises serious questions about whether the SPLC has spent years profiting off fear and political division while presenting itself as an authority on extremism.
Hunt did not hold back.
“The Democrat Party survives on manufacturing grievance,” he said. “They want emotional manipulation. They want outrage. They want division.”
The congressman also pointed to something Democrats rarely know how to respond to: black Republicans consistently winning in majority-white districts.
Hunt noted that he, along with fellow Republican lawmakers Byron Donalds (R-FL), John James (R-MI), and Burgess Owens (R-UT), all represent overwhelmingly white constituencies.
“Nobody cares about what we look like,” Hunt said. “We are being judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character.”
For conservatives frustrated by years of “Jim Crow 2.0” rhetoric surrounding voter ID laws, the hearing quickly became another reminder of how dramatically the conversation around race and voting has shifted since Democrats first sounded alarms over Georgia’s election law years ago.
Back then, critics predicted widespread voter suppression and comparisons to segregation-era America dominated headlines for months.
Instead, Georgia later posted record turnout numbers — including strong minority participation.
Now Republicans like Hunt are increasingly arguing that comparing modern voter ID laws to actual segregation is not just inaccurate, but deeply insulting to Americans who truly lived through Jim Crow.
