Though it has yet to fully register as the national story it deserves to be, America is currently in the throes of what may well be the most concerted effort at voter suppression in living memory. Since the beginning of the year, Republican state legislators have introduced a deluge of new laws intended to restrict voting, suppress traditionally non-Republican constituencies, and overturn the results of elections.

Mother Jones senior reporter Ari Berman has been covering issues related to voting rights, gerrymandering, and democratic disenfranchisement for years and is author of the 2015 book Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Berman spoke to Jacobin’s Luke Savage about the concerted right-wing offensive currently underway at the state level, its deep parallels with similar efforts in the nineteenth century, and why failure to pass federal voting rights legislation will have dire consequences for American democracy.