T he ruling from the US supreme court destroying one of the last pillars of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) marks the end of a long and painstaking campaign to roll back civil rights legislation by two titans of the court’s rightwing majority, chief justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Acting as an unspoken double act, the duo have chipped away at what has been called the crown jewel of the civil rights movement. Wednesday’s ruling in Louisiana v Callais is the fifth major supreme court decision authored by the two justices that have slowly but surely strangled efforts to protect the democratic rights of Black and other minority Americans. The attack on section 2 of the VRA in this latest ruling eviscerates a critical tool that had been used for 40 years to prevent the political power of minority voters being diluted by largely Republican southern states in the drafting of electoral maps.…