All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
– The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
What, in essence, the Fourteenth Amendment states is that your rights do not depend on your ZIP code. The Trump Administration promises to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment in fact if not in law.
Obviously, that’s already started. While a woman with an unviable pregnancy doesn’t have to risk death in, say, the Northeast, most of the Upper Midwest, the coastal West, or some of the Southwest, that’s not the case in Oklahoma, Texas, South Dakota, Arkansas, and most of the Southeast. Abortion appears in the news the most, but it’s not the only area of separate and unequal.
Disparities by ZIP code are even more widespread. Superstar lawyer Marc Elias’ Democracy Docket chronicles attempts to suppress voting across the country. His firm has filed dozens upon dozens of lawsuits to ensure the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee of voting rights. Expect the federal government, not just the states, to get into voter suppression should Donald Trump triumph in November.
Obviously, treatment by police varies greatly by race and ethnicity and by state. However, African Americans and Latinos will see a chasm between their treatments in urban and rural areas. Police in small-town Mississippi arrested a civil-rights activist for having the temerity to investigate the cops allegedly racist practices. In this case of the Lexington, Miss., police, Biden’s Department of Justice is investigating, as it has in other police departments, including the Louisville police.
But, it’s already clear that policing hubristic, racist police forces won’t be part of Project 2025. As Reuters reported:
“Christy Lopez, a Georgetown professor who formerly served as a Justice Department Civil Rights Division official, said the department reduced its police accountability work during Trump's first term.
“‘There's no reason to believe that his administration won't double down,’ she said.”
Needless to say, LGBTQ+ citizens’ safety already depends on their ZIP code. Expect to see even the minimal federal protections on discrimination evaporate under Trump. The U.S. Supreme Court has already signaled that even gay marriage is on the chopping block.
And whether your employer can injure or kill you with impunity in order to cut corners or save money again will depend on where you live. Already, Florida passed a law that lets employers deprive their workers of water, shade, or rest breaks, even in the brutal temperatures global climate change has unleashed. Expect the rest of the not-so-pro-life Red States to follow suit, without the OSHA interfering. Trump will also revert to stifling unions as much as possible. Under Biden, the union victory rate is 70%, the highest rate in 15 years.
How bad will the disparity be? In 49 of 50 states, residents are protected from lynching. That’s not necessarily true in Mississippi. Expect more of the South to turn a blind eye to possible lynchings.
Whether you’re subject to polluted air or water, police harassment or violence, discrimination, or plenty of other is going to depend on who controls your state legislature and governorship. That’s what the Fourteenth Amendment was supposed to prevent. RIP, Fourteenth Amendment.
Vote in November.
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