Operation Eagle Eye: The Insidious Genius of Republican Poll Watchers

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Republicans would send out ordinary citizens to challenge voters at the polls. Sometimes they would wear intimidating uniforms, sometimes they would carry cameras. The Democratic National Committee obtained a memo that instructed workers to stall lions and Democratic precincts to make them go slow. In one example in 1964, Republicans hired 40 private detectives to poll watch in Baltimore.

Republicans claim the election was stolen. They use those claims to justify suppressing people’s right to vote. All of it happening amid a national reckoning on race. Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson tell the story of a time uncannily similar to our own – in the early 1960s. And how it’s both a parallel to our present moment and the origin of conflicts playing out today.

Featuring Guests:

Rick Perlstein, historian, author of Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus

Sherrilyn Ifill, Vernon Jordan Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University and former President and Director-Counsel of LDF.

Jim Brosnahan, lawyer and author of Justice At Trial: Courtroom Battles and Groundbreaking Cases