All In: The Fight for Democracy

This film is a powerful reminder of (or introduction to) the shameful history of U.S. voter suppression, particularly in the South, where Black citizens were kept from voting for a century. And while the truth about state-supported suppression of the Reconstruction Amendments is upsetting, so is the fact that today there are still devious ways to keep certain populations from voting. White men can no longer get away with executing or lynching people of color who vote, but gerrymandering, voter ID laws (which limit what kinds of identification are considered acceptable and which aren't), and closing voting booths in impoverished and/or majority Black or Brown neighborhoods make voting increasingly difficult. As Abrams and various historians point out, certain types of voters scare the majority, so people in power will always find a way to try to block their votes, whether its trying to stop college students from swinging votes in a progressive direction or redrawing districts in shady ways to make it so that there are none with predominantly Black or Brown populations.

What's fascinating is that Garbus and Cortés have found actual footage of pundits and campaign managers admitting that their candidates won because voter ID laws and purges kept certain people from voting. The film also examines the lie of widespread voter fraud, showing how even President Trump's own task force on the supposed pervasiveness of it could find no more than 1,300 examples out of 138 million (a statistical non-issue, considering that he claimed more than 3 million votes were cast illegally). All In focuses on Abrams, but it also interviews academics, historians, and policymakers who know why and how the currently conservative-leaning Supreme Court has made it easier for states to suppress voter turnout.