Longtime conservative pundit and New York Times columnist, David French, joined The Fifth Column podcast this week to discuss the recent landmark Supreme Court ruling that voided majority-Black congressional districts in Louisiana.

French and the podcast hosts, including Kmele Foster, spoke at length about Louisiana v. Callais, with French arguing at one point “that the basic bottom line of this case is: if you’re a smart racist in the Deep South, you can get away with it now. If you’re a dumb racist in the Deep South, you can’t.” He explained:

And here’s what I mean. If you are the dumb racist, you’re gonna say, “We need fewer Black members of the House.” You’ll talk about your racial motivation out loud, and in that case, under this opinion, once you see explicit racial motivation, you can act. But let’s say you’re a super smart racist and you say, “You know, I really don’t want more Black representatives, but because a political gerrymander is totally fine, I’m just gonna tell the court that our desire to diminish Black representation was actually a desire to diminish Democratic representation.” And if you challenge me on this, I’ll say, “Well, look, it’s not my fault that 92% of Black voters vote for Democrats. I’m aiming at Democrats. I’m not aiming at Black voters.”

Foster added, “But you don’t even have to be a racist to think that.”

French replied, “No, you can also be just a partisan Republican. But then the question is, in the absence of a confession of racism, how do you know the difference? And so the practical result, I think, is going to be that the political gerrymander, even if it almost 100% maps onto race, is going to be acceptable in the absence of a confession of racism. I think that would be the shortest, bottom-line way of analyzing the case.”

Foster added, “Gerrymandering is the concern. Why not just go after gerrymandering and institute some sort of national system that actually fixes the problem? Ultimately, the defect of the civil rights program was always to try and enshrine in law these improvements of society that are racially obsessed. That is the mistake.”

French agreed, “Lots of people in America are racially obsessed in very negative ways.”

“Especially in benevolent ways, in my estimation,” Foster agreed.

“Negative and benevolent. Trust me when I say the South, while having made a lot of strides, there’s a lot more going on there that’s negative than we might want,” French concluded.

Watch the clip above.

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