The foundation of our democracy is burning to the ground. It did not begin with Donald Trump, but he stoked the flames. The conservative Roberts Court did not light the match, but it has repeatedly declared fire hydrants, sprinklers and smoke detectors illegal.

The Republican Party has become a collection of arsonists targeting every part of civil society, liberalism and democracy. One faction aims at crushing the rights of individual citizens — shooting them in the streets of Minneapolis. Another works to co-opt large institutions — corporations, law firms and legacy media.

What unites them all, however, is corrupting the electoral process. Regardless of faction, suppressing voting rights and subverting election results is the responsibility of every member of the MAGA coalition.

All right-wing authoritarian movements need their false history — narratives that help them justify their actions. But there is something unique about how this happens in the United States.

We are a nation of laws, and the courts play an outsized role in our culture. Miranda warnings — including the right to remain silent — have as much cultural importance as they do legal.

Supreme Court cases don't simply resolve disputes between the parties before them. They do more than set precedent for other courts resolving similar claims. Major cases define the acceptable scope of policy debate and signal what is right and wrong.

These cases become cultural drivers well beyond the courtroom.

Supporters of the defeated Confederacy embraced the myth of the Lost Cause, but without Plessy v. Ferguson, the South would not have had the legal or moral authority to impose Jim Crow.

When a violent mob ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, Trump was initially seen as a disgraced figure. It was the Supreme Court's immunity decision that permitted him both to escape legal accountability and to be recast in right-wing culture as a victim.

We are now witnessing the latest instance of a Supreme Court decision creating a legal and cultural permission structure to attack democracy.

The day after Louisiana v. Callais was released, Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking them to identify and challenge Voting Rights Act districts nationwide. Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees civil rights at the DOJ, responded on social media, "Senator — we are ON IT."

The speed of that response explains exactly what the Court had just set in motion. But Schmitt's letter revealed something more.

In a telling sign of his true motive, Schmitt singled out California — a state whose congressional map was driven by partisan, not racial, considerations. These aren’t VRA districts, but that doesn’t matter to Schmitt.

For Republicans, “VRA districts” is an excuse to investigate places where minority voters live and exercise political power.

And, as you can imagine, following Callais, we are watching a GOP frenzy to strip Black voters of their political power. In state after state, Republicans are declaring all seats held by Black Democrats unconstitutional. Any district where Black voters have been able to elect their candidate of choice is being targeted with a gleeful vengeance reminiscent of the mob on Jan. 6.

We are already seeing worrying signs that the culture is adopting this framing. Over the last few days, reporters and pundits have adopted a shorthand: If a district has a significant number of Black voters and has elected a Black member, it must be a VRA district and thus a legitimate target for erasure.

This is how the Supreme Court creates a culture of anti-voting.

In his majority opinion, Justice Alito went to great pains to say that the Court was affirming the constitutionality of the VRA and declaring for the first time that race may, in some circumstances, be used to draw congressional districts. Yet these words were drowned out by the dog whistle message that the Court was approving the aggressive dismantling of a multiracial democracy.

That is what Schmitt heard. It is what the DOJ heard. It is what Republican legislators around the country heard.

Despite notable setbacks, the pro-democracy movement continues to rack up key court wins, and Donald Trump's poll numbers continue to sink. But we make a mistake to think the GOP will be satisfied simply with targeting minorities. They are happy to see democracy burn to the ground. They are in the thrall of a man who wants to be a dictator.

What has me worried — what we all need to focus on — is that something important in our democracy broke last week, and we are only beginning to see the fallout. The winners will be a Republican Party that is hostile to democracy.

The immediate losers will be minority voters who are already facing a barrage of efforts to disenfranchise them. But in the long run, all of us who want a representative democracy and free and fair elections will lose out.

That is why we must fight back.

The Roberts Court did not invent the GOP's war on multiracial democracy. But it keeps issuing the permits.

That is the lesson of Plessy. That is the lesson of the immunity decision. And that is the lesson of Callais.

Lawyers and commentators need to recognize that in Court opinions the dog whistle is too often louder than the fine print. The culture moves before the next set of lawsuits can even be filed.

We are in that critical window right now. Republican legislators are already redrawing maps. In some cases, they’re redrawing maps mid-election. The DOJ has already signaled it will help them. And, most importantly, the media is already starting to use the GOP’s framing.

Stopping this assault on democracy is not primarily a legal task, though the legal fights can matter enormously. It is a cultural one.

The fire is not coming; it's burning hot, and the GOP is fanning its flames. The question is whether enough of us are willing to stand up for free and fair elections — plainly, loudly and without qualification — before the permission structure of Callais hardens into culture, and the culture decides this is simply how things are.