Taking Back!

 Someone once said that writing is easy; finding the right words is hard. I’ve struggled with that most of this year.

I’ve written a lot of first paragraphs. Then something else sets me off. I write a new first paragraph on a different subject, and something else sets me off. I seldom get to the second paragraph.

If you can’t guess what and who is setting me off, you haven’t been paying attention.

Project 2025 called for as many massive disruptions to the government as possible, as quickly as possible. The strategy was to overwhelm the legislature, the press, citizens, and foreign allies. It is working, and that isn’t a good thing for the country, its citizens, or the world.

Where to start? 

My current lament is with three interknitted areas: Democracy, Government, and the Presidency.

We have done a reasonable job of being a democratic republic for nearly twenty-five decades. There were some not-so-good times, but we try to make the Union more perfect, even if it often takes too long to right the wrongs.

Democracies, by their nature, are not efficient forms of government; they are meant to be messy. They require constant discussion, forever disagreements, and the best-for-now compromises. The current administration doesn’t believe that axiom, and I’m not sure the out-party does either.

The current poohbah thinks he has the right to govern by fiat, executive decree. His minions do whatever they can to strengthen the role of the executive to the detriment of the legislative and judicial branches.

The Founders were afraid of such a strong leader. After all, they had just won a revolution that ousted a king. They didn’t want another one. We go back once again to Madison, who tells us in The Federalist, No. 47, that “ The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” 

Let us consider the purpose of our government. We all learned and maybe memorized the words, “…to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity …” To accomplish these great aims, Article I of the Constitution gives  the power to make laws and the power of the purse strings to the legislature. Article II instructed the President to execute those laws and spend the money as instructed. With few exceptions, a president doesn’t have the authority to spend money as s/he wishes or make laws by decree. S/He doesn’t have the power to dissolve government departments established by Congress.

It is a simple concept - the government is designed to provide services to the people. Providing for the general welfare includes having a strong public health component. It is responsible for the military to protect the nation. It should bolster the educational strength of the nation, preserve our natural resources and national parks for the pleasure of its citizens. It ensures a wide separation between religions and the state. It encourages basic scientific research, supports the arts. It encourages these institutions. It doesn’t tear them down or tear them apart. The current administration doesn’t believe that axiom.

Many of the Founders warned against strong political parties. But those that governed from the middle have been a strength for our democracy. They generally limit the ambitions of those who want to lead from the edge of the ideological wings. Calvin Coolidge told us that “It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man.” We miss that humility today and suffer the consequences.

While I tend to lean just a tad to the left of center, I’m registered as “No Party Preference,” but I’m wondering if that designation really fits my mood today. I might be a Libertarian for all I know, or even an Independent. The lack of a party affiliation allows me to put “a plague on both their houses,” without guilt.

The Republican Party began its takeover of the nation decades ago, mostly under the radar. They built strong alliances at the county and state levels, where election districts are formed and local laws enacted.

Donald Trump used the party to gain his first term, took over the party with threats of primary challenges for those who didn’t agree with him, accumulated successful oligarchs willing to bend a knee to change power structures in their favor, and smartly identified the angst of the middle class in the heartland who disliked the changing culture and that of the skilled tradesperson who had lost their jobs to other countries. He expertly attracted those who feared their white advantage was ebbing, to the point of carrying guns to a Capitol incursion.

All the while, the Democrat Party smothered its best and brightest in ideological quagmires that required fidelity to positions that never became vote-getting messages. They became the party of the university faculty lounge, the city elites, and the tech workforce. They forgot the farmer, the small business owner, the ones losing jobs to higher-skilled young people. They ran on issues the populist didn’t think affected them, and didn’t raise up the issues that did. The degree of loss at the Electoral College level devastated them to the point that five months later, they still couldn’t identify a leader or a message to take to the voters. They have cowered at meeting constituents in public; too scary for them.

So we are living in a dystopian era governed by a near cultlike group that tears at the strings of our institutions to unravel the very fabric of the nation only to be countered by a floundering opposition party that doesn’t know what to make of itself, whose ancient leaders won’t invite the younger crowd to the table or knows how to reclaim a vestige of recognition among the electorate.

So what are we going to do?

The saving grace seems to be the millions of people who are taking to the streets to protest the tearing apart of the government that they witness daily. It seems there is a big difference between voting for change and seeing destruction. The rise is an effort to remind those who support autocratic and oligarchic style government that, in the end, this is a country of and for We The People.

The Democrats don’t control any branch of the government, so they must rely on the people to rise up and for the judiciary to do its job. The opposition is filing one case after another each day that questions the legal authority of the president’s actions. They are winning most of them. Many cases are already at the appellate level. From there, they will move to the Supreme Court for final determination. Many of the administration’s actions are designed specifically to evaluate the limits of presidential power and seem to assume that SCOTUS will validate their efforts.

But we have this annoying thing called the Constitution, designed to rein in the bad actors in the executive branch and bad laws drawn in the legislative branch. Marbury v. Madison told us that the Constitution says what the Supreme Court says it says. Its power is derived from the willingness of the people to follow its rulings. It doesn’t have an army. But …

If SCOTUS hands down a decision and the executive branch doesn’t obey it, we will have lost our democracy for sure and may never reclaim it. That is a bridge too far, but the first months of the current administration have caused an upheaval unlike any since the days of Andrew Jackson or the Civil War. They want to test the limits of presidential power.

For the generations who lived with the notion that you get up in the morning to face the world and make it better, their ideals are being destroyed before their eyes. 

Where to start?

 Lawmakers listen to their constituents. Let’s make sure that we are heard. They will listen –

·         Especially if they are in the streets. That’s how the civil rights movement succeeded. That is how we can save our democracy.

·         We can pressure the legislature and the administration to change their methods. That involves demanding change and attending town hall meetings with Members of Congress.

·         We can pressure our aged leaders to give the reins to those who can relate to the younger generation’s needs.

·         We can demand that leaders are active on the social media that younger folks use.

·         We can insist that members of Congress hold live Town Halls.

·         We can fill the Letters section of newspapers, digital or pulp, with information about our aims.

·         We can attend opposition rallies.

·         We can  gather in small groups to keep like-minded folks informed and to gin up enthusiasm for action.

 

We the people haven’t been in the streets since the sixties and seventies. Most have forgotten how to do it, and at least two generations have never experienced rising up to demand better from our government for our nation. It will be a steep learning curve, but we can’t let the destruction continue much longer. Nor can we allow the destruction of our economy and the world order to continue.

 

 

 

Roe v. Supremes

Abortion was front and center before the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago: Dobbs v. Jackson Woman’s Health Organization. The case under consideration was a Mississippi law that bans abortions after the fifteenth week of pregnancy. The state legislature wrote it specifically in the hope that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Dobbs v. Jackson may not have been the most important issue on the December 1, 2021 docket. Democracy may have been on trial!

One side of the argument believes that life begins at conception and therefore abortion is murder. The other side believes a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy with few if any exceptions. Roe v. Wade 1973 upheld a woman’s right to an abortion. So much for context.  

One never knows what the Court will rule until it does, but based on the oral arguments, many believe Roe will be overturned. U.S. law relies heavily on stare decisis, (to stand by things decided). Lower courts rely on Supreme Court decisions for their rulings. It explains why SCOTUS rarely overturns its previous rulings. It has done so only 300 times in its history.  Few of those changed decisions changed the country, but there were some big ones!

We learned about those rulings in high-school history or civics classes; Plessy v. Ferguson 1896, and Brown v. Board of Education 1954 come to mind. How is Roe different?

Remember Marbury v. Madison 1803, when the Court said, “It is explicitly the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is,” so it was, and so it has been for over 200 years. The Supreme Court has no army to marshal adherence to its decisions or a police force to enforce its rulings. All it has is the respect of the people for the institution, faith in the Constitution, and an insistence on being a nation of laws.  If the populous believes the court is making unfair decisions, or that it is making political-based decisions, it loses its power.

 Change may be in the air.

For several decades some people played a long-game strategy to overthrow Roe. To do that they relentlessly convinced voters to elect them to state legislatures, to governorships, and to Congress. If they got enough control over government ruling bodies, they could elect a president who supported their efforts. It wasn’t hard to do. The pro-choice population didn’t see it coming until it was too late or they didn’t believe that anyone would seriously attack a ruling in effect for over fifty years.                 

Presidential candidate Trump vowed to appoint judges who were loyal to him and who would overturn Roe. In one term, fate allowed him to appoint three justices who were admittedly anti-Roe. Trump referred to them as “his” judges. And that is a problem, irrespective of which political party claims that “his” judges will rule for them.

Justices traditionally try to position themselves as non-political. The truth is that presidents nominate justices who are consistent with their political party’s positions and usually avowed party loyalists. Nominees pledge to congressional committees, however, that they can’t talk about cases that might come before them and they won’t commit to how they might vote in any case, except that they always say that stare decisis will be their north star; they won’t overturn precedent. Once seated on bench most adhere to that oath. The oral arguments in Dobbs, however, suggest that a fifty-year ruling will be thrown out the window.

 “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?”[i]

Justice Sotomayor identified the issue from the bench; pundits sounded the alarm across the political divides. Another institution that holds the nation together, that promises us a democracy, could be relegated to the trash heap of unbridled partisanship. Without at least the perception of non-partisanship, will the justices simply be mouthpieces for whichever party nominated them?  Will the court simply resemble the political systems of Peron, Pinochet, Amin, Stalin, or Honecker? In each case, “his” courts all ruled in favor of whatever the dictator wanted. We can’t afford the loss of this institution.

The Harvard University Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics survey of young adults released a couple of weeks ago, found that 52% of 18-30-year-olds already believe our democracy is in trouble or has failed. Seventy percent of Republican young adults believe the democracy has failed. Rather frightening is that nearly 50% of young adults seriously believe that there is a greater than 50% chance of a second civil war in their lifetime. Survey participants who lived in rural areas were more likely to feel that democracy is failing. Depending on which poll you read, between 50-64% of this age group opposes overturning Roe.

Civil rights cases argued before the Court always deal with increasing people’s rights, not taking them away. If Roe is overturned it will send shock waves through the nation. If one doesn’t think that democracy is working, if they disagree with government programs and rulings, taking up arms doesn’t seem that farfetched.

They tried it on January 6, 2021.

If the Supreme Court uses Dobbs v. Jackson to overturn Roe, rescinding an established civil-right of long-standing, it might well determine if we will be a democracy ten years from now.  

 

 

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[i] Justice Sotomayor’s comment toward the end of oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson, December 1, 2021