It's Official!

Taylor Swift has spoken. A few minutes after the presidential debate last week. the most famous diva of our time, the headliner of The Eras Tour, posted her endorsement of Harris for President. It included a picture of herself with a cat – The Childless Cat Lady. Thankfully, her tour doesn’t take her to Springfield, Ohio. J.D. Vance says cats and dogs don’t stand a chance in that town. Anyway, it’s official now. The candidates can begin the campaign.

Does Swift’s endorsement really have an effect on the electorate? That depends to whom you speak. She has 284 million followers on X. Four hundred thousand responded positively within one hour of her posting. The November vote count will tell us.

The debate was a runaway win for Harris, but Trump thought it was his best debate. One wonders if it will have any effect on the final vote count. It is possible both candidates made some inroads with the undecided voters of the country, although only a little movement, based on network interviews just after the debate. So why bother?

The 2020 election was decided by less than one hundred thousand votes. Some pundits suggest that it will be even closer this year. That means the election comes down to a few precincts in a few states. All of the polls are within the margin of error.

Pope Francis said recently that we should do two things – vote and vote for the candidate we think is the lesser of two evils. That doesn’t give a lot of people a lot of comfort. He spoke from the point of view of the leader of the world’s largest Christian denomination and as an Argentinian, which gives him a different perspective on U.S. politics. So what are we to do?

Most voters believe they have an easy decision; nearly fifty percent want Trump again and nearly fifty percent want Harris. Half of the voters will be disappointed with the results. The candidates represent two different views of America. One wants to go back to a time when rural life and conservative values permeated the nation; the other wants to move forward to a more perfect union. One has been remarkably successful as the stormtrooper for those who consider themselves the forgotten, the passed-over, the regular folks. The other is seen as the representative of the coastal elites. Two things are true about those thoughts: only 17 percent of the U.S. population live in non-urban areas so their needs are often forgotten or unrecognized by the 50 percent who live within fifty miles of the coasts and/or the 83 percent who live in urban areas.

So it is going to be a close call. The emotions are high. Because we are a democracy we are subjected to contrary views every day, and that is ok. What I don’t like is the obvious way in which many in the Republican Party are buying into the lies spewed by many of the former president’s surrogates and the conspiracy theories that abound. Millions are convinced that undocumented immigrants are voting in big numbers and they support new laws to keep them from voting. It is illegal in every state for a non-citizen to vote and there is no evidence of undocumented immigrants voting. Some states are creating new procedures for reviewing all votes before the results are certified based on lies about fake votes and illegal voters. It goes on.

The election should be about the character of the candidates. Trump doesn’t meet the high bar required of a president. He didn’t the first time and he doesn’t now. Did I mention that he was a convicted felon awaiting sentencing and trial for another 30-plus felony indictments?

The election should be about policies and programs. Trump’s former staff, hundreds of them, helped the Heritage Fund write Project 2025, a 900-page plan to tear down our democracy and replace it with a strong autocratic form of government. Trump has demonstrated his willingness to favor the rich over the poor in tax codes and safety-net programs. He doesn’t measure up to the needs of the nation.

The election should be about the Constitution. Trump said he would ignore the sacred document on his first day in office. He has said that he would use the military to quell protests, which is against the law. He has demonstrated that he is unwilling to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. He showed that on January 6, 2020. He demonstrated that by his friendship with the dictators of North Korea, Russia, and Hungary to name a few, all known enemies of America or its institutions. He hasn’t met the high bar required of a president.

Kamala Harris has demonstrated a willingness to support the Constitution, to fight for the middle class, to disrupt our trek to oligarchy, and protect our civil rights. She may not be the perfect candidate but she seems to be honest and focused on more than the upper one percent of the population.

What are we to do?

First, we must vote. That is what a democracy is all about. In his book On Tyranny, Yale professor Timothy Snyder references a hero in a David Lodge novel who says that you don’t know when you make love for the last time, that you are making love for the last time. Voting is like that. Consider the Germans who elected an autocratic government who then started WW II. Consider the Czechs and Slovaks elected an autocratic Tito, or the Russians who continued to elect an autocratic leader. Even if we are unhappy with our current state of affairs, we must vote to protect our democracy, to prevent the destruction of our institutions. We may not all agree on how to do those things, but we know that those who don’t vote allow bad leaders to win.

But, we have a choice. If we want to keep  America great, if we want to preserve our democracy, if we want to write a new chapter for our country, and if we want to ensure that it is not the last vote, or the next to the last vote, the choice seems easy to make. Vote for Harris.

 

We Have A Choice

 The conventions are over! We have the candidates. In early November we should know who won the election for the most important job in the world. How so? The President of the U.S.A. is the leader of the first democratic country in the world, the most powerful country in the world, and the most relied upon country to help keep the world peace.

The first duty a President assumes, no matter the political party is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is the sacred oath that they take. They don’t take an oath to a god, they don’t take an oath to support a person, but they do take an oath to support the Constitution. It is their job to protect our democracy and in this age to ensure that a democratic form of government delivers for the people.

The nationalist populism movement is afoot across the globe and many in the U.S. have been sucked into its beliefs. Populism contains two primary claims: “True people” are locked into conflict with outsiders, including establishment elites, and nothing should constrain the will of the “true” people.[i] Nationalist movements generally fall into three groups: anti-establishment, socio-economic, and cultural. We see the Nationalism movement led by Viktor Orban in Hungary, Recep Erdogan in Türkiye, Donald Trump’s MAGA movement in the U.S., and Evo Morales in Bolivia, to name a few. Just last June, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party won enough seats in the Parliament to make a coalition government almost impossible. On September 1, the far-right Alternative Fur Deutschland Party won an election in the eastern states, the first time since the Nazis were ousted at the end of WWII. Nationalist Populism is a direct confrontation with our Constitution. But, because it is a worldwide movement and because MAGA has so many adherents in the U.S., we easily could lose our democracy and be subjected to an authoritarian administration that we elected, just as the Germans did in the 1930s. We expect our president to push back on these movements.

The second job of the President is to preserve and defend our alliances designed to keep the world at peace, and to fight against attempts of one country to invade others.

After World War II the U.S. led an effort to create the United Nations and NATO. Both were charged with keeping the world at peace and forming a new world order that included the notion that one country should not invade another. That world order was held until February 2014 when Russia invaded the Crimea. Again, in February of 2022, they pushed troops inland attempting to occupy the rest of Ukraine. Two years later they still hold only a small part of the country. Ukraine is receiving aid from most of the NATO countries even though it is not yet a member because if Ukraine falls, the rest of Europe is at risk of invasion. Article 5 of the NATO Charter states that if one country is invaded all of the other members will come to their aid. They came to the aid of the U.S. on 9/11.

The third job of the President is to uplift the people of the country, to be the adult in the room. They are asked to continue to build a more perfect union. They do that by supporting the institutions that weld the citizenry, which make us who we are. They uplift people by treating them with respect, by providing for the common good. And yet, even today we hear a candidate tout the axioms of the 1920s Klan boast that whites are “of this superior blood”… “upon whom depends the future of civilization.”[ii]

We are supposed to be that shining city on the hill, the beacon that beckons others, the glow from our torch invites even the wretched refuse of teeming shores[iii] to join our trek to a unified set of values. Those whom we welcome do not poison the blood of those currently living here.

If the sacred oath calls for the president to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, they need to do that. They can’t boast that they will be a dictator on their first day in office. They can’t ignore the non-political status of the Department of Justice; they can’t say they will use the armed forces to control the people who disagree with them or march in opposition to a government mandate. If they do any of those things they disqualify themselves from the position.

The U.S. is a traditional leader of the free world. Our treaties, pacts, and behaviors are designed to create a free world order where each nation respects the sovereignty of the other. A president should not say that they will ignore those institutions and encourage an enemy nation to do ”whatever the hell you want” to our allies. A person who would do that is not qualified to be president.

The nation's leader is responsible for at least trying to ensure that we are a united nation rather than trying to separate people, make them unhappy with others, heap scorn on civil servants, and try to upset the peaceful transfer of power and other institutional upheavals. If they can’t encourage us to experience the “joy that comes in the morning,[iv] why bother to run for the job.

We can stipulate that the price of groceries is too high and that gas prices are too high and that that makes making ends meet each month a difficult task. But those strains pale in comparison to what is at stake in this year’s election.

The Greeks taught us centuries ago to reach deep into the soul of our leaders. Socrates would be appalled by the current state of affairs. No candidate is a perfect choice for president, so we have to decide by comparing what we see deep down in the candidates.

One candidate is a convicted felon, found guilty of sexual abuse, accused of trying to overthrow the government, falsifying business and personal information to secure loans as well as interfering with vote counting in the last presidential election. And yet, he has tens of millions of people who support his candidacy. Millions of people are buying into the Populism charade plan, a reflection of the gap in perceived equal treatment in this country, distrust of the “establishment” and dislike of immigrants and minorities. They have heard the same lies so often that they believe them. Nearly half the country is willing to vote against our democratic values and accept the torches of the far-right to better themselves. They are willing to vote for a man who could not pass the background check for a minimum-wage job.

National Populism flies in the face of everything American. We have seen its destructive power that nearly wiped out the “greatest generation.” We have seen how it tore our nation apart years ago in the time of the Robber Barons and in the McCarthy era. We have never in our history had a serious candidate for president who was awaiting sentencing for felonies and awaiting trial for more offenses against our government. 

We have a choice.

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[i] Populists in power around the world, Institute for Global Insights, 11/17/2018

[ii]The Klan of Yesterday and of Today – Proceedings of the Second Imperial Klonvocation Held at Kansas City Missouri 1924, Hiram Wesley Evans

[iii] “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Poem on Statue of Liberty – Emma Lazarus, 1885

[iv] Psalm 35.5

Autocracy Blinked!

 There was one thing on the ballot in last week’s elections – Democracy.

Yes, there were real people seeking office, but they were stand-ins for the real issue. The candidates represented two very divergent views about America’s future, our way of life, and our institutions. In the end, we are still a much-divided nation on many counts, but more united about the importance of our democracy.

The U.S. Senate is split 50/49 with a run-off election to follow in December for the remaining seat. The House is nearly evenly divided, with leadership still in question. It may be another week before all the election results are tabulated.

 

In nearly every election, even in the “battleground states,” the losers called the victors and publicly conceded defeat. Civility returned to our election process. Sometimes the small things matter.

 

In the “battleground states” every “election denier” who ran for Secretary of State was vanquished. Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, and Independents, divided on so many issues, united to keep our election processes fair. Democracy prevailed.

 A couple of months ago the Supreme Court overturned a basic right that we believed had been settled fifty years ago. The court ruled that the Federal government did not have the authority to enact a law that allowed abortions because that right was not enumerated in the Constitution.

New voters registered by the hundreds of thousands across the country and then expressed their anger at having a basic right torn from them. In five states, voters approved state constitutional amendments and other laws that make abortion legal.

 Dobbs v. Jackson did more, however, than overturn perceived freedom. Two justices suggested that they would support overturning other non-enumerated rights based on the 14^th Amendment. That may suggest the possibility of overturning the right to gay marriage, contraception, privacy, and other freedoms we take for granted. It foretells a possible reworking of the Federal government’s relationship with the States.

Dobbs also puts stare-decisis into question. Our entire legal system is based on the idea that precedent is the compass for judicial rulings. What now?

Thirteen states passed antiabortion laws that took effect soon after the Court ruled against Roe v. Wade. Those laws will provide full employment for lawyers for years to come. It took fifty years for antiabortion supporters to reach the point where the courts were filled with sympathetic judges and justices. and it may take that many years to reverse the trend unless Congress codifies Roe into a national law.

The court’s reversal of Roe raises this question: If a court can tell a person what not to do with their body, can they tell them what to do with their bodies, which is the antithesis of freedom, as we have known it. Italy tried that approach. Napoleon tried that approach. Both needed more men to fight their wars. Both attempts failed.

 Our country has been tossed and turned in a not-so-good way in the last six years. Respect for our institutions was obliterated, our standing on the world stage diminished, and party loyalty was made more important than the common good and a court that demonstrated that basic liberties can be erased ever so quickly.

 David Brooks, a NYT opinion writer, speaks of the start of an effort to build a wall around the Nationalists’ effort to bring an autocratic government to our country. The people voted against extremism. In California, for instance, the proposition to enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution is winning in districts where antiabortion candidates are winning: democracy over party.

The stakes were exceedingly high in this election because it was about the future of our democracy.

 Democracy won.

 

 

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

Not Only in Denmark

Oh, that we had a modern-day Marcellus who could tell a modern-day Horatio that there is something rotten, but not only in the State of Denmark![i]  Following the ghost of a democracy that once was is not farfetched. It is happening across the globe, but frankly, I’m most concerned about our own experiment with a republic. Too pessimistic some might say; it isn’t as bad as you are making it out to be. Maybe my glass is half empty but it was at least half full not too long ago.

It is often said, and I’ve said it often, that democracy is fragile. It relies on faith in its institutions. They are what bind people together, they create an ethos, which says what we are about. Tear down the institutions that sustain us and you lay siege to the democracy.  

So what creates the dither, the doom, and gloom? It doesn’t start with the last election, but that is a good place to start. Think about a normal election cycle: candidates campaign, voters vote, civil servants count the ballots and announce the results; The loser concedes and pledges to help the winner make a go of it; The winner thanks the opponent for running a hard campaign. Then voters go about their lives until the next election. They have faith in one of our most sacred institutions.

A recent CNN poll, reported in Forbes,[ii] noted that 46% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans believe that our democracy is under attack. The drawback to a counterattack is that they can only agree that it is the other party’s fault. One party will tell you that they are doing their level best to ensure that future elections are fraud-free. The other party will tell you that all of the fixes will reduce voter turnout and make it difficult for anyone to vote: a power grab. More importantly, it is an ongoing effort to reduce people’s faith in the voting process, the institution.

I can’t get all worked up about voters needing a photo ID when they vote. When politicians tell you that people should not have to show that they can legally vote, they too are creating distrust in the electoral process. What I do get worked up about, however, are bills working their way through state legislatures that give them the power to overturn, invalidate, voting results that they don’t like. Over 50% of voters believe they will live to see a free election reversed by a state legislature. [iii] The rot grows.

Today, regardless of the facts, the majority of Republicans believe Trump won the election and that Biden is not the legitimate president. The divide is so wide and deep that thousands of followers gathered in Dallas a couple of weeks ago, flags waving and placards raised, waiting for the arrival of JFK Jr. (in hiding for the last twenty-plus years, not dead from an airplane crash in the ocean?) to help Trump take back the White House. He didn’t arrive. Last week they gathered once again to experience disappointment. The rot grows.

We and the rest of the world are experiencing a serious virus with new mutations coming quickly. Over 775,000 Americans have died from the Covid virus and the number grows each day. The previous administration’s program, Warp Speed, allowed for big Pharma to complete research, test, and bring to market very effective vaccines to mitigate the virus. The nation called on its citizens to follow well-tested and proven health care practices to reduce the spread. Simple things were suggested, wash our hands often, don’t get too close to others, wear a mask. Then when the vaccines became available, they urged us to get vaccinated. This is not rocket science, and it isn’t politics. It’s called doing our duty as citizens.  But too many resisted the call for national unity, for any number of reasons, and the virus rolls on, killing more and more each week. Many leaders encouraged people to get the vaccine but other influencers mounted campaigns to convince people that the vaccines contained microchips that would allow the government to track your every move or change your personality. People believed them. The rot grows.

A friend, in a recent sermon, referenced Pope Francis who wrote that we are experiencing a loss of “Common.”[iv] We have become a nation of “Me.” The virus crisis brought that to bear as people repulsed normal health practices by claiming that it was their right to decide if they wanted a vaccine and not the government’s role to mandate it. That makes good sound bites for the evening news, but it is not good public health practice. I hurried to get vaccinated as soon as it was available. But I confess that I got it to prevent me from getting the virus, without once thinking that I should get the “jab” so that I could protect other people. I too had forgotten the “Common.” The loss of “Common” is so widespread that the rot grows exponentially.

Congress recently passed an infrastructure bill, but along party lines for the most part. Those few Republican senators who voted for the bill were vilified by the party base because they allowed the other party a win; a win that was virtually the same as they had proposed when they controlled the Senate. Party loyalty is more important than the common good.

It is trite, I suppose, to quote Franklin continually, but he did say that we have a republic if we can keep it. It is also trite, I suppose, to cite the fall of Rome, a democracy that couldn’t keep itself on track after only 200 years or so.[v] Volumes of tomes tell about the city’s huge expenditures on the military, political intrigue, and ineffective government structure, and a rise in populism.  They too had rot.

Alexander Tytler, a Scottish historian, is an oft-referenced commentator about democracy. He proffered that democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. He suggested that democracies go through five stages: bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence to bondage.[vi] His writings, though written while the U.S. was being formed, were more accurate than we might want them to be. Projections, while usually wild guesses, sometimes prove accurate. Tytler said that democracy can only “exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury … the result is that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, followed by a dictatorship.”

 

Too much similarity to today’s America? Are we working our way from apathy to dependence or dependence to bondage?  It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? We experience armed civilians storming the streets and the capitol at the same time that members of Congress try to pass a bill that shovels money, largess, to everyone who might be in need. Somewhere in the mix, one can conclude that there will be too much rot.

 

Dear Marcellus, it’s not just in the State of Denmark!

   

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[i] W. Shakespeare – Hamlet, Act I, Scene iv -  “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark”

[ii] Andrew Solender – Forbes – September 15, 2021

[iii] Ibid                                            

[iv] Francis – Laudato Si, May 24, 2015

[v] Edward Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, 6 volumes, 1776-1789, Strahand & Cadell, London. While I would not claim to have read Gibbon’s six volumes, it is hard to get through much history without at least a glance at the library shelf and references in other history books.

[vi] Alexander Fraser Tytler, 1747-1813 – Universal History, Vol II – Tytler was a

 

From Here We Go Where?

 

Try to find a better place but soon it's all the same
What once you thought was a paradise is not just what it seemed
The more I look around, I find, the more I have to fear[i]

 I’m unwilling to live in fear. That is a hard resolution to keep. The last four years mystified me, but the last couple of months were incongruous. I never was afraid of losing our democracy. Sedition was one of those things in The Constitution that you didn’t spend a lot of time studying. Who could have imagined an armed and planned assault on our Capitol by other citizens? Then, we watched it happen. That was nearly two months ago and I’m still writhing.

Months before the election, Trump convinced his followers that the only way he could lose the election was if the process was rigged. He repeated over and over that early voting and vote by mail would be fraudulent. He claimed irregular vote counting and called election officials biased. The fix was in!

Too many people believed him and convinced themselves that he could not lose. He called his base of supporters to Washington to protest the election, and they came. He urged them to march on the Capitol, and they did. He told them that the Vice President could nullify the election, and they believed him.

When Pence announced that the constitution didn’t allow him to change the election, they called him a traitor. They raised a gallows in front of the Capitol. Their insurrection rose to the level of sedition, in the name of democracy. Hundreds of people were injured, many died, still, others committed suicide. Culprits are still being identified and rounded up for prosecution.

The House of Representatives impeached the President a second time. The Senate acquitted him a second time. Then some senators who had just voted to acquit talked about how guilty the President was, how he had encouraged the armed insurrection, how he continued to relish the actions of his followers. They knew he was guilty; they voted “not guilty.”

State Party leaders censured Republican Representatives who voted to impeach and Senators who voted “guilty.” Pennsylvania Senator Toomey voted to convict Trump, which he described as “doing the right thing.” It resulted in quick censure from county party leaders. One, Dave Ball, went so far as to state on television, “We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing … We sent him there to represent us.” The implication was that the party sent the Senator to Washington to represent the party, not the people.

James Madison noted, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.[ii] There can be no illusions that there was goodness in the storming of the Capitol in an effort to overturn an election. It was a planned abuse of liberty in a free country. What is unfathomable is that so many consider it “no big deal.” The divide is wide, the divide deep. The rot drains oxygen from the soul of the nation. Our freedom to vote and for our vote to matter is under attack.

We never know when something will be the last.[iii] We never know when our last vote will be our last one; ask the people of Germany, Italy, and Spain if they thought their last vote was their last one. Is last November the last time we voted in a free and open election? Will it be the next one, or the one after that?

This year legislators in 43 states introduced 253 bills to reduce voting access.[iv] One state has a bill that allows the legislature to pick the Presidential Electors irrespective of the vote of the people.[v] Others plan increased Gerrymandering to control voter results. Still others have bills to reduce voting hours, early voting, voting locations, and drop boxes for ballot return. Many are considering eliminating votes by mail except for serious health conditions. All of the voter suppression bills were introduced, supposedly, to help ensure that citizens believe that a valid election took place. Too many people ignore these efforts to abuse liberty.

Will state legislatures gerrymander the voting districts so that elections aren’t the free expressions of voter will? We don’t know. Will state legislatures squelch easy voter registration, eliminate vote by mail, the convenience of voting in a neighborhood precinct? Voting, the most sacred act of a free people is on the brink of destruction by people who fear the loss of power. “The evil men do lives after them; the good is interred with their bones.”[vi] 

We now know that the insurrection and storming of the Capital was not a simple case of protesters with an unexpected surge of adrenalin. There was collusion among Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Neo-Nazi cells, and other groups dedicated to the overthrow of the democratic process. It was a planned insurrection, it was an armed insurrection, and it swept others in its path. It was sedition.

How do we protect the vote? In nearly half the states voter suppression is an active movement, especially if the legislature holds veto-proof power. The only way to ensure that voters can vote freely is to insist that the process be open to all. Let’s start with the notion that all men are created equal. In our country, that means that anyone over the age of 18 should be able to vote, with very few exceptions. What does free and open voting look like?

Registering to vote should be easy. When a 16-year-old person applies for a driver’s license they should automatically be registered to vote after their 18^th birthday. If a person hasn’t registered to vote but wants to vote, they should be allowed to register on Election Day.

Securing a ballot should be easy. Every state should send every registered voter a ballot one month before Election Day.

Voting should be easy. Voters should be able to return their ballots to a nearby dropbox, to the election office, or to the polls when they are open. Those who wish to vote in person should have that opportunity. Many states have had vote-by-mail for many years, so we know the process works.

Voting districts should be rational. Each district should be fairly divided between party affiliation, races, age groups, etc. Some states already have bipartisan panels of unelected officials who draw the district boundaries. This reduces the likelihood of obscene Gerrymandering.

Write your state representative or state senator and tell them to ensure that freedom to vote must be preserved for all people. Talk to your friends about the un-American activity that some legislatures are using to reduce voter turnout, to control vote results. Support campaigns against legislators who vote to increase voter suppression; vote for their opponents.

Voting in America is controlled at the local level, for the most part. County election officials and state election officials administer the laws enacted by the state legislatures. It is at the local levels that voter suppression is taking place, under the national radar, and that is where it must be preserved.

 

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[i] Where Do We Go From Here – Chicago – 1969 Recording

[ii] James Madison – The Federalist, No. 63, 1787

[iii] Timothy Snyder – On Tyranny – Tim Duggan Books, 2017

[iv] Brennan Center for Justice, New York University – January 26, 2021

[v] The Constitution allows state legislatures to determine how Electors are chosen. It does not assume that that would happen after an election.

[vi] William Shakespeare – Julius Caesar – Act 3 Sc 2