The flags should all be flying at half-mast today. American democracy died last night.
I know many will say it has been on life-support for many a day now. Others will say, “you fool, it never existed in the first place.”
But it did exist so long as the path forward, the way to bring about the changes and reforms one desired, was electoral politics. If you could swing, through all the devices of persuasion, a majority to your side, you could take over the government and pass the legislation you deemed necessary.
Yes, that is simplistic and ignores all the veto points, all the obstacles put in the pathway of change. And it ignores how the system always excluded certain people—people who had to resort to extra-electoral tactics (civil disobedience and its various forms of protest) to make their needs and desires felt.
But the great social movements of American history, the women’s movement and the civil rights movement, aimed for the vote. They put so much emphasis on gaining the vote precisely because they associated the vote with power, the power to effect change. They believed that we had enough of a democracy, no matter how imperfect, that it made sense to engage in electoral politics—and that electoral politics was the road to reform.
Perhaps that belief was a delusion, but 2006 and 2008 seemed to bear it out. The country rose up against the lies and incompetence of the Bush administration—and grabbed the government back.
Now, however, we have a Republican Party in power that is determined to never let another 2006 or 2008 occur. Their simple plan is to render “free and fair” (that old cliché) elections impossible. Emboldened by the nation’s acceptance of Bush v. Gore, they have deployed every means at their disposal; they keep people from voting or nullify electoral results: voter suppression, gerrymandering, judicial or legislative over-rides of election results (taking away powers of elected officials if they are Democrats, as has happened in both Wisconsin and North Carolina).
Still, I will admit to having thought there was a limit to their willingness to turn elections into farces worthy of the so-called “people’s republics” of yore. Surely, even the Republicans needed the cover of “legitimacy” that elections provide in a democracy. Various pundits kept claiming that John Roberts was the bulwark against complete Republican destruction of our democracy. He cared, they said, about the integrity of the Supreme Court, about its standing above partisan politics.
Quite evidently not. The Supreme Court last night authorized a Wisconsin election in which thousands will not have their votes counted. The situation is Kafkaesque: in order to be counted ballots must be returned before they have been received. But the court’s decision is as straightforward as could be: we will validate election results even though thousands are prevented from voting.
I am heartsick. If electoral politics are a sham, are rigged from the outset, the only way forward is non-electoral politics. As Martin Luther King saw very clearly, that means either a “persistent and unyielding” non-violent mass movement or a resort (always, necessarily by a much smaller number) to violence. King insisted that violence could not succeed; not only were the odds against it too great because you will never get large numbers to join your violent movement, but also because violence breeds more violence as it creates bitterness and the desire (almost impossible to ignore) for revenge. It also turns off those sympathetic to your cause, but opposed to violent means. (I am channeling MLK’s essay, “The Social Organization of Nonviolence” here.)
The Republicans have learned (it would seem) over the past few years that they pay no price for their destruction of democracy. I venture to guess that life for most people in this country is just comfortable enough to keep them from endangering what they have by devoting themselves to a long, persistent struggle. Endangering their leisure time, their peace of mind, their jobs and livelihood. The reasons may range from petty to dangers to economic and physical well-being.
It seems that the death of democracy will occur amidst various howls of protest, but little more than that. The officials elected in today’s Wisconsin election will take office—and continue to wreak the damage that has been the platform of Wisconsin’s Republicans for the past ten years.
Unless a strong and effective dissent is lodged—and such a dissent will require sacrifices of time, comfort, and well-being—democracy will not return. Or, if you prefer, democracy will not be seen for the first time in this land. I do not see where that dissent will come from, where that movement will arise.
McGowanBlog 