Democracy won in November but the fight is far from over.
We need to remain vigilant and engaged until we rid our nation of this terrible cancer that undermines faith in democracy and divides us from one another.
I’m an optimist. A lifetime with a good seat in our political theater has taught me that our democracy is resilient, and it is beloved. This week in Georgia, Americans stood in line for hours to vote. Over the decades, Americans have protested and absorbed brutal beatings to expand that right. Over the centuries, Americans have fought and died to preserve and protect it.
We do not practice mob rule, but rather we govern by laws enacted by popular will, with protections for those in the minority, and with judgments rendered by impartial courts and juries of our peers. This is the envy and the hope of the people everywhere.
And our system of justice under the law, despite the current illegitimacy of our highest court, seems to be holding. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, who treasonously conspired to stop the certification of a Presidential election, has been convicted. Clearly, the oath he kept was not to our Constitution or to the American people. He will die in jail. Other courts have done their job too- The outrageous partisan appointment of a special master to delay the investigation into Donald Trump’s horde of government documents has been overturned. The attempt to subvert the election in Arizona was stopped.
And yet…
Despite our overwhelming success in the last election, there is still a terrible disease doing great damage to our democracy. In Arizona, Republican Kari Lake will not concede to the will of the people. Instead, she copies the Trump play book to undermine confidence in the integrity elections. She is not alone. Let me read you this recent opinion piece by columnist Laurie Roberts in the Arizona Republic:
“From the glass half full department, Maricopa County’s vote to certify the Nov. 8 election opens an entirely new grifting opportunity for the election denial industry.
And who but our own state Sen. Wendy Rogers to lead the way?
Within minutes of the (Republican-run) Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voting (unanimously) to certify the vote on Monday, Rogers had her hand out.
“I am Arizona Senator Wendy Rogers, and I will hold Maricopa County accountable for its election shenanigans,” she wrote, in her fundraising plea. “Help me get a new election for Maricopa!”
And by “help,” she means send her money.
Rogers' ideas never passed, even under GOP control
Rogers will head the newly created Senate Elections Committee in January − a job awarded her by incoming Senate President Warren Petersen, one of the architects of the Senate’s Cyber Ninjas audit.
Rogers is perhaps the looniest legislator ever elected in Arizona, an attribute that makes her uniquely qualified to chair a committee that has a roughly 0.00% chance of getting any of her “election integrity” ideas passed into law.
She’s repeatedly called for decertifying the 2020 election, an end to the state’s wildly popular early voting program, the arrest of elections officials for (non-existent) fraud and an entire laundry list of loopy ideas that have made her a national rock star on the hard right.
And landed her millions in campaign cash from all across the land − never mind that her proposals went precisely nowhere when Republicans controlled the state.
Now, suddenly, as Democrats prepare to take over as governor and attorney general, Rogers is vowing to somehow engineer a do-over of Maricopa County’s 2022 election.
That is, if you’ll give her $35 or $60 or heck, fork over $5,300 to her campaign.”
If Donald Trump taught us anything, it is that greed drives a lot of the attack on our democracy. Greed, and the ability to scare democracy loving Americans into believing that they are under attack by others.
Trump himself has amassed hundreds of millions in campaign contributions-- Money he did not spend to help mainstream Republicans in that last cycle.
Corporate greed led to the capture of the Supreme Court. That’s what Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told us here a few weeks ago. He walked us through the history, from the infamous Powell Memo to the disastrous Citizens United case that flooded our political space with dark money.
Now the court is back in session and wants to finish their job. This term they can finally fully kill off the Voting Rights Act. They can create a new law, based on a fringe legal theory called the independent state legislature doctrine which will take control of elections from the people and give it to folks like Wendy Rogers.
Meanwhile in Ohio- the land the democracy forget- 15 illegally elected representatives are heading to Congress, tipping the balance to the GOP. And that state’s radically gerrymandered legislature is moving to consolidate power by paring back citizen initiatives. These initiatives are statewide, so the gerrymander doesn’t impact the results. That outrage cannot be countenanced by those who would rule by fiat rather than by consent of the governed.
We need to remain vigilant and engaged until we rid our nation of this terrible cancer that undermines faith in democracy and divides us from one another. But let us fight on our terms by giving the widest latitude to our fellow citizens for protesting the actions of government and by demonstrating to the election deniers and to ourselves, the strength of values like tolerance, acceptance, and love.
Happily, democrats have proven faithful and up to the long fight.