Warning: Ending democracy & growing fascism is the goal of McCarthy’s House Republicans.
Those of us who love democracy must continue to prove that it works and is actively bettering the lives of Americans.
We begin again. A new year. A new Congress. A new election cycle. But novelty, newness, the sense of embarking on a voyage for the first time is a joy reserved for the young. We old veterans just see more of the same.
Last year, against great odds, Americans everywhere fought and won battles against those who would replace our democracy with some other form of government they never dared to name. In the face of deniers, we preserved the integrity of elections. Under attack by a partisan and political Supreme Court, we affirmed our belief that government is about protecting our rights, not taking them. To those who would tear down government by pretending that elections are only about politics, we said, no, governing is real work, and we need to get it done.
I am very proud of our work last year. But as this year began and we all watched Kevin McCarthy and what remains of the GOP capitulate to its MAGA base, a collapse affirmed late in the evening on the anniversary of the battle of January 6th, I was reminded of a timeless truth about democracy.
On November 4, 1938, Franklin Roosevelt said this: “I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.”
The election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker is not a capitulation of the center to a more conservative right. Many of the most conservative members of the House were in McCarthy’s corner all along. It is, instead, a capitulation of those who believe the House should govern to those who believe it should not. The base to which the GOP capitulated is an election denying, anti-democracy movement. There is simply not a majority within the GOP to uphold the oaths they all swore. Too many of them raised their hands and lied- they will not preserve and protect the constitution. Never forget: Hundreds of them voted to overturn the results of the Presidential election two years ago. It is a terrible thing, but we must see it for what it is: The end of democracy, the growth of a new fascism, is the goal of the majority party in the United State House of Representatives.
And, recalling Roosevelt, all it takes is to stop us from bettering the lot of our citizens by governing well.
At the very same time this MAGA coup overtook the House GOP, President Biden, VP Harris, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg, as well Senate GOP leaders like Mitch McConnel, traveled the country to tout the benefits of the bi-partisan infrastructure bill.
And there we see it. The President is on the road reminding Americans that democracy is still a living force, seeking and succeeding by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens.
The now concluded 117th Congress, with its tiny Democratic majorities and facing massive and well-funded attacks, rose to the occasion giving us not just infrastructure, but laws to fight climate change, and to re-boot American manufacturing, particularly of high end computer chips, to improve health care and lower its costs, to protect marriage and to make us a little bit safer from the random carnage of gun violence. President Biden and the 117th Congress also succeeded in shoring up the independence of the judiciary which has been under sustained attack by the right for decades.
In state after state, though not in every state, we saw similar examples of vibrant democracies bettering our lives.
We must take every opportunity to remind America what our democracy can do to better our lives, because the House GOP will do all that it can to prove that democracy cannot work. Roosevelt’s challenge is perpetual. He told us that if we stop moving forward, the democracy dies.
It is not an equal burden. Those who love democracy must prove it works. Its detractors have the far easier task of simply delaying, distracting, opting for an easy kind of politics of the hard work of governing.
And so the 118th Congress begins as hostage to those forces.
It will be another year of hard work, both political and governmental.
Roosevelt called democracy a living force. We need to understand that as the sum of what each of does with our individual lives, not as some fantasy-soaked-mass-produced idea of what America is. We are just us, you, me, and millions of our neighbors. That means that American democracy is in your hands. I am optimistic because, I know the great majority of you will use those hands for good.