Democracy – Sheila Kennedy

Reclaiming America

In the wake of the November election, I can’t count the number of friends and family members who have declared a moratorium on political news–who have taken a “time out” in order to protect their equilibrium/sanity and avoid descending into depression.

I will admit that I have dialed back my usual immersion in the news, for the same reason. It really has been an act of self-preservation to take a vacation from the evidence that so many Americans have dismissed the ideals of our founding, and are willing to close their eyes to threats posed to the principles that truly did make America great.

But a vacation is not a departure, and it’s time to determine how each of us can contribute to a massive uprising of people who may have different political affiliations and/or policy goals, but who agree on the importance of protecting civil liberties and participatory democracy in the face of the grifters, autocrats and racists–elected and otherwise– who are preparing to assume control of the government.

If those of you reading this are like me, your inbox has been filling up with notices from political and nonprofit organizations, both local and national, outlining their preparations for sustained activism in the face of those threats. One example–Democracy 2025–lists 280+ member organizations, and over 800 Lawyers, advocates, and experts already engaged in the work.

Despite claims, no President or their allies can just snap their fingers to implement an anti-democratic vision. Our laws and Constitution provide real protections and tools through the courts and in our communities to stop abuses of power and harms to people. Still, these threats are real, so we’re prepared to confront them.

Learn more about the threats we’ve identified, and check back often as we release additional analysis, tracking, and tools to respond.

I’ve received dozens of other, similar announcements, although none with as extensive a list of participants.

Local organizations–including numerous bipartisan and nonpartisan ones– are also gearing up to defend fundamental constitutional values, recognizing that what we are facing is not a partisan political confrontation, but a civic, social and indisputably moral conflict. We can go back to arguing about politics and policy when we have restored the rule of law and respect for time-honored democratic norms.

As Mark Twain once wrote: Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

A group of local organizations that define patriotism as Twain did is planning a rally at University Park, in downtown Indianapolis, on January 20th–the same day as the Inauguration and also, coincidentally, Martin Luther King, Jr. day. The rally is intended to reaffirm attendees’ commitment to King’s vision and opposition to the restoration of White Nationalism and patriarchy. There will be uplifting music, readings that remind us of America’s historical aspirations, and messages from clergy of different faith traditions. (Yours truly will also participate in the program.)

We will pledge allegiance to the America we love and believe in–a generous and welcoming country devoted to liberty, inclusion and equal civic participation.

The rally– titled Reclaim, Rebuild and Resist– will begin at 10:00 a.m and end at noon. It is intended to demonstrate a firm and unyielding commitment to the principles of liberty and equality enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and espoused by Dr. King—to reaffirm our support for the original American motto: e pluribus unum (out of the many, one), and our concerns for the threats posed by members of the incoming state and federal administrations to the values of inclusion, equality and the rule of law.

We will pledge to reclaim the visions of Dr. King and other social justice warriors, to help in efforts to rebuild and reinforce America’s democratic institutions, and resist attacks on foundational American values from any and all sources.

If you live in central Indiana, I hope you will attend. And bring your friends and families.

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Hopelessly Undemocratic Indiana

We can’t “save” a democracy we’ve already lost. (See yesterday’s post.) The real question is: can we regain it?

Indiana is a case in point. Extreme gerrymandering ensures a Republican legislative supermajority–not simply because lawmakers have distributed voters to ensure GOP dominance, but because that tactic is far and away the most effective form of voter suppression. There’s a reason Indiana’s turnout is one of the lowest in the country; voters deprived of competitive contests see no reason to cast a ballot. (What’s ironic is that several of these districts would actually be competitive if turnout increased…)

Indiana also lacks an initiative or referendum. Hoosiers thus have absolutely no recourse, no way to counter legislation that ignores the preferences of the majority. And our GOP overlords routinely ignore those preferences–polling regularly shows citizen sentiments at odds with the extremism of those we’ve “elected.”

A friend with Hoosiers 4 Democracy looked at Governor-elect Mike Braun’s recently published policy agenda, and shared examples demonstrating that deviance.

She noted that Braun promises to “faithfully execute SEA 1 (2022).” SEA 1 was the draconian abortion ban passed by our legislature immediately after the decision in Dobbs. Polls of Indiana voters consistently demonstrate that a large majority of Hoosiers support access to abortion through at least the first trimester, and narrower majorities support access beyond. Nevertheless, Braun’s policy agenda includes a promise to “Ensure SEA 1 (2022) implementation is in accordance with statute in a way that provides transparency and certainty for the public and medical providers.”

How nice of him to advocate for “transparency” of a measure with which most Hoosiers strongly disagree–a measure that has already created “maternity deserts” as Ob-Gyn practitioners flee the state.

Then there’s Braun’s promise to “protect Hoosier girls from biological males who attempt to compete in girls’ sports.” That language joins a provision to “respect the rights of parents”–language we hear from the extreme Right-wing parents who’ve been trying to ban books and require school officials to “out” children. Here’s the language he uses to beat up on trans youth:

In 2022, the Indiana General Assembly passed HEA 1041 to protect the girls on the field of play. The State should continue to ensure that biological males will not compete against our girls on the court, in the pool, or invade the privacy of their locker rooms.

Require schools to respect and uphold the rights of parents as the decision-makers in their children’s lives, education, and upbringing. This includes directly notifying parents about any physical or mental health concerns that arise at school, such as requests to use a name or pronouns that are inconsistent with biological sex.

In 2023, the Indiana General Assembly passed HEA 1608 to protect this fundamental parental right.

In other parts of the document, Braun inadvertently highlights the logical outcome of Indiana’s regressive legislation. He notes that “Indiana continues to struggle in retaining college graduates as nearly 40% of graduates leave within one year of graduation, and more high school students are choosing to attend university elsewhere (8%).” He also notes that too few Indiana students pursue a college education. “Every year, approximately 75,000 Hoosiers graduate from high school. While half of these students enroll in college the other half pursue other opportunities…. ”

That’s even worse than it sounds. As the friend who sent me Braun’s agenda noted, of the 75,000 who graduate, 32,500 enroll in college. But enrollment isn’t the same thing as completion. Indiana’s college degree completion rate is 66%. Approximately 21,000 students will graduate within 6 years, and of those, 40% leave the state. That means Indiana has approximately 12,500 new college graduates who join the state’s workforce each year (about 140 per county if they were equally spread out–which they aren’t. Most choose to live and work in cities–primarily Indianapolis–where employment opportunities and social amenities are more plentiful.)

The fact that Indiana has fewer educated citizens than other states is a major reason we have trouble luring employers, and the reason that–as Braun’s agenda also notes–“Indiana faces workforce shortages (e.g., additional 5000 nurses needed by 2031), skill mismatches, and struggles to retain college graduates.”

Bottom line: legislators and administrators who gain public office by choosing their voters can–and do–ignore the wishes of their constituents. Citizens stop participating in the political process, believing it’s a waste of time and effort. They tune out. As a result, the only people who cast ballots are the most committed partisans.

We end up “electing” statewide candidates who, like Braun, go along with the current GOP’s extreme, anti-American “agenda,” or the even more extreme (and embarrassing) Christian Nationalists like Beckwith and Banks, or corrupt posturers like Todd Rokita.

Indiana isn’t a democracy, and our overlords want to see to it that we don’t become one.

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Bread And Circuses

“Bread and circuses” is a phrase referring back to the Roman Empire. Rome’s rulers distracted the public from corrupt and/or autocratic rule by giving the population free food and violent entertainments. They distributed grain to the poor, and provided entertaining distractions– chariot races, gladiatorial combat, and wild animal hunts, among others–to keep the masses from getting bored and restless, and to divert them from engaging in political activity.

That time-honored tactic is still being employed.

In yesterday’s post, I shared my observation that Americans no longer occupy a democratic system–that gerrymandering, the Electoral College, Citizens United and various other elements of our electoral system have allowed the cult that is now the GOP to assume control of our government, and to rule without concern for the opinions of the citizenry. (Indeed, rather than a citizenry, we “voters” have more in common with subjects than with those who wield the power originally reposed in “We the People.”)

As the Trump administration takes shape, we can see that those who have secured the right to rule are the plutocrats. Assuming most of his proposed nominees are confirmed, America will be ruled (not governed) by billionaires pursuing further tax cuts and privileges–appointees ranging from obviously corrupt to ethically challenged and rife with conflicts of interests.

We have come to this sorry end of the American Experiment thanks to our current version of “bread and circuses.”

There have always been distractions and methods of promoting disinformation, but the Internet and the ubiquity of devices with screens that constantly occupy us have massively multiplied the diversions. Most readers of this blog are all too aware of the wealth of political propaganda promoted by Fox, et al, but that is a relatively minor aspect of the overall environment. Fox and its clones merely misrepresent the political world we occupy; it’s the growth of the entertainment world, the so-called “influencers,” the proliferation of celebrities who are famous for being famous (Kardashians, anyone?), that truly provides the “circus” that prevents most of us from recognizing the degradation of our own influence as citizens charged with choosing people to administer the powers of our governments.

Most observers of America’s political landscape recognize the decline of democratic decision-making. On this platform, I have repeatedly pointed out the very negative consequences of our structural deficits–especially gerrymandering, which allows legislators to choose their voters rather than the other way around. But it was only with the 2024 election of Donald Trump that I fully recognized what should have been obvious to me previously: American government is no longer even remotely democratic, and America’s economy is no longer an example of functioning market capitalism.

We are a plutocracy and a kakistocracy, and our economy is corporatist, not capitalist.

A kakistocracy is defined as rule by those least competent or suitable; corporatism–sometimes called “crony capitalism” –is control of the state by special interests. Honest observers have chronicled the country’s descent into those unfortunate categories for several years, only to be ignored by a population diverted by its own varieties of bread and circuses.

I will admit to being one of the people who didn’t sufficiently appreciate that descent. In my case, I focused far too much attention on the largely positive cultural changes that have allowed civic participation by previously marginalized folks–women, LGBTQ+ citizens and people of color–and far too little attention on the steady erosion of democratic citizenship.

The only salutary outcome of the 2024 election is the consequent inability of any sentient American to ignore the extent of that erosion.

Thanks in part to voters’ constant diet of “circuses,” Republicans were able to conduct a pivotal and monumentally successful gerrymander in 2010.–an actual, victorious, bloodless coup. The REDMAP program radically altered America’s electoral map, insulating the GOP and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. The book Ratf**ked “pulled back the curtain on that coup,” explaining in detail how a group of Republican operatives hijacked democracy.

The question now, as always, is “what can be done?” Can We the People regain control of our government?

I will readily confess that I don’t know. Gerrymandering will continue to work so long as there are an adequate number of voters to be deployed who support the racism, misogyny and plutocracy championed by today’s GOP. The only “fix” I can envision is a significant reduction in their number.

It is possible that the pain likely to be caused by Trump’s administration will shake some folks loose. Meanwhile, it will behoove those of us who understand the problem to figure out how to break through the pervasive misinformation and distractions that keep too many voters content with being subjects rather than citizens.

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The Voice Of The People

We Americans talk a lot about democracy. Those conversations multiplied during this year’s election cycle, when it became obvious that democracy was under attack by a MAGA base that preferred Trump’s promised autocracy. That said, those conversations rarely focus on the Founders’ approach to democratic governance, and the constitutional mechanisms they employed as a result of their concerns.

It is a truism that the Founders weren’t fans of what they called “the passions of the majority.” In addition to limiting the right to vote to those they trusted with that power–White guys with property–they crafted a system that limited the operation of democratic decision-making; the Bill of Rights was a list of things that government was forbidden to do even when a majority of voters wanted government to do them. The limitations were founded on that libertarian premise I frequently cite, a belief that government action is legitimate when necessary to prevent citizen A from harming the person or property of citizen B, but not when government is trying to restrict an individual”s personal liberties, the choices that–in Jefferson’s famous words–neither pick a neighbor’s pocket nor break his leg.

The Founders’ decision to restrict the areas that were remitted to democratic decision-making is why many people who don’t really understand that basic framework often claim that America wasn’t intended to be a democracy, but a republic. To be accurate, our system is a democratic republic, in which we elect representatives who are supposed to respond to the democratic will of the people when legislating in the large number of policy areas where majority rule is appropriate.

Those of us who have been sounding the alarm over America’s retreat from democracy have pointed to the growing lack of proper representation–and the numerous systemic flaws that have separated government’s performance from the expressed will of its citizens. Thanks to pervasive gerrymandering, the Electoral College, the filibuster, and the composition of the U.S. Senate, among other undemocratic systemic mechanisms, elected officials have increasingly felt free to ignore even clear expressions of popular sentiment.

That retreat from representative democracy isn’t simply a federal phenomenon; it occurs with regularity at the state level. Two recent examples may illustrate the point.

Example one: In the wake of the Dobbs decision, several state legislatures imposed draconian bans on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. Polling clearly showed that–in most of those states–large majorities of voters opposed those bans, and subsequently, in states where the electorate had the opportunity to oppose the bans through referenda (a democratic mechanism not available in my state), they overturned them.

Example two: Right-wing ideologues have waged consistent war against public schools. In a number of states, legislatures send tax dollars to private schools–predominantly religious schools–through voucher programs. I have posted numerous times about the negative effects of those programs: their failure to improve educational outcomes, their disproportionate use by upper-middle-class families, and the degree to which they deprive public schools of critically-needed resources.

When citizens of a state are able to vote on those programs, they lose.

In ballot initiatives, voters delivered a stunning rebuke to school vouchers, which siphon scarce and critical funding from public schools—which serve 90 percent of students—and redirect it to private institutions with no accountability.

Although the outcome of the 2024 election may test the resolve of the most committed and determined public education advocate, educators and their allies can find strength and inspiration in what happened in Nebraska, Colorado, and Kentucky. In those states, support for public schools was put on the ballot and won a resounding victory.

As the NEA President noted,

“Voters rejected diverting public school funding to unaccountable and discriminatory private schools, just like they have done every time vouchers have been on the ballot. The public knows vouchers harm students and does not want them in any form.”

Thanks to the distortions in our electoral systems, voters in the United States have been steadily losing the right to democratically direct their governments. The 2024 election was different only because the further threat to democratic decision-making was so transparent. The truth is that, thanks to the operation of the cited anti-democratic mechanisms (aided and abetted by low levels of civic literacy and engagement and funded by the plutocrats), the voice of the people has become more and more irrelevant.

The cranks and ideologues have used those poorly-understood mechanisms to attain and retain public office, and they no longer feel constrained by the demonstrable wishes of even large majorities.

If and when the resistance manages to overcome MAGA, that will only be a beginning. We haven’t had majority rule–aka democracy– for quite some time.

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Holding My Breath

Last week, as I previously noted, I spoke to a Unitarian Universalist congregation about Project 2025. (I posted those comments here.)

Ever since I was Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU and was first asked to address a UU church, I have enjoyed speaking to UU congregations. They tend to be composed of people committed to civil liberties, respectful of science, and welcoming of a wide variety of perspectives. As their “Welcome” text confirms, UU’s believe that religious faith is uniquely personal, and that attitudes of openness and tolerance are important. I particularly like the “covenant” this congregation recites, which affirms that spiritual growth provides the grounding for peace, ethical living and community service.

Prior to my talk, there is usually a reading, and I was so impressed with this particular one that I asked for a copy. This was a reading that directly addressed the fundamental issue of tomorrow’s vote, which, as the author said, will really be a vote on another covenant– the covenant we Americans have made with each other.

Democracy–as the reading pointed out–isn’t just a word or even just a system of government: it’s a “living, breathing promise.” A covenant.

This promise of democracy is one of collective power and shared responsibility. Many understand that this covenantal promise is not without its challenges. Democracy asks us to engage in issues, to participate in bringing about change, and to care deeply about one another. It is cultivated in small, consistent actions–in the conversations we have, the ways we listen to and learn from one another, as well as the votes we cast. It demands that we see beyond ourselves, recognizing the dignity of every person, and honoring the rich diversity of our lives.

This reading was part of a church service, so care was taken to avoid endangering the congregation’s tax exemption by the endorsement of a political candidate–there was no direction to “go thou and vote in such and such a way.” Instead, what struck me forcefully about this description of the choice we face was its emphasis on community, on the obligation that we humans have to care for each other.

That emphasis really highlights the vast difference between Trump’s MAGA Republicanism and the Harris campaign.

As the multiple Republicans who have endorsed Harris have pointed out, this election is not about our policy differences–it’s about saving the American Constitution and the rule of law, the essential foundations of the covenant described in the reading. Ours is a covenant that requires us to care about other people, to accept a commitment not just to an abstract nation, but to our fellow Americans.

Traditional Republicans and Democrats may have wildly different opinions about how to demonstrate that commitment, how to honor that covenant, but we recognize that it binds us. We may disagree about economic or social policies, but we share a fundamental belief that government exists to create a just environment that facilitates the human flourishing of all of us–including the neighbors who don’t look or think or worship as we do.

Tomorrow’s election is between all the Americans who believe in that covenant and want to protect it, and those who don’t. It really is that simple.

The Republican Party many of us once knew and respected has been replaced by a malignant cult in Donald Trump’s image, and the members of that cult reject the very idea of a democratic covenant. They are not motivated by care for their neighbors. They contemptuously reject the “demand that we see beyond ourselves.”

The brief closing paragraphs of the reading were poignant: they read

It is clear that at the heart of this democracy is the promise of the people–our hopes and dreams. We are the democracy and the stewards of this promise: the practitioners of this sacred work.

As Unitarian Universalists, we believe democracy is more than a political system; it is a shared journey, a collective responsibility, and a profound act of faith in one another. May we walk this path with grace, with purpose, and with phenomenal commitment to the common good.

That commitment–to America’s democratic covenant, to each other, to the common good–is what is on the ballot this year. That’s the choice to be made by We the People.

This Jewish atheist is praying with the Unitarians….

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