Tag Archives: Democracy

Hoosiers For Democracy

I’ve been getting intellectual whiplash looking for political omens.

Polls aren’t cutting it: as I have previously noted, contemporary obstacles to accurate measures of candidate strength are immense, and the various efforts to compensate for low response rates and to develop meaningful “likely voter” screens have proved inadequate. When Trump routinely underperforms his poll results by some ten points, it seems safe to ignore click-bait headlines about this or that poll.

I have also shared my conviction that victory in the upcoming elections will depend almost entirely on turnout. I don’t understand what get out the vote campaigns do to generate turnout, but then I don’t understand people who think political participation is irrelevant to their lives, so my lack of comprehension is probably due to that mystification…

All that said, despite living in Indiana– often dismissed as an irremediably deep-Red state– I’ve recently stumbled across some interesting and very positive omens.

One of those is Hoosiers for Democracy, a newly-formed group that describes itself as “a growing movement of Indiana citizens who are concerned about the erosion of democratic norms, the continual drumbeat of extremism and the persistent undermining of our democratic institutions.” I know the founders of the group, and I consider them informed and politically savvy. They’ve done their homework, and are focused on demonstrating that Indiana–even rural Indiana– is considerably less Red than the state’s reputation suggests. 

Hoosiers for Democracy publishes a thoughtful Substack newsletter, and is working with other grass-roots organizations–partisan and bipartisan– concerned about the GOP’s lurch into far-Right extremism. 

Relatively few Hoosiers have heard of Hoosiers for Democracy so far–it’s new, and just building its network. (I encourage Indiana readers to sign up for its very thoughtful newsletter at the link.) But more recently, I was astonished to discover the existence of several statewide organizations with a longer timeline. The Nasty Woman Project began as an Instagram account; it was born out of Trump’s expressions of fury in November 2016 and began a series of self portraits by self-proclaimed Nasty Women. Since then, it has grown into a women’s collective that “throws events, raises money for charity, makes waves, and puts smiles on people’s faces.” 

I was even more astonished to learn that the organization has more than seven thousand members across Indiana. (I was especially surprised because–according to my youngest son–I am a Nasty Woman. In the wake of the 2016 election, he even had a t-shirt that identified him as a “Bad Hombre raised by a Nasty Woman”…)

Indiana’s Nasty Women organization has a FaceBook page describing itself:

We are INDIANA NASTY WOMEN; because we believe in love, acceptance, equality, kindness, respect, and the POWER of our voices. Through this consortium of like-minded women, with an overall vision to do whatever we can to help transform Indiana into, at the very least, a purple state.

This will take different forms, including but not limited to: being dedicated to political activism… helping to create & support liberal and progressive political candidates into office at all levels (national, state, and local).

Educate fellow Hoosiers so they become more informed voters.

Increase the number of likeminded voters in Indiana.

I couldn’t help wondering how many other grass-roots political efforts might be underway and essentially underground, devoted to efforts to highlight the dangers of MAGA extremism and the capture of the Republican party apparatus by Christian Nationalists. I get a large number of political publications and thanks to being older than dirt and a lifetime Hoosier, I know a lot of people here in Indiana, yet I’d never heard of Indiana Nasty Women.

Nor, it turned out, had I heard of at least fifteen other Indiana organizations working to turn out the sanity vote.

In a recent meeting with progressive activists, I was astonished–and gratified–to learn of multiple Indiana organizations formed since 2016. They’re working to educate voters about issues like reproductive rights, voting rights and the threat MAGA poses to democracy.

Several were surprisingly large. Most are run entirely by volunteers, and they overwhelmingly focus on encouraging Hoosiers to vote for Democratic candidates– from Joe Biden and Jennifer McCormick on down the ballot.

I’d never heard of any of them.

Bottom line: I’ve seen data suggesting that MAGA’s strength in Indiana “tops out” at 37%. That’s a very worrisome percentage, but it isn’t a majority. Hoosiers for Democracy, Indiana Nasty Women and these numerous other voluntary, under-the-radar organizations are immensely hopeful omens, especially since several are mounting grass-roots campaigns to turn out Hoosier voters–especially Democratic-leaning voters with spotty voting records.

In November, Hoosiers might be able shed our reputation as a northern Mississippi– a state firmly in thrall to MAGA’s assorted bigotries. 

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What “Let the States Decide” Ignores

There are a number of legal and practical objections to Republicans’ recent, deeply misleading efforts to convince Americans that leaving abortion restrictions to the states is a “moderate” position. The most obvious is that fundamental constitutional liberties are just that–fundamental. Legislators don’t get to vote on whether to allow freedom of speech or religion within their states (a good thing, if you live in places like Indiana, where the GOP super-majority would undoubtedly limit those civil liberties).

Practical objections are numerous: legislative bodies are conspicuously devoid of medical expertise, and ideological lawmakers have demonstrated that they have no understanding of the real-world complexities of the decisions involved; laws that require women to travel long distances for critical medical care discriminate against low-income patients…Most of you reading this post can supply a number of others.

But it wasn’t until I read a recent opinion essay in the New York Times that I had a small epiphany: leaving the issue to the states–despite the pious rhetoric emphasizing voting– is also profoundly anti-democratic, and not just in states like Indiana where citizens lack access to initiatives and/or referenda. Successful gerrymandering–partisan redistricting–ensures that “the people” lack the means to make such decisions.

As Jamelle Bouie writes:

Nearly everywhere Republicans hold power, they fight to rewire the institutions of government in the hope that they will then generate the desired result: more and greater Republican power.

And so we have the North Carolina Legislature gerrymandered to produce Republican majorities, the Ohio Legislature gerrymandered to produce Republican supermajorities, the Florida Legislature gerrymandered to produce Republican supermajorities, and the Florida Supreme Court overhauled to secure and uphold Republican priorities.

The states’ rights case for determining abortion access — let the people decide — falters on the fact that in many states, the people cannot shape their legislature to their liking. Packed and split into districts designed to preserve Republican control, voters cannot actually dislodge anti-abortion Republican lawmakers. A pro-choice majority may exist, but only as a shadow: present but without substance in government.

Polling on the issue of abortion proves his point. Even in deep Red states, pro-choice voters outnumber forced birth supporters by considerable margins, as we’ve seen in states like Kansas and Kentucky where voters have the means to mount constitutional referendums.

In states that lack those mechanisms, as Bouie notes, Republican legislators or jurists unwilling to concede to majority opinion (or constitutional precedent) can respond with the dead hand of the past.

Both the federal courts and the Arizona Supreme Court have conjured a past that smothers the right to bodily autonomy. Anti-abortion activists are also trying to conjure a past, in the form of the long-dormant Comstock Act, that gives government the power to regulate the sexual lives of its citizens. As Moira Donegan notes in a column for The Guardian, “Comstock has come to stand in, in the right-wing imagination, for a virtuous, hierarchically ordered past that can be restored in a sexually repressive and tyrannically misogynistic future.”

This effort may well fail, but the drive to leash the country to an imagined vision of a reactionary past should be seen as a silent confession of weakness. The same is true, for that matter, of the authoritarian dreams of the former president and his allies and acolytes….

Put a bit differently, a confident political movement does not fight to dominate; it works to persuade. It does not curate a favorable electorate or frantically burrow itself into our counter-majoritarian institutions; it competes for power on an even playing field, assured of its appeal and certain of its ability to win. It does not hide its agenda or shield its plans from public view; it believes in itself and its ideas.

That last paragraph is a succinct description of where we are as a nation right now. In far too many states, very much including my own state of Indiana, the GOP has “curated a favorable electorate.” Republicans have also benefitted mightily from counter-majoritarian institutions that have bestowed extra electoral clout on rural voters and low-density populations.

Regular readers of this blog are well aware of my periodic rants about the pernicious and anti-democratic effects of gerrymandering, but I didn’t understand until I read this essay that the practice is also an essential tool for depriving American citizens of their bodily autonomy and other civil liberties.

Gerrymandering is a critical part of the effort to return America to the past of GOP wet dreams…..

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A Chilling, Albeit Correct, Diagnosis

I don’t know who Thomas Zimmer is, nor do I recall how I came to read his February 8th “Democracy Americana” newsletter. 
It’s likely some reader shared it after one of my periodic rants about racism and MAGA’s takeover of the GOP, but that’s just a guess. The headline and subhead are pretty clear indications of the subject-matter: “Domination or Dissolution, Rule or Ruin: The Right is fantasizing about secession, ‘national divorce’ and civil war–because they will not, under any circumstances, accept pluralism.”

The article began by focusing on the Texas border standoff, and the growing divide between Red and Blue states.
 
The Right loves to talk about secession and civil war. And quite a lot of people on the center and on the Left seem to have come to the conclusion that “blue” America would indeed be better off if we severed all ties with “red” states and unburdened ourselves from the reactionaries who are evidently not on board with the idea of egalitarian multiracial pluralism. I get all the frustration and exasperation. But would you feel comfortable making this argument – let them go do their own thing! – to the tens of millions of people who happen to live in those Republican-led states, who want nothing to do with the reactionary project, but would suffer most under authoritarian white Christian patriarchal rule?
 
There really aren’t that many hard-core secessionists. Zimmer pointed to the much-hyped (at least on the Right) “Take Our Border Back” trucker convoy. Organizers of what they dubbed “God’s Army” predicted the participation of 700,000 trucks. They got about 100– “A sad, paltry contingent of hardcore MAGAs and White Christian nationalists. It’s hard sometimes not to dismiss the rightwing threat to democracy as just silly, pathetic cosplay from a bunch of grifters, buffoons, and lost souls.”
 
The situation is quite a bit more serious than that, unfortunately. Not only is there simply no guarantee that grifters and buffoons can’t bring down democratic self-government. The trucker convoy fiasco also doesn’t change the fact that the border standoff is acting as a catalyst for the pervasive lusting for civil war and ubiquitous fantasizing about secession on the Right. This isn’t confined to extremist online fringes either. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, for instance, fabulated we would “have a war on our hands” were president Biden to federalize National Guard troops. Kevin Stitt, the Republican Governor of Oklahoma, argued that the Texas National Guard was merely “protecting their homeland” from the federal government. And Representative Clay Higgins posted on Ex-Twitter that “the feds are staging a civil war, and Texas should stand their ground.” These aren’t just outlier voices. Texas, with the explicit support from 25 Republican governors, is deploying precisely the argument slave states used to justify secession.
 
Zimmer delves into the history of the Civil War, and provides a great deal of context for the situation we face, but the essential point he makes is one that I have reluctantly concluded is at the very foundation of America’s current polarization:  significant parts of the political Right steadfastly refuse to accept what he delicately calls “multiracial pluralism.”
 
In short, they’re committed racists.
 
At its base, the Rightwing populism that has largely displaced conventional conservatism is a creation of what Zimmer calls “a reactionary counter-revolution” by aggrieved defenders of “real America” against nefarious “woke, globalist elites.” One example he cites is the White Power movement of the early 1980s. Members embraced the ideas outlined in the “Turner Diaries,” a neo-Nazi novel published in 1978 that has served as a central reference point for the extreme Right ever since.
 
In the book, a small group of dedicated white supremacists manages to bring down the federal government and, ultimately, over the span of a little more than a century, restore white domination not only in America, but across the globe. Such ideas, as historian Kathleen Belew has emphasized, have influenced the tactics of fascistic militias like the Proud Boys that led the charge on January 6. And the white supremacists who regard the future depicted in the “Turner Diaries” not as a dystopian nightmare, but as an aspiration, have moved much closer to the center of conservative politics: On January 6, they stormed the Capitol literally in service of the man who is still, three years later, the leader of the Republican Party.
 
Zimmer provides a number of other examples, and the (lengthy) essay is worth reading in its entirety. I came away from it convinced of his central point: in November’s elections, both federal and down-ballot, too many voters will still be fighting  America’s Civil War. 
 
November’s elections will pit MAGA’s White Christian Nationalists against Americans who support pluralism, inclusion and the American ideal of civic equality. Pretty much everything else is window-dressing.
 
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One More Time

There are numerous reasons to vote straight Blue this November. But forgive me for returning to my argument that reproductive rights tops them all, and not just because women deserve the same bodily autonomy as men.

In a very real sense, Justice Alito threw down the gauntlet in Dobbs. That decision didn’t just eliminate a constitutional right that American jurisprudence had recognized for fifty years–it dealt a potentially fatal blow to the philosophy upon which our  entire constitutional edifice rests.

Before I (once again) explain why that assertion is not hyperbole, let me connect the dots between Dobbs and the recent, blatantly theocratic decision from Alabama equating a frozen embryo with a living, breathing child. As Jamelle Bouie recently wrote in the New York Times, key parts of the Republican coalition demand fetal personhood.

There’s no question that the Alabama decision would not have been possible without the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which revoked the constitutional right to an abortion. In doing so, the court gave states and state courts wide leeway to restrict the bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom of Americans, in the name of protecting life.

That the Dobbs decision would threaten I.V.F. was obvious from the moment the Supreme Court released its opinion in June 2022. That’s why, toward the end of 2022, Senate Democrats introduced a bill to protect the right to use in vitro fertilization. It did not come up for a vote.

Bouie points out that the Justices who delivered Dobbs were placed on the Court as part of an explicit transaction in which Trump traded American women’s rights for the support of Evangelical voters.

What’s important, for thinking about a second Trump presidency, is that fetal personhood is the next battlefield in the anti-abortion movement’s war on reproductive rights, and conservative evangelicals are among those groups waving the standard. As one such activist, Jason Rapert of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, told The New York Times regarding the Alabama court decision, “It further affirms that life begins at conception.”

At least 11 states, The Washington Post notes, have “broadly defined personhood as beginning at fertilization in their state laws.”

It does not matter whether Trump rhetorically supports access to I.V.F. treatments. What matters is whether he would buck the priorities of his most steadfast supporters and veto a bill establishing fetal personhood across the United States.

As we all know, he would not.

A Republican win in November would guarantee further erosion of reproductive rights– but as I have repeatedly argued, it would do far more than that.

Dobbs was a frontal attack on the doctrine of substantive due process, often called the “right to privacy.” That doctrine confirmed the American principle that certain “intimate” individual decisions—including one’s choice of sexual partners or the decision to use contraception– are none of government’s business.

Constitutional scholars argue that the right to personal autonomy has always been inherent in the Bill of Rights, but it was  explicitly recognized in 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut. Connecticut’s legislature had passed a law prohibiting the use of birth control by married couples. The law prohibited doctors from prescribing contraceptives and pharmacists from filling those prescriptions.The Supreme Court struck down the law, holding that whether a couple used contraceptives was not a decision government is entitled to make.

The majority recognized that recognition of a right to personal autonomy—the right to self-government—is essential to the enforcement of other provisions of the Bill of Rights.  Justices White and Harlan found explicit confirmation of it in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment—which is where the terminology “substantive due process” comes from. Wherever it resided–in a “penumbra” or the 14th Amendment—the Justices agreed on both its presence and importance.

The doctrine of Substantive Due Process draws a line between decisions that government has the legitimate authority to make, and decisions which, in our system, must be left up to the individual. I used to tell my students that the Bill of Rights is essentially a list of things that government is forbidden to decide. What books you read, what opinions you form, what prayers you say (or don’t)—such matters are outside the legitimate role of government. The issue isn’t whether that book is dangerous or inappropriate, or that religion is false, or whether you should marry someone of the same sex, or whether you should procreate: the issue in America is who gets to make that decision.

Enabling autocracy–destroying our current system of democratic majorities restrained by the Bill of Rights– requires eliminating substantive due process. Dobbs thus opened a pathway to an enormous expansion of government power.

Outlawing IVF is just a way station…..

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When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them

There is a famous Maya Angelou quote: “When people show you who they are, believe them.”

Voters unwilling to recognize that American democracy will be on the ballot in the upcoming election will need to ignore or reject what the proponents of theocracy and autocracy are willingly telling us. 

Heather Cox Richardson recently reported on the candor of a speech at this year’s CPAC convention.

How religion and authoritarianism have come together in modern America was on display Thursday, when right-wing activist Jack Posobiec opened this weekend’s conference of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., with the words: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”

If there was any doubt that today’s Republican Party has rejected the (small-d) democratic basis of America’s republic, the party’s unrelenting attacks on reproductive rights should be convincing evidence. Not satisfied with Dobbs‘ erasure of the constitutional right to abortion, the party’s theocratic base is now gunning for birth control. The recent Alabama decision that effectively outlawed IVF rested on a state law conferring “personhood” on fertilized eggs. Since Dobbs, sixteen state legislatures have introduced such laws, and four Red states—Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona–have passed them.

The cranks and Christian Nationalists who dominate the party in the House of Representatives introduced a national personhood bill immediately after they took control in January 2023. Republicans in the Senate were already on board; Rand Paul had introduced a “Life at Conception Act” on January 28, 2021. Richardson tells us it currently has 18 co-sponsors, including the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. These lawmakers surely know that these measures are opposed by huge majorities of the voting public; a party that valued either democratic representation or constitutional compliance would not be intent upon passing them.

There are multiple other examples: members of the GOP have demonstrated their willingness to accept and promote Russian disinformation, and to take Putin’s side against Ukraine– behavior inconsistent with the majority’s desire to help Ukraine fend off Russian aggression. And the GOP’s embrace of gerrymandering is also entirely consistent with its devotion to the “end of democracy.” Gerrymandering, after all, is an effort to evade democratic accountability.

If these examples aren’t sufficient, there’s the “show and tell” from Trump himself. As Axios (among others) has reported, in an introduction to a series on the effort,

Former President Trump’s top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his “America First” ideology, people involved in the discussions tell Axios.

The impact could go well beyond typical conservative targets such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers at the Justice Department — including the FBI, and reaching into national security, intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon, sources close to the former president say.

During his presidency, Trump often complained about what he called “the deep state.”

The heart of the plan is derived from an executive order known as “Schedule F,” developed and refined in secret over most of the second half of Trump’s term and launched 13 days before the 2020 election.

The reporting for this series draws on extensive interviews over a period of more than three months with more than two dozen people close to the former president, and others who have firsthand knowledge of the work underway to prepare for a potential second term. Most spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive planning and avoid Trump’s ire.

People voting in November can’t say they weren’t warned. 

The Republican Party of today is Trump’s party, and multiple sources are plainly and forcefully telling us who they are. It is not an exaggeration to say that the fate of America going forward rests on enough voters’ listening to them and understanding what they are saying. 

Accept Maya Angelou’s advice. Believe them.

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