Time for something serious. I try to keep serious topics at bay, writing about the foibles of Her Ladyship, the Princess, and myself. But, sometimes, it seems to be appropriate, with a presidential inaugural on the horizon and recent political activity that accompanies it.
Is the bloom on democracy beginning to fade? Are Americans ready to put down the drawbridge and hand over the keys to the castle of democracy to an oligarch, who will make all the decisions for us? Who doesn’t care much for diverse people and philosophies? Who will regard his own interests and those of his inner circle a priority, and if there are spill-over benefits for the rest of us, well, ok then? Or is it possible that democracy is more resilient that we think? That after four years, our citizens will move from fear and cynicism to regaining a perspective on the importance of “government by the people, for the people?”
America has elected a leader that is laser-focused on building a ruling coalition of absolute loyalty. Gone from his first term are any reasonable voices likely to tell him what he doesn’t want to hear. His lists of designated appointments include active supporters and donors. That in itself isn’t as alarming as the fact that they’re mostly unqualified for the positions for which he’s appointing them. Not surprising. He’s made a career of being outrageous, of shocking people, of doing the unexpected and watching to see how much of that outrageousness he can get away with. Among those designated appointments awaiting senate approval are thirteen billionaires, his friends, colleagues, business associates, and donors. He has created a “shadow” government non-department, charged with making government more “efficient”. The Associated Press is reporting that non-political, career government employees are being questioned about who they voted for in 2024, to whom they donated, and if they made any social media posts unfavorable to the incoming president. An effort to weed out the unfaithful and disloyal.
We need to remind ourselves that democracy in this country has been a long and bumpy ride. We tend to think that the Founding Fathers, and yes, they were all fathers, envisioned a utopian state where everyone (well, white male landowners, anyway) participated in the process, and that the majority view would always prevail. Yes and no. At the time of the Revolution, breaking away from Great Britain was not the prevailing view, and many, many Americans thought it was a disloyal step to take. One fraught with danger, and it so proved to be. The US Constitution was not the first, but the second attempt to lay out the broad guidelines of governance, establishing the foundations of law and procedure, because the earlier Articles of Confederation lacked the clarity and decisiveness needed to rule the unwieldy and form the newly independent colonies into a cohesive nation. Even the Electoral College was inserted to protect American voters from themselves, giving it the potential to remove unsuitable candidates. Voters electing electors. That same Constitution was designed to be amended and modified as was needed or as changing times required. Comprehensive education was born in America because the electorate needed a certain level of citizenship to make it work. Not just basic skills, but a working knowledge of civics.
Who would elect whom, and who has the power to do what, has continually been a subject of discussion, debate, legal interpretation, and yes, sometimes a clash of swords. President Jefferson, confronted with the option to buy land and essentially double the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase, found that there was nothing in the Constitution allowing the government to do that. A compromise was found. Southern state legislators thought they had a perfect right to secede in 1861, should they wish to do so, and were rather shocked to find out that Northern states viewed the separation differently. The expansion of the right to vote, whether it was for women, for minorities brought here forcibly, or for recently arrived immigrants, has been contentious with rallies, with protests, and marches. Some have deemed, and still do, that our “purity” is at stake. Within the context of democracy, many have tried over the years to manipulate the system, to prevent those that don’t see things their way from taking control and becoming the majority. Legislative districts are required to be reviewed and modified every few years to reflect shifting populations. Any number of state governments have tried to take advantage of that, and the term “gerrymandering” has become synonymous with that effort. Early Massachusetts Governor (and future Vice President) Elbridge Gerry signed off on a bill to create a voting district that looked a bit like a salamander, and thus, his name lives on with a degree of infamy. But it’s still done today. “ . . .the state’s political landscape could shift substantially after the Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out the GOP-drawn legislative lines in late December.” (CBS News, Jan. 2, 2024)
The right to vote has been a work in process. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, like the Civil Rights Act passed by Congress the year before and signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, established not only the right to vote, but also to provide oversight and access to voting. And yet, fifty years later, there are still efforts to undermine that access. “House Democrats pushed through a sweeping expansion of federal voting rights on Wednesday over unified Republican opposition . . .” (Nicholas Fando; NY Times; June 1, 2021). And this, from 2019. “New data reveal that counties with a history of voter discrimination have continued purging people from the rolls at elevated rates.” (Brennan Center for Justice; Aug., 2019). Purging, or “cleaning” of voter registration rolls, is a legitimate process – removing, deaths or relocations of voters. However, it seems that it’s also something that can be seriously misused under the umbrella charge of “voter fraud” in recent years.
The term democracy, from the Greek, dēmos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”), has been an imperfect yet accepted and generally effective system of governance in recent centuries around the world, replacing a variety of authoritarian forms and social structures. It exists in many different iterations, and has throughout history. Those constructs have been subject to manipulation, to assertions of control, and to messages of propaganda, as a recent columnist wrote, “worthy of Joseph Goebbels”. Politics tends to do that. King John plotted to rebuke and work around Magna Carta practically from the moment the ink was dry. And, full disclosure, Magna Carta was an attempt by the barons to curb the king’s abuses of them, not the egalitarian document we sometimes think it was. Under banners from “divine right of kings” to “master race”, right up to “stolen election”, those in power have sought to suborn the course of the people’s rule. They’ve tried to control it, to prolong it, and perhaps most damaging, to create lasting legacies to themselves. They’ve been subject to outside “interference” and undermining disinformation. Vladimir Putin would more than likely tell everyone that Russia is a “democracy”. But his actions and policies tend to suggest otherwise. As do “elections” in Iran. Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro claimed victory in the 2024 election amid widespread global skepticism. Democracy isn’t easy, and some in power don’t go quietly when their time as come.We’ve selected a variety of leaders over the almost 250 years of our republic. Many of them we’ve agreed with, and with many more we have disagreed. Some have come to be regarded as titans, a few others have been intensely vilified, and most have faded into memory and obscurity. Some have unified while others have been divisive. Many of the past have seen statues and monuments erected to them, only to have those statues come down in the glare of public scrutiny and historical context. That context too is changing with time. But our democratic form of government, as close as we can come to it, has survived. It has seen major challenges and alterations. Major shifts in social perspective. Our democracy, and our Constitution have done their best to promote and protect, as Abraham Lincoln said so many years ago, “government by the people and for the people.” It is now our challenge to ensure that it “does not perish from this earth.” Despite the challenges of the next four years, I don’t think it will
I'm Thinking...No! 