In a recent column on Nassau County and North Hempstead elections, I misstated: apparently there is resentment and reaction against the so-called boogeyman of Critical Race Theory.
In Florida, a slave state, in addition to banning teaching of Critical Race Theory, they have made it illegal for teachers to teach anything but the “Judeo-Christian foundation” of American values.
Set aside for a moment who would want to work in that kind of environment where you can be sued by any parent who imagines some slight at something a teacher said. Set aside the First Amendment or why there is tenure to protect teachers’ ability to teach.
Now think for a moment how there has been a big push for Holocaust education in public schools, in order to teach the larger issue of tolerance as an antidote to the bigotry and cruelty that made the Holocaust possible (Texas has said you can’t teach about the Holocaust unless you also teach an opposing view of the Holocaust. Really?). How there has been a big push for anti-bullying education in face of youngsters driven to suicide, and even how the federal government is looking to rein in Facebook for the role it plays. (Trumpers want the freedom to continue to push hate speech and violence, but want to curb anything that would promote tolerance as “liberal” or “socialist” propaganda.)
This is the ultimate cancel culture: Rome and Greece were neither Judeo nor Christian. Also their democracies only lasted less than 250 years. The United States is 245 years from 1776.
Indeed, undermining public education, free thought and free expression, taking over school boards by right-wing extremists who want to inject White Christo Nationalist (fascist) order, is one element of a broad, multi-pronged assault on democracy. It did not start with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and did not end there either.
And now think: Who the hell would want to become a public school teacher in such an environment? Clearly, only right-wing extremists who think they have permission to advance their religious dogma in violation of the separation of church and state (Evolution is clearly next on the hit list). And that is the point of this campaign of intimidation: to coerce those who stand for democracy, tolerance, free thought and free and fair elections to resign or not pursue teaching or elected office.
It’s two minutes to midnight for democracy in America.
Trump is the figurehead – a useful idiot first by Putin and now by the White Christo Nationalists – mainly because his ignorance, sociopathy, cruelty made him the perfect tool to overturn the norms to lead the charge because he would do what no one else who appreciated the Constitution and had any sense of shame or humanity would do. He brought the neo-Nazis out of the shadows and into the mainstream. They even unabashedly run for office.
Trump pointed the way for using violence and intimidation as a political weapon; for purging government (even civil service) of anyone who did not show loyalty first to Trump instead of the Constitution and protect the nation against enemies foreign and domestic; for overturning the essence of American democracy to render justice “without fear or favor” and using the Department of Justice for his own purpose, ultimately enlisting the Justice Department to try to overturn the 2020 election and, for the first time in American history, undermine the peaceful transition of power. Trying to emulate what happened in Myanmar and Belarus (as his Gen. Michael Flynn, who he pardoned, urged), Trump decapitated the U.S. military and installed loyalists who he expected would heed his call to use martial law.
He installed Louis DeJoy to undermine the U.S. Post Office and literally sabotage delivery of absentee ballots (then challenge the count of those that came in late).
Trump had systematically (with “Moscow Mitch” McConnell’s brutal efficiency) reshaped the courts, right up to creating a radically right-wing supermajority on the Supreme Court, which he expected would rubber stamp whatever he did.
Trump used coercion, extortion and I’ll bet a bit of blackmail to try to pressure state legislators in Michigan and election officials in Georgia (“just find me 11,780 votes” – violating election law) and Arizona to de-certify Biden’s win in order to deny Biden the 280 electoral votes needed, throw the election back to the House, where Republicans control more states and could declare Trump the winner despite Biden’s getting 8 million more votes.
It just didn’t work in 2020 as Jeffrey Clark, Michael Flynn and Roger Stone (mastermind of blocking the Florida recount to hand the 2000 election to Bush) had planned, unfortunately for them, because of the few election officials who, despite voting for Trump, took to heart their legal obligation to the Constitution. Can’t have that again.
The coup didn’t end with Trump finally being removed from the White House. Now he has brought the gang back together – Steve Bannon, the dirty trickster Stone, his right-hand henchman Mark Meadows, Flynn – to methodically put together the elements first for Republicans to take back the House and Senate (and castrate Biden’s presidency) in 2022 (and end any investigations into his wrongdoing and that of his enablers).
And his tactic of using the Big Lie is supported by candidates from Congress to state houses to local elections and school boards who use it to as an excuse to execute laws and policies to suppress the vote, gerrymander maps that keep Republicans in control even with fewer voters, and even set aside the results of an election and pick their preferred winner to stay in office and keep power despite being a minority party undermining popular policies.
And they are starting now, targeting key states (they only need three), to replace their secretary of state, election clerks, inspectors, poll watchers with those who unabashedly declare their support for the Big Lie – that gets them Trump’s endorsement – so they are in place for 2022 and 2024.
The opportunism the Republicans see is evident in how not a single one (not even the few remaining “rational” Republicans: Cheney. Kinzinger, Romney, Collins or Murkowski) has voted for the Voting Rights legislation that has come out of the House. Many criticize the Democrats for failing to address what is happening to democracy with the urgency of an existential threat.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others, is raising the alarm: “It is no exaggeration to say that we are at a crisis moment in our democracy and we do not have long to act. If Congress does not take action — and SOON — Republicans in a number of states that have passed anti-democratic legislation will get away with undermining American democracy. There will simply not be enough time to undo the damage they have caused…
“The ONLY way we are going to save our democracy for this and future generations is if Democrats in the Senate have the courage to use their majority to make that happen. And that means voting to set aside the filibuster for voting rights legislation and pass a bill that ensures all citizens in this country have the ability to vote.”
