Far right threatens 200-plus years of American democracy
The far right is threatening to undo centuries of work and struggle that created the democracy we have come to take for granted. If the Donald Trump era is any indication, there is a good chance Republicans will go along with this agenda if doing so gives them the power they crave. Voters should realize exactly what this agenda means before continuing to support Republicans.
A holistic view of this agenda provides clarity.
Secession: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent comments on a “national divorce” essentially advocate secession to protect states’ rights. This idea was violently rejected at the cost of nearly 700,000 lives during the Civil War. Although federalism, the dividing of power between the central government and the state governments, is valuable, in that it provides checks and balances, it has been the federal government that has protected the individual rights of political and racial minorities, a key feature in democracy.
Independent state legislatures:
In the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore, which certified George W. Bush’s election victory as president, an idea emerged from a scurrilous reading of the U.S. Constitution. It suggested that state legislatures can regulate federal elections without any checks and balances from state courts. Twenty years later, Trump’s supporters revived this theory to justify their desire for Republican controlled state legislatures to overturn the 2020 election by assigning their own Electoral College electors. If this had happened, these legislatures would have rejected the will of the voters, not to mention their states’ constitutions.
Although scholars such as Steven Calabresi, co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society,
have rejected this, it is on this year’s docket of the U.S. Supreme Court. If upheld and then taken to such an extreme form, state legislatures could ignore the popular vote. Yet, this idea of state legislatures deciding presidential elections was rejected in the 1820s with Jacksonian democracy, when state leaders caved to political pressure to allow non-propertied people to vote. What influenced this change? Poor people had defended the nation in the War of 1812. Later generations of Americans, usually after serving in a war, expanded this right to vote to include all races and women. For 200 years, it has been the foundation of American democracy.
Voting rights: In 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder, the US Supreme Court struck down a key enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required states with a history of voter suppression to gain federal approval before making further changes to voting requirements.
Again, states’ rights.
Residency requirements: In December 2021, and even more recently, Greene called for a “cooling off period” before Democrats who move to Republican-controlled states are allowed to vote. This would undo the dismantling of lengthy residency requirements for voters that was finally achieved in the 1970s.
Income taxes. Last month, House Republicans sponsored a bill to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax. It is important for us to remember why the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913. The country had experienced decades of wealth inequality, with the wealthy benefitting from governmental policies such as tariffs, laissez-faire economics, imperialistic expansion, and a strong navy to protect business interests overseas. Yet, these policies were funded at the expense of all Americans. Advocates pushed for a graduated income tax to instill fairness, forcing the wealthy to contribute to the system with a portion of their income.
Abortion: Last year’s Dobbs U.S. Supreme Court decision took the nation’s women back to 1973. Now, as then, it is up to the individual state to determine the legality of abortion rights. Again, a states’ rights view has prevailed, with many women paying the price.
Apparently, the conservative utopia in which Greene and her followers want to live would keep unwilling women pregnant, allow a small minority to hoard wealth without contributing to the very system that fostered that wealth — instead having all Americans fund the system, restrict voting, prevent new residents from voting to change the status quo of power, allow state legislatures to reject the people’s votes if they didn’t like the results, and as a last resort, allow states to secede.