Democracy Resilient

By GENE NICHOL

As I’ve said, perhaps more than once, these are dark and dangerous times for democracy. So dark that the threat to our form of government and our meaning as a people frames our age. Heather Cox Richardson puts it like this: “This is not the only story from today, but it is the only story that historians will note from this era – did Americans defend their democracy?”

And there is ground for pessimism, I’d concede, on virtually every front. Astonishingly, the Republican Party seemingly prepares to nominate a mad, supremely dishonest, narcissistic, seditious insurrectionist — who claims an authority to suspend the Constitution and to be freed from the obligations of law – for president of the United States. It’s hard to imagine a stronger justification for the utter abandonment of a political party. Can you think of a reason more absolutely disqualifying?

And, on the home front in North Carolina, the defection-bolstered Republican General Assembly continues to dismantle the constitutional safeguards of democratic government – now concentrating on the destruction of traditional hallmarks of executive authority – and publicly tormenting the most marginalized and imperiled members of the Tar Heel community. Meantime, the new Republican N.C. Supreme Court has formally enlisted in support of the lawmakers’ war on democracy. So matters horrify. Literally.

But my economist friends sometimes talk about “green shoots.” I think this refers to something like signs, or maybe even sprigs, of economic recovery during an otherwise bleak downturn. Enlivening sprouts, perhaps. Evidence of possible turn of fortune. Even if scant. Strands of hope.

I can be a doomsday type, I’ll concede. But I’m not beyond seeing the hint of a silver lining; a counter-current, nascent perhaps, but capable of producing powerful tides. And even an old geezer, these days, is hard pressed to deny the appearance of political “green shoots”. The possible, admittedly longed for, emergence of democratic resurrection.

Think of Kansas, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Montana.

In August, there was the sweeping rejection of an abortion ban by Kansas voters. Kansas voters. Women from outside traditional channels of politics – and allies who love them – flooded the streets, meeting halls and polling booths to demand the equality of reproductive freedom. Not to ask for it, but to require it. As a 23-year-old activist stirred by the battle beamed: “It’s never looked like this in Kansas before.” Who knew regular folks, especially young ones, would steel their backs and fight? Apparently Kansans did.

In early April, Janet Protasiewicz, an avowedly liberal judge running overtly to secure abortion and voting rights, won election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court – tipping the majority – by a whopping 11 points. In a state where four of the last six presidential contests had been decided by less than 1%, she prevailed by over 200,000 votes. Her incumbent Republican opponent fumed in indignation. She didn’t seem to care.

Weeks later, two young, Black lawmakers in Nashville, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, would teach the nation and the planet what it means to lead. Rising even higher than their almost pitiable Tennessee legislative colleagues could go low, they defied – saying effectively, we’re not here at your sufferance. We’ve got work to do. We’re not interested in your permission or approval. Step aside.

And late April, in Montana of all places, Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker, rebuked her colleagues from the House floor after they voted to ban gender-affirming care for minors. Montana legislators voted to censure her, deploying the sanction for the first time in 50 years. Good God. They might as easily have voted to censure the 21st century.

Green shoots. All around.

Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law and in 2015 started the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund after the UNC Board of Governors closed the state-funded Poverty Center for publishing articles critical of the governor and General Assembly.

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2023

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