Abandoning Democracy

By GENE NICHOL

Here’s my question. Does anyone actually believe that if Donald Trump returns to the White House – by hook or crook – we’ll ever have another free presidential election in the United States? That Trump and his crew will ever peacefully surrender power? After having tried to violently overthrow the government once, he won’t do it again?

Having never expressed sorrow or regret for his crimes, do folks think he won’t repeat them? Not only does he refuse to admit fault for his sedition, he sings odes to, and says he’ll issue pardons for, his fellow insurrectionists. He refuses to commit to the 2024 election results. He says he’d suspend the constitution, be dictator on day one. He’ll call out the Armed Forces to brutalize the American people. He’ll invoke, ironically, the Insurrection Act to get his way. The U.S. Supreme Court now says it’ll shield him from accountability.

Who exactly thinks Trump will peacefully transfer power next time? Who is that fool, or liar? Trump and the whole North Carolina Republican political class know what he’ll do. He’ll use all the tools of government and every thug he can assemble to stay in power. They either don’t care or they’re all for it.

Who can think that way? Who can think it’s okay to overthrow our national experiment? Who can believe that’s acceptable and still claim to be American? Given all the sacrifice, all the blood, given the Declaration of Independence, given the Preamble to the Constitution, given the Pledge of Allegiance, given the Gettysburg Address, given the storming of the beaches at Normandy, given the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. How can you be willing to cast aside ‘the unfinished work of American freedom”. Or even worse, to add your labor and your efforts and your money to doing in the American democracy?

What kind of human being does this? What kind of patriot? What kind of flag-pin does he wear on his lapel? Donald Trump does of course. He’s all in. So is J.D. Vance. He runs for office and, oddly, says he’ll take the oath. House Speaker Mike Johnson is on board with the democracy destroying project. North Carolina’s Republican leaders are happy joiners. State Senate head Phil Berger’s in, with all his colleagues. Sen. Thom Tillis is. N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore, Sen. Ted Budd. U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx and all these congressional characters are enrolled. N.C. Chief Justice Paul Newby is on board. Full throttle. Our absurd Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson is. U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop is. Michele Morrow, Republican nominee for state superintendent of public instruction, is.

So is every single Tar Heel who aids or abets Trump in his crusade to destroy American democracy in favor of his own wealth and power. They are members of the huge, powerful and dominantly positioned North Carolina Sedition Caucus. They may not like the name. But they must like the deed. They must approve of the deed.

Why do they do it? How do they look themselves in the mirror? How do they explain it to their kids? Son, don’t say those words anymore — liberty and justice for all. Your old man’s out to erase ’em. We celebrate what, 1860 and 1898? Certainly not July 4th, not D-Day. Not the March on Washington. Not Martin Luther King’s Birthday. We’re on the other team, my boy. But keep it on the down low.

This is what we face in 2024. We might wish it wasn’t so. But it is what it is. Precisely. It does no good to pretend otherwise. The only thing for us to do is stand up, hold our heads high, throw our chests out, and fight. As I’ve heard it said, by both Warren Zevon and Coach Walz, “we’ll sleep when we’re dead.”

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, October 1, 2024

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