Getting Back in the Fight

By GENE NICHOL

It is odd to be 73 years old and learn that you don’t recognize the country you love and have always lived in. Beyond odd actually. The good thing, I had thought, about this presidential campaign was that Donald Trump showed so patently, and so repeatedly, exactly who he is. The horrifying thing is that a majority of Americans signed him up anyway. Again. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that. At least now all debates about American exceptionalism can be officially ended.

So, like millions of others, I’ll work to challenge the cold acceptance of government-imposed death sentences for women who can’t obtain lifesaving health care because of someone else’s religious conviction; the mass deportation of millions of courageous and selfless parents from distraught nations risking their lives to better the plight of their children; the blatantly unconstitutional use of the U.S. military and department of justice to crush the once and future president’s “enemies from within”; the malicious targeting of marginalized transgender folks, especially teens, to prove that their outcast status is permanent and debilitating; and so much more. Dark days approach. They’ve been promised to us. And if darkness is all you’ve got, you’ll deliver.

In recent years, we’ve often received more hopeful election news on the federal front than in North Carolina. But not this time. If all three branches of the federal government are now captured by the most right-wing casts in our country’s history; Tar Heels elected Josh Stein (governor), Rachel Hunt (lieutenant governor) , Jeff Jackson (attorney general), Moe Green (school superintendent), Don Davis (Congress), an array of other Democratic congressional incumbents, and, it appears, cast aside a Republican super-majority in the General Assembly. Tar Heels won’t countenance hate-based extremism in their state leaders, even if they embrace it enthusiastically in a president.

Divided government will be more solidly entrenched in Raleigh next year than it is today. Roy Cooper has taught well how much difference a strong Democratic governor can make in the face of a rapacious legislature. For those at the bottom, it’s also heartening to learn than not all three branches of state government have them in their destructive sights. The thousands and thousands of Tar Heel Democrats who poured their hearts, their dollars, and their hours into the November election did not come home empty handed. Anderson Clayton is a marvel. And so are many of her colleagues, older and younger. They’ll fight again.

One of my good fortunes in North Carolina has been to have had a famed professor/activist mentor named Dan Pollitt. He died 14 years ago. I miss him every week. Lots of people do. He was veteran of a thousand battles in the cause of justice.

Once, decades ago, I was scheduled to speak to the ACLU in Raleigh a few days after a decidedly heartbreaking presidential election. Dan asked to go with me. I told him I didn’t know what to say to the distraught audience. What were we supposed to do?

Pollitt caught me up short, in his kind way. “What do you mean, what are we supposed to do?” he replied. “We dust ourselves off, gird up our loins, and get back in the fight.” In fact, he added, “I’m going to find something for us to demonstrate against tomorrow and we’ll go down there just to keep in practice.”

Donald Trump never met Dan Pollitt. I’ve always been grateful I did. See you in the streets.

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, December 1, 2024

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