IN A DEMOCRACY WE THE PEOPLE MEANS ALL THE PEOPLE NOT JUST ALL THE WHITE GUYS
Our constitution starts with the premise: “We The People” – which affirms that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. And Abraham Lincoln famously hoped that Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
The whole idea behind our government was that it would be responsive to the will of the voters. The voters would get to choose their leaders, granting them the power to lead us.
But as our country nears the tipping point moment when people of color will be in the majority, we are seeing one political party go off the rails in an attempt to keep white folks all powerful. The GOP has aligned with the ultraright because that is the last best hope they see to keep white people in power. Fear of the “other” is part of the game plan of the ultra right. They try to make white America afraid of people of color to gain their support at the polls and keep the gun lobby fat and happy. Trump started out his campaign in 2016 with his comments about Mexicans not sending us their best people and it went downhill from there.
The world is changing, however, and the MAGA Republicans are not able to stop it.
DEMOGRAPHICS ARE CHANGING
If you work in politics, government, business, media, academia, philanthropy: Your world is changing.
- America’s Asian and Hispanic populations saw huge gains over the past dozen years — a trend that will accelerate as those families grow, Axios’ Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj found in analyzing Census Bureau data.
Why it matters: This is a new way to visualize America’s changing face — the electorate, the customers, the influencers, the decision-makers, the workforce, the workers you’ll be trying to recruit in the future.
What’s happening: “Population growth is increasingly driven by net immigration, which accounts for all population growth in 2043 and beyond,” the Congressional Budget Office said in a 2022 report.
Case in point: In Texas, Hispanic residents now officially make up the largest share of the state’s population as of last week, The Texas Tribune reports.
- “The new population figures show Hispanic Texans made up 40.2% of the state’s population last summer, barely edging out non-Hispanic white Texans, who made up 39.8%,” per the Tribune.
By the numbers: Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders grew 120%, to nearly 900,000.
- The Asian population grew 105%, to 21 million.
- The Hispanic population grew 80%, to 64 million.
- The Black population grew 31%, to 46 million.
Between the lines: The U.S. is still predominantly white, with growth of 19% between 2000 and 2022, to 250 million.
The change in our demographics is real. The fearmongering about that change in demographics is not. We do not need to be afraid of other people because they happen to have a different skin color. We should be afraid of people who try to get us to hate other people and fear other people with different skin color. MAGA Republicans are the people we should fear. They are trying to get and keep people in America divided and fearful so they can gain and maintain power.
GOP BECOMES THE PARTY OF FEARMONGERING, LYING, AND CHEATING TO “WIN”
That drive to stay in power resulted in desperate efforts to get Trump re-elected in 2020 even though he lost the election to Joe Biden. The John Eastman playbook. which I have written about in earlier posts, was a way Trump Republicans thought they might be able to succeed in their mission to keep Trump in office.
As you will recall, Trump and his supporters tried to get willing Republican state legislatures to send their own hand picked bogus slate of electors to DC where they hoped the January 6th insurrection with the help of VP Pence would create enough chaos to throw the decision about who would be president to the House of Representatives where the GOP would be able to proclaim a victory for Trump based on the sheer number of Republican run state legislatures. Remember that? They relied on an interpretation of the Constitution now referred to as the Independent State Legislature Doctrine.
This so-called doctrine came from a conscious misreading of the constitution using the language of the constitution to contend that state legislatures have all the power to decide anything and everything about both state and also federal elections. That was a clear misreading of the constitution because it flew in the face of the obvious intent of the founding fathers and hundreds of years of legal precedent. What Eastman and the Trump team, including Rudy Guiliani and others, were trying to do with this creative misreading of the Constitution, was to create an almost certain glidepath for any Republican presidential hopeful to be elected no matter what the voters wanted (a way to disregard the actual vote tally) in 2024.
We should learn even more about those behind the scenes moves by Trump and his sycophants once Jack Smith indicts Trump for his actions in the January 6th insurrection.
Good News: THE SUPREME COURT DOESN’T GO FULL MAGA…YET
The Supreme Court had the opportunity to cave to the wishes of the ultra right by making the state legislatures the ultimate arbiters of voting laws. In short, they could have decided Moore v Harper in a way that would have ended our democratic experiment. How? By depriving voters of their right to choose their leaders and instead making state legislatures the arbiters of the entire electoral process without review by state courts or governors or any other body except the Supreme Court itself.
With more state legislatures controlled by Republicans, the MAGA infested GOP would have used the next presidential election in 2024 to run the John Eastman playbook, legitimately this time, to insure a Republican presidential win. However, the Court did not go there. We can all breathe a little easier now. We still live in a flawed democracy but it is still possible for a Democrat to win the presidency.
SUMMARY of Moore v Harper
The Supreme Court today rejected one of Republicans’ most audacious attempts to control elections, Axios court-watcher Sam Baker writes.
- In a 6-3 decision, the justices said state election laws can be challenged in court — a rebuke to a burgeoning conservative movement that has sought to block the courts from hearing such cases.
State of play: A group of North Carolina GOP lawmakers had asked the court to embrace a sweeping legal theory called the independent state legislature doctrine.
- The theory holds that state legislatures have total control over their state’s election rules, including the procedures that govern presidential elections.
The Supreme Court rejected that argument in one of the highest-profile cases of its term: Moore v. Harper.
- The Constitution “does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the court’s majority.
Good News: ANOTHER SUPREME COURT DECISION ALSO UPHELD DEMOCRACY…FOR NOW
In addition to Moore v Harper, the Supreme Court also revitalized Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act which is a check on gerrymandering that disenfranchises Black Americans. Here is the back story on that case:
In November 2021, groups of individual Black voters and Black-led community and civil rights organizations filed two lawsuits alleging that Alabama’s new congressional map was designed to dilute Black Alabamans’ votes: Caster v. Merrill and Milligan v. Merrill. The lawsuits argued that the map intentionally perpetuates a long history of discrimination against Black voters by packing a large segment of Black voters into a single heavily Black congressional district and cracking the remaining voters among multiple districts dominated by white voters, thereby diluting Black political power. Under the map, Black voters have the opportunity to elect a candidate of choice in only one of seven districts (14 percent of districts) despite making up around 27 percent of the state’s voting age population.
On January 24, 2022, the district court hearing the cases preliminarily blocked Alabama’s new congressional map, finding that the map was substantially likely to violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and ordered the Alabama legislature to create a second Black opportunity district in time for the 2022 midterms.
However, Alabama appealed the decision, and, on February 7, 2022, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and stayed the lower court’s judgments pending appeal.(Brennan Center)
The Supreme Court opinion in this case affirmed the lower court, determining that the gerrymandered maps were unfair to Black Alabamians. The maps need to be redrawn to give the Black population another district to be fairly represented.
The fact that the Supreme Court did not immediately decide this case in favor of Black voters by simply allowing the lower court decision to stand, resulted in the 2022 election in Alabama being held with illegally gerrymandered maps that they have now decided disenfranchised Black voters in the state. If the Court had simply allowed the lower court decision to stand, there would have been less of a chance for the Republicans to take over the House of Representatives in 2022 and we might not be living today with a crazy MAGA infested House of Representatives trying to defy Biden and embarrass him at every turn. Biden would have gotten more accomplished when it comes to climate change laws, gun control, abortion rights and more.
Challenges to other state maps with racially gerrymandered districts will now take place across the country as a result of the current decision from the Court. Democrats stand to gain another 5 to 7 seats in the House of Representatives before the 2024 election. (Marc Elias, Democracy Docket).
THE COURT IS NOT AS CRAZY AS MAGA REPUBLICANS ARE
The takeaway from these two Supreme Court cases is that the Court is not totally super radically extreme right. But this is a horribly compromised, corrupted right wing Court with Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Roberts all failing to answer to the American people about their secretive chummy relationships with right wing lobbyists. The Court upheld our democracy even though it has demolished our reproductive rights and is doing more damage when it comes to human rights. (Read below about affirmative action.)
This Court is aligned with Republican culture war advocates who have taken over the GOP but are not in bed with the farthest far right advocates who are out to destroy our democracy. I guess we can all be glad about that little nugget of hope. We can also anticipate that backlash created by GOP extremism will open the door for more Democratic wins. The further right they go, the better for Democrats. If the Dems achieve unitary government in 2024, Biden could accomplish real breakthroughs for our country. That could help the GOP realize that they have to move on from Trump and their dream of Christian nationalism if they want to stay relevant. Fingers crossed…some good might come of all of this trash we are getting from the Supremes.
Bad News: THE COURT CRATERS DIVERSITY EFFORTS
The Court just overturned affirmative action in higher education.
- Jerry Kang, a UCLA law professor who has researched affirmative action and implicit bias, says to expect “substantial drops in underrepresented minority representation” during the next admissions cycle.
- That will affect minority representation in the professional world.
Joe Biden is already speaking out about that decision by SCOTUS.
In short, this Court told colleges and universities that they may not rely on race in their admissions decisions. This has been a longstanding goal of conservatives. Roberts has been waiting to overturn affirmative action for many years. Now, with the 3 recent Trump appointed justices on the Court, and a case that uses Asian Americans as the Trojan horse, Roberts found the perfect opportunity to rule against one of the most effective ways our country has relied on to on ramp Black Americans into the mainstream in business, law, and other professions.
Diversity is part of the strength of our country and making sure colleges and universities are diverse is crucial for our nation if we hope to advance and be a productive, unified country. This decision by the Roberts Court is a continuation of the Republican assault on racial issues including critical race theory and efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett act as if racial issues are nonexistent in our country instead of facing the truth and looking for fair remedies.
More Bad News: LGBTQ RIGHTS ARE UNDER ASSAULT
“The Supreme Court held today for the first time that a business offering customized expressive services has the right to violate state laws prohibiting such businesses from discrimination in sales. The Court’s decision opens the door to any business that claims to provide customized services to discriminate against historically-marginalized groups. (David Cole ACLU legal director)
This decision was an affront to not only the LGBTQ community, it was an affront to legal precedent: There was no standing to even hear this case! There was no case or controversy that needed to be decided! The woman who wanted the Court to decide this matter did not even have an actual request from a gay couple to design something. She was upset because she was thinking about designing something for a gay couple and said her religious beliefs might have caused her to be in conflict with state laws requiring that she not discriminate.
What this tells us is that this Court is working as hard and fast as it can to turn back the hands of time to an era before we made progressive changes that are the hallmark of a true democracy where we accept people for who they are and allow them to have freedom and privacy when it comes to their deeply personal choices.
But here is the truth:
They cannot turn back the hands of time.
Our country is becoming more diverse whether or not Republicans like it.
Our country is more accepting of people with different sexual proclivities whether or not the Court likes it.
Our country will not accept a limit on a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body.
A majority of Americans will not embrace decisions like these coming from a Court so besotted with corrupt justices in bed with monied interests on the Republican right. Despite its willingness to preserve democracy in Merrill and Harper, this Court will lose even more of the waning trust of Americans with its other bad decisions.