In a matter of days, the midterm elections will take place throughout the country. Each of the seats in the House of Representatives are up for election and a third of the seats in the Senate are being contested. As we move closer to this momentous day, there is a basic question that each American who chooses to either vote or refrain from doing so—what will democracy look like after the first of the year, 2023? There has been a great deal of discussion on this topic from all sides of the political spectrum; however, there seem to me, to be some basic and logical concerns that we all should weigh. As I write this, some who read it will take exception to my conclusions, and that I understand, but it is my judgment and belief that there are irrefutable facts that MUST be given careful consideration. In addition to the above-mentioned contests, there are also elections for state legislative positions and statewide offices, such as governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. Many of these races are as critical as those which have national implications. Within the ranks of many Republicans running for various positions there are the deniers of the legitimacy of the 2020 election. These same individuals have vowed to question the outcome of any election that is not favorable to them and have not ruled out action, including violent physical action, if necessary.
Included on an Internet site is a description of democracy: The word democracy comes from the Greek words’ “demos,” meaning people, and “kratos” meaning power, so democracy can be thought of as “power of the people”: a way of governing which depends on the will of the people. As we all will remember from our school days, American democracy is characterized by a representative form of government. A representative democracy is the opposite of an authoritarian form such as communism, fascism, or any totalitarian form of government. The concern that we are seeing around the country and the world is the rise of a more authoritarian mindset and the selection of leaders who embrace autocracy over democracy. Witness what has taken place in Italy, Venezuela, and Hungry as examples of this movement. The governors of Florida and Texas have leaned in this direction around certain panic-induced issues such as abortion, immigration, and crime. Further, we have a former president who has been hell bent on flaunting the law throughout his career, whether in business, private life, or politics. We must keep in proper perspective that to have a functioning representative democracy, there must be a common adherence to the rule of law, ethical standards, judicial fairness and equality and an abiding respect for human life. Anything short of this is mere tyranny that begins to move us as a society in the direction of an authoritarian form of governing.
In the October 24-31, 2022, edition of TIME magazine, the featured article is entitled: “HOW OUR GREATEST PRESIDENT SAVED DEMOCRACY AND WE CAN TOO”. Jon Meacham, the author makes the point that Lincoln was not a paragon of equality and justice for all. “Yet he defended the possibilities of democracy at an hour in which the means of amendment, adjustment, and reform were under prolonged and almost successful assault.” We do not have to look back far in our nation’s history to see the actions of the insurrectionists’ assault on the capitol on January 6, 2022. This action certainly mirrors what Lincoln was facing in the raging conflict between the slave-oriented states and the Union. The debate goes on between those who support the unsupported rhetoric of Trump and those who denounce the positions he has taken and continues to take on the campaign trail and through social media. In the privacy of the voting booth, will a majority of voters vote to uphold our democracy? Will most voters come to realize who Trump really is and chose to sideline him for the last time? We will have to wait and see how this all plays out.
As we are witnessing from a variety of venues, Trump, his family, and his organization are under attack by various governmental entities. There is the January 6 Select Committee that has gathered untold amounts of substantiated information on the role Trump played in the events leading up to January 6th and the assault that occurred on the 6th. Further, there are the numerous suits brought by the Attorney General in New York and the District Attorney in Fulton County Georgia. Added to these legal actions are the repeated charges brought against him by numerous women who claim that he assaulted them. When one steps back and views the words and the actions, they are replete with one lie, falsehood, exaggeration, and innuendo after another. He lies when there is no need to lie. The real tragedy is that so many people in this county look past all of what he is and is not and continue to throw their support to him. He has made it ever so clear, as have many of those running for office throughout the county, that if the Republican party candidates lose, they will not accept such a result. How does this support a representative democracy? It does not.
Another piece to this discussion is the role of the courts in a representative democracy. The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs which attacked the right of a woman to have an abortion serves as an example of the current Court’s decisions. On the one hand large numbers of individuals, over 70 percent, in the country took the position that the decision was wrong. Considering the substantial number who took this position, such a decision is not reflective of the position society has and that the Court is charged with supporting and upholding. One of the positions taken by Trump during the 2016 campaign was that he would change the complexion of the federal court system by appointing judges who support a more controlling and less egalitarian legal framework. He has appointed many judges at the various levels of the system and three justices to the Supreme Court. Looking at the abortion issue, there are those on the current court who lied during their confirmation hearings and meetings with senators on this subject. In a recent release of Senator Ted Kennedy’s diary, he has a notation in it that Alito promised that he recognized the importance of precedent and that Roe had been affirmed and reaffirmed on several occasions. Kavanagh made the same promise to Senator Susan Collins in an interview with her and Amy Coney Barrett alluded to her support of precedent during the confirmation hearings. All three of these justices voted in the affirmative to negate Roe and support Dobbs.
In the October 24, 2022, addition of The Guardian, Jill Filipovic, authored an article entitled: “Democratic’ midterms hurdle: Americans are getting used to eroded democracy”. She states that over 70 percent of voters in the country said that American democracy was at risk; however, just 7 percent identified it as the most critical issue in this election. If indeed, democracy continues to erode and the populace becomes immune to the effects of this, then trouble does loom ahead for the survival of a constitutional representative democracy in this country. Ms. Filiovic uses abortion as an issue to make her point. When the decision was leaked this summer, there was an uproar from many varied segments of society; however, such concern has been reduced to a whimper today. Similarly, I would point to the outcry when George Floyd was murdered by the police in Minneapolis. There were marches and legislation proposed, but it is difficult to find much support for dealing with the brutality experienced by some Black people in their involvement with law enforcement. Recently, there was another school shooting in St. Louis, and there have been more than forty this year alone, yet as a society, we have become numb to these tragic events experienced by our children.
All that is going on requires some measure of unity and working together. At this point in time that is a utopian idea that will not come to fruition. Do not lose sight of the fact that “A house divided cannot stand.” Is this our fate? When you buy the ticket and board the train, control of the destination is out of your hands and at the pleasure of the engineer. As Josh Moon stated in the Alabama Political Reporter, “Elections have lifetime consequences.” It is my unwavering hope that voters will heed the call to sanity, reason, and common sense. Once the election is over, future outcomes will, potentially, be fraught with lawlessness, unconstitutional decisions, and the absence of what is in the best interest of a representative democracy.