Democracy Terrorized

                Yesterday, white terrorists stormed and vandalized the capitol. Images of a man smugly propping up his feet on House Speaker Pelosi’s abandoned desk unsettled me as much as pictures of Pramila Jayapal huddled on the floor of the balcony, hordes breaking down barriers, smashing windows, marauding through halls of Congress, pipe bombs found at Democratic and Republican headquarters, a corpse of a young woman carried down the Capitol steps.

               A president of the United States effectively sparked violence against another branch of government. We’ve had an illiterate, racist, hyper-coddled man-baby running our country, and he never seemed to understand the difference between presidents and kings. Our democracy has always been partial and inequitable, but I never expected to see it so severely ignored and violently sabotaged.

               Yet democracy is our country’s most vital and originating claim.

               Do we know anymore what this means? Equal voice and power of citizens hang on mechanisms of consensus. That means a number of things.

               We have signed on to a loud, messy project, one that calls for a rarely-smooth caucusing of ideas and good communication of facts to inform decisions. It calls for a mechanism of settling debates. And it involves a social contract that citizens will abide by rules of debate and then peaceably tolerate outcomes.

               Such debate calls for protection of assembly and speech, as well as dependable information and therefore vigorous protections of the press and quality education. We then need careful and accessible means of voting. And the settled outcome of these decisions requires our trust and peaceful acquiescence to what’s been decided.

               Our democracy is in trouble.

               The Republican Party, for too long, has relied on compromises in democracy that advantage targeted minoritarian interests. To achieve this, an executive class seeking to avoid taxes and regulation sold grievance, xenophobia, patriotism and freedom to a white, rural working class seeking to preserve Christian values and access to jobs. Such compromise includes a Senate where Nebraska has power equal to California and an Electoral College where sparsely populated states punch above their weight. These compromises have served Republicans well.

               Add to these compromises other degradations of democracy that advantage Republicans: massive voter suppression, Gerry-rigged redistricting, poorly funded schools, a bullied press.

               With all these advantages, Republicans still lost the White House and Senate.

               They were then able to go to courts, packed with judges appointed by Trump and rushed through confirmation by McConnell, and still, they lost. No fewer than 60 times, judges and Justices listened patiently to claims of election fraud, and claimants lost over and over.

               The President told his supporters yesterday he would never concede. He told them to march up Pennsylvania Avenue and give Republicans “the kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country.”

               That’s not democracy. That’s a bullied press, degraded schooling, arduous voting, and an absolute refusal after two months to accept the will of the people. The fact that it ended up in the breaching and vandalizing of the People’s House where state-certified votes were then being honored and received is only the most demonstrable statement of the fact.

               Democracy is fragile. We have kicked the shit out of it. And we need to attend to its needs, quickly and with care.