What would you think if one of the political parties developed a plan to subvert home rule, seeking to have local officials appointed by the state rather than elected by the people? For clarity, “home rule” allows local governments the right to self-govern, to set their governance on taxes, education, health, etc. It also protects the local government from state intervention. Think about that.
What would you think if one of the political parties began circumventing legislation by taking over a state’s judiciary and adopting amendments to a state’s constitution, which effected widespread policy changes, including lowering the number of judges on the State’s Supreme Court and then putting the lower courts and local governments under the control of the state legislature? Think about that.
What would you think if one of the political parties began rescinding the votes of certain non-felony types of prior convicted criminals or mandating who might attend which schools, both private and public? Think about that.
What would you think if one of the political parties enacted laws affecting personal relationships, who could socially gather, or what might take place in the bedroom between consenting adults? Think about that.
What would you think if one of the political parties enabled a state legislature the power to modify or nullify any local government? Think about that.
I think, most of us, would agree these acts, if they took place, would be un-American and damaging to our democracy. These actions would directly undermine the foundations of our American democracy. These acts would violate our democratic principles of Representative Government, Rule of Law, Consent of the Governed/Popular Sovereignty, Justice, Liberty, and Equality.
There is a saying that those that forget history are apt to repeat it. For those of you thinking this could never happen in the USA, it has happened. From the 1870’s until the 1920’s, throughout the old Confederacy, these acts were manifest across the South. These are well documented having happened in North Carolina and duplicated elsewhere. Villages, towns, and cities had their elected governments abolished with the states taking over their governance, laws were passed outlawing interracial relationships, bills were passed taking away the right to vote from specific groups of people, schools were closed, schools were segregated, judiciary systems were taken under direct control of governorships or state legislatures with the courts then “packed” with political appointees. In hundreds of cases (thousands?) duly elected individuals were forced out of office by Governors or state legislatures.
You might say, “But this took place at another time, from one hundred fifty years to one hundred years ago. It could not happen today.”
Think again. It is happening today…. only today in a groundswell……but how quickly could it turn into a tsunami. We have a governor in Florida who has removed locally elected officials; locally elected prosecuting attorneys and judges, a state legislature in Florida who has removed independent board of directors at public institutions of learning, new judiciary oversight boards created and populated by political appointees. There have been numerous state level voting district maps that have been determined to undermine specific group’s ability to impact local, state, and federal elections, all of these directed at Black voting districts. In the state of Texas, the state legislature passed a bill, House Bill 2127, that kneecaps the ability of cities to self-govern. The bill was primarily focused on “blue” cities, whose local politics have been dominated by Democrat party elected officials. The law is so broad that it takes away local communities’ ability to determine how they govern commerce, welfare, taxes, etc.
Where are we headed with all of this? History is a great teacher….and from that we should all be drawing caution signs. There are danger signals in these actions and we have a political candidate who has already stated his campaign will be one of “retribution and vengeance” and releases of plans being drawn up on his reelection show a designed purpose to further centralize power through a Federal government that will be organized to attack that candidate’s “political and personal” enemies list. Who is helping to forge the strategies and the plans? It is rumored that the Heritage Foundation has created a strategy paper called” Project 2025” where Trump would expand presidential authority over even nonpolitical levers of the federal government.
Think this would never happen in the USA? It is….………
Sitting In No Man's Land 
2 responses to “Threat to our Democracy? Fact or Fiction?”
Interesting read and interesting perspective on Project 2025. If you take Trump out of the equation Project 2025 sounds like a straight forward way for a political movement that is disenchanted with how America has been governed by the Liberal (Progressive) governing majority. At times, your perspectives make me wonder about your conservative roots. I do enjoy your thought provoking writing hough.
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Sean, thanks for your comment and always very welcome. Being retired, I have been able to begin reading “Project 2025” and all of its 880 plus pages. It is interesting that the Heritage Foundation says the “project” was written for “Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, and Ms. Smith” and so much of it is written in terms that “demonize” anyone that doesn’t stand aligned to what the Heritage Foundation supports. It is written in many ways to raise the fears, the angers, and the bias of those that read it. Yet, the most disturbing element as I have been reading the section presidential leadership is, as I interpret it, a view of consolidating more and more power into the executive office, diminishing our government’s (and Constitution’s) separation of power. One of the primary concerns of conservatism for decades has been the movement of power being conceded to the executive office in lieu of Congress (the House and Senate), the use of Presidential Directives (executive orders) which carry the force and effect of law – bypassing Congress. Doesn’t take long to read conservative complaints about this trend over the last forty years. Yet Project 2025 makes no apologies for developing a strategy where the newly elected President within the first 180 days invokes a tremendous number of executive orders – many of which look to be fundamentally autocratic. Another complaint from conservatives has been our court systems “legislating” from the bench. Yet Project 2025 seems to be undermining both Congress and our Judicial system by developing a strategy where the President’s offices takes (literally TAKES) authority through executive orders to create and enforce laws signed by a stroke of the President’s pen. In this area alone, this appears to be justification Project 2025 is creating a road map to a lesser democratic form of government to a more autocratic form of government to achieve its goals. In some ways, I think Project 2025 is showing how the conservative movement has abandoned it’s four foundational pillars to a more extreme means to achieving a farther right set of goals. Almost as if “any means to an end” as long as you get the result you want justifies the means (think of storming the Capitol to stop the legitimate transfer of power after an election – being justified by literally millions of misled individuals).
One other note, Project 2025 bemoans the fact that our government has not been able to actually approve a fully voted and confirmed Federal budget since 1996. They allude that to dysfunctional government and lay the blame on the “radical left”. That about floored me because anyone that has read just a little bit understands that Newt Gingrich led the Republican party (via his own manifest) to “declare” war on the opposition party and the seed he planted as the House Majority leader in the Federal budget process is the root cause since 1996 we have not had a fully approved Federal budget (it has been piecemealed every since through approval processes).
I will continue to read “Project 2025”, but what I have read so far seems so much more “extreme reactionary” rather than conservative. Let me explain that. Reactionary ideologies can be radical and political in nature, aiming to re-establish past conditions. A reactionary favors previous political aspects or states over present ones. Reactionaries are strongly opposed to new political or social ideas. Here is an example, I once saw an interview of a Trump supporter who was asked “when did the country go wrong?”. His response was “1919”. Kind of humorous, as in 1919 women gained the right to vote. His view is what I would call “reactionary” wanting to turn back the clock to another time with different conditions. Pretty simple in my mind, reactionaries want to return to “better times” to turn back the clock to when they viewed society, politics, the economy, etc. to have been “better”. Conservatism has four foundational pillars – one of which is an orderly society that evolves over time, based on law and order (another pillar of Conservatism) – evolves over time, and not through sudden revolution, but it does evolve and it moves forward, it progresses, it changes, it is not static…and it definitely does not turn back the clock to “better times”. In that I believe Project 2025 does, without saying so, look backward to a time the writers believe were “better times” and to achieve those ends (again any means to an end”) would move our country down the path of autocratic government and away from (their view) liberal democracy.
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