The Trump glorifying letter-to-the-editor, “Trump critics now in a sad place” by Paul Anderson published in this newspaper on March 17, claims those on the left are politicizing the COVID-19 pandemic. Anderson blames the lefties for calling the pandemic Trump’s Katrina and creating “The panic that has caused the stock market to drop and is bringing economic hardship to small business is thus far a reaction to less than 1,000 cases and 29 deaths nationwide. That was on March 17. On April 6, the CDC reports 330,891 cases and 8,910 deaths nationwide.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not Trump’s Katrina; it is Trump’s Chernobyl. Katrina was a hurricane whose path of destruction could not be slowed or managed. To paraphrase George Takei, Chernobyl was a preventable catastrophe that Trump denied, downplayed, and mismanaged until tens of thousands died.
Anderson then argues that if the pandemic’s effect turns out to be moderate, Trump will point to what he did to minimize the problem. Unfortunately, Anderson makes no argument for how Trump will reduce his role in creating the worldwide disaster we are all dealing with now.
I recently heard an interview with Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of “How Democracies Die.” In their book, the authors show democracies often die when an authoritarian and populist candidate gets elected. The candidate often aligns themselves with a major political party seeking to use the candidate’s popularity to win. Just as often, the party overestimates its ability to control the candidate. Unlike yesterday’s coups, today’s authoritarian uses what looks like a democratic process to attain their real goal, absolute power.
Divide and conquer is the method of choice. First, the authoritarian identifies real problems the country faces, blames the opposition party, and characterizes them as the people’s enemies. Next, they attack the media with claims of fake news, undermine the electoral process and appoint government officials based on political ideology and remove them for the slightest question of loyalty. Lastly, they label any criticism of their plans to make the country great again as un-patriotic. Sound familiar?
Sen. Jeff Flake got it right when he spoke out against his party for a “flagrant disregard for truth or decency” and a “regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms.” He concluded, “When such behavior emanates from the top of our government…it is my obligation to (speak out) as a matter of duty and conscience.”
Other branches of the government often support the demise of democracy as well. By refusing to hear Merrick Garland and rushing to confirm Kavanaugh, the Senate drove a stake through the heart of our democracy. It maneuvered themselves into a lose-lose political situation. Confirm Kavanaugh and cause swing voters and women to vote for the Democrats or confirm him and cause the base to stay home.
As Sen. Jeff Flake noted, the Constitution works because of unwritten democratic norms established over the years. Just because the Constitution allows an action, or doesn’t expressly prohibit it, doesn’t mean the government shouldn’t exercise restraint. FDR tried to increase the number of Supreme Court justices (not prohibited in the Constitution) to swing the court hard left for generations, but the Senate blocked him. This administration is much stealthier at advancing their party’s agenda. The Trump administration put enormous pressure on Kennedy to resign so they could swing the court hard right for generations, and the Senate participated.
The Republican Party has become the party of older white men and Christian Evangelicals. When Obama got elected, this group feared the fall of a white Christian nation that made the rules for everyone. Minorities and non-Christians were tolerated because, with no power, they were no real threat. Now that racial minorities, the LGBT community, and non-believers have fought for their rights and are winning, the Republicans have gone into overdrive, appealing to many Americans’ most basic fears – race, sex, and religion.
Fanning the false fear of immigrants taking away American jobs, same-sex marriage, abortion, and Muslims instituting Sharia law has so polarized our country that trepidation and uncertainty seem to be the predominant emotions many people feel. Add to this turmoil a conservative Supreme Court that is likely to decide a religious privilege case in favor of the religious plaintive, and we have a recipe for more division.
That case involves a business owner who fired an employee who came out as transgender. The owner, a devout Christian, fired her, claiming having a transgender woman work for him would violate his God’s commands. If Kavanaugh gets confirmed, Civil Rights advocates think it is very likely the court will decide that one’s religious beliefs take precedence over another’s Constitutional rights.
The fact that 16 states (LePage representing himself, not Maine) have urged the Supreme Court to rule that companies can fire workers based on their sexual orientation or gender identity and that 20 states (including Maine) and Washington, DC, have laws banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, shows just how deep the political division is in this country.
Many people realize how the Supreme Court decides this question will affect everyone’s rights for the foreseeable future. To quote Scalia, deciding that religious beliefs are above the law would make everyone “a law unto himself” and “What principle of law or logic can be brought to bear to contradict a believer’s assertion that a particular act is ‘central’ to his faith?”
Upholding the Constitutional principles of equal protection under the law and the separation of church and state is our best defense to ensure our democracy survives the nation’s deep political divisions.
Tom Waddell is president of the Maine Chapter of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. He welcomes comments at president@ffrfmaine.org
