Month: March 2021

Unfinished Business

I listened to the Senate Judiciary Committee interrogate FBI Director Chris Wray on Tuesday.  They want to know about his agency’s role in preventing and investigating the January 6^th Insurrection.  Director Wray has a “facile” way of dodging the pointed Senate questions, from both sides of the aisle.  He conveniently refuses to define domestic extremists by their position on the political spectrum, right or left.  Instead, he categorizes them as racist (both white and black), anti-government, and specific issue extremists.  “We are equal opportunity law enforcers,” he claims.

He can’t get “pegged”. He doesn’t want to appear to be more worried about “white supremacists” (domestic terrorists) then he is about “Black Lives Matter” (not domestic terrorists).  But his testimony seems clear: he is.  White Supremacists are more violent, and more importantly, they attempted to disrupt the US Government’s transition of power.  

I can’t blame Wray for knowing how to “dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge”. He became Director after Comey was fired, in the middle of the hurricane (Crossfire Hurricane more appropriately) over Trump.  He used his political agility to keep his job, even in the last months of the Trump Administration, the time of “long knives”.

We may worry about what happened on January 6^th  and what  threats might be in the future. But both sides of the aisle seem determined to continue to litigate Trump.  That is because America reached no resolution for his actions in the 2020 election.  Wish as we might that we could “move on”, here’s our reality. Trumpism is still driving a significant part of the electorate, and more immediately, politicians who need their votes.

Legal Insurrection

The nationwide impact continues.  Anti-democratic actions are happening in many states, now.  And by democratic, I mean actions against our democracy, not against my Democratic Party.  The founding principal of our democracy is our citizen’s right to vote.   When the Founding Fathers wrote the original Constitution, the word “citizen” only applied to twenty-one-year-old white men who owned property. But all of them were “enfranchised”.  

The history of the United States is to increase that franchise.  The property requirement was dropped by the 1820’s, and the race qualification was abolished with the 15^th Amendment.  Senators were made subject to direct election with the 17^th Amendment.  The gender qualification was removed by the 19^th Amendment. The residents of the District of Columbia were partially enfranchised with the 23^rd Amendment.  The 24^th Amendment abolished a tax on voting. And finally, the age was lowered to eighteen by the 26^th Amendment.  

Since the ratification of the Constitution, we have increased the “right” and the “power” of the vote.  And for almost every advance in voting rights, there has been a subsequent attempt trying to claw that advance back. But the real driving force behind denying the right to vote, is the desire to keep people of color from participating.  The creation of the Ku Klux Klan was first, a direct consequence of the passage of the 15^th Amendment. In took a century for the full legal enforcement of that amendment.  

And today it’s happening again.

The Quiet Part Out Loud

The right to vote is only as good as someone’s ability to vote.  That ability depends on accessibility.  In the past every “trick” from literacy tests to guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar was used to prevent registration.  And while those more obvious “tricks” are gone, some state legislatures are TODAY engaging in a new form of denying accessibility.   

In Georgia, the state legislature is “rolling back” access to absentee ballots.  They are restricting early voting days, and discussing further legal documentation to “qualify” to vote.  This is all in spite of the protestations of those same Georgia elections officials that the 2020 election was without fraud or deception.  

The same thing is happening in the Pennsylvania legislature.  The Arizona state legislature is not only looking to restrict ballot access. They are also considering the notion that the Legislature should have the right to overturn the vote of the people when it comes to Presidential electoral votes.  Let’s put that in plain English.  If they don’t like who the people choose for President, they want to choose someone else.

Michael Carvin, a lawyer for Arizona’s Republican Party said the “unspoken part” out loud in the United States Supreme Court yesterday, as he argued the “legality” of the state requiring every voter to vote in only in their own precinct.  When Justice Barrett asked what interest his  Party had in restricting where a voter could vote, he answered with the following.

“Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game. And every extra vote they get through unlawful interpretation of Section 2 hurts us, it’s the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election 51 to 50.”(NBC).

If They Can’t Win 

Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona:  all of these states have a single commonality.  Each was a pivotal state in the 2020 election and the electoral college loss of Donald Trump.  And in each of these states, people of color came out in high percentages to vote for President Biden.  Contrary to Trump’s continuing delusion of election fraud, all evidence shows that these outcomes were accurate.  But the outcomes weren’t what the Republican state legislatures wanted. So, if they can’t control the vote, they’ll control who comes to cast their ballot.

In Arizona they’ll move and consolidate precincts making it more likely that it will take more time to vote, and be more difficult to get there.  In Georgia, they’ll discuss ending Sunday voting, so that Black Churches, who have traditionally voted after Sunday service, can’t go. They all will restrict mail-in balloting.  It all boils down to one thing:  keeping people of color from voting, because they overwhelmingly supported a Democrat instead of their Republican.

And even here in “perfect” Ohio, the state legislature will continue to gerrymander the Congressional Districts, to make sure the “right” person can “pick” their voters and win.

Because if they can’t win – they change the rules.

Mr. Potato Head

The newest right-wing talking point is about the Hasbro toy – Mr. Potato Head.  Growing up we knew “Mr. Potato Head” as a series of plastic items you could stick on a baking potato, personalizing it.  There was the original “Mr. Potato Head”, complete with eyes, nose, mustache, mouth and hat. And then came “Mrs. Potato Head”, with a purse, lipstick and a bright smile.  They both also came with legs, so that your simple potato could become an anthropomorphic toy. 

Later on, Hasbro even provided a plastic potato, so that potato heads could be “standardized” in size and shape.  And they added potato head children and even pets, so entire potato head family groups were created. 

But now the supposed “liberal-radicals” (as opposed to the liberal-moderates, I guess) have allegedly “forced” Hasbro to “de-gender-ize” their toy.  Mr. Potato Head lost his “mister”, and he’s losing his “he” too.  It’s just a “potato head”. While playing with it, you can assign or not assign whatever gender you feel is appropriate.

Now it’s not like Mr. Potato Head has lost his “tuber” or his “yams”.  He never had them, he was, in fact, either a real or a fake potato.  The Hasbro Company is simply allowing children playing with their “Potato Toy” to make their own conclusions, or no conclusions at all, about gender.  It’s their toy, and their decision.  Moustache placed over lip-stick smile – no problem.  And there was no Court order given, and no Antifa associated crowd standing at the company gates in Providence, Rhode Island protesting the “hat and moustache”.  Hasbro made a marketing decision.  They hope to sell more of their imagination inducing product.

A Dial, Not a Switch

But for a right-wing crowd still reeling from their complicity in the Insurrection, Mr. Potato Head is a perfect opportunity to change the subject.  And while I don’t expect to see too many marches to protect Mr. Potato Head’s “manhood”, he/it is being used as a “straw-man/potato” argument for a subject that is much closer and dearer to the right-wing heart.  

A lot of the literature I get from the right end of the political spectrum proclaims that us “liberal-radicals” are taking away their religious freedom.  By “taking away”, what they are saying is that they are threatened by a world were gender identity isn’t “black and white”, or more specifically “boy and girl”.  We all, even us “liberal-radicals” grew up with that specific knowledge.  We knew what girls had and what boys had, and we knew why – it was science, either XX or XY.  There was nothing clearer.  And even if the science wasn’t absolutely clear back then, surely our sixth-grade health teacher wasn’t going to talk about it!

But we now know that, like a lot of things we learned in sixth grade, this isn’t quite right.  We know that the XX/XY thing is really much deeper and more complex.  And we also know that hormonal influences in the womb and during the early years influence gender-identity as well as just having “tubers” and “yams”.  Like most things in life, gender-identity is infinitely complicated; not a two-choice switch, but a dial, a spectrum of possible outcomes. 

Religion and Gender 

But that makes folks uncomfortable.  And some of their discomfort is “enforced” by their religious beliefs – “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”; and especially not “Armani and Eastyn”.   That’s where the “religious freedom” argument comes in:  “You liberals can’t FORCE me to accept complex gender identities.  If you try to – you are violating my religious right (sic)”.

There are lots of areas in our society where religious rights come up against individual rights.  The tension between those two competing interests in the Bill of Rights are at the heart of some of our biggest political issues:  from abortion to LGBTQIA equality, to gun rights.  We as a nation are committed to allowing individuals to express their differences – it’s in the First Amendment, right after the Religion part.  And we allow individuals the privacy of their own lives and bodies – that’s in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.  And most importantly, our Constitution guarantees that Government won’t take a side in religion – the wording couldn’t be clearer:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”.

Athletics

Which brings us to their next right-wing talking point:  trans-gendered athletes.  “We can let those ‘boys’ compete against girls, it’s not fair”.  But, just like the potatoes and the XX/XY thing, the question is so much more complex than that.  Yes, there are inequities in how transgender athletes are allowed to compete.  But frankly, most of the inequity is against the transgendered athlete, not their competitors.  And while we can all site examples (NCAA Division III track and field) where it seems unfair, let’s look at the bigger picture.  The argument is that somehow these “men” are taking advantage of women’s athletics to gain “prestige”.  But the reality is closer to this:  the problems those transgendered athletes create by competing, are so much smaller than the problems they face by expressing their inward gender.

In short, they face so much rejection in society by being “out”, that it is beyond belief that they are willing to accept all of that – for a medal.  The easy excuse to attack them is to say that they have hormonal advantages that the other women competitors don’t have. But that’s not really so easily answered. Just as gender is not a “binary” choice, neither is hormonal levels or physical development. We don’t know where a trans-gendered athlete falls “on the scale”. Neither do we know where the so-called “normal” competitors fall. It’s just not a black and white issue.

Rights

We can say that the Constitution gives us the “right” to believe what we want. What the Constitution does not do, is give us the “right” to force others to believe what we do. The Constitution forces us to accept diversity- it’s written in “black letter law”.

So while we can say “I don’t agree” or “I don’t believe”, neither of those can translate to “you can’t be”  or “you can’t do” without infringing on other’s Constitutional rights.  No right is “pre-eminent”, they are all balanced. 

I can put a mustache on a potato, and I can put a lip-sticked smile underneath it, or give it a purse, or a hat – or not.  It’s my choice, not someone else’s.