A Modest Proposal for American Single-Party Rule

 

I made the claim in the previous essay that permanent Republican rule of America is inevitable. If Republican legislatures proclaim Republican electors regardless of the popular vote, they will always have 315 electors. They can do this with existing districts; once they get through gerrymandering, they might have even more. Note: I wrote the previous essay before the scandal broke about the fake electoral votes the Republicans planned to create.

But would the Republican Party actually do this? The first reaction of even progressives used to be, No, of course they won’t. They will respect the outcomes of elections. All of us really wanted to believe this. But in recent years, it has become clear that Republicans are ready to take even violent means to grab and maintain power. Before a man actually drove a car at high speed into a racial justice rally in Charlottesville in 2017, we would all have said that this could not happen. Before an armed right wing militia took over the Michigan state house in 2020, we would all have said that this could not happen (see this BBC report). And none of us could have imagined that armed right wing protestors would carry out a violent act of terrorism against the Capitol in Washington, D. C. in 2021. If they have already done these violent things, why would they not take forceful but non-violent action to secure permanent control over the country?

Therefore, instead of saying, They could but they won’t, we must say, They could and they might. If so, how could they do this? I will make a modest proposal (sensu Jonathan Swift) of one way they could solidify their absolute control. How can they actually institute policies that can make white supremacy the law of the land? Just having 315 electors forever into the future is not enough to accomplish this.

They could partially disenfranchise people who are likely to vote against them. They have already tried to do this by making it very, very difficult to vote it you live in a district dominated by minority voters. But they could make it official. They could, for example, pass a law that a minority vote counts as only a partial vote. They could, for example, pass a law that says a minority vote is actually only three-fifths of a vote. I did not just pull this number out of the air. In the original constitution, slaves were to count as three-fifths of a person for purposes of population size, even though none of them could vote. It would not be too much of a stretch to claim that the votes of ex-slaves, as well as Hispanics and Native Americans, would each count as three-fifths of a vote.

You can easily imagine that this would be challenged in court. But since the Constitution does not explicitly forbid this, would the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court actually turn down such a law?

One can imagine that, should a three-fifths law be implemented, there would be a rush of people who would claim that they are not minorities, thus holding onto their right to be counted as a full vote. Barack Obama, exactly half black and half white, could have claimed to be white as legitimately as to be black. Most members of most Native tribes are not full-blooded Natives. Go to a Cherokee National Holiday, and almost everyone you will see looks white. You don’t have to have a certain minimum “blood quantum” in order to be considered Cherokee. My mother was about one-eighth, which is exactly the same as her great-grandmother who was Cherokee enough to have come to Oklahoma in 1838 on the Trail of Tears, and exactly the same blood quantum as the most famous Cherokee Chief, John Ross. I could easily “pass for white.” But my Cherokee ancestry is a matter of public record. I am 17/256 Cherokee.

Conservatives have long considered part-blood minorities to be minorities. No Republican considers Barack Obama to be white. Homer Plessy, the “black” man in the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson decision, was seven-eighths white. Republicans would want to expand the non-white portion of the American population to be as inclusive as possible, in the event of a three-fifths vote. This idea goes back as far as whites have dominated darker people; the “one-drop” rule, made into law before the Civil War, said that if you had even one drop of dark blood, you were dark. In some cases, including part-blood Natives in with the three-fifths votes would backfire. Here in Oklahoma, a lot of the right-wing extremists look white but drive around with Native nation license plates. But, on the whole, white racists would benefit from classifying minorities according to the one-drop rule.

The old days are past when counting “three-fifths of a vote” would take longer than a simple tally. But now a computer can do this calculation, for a whole state, in a few seconds.

I can find nothing that would prevent a permanently Republican federal government from instituting a three-fifths voting rule except the fear of a lawsuit over constitutionality. In such a case, even many reliably “blue” states would flip red, and the Republicans would permanently have much more than 315 electors. You could calculate the result. Just take the percentage of minority citizens in each state, multiply them by 0.6, leave the whites at 1.0, and calculate the results. You don’t even need a computer for this, though a calculator would help. I choose to not spend my time doing this.

I am not being any more serious about this than Jonathan Swift was with his Modest Proposal. I am just trying to get you to think of the possibilities. Whatever happens, we must be aware that the future of the United States might be one of permanent suppression of minority votes.

The Unalienable Right to Spread Germs

Yep, folks, it’s right there in the Declaration of Independence. One of the unalienable rights of Americans is the right to spread your germs to other people. At least, this seems to be the view of American conservatives today, such as Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt who said, “We believe in freedoms.” He said this even while, himself, wearing a mask. While this article is a couple of weeks old, the situation has not changed.

This is hardly surprising. Americans resisted the practice of variolation, which was an early form of vaccination against smallpox. Britain borrowed the idea from Asia in the 18^th century. British troops got variolated, but George Washington maintained that we are Americans and we reject British medical advances. As explained in the book PoxAmericana, Washington finally had to reverse course on this policy, and adopt variolation. But modern conservatives would have continued to reject it.

What this means is that if you are someone who lives in a way that puts you at risk of getting coronavirus, and you are symptomless, or you believe yourself to be symptomless, you can walk right up to me and cough in my face. I will be wearing a mask, but the mask does not completely prevent me from getting the virus. It is more useful in preventing me from spreading it. Being in a high-risk group (diabetics over 60), I could die from the same viral load that would not kill you. But you have the right to do this! It’s right there in the Declaration. Or so many seem to think.

This should not be surprising. Many Americans already believe in the right to carry loaded firearms which they can use against other people the moment they feel threatened, especially if the “threat” has darker skin. If they have the right to project bullets, why not viruses as well?

Bad News about Your Constitutional Rights

Have you looked at the Bill of Rights lately? Maybe you should. You probably assume that, even under an extreme right-wing federal administration, you have constitutional rights. You assume that, even if fundamentalists have a big role in the new government, you still have freedom of religion. You assume that you have freedom of speech and of the press. But that is not what the Constitution actually says. In this essay, I will examine mainly the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment (in the Bill of Rights).

The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Did you catch that? The First Amendment prohibits Congress (the Legislative Branch of the federal government) from making laws that limit freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly, and petition. The First Amendment does NOT say that the Executive Branch cannot do so. Suppose that some future right-wing fundamentalist-endorsed federal government might wish to restrict non-fundamentalist churches, or to prohibit non-right-wing speech, etc. Such a government could do so by executive decree. If Donald Trump were to prohibit anyone from criticizing or ridiculing him, he could issue an executive order, and it would not be unconstitutional.

Or, individual states could establish religions and prohibit free speech. The Constitution does not prohibit them from doing so; only Congress.

Of course, Congress could then pass laws that prohibit such executive decrees. But would they? Would a Republican Congress get around to passing such legislation? Of course, lawsuits could reach the federal court system (the Judicial Branch), but this process could take years. It is almost impossible to imagine that the federal courts would allow restrictions on free speech and religion: even many Republican judges, such John Jones, the judge who ruled against a group of creationists, are neither extremists nor even activists. Furthermore, an executive decree prohibiting criticism of the Chief Executive would depart drastically from precedent, that is, from previous judicial decisions. But what is precedent? Precedent is simply a convention that the courts may choose to follow, or may not.

While it may be unlikely that even President Trump would issue decrees prohibiting freedom of speech and religion, there are other ways that the Executive Branch could accomplish these same goals. Consider, for example, my right as a scientist to teach about evolution and global warming. The new Executive Branch, supported by fundamentalists and energy corporations, could but probably would not try to stop me directly. But they could proclaim that any university or college that permits its faculty to teach about evolution and global warming will no longer receive federal funds. Such a threat would cause the immediate closure of any such college or university, if for no other reason than that students would be unable to obtain federal grants and loans to attend such a college or university.

So don’t be surprised if this happens. It is legal.

In contrast, the Second Amendment says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That is, “the right to bear arms” cannot be restricted in any way, according to the way conservatives interpret this Amendment. This amendment prohibits not only Congress, but also the Executive and Judicial branches, from restricting arms. Imagine with me, if you will, a federal government that decided to allow unlimited access to all arms, whether conventional, semi-automatic, or fully automatic; and, hell, why not cannons and nuclear weapons too? This would, by the Constitution, be legal. If individual states restricted access to certain arms, the federal government could not stop them (since it has only delegated powers, all other powers being retained by the states) but it could deny them federal funding.

We could be looking at an imminent future of repressed speech, enforced religion, and thousands of crazy militias doing what they want, however unlikely this future scenario may actually be.

And if I’m wrong, would somebody please explain it to me.