A Terrifying Choice Awaits Us
[Graphic: Future Politics]
By Robert C. Koehler
Source: CommonWonders
This theory argues that the executive branch of government, held in the hands of the President, has the sole right to ignore all laws (including the Constitution and international agreements), and without oversight by Congress, or checks by the Supreme Court. In short, the President is above the law and has all the authority of government, and the right to order without challenge all branches of government. This includes ordering the U.S. military into war without authorization by Congress. In short, the “unitary executive,” as vested in the person of the President, is a king, an emperor, or a dictator. It represents one individual with total control of the full resources of the United States to take any action Bush sees fit. (Wolf, Revisiting the Concept of Unitary Executive)
The ruling by the Supreme Court to grant Trump essentially full immunity from prosecution was the latest stamp sealing this power to the “unitary executive”.
The Project 2025 Mandate For Leadership (link is to full doc) is a 920-page detailed plan for the next Republican President to dismantle our government and implement a fascist autocracy centered on White Christian Nationalism. It starts dismantling the “administrative state” by firing over 50,000 career professionals that staff our various agencies and departments from the DoJ to the EPA to NOAA to the National Institutes of Health and replaces them with those loyal to Trump (or the next Republican President). The Heritage Foundation coordinated and published this, and has already been vetting and training the loyalists. For a quick but thorough introduction, I recommend Thom Hartmann’s Project 2025: A 5-Alarm Fire Bell for Our Republic.
All of this is to say that I believe that we are facing an existential threat, and this election is not like other elections. We are looking at living in a relatively familiar United States where we still have the possibility of creating a better nation, or the 2025 version of Nazi Germany. As a woman and a lesbian, I am already experiencing the erosion of rights as the New Right (aka Republican Party) goes after voting rights, reproductive freedom, women’s health, banning books, recrafting education from k- university, gender rights, and more. People of color, including immigrants documented and undocumented face growing harassment from officials, militias, and lone wolves. If Trump is elected, it may well be the last election for a very long time, and women will be firmly entrenched as second-class citizens. Trump, Vance, and numerous Trump-favored Republicans have all made outrageous statements on their preferred status for women and where they think we should be.
There is also the stunning situation of the difference between the two major candidates themselves. Not only are Trump and Harris significantly different from each other, the way the media and pundits are evaluating them could not be more biased. Michelle Obama spoke to this Saturday in Kalamazoo, and she was brilliant. I highly recommend listening to her comments. I certainly can’t say it any better than she did. She points out the huge differences in the standards we apply to Trump (no bar whatsoever), and the ever-increasing expectations applied to Harris.
For I cannot contemplate a protest vote under these circumstances for it is effectively a vote for Trump. And not voting at all is anathema to me. I ask you to take Trump and his backers (political and financial) seriously. Consider the implications of what they have already done: child separation at the border, ignoring our international asylum agreements, banning abortion, voter suppression, book banning, prosecution and removal of educators who mention an array of forbidden topics, anti-LGQBT legislation (over 400 bills introduced), and more. These are having real, and even mortal, effects on people’s lives. So please take them seriously and take your vote seriously. Up and down the ballot, from local to national, our vote is more than a symbolic statement.
I add my voice to Robert Koehler’s…
PLEASE VOTE!
Robert C. Koehler
Early voting’s underway. My voting site is the Willye White Park fieldhouse, a mile north of where I live — a place I have enormous affection for, even though I only ever go there for one reason, every two years or so: to vote.
It feels like a sacred ritual — a feeling that goes back to the late ’60s. As I recently wrote: “The first election in which I was old enough to vote (the voting age was then 21) was Nixon vs. Humphrey. I was a fervent anti-Vietnam War zealot and chose to skip the election, thinking there was no real difference between the candidates. But I quickly began regretting that decision as the Nixon presidency claimed hold of the country; I vowed never to skip another election . . .”
And I haven’t. I note this for one reason only: Voting, for me — and maybe for most of us — is personal far more than it’s simply political: getting the right man or woman into whatever office is up for grabs. While that’s important (presumably), my sheer participation in the process is what resonates at a deeply psychological, and spiritual, level. It expands who I am, or so I feel; it connects me with the country. And in so doing, it creates the country.
I mention all this as a way of grappling with the gaping paradox of the current presidential election. It feels like a complete abstraction: as meaningful as a videogame. Yeah, there’s a villain in the game: Donald Trump, who violates all the rules of “political correctness” to address the seething fears and prejudices of his base and tosses belly-laugh hints to them of his unhinged, fascist agenda: Vote for me now and “in four years we’ll have it fixed so good” you’ll never have to vote again. Hah!
Our other choice is Kamala Harris, the Democratic savior. She’s sane and healthy and relatively young. She’s the current vice-prez, emerging from the Biden administration. She’s a “liberal,” right? Is she the opposite of Trump? She’s certainly more articulate than he is and espouses a certain amount of economic liberalism.
But, oh, there’s one other thing: The candidates are not actual opposites. Not when it comes to militarism and our trillion-dollar annual investment in it, including the ongoing development of nuclear weapons. This fact, in itself, is not a new phenomenon. The Democrats have not run an anti-war candidate for president since George McGovern in ’72. In the wake of his trouncing, the Democratic Party seemingly made a silent vow: Never again. And ever since, the nation’s militarism has been off the table politically.
And thus emerged the party’s strategy of telling its base: Vote LOTE, Dems! Your mission is to vote for the Lesser of Two Evils. We’re the global superpower and that will never change. We’ll wage wars and inflict hell on innocent countries (if necessary), just like the Republicans will, but we’re not racists. We believe in Medicare. Yada, yada . . .
This has been the nature of our national elections for many decades now, but I’ve nonetheless maintained a belief in the process and usually saw a glimmer of hope in the Democratic candidate of the moment, though occasionally I voted Green — maintaining a sense of justification for doing so because I live in Illinois. My vote for Nader won’t surrender the state to Bush.
Still, the whole game was getting increasingly exasperating. Lesser-evilism had morphed into the defining characteristic of what we still called “democracy.” Voting third party — no matter that the candidate actually reflected our view of the world — was essentially a sin, amounting to a vote for the other guy, i.e., the greater evil. Come on! Democracy isn’t about real choice — at least not if you’re a progressive. It’s about . . . ?
In essence, it’s about maintaining an inextricably militarized status quo — plus a little bit of hope (e.g., Barack Obama’s “hope and change,” which sure sounded good). But here we are in 2024, and the national commitment to militarism — as manifested by the Biden Administration’s support for Israeli genocide in Gaza, its endless supply of bombs, its indifference to the deaths of multi-thousands of children, its helpless shrug as the war expands deeper into the Middle East — has pushed lesser-evilism to its limits. Voters’ consciences (including mine) are exploding.
And early voting has begun. I’ll vote in a day or so. For whom? Will I vote for Jill Stein, who says clearly that our support of Israel must stop now — and who, of course, has no chance whatsoever of winning (and thus will not stop our support of Israel)? Or will I vote for Kamala Harris, a.k.a., Ms. Lesser Evil?
Or how about this: Write in the name of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed, along with six of her family members, when an Israeli tank shelled their car last January. This, apparently, is what antiwar groups in New York City are urging progressive voters, who live in safely Democratic districts, to do.
As for me, I’ll probably vote for Harris, but only because I also believe this: Voting is only a small part of how to participate in — and continue creating — an actual democracy. Rae Abileah and Andrew Boyd, writing at Common Dreams, put it this way:
“As generations of grassroots organizers have said: Elections are just one small part of larger movements for progressive change, so ‘vote for the candidate you want to organize against!
“Former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln doesn’t deserve credit for ending slavery any more than former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt deserves credit for the massive labor movement of the 1930s, or Lyndon B. Johnson for the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement. These huge historic victories were won by the hard and dedicated work of social movements — millions of everyday people taking concerted action.”
This is true no matter whom you vote for. Palestine is bleeding from the soul. The world is bleeding from the soul. The climate crisis is here, intensified by global militarism. We live in an unprecedented time and we must evolve beyond the current moment: beyond our lethal, linear, win-lose mentality. Let’s vote for the future.
Robert Koehler, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. His book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is available. Contact him at [email protected] or visit his website at commonwonders.com.