Unity

It’s become the Republican canard of the day: because President Biden won’t give into their demands, he’s not really for unity. But unity was never unanimity. Unity is about uniting around a core set of common values that previously defined American democracy, including some that simply define civilization. 

 Republicans had the chance to do this, and then to move on to uniting to solve problems with factual argument and good faith political negotiation. And for a couple of weeks—from the attack on the Capitol through the Inauguration—it seemed possible. But Republicans have again reverted to their anti-democratic obeisance to the apprentice dictator, now in exile.

 Those core values and American institutions that once changed the world include the Bill of Rights, impartial courts and the rule of law, public education and the community institutions that support all of it, like public libraries. But the most basic value, which many of the others serve, is the right to vote, and the system by which votes determine who is in charge of governing. 

 Reaffirming these core values and defending and strengthening these institutions is the only basis for unity. Much of the country fervently desires this to happen. But it appears not to be happening. To one degree or another, most of today’s Republicans in Congress, and the official Republican party in most states, undermine each and every one of these values, none more than the right to vote, and the right to be governed by the voters’ choices. 

 There are plenty of stories now about the Republican party in crisis. Members of Congress turn their considerable ire and well-practiced invective on each other. Despite the rabid state party leaderships, hundreds of thousands of Republicans are changing their registration or otherwise leaving the party. But the parts of the system these shameless, rabid Republicans like are those that allow them to take the presidency and Congress by minority rule. Right now it is still more than possible that Republicans will regain control of one or both houses of Congress in less than two years.

 So the Republican party may be on the road to perdition, but right now it is clearly the party of sedition. That is likely to become even clearer during the upcoming impeachment trial of Trump. By signaling that Senate Republicans will not provide the votes to convict, they perhaps hoped that discouraged Democrats would put on a pro forma case, impatient just to get it all over with. That does not appear to be the plan. The House managers are going to make what happened at the Capitol, and who was responsible, dramatically clear. 

 A truly unified political leadership would gravely but firmly hold even the highest leader in their own party responsible for seditious acts, thus affirming the rule of law, and their oath of office to preserve and protect. Instead they will carp about the divisiveness of this trial, as if it were ordinary partisan politics. They will carp about the urgency Democrats feel to address the Covid crisis and its attendant economic crisis. 

 It is not a stimulus bill, by the way. It is a support bill. It is not designed to stimulate the economy—it is designed to support it. It is designed not to give people extra spending money, but money to buy food, to keep their beds, to pay their bills, until the covid crisis that has disrupted their ability to earn is effectively over. It is designed to keep the states solvent with compensation for the financial burden they’ve borne alone during the crisis. And it is designed to buy what’s needed to end the crisis: more vaccine and better distribution, more needed medical supplies, including the damn right masks.

 And Democrats hope to do the responsible thing by passing this, because it will benefit the country as a whole and everyone in it. That’s unity. That’s the United States.

 But in terms of saving democracy from this unprecedented situation in which one of the two major parties is seditious, I am persuaded by Ed Kilgore’s argument that the most important legislation ahead is a new and stronger Voting Rights bill. Right now, Republicans in charge of state governments are busily instituting new ways to prevent the wrong people from voting. If they succeed, even the crazy one-third of the American electorate might be enough to end democracy at the time we will need it most, the looming future when we will have no choice but to confront the effects and causes of the climate crisis.