GOPer members of the Tennessee legislature expelled two Democratic members for participating in a protest in the chamber.
I cannot fathom how this is possible and, at the same time, I know exactly how it happened and why it will be emulated in other states.
Removing a member of a legislative body is an autocratic action. It renounces and deletes the results of the last-held democratic elections for the legislature.
EmptyGee, Low-Rent Bobblehead, Gym Jordan, Matt Grates, and other members of the Republican conference in the US House of Representatives have ignored subpoenas, helped insurrectionists plan their insurrection, given comfort to seditionists, defamed the Democratic Party and its members, voted against the lawful election of the current POTUS, abused their power, and incited violence. Which one of them has been expelled?
But in TN, exercising the rights to free speech and assembly and the right to petition are grounds for annihilating the will of the people.
In both situations, undermining the foundations of democracy and the rule of law in a civil society are given free rein.
The genesis of our current crisis, the most serious since 1865, was the election of Ronald Raygun. He singlehandedly destroyed the credibility of the federal government that he wanted to head. Three decades of progressive, mostly successful economic, financial, social, health, transportation, tax, cultural, and education policies were gutted based on the idea that the federal government never did anything helpful for the people of this country.
It was the original Big Lie told in an aw-shucks manner that fooled tens of millions of people and made it impossible to effectively criticize. It was based on verifiable anecdotal evidence that ignored mountains of properly collected, researched, and analyzed data.
Carter still had a chance to win in 1980, except he couldn’t end the hostage situation in Tehran. We now know that the model for foreign influence on a POTUS election is supplied by the GOPer deal with Iran. Don’t release the hostages until Raygun is POTUS and we will play nice. A few years later, Iran-Contra uncovered the price for that delay.
Forty-two years later, the lies, particularly the New Big Lie about the 2020 POTUS election, no longer need fact-checked, unassailable rationales. Indeed, rational they are not. They are mostly 180 degrees opposite of the truth. But the poorly educated results of Raygun’s Revolution don’t need facts. They have been conditioned to believe, not conclude.
The scariest part about the TN GOPers exiling elected representatives is that they will face no consequences at the ballot box. Voters will approve of the action or could care less.
As I explained in Remaking Democracy in America, Russian voters took the exact same path after they had their rights restored. They must be happy with their choice, right?