Representative government only for Taiwan?
The Tennessee choice
I sent invitations to a mess of folks, as they say in some parts, when I started this Substack in November. One of my oldest and dearest friends from childhood surprised me by saying she just could not handle reading anything more about politics. I think she meant U.S. politics as I know she has always been active in her church to address issues across the nation. But her comment really got my attention. We are tired in America, no doubt.
I try to concentrate these entries on foreign policy because it’s what I spend most of my life considering and think I can offer you but I cannot ignore what happened last night. So, if you are not interested in domestic affairs, please stop reading now. I will understand that choice.
I do not understand how we can pretend in any manner to be a democracy after the charade in the Tennessee legislature last night. Expelling two African American elected officials ostensibly for representing their constituents’ views is a new low in an era it’s hard to go lower; threatening to expel a white woman is hardly better but the body failed to oust her by a single vote.
A week after the murder spree, more than a thousand Tennessee school children showed their frustration with answers they heard from majority Republican legislators regarding enacting gun restrictions. Instead of anyone from the governing party opening discussions on gun laws, the state legislature talked of putting guards at doors or arming teachers which 2/3 of the state schools already employ.1 Public opinion polls indicate that the overwhelming majority in the United States, including Tennessee, support common sense guns laws but the legislature in Nashville ignored this approach out of hand.
The three Democratic representatives, white Gloria Johnson and African-Americans Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, had participated vocally with protestors on the floor of the state’s legislature following the Covenant School shootings killing six on 27 March.
The three delegates did not follow decorum—nope, they did not. They disrupted proceedings of a duly elected body—indisputable. They are in accord with public opinion in the United States where generally greater than 68% of the public desires tougher legislation on buying guns.2 Do I wish we could have a functioning system without protests on the floor? Yes, but we have decades’—DECADES’ evidence that no change is forthcoming
The Tennessee majority party had a range of steps they could have taken against the three legislators involved in these protests. They could have been censured, counseled, and stripped of their committee assignments.
Johnson acknowledged she received a caution from the Human Resources office of the Tennessee government that possible expulsion would result in losing her benefits as a former representative. They African-American delegates said they received no similar warnings.
Two things about this are especially troubling. The African-Americans lost their seats rather than all three. When asked to comment, the white representative, Ms. Johnson, noted the racial aspect. She only survived by one vote but she did retain her seat to continue voicing concerns of her constituents.
The voters of any and all races represented by Pearson and Jones are now deprived of any voice in the Tennessee legislative process. Yes, a special election in each district will ensue but how long will these citizens have no voices?
Yet the same Republican Party Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy (admittedly a different body from the state level) spent much of this week focused on preventing the people of Taiwan from losing their rights should the island fall prey to Beijing’s control. The hypocrisy is hard to swallow. They likely would not be incarcerated under the CCP but they would lose their voices. Sound familiar? Again, the behaviour sounds far too familiar between China and Tennessee. I am horrified by the similarities.
Much more importantly, it is impossible to explain to the world we seek to keep ‘on our side’ viz-a-viz authoritarian regimes in China and Russia how we are so different. They know what we are doing. Will they see it happening increasingly as unimportant? I am sorry: please explain to me why representation in Taiwan is more important than in Tennessee as I am having a hard time understanding.
We seem to be developing this peculiar view that what we do at home is invisible to those to whom we want to argue a completely different type of governance. Xi Jinping is an out and out authoritarian along with his buddy Vlad the Impaler. The decisions in China merely benefit the ninety plus million members of the Communist Party and Vlad’s oligarchical friends, respectively. Do the members of the Tennessee legislature want to be in that company? Can someone explain to me why the African American representatives in Tennessee are lesser important than their peers because of their race?
We are citizens of the United States, some in Maryland while some in Tennessee and others in Oregon. The Constitution, the one that so many Republicans want to cite so carefully to blast ‘activists’ who over-interpret it, says in the Fourteenth Amendment
‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’3
Where is this going? ‘Not deprive any person…’ of a voice in the Tennessee government? Authoritarianism is the basis to Fascism and Communism, not merely one of those explanations for governance. We are wasting our time to worry about Taiwan if we are increasingly marginalising minorities in our country. No one will take us seriously though they see it with their own eyes.
It is a most imperfect comparison, particularly on Good Friday, but my ears hear the following questions and observations.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me. Attributed to Reverand Martin Niemoller We need understand the role we all have in this country. Elections matter a great deal, my friends. FIN
Marta W. Aldrich, ‘Nashville students rally for tougher gun laws, while as governor seeks armed guards for every school’, chalkboard.com, 3 April 2023, retrieved at https://tn.chalkbeat.org/2023/4/3/23668031/nashville-school-shooting-walkout-march-lives-capitol-protest-gun-safety
Alison Durkee, ‘Support for Gun Control Laws Hits Record Highs, Poll Finds’, Forbes.com, 15 June 2022, retrieved at https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/06/15/support-for-gun-control-laws-hits-record-high-poll-finds/?sh=3da8c88662f2
Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, retrieved at https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/