Marching into the Past
Conservative Republicans are passing repressive social legislation at the state level. National legislation of this kind may be in the future.
America is moving backward. Well, at least half of America is — the roughly half of the states with Republican governors and Republican-controlled state legislatures.
It is not just the rolling back of voting rights, though that underpins Republican control in many states and makes all the other regressive legislation possible. Republicans are no longer focused on the more traditional parts of the Republican agenda: Small government, limited-spending, strong national defense, and lower taxes. Now, it is social issues, such as abortion, guns, limits on public protest, transgender rights, and what can and cannot be taught regarding race and gender, that defines the priorities of Republicans, particularly those who identify as part of the base loyal to former President Donald Trump.
Though American history frequently has ping-ponged between eras of reform and reaction, the systematic unraveling in red states of the revolutionary expansion of rights gained over the last sixty years marks something new. Previously, periods of reform have been followed by years of retrenchment, when changes were consolidated but not repealed. (The glaring exception to this was the era following Reconstruction, when segregation was imposed in the South, returning Blacks to a status akin to enslavement.) But, now, in red states, Republicans are undoing the rights revolution of the last 60 years, a period in which the Supreme Court and Congress expanded the rights and liberties of all Americans. The effect of regressive legislation at the state level is to return the nation to a period in which — prior to 1960 — basic rights and liberties varied depending on where people lived and the color of their skin and their gender.
Nowhere is the look backward more obvious than in Florida, where Ron DeSantis, the state’s Republican governor, is sacrificing the equal rights of racial and sexual minorities to his national ambitions. In his wish to out-Trump Trump, DeSantis has pushed a number of reactionary laws, none more potentially damaging that the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which passed the Florida legislature last week and which the governor is expected to sign.
The vaguely drafted law forbids “classroom instruction… on sexual orientation or gender identity,” and it allows parents to sue school districts over supposed violations. Critics of the law point out that it marginalizes children who are LGBTQ or whose family members are LBGTQ. Imagine, for example, if a first-grader is asked to draw pictures of her family, and she draws two dads because she is being raised by a same-sex couple. Does the teacher forbid the child to display her drawing? If she is allowed to display it, does the teacher risk a lawsuit?
The Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill is an example of the most damaging trend in the current spate of Republican-influenced legislation. These laws are aimed not only at limiting actions —- such as voting or access to abortion — but also at subjects that can be taught and read about in schools and ultimately the goal is totalitarian control of what Americans can read and watch and learn. Some of this reactionary legislation comes dangerously close to thought control. Book banning typifies this trend, as books on sexual or gender identity, as well as analyses of America’s racist past and depictions of enslavement and the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, have been removed from school libraries.
Since Democrats control the White House and Congress, for now, Republican attempts to turn back the clock have been limited to some states. Democratic control of the national government ought to allow for the passage of federal legislation guaranteeing voting rights, access to abortion, protection of minority rights, and safety for the LGBTQ community. But, Democrats have not shown the will or the unity required to move in these areas, given their slender control of Congress and the loud outcry of opposition by Republicans that has led to recent electoral defeats, such as the victory last November of the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, a state that has been trending blue in recent decades.
Democrats in the House have passed legislation to protect voting rights, the legal right to abortion, and the civil rights of the LGBTQ community. But all legislation of this kind has been stalled in the Senate because of the conservatism of some Democrats, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who refuse to curb the filibuster, allowing Republicans to torpedo progressive legislation.
Some of the more regressive examples of Republican legislation have been stymied in the past by the resistance of big business. In North Carolina, the opposition of business interests and artists to the passage of the 2016 “bathroom bill,” which required people to use the bathroom of the gender they were assigned at birth, forced the legislature to rescind the bill the following year. Most damaging of all were the decisions — in the basketball-crazy state — of the NCAA not to host tournaments in North Carolina and the NBA to pull its all-star game from Charlotte.
Businesses have been reluctant to voice objections to any of the new legislation. In Florida, for example, the Walt Disney Company, one of the state’s largest employers, refused to criticize publicly the “Don’t Say Gay” bill as it wended its way through the state legislature. Disney finally came out against the legislation after it passed both houses, and the company CEO apologized to employees for its tardiness. Still, most companies are remaining silent in the face of the current round of conservative bills.
And, most frightening of all is the possibility that such repressive legislation could be enacted at the national level in the future. After all, the Supreme Court tilts far to the right these days, and Republicans have a good chance of capturing both houses of Congress this fall, and if Trump — or some other equally reactionary candidate — were to win in 2024, expect actions geared to marching the entire nation to a past many Americans thought we had left behind.
Better catch up on your controversial reading now, while you still can!
Posted March 15, 2022