Loose lug nuts: what’s the point of democracy? 

by Elliott Oppenheim, MD, JD, LLM Health Law, Florence

I was born the year before the transistor was invented. In conversations with Bitterroot folks my age we wonder, “what on earth happened?” I do my research talking to people at the Lolo Post Office or at Gary & Leo’s in the produce aisle, often with a fresh broccoli bunch and lettuce head in my cart.

“The wheels are coming off the bus,” commented a car mechanic with hearing aids and a cane, as he emptied out his PO box, then waving his Medicare check. “The lug nuts are loose. What happened to the rules?” 

One blue-haired woman is concerned about the Supreme Court and abortion. “Isn’t the law, the law anymore? … Wasn’t that was settled 50 years ago?” She snapped shut her box door. 

One of my cynical musician friends rhetorically sighed, “Where have all the flowers gone? I miss Joni Mitchell.” 

America is in a Marxian class upheaval. The Have-Nots have cable TV, Smart Phones and the Internet. The information darkness of 1920’s, when information expansion was slow, has become space travel. Historically disenfranchised people now demand their part of the American promise.

Now, what happens in Portland, Oregon is viewed in real time in Portland, Maine; worldwide. Everyone now knows the inequities. The working class — everyone — wants equal treatment under the law. And why not? Isn’t that the essence of a Democracy? There is a sunrise on equality and the days are heating up.  

Powerful sects make assertions which are instantaneously, demonstrably, untrue. You can’t fool people any longer. Some factions insist upon, impress upon, and attempt to impose their points of view on all of us. “Our way is the right way… the only way,” they scream, smashing in windows at the Capitol Building.

Prohibition lasted from 1920 to 1933. Loud, violent mobs protested … parallel to what is going on now with abortion, voting rights, and the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Imposition of such a draconian rule didn’t work. If you don’t like alcohol, don’t drink … but don’t infringe on others’ rights. … and America swung back.

Philosopher and historian Bertrand Russell observed that the history of civilization is shaped by oscillations between two opposing evils: tyranny and anarchy, each of which contain the seed of the other.  

In another example of mob rule, on 9 November 1938, the Nazis launched Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, which foreshadowed the Holocaust. Brown-shirted Nazis invaded German and Austrian villages and killed and terrorized Jews, expropriated Jewish businesses, and demolished Jewish holdings. … and then things got really bad. 

Mobs in the streets and the January 6th invasion of the Capitol, were reminiscent of Prohibition and that sinister Kristallnacht chapter.

I understand fascism. The ovens at Auschwitz had yet to cool when I was born. My family recalling Kristallnacht and the Holocaust was part of my every-day childhood. My European family was exterminated. The 6th of January upheaval shows that it can happen here. January 6th, in a well-planned and well-orchestrated operation, proved that American Democracy is vulnerable to complete implosion.

The Vice-President was nearly assassinated. 

Sinister, heedless camps work ceaselessly to enucleate voting access and to impose their concepts over rights to control our own bodies. These methodologies are morally and legally wrong. This is not how a Democracy works.

Originating in Athens in 508 B.C., the essence of a Democracy is “one person, one vote” —we all get a say. Government by elites is an aristocracy, and by one person, a monarchy: king / queen. “The President is not a king,” distinguished a federal jurist in a recent US case about presidential privilege.

Tribalism, a word in common use, is a government formed by groups; loyalty to political parties most commonly these days. A government in which only favored classes or individuals benefit is not free. The Pilgrims left England because of persecution and social and class-based limitations. Voting against a valid idea because of illogical tribal fealty is self-destructive. 

Our democracy is an America where opportunity must be equal to all persons. After fifty years, ratify the Equal Rights Amendment because it is right to do that.

Congress should settle equal voting rights by passing federal legislation to remove re-districting and to promote everyone getting to vote. We should not tilt voting because someone works long hours or lives in an unfavored district. Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. These are narcissistic manufactured questions of states’ rights.

The answer to abortion rights is similar to alcohol: if you do not want an abortion, don’t get one. As the failure with Prohibition exemplified, we need a solution which supports everyone’s choice. 

It is democratically wrong for one wing to impose its will on others and thereby remove choices. Caucuses arrive at respective ways with respect and compromises. We have no state religion in America. We have no “one way” that is right. All points of view must be honored but not to the defeat and exclusion of others. 

January 6th was terrifying and abhorrent. The images of rioters bashing in windows at the Capitol and stains of five, or more, deaths must not be re-written, ignored, or glossed over. 

We need to tighten up those lug nuts on our bus and work together. The essence of our Democracy is working together for common good. If we can’t do that, the wheels will come off the bus.  

Exclusive decisions, removing fundamental rights, won’t work for very long and there will be riots in the streets …more violence; much worse than January 6th… and much more widespread. National mobs of hungry people with guns? If we do not pull together and stop this hate, America is doomed. 

If the Democracy withstands 2022 and 2024, Constitutional amendments may be the stabilizing solutions …  if the Supreme Court overturns abortion access and does not support federal control over elections. Let’s tighten the lug nuts.