March 24, 2019
Friday at 5:00 p.m. the news broke that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had delivered his final report to Attorney General William Barr. In his letter to Congress, Barr stated that he “remained committed to as much transparency as possible,” and that he could brief them on the report’s “principal conclusions” as soon as this weekend, (Source: “Mueller Delivers Report on Trump-Russia Investigation to Attorney General,” by Sharon LaFraniere and Katie Benner, The New York Times, 3/22/19).
Despite the complete lack of any actual knowledge of the contents of the report, the news media felt compelled to report on this bombshell news. Word from an anonymous senior Justice Department official that no further indictments would be forthcoming fueled speculation that Mueller’s final report could be a “massive boon” to Trump. Once again, the press defaulted to lazy sports world analogies, without having seen so much as a syllable of the actual report themselves.
Yet while we have been passively monitoring every screen for the contents of Mueller’s report, consequential news with profound implications for democracy, voting rights and reproductive freedom has escaped our notice. In Wisconsin, a county Circuit Court judge ruled that the spate of bills rushed through by lame duck Republicans to constrain the powers of the newly elected Democratic Governor and Attorney General were unconstitutional. That decision paved the way for Governor Tony Evers to withdraw Wisconsin from the multi-state suit challenging the Affordable Care Act and vacated 82 eleventh hour appointments to state commissions made by outgoing Republican Governor Scott Walker, (Source: “Judge Blocks Wisconsin Republicans’ Power Grab, Rules ‘Extraordinary Session’ Convened Illegally,” by Mark Joseph Stern, Slate.com, 3/21/19).
In Florida, Republican state legislators introduced a bill that would flout the will of 65% of the voters who passed Amendment 4 which ended felon disenfranchisement for 1.4 million people. The bill under consideration would require that in order to regain their right to vote, people would not only have to have completed serving their sentence (including parole and probation), but to pay all associated court fees and fines. This is nothing less than a poll tax that disenfranchises poor Floridians, who are disproportionately Black, (Source: “Florida GOP Readies Poll Tax to Nullify Ex-Felons’ Voting Rights,” by Eric Levitz, NYMag.com, 3/20/19).
Meanwhile, in Georgia, the Republican state legislature pushed through a so-called “fetal heartbeat” bill which would outlaw abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks, before most women even know that they are pregnant. This retrograde bill is virtually identical to one passed in Mississippi and one blocked by a federal judge in Kentucky. The prevalence of these bills, tailor-made to invite court challenges that could lead to the reversal of Roe v. Wade, show the determination of obdurate theocrats around the country to strip women of control over our own bodies.
These are just a few of the pitched battles over the soul of democracy that have erupted in the last week alone. Winning them will require sustained attention, advocacy and financial support. While we have been waiting with bated breath for the contents of the Mueller report and what it portends for Trump’s future, our focus has been misplaced. We believed, at our peril, that Mueller was some deus ex machina who would rescue our republic . The truth is that Mueller is not democracy’s savior and Trump alone is not its scourge. The truth is that both the responsibility and the blame, belong to us.