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I have a radical and original– interpretation to explain the Democrats’ turnaround and it focuses on Liberal America’s core value of the level playing field and in particular one of its four cornerstones: voting rights. There is no question the Iraq War played a role in winning back Congress, but what really turned the tide began last summer.
Of all the debates of the previous Congress, none had the impact and importance of the debate over the renewal of the Voting Rights Act. This legislation, which had been won by the blood and martyrdom of those determined to end once and for all the feudal conditions that still existed in old Dixie, had become over the years a sacred ingredient in the American experiment. People around the world could point to the Act as an affirmation of democracy.
In the four score years that had passed since its approval, millions of Americans viewed the Voting Rights Act as not only one of the crowning moments of the Civil Rights movement but also of America itself. The nation could point with pride at the Act and say the system had worked. For people of color the Act held a status as one of the most important pieces of legislation in our history.
So when the Act came up for renewal bearing the names of Corretta Scott King, Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer, it seemed unpatriotic, un-American to oppose it. Decades from now when the histories of this period are written, the battle over the Voting Rights Act will come to be seen as a major turning point in American politics.
When a large faction of Republicans banded together to oppose the Act’s renewal, it lifted the veil from the GOP Counterrevolution, revealing its true nature, which was to roll back the New Deal and its heirs and to openly oppose Liberal America’s belief in the level playing field. When they heard this, many Americans were as shocked and embarrassed as they had been when police officers beat people with night sticks, turned fire hoses on them and murdered, all in the name of inequality.
The nation that had even set aside a holiday for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. and created Black History Month– which both have celebrated the Voting Rights Act–now had a major political party openly opposing everything King had stood for. It was as though someone pulled back the bunting with which the Republican Party had sought to cloak itself and found Strom Thurmond. In the summer of 2005, America stood at a crossroads as it had in the 1960s, only this time the country would not stand for inequality.
The climactic moment in the debate came when Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland made the unbelievably stupid move of invoking the name of the old Civil Rights warrior, the Lion King himself, John Lewis in support of repealing the Act. Not only did this represent one of the supreme blunders in Congressional history, it showed the moral bankruptcy of the Counterrevolution. I have written in previous posts about this in detail, so I will not go into the debate here. Suffice it to say, Lewis kicked Westmoreland’s rear end back where it belonged.
To their credit enough Democrats and a few Republicans held firm and the legislation passed, but the fallout from the debate would reverberate into the November election. The fight over the Voting Rights Act energized people of color and all who believed in the level playing field like they had not been energized in years. More crucially all America could see the direction the Counterrevolution wanted to take this country and that direction was backwards into the nineteenth century.
Although few openly framed it that way, the November election revolved around the level playing field as much as it did around Iraq. Part of this came when the Republicans followed their attempt to gut the Voting Rights Act with the same despicable tactics that stretched back to the Dixiecrats and their ancestors as they openly sought to make it difficult for people of color, the poor, and others to exercise their franchise.
For people of color and Liberal America this was the last straw. The voice of Fannie Lou Hamer hovered over the November election, echoing the phrase that is on her tombstone, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Aided by groups such as America Votes, those who believed in the level playing field were both angry and determined. They knew that if the GOP remained in power or could increase its numbers what the agenda would be because the Voting Rights Act debate had revealed it.
As noted in a previous post, when the dust settled and the exit poll data analyzed, it showed people of color and union members had provided the margin of victory in crucial races. America had spoken and said they wanted no further attempts to gut voting rights or to tilt the playing field. Last November was not about “moderation;” it was about whether America will help level the playing field that has been tilted away from these people by Republicans who believe the heart of democracy lies in those who live in mansions and ride in chauffeured cars not in those every day Americans who go to work each day and just try to make ends meet.
Now it is up to the Democratic Congress to insure that what got them there is not forgotten. The New Congress has proven both determined and well-organized. The 100 Days legislation, the Iraq War timetable and its use of its investigative powers have all raised hopes that perhaps the Counterrevolution may be on the run.
In the book The Strange Death of Liberal America, I wrote that Liberal America was in intensive care. The Voting Rights debate and its impact on the November election suggest rumors of the patient’s demise may be premature. The American people had given the patient the equivalent of a transplant. Now in the months ahead we need to continue to bring Liberal America back to health.
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