The nation’s party affiliations were not always so neatly aligned between “liberals” and “conservatives,” indeed, just 40-50 years ago, there were people known as “conservative Democrats” and “liberal Republicans,” and votes on legislation wouldn’t just follow along party lines. Historically, one constant has been that the Republican party was the party of big business, Wall Street, and management. The Democratic party has historically been the party of the “worker” and unions.
Ironically, when race is wholly taken out of the equation, and parties agree that it’s country over party, things can actually work. Very few people know that the reason that Americans normally get their healthcare coverage from their employers was a brilliant compromise between unions and executives. The workers demanded higher wages, but the company said it couldn’t afford the demand. The solution was that the company could purchase health insurance in bulk, saving a fortune, and – thus giving health insurance to their workers, actually put money into the worker’s pocket because workers no longer had the expense, while the company saved on having to vastly increase wages. That’s an example from private industry, but the same types of compromises were made with legislation.
In the 1860s, the Republicans dominated the Northeast, the wealthy industrialists, and the capitalists on Wall Street. Meanwhile, the Democrats were more southern and far more conservative, wanting government off their backs, especially with respect to slavery. Once race is introduced, one needs to throw out parties altogether (historically) because the one constant is that the southern conservatives have always been hostile to Black Americans, always. (And the North wasn’t much better, think of the battles over “bussing” in Boston, often considered our most “enlightened” city.)
So throw “parties” out when it comes to historical positions. But one can hold on to the “liberal progressive increasing demand for rights and acceptance of all people and belief in government solutions” versus the “conservative distrust of government and hostile to race relations, LGBTQ (now), immigrants (now), and on down the line.
So it is tragically ironic that a Florida Republican Representative just filed a bill seeking to “dissolve any party that once sanctioned slavery.”
This is literally how Hitler took over Germany. pic.twitter.com/6eiQ0F3Y5N
— Andrew Wortman (@AmoneyResists) March 2, 2023
Yes, well, the bill has some problems, not the least of which is that the Republican platform in 1860 acknowledged a southern state’s right to govern itself… it didn’t oppose slavery. So, right there, the bill would – if litigated, probably fail, and it would probably fail even to pass right now. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it damn seriously. The sheer audacity of thinking that this could or should be done is breathtaking, and it’s just a first effort.
Florida is changing fast to a fascist police state. DeSantis owns the legislature with a grip just as strong as that which he has over the Florida Supreme Court. We have been assured over and over by Florida political savant Ron Filipkowski that almost no one fully appreciates how dangerous and evil DeSantis is willing to be to get what he wants. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen DeSantis fire a teacher for releasing a video that made him look bad, he’s replacing trustees on boards of universities to destroy “woke” departments such that students will self-select and only conservative students will be educated in Florida. DeSantis created an “election police force,” has further gerrymandered Florida, taking away five Democratic seats, and flown asylum seekers from TEXAS to Martha’s Vineyard, just to name a few examples. Does anyone doubt that DeSantis would dissolve the Democratic party if he could figure out how to do it?
And don’t look to the federal courts to keep things in order.
The founders hated the idea of political parties. They set up the “three-way check on power” as a means to fight off parties. They thought each branch would jealously guard its power, such that “power” was in branches, not parties. Thus there is nothing in the Constitution that would protect the “right to be a party.” So don’t be too sure that a court will throw out any proposal.
Last. This likely won’t survive because the Republicans cannot pass the test of never condoning or favoring slavery. But it’s best to think of it as a data point along a trend line. It may not be time right now to dissolve the Democratic party in Florida or elsewhere. But one can easily see a situation where if the fascist MAGAs rise to power again, they could do something like this nationally. Or, Florida continues to dissolve and takes a real shot at it next year. They are already making proposals that “sound like” outlawing Democrats.
America Firsters have promised that whenever they next have power, they will make all federal employees fireable “at will,” meaning failing to pledge loyalty to President DeSantis or Trump means you’re fired. Speaking up against them won’t get you arrested, not yet, but it will get you fired. Over four years, the entirety of the executive branch, all those agencies, and departments that make the country “go,” would be run and staffed by Republicans.
Helpfully, DeSantis just said this:
"If you have a determined executive who knows how to use those levers of power, I think you could do a complete upheaval of the deep state." https://t.co/bSpCcTwu27
— The Recount (@therecount) March 2, 2023
This is code for creating a tiny, completely loyal, police-state type of government. “Deep state” means civil servants who don’t care about party. They do their job. The GOP needs these people gone to further create a one-party state with total control of power/elections.
In such a situation, it would be all but impossible to actually “win” an election where everyone in the federal government has sworn to stop you and is protecting their job.
Dangerous times. This bill is a data point. Take note.
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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: MUCH LEFT ADO
So they want to go back to 1852?
Yes. Actually to 1770. Because these a$Sholes would have been Tory Loyalists opposing the Revolution as illegal, immoral,and disrespectful (and in my head I am.hearing the wonderful.actor who plays George III in Hamilton).
Since you support modern day slavery, time you disbanded YOUR nazi party or just change the moniker to the Guns Over People party. Fascists in our government all belong to the GOP. FACT. Check the votes.
And the modern day slavery practiced by cons, evangs, ‘pubes? Sounds like the dumb-asses want to outlaw politics altogether. Newsflash dumb-asses-fascism is never a good look.
I look forward to the inevitable prison reforms now slavery, disapprobated, is to be completely eliminated. Bringing America into line with prisoner’s and ex-prisoner’s rights in the civilized world.
“Thus there is nothing in the Constitution that would protect the “right to be a party.” So don’t be too sure that a court will throw out any proposal.”
Jason, I’d suggest you reread the First Amendment and even some Supreme Court decisions. While the Amendment doesn’t specifically guarantee a right of association, a number of Court decisions HAVE upheld that very principle.
First up would be NAACP vs Alabama (1958) which held “this freedom was protected by the amendment and that privacy of membership was an essential part of this freedom” (from Wikipedia).
Even more recently, the right-wing SCOTUS used the “freedom of association” connection to overturn a California law that would require the disclosure of donors’ names to non-profit organizations to the State in 2021’s Americans for Prosperity v Bonta case. If the right-wingers are willing to allow a non-profit to have deep-pocket donors without having to disclose their identities, then they’d definitely show their hypocrisy by allowing a state to try to ban a political party.
Then, too, what these moronic Floridians are forgetting is that the United States government–even at the height of McCarthyism–never went about banning the Communist Party (nor has it actually tried banning the American Nazi Party–even while we were fighting the Nazis in Europe, the American Nazi Party was still allowed to participate in the electoral process).
I agree, how would this stand under the first amendment, freedom of assembly in that I can associate with anyone I want to, to protest the government.
There is a right to call ourselves Democrats under the First Amendment’s “Freedom of Assembly.” If you read the article, it says that Florida would require registration with a new name, the Florida board of directors, bylaws, all that. They’re talking about making it extremely hard to put together the registration of the party and then make people go through the process of registering again.
The constitution protects us in that we can have a huge assembly in the Miami arena and call ourselves Democrats, there’s nothing they can do about that. But with respect to registration/new board/new name/new bylaws, all of that, there’s no automatic protection.
The best legal argument to defeat the bill is likely under the 14th amendment due process clause and equal protection.
And it’s true that there’s nothing in the Constitution that mentions or protects political parties, what I said was “Don’t be too sure that a court would throw it out” – – that’s not well-written but my intent was to convey “A court would likely throw it out but don’t be too sure about it.”
So, given I got a B in Constitutional law in law school, it’s fair criticism, but it’s mostly bad writing. What you’re talking about as freedoms aren’t the point. It’s about registration as a name in the state and name on a ballot.
See below.
Read the Communist Control Act of 1954, which appears to still be in effect.
Here is its full title:
An Act to outlaw the Communist Party, to prohibit members of Communist organizations from serving in certain representative capacities, and for other purposes.
It has, apparently, never been repealed. So we most certainly have done this, thus there is precedent, and it was done at the Federal level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954