Democracy has become a liability for corporate America, so the corporations and their billionaire owners — and the politicians they control — have been pushing for years to eliminate it. They are close to succeeding. Whether we’ll have a corporate dictatorship is now a question of how hard the people are willing to fight for democracy.
Democracy is a key weapon in the hands of the people. The right to vote, the right to assemble and make demands, the right to speak your mind, the right to control the police and to have equal justice before the law — all of these things are part of the fabric of democracy, they are all tools the people need in order to fight for change, and they are all under threat.
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Central to all of these battles is the right to vote. It will be that much harder to secure democracy and wage any of these struggles and win without the right to vote. This is why the powerful are trying to take away the right to vote, and this is why the voting rights movement is surging forward. In 2021, 19 states enacted 34 laws restricting access to voting, and the voter suppression efforts are continuing. The fight for voting rights is a crucial first step that will determine whether we will have a democracy or a dictatorship.
Consider all the issues where there are fights going on around the country, including: how to spend pandemic relief funds; the rights of the disabled; peace; LGBTQ rights; women’s rights; health care; education; homelessness; racism; police violence; the composition of the courts; immigration; water; pipelines; environmental justice; climate catastrophe; and of course, protecting the right to vote. The list goes on.
The fight is on. Many new organizations are being built to both defend voting rights and expand them, and older existing organizations are also having to take on this struggle. Many new people are stepping forward to run for office at every level, and they’re winning.
Sindy Marisol Benavides, an immigrant and chief executive officer for the League of United Latin American Citizens, said in a recent Zoom discussion, “There was a time when our community could not even report a crime because we were hanged and lynched. There was a time when our community had to fight to even get to the polling location and even pay a poll tax. We’re going to have to continue fighting to make sure that everyone who’s eligible to register and to vote is able to do that, because that is what a democracy is. That is why so many immigrants come to America, because we want to experience the freedom of being able to participate without persecution.”
In the same discussion, LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, said, “There’s a pro-democracy movement that is needed in this country. It can’t just be about this legislation or this candidate, if we want transformational change, and I believe we’re on the brink of it….We actually have to shift how we show up. We’ve got to have more young folks that are being trained as poll workers. We’ve got to keep organizing. And we also have to keep building and we’ve got to literally take over those processes. We’ve got to actually put people in office and in positions and recruit volunteers to actually be a part of this process.”
Democracy itself, along with the outcomes of all our struggles, is at stake. We dare not fail.
