Tuesday, June 14, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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In the past six years, America has born witness to the most rapid decline of democratic norms in the history of our country. And the speed with which democracy has declined is nothing compared with the rapid rate of decline in our sense of common purpose and decency toward one another.
This is evident not just in our politics but in the way we treat each other.
Our distrust and fear of one another has grown to such heights that for many of us, embracing conspiracy theory feels safer than embracing difficult or unfamiliar realities.
Religious conservatives have become so fearful of their non-religious neighbors that even exposure to a secular idea or identity has become an intolerable offense.
Parents and school board members who used to set aside social and political differences and work together have become enemies lobbing insults, innuendos and conspiracy theories at one another.
Supreme Court justices, who populate the one branch of government that was supposed to be apolitical, are now appointed through purely partisan processes and face the threat of protesters and assassins sitting just outside their homes.
Our veterans, even those who fought in conflicts as recently as Afghanistan, are either used as political fodder or forgotten entirely.
And the belief that guns are needed for protection in every corner of every room is so pervasive that gun rights are given greater weight than the rights of children, Black people, women, Latinos or people in the LGBT community to simply live in relative peace.
Over the weekend, police in Idaho arrested members of the Patriot Front white nationalist terrorist organization after a bystander saw numerous members of the group packing themselves into the back of a U-Haul filled with weapons and body armor. The group appeared to be targeting a local LGBT Pride festival.
Police received more than 100 calls in response to the arrests. Half of the calls thanked the officers, while the other half called to criticize, berate and even threaten the police for arresting the suspected terrorists. It seems for some Americans, “back the blue” only applies when police arrest or kill Black and brown people. Decency need not be applied to gay people in a parade.
Earlier in the week, as families in Uvalde, Texas, held funerals for their murdered children, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., explained his opposition to limitations on AR-15 ownership by saying “in my state, they use them to shoot prairie dogs and, you know, other types of varmints.” That’s a U.S. senator saying that the most powerful country in the world can’t act to save the lives of dozens of children and innocent victims of gun violence because people might lose their right to shoot varmints.
Thune is apparently among the growing number of conservatives who have embraced a dogmatic approach to politics that places party affiliation or the intent of the Founders above good ideas, good candidates, and trying to do good in our communities and make each other’s lives better. Members of the political left are not immune to the trap of dogma, but they have not embraced such an absurd level of conspiracy or callous disregard for human life or livelihood as the extremists who now seem to dominate Republican Party leadership.
Even if we believed that the Founding Fathers were all knowing and all-seeing God-like prophets of the future — which we do not — how detached from each other have Republicans become when the “original intent” of people two centuries dead means more than the basic human rights and freedoms of members of our society today?
Each of these issues is on the ballot today. But so too are the greater issues of who and what we want to be as a nation — our commitment to truth over lies, our commitment to peace over violence, our commitment to democracy over authoritarianism.
Candidates are on the ballot today who are known liars, actively subverting democracy by claiming widespread voter fraud and trying to limit access to the polls.
These bad actors stand in opposition to 250 years of progress in including more voices in the umbrella of “Americans” whose rights and freedoms are recognized.
They have not shied away from their lies, attempted to moderate their tone, or acknowledged that it is possible for anyone to disagree with them without being part of a great conspiracy. They are clear, and blunt, and visible as we head to the polls, and we must reject them.
Today’s primary is our first opportunity as Nevadans to make a wholesale turn away from their extremism and embrace a more honest and civil future for all Americans.
As a battleground state, the outcome of today’s primary elections will help determine the course of the November general election. Which will, in turn, determine the course of our country for the next two years as we look toward the 2024 presidential election.
Powerful forces in our society want to encourage cynicism and detachment of voters. These same forces want to make us believe America is broken and can’t be repaired without savage autocrats in power. And the result is that many Americans have stopped responding to the cry for civility, the cry for decency, the cry for help. Too many Americans have started doubting the greatness and humanity of our country.
As Americans, we eventually get it right, and the last election — with a record turnout — demonstrated a hunger to return to sanity and decency. Let us now return to the polls for the next chapter of our struggle to return to honesty, integrity and governance that serves all Nevadans and all Americans. We hope you will respond.
