Archive for category: #Fascism #Elections #Caesarism

The apostles of the New Apostolic Reformation lead large networks of great consequence in the…

Later this term, the Supreme Court will decide Moore v. Harper, a case that has been pitched as a seismic clash between two troubling positions. One side asks for state legislatures to be freed from the traditional safeguards of state constitutional law, while the other asks the Court to effectively ignore the text of the Constitution. The Court should look beyond these unsupportable positions and take a commonsense middle ground. Fortunately, one is readily available: an approach that maintains the Constitution’s emphasis on state legislatures without divorcing them from their traditional constitutional constraints.

The Constitution contains two clauses that give power over congressional and presidential elections to each state’s “legislature”—not to the states generally, but to each state’s “legislature.” Similarly, other clauses in the Constitution specifically refer to state executives, judges, and conventions, while others, by contrast, mention “states” without specifying a particular institution.

[Adam Serwer: Is democracy constitutional?]

In Moore, the North Carolina legislature passed a law drawing new district boundaries, but the state supreme court concluded that the map was a partisan gerrymander in violation of provisions of the state constitution requiring that elections be “free” and that all people receive “equal protection of the laws.” It then adopted a map that had been commissioned by the trial court, which had appointed a team of experts independent of the litigants. The court’s map was less politically favorable to the leaders of the legislature who had orchestrated the original redistricting.

Those leaders have taken that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the state court usurped authority vested in the legislature by the U.S. Constitution. Relying on a theory called the “independent state legislature doctrine,” they contend that because the legislature is exercising a power that derives from the federal Constitution, legislative discretion cannot be limited by state constitutional law. That would mean that state legislatures drawing legislative districts are not subject to state judicial review at all.

In response, the state board of elections and allied private parties contend that the term legislature in the Constitution is just another way of referring to the states, and thus that the federal Constitution does not limit the power of a state court to overrule its legislature. Whether the North Carolina courts were right to replace the legislature’s map, they argue, is purely a question of state law and not reviewable by the Supreme Court.

We think neither of those positions is convincing. The state respondents would rewrite the Constitution to replace the term legislature with the term state. Given the specific references to legislature, executive, judges, and conventions in various parts of the Constitution, it is not plausible to think that these institutional designations can be disregarded as meaningless. Rather, the Framers of the Constitution appear to have believed that a power so central to democratic governance should be vested in the branch of state government that is most representative of its people.

The state legislative petitioners, for their part, ignore the fact that the state legislature is created and governed by the people of the state through their state constitution. Even in matters of election law, the state legislature meets when and where its constitution says to meet and is organized the way the state constitution says it’s to be organized. There is no reason to think that the Framers of the federal Constitution intended to liberate state legislatures from the ordinary constraints of state constitutional law.

[J. Michael Luttig: There is absolutely nothing to support the ‘independent state legislature’ theory]

Neither history nor precedent resolves this dispute. On several occasions, justices constituting a plurality, or writing non-authoritative asides (which lawyers call “dicta”), have endorsed some version of the independent-state-legislature doctrine, but never in a holding and never in the unqualified way now being argued by the North Carolina legislators.

Missing from the debate has been a key principle that points to a sensible middle ground: A state constitution may limit a legislature’s power over federal elections, but it may not give that power to somebody else. We need not an independent-state-legislature doctrine, but a constitutional-state-legislature doctrine.

In a constitutional republic like ours, legislatures ultimately derive their authority from the people. This authority is conveyed through written constitutions that charter the government, vest power in different branches, and regulate the exercise of that power. A state legislature’s power to pass laws should be seen through this constitutional lens. Because state legislatures derive their lawmaking power from their own people, their authority is limited to what their state constitution gives them. When the federal Constitution gave state legislatures additional authority, it took them as it found them, as created by state constitutions rather than a new free-floating entity. State legislatures are not independent of their constitutions.

But the claim that state courts may hold state legislatures to state constitutional limits does not mean that they can replace the legislature. The federal Constitution’s text explicitly empowers one of these branches to regulate federal elections, not the other. (There is one Supreme Court case from 2015 that adopted a very capacious definition of legislature to uphold an independent redistricting commission, but that decision was 5–4, distinguishable, and, most important, wrong.) State legislatures must act according to their state’s constitutional constraints. But it must still be the state legislatures that act.

What does this principle mean for concrete cases?

It means that state constitutional provisions can restrain legislative districting, such as by limiting the use of partisan gerrymandering. The broad challenge to state constitutional law in Moore therefore should fail. But it also means that the North Carolina courts do not have independent constitutional power to adopt their own map.

In the past few decades, courts in redistricting cases have sometimes taken to seizing the pen and drawing their own map, advised by experts. Court-drawn maps are especially common when a legislature is slow or inadequate at fixing constitutional problems with its own proposals. This judicial mapmaking may sometimes offer the veneer of a nonpolitical, nonpartisan process. But more often it draws the courts into an inherently political exercise, where their decisions necessarily appear to benefit one party or the other. Recall that many state supreme courts are elected, sometimes along partisan lines. Giving these courts power to draw electoral maps breeds cynicism about the political nature of judging.

Moreover, the practice of court-drawn maps does not have an extensive constitutional pedigree. No such thing occurred in the early years of the republic. It was an innovation of the mid–20th century, emerging from modern trends in election law. The practice has never been put to the authoritative constitutional test.

In the 2002 case Smith v. Clark, a federal court held that court-drawn maps violated the federal Constitution’s reference to state “legislature[s].” This ruling was vacated by the Supreme Court because it proved unnecessary—the court-drawn maps in that case were enjoined under the federal Voting Rights Act, leaving the constitutional issue for another day. Perhaps that day has now come.

Without the power to draw maps, courts would be limited to their more traditional role of determining whether the acts of the political branches comport with the constitution. Their remedial authority would be limited to enforcing the law and blocking unconstitutional acts, not to assuming the powers of the legislatures for themselves—just as when the courts declare a law unconstitutional, they do not write a new one to replace it. Additionally, the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate congressional elections as well, so there is another politically accountable source of law if traditional judicial review proves insufficient.

A further possible implication of this principle is that in certain instances, a state-court interpretation of state law might be so far-fetched that, in reality, the court is legislating and not interpreting. This could transform what ordinarily would be a question of state law into a federal question. State judicial decisions were challenged on this basis in Florida in the 2000 presidential election, and in Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential election, for example. But the Florida case was ultimately decided on other grounds, and the Pennsylvania case proved not to matter to the election’s outcome.

This kind of federal review might become necessary if a state supreme court truly went rogue, but it presents serious conceptual difficulties. It would require federal courts to decide how state law should be interpreted, which is normally a state law matter, and to draw lines between state-court decisions that are wrong but reasonable and those that are beyond the pale. There is no objective metric for judgments of that sort. Ultimately, if state courts are limited to their traditional role of judicial review, and stripped of their modern remedial power to take the power of districting upon themselves, the need for this radical step can probably be avoided.

The Supreme Court’s job is of course to enforce the Constitution, even when the results are inconvenient for modern practice. But in Moore v. Harper it can do its job through the constitutional-state-legislature doctrine, without accepting the more aggressive arguments for preempting all of state constitutional law. Fidelity to the constitutional text requires no more.

Three years ago, describing an Australian white supremacist charged with massacring 49 people in New Zealand, the New York Times (3/15/19) wrote: “On his flak jacket was a symbol commonly used by the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary organization.”

The New York Times (10/4/22) shares a “handout photo” from a paramilitary organization that was founded to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen.”

What a difference a war makes! A Times story (10/4/22) in the paper’s Ukraine War news roundup began:

Commanders of Ukraine’s celebrated Azov Battalion have held an emotional reunion with their families in Turkey, Ukrainian officials said, honoring the fighters released from Russian confinement last month as part of the largest prisoner swap since the start of the war.

“Celebrated” is an odd word to describe a group whose founder urged Ukraine to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen (subhumans)” (Guardian, 3/13/18). Its official logo features the Wolfsangel, a runic icon adopted by the SS that’s become “a symbol of choice for neo-Nazis in Europe and the United States,” according to the ADL. (To dispel any doubt about what the symbol means, Azov used to superimpose it on a Black Sun, a Nordic design beloved by Heinrich Himmler.)

The Azov movement has linked up with other far-right groups across Europe and in the United States, including the Rise Above Movement, a violently racist group based in Southern California (New Republic, 7/9/19). Azov is “believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States–based white supremacy organizations,” according to an FBI report (RFE/RL, 11/14/18).

But Times reporter Enjoli Liston indeed went on to celebrate the group:

The group’s defense of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol—the southern port city decimated by Russian forces in the first months of the war—has become a powerful symbol of the suffering inflicted by Russia and the resistance mounted by Ukraine.

The story’s headline: “Released Azov Commanders Have an Emotional Reunion With Family Members in Turkey.” The accompanying photo shows the fascistic unit’s commander sharing a joyful hug with his wife.

Not a word in the eight-paragraph story gives any hint about the ugly far-right politics of the unit, incorporated since 2014 into Ukraine’s military structure (when it was rebranded as the Azov Regiment). The Times did, however, find space to convey to the Azov fighters, from Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska, “Thanks from Ukraine, from the president and all the people for whom they are fighting.”

ACTION:

Please tell the New York Times not to treat neo-Nazis as heroes.

CONTACT:

Letters: letters@nytimes.com

Readers Center: Feedback

Twitter: @NYTimes

Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your communication in the comments thread.

Featured image: Emblem of the 2nd SS Panzer Division (left) compared with those of the Azov Battalion (center) and Azov Regiment (right).

The post ACTION ALERT: NYT Celebrates Neo-Nazi Azov Unit appeared first on FAIR.

Recent data
analysis by Pew Research looked at the future of Christianity
in the United States, and what it found was startling. By sometime around
2045, only about half of Americans could identify as Christian. If trends
continue, it could fall to as little as 35 percent by 2070, and certainly no
more than 54 percent. Simultaneously, the rise of the “nones” means there will
likely be as many Americans with no religion by then.

There have
been plenty of articles by very serious people who wring their hands and bemoan the
loss of a common U.S. religion (and who ignore that there have always been
Muslims, Jews, deists, atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christians here). Where will communities meet and bond? Where
will morality come from? What will tie people together? However, such questions
entirely miss the point that religion in this country has been a singularly divisive factor for well over a decade and is only becoming
more so.

The numbers
paint a clear picture of what is happening. As American youths leave home, they
leave the faiths of their parents and never return. This is in great part
because the teachings of most churches in the U.S. are fundamentally
at odds with what young people believe: particularly on topics like abortion,
marriage equality, birth control, and premarital sex. They simply fail to see
how such out-of-touch institutions are relevant.

Consider
these numbers. Among members of the 20 largest denominations in the U.S.,
approximately 88 percent (weighted by membership) oppose same-sex marriage.
Liberal mainline denominations (such as Episcopalians and Unitarians) have been
in steep decline for decades, and account for only a tiny fraction of the U.S.
religious landscape. Other mainline denominations (like Methodists) still
oppose same-sex marriage and abortion. These denominations, whatever their
political bent, are so tiny after years of decline that they really only
account for a couple points of the American population. Conversely, 88 percent
of 18- to 29-year-olds believe that abortion should remain legal in some or all
circumstances, per a recent Gallup poll. Even five years ago, support for same-sex marriage was 79
percent among this cohort, and it’s certainly higher now. 

It also
doesn’t help that major denominations have tarnished themselves with their
handling of sexual harassment and assault. The Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), and the Southern Baptist Convention have all been repeatedly rocked with
revelations of how they tolerate, mishandle, and cover up sexual misconduct and
crimes.

The most
crucial factor, though, is how Christianity has slowly become primarily a
political identity for many (overwhelmingly conservative) people. Over the past
40 years, membership in nice, bland, mainline Protestantism has plummeted, from 30 percent of the public down
to 10 percent. Conversely, evangelical membership (and the number of white
evangelicals) boomed in the 1970s and ’80s and then slowly declined. But
evangelical groups are still much larger than the mainline Protestant denominations,
constituting about 23 percent of adults and up to 37 percent of
Americans claiming to be “born again.” Because white
evangelicals are one of the most consistently conservative groups in the country,
the result is that people who identify as Christian or attend church frequently
are far more likely also to identify as Republican.

Black churches
have held steady for decades at about 8 percent of the population.
They are still associated with social justice goals, but they can also tend
toward social conservatism, which can produce tension. For example, the Black Lives Matter movement’s leadership featured many LGBTQ people, who had a somewhat limited or
uneasy working relationship with churches. Latinos were
traditionally part of the Catholic Church. However, traditionally white
evangelical denominations have had some luck luring Latinos away with social conservatism and the false
machismo projected by Republicans, which explains some of the electoral shift seen in 2020.

Just as
those who attend church frequently tend to be Republican, the converse is also
true: Those with no religion are far more likely to be Democrats. Data analysis
by Ryan Burge shows that white evangelicals have
had a stranglehold on the GOP for over two decades and form a clear majority of
the GOP, alongside conservative Catholics. However, by 2018, the “nones” represented a plurality (28 percent) of Democrats, whose gains have come at the
expense of evangelicals, mainlines, and Catholics within the party. Today,
almost half of Gen Z has no religion, along with 51 percent
of white women.

Polling data
collected by Life Way Research (a subsidiary business of the
Southern Baptist Convention) supports these suppositions. A 2017 survey of 2,002 U.S. adults age 23 to
30 who attended a Protestant church two times or more a month for at least a
year in high school found that 66 percent had stopped attending church. Seventy
percent of those cited religious, ethical, or political beliefs for dropping
out. Other major reasons cited included
hypocrisy, churches being judgmental, and a lack of anything in common with
other people at the church.

The real
danger of this widening schism is not a lack of shared sense of community, or
people not doing enough charitable work. The danger lies in this creating the
conditions for a future that looks more like present-day Russia or Iran. 

Conservative
Christians have a deep sense of victimhood and fear about a secular America and are
willing to end democracy to prevent it. As David Frum noted, “If conservatives
become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon
conservatism, they will abandon democracy.”

It has not
gone unnoticed that Republicans are increasingly claiming the mantle of being Christian Nationalists. A recent poll found that although
57 percent of Republicans recognize that declaring the U.S. a
“Christian nation” is unconstitutional, over 60 percent would support it. To achieve enforcement of an
unpopular set of religious beliefs amid a population that is increasingly
ambivalent or hostile to the dominant (conservative) strain of religion in the
U.S., the GOP is already instituting increasingly undemocratic processes, insurrections, and efforts to overturn
legitimate elections and is installing religious zealots in positions of power.

I feel like
I should not have to write this, but having conservative religions joined at
the hip with an authoritarian single-party state can only end badly. There are
two awful examples literally in the headlines today.

First there
is the Russian Orthodox Church, headed by Patriarch Kirill. He’s been one of Vladimir
Putin’s most loyal allies and has been willing to put the church’s blessing on
virtually anything Putin does. This includes supporting Russian actions in
Ukraine in the name of stamping out the corrupting Western influence of
homosexuality and protecting the Russky mir (Russian world). More
recently, he has declared that dying in battle washes away all of one’s sins.
Having a church that is simply another media arm for an authoritarian
government is far from ideal. But at least the Russian population’s belief
systems are still generally aligned with the dominant church. On top of the fascism,
Russian Orthodox church leaders have made themselves obscenely wealthy by supporting Putin’s kleptocracy.

What we’re
seeing in Iran is what happens when a sclerotic, gerontocratic, authoritarian
theocracy tries to impose its will on a younger population that no longer
accepts the legitimacy of the government and also rejects some of its core
religious teachings. Protests erupted over 22-year-old Mahsa Amini being tortured and killed by
“morality police” for wearing her hijab the “wrong” way. Women have responded
by tearing off their head scarves and burning them. Men have attacked police,
and riots have racked the country for weeks. The internet has been shut down,
and at least 75 people have been killed so far. The Iranian regime has reportedly
lost control of a predominantly Kurdish town on
the border as well.

This is what
the U.S. has in store if we continue along the path we’re going down:
Christianity is becoming primarily a political identity in service of an
ideology dedicated to creating a single-party theocratic state. If recent
events are any guide, Christianity in the U.S. is on a path either to being little more than a corrupted tool of fascism (as in Russia) or becoming a
violent, oppressive, and omnipresent force (as in Iran) against which the
population can achieve change only through revolution.

Experts on violence are projecting that the coming weeks will see an increase in heated political arguments online — including violent right-wing rhetoric about an impending “civil war” — due to the fast-approaching midterms and continued investigations into former President Donald Trump.

Analyses have shown a significant rise in far right violence over the past few years. Much of the right wing’s violent rhetoric has centered around Trump, with some of his loyalists suggesting that violence to protect him from an investigation into his removal of government documents from the White House would be justified.

According to a New York Times report, Twitter posts mentioning “civil war” increased by around 3,000 percent in the days after it was reported that the FBI conducted a search on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to retrieve thousands of White House documents, including some that were classified. Talk of civil war also increased on the social media platform after President Joe Biden made a speech in September publicly condemning “MAGA Republicans” who have been threatening democratic norms and institutions.

Far right leaders have likely only added fuel to the fire. Last month, for example, Trump falsely claimed that Biden had threatened his loyalists with military action.

“If you look at the words and meaning of the awkward and angry Biden speech tonight, he threatened America, including with the possible use of military force,” Trump said. (Biden made no such threats during his speech.)

Other Trump loyalists, including Republicans in Congress and former members of his administration, have also stepped up their use of violent rhetoric in recent weeks.

“Did you know that a governor can declare war? A governor can declare war,” Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn said at a recent campaign rally in Arizona. “And we’re going to probably see that.”

At a campaign event this month that was headlined by Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) alleged that Republicans were the victims of a violent, coordinated campaign being orchestrated by Democrats — a claim that has no basis in fact whatsoever, as none of the violence she described ever occurred.

“I am not going to mince words with you all. Democrats want Republicans dead and they have already started the killings,” Greene claimed.

Some have suggested that right-wing talk of civil war is allegorical, or that it alludes to a “cold” civil war, in which physical violence doesn’t actually take place.

“The question is what does ‘civil war’ look like and what does it mean,” Elizabeth Neumann, a security expert who served as assistant secretary for counterterrorism at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump, said to The New York Times.

But there’s reason to believe that this rhetoric will result in an uptick in violent, physical attacks. Beyond the statistics that show far right violence is increasing, research from the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) at the University of Chicago shows that millions of Americans believe violence to achieve their political ends is sometimes justified, especially when it comes to defending Trump.

One in 20 U.S. adults, for example, believes that using violence to reinstate the ex-president into the White House midway through Biden’s first term would be justified, according to a survey CPOST conducted last month. That amounts to around 13 million Americans. Even more Americans — around 15 million — would support the use of violence to keep Trump from being prosecuted by the Department of Justice, according to the poll.

“We have not just a political threat to our democracy, we have a violent threat to our democracy,” said Robert Pape, the director of CPOST, in a recent interview.