"Nothing's Riding on This … "

" … except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.”

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         Today is Election Day for those who celebrate … democracy. In campaign parlance, presidential election years are “on” years, midterm elections are held in “off” years, and this year is an “odd”year.

         In Texas, we have 14 constitutional amendments on the ballot and a variety of local offices and propositions. Check your local listings.

         Polls are open until 7:00 p.m. It’s your country; vote like you own it.

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Tuesday, November 7, 2023, 11:00 a.m.

The 2024 Election Day is a year from today.

         Fifty-two weeks from today, the American people will elect a President of these here United States. It seems like every election is “the most consequential election of our lifetimes,” but there’s a good argument for its truth in 2024.

         (Of course, there was a case to be made that the 2020 election was the most important of our times: guardrails of democracy and all that. Donald Trump lost that election, decisively. But some not insignificant percentage of Americans think the election was stolen from him. Some larger percentage knows it wasn’t but doesn’t care; the Bad Guys won and that was enough for them. So, 69% of Republicans nationwide, and 79% in Texas, believe Joe Biden is not the legitimate president of the United States.)

         The way things are looking, it very possible the 2024 election will be a rematch between Biden and Trump. It is tempting to characterize that contest as between a liberal and a conservative, although many liberals would question that characterization of Biden’s record and many conservatives would do likewise with Trump’s.

         It is more accurate to say a Biden-Trump rematch will be a battle between a liberal and an illiberal vision of America. And understanding that framework is far more important for the country’s future.

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It’s time of recover the meaning of the word “liberal”

         The words “liberal” and “conservative” are so abused in our political discourse as to be meaningless. Lite Guv Dan Patrick uses “liberal” as a slur against Speaker Dade Phelan; if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bothered to pay attention to Patrick, she’d be mystified. Candidates for GOP office vie to prove they’re more “conservative” than the next guy, but no one knows what that means. (Meanwhile, the word “liberal” has become so poisonous that you almost never hear anyone they are a “proud liberal for state Senate.” Instead, the gentler “progressive” is used.)  

         A pox on all their houses.

         But there is another connotation to the word “liberal” to which we should pay serious attention, because the future of our country depends on it. And that is the classical definition of liberalism as a philosophy of government and society. A “liberal” polity believes in the “unalienable rights” of the individual, political equality, the consent of the governed, and the rule of law.  From these flow freedom of speech, press and religion, the right and duty to vote, and the principle of majority rule as circumscribed by protections of the rights of the minority.

         This definition of “liberal” ought to be completely uncontroversial, acceptable equally to the most conservative and the most liberal members of our community. But that is not the case around the world or, increasingly, in the United States. An illiberal stench is flowing through our country. Nationally and in the states, it has looked like one or more of the following:

• Restrictions on the right to vote, both who may vote and how and when they can vote;

• Attacking free and fair elections as expressions of the popular will, undermining their credibility and refusing to abide by their results;

• Compromising the independence and integrity of the judiciary, by appointing judges based on political affiliation and loyalty rather than judicial experience and temperament;

• Attacking the media as a sinister force, undermining its credibility and/or limiting its independence;

• Demonizing selected groups of “undesirables,” to the point of proposing the elimination of their human and civil rights;

• Attacking freedom of religion, first by using it as a cudgel to allow the dominant religious tradition to restrain the rights and religious practices of minorities and then by outright suggesting that there is or ought to be a “state religion;”

• Attacking freedom of thought and inquiry by mandating the teaching of certain ideas and prohibiting the teaching of others;

         Sadly, we can all think of examples of some of these trends even in our own country. There is no question in my mind that the 2024 presidential election will be a referendum on these trends. Fifty-two weeks from today, we as a people will decide which way we head as a country. It is important that those of us committed to classical liberalism stand up, speak out, and most importantly, VOTE in the year to come.

         Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards) is All The President’s Men: “Nothing's riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.”

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UPDATE: The special session ends with a whimper.

         The Senate failed over the weekend to pass the House version of a border security bill, which means that topic is likely dead for this special session. Dan Patrick has the Right-Wing Pneumonia and the Christian Nationalist Flu, and so will miss today’s anticlimactic climax. In summary, of the four topics identified in the original call, action has happened on only SB 7, the ban on private employer COVID mandates. (SB 4 strengthened penalties for human trafficking of migrants.)

         There was some chatter among Republicans last week that Abbott didn’t want a voucher bill to pass; he wanted to use the failure of a voucher bill to target opponents, line up primary challengers and raise millions of dollars for the spring primaries. I suggested this at the beginning of the session: the overarching goal is to push the Legislature further to the right.

         No official word on when the Governor will call a promised fourth session. Some folks say pretty soon, while others opine he’ll wait until January to make vouchers an issue in the March primary elections.

         Abbott is investing a lot of political capital in a voucher scheme. He is not that popular with legislators, who think him untrustworthy. Although vouchers are popular with big segments of the GOP base, he has not noticeably broadened support for them in a year of campaigning. He probably has until March 5 to browbeat enough legislators into passing some watered-down voucher plan. And even if he is successful in passing Vouchers Lite, he will disappoint the true believers like Tim Dunn and the Wilks brothers.

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         Check them out: Other elections to watch today in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Mississippi.