HOW DOES DEMOCRACY BECOME AUTHORITARIAN?
I live in rural Texas. There is a whole lot more to the recent abortion prohibition vigilante reward system than just abortion (I am not sure spying and getting a reward for reporting abortion then handling as a lawsuit exactly qualifies as a law). I don’t dispute control over female sexuality as one sub-element, but let’s consider the whole landscape of Texas politics in 2021. Set aside for a moment personal view about “right/wrong” in regards to abortion. Consider the ways and means and implications of how the vigilante ordinance was crafted.
The authoritarian regime of a single political party non-compromising overbearing extremist group in Texas depends in large part on rural and gerrymandered voting districts, no term limits and especially restrictive voting laws — that’s not a healthy democracy. Yes, there are narrow issue far right votes in the cities — but the largest part of core extremists far right devoted voters are rural with state voting district lines drawn to incite a single party dominance with ever farther extreme views with little incentive for broad discussion of central public ideas or mainstream issues like education or infrastructure.
Fear (some justified) underlies virtually all of the 600+ new state laws enacted in Texas this year. Fear of change, fear of loss of control, fear of loss of stratified privledge, fear of new social norms, fear of unknown, fear of loss of power, fear of loss of traditions and long standing institutions, fear of counter-culture censorship, fear of federal government over-reach. And, yes, fear is often an evil, dark, corroding thread that can be as harmful to progress and a free society as a malignant cancer is to a living organism. As a Texan I only wish an outrageous and obnoxious convoluted abortion neighbor vs. neighbor abortion prohibition ordinance was our only problem.
Cancer metastasizes. Unaddressed it will be invasive to your neighborhood. We first have to mount antibody fear defenses — evil prevails when the masses remain silent or numbed. This means voting, persistent refusal to become anesthetized, speaking out against the fear based actions. Once addressed the fear will fester unless it is dealt with openly in good spirit, honesty and open-minded binding of wounds and genuine compromise and consideration of some of the sound reasons behind some of the fears. In the end it means that finding ground for unity is necessary to individual survival.
The first step is to contain the wildfire. In Texas that means registering to vote and going to the polls and voting regardless of obstacles. It means businesses creating pressure objecting to absurd things like vigilante abortion prohibition ordinances. If you’re reading this article and are an American or world citizen in a free country outside of Texas it means realizing attitudes and imbalance do not stop at state lines and lending your support through civil conversation and discussion to shed light on the gerrymandering and nonchalance about the lop-sided extremism occurring. The cliche is true: Evil happens when good people do nothing.
