Insurrection, vote theft, vote suppression, history suppression, and book banning are all elements of the Republican autocracy that dominates the Republican Party these days. But last week 2 signs that democracy still has a heartbeat among the Republican autocracy emerged, confirming for now that hope still springs eternal for American democracy.
According to the bipartisan organization, States United Democracy Center, 41 Republican-controlled state legislatures have introduced 216 bills in 2021 that do everything from stripping their secretaries of state, governors, and nonpartisan election boards of authority to count votes in future elections and giving that authority to state legislators who will determine whose vote will or will not be counted, to criminalizing election procedures and practices that have traditionally been legal.
Georgia and Arizona are the states that lead the Republican autocracy because they are the ground zero states for vote suppression and vote theft. Unhappy with the outcome of the 2020 Georgia general election Republican-controlled Georgia forced election officials throughout the state to conduct 3 needless recounts, 1 by hand, of every vote cast in the Georgia 2020 general election. Since there was no legal way to deny Georgia voters the outcome they voted for the Georgia state legislature passed the falsely named Election Integrity Act of 2021. A new law that gave Georgia’s Republican-controlled state legislature the authority to change future Georgia vote totals legally by disqualifying any legally cast Georgia vote for any reason Republicans deem necessary.
The Republican-controlled Arizona state legislature like Georgia’s state legislature passed new vote theft and voter suppression legislation. A committee of the Arizona state Senate commissioned a private company to conduct multiple recounts of the state’s largest precinct of Arizona black and brown voters, it morphed into a seemingly never-ending fraudit in search of vote fraud that was never found. But just as things were turning dark and all hope for Arizona democracy was lost, a ray of logic light illuminated from the same Arizona Republican-dominated state legislature that created the Arizona Republican autocracy.
When Arizona far-right wing state legislator John Fillmore introduced a heavily supported bill that would ban all early voting, mandate that every ballot cast in Arizona be hand-counted, and give the Arizona Legislature the authority to “accept or reject the election results”, a bill that a nonprofit group which tracks election laws, the Voting Rights Lab, called “one of the most comprehensive attacks on nonpartisan election administration and voter access that we have seen.” Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, Rusty Bowers, used his legislative authority as the speaker to single-handily kill the legislation.
Bowers used a rarely used legislative maneuver to unilaterally kill the bill according to Stan Barnes, a Republican consultant who has known Bowers for 30 years, because “The speaker wanted to put the wooden cross right through the heart of this thing for all to see.” According to Bowers himself when asked about his unusual move he said: “That is unacceptable, we gave the authority to the people. For somebody to say we have plenary authority to overthrow a vote of the people for something we think may have happened, where is it (the evidence)?” For the sake of Arizona democracy, for the sake of American democracy thank God Bowers had the logic to see the autocratic insanity of Fillmore’s bill, as well as having the patriotic non-racial non-political commitment to American democracy to do the right thing by killing the bill dead in its tracks!!!
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (left) tells State Rep. John Fillmore (right) on the Arizona House floor about his decision to quash Fillmore’s legislation that would have allowed lawmakers to reject election results
The other ray of logic light and hope for democracy emanates from the very heart and soul of the Republican autocracy, it illuminates from among 2nd Amendment diehards whose belief in the rule of the gun outranks their belief in the rule of democracy. Their belief in the rule of the gun is second only to their belief in God. And based on their response or more accurately their lack of response to the murder of legally armed American Blacks, 2nd Amendment diehards seem to believe that the 2nd Amendment to bear arms only protects American White gun owners. In 2016 when police pulled over Philando Castile’s car because of a broken tail light, he was shot and killed after calmly informing the police officer who stopped his car that he had a gun and a license to carry one.
In 2018 Jemel Roberson, a Black security guard and registered gun owner, responded when several men began shooting while he was on duty at an Illinois nightclub. When the police arrived, Roberson was doing his job, he legally had his gun out and had subdued one of the men shooting with his knee in the man’s back, despite the fact that witnesses told the police that Roberson was a security guard the police proceeded to shoot and kill Roberson. Weeks after Roberson was murdered another American Black was murdered performing a civic duty while legally carrying a gun in an open-carry state!!!
Amir Locke is shown here rising up from sleep with his legally registered gun pointing down towards the floor and away from any policemen seconds before they shot him dead
A much-repeated axiom among the 2nd Amendment diehards is “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun”, but based on the fact that an American Black former Army recruit got killed being and acting as the good guy with a gun, and 2nd Amendment diehards said nothing must mean they think only American White guys with guns are good people. Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford, Jr., a licensed firearm owner in Alabama, an open-carry state, was carrying his gun in a mall on Thanksgiving night when someone else began shooting. He responded by drawing his gun and directing shoppers to safety. But when the police arrived, witnesses say they shot him “within milliseconds”. The police department initially asserted that Bradford was the mall shooter and lauded his killer as a hero.
After being confronted with evidence like the independent autopsy which revealed that Bradford was shot three times from behind, the police admitted they shot the wrong man, that Bradford had never brandished the gun towards the police, and that Bradford simply had the gun in his hand when police officers approached shot and killed him. In all 3 instances the police who shot and killed these 3 American Black males, who were not posing a threat to anyone while legally carrying a gun, suffered no consequences and no condemnation from the 2nd Amendment diehard community for the cold-blooded murder of American Blacks who were exercising their 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.
Until last week when a gun-permitted American Black was shot and killed for simply holding a legally registered gun. As the video from a Minnesota Police body camera verifies, Amir Locke, a 22-year-old American Black male gun permit holder, was asleep under a blanket holding a legally registered gun as he slept on a couch when the Minnesota Police entered the apartment shouting “police search warrant”, as Amir Locke rises up from a deep sleep the police spot a gun in his hand, A GUN THAT IS NOT POINTED AT THEM, and immediately fires 3 shots murdering Amir Locke in cold blood!!!
But apparently, there is hope for democracy and fair play among 2nd Amendment diehards in Minnesota because the other ray of logic light illuminates from The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, the 2nd Amendment diehard issued a statement that was a historical first for any gun-rights group, it said in part “Amir Locke, a lawful gun owner, should still be alive. Black men, like all citizens, have a right to keep and bear arms. Black men, like all citizens, have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizure. The tragic circumstances of Mr. Locke’s death were completely avoidable, it’s yet another example where a no-knock warrant has resulted in the death of an innocent person. In this case, as in others, the public should expect and receive full transparency and accountability from law enforcement agencies that serve and protect our local communities”.
A statement with such strength of clarity establishes a minimum standard that all gun-rights groups committed to protecting ALL Americans’ right to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights, regardless of race, religion, or gender, must strive to meet and a hopeful sign that others may soon follow The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus’s lead in doing so.
A Republican politician in a Republican autocracy ground zero state (Arizona) willing to put his political leadership position (Speaker of the State House of Representatives) at risk to save democracy in his state, thereby preserving democracy in America, and a Republican advocacy group (The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus) willing to stand alone among its gun-rights peers to protect the right of American Blacks to bear arms, thereby preserving the right of all Americans to bear arms in America, are 2 signs that even within the clouds of Republican autocracy the sun rays of American democracy can still shine through!!!