Changing the Rules, Punishing Companies Left and Right

 

“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed:

I am your retribution.” 

 Donald Trump at CPAC, March 4th

It’s one thing for a political party to lose an election. It’s quite another when the victorious party punishes those who sided, or who seemed to side, with the other side. Perhaps that victorious party takes additional step to make it difficult for the losing side ever to win an election in that tainted jurisdiction. Voter manipulation under the guise of fixing fraud. Politicians elected to office in strong red states with powerful evangelical constituents are finding themselves representing an electorate that feel God’s mandate to bring the blues state to heel. That’s a bad mix where your voters believe in their God-given right to be the relevant deciders in accordance with their interpretation of the Bible. Indeed, their voter restrictions tend to favor those who adhere to a notion of White Christian nationalism and marginalize those who do not.

But lest you think this is just a MAGA disease, the backlash from non-MAGA voters who feel that a distinct Christian minority is infringing on their secular or non-Christian-fundamentalist is creating an equal but opposite blue state reaction. Cases in point. 

Florida and Disney. When Disney backed its Disney world LGBYQ+ employees against a litany of restrictions directed at that community, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, with his lockstep legislature in tow, decided to punish the Mouse House for opposing his views. After a few ill-conceived statutes that attacked Disney World’s special district (where Disney called the shots but paid virtually all the taxes) – they forgot about Disney’s long-term tax commitments based on that special status – Florida finally seized control from Disney, placed DeSantis ultra-right-wing evangelicals in charge of a renamed district while making sure Disney remained the major taxpayer. “Don’t Say Gay” and “Stop Woke” slammed down hard on the theme parking and its surround assets.

California and Walgreens. Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom erected billboards in Florida touting California’s open door to abortions and strong opposition to the ominous “Stop Woke” legislation. On March 8th, “Newsom announced that the State of California would not renew a multimillion-dollar contract with Walgreens — not because Walgreens had failed to comply with its contractual obligations but rather because it had responded to Republican legal warnings and decided not to dispense an abortion pill in 21 red states. Newsom used his political power to punish a corporate position he opposed.

“Weeks earlier, a federal judge blocked enforcement of a new California law intended to combat medical misinformation, because the state’s definition of the term was so vague that it couldn’t survive First Amendment scrutiny. This ruling came on the heels of multiple adverse rulings against California at the Supreme Court. In 2018 the court struck down a California rule that required pro-life pregnancy centers to publish information about free or low-cost abortions. During the pandemic, the court repeatedly rejected California public health regulations that discriminated against religious worship. And in 2021 the court invalidated a mandatory donor disclosure law that violated court precedent that dates back to the civil rights era.

“California is not alone in its efforts to suppress constitutionally protected rights. Late last month the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that New York’s so-called Boss Bill, which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of their ‘reproductive health decision making,’ may violate the expressive associational rights of pro-life organizations that require employees not to have abortions and to refrain from extramarital sex.” David French writing for the March 12th New York Times. These are the culture wars, fought not just to push strongly felt policies but to defeat and humiliate those who disagree. Making examples, punishing those who oppose, constitute a hyper-polarizing litany of “retribution,” as Donald Trump calls it.

What is abusive or even a criminal violation in one state, perhaps even elevated to a charge of murder in the case of abortion, is a fundamental right in another. For example, “Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas issued a directive to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate as ‘abuse’ both surgical and pharmaceutical interventions for transgender children, regardless of the good faith and desires of the parents, children and caregivers involved.” NYT. In New York and California, those procedures are protected by law. But where does this tit-for-tat angry reciprocity lead?

“[If] a government both enacts contentious policies and diminishes the civil liberties of its current ideological opponents, then it sharply increases the stakes of political conflict. It breaks the social compact by rendering political losers, in effect, second-class citizens. A culture war waged against the civil liberties of your political opponents inflicts a double injury on dissenters: They don’t merely lose a vote; they also lose a share of their freedom...

“In a nation as diverse as the United States, conflicts over values are inevitable, but our most basic civil liberties must remain inviolate. To govern otherwise both inflicts a grave injury on dissenting citizens and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution itself. Our right to speak, much less to parent, should not be contingent on our ability to gain political control.

“The much better course for our democracy is to uphold a legal corollary to the golden rule: Defend the rights of others that you would like to exercise yourself. It doesn’t end the culture war. We’ll still clash over contentious issues. But maintaining a bedrock defense of civil liberties lowers the stakes. Protecting individual freedom tells all Americans and all American families that the social compact holds and — win or lose on any given issue, regardless of how controversial — this country is still their home.” NYT. Playing to the crowd as opposed to doing what’s right has usurped American politics and threatens even the viability of the very existence of the United States. Political compromise has become a lost art.

I’m Peter Dekom, an impassioned progressive, but I understand that unwarranted undermining and belittling your opponent and seeking to use the law to punish those who disagree with your vision just might bring our little experiment in democracy to an abrupt and permanent halt.