Democracy In Decline

voting rights her entire career. What got me to ask for Nita to join woke F was an interaction, an exchange actually, that she had with Senator Ted Cruz, which you may have seen because I retweeted the clip and the clip went viral, where he asked her directly, do you think that the Texas voting rights law is racist?

And she responded, yes, I do, and then went on to express why she feels like the voting rights laws suppressions targeting of people of color is in fact racist, and how race neutral laws have been a thing since

reconstruction in this country. It is how for one hundred years black people had absolutely no protection in this country right, And you know I will talk to her about whether or not she thinks that our democracy can survive, this can survive in action by Democrats right now, because, folks, I got to tell you that I have reached my breaking point with this in current administration, with this Congress, and where we are headed in twenty twenty two, people

are so fucking concerned with keeping their jobs, as in my favorite line in The American President, that they are forgetting to actually do their fucking jobs. Right. You have one job as an elected official, and it is to make sure that you uphold our constitution. It is to make sure that all Americans, not just some, not just the rich, right, not just the top one percent, not just white folks, have the ability to live a full and complete life, right that are able to pursue their

form of happiness. Right that are able to all be protected, to be able to participate as full and complete citizens and our fucking democracy. And they are failing, and this fucking administration is failing right now. And you know I can tell you that I have reached a point right where yet you can say to me, Danielle Well, the Biden administration, they've only been in power for nine months, and you know, we need to give them more time. And do you know what I'm going to say to that,

we don't have any more fucking time to give. Right in but a few handful of months, the calendar year changes and we go into twenty twenty two, and at the beginning of January, you are going to see a blitz of fucking campaigns and ads and all of these things,

because within several months we will have midterm elections. And right now, if you pay attention to polls, which you know, if you listen to me regularly, you know that I don't give a fuck about polls because I think that they are as good as shaking a magic eight ball

and kind of seeing what happens. But the reality is that in a couple of months we have a consequential midterm election that I would argue is even more consequential than that of twenty eighteen, because when Republicans get power again, not if, but when they get power again, they are not letting it go. They are going to be rabid, fucking pit bolls with a bone, and they won't let it go. They will change every single fucking rule in the Senate, in the House to make sure that Democrats

never hold that gavel again. And then what Democrats will do is get on television and get on radio, and get on podcasts and wine and bitch about what Republicans are doing to this country. And I will turn around and want to verbally bitch slap every single fucking one of them who has sat around and thought that, you know,

Republicans who are gonna come around. I will go directly to the Joe Mansions and the Kursten Cinemas and say, you now will be forever remembered and engraved in the minds and the history books of this country as the

two people that allowed our democracy to fucking fall. This week, right now, you have Kirsten Cinema, not at the White House, right because this is how much power this bitch has not at the White House, but as White House staff has decided to go to her in the Senate to talk about the reconciliation bill, to go to her and beg her to do what is right for this fucking country.

How does that look to me? It looks like Joe Biden doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, and it certainly doesn't look like he has the strength and the mustard and the fortitude to get shit done that he told the American people he was going to deliver on day one. Now, I understand that there is a big, big gap between the campaign promises that folks make on the trail and then what it comes to get done in order to get things executed into reality. I know that the gap is big. But here is a thing

you don't get any more time. You knew the urgency of the moment when you were campaigning in twenty twenty, as you were campaigning against an open white supremacist right, an open fucking fascist. You knew, good god damn well that the Republican Party wasn't just under the spell of Donald Trump. No, No, Donald Trump gave them permission to take their hoods off and be exactly who they have

always wanted to be. You know what I saw this week that also turned my goddamn stomach, which was a New York Times article do democrats will democrats muster the same amount of courage as Liz Cheney ding ding ding New York Times, Liz Cheney doesn't have any fucking courage. It doesn't take courage a decade after your gay sister gets married and has kids to come out on sixty minutes and now decide that, oh, you were totally wrong

about same sex marriage. You know, six years after the Supreme Court passed same sex marriage in this country and a decade after her own fucking father, Darth Vader, came out in support of same sex marriage. Right, you don't get a trophy for that. You also don't get a trophy for recognizing reality and the fact that Donald Trump did indeed lose the twenty twenty election. It is not courage to come out and acknowledge the truth, then, my god, I must have so much courage to come out every

day and acknowledge that gravity fucking exists. I am so tired right of turning these fucking people into heroes and heroines and martyrs for acknowledging reality. That is how far

the goddamn bar has fallen. You know, Joe Mansion and Kursten Cinema, they might as well be the president and the vice president of the United States right now with the amount of fucking power that they're wielding, Which is why to me, it was important to bring Professor Fernita Tulsin on to talk about the fact that, yeah, you know,

what Congress really does have power. You know, there are things that Congress can be doing right, because by virtue of the Constitution, you have the power to get things done. You are a coequal branch of governments. And yet they are walking around and asking for fucking permission or expecting Republicans to turn into what exactly moral bound patriots. I don't know how many goddamn times that people have to show you who they are for you to believe who

they are. Right, not one god damn Republican voted in the House of Representatives to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Many of those fucking disgusting human beings worked alongside John Lewis, listened to his stories of being beaten and jailed for the right to vote. They worked alongside this man for decades, and upon his death, he had

one ask, which was to get this done. And those Republicans spit in his face and spit in the face of every goddamn American in this country, regardless of party, when they decided to vote against our democracy. So tell me again what we are waiting for here. I don't understand how much more Democrats need to see before you look fucking dumb, and you recognize how dumb you look

to the American people. You want to go out now and campaign on what exactly because you haven't done dick and frankly, if you thought that you were going to be campaigning on the vaccine rollout alone, well, we've reached our what our cliff right now in terms of how many Americans are actually going to get vaccinated? And now it's private industry that is doing more work, more heavy lifting by having their mandates that this administration doesn't want to do. Why, oh, we don't have the power to

do it. It's funny to me that when Democrats are in control, they want to talk about what power they don't have, but when Republicans are in control, all we feel is the weight of their fucking foot on our necks. Right, Mitch McConnell didn't have the power to appoint three Supreme Court justices and stall the appointment of Merritt Garland, but he did it. And guess what, and he did so unfucking opposed. Right. No one decided to sue Mitch McConnell. No one decided to bring this to federal court in

order to get action done. Barack Obama didn't decide to do a recess appointment and get things done because he had the right. No, because Democrats are too fucking concerned with keeping every goddamn person happy, as opposed to actually doing what needs to be done and understanding that you're not going to keep everyone happy, that everyone isn't going to like you, and being liked isn't your fucking job.

I don't need a comforter in chief. I need to commander in chief, and right now, with Joe Biden, we don't really have either. Coming up next, folks, is my interview with Professor Fernita Tulson. I'm very excited to have this conversation with regard to voting rights and whether or not she thinks our democracy is going to survive. That is coming up next, folks. I am so happy to welcome to woke af Fernia Tulson, who is the Vice Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs and Professor of Law

at University of Southern California Gold School of Law. Thank you so much for making the time to join woke a F. We are in one of the most i would say arguably the most precarious times for our democracy, and our democracy hinges on our ability to have free and fair elections, and as we have seen since the twenty twenty election and the spreading of the Big Lie, we have witnessed a barrage of over three hundred plus

voting suppression laws that have happened across the country. Texas, however, Texas is like hold my beer to every other state so that they can show up as the absolute worst. Which is why you were at the Senate testifying about the Texas law. You were asked, very clearly, is a Texas law racist? I mean, I screamed that my television and I said, hell, yes it is. I don't know. You have a lot more decorum than I do, so please recount for woke ap audience. You know your answer

to that question. Is the Texas voter restriction voter suppression law racist? In my opinion, it is, and importantly it's

not just me right. One of the points I made in the hearing is that a fellow district court had found that the law had been enacted with discrimine tory intent and discriminatory effect, and so Texas basically litigated the law of the course of the decade, and then they passed a new version in order to cleanse the law of the discriminatory effect that it had on minority populations.

And so they exchange with Senator Crews. I think he was a little surprised, but you know, arguably the fact that Texas consistently litigates its election law, so not just the voter ID law, it's redistricting plans they litigate. So we have redistrict in every ten years, and Texas pretty much spends the bulk of the decade litigating their redistricting plans against allegations that the plan was adopted with racially discriminatory intend in an effect. And this has been true

for pretty much the last two decades. And so Texas their record on this is just really awful. If you were sitting in if you were sitting not just in the chair testifying, but sitting in a chair with the direct ability to enforce the power that democrats have right now, what should what can they be doing? I saw? I mean, because here's the thing, the filibuster. We have two people

that are the issue, right. We have Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin who believe in this racist relic right and and and want to believe that, Well, what if we get rid of it, how will Republicans act down the road? And I'm like, I don't think you understand that we're we are at the end of the road, Like this is it? There is no They're like, we're at the

cliff right now for our democracy. And what is it that Democrats can do to fortify in their minds the sense of urgency that I swear that everyone else seems to have. But these two members of the Senate, that's say that they're supposedly Democrats. So I think part of the problem is American exceptionalism, right, Like, even that's that is that is the that is the whole problem. But please,

even Democrats believe that, right, Democrats believe that America is exceptional. Um. But one thing that is true among democracies generally is that they don't last at long. And so you know, I'm not alarmist generally, and you know, I believe in this country and this is why I do this work. I want us to get over this. But there's no

guarantee that will survive this. Right, our democracy is over two centuries old now, and unless it's something that you're willing to fight for it could very well go away. There's nothing exceptional about America in that sense, then that we that somehow our democracy is so revered that it

could survive anything that is not true. This is why consequences for January sixth is very important, because if we don't have consequences for you know, political elites who are pushing this big lie and who you know, I mean, the whole notion of Trump running for reelection again in twenty twenty four is just insane, right, But that is entirely possible because our system has become one in which bad actors are not punished for their behavior and their

actions are corrosive to democracy. And because of that, we might not survive this. But until people except that that is a possibility, right, then it's entirely likely that you know, Democrats will just kind of sit and wait and expect Republicans to come around. Let me make one other point, because I actually think the historical point is important. After reconstruction in this country, for almost a century, black people didn't have any voting rights, they didn't have any political power.

I was telling my children, and I promised, they're young. I don't like scare them, but you know, it was really common for you know, black people to go missing and just never be heard from again because they had no protections. They have no way, they had no way of petitioning the government for protection, they had no protection from the police anything. Right, It was just it was

a horrible state of affairs. But one of the important things that people fail to realize, but I think that they kind of realized in the forties, fifties and sixties, is that we're all in this together. Right. You can't have you know, minority communities of any strife who feel like second class citizens in this country and think that people that sort of view themselves as being at the

top tier can enjoy their rights too. It's only a matter of time before people in the majority find themselves as a part of the minority, right, So it's really important to protect rights for all people. So just because minority voting rights are under assault right now does mean does not mean that people in the majority are protected either. We are literally all in this together, and if we

don't fight for it collectively, it will go away. Until the Democrats realize that, then they're just going to sit there and wait for a party who is essentially a minority party and will do anything to preserve their power. They're gonna wait for them to come around when they have no incentive to come around, you know. And the reality is that, you know, after a certain point, you reach a certain point where the top can only squeeze

people so much before they push back. I mean, you can only push people down so much and assume that the reaction is just going to be like, okay, boss, whatever you say, Boss, That's what I'm gonna do. Right, four people get into the streets before there is revolutionary action, right, that is taken because I don't see I think that what troubles me now. And I want to ask you,

because you are a professor of law. You are guiding the next generation of people that are supposed to, you know, hopefully in some way, shape or form, safeguard right our constitution, safeguard our laws. But what I've realized over you know, desperately, over the past four year, the four years under Trump, is what I thought. And this is I'm an educated person, you know, undergrad graduate school, worked on the hill. What

I thought were secure laws in this country. I recognize under Trump we're just suggestions, We're just handshake deals that we're kind of done in back rooms, whether you're gonna I thought presidents presidential candid I thought they they were required to provide their taxes. I thought that you were required to let go of your businesses or put them in a trust that you we would know that you're working on behalf of the American people. I didn't realize

that that was just oh everything. I realized that Trump, it's just a political norm And so I mean, what opportunities if any, with this very lackluster and very spineless Democratic party that we are witnessing right now, if we had a party with strength and backbone and fortitude, what should they be doing to move these political norms that were very easily broken? Right, No one is going to jail. No, there's no accountability whatsoever for the things that have been

done to turn them from political norms to actual laws. Like, what power, if any, does the legislative body have in order to in order to make that happen? They have to go all the way, right. I think the problem is moderation. They're trying to figure out some way to keep everybody happy while getting something done. And you can't do that, Um, you have to go all the way. You have to pass HR one, you have to pass HR four, you have to put everything on the line.

There's too much focus on twenty twenty two. Right. People are concerned about getting primary, people are concerned about keeping control of the House of Representatives. But this is all happened in the context of UM, you know, the prospect

of losing control of the House anyway. So my question is, do you do nothing in order to try to keep control of the House and not sort of use the power to that that the House gives you and you know, as as a part of your majority status, or do you do everything that you can and then run on your record? Right. So that's why I just you know, it's better to have something to run on UM than

to have nothing to run on, right. And and that's what I what I what perpetually confuses me because I feel like we're always here, right, We're always at this crossroads where you know, we're trying to convince our elected

officials to use the power that they have. I'm working on a book project right now that is about that that very thing, right, I'm sort of chronicling Congress's exercises of authority in the space of election since the founding, so that Congress understands that it does have this authority. The only problem is use it right, just right, You just have to use it. But instead I think, you know,

it's like all eyes on twenty twenty two. But because of that, that means that the Republicans can craft the narrative right because they are also up for re election in twenty twenty two, right, and they can paint this Congress as or do nothing. Congress who you know wants to enact all of this liberal legislation when in reality, the liberal legislation what would benefit people from all walks

of life, even Republican voters. I'd rather run on that than run on no record and let the Republicans craft the narrative about my record. So I don't I don't get it. But I'm also not an elected official, so maybe I don't fully understand the political implications. But I do do election law, so I think I have a

pretty good grasp on what's going on. I don't think that you need to be an acted official to recognize that, like either you're going to be elected to do something other than have this title and line your own pockets with corporate interests or you're not like I like there, we're not. You know, I wonder too, do you think that because every election we always say the same things,

elections have consequences. You know this election is going to be historic, or you know it's urgent, And because we use this language all the time, do you think that we have just kind of been a series of folks crying wolf? And so now that we are at this critical juncture that people don't recognize, including our elected officials,

just how consequential this moment is? I think that's entirely possible. Right, But part of it is, you know, it's not that the messaging is wrong, it's just that, So imagine saying this is the most consequential election in a generation every time. Right, we said that in twenty eighteen, we said that in twenty twenty. Undoubtedly that was true, though, right, imagine what would have happened on January sixth if the Republicans control

both houses of Congress. Right, twenty eighteen turned out to be an awfully important election for giving Democrats control of the House and stopping some of that. Right, twenty twenty was also super important. We were we are in the middle of a global pandemic and we had an administration that wasn't doing enough to combat it. Right, So, you know, these elections, when we say that these are the most

consequential elections in our lifetime, that actually means something. The problem is that when elected officials get into office with that mandate and they don't run with it. And that's why it seems like we're just sort of beating the drum and saying these things, and that it doesn't feel true to people because they're not seeing the change that

is behind that is basically behind the message. Right, We're urging them to turn out and to vote and to participate because it's so important, and then they do that and nothing happens, or the every day haven't hasn't changed, or you know, it's it's hard. I think the elected officials the power needs to match the message because the message is true, you know. On wok F I try not to be the consistent bearer of bad news, but that is where I am these days and have been

for you know, for years. At this point, I want to ask you to read the tea leaves for me in the best way that you can, given the fact that you have sat before members of Congress now three times in the last ten weeks, and each time you are laying out the urgency of this moment and the responsibility that they have. There's only a couple of them that I believe get it. Which one of them is Representative Jamie Raskin, who has come on this show, who I appreciate so so much for the work that he

has been doing over the past couple of years. Where do you see us going if no action is taken, if we have no executive order, no passage of these bills, like I mean, forget twenty twenty two. I mean, what does America look like? I think we'll be a country on the decline right. If you look at the course of history, you know, they've always been superpowers and then they decline in power. We will be a country on the decline right if we are not committed to democracy

as a principle. Now, don't get me wrong. We have been committed to democratic norms. You know you mentioned norms early. The problem with a norm, though, is that it's not necessarily long standing, and it could be disturbed quite easily. I mean, we really learned that from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty how easy it is to a row democratic norms.

I think left federal legislation and in fact, perhaps a federal constitutional amendment that explicitly protects the right to vote will go a long way towards preserving our status as the world's preeminent democracy, which is a title we can't claim anymore. And so if nothing happens, then I just view that as our accepted acceptance that we are a democracy in decline and that America doesn't want to be

a leader in this next chapter of world history. But let me be clear, like it's not too late, right, there are things, you know, It's what September twenty twenty one, we still have a while for the midterms. There's a lot that Congress can do in this space, and Congress

needs to do it. If Congress does not do it, then I could easily imagine a situation where we still have high turnout in elections, but it doesn't move the powers you need to at all, because of partisan gerry manderin because of you know, other barriers that are put in place that inhibit turnout in state elections, because of you know the fact that local elections are not getting the type of attention that they need because people feel

that the system isn't working. So everything that's happening in the context of federal elections bleeds over rented these state and local elections that are also of equal importance, in some cases more important, and so eventually participation will decline and you'll have perpetual elected officials who do whatever they want because they won't race any challenge at the ballot box. That's it for today's Woke a F Daily podcasts to hear more from today's show, including my full interview with

Professor Fernita Toulson. Support me on Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash Woke a F. Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.