Courtesy of wikipedia.org
I threw a DVD of “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” into my player last night. I needed a touch of innocence to block out the television news. Hard to accept but the real world had grown more fantastical, dark, and insane, than makebelieve. In the episode I selected, Neville Longbottom proves to be a hero. Knowing his friends Harry, Hermione, and Ron intend to break curfew and dishonor Gryffindor, he blocks their escape. “I’ll fight you,” he says shakily, his small fists rolled into balls to prove he means what he says.
In the real world, Nikki Halley could have used Longbottom’s courage. She accused Donald Trump of being unhinged, but like the rest of her peers in the Republican Party, she endorsed him. Fear rather than admiration was the reason. Each of them preferred to suffer the reign of an avowed tyrant and his band of Christian Nationalists rather than risk their careers.
To take a stand against allies and friends is difficult as studies show. In turbulent times, only the brave are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Of the 7 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, for example, only 2 survived the next election. The rest faded away though the nation owes them a debt.
Though they may not know it, Trump and his band of White Christian Nationalists can trace their sense of a right to govern to the Doctrine of Discovery. Written in 1493, this Papal Bull was an answer to a question that troubled Christopher Columbus. After returning from the New World with a plan to set out again, he wondered how he should treat the inhabitants of these faraway lands.
The Holy See’s answer was unequivocal. Columbus owed heathens nothing except to convert them to the faith.
Chief Justice John Marshall answered the same question concerning American Indian rights in Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) When white Christian farmers settled on lands belonging to the Oneida Nation, the Indians sued. Marshall relied on the Doctrine of Discover in his response. He defined the Indians as “occupiers” of the land, but assigned ownership to the white Christians.
It may surprise some to learn this prejudice persisted in American law as late as 2005. That was the year Ruth Bader Ginsberg decided a case on the same Papal grounds even though Pope Francis had rescinded the Bull in 2003.
PPRI, a nonprofit research group that focuses on the intersection of religion, culture, and politics, published a poll regarding the Doctrine of Discovery in 2022. The question they asked was, “Do you agree or disagree that America was designed by God to be a promised land for European Christians?”
Thirty percent of those who answered agreed with the statement. Republicans form the nucleus of Christianity in this country so a number of those who replied were probably Christian conservatives. In any case, this nostalgia for injustices of the past comes at a time of demographic change in the United States. “Self-identified Republicans today are 70 percent white and Christian in a country that is only 42% white and Christian.” (“Finding the Hidden Roots of White Supremacy,” by Robert P. Jones, FFRF, May 2024, pg. 13.)
Understandably, in 2020, when a defeated Trump claimed the election was rigged, the Christian right believed him and their response grew to a full-throated rage that culminated in an assault upon our nation’s Capitol. The rebellion was quelled but the fury remained, erupting sporadically in violence or threats of violence.
During this period of turbulence, the Supreme Court seems to be administering law and order with an uneven hand. Many who participated in the Capito riot have gone to jail. On the other hand, the High Court has made it increasingly difficult to prosecute verbal assault. In Counterman v. Colorado, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that violent speech has First Amendment protection and is prosecutable only if the perpetrator has “some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements.”
Political threats come from all sides of the philosophical spectrum, of course, but they are increasing in number and the range of those targeted is widening. In 2021, the National League of Cities published a poll that shows public servants have come under heavy assault.
The political climate has become so toxic that a former head of the Republican Party told 60 Minutes he went along with a scheme to overturn the 2020 election because he was “scared to death.” Likewise, former Georgia Governor, Roy Barnes admitted he refused to assist district attorney Farni Willis in her prosecution of Donald Trump because “I wasn’t going to live with bodyguards for the rest of my life.”
History informs us that defending our democracy takes courage. In a speech given at Harvard University, Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor reminded us of this fact when she praised the jurists who ended segregation in our public schools. (Brown v. Board of Education)
“They were brave men who believed in the power of law to form that more perfect union, and I believe it,” she said.
We all need to believe it for we have stumbled upon a time when the assault upon our democracy is coming not only from external enemies but from our fellow citizens. I refer to those who defend the idea that some of us are occupiers and others are owners.
In an earlier blog, I predicted a blue wave was coming. The prediction wasn’t magical thinking. That wave will arrive come November. In a free land, ordinary people like Neville Longbottom will always rise to defend their country in a time of crisis.
