As the 2022 midterm election loomed just one week away, President Joe Biden took to the airwaves in a primetime address on Nov. 2 to condemn his predecessor Donald Trump and other Republicans for embracing political violence, voter intimidation and “the Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Biden declared that American democracy itself was at stake in the Nov. 8 election that will decide which party controls Congress and other key state offices such as governor and secretary of state.
Various news reports indicate that Republican election deniers will be on the ballot in 48 of 50 states. Some 300 GOP candidates seeking those offices, more than half of all Republicans running for congressional and state offices in the midterm election, have denied or questioned the outcome of the 2020 election. More than 170 election deniers are running in districts or states where Republicans are expected to win, according to the Cook Political Report.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with David Pepper, former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party and author of the book, “Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind The Lines.” Here he talks about the GOP threat to democracy and what Americans must do to resist a descent into an authoritarian system where free elections and free speech will be in jeopardy or eliminated.
DAVID PEPPER: In our country, we have blinders on. We just think, well, we’re America. Democracy’s so safe.
We don’t really see an attack on democracy here as clearly as we would in another country. And so I kind of walk through these hypotheticals and I say, as I did in my White Board, what if in another country we saw a rigging of elections through gerrymandering so every election outcome was guaranteed or we saw a party in power attack an independent court to try and get a friendly court that would uphold their illegal laws? What if we saw other countries start to ban history or ban books, changed the way people could protest?
When we see it somewhere else, the truth is, it’s very clear to us it’s an attack on democracy. And the point in my book, Laboratories of Autocracy and the White Board of the day and other things I talk about is so much of that same type of attack on democracy is happening in our statehouses all around the country. But because it’s in our own country, we actually don’t see it for what it is. And I think that’s a real blindspot that we’ve got to get through, because … again, the attack on democracy is basically the front line in statehouses around this country that are gerrymandered, that are pushing extreme laws, that are attacking voters.
And if we don’t start seeing that as a true threat to democracy, I think it just continues to succeed. If we see another country — Hungary and Viktor Orban or an extreme case like Putin — it’s very obvious to us that’s what’s happening. But in our own states like Ohio, where this has been happening now for several years, most people just don’t see it that way. The media doesn’t cover it that way. And that’s a real blindspot for us. And it’s a real risk to us if we don’t start to wake up to it.
SCOTT HARRIS: David, I wanted to ask you briefly about resistance, because if Republicans take control of one or both houses of Congress, the political landscape of this country will be changed certainly in the short term. But likely in the long term, in terms of the jeopardy democracy will be in, what’s your view of how citizens who are pro-democracy can they respond to this?
Certainly I don’t think the advice really is to wait to the next election. People know and in my view, people really have to get active between these elections and start challenging these extremists at the school board, at the library, wherever they congregate to try and foist their minority and extremist views on their communities.
DAVID PEPPER: So the whole theme of my book is if you didn’t see it yet, understand that we’re in the same battle for democracy that John Lewis was in, women’s suffrage was in. We’ve been blinded again. A lot of people, myself included, we’ve just assumed it’s been intact for a long time. So we think of politics as this sort of every couple of years we have a federal election.
No, we’re in a battle for democracy itself. Once you realize that and that is what we’re in, that’s our entire national history. That’s when you realize that’s a long-term battle. It never ends, even if it’s a midterm. Sometimes when we have the White House; in the midterm, it’s a struggle. The minute it’s over, even if we don’t like the results — and I hope we do — keep going. Keep going. It’s not only the next election. So much of the heart of the attack on democracy is actually trying to knock voters off the rolls. It’s trying to change the electorate. It’s trying to purge voters.
So whatever you can do, even before the next campaign is to start registering voters. If you run a restaurant or if you’re on the board of a homeless shelter or something, make sure those organizations are all registering voters.
We have to see the lifting of democracy as a full-time, nonstop thing we do to help make a difference.
For more information, visit David Pepper’s website at davidpepper.com and David Pepper on Twitter @DavidPepper.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with David Pepper (18:29) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
For the best listening experience and to never miss an episode, subscribe to Between The Lines on your favorite podcast app or platform: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Tunein + Alexa, Castbox, Overcast, Podfriend, iHeartRadio, Castro, Pocket Casts, RSS Feed.
