By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
One year ago homegrown terrorists professing to be patriots stormed the U.S. Capitol, using American flag staffs as weapons against police and parading Confederate flags through the building, trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power – one of the hallmarks of a democracy.
This Jan. 6, a small group of Bowling Green residents talked about how to preserve the nation’s fragile democracy.
Never in their lifetimes had any of those meeting ever feared for the preservation of democracy in the U.S. But a year after the insurrection, they recognize that the threat seems stronger now than it did 365 days ago.
“It’s a day of tragedy really. It makes me wonder what we can do at the local level to strengthen our democratic institutions,” said Beatriz Maya, founder of the La Conexion of Wood County organization and member of Not In Our Town Bowling Green.
“What can we do locally? It is not a task to only be left to Congress in Washington,” Maya said during the monthly NIOT meeting on Thursday.
Many members of Congress, who were horrified at the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021, have since watered down their reactions and now justify the rioters’ actions as patriotism.
“It still shakes me that the threat to democracy is real,” NIOT Co-chairperson Emily Dunipace said.
Though many of the rioters have been convicted for their violence, sympathizers across the nation have shifted their focus to the local level – spreading their deception at school board, health board and city council meetings.
In the name of former president Donald Trump’s brand of patriotism, his supporters are being urged to infiltrate grassroots government.
“The issue really is at the local level,” NIOT member Rev. Gary Saunders said. “That’s where this is being hammered out.”
Nationally, NIOT organizations are seeking suggestions about how individual communities are combating the threat to democracy.
“Everyone’s searching for whatever that solution is,” Dunipace said.
Bowling Green City Council member Bill Herald, who frequently sits in on NIOT meetings, was asked by Maya about the Republican party turning a blind eye to the risk to the nation.
“Yes, I am a Republican,” Herald said. “I can assure you that all Republicans aren’t the same.” As proof, he said, “I am here.”
Herald said the extremes of both parties are trying to gain politically from their stances on Jan. 6.
“At some point, very smart, insightful individuals will cut through all the noise,” he said. “We will need to learn from this at some point.”
Herald assured those present that while the redirected target is local government, Bowling Green City Council has not been broken.
“We can talk” with civility, he said. “We certainly need that at the state and national level.”
Scholars and advocates for democracy are trying to raise alarms – but many Americans either see their nation as unbreakable or believe that violence is justified since their candidate lost in 2020.
President Joe Biden commemorated the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riot this morning with a speech, telling Americans, “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Experts on democracy warn that while democracy survived the Jan. 6 attack, it is being chipped away at with changes in voting laws. They warn that attacks on voters rights are creating electoral playing fields so tilted in the GOP’s favor that Americans will no longer have a meaningful voice at the ballot box.
The League of Women Voters in Bowling Green has been alerting local residents of the fragility of democracy.
In a recent letter to the community, the league warned that democracy “depends in large measure on the willingness of ordinary citizens to protect it at every opportunity.” In order to defend democracy, the league has urged local residents to register to vote and then exercise that right in every election.
But that isn’t enough, the league cautioned. “It is imperative for all of us to remain vigilant and ever conscious of the fact that the suppression of voting rights for anyone results in the suppression of democracy for all,” the letter said. So it is imperative that citizens support laws that protect the right to vote.
Two bills currently pending in the U.S. Senate are the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the Freedom To Vote Act would set national standards to protect the right to vote, safeguard the electoral process, ban partisan gerrymandering, and overhaul the nation’s broken campaign finance system. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore the power of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, protecting voters from racial discrimination.
