News and Notes: Democracy Is on the Ballot

By George Francis Kane

This is the last issue of The Minnesota Atheist of 2024. According to our production schedule, you should be receiving it already knowing the winner of the presidential election. I write this with the cautious verb “should” rather than the confidently predictive “will” because of plans by both major parties to carry the electoral struggle beyond the casting and counting of votes. Republicans are planning myriad challenges of state and local votes, which Democrats warn will stress-test our election procedures. Republicans aver that these challenges will be warranted because Democrats are already stress-testing these election procedures by falsifying the vote.

To idealists who insist that our democracy is only legitimate if the election is won by the candidate who receives the most votes, our electoral process is already broken. The candidate who received
the most votes did not win office in the Electoral College in 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. Our elections may not always be “democratic,” but at least the Electoral College is constitutionally defined. The campaigns by both major parties are designed with the objective of victory there. But what if the Electoral College were denied the opportunity to discharge its constitutional responsibility?

The ultimate failure of this stress-test would be that the presidential election would be decided by a vote in the incoming House of Representatives. This election would be even more undemocratic, as each state delegation would have one vote. Montana would have the same representation of California, although the latter’s population is more than 35 times greater. If the House vote is strictly by party, it is probable that the Republicans will win, and Donald Trump will be the president.

The next administration may be a decisive stress test for the separation of church and state. The Heritage Foundation has spearheaded Project 2025 to implement a Christian Nationalist takeover in the event of a Republican presidential victory. It has plans for directing executive agencies to write social policy according to a “Biblical definition of family.” This means in opposition to reproductive rights and the rights and protections of the LGBTQ+ community. Project 2025 plans to weave Christian dogma into the public-school curriculum, and to divert government funding away from public schools to church-run schools instead.

If Project 2025 is implemented, the decades-long culture wars already stressing secular government will continue with renewed vigor in the courts and the states. For more than two decades the Supreme Court has been whittling away at the separation of church and state, replacing government non-involvement with requirements for government support.

Anti-democratic forces have the initiative in state and local governments, and in the courts. The only knock-out blow that I can see, that would render their threat to secular government impotent would be if electoral defeat splits the Republican party, pitting a MAGA-led Christian nationalist faction against a more traditional party of big-business.

There are a couple of ways that this stress test may work out. If the eventual 47th president is not the candidate who won the election, the legitimacy of our democracy will be severely shaken. Confidence that our government represents the will of the people and confirms the consent of the governed will collapse. This may bolster support for authoritarian dictatorships around the world. The United States may still be a world leader militarily and economically, but this will herald an age in which dictatorship will be viewed as the natural order of humanity.

If we survive the stress test cresting in the election, then democracy, human rights and secular government will survive, although still in a state of siege. I cannot see the nation emerging into a secure and optimistic happily-ever-after. The anti-democratic and anti-secular forces will be enraged by their loss and determined to sharpen their struggle. Our political institutions will survive for now, and change will continue to be incremental, rather than revolutionary.

I do not think that anything can stop the historic rise in religious disbelief and non-affiliation, but the security of fully secular government seems very distant.