Make Iowa great again

Our country arose out of the ashes of authoritarianism. The Declaration of Independence charged the “King of Great Britain (as) having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.”

Yet our founders knew, as John Quincy Adams wrote, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

Curious about how this happens? Read Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s “How Democracies Die.” They describe its death with the detail of a Julia Child recipe for boeuf bourguignon.

A law school colleague, when frustrated by students’ silence, would ask, “Is anybody listening? Does anybody care?”

Polls reveal a significant percentage of Americans neither listen nor care. They say a populist authoritarian ruler is preferable to democracy.

They’re not totally irrational. They believe their needs are neither recognized nor addressed by a democracy ruled by a wealthy elite because, well, because they’re not.

Republicans have played the populism card with duplicity and skill. Democrats fought against their own most effective, pro-democracy populist: Bernie Sanders.

We have two national governments. The executive and legislative bodies in Washington, and the governors and legislatures in 50 states. Some of both are weakening democracy with strategies from the authoritarian’s playbook.

Consider Iowa. The consolidation of power from the people, cities, state agencies, and legislators into the governor’s office. Political ideology governing hires and judicial appointments. Restricting access to public information. Tax breaks and curtailed regulation for major donors.

From 1969 to 1983 Iowans kept reelecting another conservative Republican: Gov. Robert Ray.

Ray’s accomplishments would more than fill this column. Here are a few. Public employees collective bargaining, Commission on the Status of Women, Iowa Council on Children, eliminating sales tax on food and drugs, Department of Environmental Quality, expanded funding for K-12 schools, making Iowa first in the nation to protect Native Americans’ graves.

Ray held daily news conferences, was pro-choice before Roe, and opposed the death penalty. He personally lobbied President Ford and Secretary Kissinger to change the law, enabling Iowa to welcome refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. The first state to do so.

Ray realized that democracy requires more than constitutions and laws. It requires the norms of behavior essential to its survival — especially “mutual tolerance” and “institutional forbearance.” It requires the “civic society,” the non-partisan organizations and coalitions Tocqueville observed in 1835. An awareness that hate is not a policy and should not be a political strategy.

Our current political parties have made democracy more difficult. We must turn to ourselves to rebuild the civic society it requires. If Linn County can bring together a variety of the world’s religions in its Inter-Religious Council, think of what other coalitions are possible.

Edward R. Murrow courageously exposed authoritarian Sen. Joseph McCarthy in a “See It Now” March 9, 1954. McCarthy, he concluded, had merely exploited our fear. “Cassius was right: ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’”

Nicholas Johnson is the author of Columns of Democracy. mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org

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