A Warning Shot Across the Bow of Democracy

A WARNING SHOT ACROSS THE BOW OF DEMOCRACY

By Thomas Coffin

As we endure the extreme chaos of a fading political party which hates to share its power, as well as the specter of another on-again, off-again government shutdown which has become the right-wing’s tantrum of a strategy, a secret plan has emerged from the bowels of The Heritage Foundation to—-well, just cancel the entire government en masse if the Republicans manage to win the White House in 2024.

A 1000-page “Project 2025” handbook reflects a plot to fire approximately 50,000 federal workers and replace them with partisan hacks who will carry out the whims of Donald Trump if he is elected, which the handbook gloriously describes as his “Vision”. And we have all experienced what those visions are like, including chants of “hang Pence” as well as the goal of ridding our nation of its Constitution and the very Rule of Law that is the bedrock of democracy. These are visions of a dictator, but nightmares to a free people. (See Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision.) 

We are entering dangerous territory. A political system cannot flirt with totalitarianism with the frequency that ours is doing so without eventually succumbing to its tentacles. The idea of cashiering the FBI, the Department of Justice, and all federal law enforcement agencies and replacing them with a police force that is charged with carrying out the orders of a would-be tyrant is nothing short of the rebirth of the Gestapo on American soil. Have we lost our minds or perhaps purged them of relevant past history? Indeed, aren’t the book banning edicts exactly that ritual of purging knowledge contained in works such as Anne Frank’s diary, the Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Les Miserables, and other literary classics that inform us of the injustices of prejudice and inequality? Children gain from such curricula, which sow the seeds of compassion, empathy, and numerous other qualities in their futures.

Taking a wrecking ball to democracy has been on one party’s menu since the infamous January 6 insurrection. This is not a legitimate political objective, nor should it be part of the “vision” of a political party with deep roots that include Abraham Lincoln and other great presidents. I retired from the bench to be able to freely write articles and essays on the subject of protecting our storied Constitution, and I will continue to address the threats to that document and the heritage of our freedoms and precious rights in the buildup to the 2024 election. That election is nothing less than a referendum on the continuation of democracy and all the basic rights that democracy safeguards. 

To add an exclamation point to my last statement, I call your attention to a recent Guardian article, “No enemies to the right’: DeSantis ally hosts debate hedging white nationalism. The report describes conservative activist Christopher Rufo hosting a discussion about a strategy which urges people to avoid any public criticism of others in their conservative camp, including extremists. The conversation went on to minimize the killings and tortures of political opponents by right-wing dictators Francisco Franco, Oliviera Salazar and Augusto Pinochet in Spain, Portugal and Chile during their periods of rule, which cumulatively exceeded 200,000 people. A comment was made by one participant in the discussion that “…they did kill people…they killed people justly, they killed people unjustly, and that’s just a historical fact…but they saved a lot more people than they killed.”

That's more than a frightening insight into the minds of some in the camp of the right-wing authoritarian movement. That is a warning shot across the Bow of Democracy which we cannot ignore if we are to continue as a free people.

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Thomas Coffin was the keynote speaker at the Blackberry Pie Society’s Political Party in February, 2020 and at Politics and Pie in October, 2022.  He is a retired federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and a former professor at the UO Law School. Thomas retired in 2016 after 24 years on the bench, prior to which he had a career as a federal prosecutor spanning 21 years. He is married with 7 children.  

The Blackberry Pie Society is pleased to include a collection of his essays on our website.  We will post them as they become available.

posted 10.6.2023