The Tribune

With Charlie Harper

Sometime in the next ten months, Bahamians will go to the polls and choose a new House of Assembly. The recent commemoration of our national Independence Day served as a reminder of our sovereignty and associated traditions of free elections.

Nothing too dramatic about any of that. We justifiably feel The Bahamas is generally a functioning democracy with sacred guarantees of rights for its citizens.

But what if a lot of our ideas and conceptions about our country and its government and its elections were to be shaken to their core by political manipulations, untruths and cynical misrepresentations of facts?

What if some political actors in our country decided to ignore established rules and norms and sought in broad daylight to corrupt our elections and overturn their legitimate results?

That would be quite unsettling indeed, and hopefully we can steer clear of any such trouble in the future.

But in many minds, that is exactly what is happening just a few miles to our west in the United States.

In large, populous and growing states like Florida and Georgia, state legislatures have passed new laws designed to either (a) tighten and secure existing election procedures so only those entitled to do so can vote, or (b) rig the system to exclude millions of poor black and brown voters from the American electoral process.

Republicans and their allies hew to the line in (a). Democratic opponents promote the narrative in (b). But whichever version you favour, the reality is several other states are pursuing similar courses to the one followed by Florida, including recent and current national bellwether states Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The prospects seem reasonably good that several of these more restrictive state voting laws will be enacted.

Democrats all across the country, including on Tuesday President Joe Biden, have condemned these new voter laws. With conservatives now controlling the American Supreme Court and hundreds of new Republican-appointed federal judges now sitting on lower federal courts across the country, Democratic activists believe federal legislation is now the most feasible antidote to what they see as malicious Republican manipulation of the American electoral process.

The US House of Representatives agreed. Under the active direction of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the House passed in January as its first piece of legislation HR 1, incorporating measures such as banning partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts to ensure success for one party, making voting easier overall, and enforcing greater transparency on many political donations.

The bill, which had been originally introduced two years ago, was dead on arrival in the Senate, where Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona were reluctant to support parts of the bill. And with the Senate tied 50-50 between the GOP and Democrats, the bill lacked the 60 votes needed to pass most legislation – the “filibuster” rule.

Things have largely remained stuck there for weeks. Key Democratic figures like South Carolina congressman James Clyburn, whose timely endorsement likely played the greatest single role in Joe Biden’s nomination and eventual election as President, urged Biden to get HR 1 passed by whatever means necessary.

Until Tuesday, Biden seemed reluctant to wade into the issue with both feet. But in an eagerly awaited speech delivered in Philadelphia, Biden said “some things in America should be simple and straightforward. Perhaps the most important of those things, the most fundamental of those things, is the right to vote. The right to vote freely, to vote fairly and the right to have your voted counted.

“HR 1 must be passed. It is a national imperative.”

Biden, who at times has said protecting voting rights is the central cause of his presidency, also called in his Tuesday speech for passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would reinstate elements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which the Supreme Court struck down in 2013.

“He’ll lay out the moral case for why denying the right to vote is a form of suppression and a form of silencing,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. “He will redouble his commitment to using every tool at his disposal to continue to fight to protect the fundamental right of Americans to vote against the onslaught of voter suppression laws.”

Psaki said Biden will vow to “overcome the worst challenge to our democracy since the Civil War”.

Psaki, whose cool professionalism, preparedness and adherence to objectivity in her remarks and responses at the White House press briefings has offered a remarkably reassuring contrast to the amateurish, outrageously mendacious nonsense so often spouted by the numerous stunningly unqualified spokespersons in the previous administration, might have been a bit hyperbolic in her statements on the voting rights issue.

Maybe, and maybe not. In the face of Texas Republicans’ efforts to ram through a voting bill similarly restrictive to Florida’s measure, the state legislature’s Democratic members all fled the state and flew on private jets to Washington DC in order to deny the GOP a required quorum to pass the proposed legislation.

One of the dilemmas in American political life these days is that it is genuinely difficult to separate from each other genuine, existential threats to the future of the nation’s democracy and lesser developments that are exaggerated for mostly political effect.

Some sober observers continue to feel that while the Republicans are clearly trying to restrict access to the American polls by voters whose potential allegiance they have essentially foresworn, the actual results of all the legislation stirring up so much turmoil may be much less significant.

A few liberal pundits even speculate the measures may even backfire and actually limit Republican and conservative participation in future elections. They cite the startling senate election results in Georgia still only six months ago as evidence that in politics as in life, you have to be careful what you wish for and to always expect the unexpected.

But in a political era when the internet, social media and the non-stop cycle of “breaking news” have appeared to lay bare and expose political chicanery, malevolence and other assorted misdeeds by elected officials, it is entirely possible a calm, reasoned, long-range outlook and response to the current Republican efforts to limit the American voting franchise is short-sighted and wrong.

Sometimes what looks like a real threat to a way of life is just that. It takes wisdom, courage and no small bit of luck to be able to make judicious judgments in such circumstances.

Heartbreak and heroes

One of sport’s great appeals is the clarity and permanence of its results even if rules and referees sometimes offer too much material for post-match discussion. In Brazil and England over the weekend, two giant regional tournaments produced champions and one long non-winning streak was emphatically ended.

In Rio de Janeiro’s famous Macarena stadium, Argentina finally won its first major championship in the long, distinguished career of spectacular striker and prolific playmaker Lionel Messi. Masterful Messi did not score in Argentina’s 1-0 triumph over regional rival and host Brazil, but that didn’t inhibit his teammates’ exuberant celebrations of his prowess after the game concluded.

Not long afterward, Messi signed a new five-year extension with his long-time club and perennial world powerhouse Barcelona that should ensure he spends his entire adult career with the Catalan club.

In London meanwhile, England failed to snap a 55-year winless streak in major international competitions, falling to an Italian team full of less renowned stars but capable of playing brilliant defence and creating surprising goal chances. The Italians, now on a 34-match non-losing streak, deserved their victory in a penalty shootout. The young English team still offers plenty of future promise.

In that decisive shootout, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho of Manchester United and Bukayo Saka of Arsenal all missed their shots. All three are young and black and they represent a big part of England’s future.

That they were also all targets of vicious and reprehensible post-match online racial attacks was a discouraging reminder that for all the valid current concerns about racial relations in the United States, the Americans’ problems are hardly unique.