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In the words of Beyoncé, America has a problem. It would seem it’s the problem of the Silent and Boomer generations who are only now slowly ceding their elected seats to Gen X, and even more slowly ceding them to Millennials and Gen Z. It would seem to be the problem of increasing political violence since 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president, or the notion that democracy and the country itself is on the ballot in November. Let’s be clear, these are problems.
However, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on July 1, that problem now includes the enormous power that’s been granted to the office of the president — regardless of which political party holds the seat. That particular ruling comes from the case Trump v the United States, in which the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that former presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and “presumptive immunity” for all official acts. No immunity for “unofficial acts.”
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote:
“Looking beyond the fate of this particular prosecution, the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now ‘lies about like a loaded weapon’ for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation. The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in ex- change for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.
Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”
In short, it creates a reality where our capacity to have real voice in shaping policy and the direction of the country, and even in dissenting, is now dependent upon the character of the person in office and whether their own ethical compass allows for real voice, real debate, and the real shaping of our nation by us. This is all within an office that has increasingly demanded more of them beyond the constraints that were supposed to exist as guardrails.
Democracy — literally the power and strength (-cracy) of the everyday common people (demos) — is already curtailed with this ruling. It’s bigger than Trump. It’s about our now; it’s about our futures.
For Black folks, in the wake of the Movement for Black Lives, and the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Sonya Massey in Springfield, IL; in Chicago, in the wake of massive gentrification of our neighborhoods, high levels of evictions, our neighborhoods lacking adequate tree coverage and green space and having higher temperatures than non-Black areas, our children persistently not being at grade level in reading and math, the wreckage that the pandemic still has on our families and bodies, the racism that exists in the healthcare system, maternal and infant death rates, our mental health, lack of access to healthy foods and reliable transit and unlivable wages, and our capacity to create, grow, and maintain wealth across generations, we cannot afford to have any more of our voice muted or stripped away.
We cannot afford anymore uncertainty in what it means to be safe, well and whole.
So what do we do?
There are three things I believe we can do to turn the ship around. We have to lean into our power to shape our now, to shape the future of this nation for democracy – for the power of the people – and to shape our futures for generations to come.
First, we need to create our own agenda — the people’s agenda — that’s distinct from the visioning and messaging that we wait for presidential candidates to shape every four years. Their presidential campaign ideas come from consultants, advisors and staff who often are not like us in terms of socio-economic, geospatial, racial-cultural narratives and contexts. They are, more often than not, folks who don’t know our struggles, our pains, our traumas, our neighborhoods, our imaginings nor our stories, and how those things play into our freedom dreams. How those things play into the lives we imagine for ourselves, our families, our friends, all the folks we love and care for, and for our people as a people. We know what we need. We know the things we imagine to create flourishing lives. So, we must dream in policy.
What does justice look like for you?
What does tranquility look like for your neighbor?
What does it look like to secure the blessings of freedom for your neighborhood?
We need to create that agenda — literally write it down — and place it somewhere where we can see it, so that we can come to know it, so that we may embody it. We need to tell other folks about it. This creates agency within each of us. It takes up space. It shifts something. This is the first step in each of us standing in and reclaiming our power.
Secondly, we need to lobby for a change to how folks get on the ballot. Too often it’s the case that folks need to run a separate campaign to collect signatures in order to get their name on the election ballot, only to end up having those signatures challenged. Or, in some places, folks need to pay a large fee.
We can model our elections after Chicago’s local school council elections; a non-partisan, simple application where folks with a vision and the energy can raise their hands to say, “Hey, I want to use my energy and my vision in service to my community.” This creates more democracy. This gives room for more voices and innovative ideas, and it challenges both major parties to step up and do the work of the people.
Lastly, we need to lobby for a constitutional amendment to undo what the July 1 Supreme Court ruling did, while we can. Last month, the Biden administration called on Congress to quickly establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the Supreme Court. We need to talk to folks about it, and reach out to our elected officials and let them know, this is what we need to see happen.
We can do this. In the spirit of our ancestors, we continue to move in the ever confident movement toward the freedom we are entitled to — in boldness, in courage, in determination, and in love.
We have the power. We hold the power. Every election year, we’re told it’s Black folks who are the ones who save our democracy by voting, but we are democracy. We save ourselves by actively imagining and actively shaping the structure and content of our nation’s institutions and agenda.
The work begins today. And it begins with each one of us.
We, the people, are the power; power to the people.
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