Rules to lock the door on disagreement
Decorum always matters to those who want to keep others silent
When fighting for your life is a ‘breach of decorum’
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that those with power set the rules. They decide who they let in the door and who they close it on. This is American history in a nutshell. Some people find open doors and others find rules that they need to follow to get past the closed ones. Usually, the hand on the lock of that door for most of our history has been white.
No matter how much we think we have made progress that truth hasn’t changed in many places. Across the country Republican Supermajorities are setting up new doors and the people they let in are very few. For everyone else there are rules.
Their favorite rule is to enforce how you must act to get through the door, and once past it, stay in the room. You must follow proper “decorum.” They are happy to let you disagree with them, but they set the rules on how you can do it. Then they ruthlessly enforce them.
Texas hospitality
This week I watched in disbelief as video from the Texas Capitol flooded the internet of state troopers clearing the House gallery of protesters on the orders of the Republican Speaker so they could debate banning transgender care for children without any spectators. The protestors were pushing back against extreme legislation and being ignored.
Watching it all unfold was extra surreal as law enforcement across the state was frantically looking for the murderer of five family members outside of Houston. But here was a throng of brown shirted state police manhandling and arresting peaceful protestors in the Capitol.
Here is how the Speaker justified it. “Rules matter in the TX House,” Phelan said in a tweet Tuesday evening. “Today’s outbursts in the gallery were a breach of decorum & continued after I warned that such behaviors would not be tolerated. There will always be differing perspectives, but in our chamber, we will debate those differences w/ respect.”
A breach of decorum.
Big Sky, Closed Doors
That’s the play now for Republicans passing laws that attack average Americans or ignore real dangers. They simply decide what doors are open and what doors are closed. The rule is how you act when you knock. The rules aren’t published or anything but that doesn’t stop them from being used.
In Montana the state house of representatives removed representative Zoey Zephyr from the remainder of the session. They disenfranchised thousands of citizens from having representation in their legislature because she broke their ‘strict’ rules. Obviously, people who scream “liberty” and “1776” like a parrot with Tourette’s would have very serious reasons to strip representation from their citizens, right?
No. Her offense was telling fellow lawmakers that their efforts to strip gender affirming care from transgender kids, like her, would lead to suicides and the GOP “would have blood on their hands.” She was silenced by the Speaker and when she quietly continued to stand and hold her microphone while protestors came to support her, she was banned from the floor and forced to work in the hallway.
How did it unfold? Newsweek reported, “The state legislature voted along party lines last Wednesday to bar Zephyr, a Democrat who represents Missoula, from the House floor over her remarks against SB 99, a bill that bans gender-affirming care for minors, they viewed as a breach of decorum.”
A breach of decorum.
Know your place in Tennessee
Weeks ago, the battle unfolded in Nashville after the slaughter of six elementary school children and staff led to widespread protest and school walkouts demanding the state legislature and governor do something about gun violence.
Kids are tired of being slaughtered and living in fear. They demanded to be heard even as the Republican Supermajority was loosening gun laws in the state. They begged. They petitioned. Finally, they screamed. Three brave legislators stood with them Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, and Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, took to the lectern and called for the protestors to be heard.
After years of ignoring calls for even reasonable gun action the majority was able to quickly swing into action to censure and eventually, expel two of them. Tennessee hasn’t expelled a lawmaker from the House since the Civil War.
In a discussion of the reasoning for the Republican majority to expel the elected representatives the Nashville Tennessean summarized it in a now familiar way, “House Republicans accused the trio of violating decorum rules when they led a raucous gun-control protest from the House floor with a bullhorn on March 30, as thousands of demonstrators descended on the state Capitol calling to restrict access to guns.”
A breach of decorum.
This isn’t new
I have been reading a new book called ‘Myth America’ a collection of essays from historians who “take on the biggest legends and lies about our past” edited by this week’s podcast guest, Princeton historian Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer. It’s a fascinating read and well worth your time.
There are two chapters that reached out and slapped me across the back of my head. One discusses the mythology of ‘The Good Protest’ by Glenda Gilmore and the following chapter addresses ‘White Backlash’ by Lawrence B. Glickman. The historic precedent is undeniable, and we are living it today.
There is this glossy myth that the civil rights movement was this relatively short and peaceful movement from 1958 to the late 1960’s that resulted in vast changes for black Americans led by peaceful, suit wearing pastors and genteel men and women. They weren’t violent or outrageous in this black and white, sepia toned legend. While there was some pushback, it was light and simply a short moment.
In this version of history Rosa Parks was just a sweet little old lady who was tired after working all day. This silly idea is punctured after I watched ‘The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks’ a few months ago on Netflix and discussed it with podcast guest, Soledad O’Brien. Both legends are false. Rosa Parks was a militant civil rights activist who had planned her protest and was a guiding force for the movement that followed. A movement that had been building since the day the Civil War ended and continues today.
That brings us to the second chapter I mentioned; ‘White Backlash.’ The violence by white Americans was framed at the time as a “response.” Throughout the early 1960’s Gallup ran polls asking if the civil rights movement was “pushing too fast” and the poll grew more against them with each year. It was their fault for being too aggressive, so white’s felt threatened and fought back.
They were breaching decorum in their desire to be heard.
The framing placed the onus for the violent response to their demand for rights on the victim and not those trying to deny them their rightful place in American society. It’s all false. The civil rights movement was always an often violent and long battle from a variety of actors desperately trying to be recognized as equal citizens and humans. It was always a fight to be heard.
Polite people don’t change the world
Following decorum is simply the way the powerful shut the door on the weak. The racists, bigots, and zealots have used this playbook for decades. They got away with it because they could hide behind their closed doors. They could buy the silence of those that would expose them. They could ignore the will of the weak
It’s 2023. It’s time we stopped letting them hide. It’s time we stopped following their rules and kicked down the doors before they close our democracy on all of us. It may be drag shows and transgender kids today but when you’ve got Senator Tim Scott going on national TV and declaring that “the left is the enemy of the American people” you can be damned sure they won’t stop until we are all crushed behind that closed door.
Note:
I speak with co-editor of Myth America, historian Kevin Kruse on this week’s ‘On Democracy with FPWellman’ podcast. You can get it today as a subscriber, on podcast platforms, or when it premieres Friday night at 11:00 PM EST and 8:00 PM PT on the MeidasTouch Network on YouTube. Here is the teaser where we discuss the Southern Strategy and how the Democrats that switched to Republican in the 1960’s were very clear why they were doing it no matter how much today’s GOP propagandists try to rewrite history.
1) Ignore the trolls, Mr. Wellman!
2) The arrogant smirks on those women in the top photo (the Montana photo) are beyond infuriating.
Fascism on parade. Our grandfathers fought a war over this shit and now a bunch of MAGAts are intent on bringing it here.