Op-Ed: In this year’s midterm elections, Democracy won
In November, voters across the country and here in North Carolina we finally had the opportunity to exercise one of our most basic rights: the right to vote. For months, pundits and the political class told us that people wouldn’t come out to defend our rights, like access to reproductive rights and the right to choose who governs us. MAGA Republicans campaigned across North Carolina to take those rights away, confident that they would triumph, win a landslide victory in the House, and take back the Senate. And more frighteningly, many of them campaigned to take away our right to choose who leads us, supporting former President Trump in his criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
But the Americans proved everyone wrong.
Democracy was on the ballot and democracy won. November 8 showed that when Americans realize our freedoms are under threat, we act decisively to protect them. North Carolinians saw the election as a choice between freedom and extremism and voted for freedom.
We heard the anti-democratic message from Trump and the MAGA Republicans and rejected them. We saw MAGA Republicans and election deniers continue to not only push false claims about the 2020 election, but also pose threats to future elections, the future of democracy, and many of our most basic rights and freedoms. .
Exit polls show that Americans are focused on democracy and protecting their rights to abortion care as motivating factors for heading to the polls. Americans rejected Trump and MAGA Republicans’ dark and divisive view of the country and voted for freedoms: the freedom to choose our leaders, the freedom to access abortion and make other decisions about our health, and other freedoms promised by The Constitution. More than two-thirds of voters said that democracy in the United States was under threat. And most voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
In North Carolina, Democrats defeated Jan. 6 incumbent Sandy Smith and Trump protégé Bo Hines in the House upset races. While those victories should be encouraging to anyone who cares about democracy, the threats are far from over. North Carolinians elected dissident Ted Budd to serve in the US Senate, and voters elected a conservative majority to the state’s supreme court. These losses are devastating to our democracy, but we must not be discouraged. Our democracy is worth fighting for ABOUTand we will never give it up.
Every member of the Republican leadership of the 118th Congress and at least 159 members of the incoming Republican majority of the House of Representatives are election deniers, including at least three new members who personally participated in the protests at the Capitol on January 6. MAGA Republicans have made it clear that instead of solving the kitchen table issues that Americans care about, they will do everything in their power to wage a political war against President Biden and the Democrats. They will continue to do everything they can to take away the rights we all fought for on November 8th.
And their leader, former President Trump, has a wide range of criminal investigations, both into his business and his conduct. So far, he has not faced any kind of responsibility for his actions.
At every turn, Trump has tried to avoid responsibility and prosecution for these many crimes. In the decades of Donald Trump’s public life, he has lied, cheated, stolen and even incited violence, shirking responsibility at almost every turn. This has been going on for quite some time. No one is above the law, not even former presidents. The response to Trump from the courts should be clear: running for president is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. The courts must hold Trump and his associates accountable for their crimes. The American people did our part. It’s time for the Justice Department and the Justice Branch to do their part.
Bobbie Richardson is the chair of the NC Democratic Party.
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