Category Archives: Alabama politics

Kay Ivey Gets Her George Wallace Moment

It’s a hopeful act to vote for a Democrat for state-wide office in Alabama these days. And an insurrectionist president, his complicit Department of Justice, and his reactionary Supreme Court majority are assisting in the dismantling of our once proud country and hard-fought election rights. They have made it easier for Republicans in state governments, like Alabama’s, to ignore both legal and moral considerations. The current American President is a scofflaw, a felon, a tax evader, a compulsive liar, a foul-mouthed misogynist, a failed businessman, and a warmonger (shall I go on?) and that makes his followers better able to follow their own worst instincts. What’s worse, they try to disguise those instincts as “conservative values” or, even worse, “Christian values.”

Whenever an election season rolls around, I think seriously about my decision to return to Alabama in the 2000s after several years away. The state is my home and I love it. But then, the political ads begin to appear and I am lectured about “Alabama values” and “Socialist liberals.” I watch images of politicians totin’ their guns and announcing their Christian values. One even says he’ll protect our Christian values alongside an image of himself aiming his rifle at something. A candidate for attorney general seems to think that the most pressing problem in the state is the “transgender agenda” while another wants to tell Muslims to Allahu Akbar their butts back to the Middle East. And the majority of them manage to sneak in an image of their orange idol, sometimes with his “complete and total endorsement,” and we know from history how long that will last if the “chosen” crosses the chooser. These 30-second indignities mortify and embarrass me and I take scant comfort in the fact that these atrocities are happening on screens nationwide.

Now, the ludicrous Louisiana v. Callais decision by the U.S. Supreme Court gave Alabama Republicans an excuse to challenge Alabama’s court-ordered redistricting map from 2023 and stretch out this primary season from hell. That 2023 court-order resulted in a second congressional district represented by a Democrat elected in a free and fair election from Alabama. Currently, Alabama’s representation in the United States House of Representatives is seven Republicans and two Democrats. But Alabama’s Republican-led state legislature, which usually takes forever to get anything done, did not waste any time scrambling to get the gerrymandered Republican-friendly pre-2023 districts back on the table and Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, immediately called a special session to see how quickly they could overturn the 2023 map.

The Republican-compliant U.S. Supreme Court put a hold on the 2023 order and slow-talking Ivey quickly called a special primary election for August which will affect about half of the state’s counties and void the results of congressional elections for four of Alabama’s nine congressional districts held a few days ago. Kay Ivey and her Republican cronies are getting a do-over, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court. Incidentally, the two Democratic Congressional districts are represented by Black representatives. The Republican leadership talk like there’s not a racist bone in their bodies, but the facts speak for themselves.

The guv’nuh argues that “Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best. The United States Supreme Court’s decision is plain common sense and enables our values to be best represented in Congress.” Which begs the question: Whose values are “our values”? She certainly doesn’t speak for my values and I am an Alabamian. Nor does she speak for the values of most of my acquaintances. I am fortunate, I guess, to live in the purple suburbs of a very “blue” city and the values I see advocated in the political ads and by the MAGA contingent in the state capital are contrary to the values I learned in Sunday School growing up with parents who, frankly, leaned Republican back in the day.

So Ms. Ivey, whose legacy of overseeing arguably the worst prison system in the country is firmly established, now has seized her “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” moment. In the past, I have been hesitant to use the “racist” label – a label which has sometimes been overused and abused. But now, I see that racism is the only explanation for much of what is happening in our country today. They may try to “pussyfoot” around it – to use one of George Wallace’s words – but Kay Ivey and her Republican legislators are now having their “stand.” This time it’s at the ballot box and, once again, it’s a sorry sight.

Woke

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The hyacinths in my mother’s flower garden woke last week. The crocuses have almost finished their blooming for the year. The harbingers of daffodils and tulips are beginning to break through and will be fully woke soon.

I added a label to my LinkedIn profile last week. Along with “Essayist | Editor | Retired Educator” I have added “Woke Liberal.” There are state-wide elections here in Alabama, along with the scary presidential election cycle we’re enduring in the United States. As I watch the ads for state-wide elections, it seems that the Republicans are out to extinguish “woke” liberals, etc. so I seem to be in their NRA-loving sights. As they scramble to establish their bona fides with the previous insurrectionist U.S. president, I shudder.

One ad for a candidate for chief justice of the state Supreme Court brags that “If you like Trump’s judges, you’ll love” him. I say Thanks for the warning. Another, by a candidate for a spot on the state school board, features the voice of an apoplectic woman having the vapors because her son came home from school with a Black Lives Matter book. A candidate for reelection to the state’s Public Service Commission makes a thinly-veiled promise to continue her tradition of letting the big utility lobbies have their way with her, including photos of “woke” Hollywood celebrities to, I guess, make her point. Still another says that “Republicans can trust” her; apparently, the rest of us cannot.

Some of these candidates will be elected and their bigotry makes me want to be even more “woke” than I already am. Since the label “woke” began to break into the mainstream as a common adjective for progressively-minded people, I haven’t always been able to fully play along. On occasion, presented with a challenging new idea, I have been known to quip that “I’m not sure that I’m that ‘woke’ yet.” (For example, I am not woke enough to turn down pork barbecue.) Yet, as books get targeted, immigrants get dehumanized, women’s control over their own bodies is increasingly threatened, education is tyrannized, health care is ridiculed, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is not considered a worthy goal, and Capitol insurrectionists are called “hostages” and “patriots,” I am leaning more than ever to the increasingly saner “woke” points of view.

For a group of politicians that claim to be for “less government,” these politicians seem determined to interfere with our private lives and most personal decisions.

No matter how much we love Alabama, it is our legacy to be regularly embarrassed on the national stage by our elected politicians. The recent atrocity put to paper by the current duly elected chief justice of our Supreme Court is jaw-dropping, even by our standards. Who votes for these people? I’m not aware of many people who do vote for them, but those candidates seem to get elected, anyway. I guess I don’t get around much anymore.

And then there’s Sen. Katie Britt.

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When I named this journal “Professional Southerner” a decade ago, it was intended as a riff on a gibe I received while living in the Midwest in the ‘90s. There, I seemed to be the go-to person for all things Southern. Somebody referred to me as “our professional Southerner.” Those gibers were the ones who breathlessly reported that, as a Southerner, I had to see the new movie Forrest Gump – that I would love it. I did see it; to their dismay, I didn’t love it that much.

I read a book recently that referred to the keepers of the “Lost Cause” mythology as “professional southerners.” Hopefully, anyone who knows me or reads what I have to say knows that I am not an advocate for the “Lost Cause” version of the Civil War. A while ago, I read a quote from Alabama writer Rick Bragg saying, “I never wanted to be a professional Southerner … but at the same time, I’ve never been more proud to be anything but a Southern writer.” I, too, never intend to be a spokesperson for my region – it is too diverse for anyone to take that mantle. But I like to express my views and experiences. And I’m Southern.

Truth be told, “Professional Southerner” was supposed to be an escape from the stressors of everyday life, but events – both personal, social, and political – have made it necessary to speak up on occasion and this current election cycle makes it more urgent than usual to take a stand.

In the meantime, I watch the birds in the backyard feeders, prepare the hummingbird feeders for their impending return, and tend the garden. And I vote. Even if the options are slim pickings, I look for the less threatening, non-Republican choice.

“Woke” is akin to springtime – opening oneself to the clear light of day, to new ideas, to new challenges, to new solutions. “Woke” = Not Asleep at the Wheel.

Another 5th of July

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When I was taking a shower the other morning, Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages” started playing in my head. You know, the one with the refrain that goes “Ah, but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now.” (Actually, it was the Byrds’ version of that Dylan song that was playing in my head.) I can’t remember the last time I actually heard that song so it’s strange that it started playing in my head in the shower on a Saturday. I’ve been thinking about it since, though. Many consider the lyric to be a turning point and Dylan’s rejection of sorts of the more strident protest lyrics of his early career.

Pondering “My Back Pages” made me recall Billy Joel’s “Angry Young Man,” a lyric that I once identified with. The title character martyrs himself “With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand,” and “he’s fair and he’s true and he’s boring as hell.” The song’s narrator confesses that “I once believed in causes too, / I had my pointless point of view, /
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right.”

In Lanford Wilson’s play Fifth of July, June Talley – a former ‘60s activist, tells her daughter, “You’ve no idea the country we almost made for you. The fact that I think it’s all a crock now does not take away from what we almost achieved.”

Be warned, I need to vent now.

I’m not sure why these thoughts (and songs, and lines) are coming into my head, but I have a hunch: With all of the news about gun violence, a frightening activist conservative Supreme Court wreaking havoc with gun control, the environment, and women’s rights, and the general divisiveness in the country, I wonder what I can do about it and previous history tells me not much. Of course, I can vote, but we are now plagued with a generation of Alabama Republican politicians that would make George Wallace look progressive and I am finally acknowledging – after decades of preaching to students that their vote does count, that my vote in Alabama no longer counts for much. The Republican women running for Alabama state office feel the need to show themselves with firearms in their commercials and to demonstrate regrettable misinterpretation of the second amendment. The concept of separation of church and state is equally misinterpreted by those same people; they don’t seem to realize that its intent was to protect their religious freedom. Even though a known January 6 insurrectionist was defeated in his bid for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from Alabama, the chirpy, gun-totin’ woman who defeated him managed to seem even worse.

I love Alabama and my family’s roots run deep here. I realize that my politics don’t align with the conservative majority, but I also know a lot of Alabamians whose politics align with my old-fashioned liberalism. What irks me is the way these politicians talk is if they represent all Alabamians; for the record, they don’t represent me. Even more galling, perhaps, is the fact that national progressive and liberal politicians seem to write off Alabama as hopeless to their politics and ability to gain votes. I feel overlooked and ignored from both sides of the spectrum.

I watch the protests on television and usually think bless their hearts. I’m with them in spirit, but I’m not sure I have much confidence in what they’re accomplishing other than looking a little silly with their rote chants and their predictable signs. I’ve seen it all before and, beyond the Civil Rights era, I’m not sure it’s still effective. Maybe it makes the protesters feel better at the end of the day; I certainly understand the desperation that drives them there.

I notice that we Baby Boomers seem to catch the blame for all of the evils in the world today, especially in snarky online posts, and especially among Generation Z types. But I have a different take. The three Supreme Court justices appointed by the previous occupant of the Oval Office, all of whom lied or misled during their confirmation hearings, are all post-Baby Boom (one of them, born in 1965, is on the cusp, actually). My theory is that the current regression of American culture is being fueled by the legacy of Ronald Reagan, who was idolized by many of that post-Baby Boom generation and whose political tenure was the beginning of all the things that so many of us are lamenting right now.

I have always taken comfort in the aspirational phrase “in Order to form a more perfect Union” in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. It always seemed to mean we’re not perfect yet, but this is what we’re working toward. Throughout my lifetime, progress has been made – slowly but surely – toward that ideal. Today, though, it feels a little like we’re going backward and the conservative unbalance in the Supreme Court is going to plague us for a long while.

As I composed these thoughts, word came across that a seventh victim of the mass shooting at the Highland Park, Illinois, 4^th of July parade, has died. Three people were gunned down a few weeks ago at a potluck supper at an Episcopal church just a few miles from my house in Birmingham. There are reports that the white supremacy domestic terrorist group, Patriot Front, is making its presence known in Birmingham on the eve of the opening of the 2022 World Games.

I may have to hit the streets in protest yet.