The Unknown Known.

In his most recent book, “We Don’t Know Ourselves,” Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole coins this term to describe the myriad times in the past 65 years of his life that the Irish people have chosen to bury what they know to be true. Girls disappearing to “visit an aunt in England” for nine months or more? A deeply corrupt but engaging prime minister? Priests molesting little boys? A briefly lucrative but totally chimeric Celtic tiger? You know the truth in your heart and your soul. But you can’t know it, because to know it is to expose it and to expose it is to undermine the very society in which you live. And so, you live with the unknown knowns.

It seems to me that the Irish people have in recent years started to shed this terribly weighty burden. And today, my fellow Americans, sadly, seem poised to hoist it onto their own shoulders. Readers, this blog is a far cry from writing about the rolling hills of Ireland or travel to foreign shores, but it is necessary, even vital, writing for me. You’ve been kind enough to give me your time for more than two years; I hope that you will give me your time now.

 If you had told me 10 years ago that Ireland, with its strong Catholic grounding, would come to enshrine the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy and gay men and lesbians to marry – by referendum vote of the people, no less — I would have thought it impossible. This is the same country where An Garda Siochana, the Guardians of the Peace, police with no firearms. Strict and far-reaching climate change measures, required by the European Union, have been put in place (unfortunately, targets that will likely be difficult to reach thanks to Putin’s machiavellian gambit). The members of the legislative body, the Dail Eireann, currently work on measures to provide financial help to citizens in this uncertain economic time. It’s not a question of if but how much. And they do this as matter of course. Absolutely, there are challenges and worse than challenges – the still-Catholic-run education system, a truly alarming housing crisis that is sending the young and educated elsewhere, the looming insanity of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chest-bumping antics over the Northern Ireland protocols.

But overall, Ireland today seems like a pretty sane and safe haven, compared to the country of my birth.

So many Americans know in their hearts and souls that things are askew, off kilter right now. But can we really allow ourselves to fully know the implications of that?  The United States is the land of the free and the home of the brave, right? It’s the land of opportunity, of our own particular American cocoons, the ones where we work to pay the bills and may have a little extra if we’re lucky, where we get our kids to school, maybe volunteer in our towns, plan for our futures, again if we’re lucky. These are the parameters of an American life, and it can be easy to take for granted the country’s underpinnings that make those cocoons possible. (That is, unless you are a person of color, and then all bets are off.) In a land founded on principles of democracy, this sweet land of liberty, how can anyone possibly grapple with the idea that the country sits on a democratic knife’s edge?

And yet, I believe that’s where we find ourselves now. I don’t arrive at this conclusion lightly or easily, and I’m not even sure I’m right. I hope I am not. After all, the fabric of America is strong and durable, even when it was most stretched to fraying by civil war. But there have been signs and more than signs lately. The canary’s tweet in the coal mine is faint — at least I can barely hear it, and that’s worrying to me.

When I talk about the knife’s edge, I see it most sharply in the revelations that have come out during the hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol.

Set aside, for the moment, the fact that then-President Trump wanted “the effing” metal detectors set up to screen people entering his Jan. 6 rally removed so there would be a bigger crowd; if some protesters had guns and weapons, “I don’t even care. They’re not here to hurt me.” Set aside the devastating impact on Georgia mother/daughter election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Mosse after Rudy Guiliani played a quickly debunked video clip alleging wrongdoing, later amplified by Trump as proof the election was stolen. Mosse is today too ashamed to leave her house, she orders her groceries in, she’s gained 60 pounds, she blames herself because she wanted to do her civic duty, “all because of lies.” Set aside, set aside, set aside so much damning testimony.

It is Trump’s actions against his own vice president that I believe cut to the democratic quick. As President of the Senate, Mike Pence was charged with presiding over the certification of the election as set out in the 12^th Amendment to the Constitution. As the 1887 Electoral Count Act makes clear, his role is ceremonial only and he, like his predecessors,  had no power to change that count. (Think about former Vice President Al Gore having to certify the election results of George Bush after a long and bitter election-count dispute.(!))

Former President Trump demanded that Pence unilaterally overturn the election results giving the win to President Joe Biden, even though he was told it was illegal under both the Constitution and the law of the land. Here, for me, is the crux. He wanted to be declared the victor, election results be damned, and if the Constitution of the United States and the will of the people were in the way, so be it. Many then and now have called it an attempted government coup d’etat, and I can not disagree.

Retired conservative Federal Judge Michael Luttig testified that had the vice president complied,  it would have “plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America,” which he said “would have been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.” Please consider those words carefully.

We dodged that particular crisis because of the integrity not only of Pence but of the myriad state officials – Republican and Democrat – who refused to bow to pressure from the White House to declare Biden votes invalid, and ultimately certified state election results that were ratified by Congress on Jan. 6. As we know, Trump is planning to run again in 2024. According to Luttig, he has already publicly stated that if he loses the election, it will already be a fraud and he will do what he needs to to overturn it. Like-minded election officials are lining up in key states like Georgia and Arizona. I struggle to imagine what happens then, or what four more years of shredding the Constitution of the United States of America will do to our democracy.

But here in stark detail is that Unknown Known. We know. We all know in our hearts the depths to which this man will plunge the country. Certainly I do. But to admit that we know is to admit that America – the America based on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the rule of law, the America I hold dear – could be in real and present peril. And how can we possibly wrap our heads around that? It seems inconceivable.

As a committee of the second branch of government investigates a man once representing the Executive branch, the third branch, the United States Supreme Court, has also been busy. In recent days, this conservative court has released 6-3 decision after 6-3 decision so far-reaching that more than one scholar has opined that the court has tipped from impartiality into political activism. According to the New York Times, by one standard measure used by political scientists, this most recent term is the most conservative since 1931. And the Court looks to continue in that role next session and beyond. Of course, there have been liberal-leaning courts in the past, I don’t suggest otherwise. But I do suggest that the America plotted out by these Supreme Court decisions and the ones not yet written is not an America that I and so many others believe holds promise.

My core belief system – the right of women to terminate her pregnancy, the separation of church and state, the imperative of cooling the planet, the need for gun control, among others – has been dealt a serious blow by this Court. It began with the decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the 50-year-old decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion if she determines in consultation with her doctor that it’s the best decision for her. I marched for this right as a young woman, I have availed myself of this procedure and I am heartbroken that it is no longer federally protected. Already, some states with a ban now in place are filing legislation to outlaw certain kinds of contraception – a move that Justice Clarence Thomas made clear he would welcome. So it more often than not falls on the woman to make sure she doesn’t get pregnant, at the same time that some states want to take away the means to prevent pregnancy. Puts her back in her place, doesn’t it? And will these same state legislatures increase social services spending to care for the children born to mothers who are overwhelmed or immature or raped or poor? If history is any guide, they will not.

Thomas Jefferson would be appalled at a couple of Court decisions that chip at the foundation of separation of church and state.  One comes from my home state. Maine offers public tuition assistance to students in private schools, with a cutout for religious schools on the basis that public funds should not be used for religious instituions. The Supreme Court ruled the cutout invalid, thus putting Maine and other states in the position of either directly funding religious activity or abandoning the program. In the other case, the Supreme Court sided with a former football coach who was fired after leading postgame prayers on the 50-yard line, saying he was exercising his right of free speech. Lower courts sided with the school district, citing years and years of church/state precedent. A number of people have since said, ‘be careful what you wish for,’ that Christianity doesn’t have a corner of the prayer market. But I wonder what will happen when a coach somewhere offers prayers to Allah or Yahweh or the Shinto gods. No doubt another Court decision will more narrowly define which prayers are good and which are bad…

Climate change is the most important issue of our times, hands down. All of the rest is window dressing. If we as a global people do not cool this planet, we will be destroying ourselves and our environment irrevocably. The Supreme Court in yet another ruling, however, is taking the US a step backwards. It has  limited the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions from existing power plants under the Clean Air Act. The case was brought by West Virginia and backed by the coal industry, a leading carbon emitter. The implications of this ruling are stark. More coal being burned, more carbon in the atmosphere, Biden’s climate initiative potentially in shreds and the entirely wrong message being transmitted to countries around the world. I am heartsick.

I am also heartsick about another court decision that strikes down a New York law involving concealed carry of handguns. New York law required people who wanted a concealed weapon to get a permit, but they would have to demonstrate a need for the permit beyond personal protection. The Supreme Court struck down the law, citing the Second Amendment, and paving the way for concealed weapons permits to be issued for any reason. I applaud the US Senate for passing gun control legislation the same week. Although it didn’t go far enough, it was a start. But I’m left today where I began: in expanding “the right to bear arms,” Americans are less safe than ever before.

And so I come back to the Unknown Known. We know these decisions have been made, and we also know in our hearts and souls what they could well signal, what future state legislatures will be emboldened to pass or too chastened to try. The court has already agreed to hear cases next session regarding the legality of gerrymandering, the right of a business not to engage in work for the gay community and a challenge to the Voting Rights Act. Trump, if he’s not in jail, is running for election, and he’s made clear already the disdain with which he holds the Constitution.

As Fintan O’Toole opines, to really know what is happening is to expose it and to expose it is challenging, even frightening. But expose it we must, it seems to me. I think that probably begins with leaving those cocoons, coming to grips with the idea that what we have cherished and held to be true is imperiled. You may disagree with me on abortion, as many do, but are heartsick about the climate change or gun control decisions, or about the specter of another Trump presidency. It’s all on the line, in my opinion. I have heard people say that America is like the frog in the slowly warming water; it won’t get out until it’s too late. And so on this July 4, my message is, prove them wrong. The people, united, will never be defeated.