Opinion: Until Independence For All

“I’m not going to celebrate Independence Day when half the population isn’t independent.”

“I don’t really feel like America deserves a birthday this year.”

“I’m not worried. If they come for my birth control, I’ll just hide it in my gun.”

All of these statements were said by team members at Causes. And we can’t disagree with any of these sentiments. If there was ever a time to stand and fight for independence, it is today. For a large swath of the public, it is Twilight in America. And no amount of exploding colors can brighten the horizon.

We Stand For Democracy 

We modeled Causes after the best of American politics—a representative democracy committed to ensuring that each citizen had an equal voice in which lawmakers were elected and impeached, which laws were enacted and repealed, which corporations boycotted and promoted.

On this Independence Day, we Declare: Our system is broken. Our leaders are inured to this broken system. And “Our hands are tied, there’s nothing we can do” is not The Will of the People. 

The Tyranny of the Minority

A majority of Americans – more than two-thirds – are in favor of legal abortions. Fifty-seven percent support a woman’s right to get an abortion for any reason.  

A majority of U.S. adults – 59% - think it’s more important to control gun violence than protect gun rights. This poll was taken in early June, after a gunman killed 10 at a Buffalo supermarket in a racist attack and, days later, 19 children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.   

Eighty percent of Americans support tougher restrictions of power plant emissions.

And yet:

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, removing the constitutional right to an abortion that has existed since 1973. The decision was 6-3, with the conservative justices in the majority and liberal justices in dissent.

On June 23, 2022, the Supreme Court struck down a New York gun-control law that limited carrying concealed handguns outside the home, ruling that Americans have a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. The ruling split the court 6-3, with the court’s conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent.

On June 30, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled the Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t have the power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. The 6-3 conservative supermajority ruled against the EPA.

A Minority of Voters becomes Majority SCOTUS Opinions

Conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett were nominated by Donald Trump. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts were nominated by George W. Bush.

Both presidents lost the popular vote. A majority of Americans supported their opponents. You did your job. You voted. Yet because of the way our maps are drawn, the winning candidate lost the presidency—and won Supreme Court nominations.

Only one conservative Justice was nominated by a president who won both the popular vote and Electoral College: Justice Clarence Thomas, nominated by George H.W. Bush. In a concurring opinion to the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the conservative Jurist wrote that the court also had a duty to revisit and overrule decisions that legalized same-sex marriage, contraception, and same-sex intimacy. This at a time when American support for same-sex marriage has reached a record high of 70% and a majority of Americans believe birth control should be free and widely available if abortion is outlawed (including 91% of those who support abortion rights and 61% of those who are anti-abortion).

We Side With Democracy

As the Supreme Court announced these decisions, lawmakers were gathered just down the street, in the Capitol building, to continue hearings about the January 6 Insurrection. Those who continue to prolong the lies and baseless claims of election fraud that fueled this attempted coup may be the minority, but they are not alone. The Texas GOP codified the feelings – feelings, as it is not based on fact – by adopting a platform that says Biden didn’t really win the 2020 election. (It also states "all gun control is a violation of the Second Amendment and our God given rights” and calls for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.)

Causes Platform? We believe Democracy is Democracy. We do not believe in an America where democracy is only supported until you disagree with the people.

Because we believe in those words written on this date in 1776: that all men are created equal.

But we are not textualists. We believe “men” means “women,” “trans,” “N/A” or however else one may identify in their pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness. We believe “equal” means that every race, ethnicity, and creed – including those with no creed at all – deserve equal representation in Congress and the Courts and the Laws. We believe that “equal” equates to “love=love.” 

We believe that on July 4, 1776, when the (white, male, wealthy, slave-owning) Founders wrote that “Governments deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed” they believed in “just”—that which is morally right and fair. And “consent of the governed” meant that everyone being governed be allowed to give their consent or dissent—that the majority rules. That popularity - in vote and in civil rights - reigns supreme. “All [people] are created equal” means that, wherever you reside, however you identify, whatever you earn, whatever your race, whatever your ethnicity—that you have the same opportunity to vote. Equality does not mean there are only lines to vote at polling locations in poorer neighborhoods or those with a large immigrant population or those populated by Americans of color. Equality means that you – you, reading this right now – have a say in America that is equal to any corporation or lobbyist. Equality means paying fealty to the People, not religious zealots who represent a decreasing amount of the voting constituency.

Equality means every single American has an equal say in America.

The United States is both a democracy and a republic (or, to be specific, a federal constitutional representative democracy). A representative democracy depends on each citizen being able to freely – and equally – elect leaders who will represent their interests.

We declare, on this day of independence, that our current system is election without equal representation.

We declare that we stand with democracy, even if it means taking a knee for America.

—Josh Herman

Editor-in-Chief

—Bart Myers

Causes Founder & CEO