To keep existing in a democracy, we must be our government’s own guardrails

Voters make selections at their voting booths inside an early voting site. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

Government without guardrails. That is our reality in Ohio and Washington.

All the constitutional checking and balancing in our rapidly vanishing democratic republic are effectively gone in our state and federal government. There is no separation of powers as a bulwark against abuse of power. In D.C., as in Columbus, the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government are on the same team jacked up on power.

Proof, if any were needed, of the imminent demise of our democracy in the Buckeye State and the United States is coming in fast and furious. Ohio Republicans played the long game to lock in political dominance through gerrymandered districts and partisan elections of state supreme court justices. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. GOP supermajorities. No constraints. No meaningful opposition.

Ohio Democrats can only lament the hard right turn the legislature has taken into the MAGA abyss while their state party wanders the wilderness in near irrelevance. Statehouse Republicans have free reign to do their worst — and they did, right out of the starting gate of the lame duck session: A whole slate of extreme, must-pass legislation that will serve no one except career-climbing right wingers.

But politicians who engineer voter-proof districts to manipulate their way to complete control are only accountable to their team. So Republican lawmakers looking to boost their MAGA bona fides rushed to propose more unwarranted voter hurdles to suppress more voting, hurried to inflict more abject cruelty to a tiny fraction of the population demonized relentlessly in 2024 Republican campaigns, and pushed for more Christian nationalism creep with required Bible breaks in the middle of public-school days.

The top priority for legislators back from recess was not the health or welfare of Ohioans who are hungry and hurting and facing another rent hike, or working parents desperate for quality, affordable childcare, or the lowest paid workers in the state unable to afford necessities. Nope. The urgent bill Republicans had to pass first and speed to the governor’s desk was a bill to ban trans students from using single-sex bathrooms – a burning issue for no one on Main Street, Ohio.

But exploiting fear of a small transgender community polls well with the MAGA base and wins elections, all the incentive Ohio Republicans needed to prioritize a manufactured issue on bathroom access (based on nothing) and fold their shameful attack on vulnerable adolescents into an unrelated bill for quick passage – with the blessing of the religious right’s most prominent and unchristian lobby in the state.

A flurry of last-minute, Fox News-inspired inanities will likely be enacted before the session ends with most Ohioans none the wiser — until it’s too late. But if you’re still reading this, there’s hope. Even with no guardrails or institutional checks and balances in state government to constrain runaway autocratic GOP rule upheld by an even more partisan state supreme court, you still have agency.

Even if Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court are committed to enabling and expanding the unchecked plenary powers of Donald Trump, affirming that the president-elect felon is essentially divorced from the Constitution, you still have agency.

Even with the Republican trifecta governing the nation pledging allegiance to a man and not the law, handing a notoriously corrupt lawbreaker unilateral authority over every part of the federal government (that now runs independent of the White House), you have agency.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, Stacey Abrams, two-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate and Democratic leader, spoke directly to those tempted to throw up their hands and tune out. For those who are disheartened, exhausted, and rightly terrified she had a message: the battle for decency and humanity (despite setbacks) is not futile. Remember progress – not just the pain.

But, counseled Abrams, unlike before, it is not enough to just resist the slide into authoritarianism in the nation and in state autocracies feeling their oats with new voter suppression measures and silly bathroom bans. We must do more than organize and persist against racism, sexism, homophobia, and those would do any of us ill, she said. This time we must insist.

“We must insist on a government and leaders that respect us and our needs. And that doesn’t just mean president and our federal government. I’m talking about the zoning committees that are forcing higher rents because they refuse to adjust, and the school board where your children or the neighbor’s kids are being denied books and the truth…

“No more polite acceptance or making excuses for prejudice. We have to demand better of ourselves and of our leaders. We must insist on fighting for our rights even if we think we’re going to lose. Because the record will show that we tried, that we filed lawsuits and lodged complaints … We made history report on our efforts.”

So, believe in your own power to make change. Nov. 5 happened. But so did an organic grassroots effort by hundreds of thousands of Ohioans to end the egregious gerrymandering that Republicans retained. For now. But, concluded Abrams, “we exist between elections, between these moments, between these harms.” We are responsible.

We are the guardrails. The last check on government of, by and for the people. But, and this is key, only if we insist.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X.