A week from now it will be over. Except for the voting, the counting of ballots and the nail-biting, the 2024 campaign season will be history. Turnout will determine outcome. It is everything in a deadlocked presidential election with enormous stakes riding on a few thousand votes in half a dozen battleground states.
While reliably red Ohio is no longer considered a bellwether state in presidential races, it is one of the most closely watched states in the nation for several hugely consequential campaigns in play. The tight U.S. Senate race between incumbent Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican millionaire Bernie Moreno could make the narrow U.S. Senate Democratic majority a minority.
Ohio has the only state supreme court battle in the country, with three contested seats, that could flip from the panel from majority Republican to majority Democrat with immense ramifications for everything from abortion rights to fair voting districts.
Last, but by no means least, a citizen-initiated revolt against Ohio’s egregiously gerrymandered district maps — drawn by political kingpins to lock in partisan advantage — is on the statewide ballot in the form of an anti-gerrymandering amendment. It would lock politicians out of the redistricting process and give citizens the power to redraw districts.
That’s a lot. But the fateful decisions Ohioans will weigh stateside are necessarily overshadowed by the top-of-the-ballot race for president. The outcome of that effectively tied competition between U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris and twice-impeached ex-president Donald Trump is existential for America as a democratic republic. The contrast between the candidates on fealty to the Constitution, self-government and the freedoms of the people established in the Bill of Rights could not be starker. Hold that thought.
After Tuesday, Nov. 5, there will be plenty of time for post-election analysis and commentary. But in the final stretch before an Election Day for the ages, take a moment to regroup and reflect before it’s time to brace for results with a stiff drink. Acknowledge, regardless of your political leanings, how draining and dispiriting this election has been to so many citizens sick and tired of fear and loathing.
A few months ago, I ran across a computer graphic of an American eagle with ropes pulling its head, neck, tail, talons and fierce wings in all sorts of directions. The noble bird was trapped and flailing. A perfect encapsulation of America, circa 2024. We are being pulled apart and against each other by nefarious operators without the slightest interest in our collective well-being, or constructive problem-solving, or advancing the greater good.
We’ve normalized demagogues pursuing power for power’s sake with no discerning platform or policy. Pols seduced by the trappings of power don’t craft meaningful solutions that produce tangible benefits for real people. That’s not the point of them winning elections. Control is.
Consider Ohio. Under one party rule, Republicans control every lever of power in state government and are hellbent on keeping it. Governing Ohio is about them and their ability to rule as they please for as long as they please with impunity. State Republicans mobilize quickly to contain the risk of empowered voters. In 2023, they tried to rob citizens of their majority voting rights, silence their voice on constitutionally protected abortion access, and blunt remedy on unlawful legislative and congressional districts drawn to entrench extreme minority rule — all in the interest of sustaining absolute power.
It was a rude awakening for Ohioans to realize how far some of their elected officials were willing to go for themselves and their political ambitions over the sovereign rights of the represented. Frank LaRose, the state’s election chief, slapped outrageously loaded ballot language on the anti-gerrymandering amendment in the general election to purposely confuse voters about Issue 1 and attempt to derail a threat to gerrymandered Republican dominance in the state. The Republican majority on the state supreme court gave him the green light.
Despite the fact that Ohioans overwhelmingly approved constitutionally protected abortion access last year, Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost refused to recognize that mandate in full and litigated for the greater part of a year to retain elements of Ohio’s six-week abortion ban that he deemed acceptable holdovers in the draconian measure. It took a Hamilton County judge (last week) to permanently block the 2019 abortion law and pointedly criticize Yost for attempting to circumvent the will of Ohioans who voted to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution.
Our eyes should be wide open about self-absorbed pols consumed with power and acquiring more of it. Public service has taken a back seat to grandstanding on grievance. We either demand better from those privileged to serve us or hand away control to despots who dictate what we can do. We either fight defiantly for government of, by and for the people in our state and our nation or submit to authoritarian decree without dissent.
For the first time in our nearly 250-year-old history, the presidential election in America is not between two candidates of two major political parties competing over different visions of a shared democratic goal to make the union stronger. Either that matters to a free people flirting dangerously with what prominent members of the previous administration have called fascism, or nothing does.
A week from now, we’ll know.
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: [email protected]. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X.
