As MAGA attempts to overthrow the United States constitutional order by violating the First Amendment and due process rights of individuals and working to bring all governmental, civil society, business, educational, and cultural institutions under its control, historians of fascism warn us of exactly the kind of “anticipatory obedience” exemplified this past month by Ohio’s public college and university administrators.
But Ohio University administrators are not the only preemptively compliant collaborators we need to worry about. During Trump’s first term, Democratic Athens officeholders criminalized grassroots opposition to MAGA and crushed local resistance.
On February 1, 2017, hundreds of Athens residents gathered at Baker Center for a constitutionally protected demonstration against Trump’s Muslim ban, calling on OU and Athens to become immigrant sanctuaries. Similar protests erupted across America with the participation of Democratic officeholders. Pittsburgh’s Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto even led a protest himself.
But here in Athens, Democratic Mayor Steve Patterson stayed home while city police acting under his authority joined with OUPD and the Ohio Highway Patrol to illegally disperse the demonstration and carry out the second largest mass arrest of students on campus in OU’s 221-year history.
Then Democratic Athens Law Director Lisa Eliason not only prosecuted the Baker 70 on false charges, her department manipulated 15 of those arrested into accepting conviction via plea bargain to lesser but equally false charges before the original charges could be rejected in court.
Democratic Municipal Judge Todd Grace rejected the original charges on obvious constitutional grounds but chose not to exercise his judicial discretion to reject the plea bargains. Instead, he issued 15 convictions on the basis of the very same wrongful arrests and false claims that led him to reject the original charges, thereby creating criminal records for 15 courageous young people who’d broken no law.
Then, the 100% Democratic Athens City Council passed a toothless resolution denouncing Trump’s Muslim ban while uttering not a peep of criticism of their fellow Democratic officeholders who’d violated the constitutional rights of hundreds of city residents for expressing the very same opinion.
Later that same council meeting, Patterson casually rejected demonstrators’ demand that Athens become a sanctuary city.
Then OU officials imposed sweeping new prohibitions on campus speech and assembly the ACLU of Ohio immediately denounced as unconstitutional. A wide array of students, faculty, alumni, and community members came together to oppose the prohibitions –including even the OU College Republicans– while Democratic Athens officeholders were notably absent. Instead of opposing the restrictions, Patterson and Council strengthened the relationship between APD and OUPD, effectively signaling that administrators could continue to rely on city police to enforce unconstitutional campus speech policy.
Popular activism eventually succeeded in forcing OU to repeal most of the restrictions in 2018, but only after those restrictions had diverted local activist energy away from opposing Trump national policy.
A blanket ban on demonstrations in Baker Center’s 4th floor rotunda continues to this day, despite Grace’s ruling that a constitutional demonstration could occur there. Not even during the Biden years did Patterson or council press OU to lift the ban, so it has now survived into a second Trump presidency, with city police again ready to enforce it.
The history is clear. During Trump’s first term, Democratic Athens officeholders were not “the resistance” – they killed “the resistance.” Thanks to their criminalization of lawful dissent, the mass grassroots opposition to Trump exemplified by the 2017 Baker demonstration never returned to Athens.
Nothing required local officeholders to behave this way during Trump’s first term (Democrats elsewhere performed much better), just as nothing required Ohio administrators to preemptively comply with Senate Bill 1 this past month. Anticipatory obedience is always voluntary.
Indeed, note how the prosecutorial zeal Eliason directed at lawful student protesters stands in dramatic contrast to her long-running refusal to prosecute dangerously negligent landlords as mandated by city code.
Note how even during the Biden years Patterson sought to collaborate with MAGA to boost Republican voting against local progressive candidates – not only despite the harm this would cause the Democratic Congressional candidate Patterson had publicly endorsed in the same election cycle, but also despite the fact that MAGA didn’t even want his help!
And note that Athens Democratic Party leaders have consistently refused pleas to activate progressive student voters, despite declining county Democratic turnout in every presidential election since 2008.
As we now face a much more dangerous second Trump presidency, Patterson is still mayor, Eliason is still law director, and Grace is still municipal judge. If we want better behavior from the same people this time around, we’ll need to demand it.
Currently, a record low of just 27% of registered American voters holds a favorable view of the do-nothing-but-collaborate Democrats. I suggest we help change that by making certain Democratic Athens officeholders useful again.
If we don’t, we already know MAGA will.
[Editor’s note: The original subhead of this story was written by the Independent and incorrectly stated that Mayor Steve Patterson “ordered” city police to disperse the gathering. We apologize for the error.]
