America you can fix this: EJ Montini

We’ve been where you are, America, and we fixed it.

Eventually.

Smaller scale, but same situation.

In Arizona in the 1980s we elected as governor a man who was coarse, vain and vindictive, a man who managed to offend and insult racial and ethnic minorities, women, the LGBT community and more, and yet still became governor. A man who railed against the establishment in public pronouncements but whose political actions tended to have the most negative effect on the little guy.

Sound familiar?

This man’s name was Evan Mecham. He disassembled the truth, peddled his version of what Donald Trump would call “alternative facts.” He attacked the media, condemning reporters for daring to report with accuracy. He used his press secretary as an attack dog. He once even told a journalist, “Don’t ever ask me for a true statement again.”

Again, sound familiar?

One of the first things this governor did was abolish Arizona’s Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

People rallied.

In an era when it seemed as if mass political demonstrations had become passé, a crowd of 10,000 to 15,000 men, women and children gathered in downtown Phoenix for a march to the state Capitol on a cold, rainy, windy day that could not have been more miserable. A day that turned out to be joyous.

A day similar to what it was like around the country over the weekend.

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A column I wrote after that 1980s march in Phoenix read in part:

In the front row, not far from Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard, the Rev. Warren Stewart, state Rep. Art Hamilton and other politicians and dignitaries, were two small boys. One wore a shower cap and a pair of huge, borrowed gloves. Another pulled his arms under his coat, leaving the sleeves to dangle wildly in the wind. They laughed at each other, and at the idea of walking in the rain.

The banners and placards some of the marchers carried became like sails, catching the wind and pushing against their progress. But it didn't stop them. …  A group near the middle chanted King's name, and still others shouted, 'King — Yes! Mecham — No!'

It felt like a victory. It wasn’t.

We learned in the 1980s that a demonstration march, no matter how many people participate or how far it travels, never reaches its destination. It’s only a first step.

Mecham was elected in 1986. He was impeached and removed from office in 1988.

Marches didn’t cause that. They helped. But the end game for Mecham was the result of patience and persistence, for which there is no alternative.

It required a press corps that refused to be intimidated. And a public that demanded the truth. And lawmakers — particularly those in Mecham’s Republican Party — who enforced accountability.

Sound familiar?

EJ Montini is a columnist for The Arizona Republic, where this piece first appeared.

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