Is America heading to a place where it can no longer call itself a democracy?
By: smithinamerica (the Guardian)
Voting rights are threatened across the US and Trump allies are vying to control elections in multiple states.
Can US democracy survive the post-Trump onslaught?
America is falling.
The Fascists are working - openly, blatantly - to prevent voting.
The media proceeds as though nothing were happening......
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
If Donald Trump's inaugural address can be summed up in two words - "American carnage" - Joe Biden's might be remembered for three: "Democracy has prevailed."
The new president, speaking from the spot where just two weeks earlier a pro-Trump mob had stormed the US Capitol, promised that the worst was over in a battered, bruised yet resilient Washington.
But now, four and a half months later the alarm bells are sounding on American democracy again. Even as the coronavirus retreats, the pandemic of Trump's "big lie" about a stolen election spreads, manifest in Republicans' blocking of a commission to investigate the insurrection. And state after state is imposing new voting restrictions and Trump allies are now vying to run future election themselves.
With Republicans still in thrall to Trump and odds-on to win control of the House of Representatives next year, there are growing fears that his presidency was less a historical blip than a harbinger of systemic decline.
"There was a momentary sigh of relief but the level of anxiety is actually strangely higher now than in 2016 in the sense that it's not just about one person but there are broader structural issues," said Daniel Ziblatt, co-author of How Democracies Die. "The weird emails that I get are more ominous now than they were in 2016: there seems to be a much deeper level of misinformation and conspiracy theories."
Just hours after the terror of 6 January, 147 Republicans in Congress voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election despite no evidence of irregularities. Trump was impeached for inciting the violence but Senate Republicans ensured his acquittal - a fork in the road where the party could have chosen another destiny.
As Trump continued to push his false claims of election fraud, rightwing media and Republican state parties fell into line. A farcical "audit" of votes is under way in Arizona with more states threatening to follow suit. Trump is reportedly so fixated on the audits that he has even suggested - wrongly - he could be reinstated as president later this year.
Perhaps more insidiously, Trump supporters who tried to overturn the 2020 election are maneuvering to serve as election officials in swing states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. If they succeed in becoming secretaries of state, they would exercise huge influence over the conduct of future elections and certifying their results. Some moderate Republican secretaries of state were crucial bulwarks against Trump's toxic conspiracy theories last year.
The offensive is coupled with a dramatic and sweeping assault on voting rights. Republican-controlled state legislatures have rammed through bills that make it harder to vote in states such as Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Montana. Their all-out effort in Texas was temporarily derailed when Democrats walked out of the chamber, denying them a quorum.
Ziblatt, a political scientist at Harvard University, commented: "The most worrying threat is at the state level, the effort to change voting rules, which I think is prompted by the failed effort to alter the election outcome of 2020.
"The lesson Republicans have learnt from that is they don't really suffer any electoral consequences from their base pursuing this kind of thing. In fact, they're rewarded for it. That's very ominous because that suggests they'll continue to try to do this until they pay an electoral price for it, and so far they don't sense they're paying an electoral price for it."
Where is this authoritarian ecosystem heading? For many, the nightmare scenario is that Trump will run again in 2024 and, with the benefit of voter suppression, sneak a win in the electoral college as he did in 2016. If that fails, plan B would be for a Republican-controlled House to refuse to certify a Democratic winner and overturn the result in Trump's favour.
Disputed presidential elections have been thrown to the House before, Ziblatt noted. "It's not unprecedented but in those earlier periods you had two parties that were constitutional, fully democratic parties. The thought of having a dispute like that when one of the parties is only questionably committed to democratic rules and norms is very frightening."
In How Democracies Die, Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky argue that democracies often come under threat not from invading armies or violent revolutions but at the ballot box: death by a thousand cuts. "People use elections to get into power and then, once in power, assault democratic institutions," Ziblatt said.
"That's Viktor Orban [in Hungary], that's Recep Tayyip Erdoan [in Turkey], that's Hugo Chavez [in Venezuela] and what's distinctive about that is that it often begins incrementally. So people continue to go about their lives, continue to vote, parliament continues to meet and so you think, 'Is there really a threat?' But the power concentrates so it becomes harder and harder to unseat an incumbent."
He added: "We shouldn't overlook that fact that we had a change in government in January. What that suggests is our electoral institutions do work better than they do in Hungary. The opposition in the United States is more well-organised and financed than the Hungarian opposition or the Turkish opposition, so we shouldn't overstate that. But on the other hand, the tendencies are very similar."
Republicans are also playing a very long game, rewiring democracy's hard drive in an attempt to consolidate power. Trump is arguably both cause and effect of the lurch right, which takes place in the wider context of white Christians losing majority status in America's changing demographics.
His grip on the party appears only to have tightened since his defeat, as evidenced by the ousting of Trump critic Liz Cheney from House leadership and their use of a procedural move known as the filibuster to block the 6 January commission. Critics say that, in an atmosphere of partisan tribalism, the party is now driven by a conviction that Democratic victories are by definition illegitimate.
Kurt Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide who is now a Democrat, said: "It's very clear that the next time there is a violent effort to overthrow our government, Republicans in Congress will be knowing accomplices in that effort. They are the getaway driver for the democratic arsonists."
Bardella, a political commentator, added: "It has become painfully transparent that the Republican party platform is 100% anti-democratic and it is their ambition to impose minority rule on the majority going forward, because they know that when the playing field is level, they can't win and so they have instead decided to double down on supporting a wannabe autocrat, and are doing everything they can to destabilise the democratic safeguards that we've had in place since the founding of our country.
"We cannot underestimate the gravity of this moment in time because what happens over the next month or year could be the turning point in this battle to preserve our democracy."
The threat poses a dilemma for Biden, who was elected on a promise of building bridges and seeking bipartisanship. He continues to do so while issuing increasingly stark calls to arms. Speaking in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this week, he repeated his "democracy prevailed" mantra but then warned of a "truly unprecedented assault on our democracy" and announced that the vice-president, Kamala Harris, would lead an effort to strengthen voting rights.
Proposed national legislation to address the issue, however, depends on a Senate currently split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans (Harris has the tie-breaking vote). In order to pass it with a simple majority, Democrats would first have to abolish the filibuster but at least two senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have ruled out such a step.
Facing this stalemate, activists and civil society are trying to create a sense of urgency. More than a hundred scholars this week released a joint statement, posted by the New America thinktank, expressing "deep concern" at "radical changes to core electoral procedures" that jeopardise free and fair elections. "Our entire democracy is now at risk," the scholars wrote.
Last year's poll was dubbed "the election that could break America" and the nation was widely considered to have dodged a bullet; it may not be so fortunate in 2024. Yvette Simpson, chief executive of the progressive group Democracy for Action, added: "We're getting to the place where we might not be able to call ourselves a democracy any more. That's how dire it is.
"It is not just the fact that there is an orchestrated, concerted effort across our country to interfere with the most fundamental right of any democracy but that they're doing it so blatantly, so out in the open and so unapologetically, and that there have been many attempts and there's no easy way to stop it."
Simpson compared Democrats' victory over Trump to the film Avengers: Endgame and warned against complacency. "We just defeated Thanos and everybody was like, 'OK, let's take a break,' and I'm like, 'No, we cannot take a break because the GOP never take a break'. They know that we're taking a break and that's why they're doing it now and so aggressively: 'You think you won because Trump is out? Oh, we got you.'"
Ibram X Kendi, a historian and author of How to Be an Antiracist, added: "At the end of the day, there is an all out war on American voters, particularly younger voters, particularly younger voters of colour, and it's happening from Texas to Florida and it's really causing the American people to decide whether we want our democracy or not."
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Greetings, Bob!
Is America heading to a place where it can no longer call itself a democracy?
I take exception to the question. I contend that the United States is no democracy and no democratic republic; I contend that the United States is governed by an unelected oligarchy which is the sole constituency of those elected under any banner.
Where is this authoritarian ecosystem heading?
As I see it, it is heading to fascism, war, and a new world war which will end inevitably in thermonuclear holocaust and the erradication of billions.
I think Ziblatt and Levitsky make a good observation re: the death of democracy at the ballot box; but the failure to factor social class into the equation allows this only very limited value.
K. Bardella's observation that 'the next time there is a violent effort to overthrow our government' is also good. This echoes the World Socialist Web Site which, in the aftermath of January 6, stated that there would be future efforts at insurrection. Likely without knowing it, Bardella confirms the WSWS' warning.
Bardella's point re: Biden's plea for bipartisanship also has been addressed at the WSWS, where it has been described as having the ravest consequences.
The split on proposed legislation matters in so far as it shows that the institutions and processes of state are so ineffective that they have effectively collapsed. I think this is part of that 'long term' strategy to undermine and then to remove this system of governance. For bourgeoisie [GOP] supporters, that system of governance is destroyed more easily while it is IN power. But in or out of power, the objective to subvert and overthrow the US regime is unchanged. For that reason, Thanatos is not defeated but reforms in another shape.
In a real sense, the United States doesn't exist now. The bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie [Democratic Party] factions are politically conjoined twins which, if separated, results in the death of both. One party is willing to risk that death; the other is not. Therefore the bourgeoisie faction [GOP] will always succeed, to a greater or lesser degree, in dragging the Democratic Party to its feet. Examples: Adoption of the 'back to school' policy, the defense of the Lafayette police sweep, the Wuhan lab lie, etc., etc., etc.
The absence of any principled defense enables this process. At present, it is in my opinion, beyond remedy. It's time to address 'what's next.'
That's calling a spade a "spade"!
I'm afraid you're mostly right...
It definitely seems as though we are headed that way since we have one asshole that refused a peaceful transfer of power, and now numerous states passing laws intended to restrict voting, give elected members of state government more power over elections (fucking conflict of interest maybe?), a majority of a major political party believing based on no evidence (except the word of one of histories most prolific liars) that mass voter fraud occurred, and a large number of house reps refusing to certify the election results. Who is to say if the GOP controls the house in 2024 and a Democrat wins the presidency that they won’t refuse to certify the results?
I have suspects for at least 10 years that I would live to see the collapse of our system of government, but it looks likely that it will happen sooner rather than later.
Democracy already ended in 2014.At least that's what I was told by the same people who are now claiming Democracy is in danger, again!
There's no secret here. The democrats thrive on fear, particularly the fringy far left. Since reality is not kind to their claims, they constantly have to remain in a state of hysteria about some apocalypse that is sure to happen any day. Secret Christian groups are plotting take overs. The KKK hides under every pillow. Democracy has ended because the Republicans protested an election like the democrats did the last three times they lost.
The facts make a mockery of the hysteria. Voter turnout was the highest in decades, in the middle of a pandemic no less. Minority turnout was sky high, particularly in those states where it was supposedly suppressed. A "Fascist" (Has there even been a more misused word?) voting law in Georgia that symbolizes the supposed suppression makes it easier to vote there than in New York. The "threat to democracy" is now consists of any attempt to limit voting to some reasonable time frame before an election. "I can't vote in the 2024 election right now! I'm being oppressed. Democracy is over!"
You are comparing ice cubes to icebergs.
I must have been out of town when the D's
Demanded bs recount after recount
Tried to pressure a state to find non existent votes in their favor
Dismantled the USPS sorting machines to slow down mail in voting
Attacked the capitol
Refused to transfer power
Pissed and moaned about election results non stop
What? Were you expecting reason and honesty? Seriously?
2000, 2004, 2016.
Tried to pressure a state to find non existent votes in their favor
2000, 2004, 2016.
smantled the USPS sorting machines to slow down mail in voting
Never happened. Stop believing conspiracies.
Refused to transfer power
Never happened. Stop believing conspiracies.
ttacked the capitol
While they bombed the Capitol in 83, attacked Courthouses and other government buildings throughout 2020, and attacked republican Presidential inaugurations, they didn't riot at the Capitol
.
Pissed and moaned about election results non stop
Now that's a joke right? Good lord. Imagine claiming that with a straight face. Newstalkers alone rebuts that.
Democrats taught the Republicans what to do. Challenge certifications of elections and riot when you don't get what you want.
It's my inner Pollyanna at work.
"Repeating the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result..."
It's hard to accept that some people are intrinsically trolls, but it's sadly true.
If that was true (which it most certainly isn't)-- than that would be further proof that Republicans aren't too bright, eh?
'Democracy already ended in 2014.At least that's what I was told by the same people who are now claiming Democracy is in danger, again!
There's no secret here. The democrats thrive on fear, particularly the fringy far left. Since reality is not kind to their claims, they constantly have to remain in a state of hysteria about some apocalypse that is sure to happen any day. Secret Christian groups are plotting take overs. The KKK hides under every pillow. Democracy has ended because the Republicans protested an election like the democrats did the last three times they lost.
The facts make a mockery of the hysteria. Voter turnout was the highest in decades, in the middle of a pandemic no less. Minority turnout was sky high, particularly in those states where it was supposedly suppressed. A "Fascist" (Has there even been a more misused word?) voting law in Georgia that symbolizes the supposed suppression makes it easier to vote there than in New York. The "threat to democracy" is now consists of any attempt to limit voting to some reasonable time frame before an election. "I can't vote in the 2024 election right now! I'm being oppressed. Democracy is over!"'
That looks like the same talking points ubiquitously regurgitated on countless posts. I'm wondering how it conforms to the group rule that posts must respond to the article.
You're right, of course. But I try to let Comments stand unless they get nasty. Sean is the
kingemperor of out-of-context, sideways reformulations. He's been doing the same shtick for many long (long, long) years. No one pays attention.You obviously do Bob. You can't stop with the insults.
That's okay though. To each their own. I know substance isn't your thing.
I suppose I should be glad a Trotskyist is merely calling for debate, rather than the liquidation of those whom don't conform to the party line.
Progress.
These new laws don't make it harder to vote, just harder to cheat and commit fraud.
Perhaps we should emulate the Europeans.
How would that be, Greg? Do you have any notion of voting in Europe?
The topic in the article is about voter ID.
What's your thoughts concerning that?
I’d say national voter ID card automatically issued at and citizens are registered automatically at the age of 18 in their district/state of residence. Hell, may as well attach the drivers license to it as well.
I'll answer your question after you answer mine.
I've never said anything like that.
Please:
- don't misquote me
- don't make sh!t up
Why is the notion of a voter ID upsetting so many people? You have to show ID's to cash checks, when stopped by LE, at bars if you look like you are under the drinking age, use credit/ATM cards, fly, drive, and get registered mail. So why all of the fuss?
Voter ID isn't so simple. Seeing what lengths the
RepublicanAmerican Fascist Party is going to, to prevent "those people" from voting... it's not hard to imagine a very complicated, arduous, expensive process for obtaining the ID: making it a means of preventing voting.Voter ID can be simple or difficult, depending on what the state government wants.
Do you actually believe that you're the one who seeded this?
'The topic in the article is about voter ID.'
And you saw this ... where?
Nope! Next question!
You'll get to know NT's Usual Suspects. Greg is well-meaning, but has a few problems with actual facts.
Perhaps we should emulate the Europeans.
Actually the opposite may be true!!!
Belgium's Top COVID-19 Scientist Is Being Hunted By A Far-Right Sniper
You've resorted to grasping at squirrels