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Report: Global Democracy Under Threat, US Democracy in “accelerating decline”
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[h1][b]Anti-Trump Group to Grade GOP Lawmakers on support for Democracy[/b][/h1]
An anti-Trump conservative group is launching an effort to track and evaluate whether Republicans in Congress, in the groups view, have acted to either undermine or uphold democracy and democratic values and what role, if any, they played in attempts to overturn the 2020 election, [link=https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/26/politics/gop-democracy-report-card/index.html]CNN[/link] reports.
The Republican Accountability Project has created what its calling a [link=https://accountability.gop/report-card/]GOP Democracy Report Card[/link], which assigns grades to Republican members of Congress ranging from an A, which the group describes as excellent, to an F, which it describes as very poor.
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Quote from dergon
Anti-Trump Group to Grade GOP Lawmakers on support for Democracy[/b]
They will be if not already, dismissed as Trump-hating RINOs, all.
As if the Republicans would give a fig about democracy is it means losing power.
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[h1][b]The GOP Is a Grave Threat to American Democracy[/b][/h1]
[link=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/gop-grave-threat-american-democracy/618693/]Peter Wehner[/link]: The hope of many conservative critics of Donald Trump was that soon after his defeat, and especially in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, the Republican Party would snap back into its former shape. The Trump presidency would end up being no more than an ugly parenthesis. The GOP would distance itself from Trump and Trumpism, and become a normal party once again.
But that dream soon died. The Trump presidency might have been the first act in a longer and even darker political drama, in which the Republican Party is becoming more radicalized. How long this will last is an open question; whether it is happening is not.
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[b]The Bulwark[/b]
[link=https://thebulwark.com/how-the-big-lie-became-a-big-threat/]https://thebulwark.com/ho…e-became-a-big-threat/[/link]
[h1]How the Big Lie Became a Big Threat[/h1] [b]The window for enacting the reforms needed to protect our democracy is closing fast.
[/b]
There is reason to be less sanguine today about the fate of American democracy than at the nadir of the Trump administration (pick your low point). The longstanding and cynical GOP [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/11/senator-josh-hawley/]obsession with anti-voter-access laws[/link] has mixed with Donald Trumps Big Lie about the supposed theft of the 2020 election by Joe Biden, congealing into a Republican campaign for [i]indefinite [/i]single-party control of American government. It might be too late to turn back toward democracy. But its urgent that we try.
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Some might breathe easier knowing that Joe Biden made it to the Oval Officedespite 60 lawsuits, Trumps [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html]legally suspect call[/link] to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger seeking to find enough votes to swing Georgia his way, and the bloody attack on the Capitol. But no one should rest easy: The next time around probably wont have such a happy ending. Republicans are banding together to make sure that a future president-elect from the Democratic party doesnt make it to inauguration day.
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Again, our Constitution is not a simplistically democratic charter. But its small-r republican features depend for their legitimacy on its small-d democratic features. When the democratic imbalance in our Senate is as bad as it has become, and when one powerful party is hellbent on subverting the electoral process to snatch future elections from actual voters based on lies about a past election and through laws that discourage voting, our political order is nearing its breaking point. If reforms are not enacted, and quickly, we face the loss of our constitutional systems legitimacy and our democracy itself.
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[h1][b]They Tried to Overturn Election, Now Want to Run One[/b][/h1]
At least four Republican lawmakers who sought to undercut or overturn the 2020 presidential election are launching campaigns to become the top election official in key states that could decide control of Congress in 2022 and who wins the White House in 2024, [link=https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/24/2020-election-republican-official-races-490458]Politico[/link] reports.
Teagan Goddard: “This should be a 5-alarm warning for democracy.”
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“VOTE FOR ME! I WILL GUARANTEE ELECTION RESULTS REGARDLESS OF THE VOTE!”
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Belarus forces a commercial flight to land to snag a dissident journo.
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[link=https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/31/biden-memorial-day-491449]https://www.politico.com/…en-memorial-day-491449[/link]
[h2]Biden on Memorial Day: Democracy is ‘in peril,’ worth dying for[/h2]
Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world, Biden said, speaking to military officials and people who have lost military loved ones after a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. What we do now, what we do now, how we honor the memory of the fallen, will determine whether or not democracy will long endure.
The president said that we all take democracy for granted, saying the biggest question is whether the system of democracy can win out over opposing powerful forces.
All that we do in our common life as a nation is part of that struggle, Biden said. A struggle for democracy. Its taking place around the world, democracy and autocracy.
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It is so heartwarming if someone who has never served tells others that something is worth dying for.
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Maybe one of the dumbest comments I’ve read on an AM board.
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Quote from DICOM_Dan
Maybe one of the dumbest comments I’ve read on an AM board.
Did I miss something ? Did Biden ever raise his hand* to give up 4+ years of his life to serve his country in whatever capacity the government decides that it needs.
*[size=”1″] raise his hand, not hold it out[/size]
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[link=https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-02/are-republicans-really-a-threat-to-democracy]Jonathan Bernstein[/link]:
[h1][b]Are Republicans Really a Threat to Democracy?[/b][/h1]
[b]Some of the partys officials seem serious about overturning elections and obstructing the right to vote.[/b]
How worried should we be about the state of democracy in the U.S.? A group of leading political scientists who study the issue say: a lot. A whole lot. In fact, they say: [link=https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/statements/statement-of-concern/]our entire democracy is now at risk.[/link] Theyre correct. If they had asked me, I wouldve signed on.
The problem is easy enough to describe. In a two-party political system, one party, the Republican Party, has in large part turned antidemocratic. That party will eventually be voted into office, and if it implements nationally the policies that some of its leading politicians have advocated and in some cases advanced at the state level its possible that it will succeed in seriously harming democracy.
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No one knows how serious the threat is. The decentralized, Madisonian system of politics that prevails in the U.S. makes it hard for extra-constitutional seizures of power to succeed. As Dan Drezner [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/06/01/biggest-question-american-politics-right-now/]points out[/link], Trumps presidency also sparked a serious counter-mobilization, and theres an important [link=https://thebulwark.com/anti-democratic-conservatism-isnt-new/]debate[/link] about just how deeply antidemocratic beliefs are embedded within the conservative movement. And since Trump continues to be an unusually unpopular politician, its possible that the problem will largely solve itself. Perhaps [link=https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/01/trump-lost-generation-491474]Trumpism will even erode the Republican Party[/link] enough that it has difficulty winning elections. ….
But thats hardly certain. Friends of democracy should be [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/01/frantic-warning-100-leading-experts-our-democracy-is-grave-danger/]doing what they can[/link] to make it [link=https://twitter.com/ProfNickStephan/status/1399754479449382913]a lot harder[/link] for anyone to subvert an election. The worst that could happen is that elections and voting rights wind up with extraneous protections. I could live with that.[/QUOTE]
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It’s hard to find any doubt in the GOP trying to steal people’s votes.
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[link=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/trump-reinstatement-president-election-recount-audit-domino-insurrection-riot.html?utm_campaign=di&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=tw]https://nymag.com/intelli…m=s1&utm_source=tw[/link]
[h1]Trump Believes He Can Regain the Presidency This Summer[/h1] [h2]He cant, but the insurrectionist wing of the GOP isnt going away.[/h2]
[b] [/b]
The position of mainstream Republican leaders in Congress is that the January 6 [link=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/05/mcconnell-blocks-january-6-commission-senate-filibuster-trump-riot.html]insurrection[/link], while regrettable, is behind us now. It does not require congressional investigation nor any further rebuke. What is needed, instead, is a series of state-level laws to clamp down on [link=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/texas-republicans-vote-suppression-michael-flynn-coup-trump.html]voting[/link] and make it easier for Republican poll-watchers and legislatures to challenge any results they dont like.
In the Trumpiest portions of the party, the view is quite different. The rioters are martyrs, their plight needs redress, and their cause remains very much alive.…
The party elite may roll its eyes in private, but its public agenda is to placate the insurrection. The Republican mainstream is refusing to talk about it not because its too weak to be taken seriously, but because its too strong. In the red states, Republicans are laying the groundwork to make the next insurrection easier. Trump and his diehards are busily rehabilitating the last one.[/QUOTE]
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[link=https://www.rawstory.com/steve-schmidt-issues-dire-warning-us-just-one-election-away-from-permanent-trumpian-autocratic-rule/]Steve Schmidt issues dire warning: US just one election away from permanent Trumpian autocratic rule[/link]
Lincoln Project co-founder and GOP strategist turned Democrat Steve Schmidt, ahead of [link=https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article251898588.html]Donald Trump’s speech this weekend[/link] to the North Carolina Republican Party issued a dire warning: America is just one election away from permanent autocratic rule from the former president and his allies.
In [link=https://twitter.com/SteveSchmidtSES/status/1400960214413815810]a 512 word Twitter thread[/link] Schmidt warns that Republicans have grown even stronger since the January 6 insurrection, and those who think Trump being out of the spotlight and off social media has weakened him are “fools.” He also urges the media to stop focusing on the demise of Trump’s blog.
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[i]Trump is not just the front runner for the GOP nomination he is the presumptive nominee. Trump is in command of the party lock, stock and barrel. The elected officials of the Republican Party are obedient soldiers in Trump’s cult of personality which can be measured in the tens of millions of people. [b]This movement has become faithless to American democracy and it requires an almost Trumpian level of historical ignorance to not recognize it as one of the gravest threats the country has ever faced.[/b]
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[link=https://morningconsult.com/2021/06/28/global-right-wing-authoritarian-test/]Morning Consult survey[/link]
[h1]U.S. Conservatives Are Uniquely Inclined Toward Right-Wing Authoritarianism Compared to Western Peers[/h1]
[img]https://assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2021/06/24063711/210628_RWA-scale-findings_fullwidth.png[/img]The 39-point gap in right-wing authoritarian scores between Americas left and right was more pronounced than it was in any of the other countries included, though the test also revealed a 30-point gap between the right and left in Canada and 28-point differences between the two groups in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Morning Consult also used the Altemeyer scale to categorize segments of the surveyed populations in each country as scoring high or low on the right-wing authoritarianism scale. Adults in each country who scored in the top 15th percentile among all respondents in all countries were defined as high RWA, while respondents who scored in the bottom 15th percentile were defined as low RWA.
A comparison across the eight countries polled showed that the share of the U.S. population that scored as high RWA was twice the size of the next largest population: 26 percent of U.S. respondents met that designation, compared with 13 percent of Canadians and Australians and 10 percent of those in the United Kingdom.
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[link=https://www.smerconish.com/exclusive-content/trump-was-a-symptom-not-the-disease-and-its-become-a-global-pandemic]https://www.smerconish.co…come-a-global-pandemic[/link]
Jack Goldstone, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University; Wilson Center Fellow, writing about the threat to global democracy from the rise of authoritarianism.
[h1]Trump Was a Symptom, Not the Disease and Its Become a Global Pandemic[/h1]
It is remarkable how widely the virus of nationalist authoritarianism has spread. The symptoms are clear: growing support for national leaders who lash out at enemies, treat political opponents as threats, denigrate foreigners and immigrants, promise to restore a nostalgic or aspirational ideal of national greatness, and treat elections, the media and the law not as legitimate checks on their actions but as tools to be weaponized to preserve their own power.
The list of such leaders is long and growing, and they can be found in the advanced democracies of the West as well as developing countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Some are household names like Donald Trump (USA), Vladimir Putin (Russia), and Xi Jinping (China), while others are more obscure like Viktor Orban (Hungary), Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egypt), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil). They have sought to retain power by attacking and repressing their opposition and undermining limits on their authority. Where these leaders have lost close elections, such as Trump in the U.S., or Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel, or Keiko Fujimori in Peru, their response is to maintain that the elections were fraudulent and that they really had won, attacking the integrity of democracy itself. These leaders also span different political ideologies many identify as conservatives, while a few are progressives. [b]What they all have in common is a reluctance to give up power, a disregard for legal niceties, and a political vision rooted in polarization and the pursuit of enemies rather than compromise and pluralism.
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…The fate of U.S. populism will depend on Bidens success. If Bidens ambitious infrastructure plans and measures to combat inequality and increase social mobility are enacted and start to improve Americans lives, then the odds of shrinking support for populism will grow. But Biden will have to pull together a broad coalition of Democrats and Independents, and even a sliver of Republicans, to prevail.
Whatever the outcome, the next eighteen months will be critical to the future of democracy in America and around the world. If America cannot make democracy work for all of its citizens, then other countries will be less likely to believe democracy will work for them. Bidens success, then, is something that everyone who wants to live under democratic governance should root for. But Biden will have to earn that success by getting the government to provide real and genuinely appreciated benefits for all Americans. Whether the current wave of populism continues to grow or can be swept back hangs in the balance.
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1933 deja vu. Authoritarianism is fashionable again and “solves” all problems with “strong” leaders.
Democracy is too complicated. And all those “wrong” people voting the wrong way.-
[b]Bolsonaro Hints at Not Allowing Next Election[/b][/h1]
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has begun sowing distrust in next years elections, alarming lawmakers and the courts alike, [link=https://www.axios.com/brazil-bolsonaro-impeachment-election-fraud-461f476d-2533-4c84-ae61-03a491d2e07e.html]Axios[/link] reports.
In speeches, Bolsonaro, a former military captain, has been questioning the integrity of an electronic ballot system thats been in place since 1996 and suggesting he might not even allow elections to happen.
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The Party of Q, the GQP is practicing Gleichshaltung in America.
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[h1][b]Trump Is Planning a More Respectable Coup Next Time[/b][/h1]
[link=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/trump-2024-coup-federalist-society-doctrine.html?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4]Rick Hasen[/link]: Come 2024, crass and boorish unsubstantiated claims of stealing are likely to give way to arcane legal arguments about the awesome power of state legislatures to run elections as they see fit.
Forget bonkers accusations about Italy using lasers to manipulate American vote totals and expect white-shoe lawyers with Federalist Society bona fides to argue next time about application of the independent state legislature doctrine in an attempt to turn any Republican presidential defeat into victory.
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Arent they in the Supreme Court already?
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Good piece by Tom Nichols –
[link=https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/08/19/donald-trump-not-problem-american-democracy-we-are-nichols/5563354001/]https://www.usatoday.com/…re-nichols/5563354001/[/link]
[h1]Trump is not ruining democracy, we are. And it’s been anguishing to confront: Tom Nichols[/h1] [h2]I was worried long before Trump and the Capitol riot, as political jousting turned zealous and well-off friends called America a disastrous mess.[/h2]
Whats going on? Ironically, this growing illiberalism is not the product of bad times, but of a long trend of rising narcissism and a sense of entitlement that was enabled by peace, prosperity, and rapidly improving living standards. The United States and other democracies have real problems, but the rise of a sour and selfish abandonment of democracy is not happening because of social injustice or economic anxiety.
Worse, our democracy now practically must run on autopilot independently of a public that is happily and willfully ignorant of the issues and wants nothing to do with the dreary business of governing. And with increasing frequency, our form of government is under attack by bored working and middle-class citizens led by clever political and television figures who have no use for democracy other than as slogans and window-dressing around their need to be the constant center of their own reality show.
The January 6 rioters were the most extreme example of this stupefying level of narcissism. These insurrectionists were not disenfranchised or oppressed people trying to engage in a peaceful assembly. They could barely express a coherent political thought. Rather, the whole event was a day-camp outing for middle-aged, middle-class, gainfully employed Americans who wanted to be heroes storming Congress and perhaps lynching the vice president in the process and then go back home to sell real estate, attend work retreats in Mexico, and brag about it all on Instagram.…
Over a half-century ago, the writer Eric Hoffer presciently saw the way such madness might overtake the democracies when he warned that anti-democratic mass movements begin not with deprivation and suffering, but with boredom and plenty. Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some, he wrote in 1951. To a [link=https://books.google.com/books?id=OdJihMArdlAC&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=deliberate+fomenter]deliberate fomenter[/link] of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should be at least as encouraging as that they are suffering from intolerable economic or political abuses.
The United States has fallen into this very trap. Our parents and grandparents had the fortitude to endure the 20th century, with two world wars and an economic disaster. In the 21st century, we lack the resilience even to overcome a pandemic, much less the great trials of a war or a depression. Worse, we are not mature or stoic enough even to endure the prosaic and often dull routines that are part of daily life.[/QUOTE]
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[link=https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-host-tomi-lahren-claims-only-thing-that-will-save-gavin-newsom-is-voter-fraud]https://www.thedailybeast…-newsom-is-voter-fraud[/link]
Wounding our Democracy bit by bit… just for the ratings:
[h1][b]Fox Host Tomi Lahren Claims Only Thing That Will Save Newsom Is Voter Fraud[/b][/h1]
Yes, Gavin Newsom has raised a whole lot of money from teachers unions and special interests and tech, but that money is not going to save him, she declared, before quickly going down the conspiratorial rabbit hole.
The only thing that will save Gavin Newsom is voter fraud, the pro-Trump firebrand exclaimed. So, as they say, stay woke, pay attention to the voter fraud going on in California, because its going to have big consequences not only for that state, but for upcoming elections.
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Tammy’s intellect must be why Fox News puts her on TV.
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Could Trump work his will again? Were there any limits to what he and his supporters might do to put him back in power? Peril remains.
Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, in the final sentence of their new book, [i][link=https://amzn.to/3zlnbcP]Peril[/link][/i].
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[link=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/georgia-voting-rights-democracy-jim-crow_n_6143cc4be4b08f5f38aeb8fb]Georgia Is How American Democracy Falls Apart
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Whats happening in Georgia now, and what may happen next, illustrates how our democracy could actually fall apart the same way it has before.
The organizers who helped produce that shift {towards the Democratic party} expected backlash. I wish that … we could win and then take our foot off of the gas, said Nsé Ufot, the CEO of the New Georgia Project, a voting rights group Abrams founded. But historically, she added, we havent had that luxury.
Still, the speed and scale of the Republican reaction was shocking. Less than 60 days after the insurrection, the GOP state legislative majority produced legislation seeking to overhaul Georgia elections. Gov. Brian Kemp (R) [link=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/georgia-voter-suppression-bill_n_605d01dfc5b67593e056fb32]signed it into law[/link] on March 25.…
The specifics of SB 202 mean that the GOP cant place the county under control of a friendly supervisor forever, but Republicans could have a hand-picked ally in charge to oversee next years statewide elections. …The newest Republican candidate in that {Secretary of State} race, Rep. Jody Hice, is a Trump devotee who called the election challenge that generated the U.S. Capitol insurrection a [link=https://www.covnews.com/news/newton-congressman-says-1776-moment-tweet-was-about-our-votes/]1776 moment[/link] and twice [link=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republicans-overturn-election-results-capitol-insurrection_n_5ffc732fc5b63642b6fdc5d0]voted to overturn[/link] the results of the 2020 election.
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[link=https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-22/sure-republicans-just-let-harris-pick-the-next-president?srnd=opinion]Sure, Republicans. Just Let Harris Pick the Next President.[/link]Two memos that surfaced this week show how serious the GOP has become about subverting U.S. elections.
Two documents about the Republican plan to subvert the 2020 election went public this week. And yes, it was a Republican plan even more than it was a Donald Trump plan, as can be seen from the [link=https://electionlawblog.org/?p=124721]nonsense-filled memo[/link] from Republican lawyer John Eastman from last winter that outlined a scheme for then-Vice President Mike Pence to throw out valid electoral votes.
For explanations of the memos legal absurdities, see the analyses by law professors Derek Muller [link=https://electionlawblog.org/?p=124703]here[/link] and Jonathan Adler [link=https://reason.com/volokh/2021/09/21/the-eastman-memo-poor-lawyering-for-a-disreputable-cause/]here[/link]. Perhaps more to the point are reports that Republicans such as Utah Senator Mike Lee and former Vice President Dan Quayle believed the whole thing was nonsense indeed, they join the ranks of Republicans who stood up to the Trumpy side of the party and, collectively, managed to preserve democracy.
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The bottom line is that the dominant faction of the Republican Party tried, through a combination of public lies, attempts to bully people into improper use of office, and, yes, mob violence, to overturn a presidential election. And it appears that this faction will become more dominant within the party. At the presidency level, we dont know when Republicans will again lose an election, but it will happen sooner or later, perhaps with a Republican in the White House and with Republican majorities in Congress. Its not at all clear what will happen then.
The good news? There isnt much. Yes, some of the Republicans who rallied for the republic and the rule of law after the 2020 election will still be in place in 2024. Its at least possible that others will take their responsibilities seriously, no matter how partisan they otherwise may be. That was, after all, the case in 2020. The Republicans who defied Trump and his allies were in many cases solid, even rabid, partisans but it turned out that they did not, when push came to shove, betray their oaths of office. Perhaps that will be true of others in the future, even those who are cheering on subversion now when its not directly on their watch.
And it is at least possible that if Trump leaves the scene, the threat will recede. This problem didnt begin with him, and there were more than a few regular Republicans who were eager to jump on the bandwagon. But Trump is more brazen than others, and that may give license to some who wouldnt act on their own. It is, after all, in the nature of political parties to seek control of the government, so its not surprising that when given the opportunity, many party actors turn out to feel few constraints from the rule of law other than practical ones. Perhaps without a party leader who apparently has no feel for democracy and the rule of law egging them on, the party would go back to having only some unhealthy impulses, rather than having those impulses dominate.
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