Saving Democracy Will Require Institutional and Civil Resistance at All Levels

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/12/04/saving-democracy-will-require-institutional-and-civil-resistance-at-all-levels/


A sense of alarmed fatalism is starting to take hold among pundits and political scientists. It’s not hard to see why: The future of American democracy looks exceedingly grim under threat from a far-right authoritarian movement—and it’s not clear that any particular electoral or legislative response by Democrats can fix it. In short, it will take an unprecedented all-of-society approach to bring together many competing interest groups—from leaders of the business community to marginalized workers and everyone in between—to stop the MAGA train in its tracks.

A dark consensus is forming around a few increasingly incontrovertible realities:

1) The American electorate seems to have an unalterable tendency toward thermostatic behavior. In layman’s terms, the electorate grows cranky and dissatisfied for reasons often out of government’s direct control (gas prices, a pandemic, economic fluctuations, and so on), and the party out of power gains an advantage accordingly. Voters of the dominant party become complacent even as the opposition grows angrier and more determined. Some people thought that a polarized electorate might negate this effect. The last few election cycles, however, have demonstrated the impermanence of once-solid electoral coalitions. At the same time, we are a closely divided country, and there are still far more than enough “swing” voters to move the pendulum. To be sure, an extremely popular president in a historical aberration, like George W. Bush in 2002 after the 9/11 attacks, can evade the pattern—but not for long.

2) America has a dangerously archaic and outdated two-party presidential system that fails to account for modern political realities. The Founders were brilliant in many ways, but they also got a lot wrong about how power works in democracies. Duverger’s law exists, preventing the rise of third parties. Reforms like ranked-choice voting can help mitigate the stark dichotomy, but only slightly. The president is also extremely powerful compared to most parliamentary systems, and recent history has shown that the mechanisms of accountability, such as impeachment and conviction, against a lawless president are nearly worthless if his own partisans refuse to take action.

3) The Republican Party has become an antimajoritarian, antidemocracy organization driven to extreme tactics. This is mostly based out of fear of permanently losing America’s culture war. The GOP only has a few actual policy ideas beyond owning the libs and causing blue America as much pain as possible, all while giving goodies to its donors and base. And it is willing to overthrow democracy to hold on to power. Extreme gerrymandering in statehouses and the U.S. House of Representatives, plus disproportional representation favoring conservative rural whites in the Senate and Electoral College, is stacking the deck in favor of a radical minority—and Republicans have grown brazen about simply stealing elections for themselves even if those advantages prove insufficient.

*snip*

[ck4829]

1. K&R. Vote. And be prepared to do more.

[TheRealNorth]

6. Exactly

And people need to be prepared before Jan 6. 2024 comes around and Republicans throw 230 years of Democracy into the trashcan.

[Funtatlaguy]

2. Our country allowed the brainwashing by Rupert Murdoch.

That was the beginning of the end for democracy.
Many of us yelled and screamed and warned.
But to no avail.

[modrepub]

3. It's More Nuanced

In PA, I think less than 30% of registered voters showed up last November. Republicans did quite well. What ails Democrats in the state I live in is their inability to consistently show up at the polls for general and primary elections. Republicans pass amendments on the primary ballots when they know their folks will show up and independents and Democrats won't bother.

Death of democracy via apathy in my state.

[keep_left]

4. A return to civics education is needed...

...at least by high school, if not before. Civics courses started going away by the mid-'80s. That has certainly contributed to the apathy, not only around things like voting but also basic requirements of citizenship like jury duty.

[SharonClark]

5. Thanks for posting this excellent article.

It answered some questions I had about where we go from here to save democracy and how hard it will be.