Thread for venting our rational/irrational fears about the death of American democracy and where Americans should go after it happens

Yep. But they are of course perfectly happy to win elections with less than half the voters. It's the only way they've elected non-incumbent presidents for the past 30 years.

"We're a republic, not a democracy."

is it churlish to react against the notion of american democracy having ever been a thing

nope. the usa has always doled out its democracy in small bites. the biggest experiment with expanding democracy we ever tried was women's suffrage. it was hardly a bold leap and it still took about 70 years to get launched. we have never even given socialism the time of day.

It obviously comes with a shit ton of asterisks, quotation marks and footnotes, but to me the point is that the country has been involved in more or less constant contest over who gets to vote — who counts as a citizen — from essentially its founding. And that the general trajectory overall, via countless hard-fought battles and with a whole lot of blood spilled, has been to broaden rather than narrow that conception. So that's the tradition I'm talking about when I say "American democracy," the drive to expand rather than contract the realm of political power. It's why gaining access to the ballot was one of the most important aims of the civil rights movement. But once you abandon the idea of votes counting altogether, all of that kind of goes by the wayside. We can still be a constitutional republic, but no longer a democratic one even in aspiration. And the avenues and remedies available would mostly disappear.

Ah, this is why I started this thread: to have a place to put things like this, without endlessly doomposting on Facebook.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/capitol-rioters-won/619075/

The risks of such measures are obvious. Between the effectiveness of gerrymandering and the partisan polarization of urban and rural districts, in some states winning a legislative majority is well-nigh impossible for the Democratic Party as currently constituted. In the event that the electorate fails to produce the necessary Republican victory in a presidential election, impervious Republican majorities would be able to hand the state’s electoral votes to their candidate, regardless of whom their state’s voters actually chose. On Tuesday, an open letter from scholars published by the New America Foundation warned that “these initiatives are transforming several states into political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.”

Here's that "open letter from scholars," which obviously will generate immediate and urgent action as such things invariably do: https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/statements/statement-of-concern/

lol this is literally just my thread to doompost to myself, but that's OK. Here, I interviewed one of the guys who signed the open letter mentioned above. It did not improve my mood.

https://compassknox.com/2021/06/07/were-in-an-emergency/

i lurk here, thanks for the link

For those who won't click-and-read, a sidebar:

But it's that next level of saying that we're just going to view elections as advisory — that is a death knell for democratic institutions. That cannot happen. That cannot be OK. If that is OK, then we're circling the drain. I mean, it's over at that point, because that takes away all incentive for parties to compete for votes. It just says, get power one time and then keep it. It’s very hard to go back once you’ve done that.

the thing that kind of drove me nuts is how many liberals still don't realize the rules of engagement have to change on our end. like when Trump was filing his hundreds of lawsuits in November, December, and January, people were worried about Trump somehow finding a way to steal a win. Ok, fair enough - I didn't *think* it would happen, but I was anxious as fuck.

but I heard so many people saying "don't worry, if it happens we will PEACEFULLY protest!".

....peacefully protest a coup....how in the fuck.....there is no PEACEFUL in a protest if someone who lost the Presidency steals the Presidency through a self-coup. what are you gonna do, march quietly with signs that say "Please don't change our President"?

I don't get the impression a lot of protesters WOULD have been peaceful, mind - I think it would have gotten extremely fucking ugly and I didn't exactly cherish the thought. but I seriously worry if something like this happens, we're going to continue to be held back by leftists who want to "go high" even if it means outright letting someone steal their office.

really though maybe it's time someone else invaded us.

I do wonder what level of street action would be unleashed by an outright election steal. It would be huge, no doubt, and should be. But after a month or two months or whatever, what would the upshot be? Eventually people are going to have to go to work, pay bills, etc. Maybe some kind of national strike? Dunno. It would be interesting, I guess. I'd still prefer not to find out.

I've been shit on in the past around here for expressing a willingness, even eagerness, to get the fuck out of this country. A whole lot of "think of the poor people who can't leave, you owe it to them to stay and fight" and other horseshit. You wanna stay and fight? Go ahead, I won't stop you. But I don't love this country enough to immiserate myself on others' behalf.

Right now my optimistic projection is that blue states will get deeper blue, red states will go completely insane, and eventually the US will split into de facto blocs that will coexist tenuously. Governors will become increasingly powerful, and will ignore any federal dictates they disagree with, and no one will do anything about it. I don't think the next Republican president will be quite theocratic enough to send troops into New York or New Jersey to arrest abortion doctors, for example. But life is gonna suuuuuck for people in red states starting very soon and for a long time to come.

Yeah that's a real tension I feel, tbh. I do actually love Tennessee, and also I feel like it needs people who give a shit about a whole lot of things that the dominant culture here doesn't (social justice, the environment, the arts, etc etc etc). But there's also a level where I can't help feeling complicit. I'm still here, I'm participating in this place, spending my money here, at what point is that not morally tenable to me? I don't know. My brother keeps telling me I should move to Vermont where he is. (My wife is a hard no on anywhere as cold as Vermont. But I keep telling her climate change is going to make it more comfortable...)

The sad news is that climate change will make almost everywhere less comfortable.

Also New Zealand's borders are shut tight now, thanks to covid.

Bubbled with Australia.

Thinking of centre-left heavens here.

is it possible to live underwater

Dolphins do it so why not

Oh, and octopuses also I just remembered

who is the alt-right of the sea

Maga Dick

Featuring Captain Ownlib

Iraq War architect Robert Kagan is very worried about the future of American democracy. (He's mostly not wrong, but his solution is ... moderate Republicans save the day.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

Jack Shafer in response is less apocalyptic and more pep rallyish, c'mon team, we can take 'em.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/09/24/why-the-fear-of-trump-may-be-overblown-514270

I'm watching the rapid radicalization of a whole bunch of local Republicans in my county — and they were already plenty far right — and I veer between despairing certainty of doom and remembering how clueless and incompetent they are. A bunch of parents showed up for an anti-mask rally organized by the actual John Birch Society, and I guarantee most of the parents had no idea what the John Birch Society was. Things are getting kooky.

The mainstream right is becoming less fastidious about publicly distancing themselves from the far right and white nationalists.

I think that it's because of my location and demographics, but if anything, I've noticed that the boomer Republicans I know (my parents and some of their friends, for example) have all quit the party and have moved to the Dems since Trump.

But as numerous articles have made note of, these people are "Northeast" Republicans of the old school, many of whom are actually to the *left* of sitting Dems in power at the moment.

Anyway, anecdotal, still interesting to me.