The alternative to democracy is not authoritarianism. Democracies can be authoritarian or not. The key is being able to escape the reach of government. This brings freedom because the state doesn’t want to scare you off. If you have large powerful governments, sometimes it takes quite an effort to escape it. Sometimes you must travel to distant locales that do not share your culture. Some easily escapable governments are Singapore, Hong Kong, Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. You can escape these places and still remain in the same basic culture and you don’t have to go far.
As to generational differences, the WWII generation largely grew up in the Depression. They didn’t understand the economics of it, and thus they thought FDR’s statist plays were simply the government being nice to people. Then they were inculcated with immense amounts of pro-government propaganda for the war.
The Boomers were Fed a steady stream of propaganda from birth. They were idealogues who basically destroyed the government they loved so much. Gen Xers are pragmatic and came up during the 1970, the height of postwar anti-state sentiment.
Reagan made the Boomers swoon with ideological love of country once again. The gen Xers got into the saddle around the dot-com bubble. They are a scrappy bunch with some good knowledge, but there aren’t enough of them. The millenials came of age at what seemed like the joyous end of time. The 90s were carefree and then the world ended with 9-11. They were frazzled by this and the accompanying propaganda nixed any hope of a teenage rejection of the state. They came of age punch-drunk and unable to integrate into the economic system. State schools had taught them to follow processes. Without a guide, those that did not stick to the script floundered in the housing bust. Their love of Obama was idealistic, and his ineffective presidency jaded them. The rise of Trump should have any sensible person questioning democracy.
I don’t think the book can be written on the millennials quite yet.
-WillFarnaby, millennial
We live in different times, with different threats.
It’s true that we don’t have tens of thousands of rioters clashing with tens of thousands of national guard troops, but who’s to say that it can’t happen at some point.
What’s occurring right now is, in many ways, unprecedented. A presidential election that may have very well been decided by the involvement of a foreign rival power. A presidency that is gaslighting the country. A presidency that has made clear its contempt for human rights and fundamental liberties of free speech and the press. A presidency that has tried to undermine and weaken the institutions that support these liberties. A presidency and congress that seem interested in trying to suppress voting. A presidency and congress that have essentially rigged taxation to promote and protect the wealth of the plutocratic class and make everyone else pay for it. I’d posit that the only reason we haven’t seen civil unrest is that we’re in the beginning stages and the consequences of this government haven’t been fully appreciated, but in time, people will no doubt see this corruption for what it is. And we’d be foolish not to be both outraged about the present and fearful about what might happen next.
This is nonsense. As long as democracy has existed, there have been crazy people stirring up crazy fears. Hopefully as people get older they find the nuts and their doom saying less appealing because they can remember all the past times the nuts have been wrong.
Part of the change might be a more global world view, particularly in light of the recent wars. The question was “is it essential to live in a Democracy”. Many people can live in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, just fine, and then attempts to turn Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria into democracies has left them much worse off than before. So it is clear that on a global scale, Democracy may be nice but its not essential.
Voter turnout increases with age.
http://www.electproject.org/_/rsrc/1494447247346/home/voter-turnout/demographics/Turnout_by_age.png
Hopefully as the millennials get older their turnout will increase. Supposedly there will be 90 million eligible millennial voters in 2020, and turnout may be 50-55%, so nearly 50 million millennial voters in the 2020 presidential election.
My understanding is 40% of millennials are non-white, and of the 60% who are white they are somewhat to the left of white boomers. So hopefully it’ll move politics to the left eventually.
I’m not disagreeing with you. But the point was that Trump may not leave office voluntarilty. He may have to be forced out by the next guys secret service detail.
I agree, Trump can’t just sit in the oval office and say ‘I’m still president’ in 2021 or 2025. As far as I know he (hopefully) has no legal power to do so. However I wouldn’t put it past him to try.
And this whole experience with Trump is moving the overton window on what is acceptable behavior in politics. The GOP keeps getting more and more racist, deranged, incompetent and anti-democracy and it doesn’t cost them any votes. No matter how bad Trump fucks everything up he is still guaranteed 60 million votes.
Nothing about this is “nonsense.” Asahi has accurately described the situation. Trump’s administration is the most corrupt we’ve seen since Nixon, and Trump’s own naked contempt for democracy, truth, and American values in general are indeed unprecedented and terrifying. The only saving grace so far is his own astonishing incompetence.
Well, it seems to me that the biggest problem we face is that everyone seems to think that we live in democracy.
IIRC from my High School Civics class, we live in a democratic republic, which functions fundamentally differently from a democracy.
Maybe that’s the disconnect certain people have when trying to figure out why their version of reality doesn’t necessarily match up with actual reality.
To me, Trump’s attempt at a power grab isn’t the most terrifying part; it’s the fact that a minimum of 40% of people in this country don’t understand the dangers of what he and republicans are doing. And even beyond that 40%, there are probably another 20-25% who don’t like Trump but are so checked out that they just don’t seem to care about politics generally.
I keep going back to the fact that the worst regime in modern history, the Nazis, took power in a democracy, but needing only 37% of the vote to do it. We’ve already seen in this country a disturbing trend with increasing frequency, which is that political minorities win key elections. We’re dangerously naive if we think we can’t end up with an authoritarian regime here.
People assume that authoritarians are masterminds, cunning geniuses who fool people into voting for them because the trains run on time. In fact, the reality is that more often than not, they’re grossly incompetent. They make disastrous decision after disastrous decision. They load their government with ministers and bureaucrats who are loyal but utterly incompetent. Look at how Putin has fucked Russia. Look at how Chavez and now Maduro have brought Venezuela to near collapse. Look at Erdogan’s Turkey. They’ve destroyed their countries. The educated classes in their countries are well aware of this, which is why autocrats go after college professors, school teachers, organizers of labor, and competent bureaucrats - either jailing them or chasing them out of the country. But in all cases, there’s just enough support, just enough people who buy into their ethnic nationalism or class warfare just enough for them to get away with rigging the vote in what are obviously sham elections. The world’s most powerful autocrats and party leaders are often terribly incompetent, but the skill they possess is an understanding of how to manipulate people and how to gain and use power against their enemies. My point is, if you think Trump’s sheer idiocy is going to be his downfall, I would not bet on that. Not when he has 30-40% of this country enthusiastically supporting him.
It’s true that we live in a democratic republic, but it’s implicit in this day and age that the emphasis is on democratic, not just republic. The trend over much of the 20th Century was in expanding the popular vote, not restricting it. Most people alive today assume that they live in a society that is free and one in which they have the opportunity to use their freedom to achieve socioeconomic mobility. High school civics teachers can say whatever they want, but when a significant number of people in this country begin to doubt that true democracy exists and when they doubt that there is fundamental fairness in society, then that’s a powder keg waiting for a match light.
The real problem is money in politics. I remember a congressman complaining that the main thing he does is raise money for his reelection. He had to raise $30,000 a week, every week of his term. And if he takes a week vacation, he has to raise $60,000 the following week. And where does that money come from? Lobbyists, wealthy donors, you can spell it out. The result is that the money men call the tune. It is inevitable, so long as you allow money into politics. And even aside from the actual donors, there are all the advocacy groups who pretend to support causes, not candidates, but in most cases that is a fiction. Is it any wonder that ordinary people feel left out?
Money in politics, yes.
But then money in politics is used to create an economic system in which there is extreme wealth inequality. When there is wealth inequality in a democracy, democracy is in danger of death. Too many people in this country don’t understand the relationship between economic equality and people power. Countries with extreme wealth & income inequality might be “democracies” but in name only.
Wow…conflating ALL senatorial elections into a single majority complaint? :dubious:
I am impressed by that reporter! That level of stupid usually requires the orange one.
Apparently they are confused about basic facts of civics.
The United States of America has never been a pure democracy. We have always been a representative democratic republic. It has ALWAYS been possible for a person winning the total national popular vote to fail to win election at the Electoral College, as Samuel Tilden can tell you. He is, to this day, the only candidate to win an outright majority of the popular vote (as opposed merely to more popular votes than the winner). But there is no President Tilden portrait in the White House.
That’s the system. Maybe you don’t like it, but don’t walk around thinking it’s sudden and new. Andrew Jackson also won the popular vote in 1824 but lost the Presidency to John Quincy Adams, but at least he got his revenge four years later. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton are the other two members of the club.
I’m a Millennial, and I assure you that the common sentiment here is not one that would like to see me with more power on this board or sharing my opinion more.
It’s been a repeated refrain by some leftists on this board ever since the election. Yes, it’s stupid, but that hasn’t stopped them.
Wrong. It is true that the GOP Senate win despite Democratic popular-vote advantage is the valid result of the system, and not directly the result of GOP cheating or gerrymandering. It is a happenstance of bad luck rather than the result of explicit GOP mischief.
However, it is frustrating for right-minded pro-democracy thinkers to see results like this, especially since similar results in the U.S. House and in state legislatures often are due in part to malicious GOP gerrymandering. True, rigging due to GOP cheating and rigging due to the happenstance of state boundaries are different qualitatively, but the effects happen to operate in tandem, empowering the kleptocrats and false populists in the minority rather than pro-democracy voters in the majority. It is easy to grasp why the reporter (and the SDMB poster commenting on the report) complain about the anti-democratic result despite that they understand that, in this specific case, the subversion of the will of the majority may be due to happenstance rather than GOP mischief.
“similar results in the U.S. House”? The total of 2016 votes for the House of Representatives (a MUCH better sample than the Senate races) went for the GOP by ~1.4 million votes.
And “the happenstance of state boundaries” is not “rigging” in any meaningful sense of the word.
Nationally, the GOP may win more House votes, but gerrymandering in states like Wisconsin assures the GOP will be over-represented vis-a-vis voters’ wishes. And controlling a disproportionate number of statewide seats lets them draw the maps for house seats as well:
“In 2012, Republicans got 48.6 percent of the statewide vote but won 60 seats in the 99-seat Assembly. In 2014, the party got 52 percent of the vote and won 63 Assembly seats. Democrats in 2012 received 51.4 percent of the vote but only won 39 Assembly seats, later winning just 36 seats when they received 48 percent of the vote in 2014.”
How are you with numbers, Mr. Hurricane ? Pay close attention. To avoid complaints of cherry-picking, I include all seven of the most recent general elections.
2004 Red
Seats won 232 202
Popular vote 55,958,144 52,969,786
Percentage 49.4% 46.8%
2006 Blue
Seats won 233 202
Popular vote 42,338,795 35,857,334
Percentage 52.3% 44.3%
Start by comparing 2004 and 2006. The Blues had almost exactly the same final seat count in 2006 as the Reds had in 2004. But to get there they needed to win the popular vote by 8% compared with just 2.6% for the Reds in 2004. ¿Comprende?
2008 Blue
Seats won 257 178
Popular vote 65,237,840 52,249,491
Percentage 53.2% 42.6%
2010 Red
Seats won 242 193
Popular vote 44,827,441 38,980,192
Percentage 51.7% 44.9%
Blues win by over 10% in 2006 and are rewarded. Reds win by less than 7% in 2010 but get several more seats than Blue got with their 8% 2006 win.
2012 Red
Seats won 234 201
Popular vote 58,228,253 59,645,531
Percentage 47.6% 48.8%
The Blues won the 2012 popular vote by 1.2% but Red gets a strong advantage by number of seats. Capiche?
2014 Red
Seats won 247 188
Popular vote 40,081,282 35,624,357
Percentage 51.2% 45.5%
2016 Red
Seats won 241 194
Popular vote 63,173,815 61,776,554
Percentage 49.1% 48.0%
In 2016, Reds eke out a tiny 1.1% win but get hugely more seats.
IOW, the House is “rigged” in favor of the GOP. Some of this advantage, like the entire Senate advantage, can be attributed to happenstance rather than deliberate gerrymandering. But it puts to rest your incorrect conclusion.
This is your cue to say “Thank you, septimus. I learned something new.” But I won’t hold my breath. 