I think at the founding of the country, democratic elections were not intended and were arguably actively distrusted by some of the founders, but after amendments enshrining the right to vote based on race, gender etc., I think it’s reasonable to say that the US is inherently intended to be democratic. It’s true that the right to vote is still never asserted in the constitution as a positive right, only that for various reasons no one can lose the right to vote. However I don’t think that’s all that far out of the norm for various rights that we now consider foundational.
Yeah I don’t really think it’s appropriate to point out that the US began as an aristocracy. The world in general is more democratic than it was in the 18th Century. Two world wars and the industrial scale totalitarian terror of Stalinism and Maoism why democracy is worth preserving in this country and elsewhere.
It’s very relevant if we want to frame this discussion as “a return to traditional American values.” Traditional American values are an aristocracy of property owners who use violence and legislation to extract labor from workers, working constantly to prevent those workers from ever voting in meaningful numbers. That’s “who we are” if we are speaking of the American political tradition.
So voting rights aren’t a return to American traditions. Voting rights are instead a reflection of the American journey of slow, stop-and-start progress. We need to insist that we’re not returning to anything, especially idealized situations that never existed. We’re only going forward. Anybody who wants to go backward can jump off the train.
Moreover, we’ve actually already taken quite a lot while lying down. In fact a lot of what Republicans are doing now don’t have obvious detrimental impact to an overwhelming majority of people. Even people who are disenfranchised don’t necessarily experience anything adverse merely by having their vote discarded. It’s what happens once they have the power…that’s when we feel the pain.
I would agree with much of that there’s a history of aristocracy, and if Hamilton had it has way, the expansion of the franchise would have been delayed quite a while.
But I’d add that traditions and national character evolve and change. Most of the European Continent once lived under monarchy. Germany, Italy, and Spain lived under fascism and Eastern Europe lived under communism. Many countries that are today democratic (or substantially so) have had a history of authoritarianism and democratic gains have been achieved out of the struggle to evolve from such systems.
I’d rather not take the view that we’re simply going back to our roots but instead offer that democracy and anti-democracy are forces that are constantly competing for power, even when democracy is at its apparent zenith.
This is a ridiculous statement. The Constitution guarantees every state a republican form of government, which the framers all understood to require that states hold elections for state executives and legislatures. The Constitution also requires that elections be held for U.S. Representatives. It is true the Senators were not initially directly elected, which was changed by the 17th Amendment which requires that Senators be elected.
Throughout our history the franchise has been unjustly denied to oppressed groups, and subject to incidents of corruption and fraud. But it’s false and kind of odd to say that the Constitution does not require that states hold elections.
The “Guaranteee Clause” only guarantees that the US itself will provide a republican form of government to the states. It holds no position over what form those governments should take, nor how those states should run their election. It originally permitted states to bar natural-born residents the right to vote if they were black. It permits state legislatures to choose their own presidential electors, a situation that came closer than ever to reality in 2020 and will likely happen in multiple states in 2024.
The Constitution isn’t a smooth-running vintage automobile that just needs to be restored to its former democratic glory. It’s a cobbled-together concession to property owners, slavery, and white supremacy. That’s what the framers intended.
You cannot truly understand what’s about to happen to democracy in this country until you understand that when voting rights are taken from the lower classes, the Constitution is working exactly as intended.
Chilling piece at fivethirtyeight today itemizing how the GOP’s structural advantages in elections have rarely been higher or more self-perpetuating.
“Essentially, what this means is the Republican Party can go off the rails without really suffering any immediate electoral costs,” Ziblatt told us. “They can win the presidency without winning the popular vote; they can control the Senate without representing the majority of voters. And so the self-correcting mechanism of American democracy” — elections — “is not working, because they’re not getting the signal that what they’re doing isn’t a winning strategy — because it is a winning strategy.”
And I liked this observation: a “political system without any majority rule at all — it’s not really very democratic.”
It’s not merely the fact that they have the advantage - as the article seems to indicate (from my quick glance anyway), both parties have enjoyed political outcomes that have been exaggerated by things like the EC and the gerrymander.
What’s disturbing is that it’s beyond clear that the Republicans now, in 2020, as opposed to say Bush’s GOP, intend to go much further in this direction. They have given up on winning political debates - they don’t even try to hide it now. They want power for power’s sake, and because they believe that they are representing a truer, purer form of America’s identity. And because of that, they don’t feel any moral compunction whatsoever to justify rigging the system; they believe are morally justified in doing whatever it takes to preserve ‘their’ America.
“If we didn’t have our current system, California and New York liberals would decide everything!”
Republican legislatures now basically trying to use the law to encourage voter intimidation in the form of ‘poll watchers’
You may also recall that a few weeks ago, a GOP rep from Harris County, Texas (Houston) basically encouraged an ‘army of poll watchers’ (read: goons) to go into Black and Brown communities.
At minimum, the aim seems to be to target specific communities to make voting messy, to create controversies. Then use people in the right places to decide which results are valid.
Meanwhile, in Arizona, where the outright fraudulent ‘audit’ is taking place, the Secretary of State has to hire security detail as a result of death threats.
This is my nightmare scenario. Forget about the modern day literacy tests. This is where the worst case scenario lies. I’ve mentioned a sports analogy before, which I still believe applies. It’s the difference between a baseball team using corked bats, throwing spitballs, or banging on trash cans to steal signals vs. bribing the umpires and bribing the commissioner.
Right. To them America is not at core an “idea” country about democracy and equality and justice; to them the essence of America is a specific national-cultural identity, that it so happens has authored superior politico-economic practices, so that national-cultural identity has to be protected. And the “others” are welcome to live among us and make a living and even get rich and we may adopt some things from them but they must never, under any circumstance, rule or have the chance to rule or aspire to rule over those with the True American Identity nor challenge the superiority of the politico-economic system.
In the meantime, create doubts. Challenge election results with fake partisan audits. They’re not even hiding their contempt for liberal democracy anymore. All they need now is a good crisis to exploit.
I’ve been following some of the Virginia primary race and the Trumpiest GOP candidate for governor was threatening to challenge the results if she didn’t win. BEFORE voting began.
This is now a standard part of the playbook and we’re gonna see this as a matter of routine in '22 and '24.
I thought Virginia’s GOP was going with a convention rather than a primary to select their nominee. If she’s already challenging the convention, she must be way out there.
Yes, that’s more accurate, a convention. There will only be twenty couple thousand votes cast.
It seems that voting is weighted in such a manor that the reddest counties get more votes. I’m not sure of the exact details. But I’m not necessarily opposed to parties developing uniquely strategic primary methods to help their best candidates win general elections.
The Trumpy lady running is indeed out there.
Part of me thinks that this is a good sign. If they’re resorting to picking candidates at a convention instead of holding a primary, that could indicate that they think they don’t have a chance in the general election. On the other hand, it could mean that they aren’t worried about losing the “I didn’t even get the chance to vote for my candidate” type voter, which is a bad sign.
Texas Republican lawmakers say we should assume a person walking down the street, gun holstered to hip, is a law-abiding citizen entitled to carry that gun. No need for a permit. No reason for a cop to stop and ask what that person is up to.
“Citizens need to be trusted,” Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, emphasized Wednesday before the Senate passed House Bill 1927, which would allow Texans to carry a handgun in public without the license, background check and firearm training currently required by state law.
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Amazing how quickly that logic evaporated just 24 hours later, when the rights being debated at the state Capitol belonged to Texas voters.
Indeed, Republican lawmakers say, we cannot assume a person casting a ballot is a law-abiding citizen. We need to see a photo ID. We need to eliminate drive-through voting and restrict mail-in voting. We need documentation from anyone who helps a voter who has a disability or a language barrier. And we need to grant even greater access to partisan poll watchers who stake out polling places to scrutinize the legitimacy of voters and ballot counts.
“We don’t need to wait for bad things to happen in order to try and protect and secure these elections,” Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, said Thursday evening in defense of SB 7, which adds new voting restrictions in a state that is already among the most difficult places to vote in America.
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Of course, we know that looking for logic or consistency in the political acrobatics of two-faced Republican lying, hypocritical shapeshifters is pointless. I guess the inconsistency IS the point-- we can do/say whatever we want in the moment with no reference to the past or precedent, unless it suits us. [Lookin’ at you, Ted Cruz.]