This is more of a rant than anything but here goes
I caught a portion of an interview on NPR yesterday. The subject of the interview wrote an article in The Atlantic called “Trumps Next Coup has Already Begun”. The premise is that Trump and his followers are undermining the whole election process by intimidation of of election workers, Secretaries of State and legislatures in order to throw out the electors of swing states that don’t go for Trump and replacing them with their own. While this sounds completely outrageous, it is perilously close to becoming reality. Especially, if Pubs re-take the House. 2020 was a rehearsal and the weaknesses of the system have been identified and are now being exploited. Meanwhile, Biden and the Democrat party have little to say and the media isn’t paying much attention, either.
I guess my question is, why not? My take is that the Trump base is far more passionate about their beliefs than Democrats, in general. They are also willing to cross legal and moral lines (literally threatening the lives of non-believers and their families, not to mention January 6) where Dems won’t. The apathy of Democrats could very well lead to the end of democracy. Ironic, don’t you think? Cheaters never prosper? Don’t make me laugh.
Indeed, the GOP is and has been actively testing and exploiting the weaknesses in our system. However, they have accurately identified that there is literally no effective institutional enforcement body in place to stop them. I find it disingenuous to put the blame on the Democrats, as it is suspiciously like blaming the victims.
I mostly agree with the OP. I wish there was a bit more energy around this issue. Seems like the Republicans are so desperate to hang onto power they are looking for any ember that can be exploited to that end; even removing voters from the equation. Since they cannot win elections in critical areas fairly with, ya know, stuff like actual platforms and policy (other than ‘Whatever the Demoncrats want, we don’t want that!’) to attract voters, this is what it comes to. I fear just getting people to vote wont be enough any more - I would like to see legislative action that makes voting more consistent nationwide - no building of fiefdoms with differing rules. This really should not be that difficult for the supposed strongest democracy.
It’s already happening here in GA. It’s disgusting. Unfortunately, the Dems are never as united as the Pubs are, and they have terrible marketing and branding.
What’s also happening here in Georgia is David Perdue going vicious on Brian Kemp for the GOP governor primary, assuming that it’s the de facto election and the actual campaign against Stacey Abrams is just afterwork.
A circular firing squad of anti-RHINOism is a gift to the Democratic Party.
Still, come January 6, 2025 I’m afraid that tree of liberty will get a good watering this time.
Dem leaders are indeed doing too little to stop the GOP War on Democracy (as is the MSM, don’t get me started) but this smells a little of victim blaming.
In theory it would be the courts. In practice, I fear that we may get to the point where the courts either end up agreeing with, say, the Republican controlled state legislature in some place like Michigan or Wisconsin ruling that Trump won in 2024 regardless of the vote totals, or else be powerless to oppose them.
That was before 1/6/2021. Now I fear that there probably will be in future elections.
So they’re fighting for second place? Stacey Abrams is one of the few Democratic leaders out there who has succeeded in countering the recent Republican strategy. I think she should be slightly favored to win in 2022, even taking Republican shenanigans into consideration.
There’s all sorts of other examples of Democratic leadership ineptitude. I was thinking of making just this sort of post, and will come up with several other examples and post them later today.
This is victim blaming in the same way that someone tries to break into your house through five or six unlocked doors and windows at the same time. Fortunately, your dog scares them off. They then return and replace your dog with their own right in front of your eyes. You still don’t lock your windows. They return and clean you out. Is it your fault that they took your stuff? Not really, but holy hell! Be a little pragmatic. “I shouldn’t have to lock my windows!” while correct, doesn’t stop burglars.
Exactly. Sometimes the victim deserves some of the blame.
ETA: Here’s one small example.
Schumer was / is being too much of a nice guy by not having done this sooner. Do you suppose that if Trump were POTUS, and McConnell were in charge of a 50/50 senate, that this would even be a thing? No, McConnell would have bullied all those nominees through long ago.
ETA 2: And if McConnell hadn’t, the Republican rank and file senators wouldn’t be asking Mitch nicely to bring those ambassador nominees to the floor for a vote, they would have replaced him already with someone else who would.
I think the main problem is institutionalism, elite privilege, and distributed responsibility.
Democrats are afraid of damaging the institution of Congress if they rock the boat too much, ironically freeing Republicans to rock it until the Democrats fall out.
If democracy fails, no particular Democrat will get blamed, but there will definitely be blame for whoever sticks their necks out and goes hard after Republicans.
Most people in Congress are well-off and will be just fine if democracy fails.
We have two significant parties. One party is trying to win elections and govern. The other is only trying to gain power, with or without winning elections, and making no effort to govern. This party has a huge structural advantage in the Electoral College, and has made big investments over the years in creating the infrastructure to cheat.
This is such an asymmetric war that it’s hard to see how we keep the non-reprehensible party going. And, though I’m not happy about it, I guess I’d rather see us lose what’s left of our democracy with one party remaining non-reprehensible, as opposed to having both parties become reprehensible, which would also be a loss of our democracy. I don’t see a way we remain what we have been – fairly democratic.
Turns out democracy requires a significant share of the people in government to be somewhat decent.
I think the underlying problem is that D voters need to be cajoled to go the polls more than R voters. They need get-out-the-vote drives, carpools, snacks in the voting line, at home voting, etc. R voters seem to show up no matter what. I often think that R’s deserve to be in power because their voters are more engaged in the process. It might be true that the country leans more D, but those voters barely show up when it counts and are apathetic at other times. If the 2020 election wasn’t enough for a total D landslide in the executive and legislative branches, then it’s a good indication that there either aren’t enough actual D supporters or the supporters don’t care enough to actually vote.
The article isn’t paywalled?!
I heard it as well. In fact, the Atlantic is coming out with an entire special issue with more about these concerns.
Staff writer Tim Alberta ’s profile of freshman Republican Peter Meijer, who in the days after January 6 believed that he was part of a mission to rescue the party from itself. Now he laughs at his own naïveté.
An investigation by staff writer Vann R. Newkirk II into the extraordinary Republican efforts to prove that voter fraud is real, systemic, and being committed on a massive scale.
Staff writer Kaitlyn Tiffany on the conspiratorial thinking that has led well-meaning Americans to raise awareness about a child-sex-trafficking epidemic that simply does not exist.
And an essay by David Brooks , who writes that the rich philosophical tradition of conservatism that he fell in love with has been reduced to Fox News and voter suppression.
I think the child trafficking, stolen elections and murderous immigrants is believed by rural Republicans, not by Democrats, and talking about it will change no one’s mind.
I believe the important factor, as mentioned above, is to get Democrats to vote in the mid-terms, and to find some way to prevent state legislatures from changing Electoral College votes.
I think that a significant problem is that a significant percentage of the population:
Isn’t capable of critical thinking;
Doesn’t want to think critical; and, therefore,
Will believe anything they are told by the GOP
There was a CNN special about the events leading up to Jan 6 and from interviews of some participants it was obvious that they’ll simply choose to believe what they are told, regardless of how absurd and toxic.
This wouldn’t matter if only a very small percentage are like that; unfortunately there is now a significant critical mass of these people.
I honestly don’t know how this can effectively be rebutted while following the rules of civility which have been followed until Trump.
Republicans say the changes aim to restore public trust in elections after many problems during the 2020 elections.
Q: And why did the public lose trust in the elections?
A: Because of those many problems.
Q: And where did those “many problems” come from?
A: The Republicans lying along with their tangerine tanned hero about the elections.
And speaking of Georgia and elections, thanks to all the crud the 'pubbies in Georgia have pulled and are pulling, I seriously doubt my vote in next year’s election will be counted, nor will a the votes of a lot of servicemen and women who also are not currently residing in the confines of the state of Georgia.
Getting late for this shlub, so probably reading this wrong, but isn’t that contradicting itself, in that - if there is a Democrat who sticks his or her neck out and go hard after Republicans, then that particular dem will definitely be blamed for democracy’s failure?
I’d rather state it as - democracy failing because the dems didn’t stick out their necks enough at the 'pubs to try to nip this crap in the bud.
I guess tomorrow I’ll try to slog around for some cites to back this, but I thought it was voting that Republican voters are more energized for, while for polling, they can sometimes be too lazy / cagey to provide good faith data, compared to dems.
Nicley put.
For the bolded, what’s the rough number with these crazies - somewhere between 20-, to 25,000,000? Unreachable now, in no way reachable by civililty.
Sure, they will be stood up to - I just pony-hope the process plays out with as little brouhaha as possible.
Yeah, gotta read the Gellman article - saw a good i-view with him and Judy Woodruff couple days ago.
In part we got to that point because of which Democrats are the ones sticking their necks out. Usually it’s those on the far left. AOC, Ilhan Omar, Bernie, and such. If the tactic ends up not working, then the “incivility” can be blamed on them being far left. IMHO moderates are looking at it backwards. If the tactic fails, it’s not because AOC is a bad preacher, it’s because she has a smaller flock. If only the moderates, with their much larger audience, were as willing to go all out against the Republicans, things might be different.
ETA. Since I like analogies. The Republicans have picked their hill to die on. Morally it’s the wrong one, but they have their hill. Same with the far left. With AOC and Ilhan Omar, they may have picked the wrong hill from a tactical standpoint (while morally correct), but at least they have their hill to die on. The moderate Democrats seem to be of the belief that the best strategy is to avoid having a hill to die on. That’s their mistake.
