The norm of accepting defeat and peacefully relinquishing power is the foundation of modern democracy.
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
Something is very wrong with America.
Donald Dodo’s* BIG LIE about the 2020 election continues to have a dangerous, corrupting, and corrosive influence on our people and on our democratic institutions.
It is absolutely astonishing that a twice-impeached, multiply-indicted, soon to be convicted, illiterate, narcissistic, misogynistic, bully could be the overwhelming front-runner for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
Our political and electoral system is flawed
The Founding Fathers were progressive and even radical for their time, but they birthed a now-outdated political system that allows a partisan minority in the US to thwart the popular will and rule over popular majorities.
John Blake
Captain Chaos* would never have been president the first time if not for the badly flawed and outdated Electoral College. Nationwide, Hillary Clinton received 2,864,974 more votes than he did.
Most modern democracies – from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand – have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
The appalling corruption of some of the lifetime members of our Supreme Court is now well-known, the very structure of the Senate gives more power to fewer people, and the Electoral College keeps putting the loser of the popular vote into office.
Extremist minorities should not have this much power
Designed in a pre-democratic era, the U.S. Constitution allows partisan minorities to routinely thwart majorities, and sometimes even govern them. Institutions that empower partisan minorities can become instruments of minority rule. And they are especially dangerous when they are in the hands of extremist or anti democratic partisan minorities.
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
The minority rule of GW Bush was bad, but it didn’t threaten the Constitution. The extremist, anti-democratic, fascists that now control the Republican Party plan to dismantle our global alliances and our social safety net. They intend to invade our personal and medical privacy. They want to gut our schools and universities, our justice system, and our voting rights.
In many Republican-controlled states, these scary plans are already being implemented. The Florida Republican governor already has his own secret police force!
Reactionary voters are a minority in the United States, just as they are in Europe. This is an important – and often neglected – point. The Trump-led Republican Party, like radical right movements in European countries, has always represented a political minority. But unlike far-right parties in Europe, it was able to win national office
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
Selfish, lazy, careerist politicians are undermining the Constitution
Social diversity, cultural backlash, and extreme right parties are ubiquitous across established western democracies. Why did America, alone among rich established democracies, come to the brink?
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
It is easy to point to the January 6 rioters as threats to democracy, but the enemies of democracy have powerful, insidious, political and economic accomplices. These people pretend to support democratic norms while covertly undermining them for selfish political and financial gain.
Many of the politicians who preside over a democracy’s collapse are just ambitious careerists trying to stay in office or perhaps win a higher one. They do not oppose democracy out of deep-seated principle but are merely indifferent to it. They tolerate or condone antidemocratic extremism because it is the path of least resistance. These politicians often tell themselves they are doing what’s necessary to get ahead. But, ultimately, they become indispensable partners in democracy’s demise.
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
The entire Republican Party has now been corrupted
Currently in the United States the entire Republican Party, from the US Senate, to state legislatures, to local city councils, has become corrupted by this autocratic extremism. For decades now, the Republicans have been pandering to their more extreme voices and punishing the more moderate voices using the epithet “RINO” (Republican In Name Only). The “RINO” label means “You are not extremist enough for us.”
In recent years, they have become even more vicious to those who don’t tow the MAGA line. Liz Cheney was booted from House Republican leadership and then primaried out of office. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential standard bearer, was loudly booed at the Utah State Republican Convention in 2021.
Everyone in the Republican Party who has ever opposed the Angry Creamsicle* in any way – at any time – has been, or will soon be, booted from Republican party leadership and from any level of elected office. The Republican Party is beyond redemption. It is now completely controlled by radical fascists who will end democracy in America if given the opportunity.
Any remaining “moderates” in the party are guilty of appeasement. They have been silent cowards. They have, for decades, consistently given in to the demands of the right-wing radicals and bullies within their party. Those bullies now have complete control of the party, and they have nearly completed their purge of those who are not “loyal” to them.
Voting for ANY Republican in 2024 will further the collapse of American democracy because the candidate will either be an active fascist or a lazy enabler. Our American Constitutional Republic may well be near its end.
* Note: I have grown tired of repeating the name of our loathsome 45th President. I am considering the solution adopted by television host Stephen Colbert, which is to only use nicknames people have given to him. We’ll see if I decide to keep this up in future posts, but I feel it is only fair since he, himself, likes to give people nicknames.
Sources:
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tryanny of the Minority, Crown, September 2023.
John Blake, “A group of political ‘assassins’ is quietly threatening American democracy, a new book says,” CNN, December 8, 2023.
— “Hillary Clinton Officially Wins Popular Vote by Nearly 2.9 Million,” ABC News, December 22, 2016.
Beth Reinhard, “How Gov. Ron DeSantis deploys state police to enforce political agenda,” The Washington Post, May 5, 2023.
Bryan Schott and Tony Semerad, “Mitt Romney booed at raucous Utah GOP convention…,” The Salt Lake Tribune, May 3, 2021.
— “409 Hilarious Nicknames for Donald Trump,” findnicknames.com.
When I was young, I was impressed by the title of a book seen in our home, Profiles in Courage, by John F. Kennedy. Perhaps it was there because of the story of Alexander Doniphan refusing to execute Joseph Smith. I bring it up now because the most outstanding feature of the Republican party is almost universal failure of courage. We see brief moments when some stand up for principle, in the wake of revelations of pussy grabbing, or January 6, followed swift compromise, pilgrimage to Mara Lago to humiliate themselves and kiss and pledge allegiance to the Orange Amalekiah. Other than Romney and Liz Cheney, and a few others the accommodation and compromise is chronic. How did the US go from the Greatest Generation fighting fascism to the current generation blindly submitting to it?
Sadly, the people who wrap themselves in the flag are the very ones ripping apart the Constitution. The Constitution was a great leap forward when it was written but couldn’t/wouldn’t tackle problems known at the time like slavery. Therefore as written, it supports a government that tramples the rights of others in the name of protecting rights. I agree it’s time to reconsider some aspects of the Constitution, like the Electoral College and elections. I also agree that the Republican Party has become a corrupt institution. I wouldn’t vote for a Republican at any level except in a primary. Even then, I’ve learned that the lesser of two evils is still evil.