Everyone should read this article in the Atlantic about the ways in which American democracy, with its sclerotic institutions, has fallen behind almost every other democracy in the free world in terms of fair representation and majority rule.
There are a lot of details, but the crucial observation is this:
Everyone should read this article in the Atlantic about the ways in which American democracy, with its sclerotic institutions, has fallen behind almost every other democracy in the free world in terms of fair representation and majority rule.
There are a lot of details, but the crucial observation is this:
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What makes the situation so dangerous is that this privileged partisan minority has abandoned its commitment to democratic rules of the game. In other words, the Constitution is protecting and empowering an authoritarian partisan minority.
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This is the pit from which our democracy seems incapable of extricating itself. How can we fix rules that systematically favor one party over the other, given that the party in power is likely to be the favored one and thus has no incentive to enact reforms that threaten their rule? If both sides have a commitment to maintaining a democratically fair system, and take a long term view of the health of our democracy, this can work.
But, as in our case, when the party currently enjoying the benefits of minority rule has attained power through raw demagoguery, convincing their voters that every election is a battle for the country's very existence, democratic fairness ceases to be a concern. Holding on to power becomes a matter of existential importance, and any compromises made in the name of fairness come to be seen as naively academic.
Our only way out of this is to communicate to the American public – in particular, the younger generations who will one day be in charge, about the importance of reviving the legitimacy of our democracy. Unfortunately, this will involve selling them on how the American right has been the principal author of this conundrum, which will seem like a mixed message when trying to argue for good-faith fairness. But there is simply no getting around the fact that we are where we are due to a decades-long effort by Republicans to institutionalize minority rule through the Supreme Court, and to delegitimize their political opposition as being unworthy to govern.
Everyone should read this article in the Atlantic about the ways in which American democracy, with its sclerotic institutions, has fallen behind almost every other democracy in the free world in terms of fair representation and majority rule.
There are a lot of details, but the crucial observation is this:
------------
What makes the situation so dangerous is that this privileged partisan minority has abandoned its commitment to democratic rules of the game. In other words, the Constitution is protecting and empowering an authoritarian partisan minority.
------------
This is the pit from which our democracy seems incapable of extricating itself. How can we fix rules that systematically favor one party over the other, given that the party in power is likely to be the favored one and thus has no incentive to enact reforms that threaten their rule? If both sides have a commitment to maintaining a democratically fair system, and take a long term view of the health of our democracy, this can work.
But, as in our case, when the party currently enjoying the benefits of minority rule has attained power through raw demagoguery, convincing their voters that every election is a battle for the country's very existence, democratic fairness ceases to be a concern. Holding on to power becomes a matter of existential importance, and any compromises made in the name of fairness come to be seen as naively academic.
Our only way out of this is to communicate to the American public – in particular, the younger generations who will one day be in charge, about the importance of reviving the legitimacy of our democracy. Unfortunately, this will involve selling them on how the American right has been the principal author of this conundrum, which will seem like a mixed message when trying to argue for good-faith fairness. But there is simply no getting around the fact that we are where we are due to a decades-long effort by Republicans to institutionalize minority rule through the Supreme Court, and to delegitimize their political opposition as being unworthy to govern.
Sorry, forgot to post the link:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/american-constitution-norway/675199/