Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

"Republicans are fighting against Democracy---and the future."

Paul Waldman


"Texans like to brag that things are bigger in their state. It seems that goes for attacks on free and fair elections. In a year in which Republican state legislatures across the country are working to make voting more difficult, Texas moved ahead of other states with what may be the most draconian voter-suppression bill we’ve seen so far.
But on Sunday night, as the midnight end of the legislative session approached, Democratic lawmakers staged a walkout that deprived the body of a quorum and killed the bill. It was a moral victory — but only a temporary one because the governor will now likely call a special session at which the bill can be passed.
Texas Republicans will not be denied. In all but declaring war on democracy, they and their colleagues in other states are mounting a rearguard action against an evolving electorate, freezing GOP power in place so voters in two or four or 10 years won’t be able to translate their own preferences into action.

That would be bad enough on its own. But their chosen method not only makes voting more difficult for certain Americans but also sets the conditions for electoral chaos. These Republicans want local election officials to be vilified, harassed, intimidated and even targeted for prosecution, a process that could end with elections being simply thrown out if Republicans don’t win. If you thought the 2020 election was a mess, just wait until you see what they have in store.

The suppression measures aimed at voters themselves — limiting early-voting hours, forbidding the use of dropboxes, making it harder for people to give other people rides to the polls — have gotten much of the attention. But as in other states, the Texas bill would go after local officials, not only by forbidding them from deciding how to run their own elections without the permission of the legislature but also by creating personal criminal and civil liability for them if they failed to comply with any of the new rules.
And as has happened in close to 20 other states, the Texas bill would expand the rights of partisan poll watchers to inject themselves into the process of both voting and counting votes. It’s a recipe for chaos — which is exactly the point.

Partisan poll watchers already have the right to observe certain parts of the voting process, but rules usually require them to do so without creating a disruption. But given how Republicans now encourage their supporters to believe that fraud and conspiracy are the default in every election, what do you think will happen when they unleash their army of poll watchers who will have the right to go almost everywhere they want, not only at polling places but also in the more secure locations where the counting of votes takes place?

You only have to look at the lunacy in Arizona, where a Republican “audit” of Maricopa County involves holding ballots under ultraviolet lights and searching them for traces of bamboo (because, I kid you not, that might reveal a conspiracy involving the Chinese) to see where this could lead. Election officials trying to do their jobs will be constantly harassed by mobs of unhinged QAnon followers and other extremists bent on “proving” that nefarious goings-on are afoot.
In the Arizona case, it’s happening long after the election ended. But what if that’s what we see in state after state while the votes are still being counted?

The wild allegations of those poll watchers will then be used by Republican legislators, and maybe even the right Republican judge, to declare that untold numbers of votes were “illegal” and therefore an election is void. Any election in which a Democrat wins will be met with a furious effort to undo it so that Republicans can retain power.
If that sounds unlikely, consider this provision of the Texas bill — which, to repeat, may be on hold for now but is almost certain to be enacted in some form soon:
If the number of votes illegally cast in the election is equal to or greater than the number of votes necessary to change the outcome of an election, the court may declare the election void without attempting to determine how individual voters voted.

The bill doesn’t define what it means for a vote to be “illegally cast,” but we saw how Donald Trump routinely claimed that millions of votes were “illegal” if he suspected they were cast for his opponents. It isn’t at all far-fetched to imagine a Republican judge deciding, based on allegations from Republican poll watchers, that a close election for president or any other office contained too many “illegal” votes and is therefore void.
Now let’s pull back to look at the big picture. Though it’s happening in Republican-run states all over the country, it’s no accident that Texas, Georgia and Arizona are at the center of these efforts to undermine democracy. What do they have in common? They’re all states run by Republicans that are trending Democratic — unless those who are currently in charge change the rules so the voters don’t much matter any more.
These states have been moving in an unmistakable direction. In 2012, Barack Obama lost all three badly despite cruising to reelection: He lost Texas by 16 points, Georgia by eight points and Arizona by 10. Then in 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in all three, but by smaller margins: Nine points in Texas, five points in Georgia and 3.5 points in Arizona. Then in 2020, Trump won Texas again, but by only 5.6 points. He narrowly lost both Georgia and Arizona. Not only that, both Georgia and Arizona had two Senate races in 2020 because of early retirements — and Democrats won all four.

The Republican legislators and governors in these states know very well what kind of threat the future poses for them. A combination of factors — immigration from outside the United States, migration of more liberal voters from within the country, the replacement of more conservative older voters with more liberal younger voters — is pushing all their electorates to the left.

But for now, they still hold the legislatures and governor’s mansions. So they’re going to use the power they have today to try to make it impossible for the voters to take their power away tomorrow.
This is a battle over which party gets to rule. But more importantly, it’s about whether we have a democracy at all, whether all citizens are allowed to vote and the system respects their decisions. That hasn’t always been true in the past. And if some people get their way, it won’t be true in the future.

Kraken Loc: Barry's Bay

God help America.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

The bedrock of the country—the legitimate election process, is being destroyed in plain view by Republicans who are intent on suppressing access and ability to vote.
It is all about control by the party—democracy be dismissed.

donrent Loc: Punta Gorda , Fl

The word Democrate may have been taken from the word Democracy, but the meanings are NOT anywhere near the same....................................

wilpharm Loc: Oklahoma

here we go again.......

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

Did you know if you rearrange the letters in republican, you get: Pricy Nut Rape Lab.
Now you do.

Triplets Loc: Reading, MA

Not quite.
Pricy Nut Rape Lap = 15 Letters
Republican = 10 Letters

And there's no "Y" in republican, so....

Rose42

Those who think its just republicans don't question that of all the possible people democrats had we end up with an idiot in the WH. Either the voters really are that ignorant or there are other things at work by those who want control.

Rant and rave all you want about republicans, we're getting hit from democrats too. Their subversion is there just in different form.

DukeTarHeel Loc: NC's "Research Triangle"

There are no angels in politics, it's just a matter of how many devils you support.

Your last sentence was a bit vague. Would you care to provide some examples - I know you will have fair points to make; such a blanket statement should have some detail behind it.

Rose42

The republican attack on voting is easy to spot. The democrats have a different approach. They try and control the narrative which is easier for them since the media people trust most leans left. The buildup of what happened on Jan 6th while downplaying the riots of last year. Political correctness has gotten out of control. They share the tendency to presume guilt with republicans.

There are more but thats what I was getting at. Its not just voting we have to worry about. There is so much more happening that the media largely doesn’t give much attention to. Why is the question.

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

Why would anyone copy and paste anything from Liberal Progressive op-ed writer and expect all to believe the words, he is in fact just playing to his audience and collecting a paycheck.

Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is a liberal / progressive American op-ed columnist and senior writer for The American Prospect, as well as a contributor to The Week and a blogger for the Washington Post's Plum Line blog.

lenben Loc: Seattle

One hundred scholars submit a dire warning about the future of American democracy

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Tuesday June 01, 2021 · 5:21 PM PDT
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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 28: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) talks with reporters after stepping off the Senate Floor at the U.S. Capitol on May 28, 2021 in Washington, DC. The Senate decided to postpone debate on the act after a small group of Republicans filibustered the bill overnight. The Senate also failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to end debate on the legislation that would approve the formation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate the attack lead by Trump supporters on the Capitol to attempt to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia
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I wanted to write about this simply because I didn’t want it to be overlooked. You can make of it what you will. I know what I make of it, and it’s disturbing. As reported by Summer Concepcion, forTalkingPointsMemo:

More than 100 democracy scholars called on Congress to pass national level voting rights legislation as an increasing number of GOP-led state legislatures work to implement restrictive laws at the state level in a statement issued Tuesday.

“Collectively, these initiatives are transforming several states into political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections,” the group wrote in the statement issued through the website “New America” on Tuesday. “Hence, our entire democracy is now at risk.”

The group warned against the consequences of a democracy under threat, which, they said, includes the potential proliferation of violence.

I first saw this in Greg Sargent’s column in the Washington Post. Unlike Concepcion, Sargent frames it strictly in context of the failure of Senate Democrats to pass federal legislation necessary to negate the Republicans’ efforts to suppress the vote in several GOP-dominated states, specifically the electoral reform legislation known as SB1. Of course, the obstacle to the passage of such legislation can be summarized in two words: Joe Manchin. Yes, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema also opposes doing away with the filibuster, but her career in the Senate is far more volatile than Manchin’s, and she can and will (likely) be primaried out of a political future if she doesn’t change her position, so she does not present quite the same existential obstacle as Manchin, who cannot be effectively threatened by a primary challenge from the left in a red state such as West Virginia.

Sargent obtained a copy of the statement before its release. It is signed by 100 of the nation’s top academics in the fields of political science, sociology, and international studies. One of the more notable signatories is the neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama, whose book, The End of History and the Last Man, dubiously hypothesized that liberal democracies (interpreted as “free-market societies”) were destined to be the final form of human government. Other less well-known signatories who, as Sargent points out, “specialize in democratic breakdown” include Pippa Norris, Daniel Ziblatt, and Steven Levitsky (How Democracies Die). Overall the pedigree and qualifications of those signing the document, prepared and released for the New America foundation, is quite impressive and reputable.

Sargent quotes Lee Drutman, one of the organizers of the statement:

“We wanted to create a strong statement from a wide range of scholars, including many who have studied democratic backsliding, to make it clear that democracy in America is genuinely under threat,” Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America and a leading organizer of the letter, told me.

“The playbook that the Republican Party is executing at the state and national levels is very much consistent with actions taken by illiberal, anti-democratic, anti-pluralist parties in other democracies that have slipped away from free and fair elections,” Drutman continued.

From the group’s statement:

When democracy breaks down, it typically takes many years, often decades, to reverse the downward spiral. In the process, violence and corruption typically flourish, and talent and wealth flee to more stable countries, undermining national prosperity. It is not just our venerated institutions and norms that are at risk—it is our future national standing, strength, and ability to compete globally. [...]

Democracy rests on certain elemental institutional and normative conditions. Elections must be neutrally and fairly administered. They must be free of manipulation. Every citizen who is qualified must have an equal right to vote, unhindered by obstruction. And when they lose elections, political parties and their candidates and supporters must be willing to accept defeat and acknowledge the legitimacy of the outcome. The refusal of prominent Republicans to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, and the anti-democratic laws adopted (or approaching adoption) in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Montana and Texas—and under serious consideration in other Republican-controlled states—violate these principles. More profoundly, these actions call into question whether the United States will remain a democracy.

The key point made in this statement is the failure by Republicans to abide by the central tenet of any democracy, which is the respect for the outcome of elections. Once that principle is discarded—for whatever reason—democracy simply cannot survive. That is what we are facing now.

Of course, the views of a hundred (or even a thousand) academics will not make one whit of difference to a party that has already shown itself willing to dispense with science (political or otherwise) in its overwhelming imperative to retain power. The clearest indication of this propensity by the Republican Party revealed itself quite clearly in 2020 as Republican elected officials overwhelmingly, throughout most of the country, showed themselves willing to sacrifice their populations in furtherance of Donald Trump’s malevolent edicts about the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic. A party that willingly sacrifices the health and lives of its own constituents could scarcely be expected to care much about more abstract concepts like “democracy.”

The rejection and repudiation of the educated elite, the intelligentsia, so to speak, is part and parcel of all fascist movements, and there is no reason to suspect this one, by the modern Republican Party, will be any different. So this statement will certainly have no immediate impact; it will simply serve as another familiar marker for future generations when the time comes to hold accountable those who worked to sabotage the United States of America during this period.

Sargent, returning to the question of repudiating the filibuster, essentially lays out the stakes that people like Manchin have forced upon the Democratic Party:

An acceptance that protecting democracy will never, ever, ever be bipartisan, and will happen only on a partisan basis, is fundamental to accepting the reality of the situation that Democrats face.

A party to a democracy that relinquishes the tools in its power to preserve that democracy, for the sake of some obsolete notion of bipartisanship when none actually exists, will be equally condemned by history as those who brought it down. Unless all Democrats—including Joe Manchin—accept that fact, this democracy simply cannot be expected to endure

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

Good article. Trump’s Big Lie and the current Republican voter suppression initiatives will sooner than expected, destroy the bedrock of democracy—a belief in a fair and honest electoral process.
It is that serious.

CWGordon

lenben:
Thank you for your post re: Republican efforts to end Democracy and the horror that Joe Manchin is in helping the Republicans do it.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

The so-called suppression measures you mention are designed to suppress Illegal voting which strips the franchise away from all of us. It is meant to sanctify the vote of legal voters and only disenfranchises the crooks.

Limiting early-voting hours is not enshrined in any law I can think of. Forbidding the use of dropboxes, a new illegal invention of the Left will help prevent one of the instances for an overwhelming opportunity for fraud to take place.

Making it harder for people to give other people rides to the polls falls under Ballot Harvesting and Vote Buying and you know that. This is clearly illegal in many states and it should be illegal in all.

And as in other states, local officials should be forbidden from deciding how to run their own elections without the permission of the legislature because that is what the Constitution mandates. The Legislature has the sole duty for election law.