2022 Archives

We now have two years to prepare for what may be American democracy’s final act. Three major trends are driving American politics right now and will continue to for at least a decade. If Democrats fail to understand and respond in a meaningful way to each, expect a Republican White House, House, and Senate in 2024. And, with it, the probable end of democracy in the United States. These three political megatrends are: * Generational “social” changes in America and the Republican Party’s exploitation/demonization of them. * The entrance of rightwing billionaires into America’s political scene with the blessing of 5 corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court. * The Republican Party’s rejection of democracy.

The Best of the Rest of the News. Axios is reporting from three sources within Trumpworld that Der Führer plans to announce his 2024 run for the presidency on November 14th. — Trump's hands are dripping with American and Ukrainian blood. — Geeky Science! If we’re going to stop changing our clocks twice a year, scientists are saying permanent Standard Time would be healthier than Daylight Savings Time: they agree with me! — GOPers have a weird definition of “saving” social security. — Did the coup chain go from John Eastman to Ginni Thomas to Clarence Thomas? — Is Ken Paxon’s office a harbinger of what’s to come for elections in other states controlled by Republicans? — The election bad news is how many open fascists are running, using fear and hate as their campaign messages. The good news is that young people — who skew Democratic — are turning up to vote in record numbers and early voting numbers are also skewing Democratic.

This election may well seal or determine the fate and future of democracy in the United States and, by extension, most of the rest of the world. “American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election,” President Biden told the nation last night. “He refuses to accept the will of the people, he refuses to accept the fact that he lost.” I wrote about this six months ago, and it’s time to talk again about what an American fascist government would look like. Because over the next two weeks we may or may not, depending on how these elections turn out, very rapidly slide into a state-by-state form of fascism much like the old Confederacy. Like the old Confederacy, it will feature political violence and threats of violence, rigged elections, and single-party rule combined with a corrupt oligarchy that finances the politicians.

No democracy in the world can work if its citizens don’t believe their votes are legitimately counted: This lie that started in 1964 is now a harpoon pointed at the heart of our democracy. Following Donald Trump’s corrupt script, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is encouraging his followers to shut that country down because he is, so far, refusing to acknowledge that he lost the election. This is a crisis for democracy. Nations have to figure out how they are to be governed. Most of recorded history tells the story of kings, popes, priests, lords, and barons who ruled through violence and imposed themselves on their people rather than the people selecting them. Ultimately, as we all learned in high school civics, you can have a government chosen democratically with a free and fair vote or you can have a government chosen through brute force and violence. There really aren’t any other choices. That was the great American experiment. Replacing a violent hereditary warlord king with a president and congress elected by the people. Democracy.