The Sky Is Still Not Falling
In Mother Jones, Kevin Drum writes that, contrary to what many progressives are contending now, democracy is alive and well in America...still:
Liberals aren't trying to destroy America. But neither are conservatives, and our toxic partisan swamp just gets worse if liberals join conservatives in believing that the opposition party is ready to literally destroy the nation.Of course, if democracy really is under threat then it's hardly toxic to point this out and fight it. But is it? I understand that mine is an unpopular view these days among progressives, but of course it's not. America has had gerrymandering, the Senate, the Electoral College, and the Supreme Court since the beginning, and liberals rarely worried that they were an existential threat to democracy. Democrats controlled Congress for nearly 50 straight years after World War II and liberals didn't think it was a threat to democracy. The Warren Court upended constitutional law in the '60s and liberals didn't think it was a threat to democracy. The Senate has only barely changed for over a hundred years, and Democrats haven't historically had any special problem controlling it for a fair share of the time. Just recently, Democrats passed Obamacare even though it was unanimously opposed by Republicans and only barely eked out majority support from the public. Liberals didn't consider this a threat to democracy. And in 2015, when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage? No threat to democracy there.
Democracy in practice is never a perfect representation of majority rule. Every democratic country has institutions that get in the way of perfect representation, and this is often considered a good thing: the Senate as a counterweight to the passions of the House, for example, or the Supreme Court as the guarantor of the rights of the minority vs. the will of the majority. Rather, the foundation of democracy is that the people mostly get what they want most of the time. And in America they do, even if, like every country, we're imperfect on this score, especially if you're poor or non-white.
Neither of the two major parties has recently exercised total control over our national agenda, but it's safe to say that over the past 50 years or so, Democrats have mostly won the culture war while Republicans have won the economic war. The reason, like it or not, is that this is basically what the American public wants. Liberals have made their case for gay rights, civil rights, women's rights, and so forth, and Americans have hopped on board. Conservatives have made the case for tax cuts and business friendly policies, and Americans have largely hopped on board with that too.
None of this has been the result of gerrymandering or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the Electoral College except at the margins. It's been almost entirely the result of parties persuading the American public to support their views. Both tax cuts and the ADA were popular. Both the Iraq War and gay marriage were popular. Both immigration restrictions and national health care are, currently, somewhat popular. But only somewhat. That's why we don't yet have either one. To put it simply, democracy is alive and well in the United States, and the institutional exceptions are relatively mild and of long standing. Even the voter suppression tactics of the Republican Party, as odious as they are, have had only a tiny effect on turnout and representation. If you want to see a real breakdown of democracy, try the election of 1876 or decades of Jim Crow protected by the barons of the Senate.
Old school liberal pols like Sam Rayburn or Tip O'Neill would laugh at present day progressives who complain that the system is rigged against them just because we've lost control of the Senate for a few years and now face a potentially hostile Supreme Court. In no uncertain terms they would tell us to stop whining and instead do the hard work of winning more votes in more places. The Senate is what it is and everyone knows it. The rules are simple and well known, so go out and say things that will appeal to enough people in enough places to win 51 senators. We don't need a couple of new states or a packed Supreme Court or any of that. We need to convince the American public that our agenda is the right one, and just running up the vote in California won't do it--and isn't perhaps the most democratic approach anyway.
"Old school liberal pols like Sam Rayburn or Tip O'Neill would laugh at present day progressives who complain that the system is rigged against them just because we've lost control of the Senate for a few years and now face a potentially hostile Supreme Court."
Old school liberal pols would, for the most part, be completely appalled at what today's 'progressivism' has become...the sneering contempt toward a large part of the American people, the hostility toward our history, the drive for suppression of orthodoxy-contradicting speech, the tolerance and even encouragement of riots and looting, the stirring-up of racial divisions and every other kind of imaginable divisions.
David Foster at October 25, 2020 6:13 AM
When Democrats complain about how democracy is being destroyed what they actually mean is they aren't getting their way. When districts are Democrat gerrymandered they don't worry. Only when they are Republican gerrymandered. When Democrats win elections the people have spoken. When Republicans win elections the vote was illegitimate and stolen. Ballot harvesting was great when only Democrats did it. It is the end of the world when Republicans join the party. I could go on and on. This isn't an issue over principals and practices but a complaint about unfavorable to them outcomes.
Which also brings us back to why people aren't persuaded by pretty speeches anymore. Essentially every complaint presented here (by both me and the author) are dishonest. Why would you listen to a lier no matter how pretty their words?
Ben at October 25, 2020 6:48 AM
Yes, but would those "old school liberal pols" recognize their own handiwork in laying the groundwork for today's progressivism? "Tip" O'Neill begat Jim Wright who begat Tom Foley who begat Nancy Pelosi, each more partisan than the last.
We tend to romanticize past figures - witness how many people who, during O'Neill's speakership, insisted O'Neill had besmirched the legacy of Rayburn? Now, we remember "Tip" fondly as a relic of a bygone, more civilized time. We conveniently forget his vicious partisanship; his calling Reagan's election "sinful" and saying that Reagan was the "worst" president of his lifetime.
Conan the Grammarian at October 25, 2020 8:26 AM
I’m not worried about destroying small d *democracy*in the US.
I’m worried about the destruction of the Republic thru Democratic chicanery. This seems to be where we are headed, if the socialists win.
Isab at October 25, 2020 10:18 AM
This is patently untrue. The sky is falling.
I know this because I consume copious amounts of news media.
The only - and I mean ONLY - solution is to vote for Biden.
The newsfaces have been quite clear about this. I don't understand the confusion.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at October 25, 2020 12:35 PM
“I’m worried about the destruction of the Republic thru Democratic chicanery.”
• • • • •
Such “destruction”, of course, would be your particular point of view, not some fact or something that the majority of Americans would agree on.
JD at October 25, 2020 1:00 PM
“The sky is falling.“
• • • • •
The original title of the 2012 Bond film, it was jettisoned in favor of something more concise.
JD at October 25, 2020 1:21 PM
Such “destruction”, of course, would be your particular point of view, not some fact or something that the majority of Americans would agree on.
JD at October 25, 2020 1:00 PM
I think the people who know the difference between a Republic, and a democracy and the historical reasons we have one, and not the other would probably agree with me.
But agreed, this is no means even a plurality of the American voting public.
We have had a good run, wasn’t going to last forever. Might last long enough for me to live my last years in comfort and peace, rather than starving in an unheated hovel or internment camp somewhere. But who knows?
Isab at October 25, 2020 1:22 PM
If you were describe your ideal American society, I wonder how many Americans would agree with your point of view, or even agree with the majority of it?
JD at October 25, 2020 1:39 PM
“...rather than starving in an unheated hovel or internment camp somewhere. But who knows?“
• • • • •
QAnon believers know. Liberal elites who gleefully sexually abuse children would likely have little hesitation about throwing conservatives, libertarians and centrist liberals into internment camps. I’m sure Q has intel about the camps already under construction — funded, of course, by Soros — as well as the plans drawn up by Kamala and AOC.
JD at October 25, 2020 1:50 PM
If you were describe your ideal American society, I wonder how many Americans would agree with your point of view, or even agree with the majority of it?
JD at October 25, 2020 1:39 PM
In la la land, where the majority of socialists operate, very darn view. I’m a realist. An ideal society, American or otherwise, is not an achievable goal. All you can hope for is a rule of law, that usually allows for enough security so that most people get to keep enough of the fruits of their labor so as not to destroy the productive classes.
I don’t think you know how rare that kind of system is, in all of Human history.
Most of those governments and societies have failed via death by a thousand little cuts, and will continue to fail to be replaced by totalitarianism which is the universal historical norm.
Isab at October 25, 2020 1:55 PM
"An ideal society, American or otherwise, is not an achievable goal."
Well, it's not achievable because everyone has their own idea of what's "ideal."
I was just wondering, as I said previously, if you were to describe your ideal American society, how many Americans would agree with your point of view, or even agree with the majority of it?
JD at October 25, 2020 3:01 PM
was just wondering, as I said previously, if you were to describe your ideal American society, how many Americans would agree with your point of view, or even agree with the majority of it?
JD at October 25, 2020 3:01 PM
I don’t have a point of view on the *ideal American society* whatever that boneheaded platitude might entail.
I don’t think enough people have either a historical understanding of how we got to where we are, both technologically, economically, and in our system of government,( or even a basic understanding of cause and effect, and that old devil “unintended consequences”) to even ask for their opinion. It is meaningless. Like asking a four year old to describe the fatal flaws of the Roman republic.
For example You can get to almost zero official crime stats In a country, but the consequences to liberty are appalling.
Do I care if a bunch of uninformed people agree with me, on any subject you might chose? In a nutshell, no.
Isab at October 25, 2020 4:29 PM
“Do I care if a bunch of uninformed people agree with me, on any subject you might chose? In a nutshell, no.“
• • • • •
I’ve seen enough of your way of thinking here to know that you basically consider anyone who disagrees with you to be “uniformed.” It’s the conceit — certainly not exclusive to you — that if a person was only smart enough or “informed” enough, they would see things the way you do.
JD at October 25, 2020 5:59 PM
Never thought I'd see the day when Jews were openly assaulted by Democrats in New York City for daring to vote.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at October 25, 2020 7:24 PM
I’ve seen enough of your way of thinking here to know that you basically consider anyone who disagrees with you to be “uniformed.” It’s the conceit — certainly not exclusive to you — that if a person was only smart enough or “informed” enough, they would see things the way you do.
JD at October 25, 2020 5:59 PM
I think on any subject you have to have a body of knowledge or at least some simple premise to start with and something like “the ideal American society” is a Miss Universe type of question. Open ended and unanswerable.
It is just so trite, I don’t find it worth of discussion, and wouldn’t once I was out of Junior high.
Always my argument with you JD. You have all these nasty aspersions about anyone who disagrees with you, and then you make statements and vapid arguments that I would have found unpersuasive when I was 13.
Envisioning an *ideal American society* and then figuring out what kind of oppressive government mandates you would need to employ to make everyone fall in line with your vision is Stalinist game I chose not to play.
I’m not willing to brow beat anyone into agreeing with me about anything. If it bothers you that I think you are an idiot, great. The fact that you think I am conceited doesn’t bother me at all. You are correct. I think most Americans are ill educated, and at least half the ones who aren’t, are additionally, dumber than dirt.
Isab at October 25, 2020 7:55 PM
The "progressive" left is interested preserving democracy? Hahahahahahah!
Jay R at October 25, 2020 9:05 PM
> Now, we remember "Tip" fondly as
> a relic of a bygone, more civilized
> time. We conveniently forget his
> vicious partisanship
Dood, send a USPS addy to cridcomment @ google mail.
Crid at October 25, 2020 9:17 PM
Done.
Conan the Grammarian at October 26, 2020 7:29 AM
Isab Says:
"I think the people who know the difference between a Republic, and a democracy and the historical reasons we have one, and not the other would probably agree with me."
The distinction you are trying to draw is just fairly recent hyper conservative claptrap.
The United States is both a republic and a democracy.
A republic is just a particular form or representative democracy.
When certain conservative think tanks talk about this distinction they talk about the United States being a republic as opposed to a "pure democracy" or a "direct democracy".
Then when the conservative rabble regurgitate their talking points they conveniently forget to include the "pure" and "direct" modifiers.
The United States is indeed a democracy... it is a representative democracy. It is also a republic.
Let's be very clear about what a republic means... it just means that the government is not considered to be the private property of the people in power. At the time of the United States formation it was meant to distinguish the new form of government from that of a Monarchy that the colonists were used to dealing with.
The fact is that the terms republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive as some folks would like other to believe in order to try and sound clever.
No one believes the United States is a direct democracy. We are however a representative democracy.
Artemis at October 26, 2020 11:48 AM
> The distinction you are trying
> to draw is just fairly recent
> hyper conservative claptrap.
You're being extremely judgmental, darling.
Crid at October 26, 2020 8:22 PM
Crid,
I'm not being the least bit judgmental. This is a publication from the heritage foundation from just the last few months:
https://www.heritage.org/american-founders/report/america-republic-not-democracy
"America is a republic and not a pure democracy."
Then we have the recent declaration from republican Senator Mike Lee that "‘We’re not a democracy,":
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/us/elections/mike-lee-democracy.html
All of this is just hyper-conservative nonsense trying to set the stage for when they are no longer the legislative majority for why the elected majority doesn't have the right to govern.
It's just political positioning for partisan reasons.
None of this is based in reason or logic. It is juvenile political posturing.
Just like we will suddenly see conservatives whining and moaning about the debt and deficits in a few months despite having largely ignored such things for the last 4 years.
The playbook is old, not particularly clever, and everyone knows what is going on at this point.
Artemis at October 27, 2020 4:08 AM
No, you're being churlish and preemptively condemnatory, and it's a drag on Amy's freewheeling discussion 'salon.'
Until you grow out of the 'woke' mentality, you're going to be a burden to the adults who come here to express what they feel, who've been coming here for more than a decade.
Don't fuck this up.
Crid at October 27, 2020 12:25 PM
Crid,
You just like to toss out pejoratives that fit whatever nonsense classification you would like to apply to someone so you can dismiss what they say without further consideration.
This is a logically flawed way of dealing with the world... but it is nevertheless a common way of dealing with the world. It is the manner in which unthinking drones navigate the globe without even the slightest glimmer that their vision is myopic and limited.
I've never been part of any "woke mentality"... that is just your newest drivel to ignore facts and realities that make you uncomfortable.
I've been contributing to this blog for over 15 years at this point and yet you seem to believe that you get to pick and choose who is allowed to speak.
Get over yourself already... you are an unimpressive nobody with a gigantic ego and a chip on your shoulder.
I note that you had no issue with Isab telling the following to JD:
"It is just so trite, I don’t find it worth of discussion, and wouldn’t once I was out of Junior high.
Always my argument with you JD."
And yet the entire discussion was predicated upon Isab's fundamental misunderstanding of how our government works and was formed.
This isn't merely my opinion by the way. This is the position of pretty much anyone who knows what they are talking about as demonstrated by this essay put forth by the Mises Institute:
https://mises.org/wire/stop-saying-were-republic-not-democracy
This nonsense has already been soundly debunked over and over again... and yet it continues to circulate in the most ignorant depths of the conservative echo chamber.
Here is a nice quote:
"In fact, every single regime on earth today that calls itself "a democracy" clearly qualifies as a republic according to Madison's definition. All the countries that are described as democracies in contemporary discourse use representative schemes of government, and all have a system which at least in part "derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people." They also all elect representatives instead of employing direct lawmaking."
In other words, the argument Isab was making for why she is so "informed" and everyone else is "uninformed" is in and of itself a demonstration of how uninformed Isab happens to be.
This is the fundamental problem with a few of the people who chat here... they confidently assert things they know nothing about and then use that ignorance as a club to beat others over the head.
I'm not the least bit interested in what you or Isab "feels"... your "feelings" are unimportant to me. I am concerned with the facts and what you can demonstrate with information and sound logic and reasoning.
Artemis at October 27, 2020 3:13 PM
‘In other words, the argument Isab was making for why she is so "informed" and everyone else is "uninformed" is in and of itself a demonstration of how uninformed Isab happens to be.‘
• • • • •
Isab reminds me of a former girlfriend. Whenever I’d disagree with her about something, she’d exclaim, “You’re just not listening to me!” For her, there simply was no reasonable opposing point of view. Any view that differed from hers was due to an inability or unwillingness to listen.
Isab possesses the same conceit. If people were only “informed” enough or smart enough, they would see things the way she does.
While she is afflicted with this, as I noted above, this is certainly not exclusive to her. There are at least two other people on this forum who are the same way and you could go to any Internet forum and likely find similar people.
JD at October 28, 2020 6:35 AM
Aw, crap. Here's Arty as usual, taking objection to how someone describes a situation and then spending hours explaining how it's not.
Yak, yak, yak. Learn to write like Andrew M Garland. FFS, you tried to pull seniority on someone else's blog on Crid?
You're nuts. I am not alone in wondering what it is you do. Isab's Camp Perry appearances at least mean she gets out of the house on occasion. In the last 15 years of which you boast, you have cleaned gum off the underside of a desk perhaps twice with insightful comment. Most of the rest of your... words... have had a lesser effect.
Radwaste at October 28, 2020 7:16 AM
JD,
You are correct that there is nothing unique about any of these folks. I like to refer to people like this as "know nothing know-it-alls".
It was still March when Isab was confidently asserting that the coronavirus pandemic would be gone by the time the weather got warm.
I explained to her that this was unlikely to be the case and cited a research article supporting my contention... she thought she knew better then too.
We are over 200k deaths later and into the following winter with cases rising and she hasn't learned that maybe, just maybe she ought to listen more when she is operating outside of her sphere of expertise.
She also claimed multiple times that Trump would win in a landslide... we'll see how things go in a few days... but Trump winning by a landslide seems like an extraordinarily unlikely outcome.
These folks think they know everything about things they are completely ignorant of. It's just Dunning–Kruger on steroids.
Artemis at October 28, 2020 5:41 PM
Radwaste,
When someone says something that is demonstrably false I feel very comfortable correcting the record. This shouldn't offend you unless you have a very thin skin.
As for "pulling seniority"... this is just an internet blog... this isn't some hierarchical organization.
To be honest I think you are just irritated from the time I corrected you on your misunderstanding of thermodynamics.
As for what I do... I've told you and others several dozen times before and yet not one of you seems capable of retaining that information for more than 24 hours. I'm a scientist Radwaste.
You do have a general idea what a scientist does for a living, right?
Artemis at October 28, 2020 5:46 PM
It was still March when Isab was confidently asserting that the coronavirus pandemic would be gone by the time the weather got warm.
Artemis, Isab the Omniscient was right: it did go away. Everything you've heard about alleged viral infections and alleged deaths due to the virus is just typical fake news put out by the mainstream media in an effort to smear unser lieber Führer.
JD at October 28, 2020 11:18 PM
just maybe she ought to listen more when she is operating outside of her sphere of expertise.
But how can she operate outside of her sphere of expertise when her "sphere" is the universe?
JD at October 28, 2020 11:22 PM
I am not alone in wondering what it is you do. Isab's Camp Perry appearances at least mean she gets out of the house on occasion.
Radwaste, I wonder what it is that you do. Not just to earn money, but everything. Can you please post all of the things you do in a typical month so that we can review it? It's especially important that you list all of the things you do outside of your house (or apartment/condo) and it would be most helpful if you could provide substantiating documentation for the outside activities so we know that you're not just sitting in your pajamas (or au naturel) furiously pounding away on your electronic device making stuff up.
JD at October 28, 2020 11:39 PM
C'mon, Orion, you're not even a Venkmam-level investigator of the world… You're just a woke lab assistant, washing out test tubes for new product development department of a deodorant manufacturer.
In CHINA!!!
Crid at October 29, 2020 3:29 PM
Crid,
I want you to really try and imagine for one moment how very ignorant someone like you looks to someone like me.
I've authored and co-authored numerous peer reviewed publications on topics you haven't even the slightest understanding of... and yet you have personally determined on the basis of an internet blog that all I have managed to do is wash test tubes.
I hate to break it to you Crid, and I will put this as delicately as I can... you are not qualified to come to the conclusions you have because you lack the background expertise to know the real deal from a fake.
I honestly do not mean it as an insult when I tell you that you are not qualified to be admitted to graduate courses I am qualified to teach. That is just reality... a reality you simply are not willing to accept because you are a grandiose narcissist and there is nothing people like you despise more than someone who corrects you when you are mistaken.
Artemis at October 29, 2020 10:28 PM
JD,
I wanted to let you know that I appreciate your thoughtful commentary.
I see you are trying to engage with folks and asking probing questions in an attempt to understand what thought process brought about a particular statement or conclusion.
As you have no doubt observed... even questioning some of these folks with regard to how they arrived at any particular statement is responded to in an unnecessarily aggressive fashion.
The reason for this is simple... there is no rational thought process for them to expand upon. As a result all they are left with is aggression to distract from the fact that there is no evidence or logic underlying their statements. It is just unsupported assertions that if you dare to challenge or question puts you in their target.
This blog didn't used to be so insular or extreme.
Artemis at October 29, 2020 10:42 PM
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