What the end of democracy looks like - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15242580
"During the more than seven years that I have been warning about the inevitable end of constitutional democracy in the United States, I have almost exclusively focused on the legal mechanics of how this process will play out. Being a law professor, I am inexorably drawn to "on paper" explanations, that is, laying out the procedural mechanisms that Republicans are using to turn the US into a one-party state.

Thus, I have pointed out the various ways in which future presidential elections can be hijacked via strategies that tax lawyers would sardonically describe (in a different context) as "perfectly legal" -- that is, gambits that are apparently within the letter of the law but are still terrible outcomes. The Electoral College exists; the Constitution gives state governments the power to choose electors in utterly non-democratic ways; the Supreme Court has made it clear that Republicans can suppress votes and gerrymander at will; the Court might go even further and endorse the so-called Independent State Legislature theory to cut Democratic governors out of the process; and so on.

Earlier this summer, I pointed out that those mechanisms are ultimately put into operation by people, and we need to understand why so many people have become willing to subvert our republican form of government to maintain power at all costs. These non-mechanical considerations are important in understanding the on-the-ground reality in which all of this will play out. After all, even if Republicans could pull off their autocratic coup bloodlessly (based on the "on paper" possibilities that I have described), they are now encouraging a burn-it-all-down attitude. Will they bother to keep it tidy? Even if they wanted to, could they at this point stop it from becoming utter bloody chaos?

These questions are motivated, of course, by the right-wing freakout regarding the search by federal agents of Donald Trump's house to look for documents that he had illegally taken with him from the White House. (Those documents were apparently not difficult to find upon serving the warrant and searching the grounds.) The response from Trump, Republicans, and the wingnut-overse has been stunning to the point that it actually surprised people (like me) who thought that we had seen the worst.

But even short of the most extreme worst-case scenarios -- an outbreak of terrorist acts against Democrats, bombings of government buildings, and so on -- the terribly fascinating aspect of the Republicans' words this week is that they show the ground-level reality of what a country looks like when one major party simply abandons its commitment to the rule of law. Although I can point out that Republicans have identified the mechanical processes that they will surely use to install themselves in power in perpetuity, a big part of the lived reality is that they have stopped accepting anything like legal restraints on anything that they want to do.

Trump's supporters believe the lies about the 2020 election because they cannot and will not believe that they should ever be disappointed. That attack on the notion of objective reality is now trickling down into every aspect of accountability in government. Once people have accepted such a non-reality, everything else follows. "We didn't lose, because we can't lose," is not the attitude of the citizens of a democratic republic. It is, based on recent evidence, the attitude of nearly the entire Republican Party today."
http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2022/08/what-e ... .html#more

Fascist fools..
#15242582
A Democrat is not a Democracy. a Republic is not a Republican. Grand Old Party, the Hee Haw store... They can change names legally when they snap their fingers. Is this article about the 1930's reichstag fire and the Nazi party defeats democracy and parliament in Berlin, its the Republicans, or what...
#15242587
I got to the 4th paragraph.

Why is it written as though the Republicans are in power? Jesus Christ, get over Trump already! At least he was the one making decisions as President. Biden is quite literally a walking corpse and God knows whose actually running the US right now.

On the brighter side, if Trump gets in at the next election, we all know he has a very good chance of ending this Russia/Ukraine bullshit. So fuck you all, I hope he does win!
#15242592
ness31 wrote:


Why is it written as though the Republicans are in power?

Jesus Christ, get over Trump already! At least he was the one making decisions as President. Biden is quite literally a walking corpse and God knows whose actually running the US right now.

On the brighter side, if Trump gets in at the next election, we all know he has a very good chance of ending this Russia/Ukraine bullshit. So fuck you all, I hope he does win!



They are on the Supreme Court. He's a law prof..

You need news that isn't always lying.

He does love kissing Putin's ass.
#15242612
So this derangement stems from the idea that the Supreme Court is stacked with Republicans?

People used to see that as an actual function of a good democratic system. It’s called tension and it forces both sides to negotiate.
Maybe the Democrats won’t be happy until they’ve entrenched a one party state by importing more potential democrat voters?

See, there’s a trope for every occasion..
#15242613
late wrote:The Electoral College exists; the Constitution gives state governments the power to choose electors in utterly non-democratic ways;

I'm just going to point out that, from the perspective of many Trump supporters, this is the reason why Trump unfairly lost the election. That many state governments had no interest in checking to see whether their state elections that had been carried out were actually fraudulent.

So it seems interesting (and ironic) for someone coming from the Left to complain about this, when from the perspective of some on the Right, this same reason is kind of why Trump lost.

If the electoral college didn't exist, I think the country would have torn itself apart. At least this way, responsibility for running the elections is decentralised. You can't blame one single corrupt government for a disputed election. (Well, there were many Trump supporters who did, but they were in the wrong, probably because they did not really understand how the system works)
#15242621
ness31 wrote:I got to the 4th paragraph.

Why is it written as though the Republicans are in power? Jesus Christ, get over Trump already! At least he was the one making decisions as President. Biden is quite literally a walking corpse and God knows whose actually running the US right now.

On the brighter side, if Trump gets in at the next election, we all know he has a very good chance of ending this Russia/Ukraine bullshit. So fuck you all, I hope he does win!


You must be deep in denial.

The Repuds control most state gov. And it is states that currently control everything about elections. Well, except maybe that they should not discriminate on race and the other things in the 14th Amendment.

Yes, the Constitution does give much power to "Congress" (the USSC would take that to mean with a law signed by the President) to tell the states how to run elections for Federal offices. However, Congress has AFAIK never done that, and can't now because of their inability to end the filibuster to pass a law.

So, yes the Repuds do have the power to do all that he talks about.

Also, an extreme USSC can write laws and saw they aren't. This SC has shown it will overturn all the precedents that get in its way.
.
#15242653
Steve_American wrote:You must be deep in denial.

The Repuds control most state gov. And it is states that currently control everything about elections. Well, except maybe that they should not discriminate on race and the other things in the 14th Amendment.

Yes, the Constitution does give much power to "Congress" (the USSC would take that to mean with a law signed by the President) to tell the states how to run elections for Federal offices. However, Congress has AFAIK never done that, and can't now because of their inability to end the filibuster to pass a law.

So, yes the Repuds do have the power to do all that he talks about.

Also, an extreme USSC can write laws and saw they aren't. This SC has shown it will overturn all the precedents that get in its way.
.


How can the Republicans control most of the states if the Democrats won the last election?

I’m not American, so this isn’t making any sense to me.
#15242682
Puffer Fish wrote:
That many state governments had no interest in checking to see whether their state elections that had been carried out were actually fraudulent.



In the states that wanted Trump to win, there were counts, recounts, often poorly done fake recounts, fake electors, and more.

There was plenty of fraudulent, which is currently working it's way through the courts. Lawyers have been disbarred.

But it was all Republican.

Pull yer head out, son.
#15242689
ness31 wrote:How can the Republicans control most of the states if the Democrats won the last election?

I’m not American, so this isn’t making any sense to me.


Ok, you are not American. Think of it like this. Take the EU and add a new "Federal" Gov. but leave the national Govs. in place. The nations still have a lot of power, but so does the Federal Gov. The US Constitution left elections mostly to be run by the 13 original states. Then the filibuster rule was added that now requires 60 Yes votes to move a bill/law forward in the Senate. So, until the Dems get the votes to change that rule, the Repuds can block all laws except some dealing with the budget with just 41 No votes. So, even though the Dems have control of the Senate they can't pass most of the bills/laws that they want to pass.
.
#15242738
Steve_American wrote:
No, AFAIK Brussels is not a real Gov. because it doesn't tax the people, it taxes the nations.

But, I may be failing to communicate. I've seen reports that the EU has not moved down the road to political integration.
.



Okay, I hear ya -- it's a 'supra-national entity', then, perhaps.

I think it's mostly for *economic policy*, namely the Euro currency, right?
#15242751
Steve_American wrote:Ok, you are not American. Think of it like this. Take the EU and add a new "Federal" Gov. but leave the national Govs. in place. The nations still have a lot of power, but so does the Federal Gov. The US Constitution left elections mostly to be run by the 13 original states. Then the filibuster rule was added that now requires 60 Yes votes to move a bill/law forward in the Senate. So, until the Dems get the votes to change that rule, the Repuds can block all laws except some dealing with the budget with just 41 No votes. So, even though the Dems have control of the Senate they can't pass most of the bills/laws that they want to pass.
.



I understand the levels of government; it operates similarly in Australia except for your electoral college stuff.

So, are you saying that there are more red states across America which allows them to block stuff in congress? Because that still makes no sense to me if the Democrats won the election. I suspect this is going to have something to do with that whole electoral college thing again. It’s like you have the states - but you dont have the numbers. Is that about right? :hmm:
#15242754
ness31 wrote:I understand the levels of government; it operates similarly in Australia except for your electoral college stuff.

So, are you saying that there are more red states across America which allows them to block stuff in congress? Because that still makes no sense to me if the Democrats won the election. I suspect this is going to have something to do with that whole electoral college thing again. It’s like you have the states - but you dont have the numbers. Is that about right? :hmm:


The House of Representatives is based on population (though there is slight sew to less populous states)

The Senate is based on a flat 2 per state.

So a party can control the house of reps with wining votes in states with large populations but not control the senate.

Current the Democrats control the reps and have a bare majority 50 plus vice prez breaking ties in the senate. One flaky democrat does not vote the right way (and there at least one driving a very had bargain for his vote)

Plus the US had this whole thing called the filibuster when means you need 60 of 100 votes in the senate to really gets things done,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuste ... tes_Senate
#15242775
Steve_American wrote:
I've seen reports that the EU has not moved down the road to political integration.



Everything 'Western' has been in flux since the fall of the Roman Empire, so, yeah, you summed it up.

Also:



Black Wednesday (or the 1992 Sterling crisis) occurred on 16 September 1992 when the UK Government was forced to withdraw sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), after a failed attempt to keep its exchange rate above the lower limit required for the ERM participation. At that time, the United Kingdom held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday




The ERM crises

In Britain the Maastricht rebellion drew on the experience of Black Wednesday. On 16 September 1992 the British government had been forced to withdraw the pound sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), after a failed and costly attempt to keep the pound above its mandated exchange rate limit. Sterling's release from the ERM was then followed in the UK by an economic recovery and a significant fall in unemployment.[20] The ERM was the centrepiece of the European Monetary System (EMS), set up on voluntary basis in 1978 to reduce the "barrier" that exchange-rate volatility presented for intra-Community commerce (and for the management of payments under the Common Agricultural Policy).

Britain had signed up to the ERM in 1990 as a token of the government's commitment to control inflation (then running at three times the rate of Germany).[21] From the beginning of 1990, high German interest rates, set by the Bundesbank to counteract inflationary impact of the expenditure on German reunification, caused significant stress across the whole of the ERM. By the time of their own ratifications debates, France and Denmark also found themselves under pressure in foreign exchange markets, their currencies trading close to the bottom of their ERM bands.[22]

The Maastricht criteria

Having "resolved to achieve the strengthening and the convergence and to establish an economic and monetary union including,... a single and stable currency",[23] the Treaty ruled that "Member States shall regard their economic policies as a matter of common concern", and that the obligations assumed should be a matter for "mutual surveillance."[24] Commonly known as the Maastricht criteria,[25][26] these obligations represented the performance thresholds for member states to progress toward the third stage of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the adoption the common currency (designated at the 1995 Madrid European as the Euro).[27]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastrich ... ERM_crises
#15242782
ckaihatsu wrote:Everything 'Western' has been in flux since the fall of the Roman Empire, so, yeah, you summed it up.

Also:

Don't most historians describe the fall of the Roman Empire as quite gradual? 410 was a sack of Rome. In 476, the Germanic barbarian king Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, and the Senate sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Roman Emperor Flavius Zeno.
The last legions were mercenaries of the highest bidders of the Kings of Europe. The barbarian kingdoms then held sway for a couple hundred years over the original pre-Roman inhabitants. No one can really say that the states of Europe today are any different in large extent to their pre-Roman population centers. The end of democracy might be quite welcoming. They really can't get much farther into it. In a democracy, we all have pre-decided all the government actions around us at all times. Actually Queen Victoria and Obama rode in on their Saxo-Cosburg Chariots examining our pre-hawaiian population centers.

The end of democracy is that the Puritan Pilgrims set up a Commonwealth with Scotland and themselves in England, which is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and PC of England, noted start of 'democratic civilization' there we all are, all arguing its *your* heritage to treasure, call it the Westminster Confession. Then we had to move to America with the Catholics rescinding. Now people say our heritage all together everyone at the same time, thanksgiving, its getting sort of weird. Its the endo f democracy. Certainly no *Kings* over there that were allies with killing a King, *My Country Tis of Thee*.

Such a wide majority is structural and Presbyterian rather than Independent and Congregational in England and in immigration and in history, that some sort of silly conversation is going on here. In fact how would a separatist independent congregationalist be remaining in the Church of England attempting to Purify it as a Puritan Pilgrim, one should ask?

There are exactly 2 missionaries in the entire world of the Presbyterians and the communion has been of Scotland and US origin of any importance. Democratic Civilization and Right over Might is the subscription of Constitution and Document and the Spirit of that is the question in the Civil War. Oh no, I bet they can talk about constitutions all day. They're all a big mob. Covenant, Subscription, oath ,are passed out of a dialect of no loyalty to the Word.
Last edited by Mike12 on 13 Aug 2022 16:25, edited 1 time in total.
#15242793
Mike12 wrote:
Don't most historians describe the fall of the Roman Empire as quite gradual? 410 was a sack of Rome. In 476, the Germanic barbarian king Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, and the Senate sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Roman Emperor Flavius Zeno.
The last legions were mercenaries of the highest bidders of the Kings of Europe. The barbarian kingdoms then held sway for a couple hundred years over the original pre-Roman inhabitants. No one can really say that the states of Europe today are any different in large extent to their pre-Roman population centers. The end of democracy might be quite welcoming. They really can't get much farther into it. In a democracy, we all have pre-decided all the government actions around us at all times. Actually Queen Victoria and Obama rode in on their Saxo-Cosburg Chariots examining our pre-hawaiian population centers.



Yeah, I hear ya on the social-relations thing. (*Politically* it could be said that social-organization hasn't progressed at all in Europe (etc.) since the advent of nationalism, but of course *technologically* we've been 'superseded' by industrial mass production, and *still* haven't reorganized socially around that material development.)


[6] Worldview Diagram

Spoiler: show
Image



Also, historically:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy
#15242797
ckaihatsu wrote:Yeah, I hear ya on the social-relations thing. (*Politically* it could be said that social-organization hasn't progressed at all in Europe (etc.) since the advent of nationalism, but of course *technologically* we've been 'superseded' by industrial mass production, and *still* haven't reorganized socially around that material development.)


[6] Worldview Diagram

Spoiler: show
Image



Also, historically:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy

I don't think the 2nd part of my post is about democracy or republics today, which is total nonsense, its now modernist talk. What kind of iron grip did superstition have in the blue-bloods of the Kingly lineage and the nazi goose step of the daily catholic pageant parade of any unknown obscure saint in say 1600... superstition is Religion is a purified Religion.
#15242800
Mike12 wrote:
I don't think the 2nd part of my post is about democracy or republics today, which is total nonsense, its now modernist talk. What kind of iron grip did superstition have in the blue-bloods of the Kingly lineage and the nazi goose step of the daily catholic pageant parade of any unknown obscure saint in say 1600... superstition is Religion is a purified Religion.



The clergy, royalty, and aristocracy of past centuries *benefitted* on a *class basis* from sowing superstitions / religions -- 'groupthink-for-the-masses', basically.
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