There is no reason to point partisan fingers in this article and every reason to expand the list to 10 or more.
Let me help.
6. Using impeachment as a parliamentary vote of no confidence. Nancy's impeach without a crime hubris is a broadside against our 3 branch Constitutional order and profoundly anti-democratic. Gingrich's Jacksonian fervor with Clinton began this noxious practice, but at least he had a crime (and DNA evidence), not just shoddy echo chamber news articles.
7. The rise of the Fourth (bureaucratic) and Fifth (single party media) estates. The Mandarins of the Potomac no longer even pretend to be responsive to democracy, are increasingly hyper-partisan, are immune to taxpayer concerns and happy to go full Weimar if the highest bidder comes their way. J. Edgar Mueller's Russia collusion juggernaut is but one minor example.
8. The No ID, no provisionals, no pre-registration, ballot harvesting, chain of custody free schemes in several states are not disingenuous voter access measures, they make fraud effectively unprosecutable. It is naive at best to believe these measures are designed to improve access to voting. Far more effective schemes, such as expanding in-person early voting stations, increase both access and security. States that have implemented Carter Baker 2004 measures are less vulnerable to fraud, but Democrats actively oppose Presidents Carter's measures. Ironically, these same Democrats often employ double and triple address and identity verification methods in their own caucuses, but have no problem with a free-for-all in general elections. Kind of telling.
9. Billions of dollars spent by oligarchs in transparently partisan efforts that are listed as "not for profits" and otherwise exempt from campaign limitations. Participatory democracy has become and afterthought as entities pour funds into lobbyists and promotional schemes that go directly counter to the interests and beliefs of their stakeholders.
10. The FEC is on the case of every individual who pushes the bounds of a few thousand dollar limit or violates complex campaign laws, but turns a blind eye to multi-billion corporations and institutions that engage in transparent partisan cheerleading and in kind contributions with billions.
You forgot to mention the Democratic Party's tactic of rigging their own primary elections so that the choice of the candidate is driven primarily by the party elites rather than the party base. For all the Republicans do to "undermine Democracy", they have not yet to my knowledge expressed in court the notion that they are not obligated to run a fair election. Indeed, one of the contributing factors of Trump getting elected in 2016 is due to the fact they did not undermine the will of their voters even though he was very unpopular among the Republican elite. Bernie Sanders, however, was buried by the Democratic Party in 2016 and 2020. The DNC was even taken to court about it, and they essentially admitted to rigging the election and argued that they are not bound to run a fair election. That is on record, in court. The Democratic Party does not care about democracy in their own primaries.
It is very peculiar, the concern some Democrats have about the Republican Party's efforts to "undermine democracy" when the party they express loyalty to has explicitly stated on public record that democracy doesn't matter to them.
"As a party, it has spearheaded the decline of American democracy."
That, of course is laughable. American democracy didn't just start declining when Republicans started "politicizing election procedures". A), America is not a democracy, it is a Republic. Democracy was undermined when the constitution was first written -- intentionally. B) America had a civil war in which one faction, led by the Democratic Party, fought another faction, led by the Republican Party over whether America should continue slavery, which is certainly not particularly compatible with democracy. Furthermore, after the civil war, the Democratic Party then nursed a terrorist organization, the KKK, with a direct purpose to violently restrict the democratic participation of black people in the political process, and not only because they were more likely to vote Republican, but because they thought white people should properly rule and black people were monkeys.
I'll leave you with a quote from John Adams on democracy:
" Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud Violence and Cruelty. When clear Prospects are opened before Vanity, Pride, Avarice or Ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate Phylosophers and the most conscientious Moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves, Nations and large Bodies of Men, never."
I don't disagree with what Rachman said, but some suggestions for how the Democrats are supposed to fight how the Republicans are undermining democracy without undermining democracy themselves would be helpful.
Gerrymandering is a great scapegoat, but the Great Sort is a bigger driver of the decline in competitive districts. If more Democrats would move out to live amongst the Great Unwashed in flyover country, and Republicans move into cities and learn to coexist with the Urbane Glitterati, the US would be in a much better place.
There is no reason to point partisan fingers in this article and every reason to expand the list to 10 or more.
Let me help.
6. Using impeachment as a parliamentary vote of no confidence. Nancy's impeach without a crime hubris is a broadside against our 3 branch Constitutional order and profoundly anti-democratic. Gingrich's Jacksonian fervor with Clinton began this noxious practice, but at least he had a crime (and DNA evidence), not just shoddy echo chamber news articles.
7. The rise of the Fourth (bureaucratic) and Fifth (single party media) estates. The Mandarins of the Potomac no longer even pretend to be responsive to democracy, are increasingly hyper-partisan, are immune to taxpayer concerns and happy to go full Weimar if the highest bidder comes their way. J. Edgar Mueller's Russia collusion juggernaut is but one minor example.
8. The No ID, no provisionals, no pre-registration, ballot harvesting, chain of custody free schemes in several states are not disingenuous voter access measures, they make fraud effectively unprosecutable. It is naive at best to believe these measures are designed to improve access to voting. Far more effective schemes, such as expanding in-person early voting stations, increase both access and security. States that have implemented Carter Baker 2004 measures are less vulnerable to fraud, but Democrats actively oppose Presidents Carter's measures. Ironically, these same Democrats often employ double and triple address and identity verification methods in their own caucuses, but have no problem with a free-for-all in general elections. Kind of telling.
9. Billions of dollars spent by oligarchs in transparently partisan efforts that are listed as "not for profits" and otherwise exempt from campaign limitations. Participatory democracy has become and afterthought as entities pour funds into lobbyists and promotional schemes that go directly counter to the interests and beliefs of their stakeholders.
10. The FEC is on the case of every individual who pushes the bounds of a few thousand dollar limit or violates complex campaign laws, but turns a blind eye to multi-billion corporations and institutions that engage in transparent partisan cheerleading and in kind contributions with billions.
You forgot to mention the Democratic Party's tactic of rigging their own primary elections so that the choice of the candidate is driven primarily by the party elites rather than the party base. For all the Republicans do to "undermine Democracy", they have not yet to my knowledge expressed in court the notion that they are not obligated to run a fair election. Indeed, one of the contributing factors of Trump getting elected in 2016 is due to the fact they did not undermine the will of their voters even though he was very unpopular among the Republican elite. Bernie Sanders, however, was buried by the Democratic Party in 2016 and 2020. The DNC was even taken to court about it, and they essentially admitted to rigging the election and argued that they are not bound to run a fair election. That is on record, in court. The Democratic Party does not care about democracy in their own primaries.
https://observer.com/2017/05/dnc-lawsuit-presidential-primaries-bernie-sanders-supporters/
It is very peculiar, the concern some Democrats have about the Republican Party's efforts to "undermine democracy" when the party they express loyalty to has explicitly stated on public record that democracy doesn't matter to them.
"As a party, it has spearheaded the decline of American democracy."
That, of course is laughable. American democracy didn't just start declining when Republicans started "politicizing election procedures". A), America is not a democracy, it is a Republic. Democracy was undermined when the constitution was first written -- intentionally. B) America had a civil war in which one faction, led by the Democratic Party, fought another faction, led by the Republican Party over whether America should continue slavery, which is certainly not particularly compatible with democracy. Furthermore, after the civil war, the Democratic Party then nursed a terrorist organization, the KKK, with a direct purpose to violently restrict the democratic participation of black people in the political process, and not only because they were more likely to vote Republican, but because they thought white people should properly rule and black people were monkeys.
I'll leave you with a quote from John Adams on democracy:
" Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud Violence and Cruelty. When clear Prospects are opened before Vanity, Pride, Avarice or Ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate Phylosophers and the most conscientious Moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves, Nations and large Bodies of Men, never."
I don't disagree with what Rachman said, but some suggestions for how the Democrats are supposed to fight how the Republicans are undermining democracy without undermining democracy themselves would be helpful.
Gerrymandering is a great scapegoat, but the Great Sort is a bigger driver of the decline in competitive districts. If more Democrats would move out to live amongst the Great Unwashed in flyover country, and Republicans move into cities and learn to coexist with the Urbane Glitterati, the US would be in a much better place.