The author proposes establishing objective criteria by which to judge which party is more blameworthy for undermining Democracy. While I have no disagreement with the criteria cited, nor with the transgressions noted for each party, she reveals her bias by omitting one the most significant factors undermining popular sovereignty, namely, the proliferation of administrative authorities exercising coercive control over the lives of Americans.
When administrative agents of the executive branch can simultaneously exercise legislative rule setting, prosecutorial, and judicial powers all without accountability to the electorate and outside the established institutions of appeal, one has the very definition of tyranny.
Which party is most favorable to this state of affairs?
Prosecutorial powers are the purview of the executive, and the only "legislative rule setting" done by the executive is that which has been delegated by Congress. The fact that Republicans favor using these delegated powers less doesn't negate the fact that they are legitimately delegated powers, and consequently does not render Democrats "tyrannical".
As for the exercise of judicial power, I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. The Republicans have done at least as much as Democrats to ensure the filling of the federal bench with ideologically friendly judges. And certainly Trump believed he could avoid oversight from Congress by resisting subpoenas and issuing appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, where he assumed (stupidly) that the justices he nominated would be beholden to him and protect his interests. At the very least, the strategy allowed him to run out the clock, all while his party looked the other way and did nothing to stop him.
Administrative law = binding acts or constraining edits that DO NOT come through a legislated act by congress. The constitution authorized only 2 agencies to execute binding power – Congress and the Judiciary. The fact that Congress permits the Executive Administration to execute binding powers is not justification for it, but rather an abdication of their rightful powers.
The arguments for having done so are initially plausible – better to have long-serving subject matter ‘experts’ make the rules rather than congressmen who have little expertise in the exotica and particulars of such things as how healthcare markets work. But the problems with this approach are manifest when legislators adopt the mindset that “we have to pass (xyz bill) in order to learn what’s in it”, i.e., only after the unelected and unaccountable administrators “interpret the legislative will”.
Do you not see anti-Democratic problems inherent with this approach?
PS: Are you not aware that the administrative agencies have their own judiciary?
Firstly, administrative agencies don't actually employ their own judiciary. For example, immigration courts do not have the power to convict people of crimes, or impose any actions that could not be imposed by the Attorney General his/herself. And their decisions can, of course, be appealed to actual Federal courts. We refer to them as "judges" because they procedurally operate in a similar fashion, but they don't fundamentally exercise any powers distinct from other decision makers in an administrative agency.
So ultimately, we are talking about powers that have been delegated by the appropriate authoritative bodies, and if necessary can be un-delegated by them. Some people might be uncomfortable with *how much* of that power has been delegated, and argue that it's gone too far and that perhaps Congress should re-assert itself. As a result of Trump, we're questioning even the amount of authority that's been delegated to the President in recent decades (for instance, the expansiveness of emergency powers or tariff impositions for "national security" reasons).
That's all fine. In fact it's healthy. That's how a democracy is supposed to work. What all of that represents is *flexibility* of a system, not the undermining of it. Without such flexibility, specifically the flexibility to delegate authority to subject matter experts, I dare say our Constitution, drafted during an age when one could still entertain notions of great men possessing comprehensive expertise (noting that at the time we didn't even know how to harness and store electricity and we still thought diseases were propagated through bad odors) would long ago have become obsolete.
The things being discussed in this article, particularly with regard to Trump and the Republican party, are not the result of our constitutional system flexibly adapting, within its established parameters, to the needs of the day. They represent a deliberate undermining of that system by bad faith individuals to serve their own personal ambitions. All the California-style over-regulation in the world doesn't hold a candle to a President attempting to subvert the transition of power and overthrow our electoral system. They are orders of magnitude apart.
So no, I'm sorry, but I don't really see anti-Democratic problems with what you discuss here. I see a democracy exercising the powers given to it in ways that make some people uncomfortable and which others find inconvenient and/or overly intrusive in their lives. Which is fine; everyone has the right to assert what they feel are unwarranted burdens on themselves. But this represents an inevitable balancing act between individual rights and the public good; despite the appeal of libertarian sentiments, the latter cannot be completely ignored in favor of the former. Even the healthiest democratic society imaginable will have those with personal resentments against the imposition of government into their lives.
I’m disappointed there’s no mention of massive government overreach and erosion of civil liberties under this administration during these pandemic times. Or the attempt to shut down speech by the administration (via DHS) declaring those who spread ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ re Covid matters (of course, the government being the arbiter of what constitutes these despite their *many* false claims, eg cloth masks) domestic terrorists. Freedom of speech is at the core of how democracy gets protected. Authoritarianism, even coming from Democrats, is quite the threat to democracy.
When did DHS declare anyone "domestic terrorists"? They simply identified some of the principal sources of misinformation online (specifically, anti-vaccine misinformation). It is entirely within the purview of the government to counter the spread of misinformation detrimental to public health. And nobody's free speech is being violated if social media platforms decide to censor those they feel are misusing their service.
Also, requiring vaccines as prerequisites for employment and access to certain public and private facilities are not an erosion of civil liberties. They are a long-standard feature of American life, and the fact that such requirements were elevated during a deadly pandemic where vaccine refusal has cost lives in the hundreds of thousands is simply natural.
The problem is that the Democrats actually did rig the 2020 election, not with fraudulent voting machines fake ballots or anything like that but with an unprecedented alliance of Big Media, Big Tech and Big Money. The way they changed the rules to combat their own voters' ongoing enthusiasm gap is something that they would like to keep (hiring people to drive around collecting them, for instance, early mail-in voting) made the election seem very strange to many people. The Democrats never felt obligated, nor did the media, to come clean about any of this. They simply screamed at the Right over and over again, calling them domestic terrorists, insurrectionists, etc. They should be transparent about everything they want to do going forward rather than claim they are combatting Jim Crow 2.0.
Both 2016 and 2020 were elections that benefited from Facebook. Trump's campaign used the micro-targeting to keep specific groups at home by targeting negative ads. They didn't need more voters, they just needed more Hillary voters to stay home. It left the people feeing as though something really strange had taken place. In 2020, the same thing happened. Mark Zuckerberg poured hundreds of millions into the election but only helped the Democrats. That election also left people feeling strange because they could tell something had been off. Trump won Iowa, Ohio and Florida - his campaign was gaining momentum in the final weeks, largely because the Democratic Party has lost its mind and was spiraling into the Great Awokening.
The problem is that Democrats are simply lying about their plans with elections going forward. They should just be up front about what the problem is and what they want to do about it. Causing more division by screaming racism at every turn is counter productive.
The Democrats didn't lie or "rig" anything. Various states allowed mail-in voting as a pandemic precaution, an entirely reasonable measure, and one which allowed many elderly people to safely vote during a Presidential election in the midst of a deadly pandemic which targeted the aged and for which we did not yet have a vaccine.
And there was no enthusiasm gap in 2020. Democrats were galvanized by the desire to unseat Trump. The massive turnout of Biden voters was not the result of ballot harvesting - it was due to widespread contempt for Trump.
I understand that is the spin. And this is the problem. It's gaslighting. They obviously didn't just opt for mail-in balloting, not if you actually do a deep dive with everything they did to change the voting laws in each state. Nothing they did was illegal, just like what the Trump campaign did in 2016 wasn't illegal but it was odd and unsettling and perhaps unfair. What Zuckerberg did in particular in both cases gave an unfair advantage to one side over the other. Look, man, Biden didn't even campaign to win. He did nothing. He didn't have to do anything. The media put him in power, working with the Democrats. That was a shocking thing to live through and I was not only a Democrat but a Biden and Hillary supporter. I was one of the prominent "blue checks" on Twitter. I thought Biden could have won on his own. He didn't need the assist. They bragged about it in TIME magazine. They buried the Hunter Biden story, among other things. They deliberately worked together to gaslight the public about the "mostly peaceful protests." Every headline was designed to put Biden in power and remove Trump. None of that was "fair." They need to be honest about it. There is no other path forward than honesty and transparency. Instead, we get this: shut up and comply. Well, that isn't going to be helpful for the Democrats going forward.
Not to mention, this bizarre ongoing wave of hysteria that calls any dissent "domestic terrorism," or treason. You might not like sharing the country with people you consider human garbage, but tough. You have to share the country with them. They are citizens too.
Who is calling any dissent “domestic terrorism”? Talk about gaslighting. Oh, and my wife and I voted by mail. We are always legit voters. Who is anyone to question the validity of my vote, a citizen who has voted many times!
No one is questioning your vote. Or your ballot. But you might do a little research into exactly what the Democrats did to change the way the votes were collected. If that is what they want the process to be then fine but they should be absolutely above-board about it. They aren't being above-board. Like you, it's just: shut up and don't ask any questions.
You keep talking about this without giving any examples. Telling people to "do a little research" doesn't cut it when so much of what's out there is baloney.
If you're talking about ballot harvesting, it's something that has existed in various states for some time - both red *and* blue states. In pretty much every instance but California, it is far too limited to enable any kind of serious attempt at election malfeasance in a state or even district-level election - at least not one that you'll easily get away with. In 2018, for example, North Carolina's 9th district was stolen through a coordinated ballot-harvesting scam by a Republican operative; it was discovered within weeks. New Jersey local elections in May 2020 were beset by almost comically ham-fisted illegal ballot harvesting that was easily detected by postal workers.
And while California's laws (changed in advance of the 2018 election, not 2020) are controversial and should arguably be repealed, it is irrelevant for the purposes of the Presidential election (for which you can thank the Electoral College) since there is hardly a more securely blue state.
You're projecting and exaggerating. I never called anyone human garbage, and I don't consider dissent "domestic terrorism". What is being called "domestic terrorism" are things like explicitly harassing and threatening election officials, people assembling with guns outside governor's mansions and state houses, and yes, storming the Capitol in order to intimidate lawmakers into not certifying the electoral count (which contained orchestrated operations by right-wing militia groups). And if you want to throw BLM rioters in there too, fine; I think it's a slightly different category, but I don't care to defend rioters and looters anymore than I care to defend Trump and his minions.
I'm not on Twitter, and never have been, so maybe you've been more exposed to extremist rhetoric of the "#resistance" than I have. If so, I would direct your attention to the long history of right-wing political firebrands accusing liberals of treason, disloyalty, and all around hatred of America for being critical of their government, typically accompanied by a "there's the door if you don't like it" dismissal. The door swings both ways on that count.
Sasha, I don't know how you can say that they're "gaslighting" people and then bragging about it in TIME magazine. That whole TIME article, provocatively titled as it was, talked about efforts by influential people to ensure the election was fair and reasonably free of false propaganda of the kind that plagued the 2016 election - not to explicitly endorse Joe Biden. If media seems skewed against Trump, consider that media has an obligation to call out lies and falsehoods by people in power (especially the sitting President). They aren't perfect at it, and end up having to issue corrections and retractions at times, but how can organizations tasked with such things in principle *not* seem biased against someone like Trump, who cares nothing for truth and openly declares the American free press "the enemy of the people"?
The fact that social media companies tried to crack down on much of that nonsense was an attempt to return a level playing field; it's not fair to say that it benefitted Democrats when the alternative was letting Trump and his acolytes lie their asses off, particularly with regard to election fraud. Of course there are going to be cases where they went over the line - the Hunter Biden story being one of them - but then they corrected it following an outcry. It was an understandable misstep given the disastrous "re-opening the Clinton investigation" farce of 2016 (and the fact that Rudy Giuliani actually *had* previously been a conduit for Russian propaganda), and if anything that incident only drew attention to the story. All in all, the incident has been overblown by mainstream media critics; there is still no evidence that what was on that laptop had anything to do with Joe Biden himself (and it's frankly hard to believe Trump wouldn't have declassified it and used it if there was).
As for changes in voting procedures, yes, they didn't just allow mail-in voting. They expanded early voting. They allowed ballot drop-boxes. They had drive-in voting in some places. They did lots of things that were designed to prevent people from having to crowd into voting centers during the time of a short-range airborne pandemic. And by "they" I mean states with both Republican-controlled and Democratic-controlled legislative bodies, and both Republican and Democratic governors. Republicans had their chance to fight these measures in court - they did, and they won some and lost others. What convinces you that these were anything more than reasonable allowances during a deadly pandemic? What would convince you otherwise?
We were told by certain people on the right that these measures "benefitted Democrats" and gave them an "unfair advantage". Which is nonsense. Republicans have long believed that lower turnout is in their favor; if that's true there is nothing inherently fair about restricting convenient access to the ballot. Regardless, mail-in voting was nothing new in 2020, and in the past it hasn't favored one party over the other. In fact, Florida Republicans were cringing when Trump went on anti-mail-ballot tirades, because mail-in voting has been key to their ascendance and recent success in the state. And Trump's tirades, in addition to his promoting of a culture of disregard for pandemic mitigation efforts, were the very reason that mail-in balloting was so heavily skewed toward Democrats in the 2020 election - something that he took advantage of in his claims of it being rigged (as predicted in advance by various journalists).
To quote Nietzsche, be careful when fighting monsters that you don't become one. As I said, I was a very loyal and devoted Democrat. I spent years advocating for the Democrats and I full well knew the propaganda machine they were up against. BUT STILL, that didn't excuse their LYING to the American people about the protests. They didn't mention the riots and damage to businesses at the Democratic convention EVEN ONCE. They said NOTHING about people who were killed, or whose businesses were destroyed, or that it was all done during a global pandemic! No, it had to all be Trump's fault and this was a systemically racist country and it was a reckoning on race and now we have to completely change the whole American system from universities to medical labs. No one ever talked about what was really happening in the Summer of 2020, not in the media, not among the Democrats. It was NONSTOP gaslighting. Not only did it continue through the 2020 election, but it continues TO THIS DAY. That green zone around the Capitol - what a joke! The way they treated the Jan 6th protesters compared to the much much visibly worse rioting over the Summer is something American can see even if the Democrats want to keep lying to them about it. This is why Biden's numbers are dropping. This is why they're going to be voted out - because they have lost touch with the American people.
This article is such garbage. When a party that calls itself the “Democratic” party literally argues in court that they are not legally bound to run fair democratic primary elections (after being sued by Bernie supporters), we know that any person who writes apologia like this article is a tool for that party or is just really ignorant. I imagine the author believes that the Democratic Party was fighting for civil rights since its inception like the the Party says it was on their website too.
I am neither a Republican or a Democrat, but the constant gas lighting by loyal democrats about their party’s history and its own behavior is getting old. And, of course, it is immoral.
Both parties are trash, and anyone who is loyal to either is a drag on American progress.
My concern is that this sort of article is divisive. I am a lifelong Democrat, and extremely concerned about the state of democracy here, and in my original country, India. Nevertheless, I think it is important to NOT to alienate the few Republicans (like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney) by squarely condemning their party.
It would be interesting to remind Americans about the original Republican ideals, and their proximity to classical Democratic ones, how they have changed since the 21st Century, and what can be done to restore at least the basic ideals such as voting rights (which Berman has done well).
Some may think my suggestion as naive. But unless we join in a common, shared perspective of democracy in our country, this will never change.
P.S. It may be possible that democracy as we know it may no longer be possible because people's expectations of politics have shifted from group to individual. Perhaps that too should be discussed.
You should probably try to restore basic ideals to the Democratic Party, like fair democratic primary elections before complaining about the practices of other parties. They argued in court that they don’t need to practice that. Kind of a big deal for anyone who is crying about the state of “democracy” in this country.
If Democratics are that worried about safeguarding elections they shouldn't be so reflexively opposed to a national ID. The same people who claim there is no problem at all with draconian vacination compliance requirements just to enter any public space then turn around and say people can't possibly be expected to show a card at the voting booth.
Reforming the ECA and preventing electoral shenanigans at the state level are important goals to pursue. The necessity of first determining which party is the bigger danger to democracy is unclear.
You begin by claiming both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the denigration of American democracy and that in order to determine which party is more responsible, we must quantify it. Being a political science professor, I'm surprised you started with this assertion and then proceeded to provide no quantifiable evidence whatsoever to suggest such. On the contrary, your argument is entirely subjective because there is no way to actually quantify something so complex.
You certainly do provide numerous examples that are undoubtedly accurate about the inappropriate and condemnable nature in which President Trump left office, however not once did you mention the countless examples in which Hillary Clinton herself was unwilling to accept the 2020 results. Clinton repeatedly called Donald Trump an "illegitimate president," as you can see in this Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html. The American people suffered 3 years of mainstream media outlets and Democratic lawmakers telling them Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election.
None of this is to excuse the poor character and bad behavior of numerous Republicans. I agree that many have gone along with the Trump charade for far too long. That aside, there are numerous members of the Republican Party who, separate from Trump, are asking very legitimate questions around questionable mail in voting practices and illegal actives such as ballot harvesting that took place in November 2020. Is it unreasonable to be concerned with the way in which certain Governors and Secretaries of State changed voting rules enshrined in state Constitutions without going through legislatures? There are fair questions being asked that we should not throw aside as "Republican lies."
Furthermore, your article provides zero proof that Democratic sins against "norms and instructions" are largely "disconnected and intermittent." I recall the now infamous Time magazine article entitled, "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election," which elucidates a coordinated effort by Democrat Party elite. The article states: "That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it" (https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/).
Both parties are responsible for the denigration of American Democracy. BOTH. Parties. By saying, "it becomes clear that...it is the Republican Party that poses the real danger to American Democracy," you are undermining many of your own assertions. Your first sentence laments our deeply polarizing times, yet you are actually contributing to its polarization with these biased articles.
That is why I've started a new substack, Utterly Unbiased (www.utterlyunbiased.com). My goal is to seek understanding across the political divide. I tend to be center-right, but deeply want to understand different viewpoints and perspectives.
That is because parties are at fault for the state of political discourse. No one has it fully figured out. Instead of blaming one party over the other, let's figure out where we agree and can compromise,. We should understand we all fundamentally want the same things, we just disagree how to get there.
In order to end polarization, we need to stop the demonization of our neighbors, and instead promote actual unity. I've read a million articles just like this one that lament the "Republican threat to American Democracy." They're disingenuous and ideologically motivated. We've moved beyond hyperbole. Let's stop the tribalism and start a good faith conversation.
The Republicans, I agree, are attacking political democracy, and it must be defended. But the threats to free speech and discussion that come from the Left are dangerous, too, and they come not from the political state but from th corporations, the universities, and our bosses. So the two attacks don’t encounter each other, because they are working in different sectors.
The initial point of reply to the article author is that she omits to consider the contention of conservatives that a major threat to democracy is the growing lack of administrative state accountability to democratic principles.
The Supreme Court seems to be so concerned else it would not be conducting hearings on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency regarding the constitutionality of the regulatory state under the principle of non-delegation.
To ignore the issue of legislative delegation as a threat to Democracy is willful blindness. This was the major point. Your recent reply seems to acknowledge this.
While I support the proposals of Ms. Berman, I’m greatly dismayed by the playing down of the Democratic Party’s role in this widening gyre. Until moderates, Republican, Democratic, and independent can agree that both parties have been stripping the guardrails from our political system for decades, we’re doomed to fail in our efforts to save it. It will take more than crocodile tears at one’s opponents’ populist destruction to fix things. The proposals are good, and they must be accomplished bipartisanly, but the preamble does not bode well for the effort.
The author proposes establishing objective criteria by which to judge which party is more blameworthy for undermining Democracy. While I have no disagreement with the criteria cited, nor with the transgressions noted for each party, she reveals her bias by omitting one the most significant factors undermining popular sovereignty, namely, the proliferation of administrative authorities exercising coercive control over the lives of Americans.
When administrative agents of the executive branch can simultaneously exercise legislative rule setting, prosecutorial, and judicial powers all without accountability to the electorate and outside the established institutions of appeal, one has the very definition of tyranny.
Which party is most favorable to this state of affairs?
Prosecutorial powers are the purview of the executive, and the only "legislative rule setting" done by the executive is that which has been delegated by Congress. The fact that Republicans favor using these delegated powers less doesn't negate the fact that they are legitimately delegated powers, and consequently does not render Democrats "tyrannical".
As for the exercise of judicial power, I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. The Republicans have done at least as much as Democrats to ensure the filling of the federal bench with ideologically friendly judges. And certainly Trump believed he could avoid oversight from Congress by resisting subpoenas and issuing appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, where he assumed (stupidly) that the justices he nominated would be beholden to him and protect his interests. At the very least, the strategy allowed him to run out the clock, all while his party looked the other way and did nothing to stop him.
Administrative law = binding acts or constraining edits that DO NOT come through a legislated act by congress. The constitution authorized only 2 agencies to execute binding power – Congress and the Judiciary. The fact that Congress permits the Executive Administration to execute binding powers is not justification for it, but rather an abdication of their rightful powers.
The arguments for having done so are initially plausible – better to have long-serving subject matter ‘experts’ make the rules rather than congressmen who have little expertise in the exotica and particulars of such things as how healthcare markets work. But the problems with this approach are manifest when legislators adopt the mindset that “we have to pass (xyz bill) in order to learn what’s in it”, i.e., only after the unelected and unaccountable administrators “interpret the legislative will”.
Do you not see anti-Democratic problems inherent with this approach?
PS: Are you not aware that the administrative agencies have their own judiciary?
Firstly, administrative agencies don't actually employ their own judiciary. For example, immigration courts do not have the power to convict people of crimes, or impose any actions that could not be imposed by the Attorney General his/herself. And their decisions can, of course, be appealed to actual Federal courts. We refer to them as "judges" because they procedurally operate in a similar fashion, but they don't fundamentally exercise any powers distinct from other decision makers in an administrative agency.
So ultimately, we are talking about powers that have been delegated by the appropriate authoritative bodies, and if necessary can be un-delegated by them. Some people might be uncomfortable with *how much* of that power has been delegated, and argue that it's gone too far and that perhaps Congress should re-assert itself. As a result of Trump, we're questioning even the amount of authority that's been delegated to the President in recent decades (for instance, the expansiveness of emergency powers or tariff impositions for "national security" reasons).
That's all fine. In fact it's healthy. That's how a democracy is supposed to work. What all of that represents is *flexibility* of a system, not the undermining of it. Without such flexibility, specifically the flexibility to delegate authority to subject matter experts, I dare say our Constitution, drafted during an age when one could still entertain notions of great men possessing comprehensive expertise (noting that at the time we didn't even know how to harness and store electricity and we still thought diseases were propagated through bad odors) would long ago have become obsolete.
The things being discussed in this article, particularly with regard to Trump and the Republican party, are not the result of our constitutional system flexibly adapting, within its established parameters, to the needs of the day. They represent a deliberate undermining of that system by bad faith individuals to serve their own personal ambitions. All the California-style over-regulation in the world doesn't hold a candle to a President attempting to subvert the transition of power and overthrow our electoral system. They are orders of magnitude apart.
So no, I'm sorry, but I don't really see anti-Democratic problems with what you discuss here. I see a democracy exercising the powers given to it in ways that make some people uncomfortable and which others find inconvenient and/or overly intrusive in their lives. Which is fine; everyone has the right to assert what they feel are unwarranted burdens on themselves. But this represents an inevitable balancing act between individual rights and the public good; despite the appeal of libertarian sentiments, the latter cannot be completely ignored in favor of the former. Even the healthiest democratic society imaginable will have those with personal resentments against the imposition of government into their lives.
I’m disappointed there’s no mention of massive government overreach and erosion of civil liberties under this administration during these pandemic times. Or the attempt to shut down speech by the administration (via DHS) declaring those who spread ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ re Covid matters (of course, the government being the arbiter of what constitutes these despite their *many* false claims, eg cloth masks) domestic terrorists. Freedom of speech is at the core of how democracy gets protected. Authoritarianism, even coming from Democrats, is quite the threat to democracy.
When did DHS declare anyone "domestic terrorists"? They simply identified some of the principal sources of misinformation online (specifically, anti-vaccine misinformation). It is entirely within the purview of the government to counter the spread of misinformation detrimental to public health. And nobody's free speech is being violated if social media platforms decide to censor those they feel are misusing their service.
Also, requiring vaccines as prerequisites for employment and access to certain public and private facilities are not an erosion of civil liberties. They are a long-standard feature of American life, and the fact that such requirements were elevated during a deadly pandemic where vaccine refusal has cost lives in the hundreds of thousands is simply natural.
The problem is that the Democrats actually did rig the 2020 election, not with fraudulent voting machines fake ballots or anything like that but with an unprecedented alliance of Big Media, Big Tech and Big Money. The way they changed the rules to combat their own voters' ongoing enthusiasm gap is something that they would like to keep (hiring people to drive around collecting them, for instance, early mail-in voting) made the election seem very strange to many people. The Democrats never felt obligated, nor did the media, to come clean about any of this. They simply screamed at the Right over and over again, calling them domestic terrorists, insurrectionists, etc. They should be transparent about everything they want to do going forward rather than claim they are combatting Jim Crow 2.0.
Both 2016 and 2020 were elections that benefited from Facebook. Trump's campaign used the micro-targeting to keep specific groups at home by targeting negative ads. They didn't need more voters, they just needed more Hillary voters to stay home. It left the people feeing as though something really strange had taken place. In 2020, the same thing happened. Mark Zuckerberg poured hundreds of millions into the election but only helped the Democrats. That election also left people feeling strange because they could tell something had been off. Trump won Iowa, Ohio and Florida - his campaign was gaining momentum in the final weeks, largely because the Democratic Party has lost its mind and was spiraling into the Great Awokening.
The problem is that Democrats are simply lying about their plans with elections going forward. They should just be up front about what the problem is and what they want to do about it. Causing more division by screaming racism at every turn is counter productive.
The Democrats didn't lie or "rig" anything. Various states allowed mail-in voting as a pandemic precaution, an entirely reasonable measure, and one which allowed many elderly people to safely vote during a Presidential election in the midst of a deadly pandemic which targeted the aged and for which we did not yet have a vaccine.
And there was no enthusiasm gap in 2020. Democrats were galvanized by the desire to unseat Trump. The massive turnout of Biden voters was not the result of ballot harvesting - it was due to widespread contempt for Trump.
I understand that is the spin. And this is the problem. It's gaslighting. They obviously didn't just opt for mail-in balloting, not if you actually do a deep dive with everything they did to change the voting laws in each state. Nothing they did was illegal, just like what the Trump campaign did in 2016 wasn't illegal but it was odd and unsettling and perhaps unfair. What Zuckerberg did in particular in both cases gave an unfair advantage to one side over the other. Look, man, Biden didn't even campaign to win. He did nothing. He didn't have to do anything. The media put him in power, working with the Democrats. That was a shocking thing to live through and I was not only a Democrat but a Biden and Hillary supporter. I was one of the prominent "blue checks" on Twitter. I thought Biden could have won on his own. He didn't need the assist. They bragged about it in TIME magazine. They buried the Hunter Biden story, among other things. They deliberately worked together to gaslight the public about the "mostly peaceful protests." Every headline was designed to put Biden in power and remove Trump. None of that was "fair." They need to be honest about it. There is no other path forward than honesty and transparency. Instead, we get this: shut up and comply. Well, that isn't going to be helpful for the Democrats going forward.
Not to mention, this bizarre ongoing wave of hysteria that calls any dissent "domestic terrorism," or treason. You might not like sharing the country with people you consider human garbage, but tough. You have to share the country with them. They are citizens too.
Who is calling any dissent “domestic terrorism”? Talk about gaslighting. Oh, and my wife and I voted by mail. We are always legit voters. Who is anyone to question the validity of my vote, a citizen who has voted many times!
No one is questioning your vote. Or your ballot. But you might do a little research into exactly what the Democrats did to change the way the votes were collected. If that is what they want the process to be then fine but they should be absolutely above-board about it. They aren't being above-board. Like you, it's just: shut up and don't ask any questions.
You keep talking about this without giving any examples. Telling people to "do a little research" doesn't cut it when so much of what's out there is baloney.
If you're talking about ballot harvesting, it's something that has existed in various states for some time - both red *and* blue states. In pretty much every instance but California, it is far too limited to enable any kind of serious attempt at election malfeasance in a state or even district-level election - at least not one that you'll easily get away with. In 2018, for example, North Carolina's 9th district was stolen through a coordinated ballot-harvesting scam by a Republican operative; it was discovered within weeks. New Jersey local elections in May 2020 were beset by almost comically ham-fisted illegal ballot harvesting that was easily detected by postal workers.
And while California's laws (changed in advance of the 2018 election, not 2020) are controversial and should arguably be repealed, it is irrelevant for the purposes of the Presidential election (for which you can thank the Electoral College) since there is hardly a more securely blue state.
You're projecting and exaggerating. I never called anyone human garbage, and I don't consider dissent "domestic terrorism". What is being called "domestic terrorism" are things like explicitly harassing and threatening election officials, people assembling with guns outside governor's mansions and state houses, and yes, storming the Capitol in order to intimidate lawmakers into not certifying the electoral count (which contained orchestrated operations by right-wing militia groups). And if you want to throw BLM rioters in there too, fine; I think it's a slightly different category, but I don't care to defend rioters and looters anymore than I care to defend Trump and his minions.
I'm not on Twitter, and never have been, so maybe you've been more exposed to extremist rhetoric of the "#resistance" than I have. If so, I would direct your attention to the long history of right-wing political firebrands accusing liberals of treason, disloyalty, and all around hatred of America for being critical of their government, typically accompanied by a "there's the door if you don't like it" dismissal. The door swings both ways on that count.
Sasha, I don't know how you can say that they're "gaslighting" people and then bragging about it in TIME magazine. That whole TIME article, provocatively titled as it was, talked about efforts by influential people to ensure the election was fair and reasonably free of false propaganda of the kind that plagued the 2016 election - not to explicitly endorse Joe Biden. If media seems skewed against Trump, consider that media has an obligation to call out lies and falsehoods by people in power (especially the sitting President). They aren't perfect at it, and end up having to issue corrections and retractions at times, but how can organizations tasked with such things in principle *not* seem biased against someone like Trump, who cares nothing for truth and openly declares the American free press "the enemy of the people"?
The fact that social media companies tried to crack down on much of that nonsense was an attempt to return a level playing field; it's not fair to say that it benefitted Democrats when the alternative was letting Trump and his acolytes lie their asses off, particularly with regard to election fraud. Of course there are going to be cases where they went over the line - the Hunter Biden story being one of them - but then they corrected it following an outcry. It was an understandable misstep given the disastrous "re-opening the Clinton investigation" farce of 2016 (and the fact that Rudy Giuliani actually *had* previously been a conduit for Russian propaganda), and if anything that incident only drew attention to the story. All in all, the incident has been overblown by mainstream media critics; there is still no evidence that what was on that laptop had anything to do with Joe Biden himself (and it's frankly hard to believe Trump wouldn't have declassified it and used it if there was).
As for changes in voting procedures, yes, they didn't just allow mail-in voting. They expanded early voting. They allowed ballot drop-boxes. They had drive-in voting in some places. They did lots of things that were designed to prevent people from having to crowd into voting centers during the time of a short-range airborne pandemic. And by "they" I mean states with both Republican-controlled and Democratic-controlled legislative bodies, and both Republican and Democratic governors. Republicans had their chance to fight these measures in court - they did, and they won some and lost others. What convinces you that these were anything more than reasonable allowances during a deadly pandemic? What would convince you otherwise?
We were told by certain people on the right that these measures "benefitted Democrats" and gave them an "unfair advantage". Which is nonsense. Republicans have long believed that lower turnout is in their favor; if that's true there is nothing inherently fair about restricting convenient access to the ballot. Regardless, mail-in voting was nothing new in 2020, and in the past it hasn't favored one party over the other. In fact, Florida Republicans were cringing when Trump went on anti-mail-ballot tirades, because mail-in voting has been key to their ascendance and recent success in the state. And Trump's tirades, in addition to his promoting of a culture of disregard for pandemic mitigation efforts, were the very reason that mail-in balloting was so heavily skewed toward Democrats in the 2020 election - something that he took advantage of in his claims of it being rigged (as predicted in advance by various journalists).
To quote Nietzsche, be careful when fighting monsters that you don't become one. As I said, I was a very loyal and devoted Democrat. I spent years advocating for the Democrats and I full well knew the propaganda machine they were up against. BUT STILL, that didn't excuse their LYING to the American people about the protests. They didn't mention the riots and damage to businesses at the Democratic convention EVEN ONCE. They said NOTHING about people who were killed, or whose businesses were destroyed, or that it was all done during a global pandemic! No, it had to all be Trump's fault and this was a systemically racist country and it was a reckoning on race and now we have to completely change the whole American system from universities to medical labs. No one ever talked about what was really happening in the Summer of 2020, not in the media, not among the Democrats. It was NONSTOP gaslighting. Not only did it continue through the 2020 election, but it continues TO THIS DAY. That green zone around the Capitol - what a joke! The way they treated the Jan 6th protesters compared to the much much visibly worse rioting over the Summer is something American can see even if the Democrats want to keep lying to them about it. This is why Biden's numbers are dropping. This is why they're going to be voted out - because they have lost touch with the American people.
This article is such garbage. When a party that calls itself the “Democratic” party literally argues in court that they are not legally bound to run fair democratic primary elections (after being sued by Bernie supporters), we know that any person who writes apologia like this article is a tool for that party or is just really ignorant. I imagine the author believes that the Democratic Party was fighting for civil rights since its inception like the the Party says it was on their website too.
I am neither a Republican or a Democrat, but the constant gas lighting by loyal democrats about their party’s history and its own behavior is getting old. And, of course, it is immoral.
Both parties are trash, and anyone who is loyal to either is a drag on American progress.
My concern is that this sort of article is divisive. I am a lifelong Democrat, and extremely concerned about the state of democracy here, and in my original country, India. Nevertheless, I think it is important to NOT to alienate the few Republicans (like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney) by squarely condemning their party.
It would be interesting to remind Americans about the original Republican ideals, and their proximity to classical Democratic ones, how they have changed since the 21st Century, and what can be done to restore at least the basic ideals such as voting rights (which Berman has done well).
Some may think my suggestion as naive. But unless we join in a common, shared perspective of democracy in our country, this will never change.
P.S. It may be possible that democracy as we know it may no longer be possible because people's expectations of politics have shifted from group to individual. Perhaps that too should be discussed.
You should probably try to restore basic ideals to the Democratic Party, like fair democratic primary elections before complaining about the practices of other parties. They argued in court that they don’t need to practice that. Kind of a big deal for anyone who is crying about the state of “democracy” in this country.
If Democratics are that worried about safeguarding elections they shouldn't be so reflexively opposed to a national ID. The same people who claim there is no problem at all with draconian vacination compliance requirements just to enter any public space then turn around and say people can't possibly be expected to show a card at the voting booth.
Reforming the ECA and preventing electoral shenanigans at the state level are important goals to pursue. The necessity of first determining which party is the bigger danger to democracy is unclear.
You begin by claiming both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the denigration of American democracy and that in order to determine which party is more responsible, we must quantify it. Being a political science professor, I'm surprised you started with this assertion and then proceeded to provide no quantifiable evidence whatsoever to suggest such. On the contrary, your argument is entirely subjective because there is no way to actually quantify something so complex.
You certainly do provide numerous examples that are undoubtedly accurate about the inappropriate and condemnable nature in which President Trump left office, however not once did you mention the countless examples in which Hillary Clinton herself was unwilling to accept the 2020 results. Clinton repeatedly called Donald Trump an "illegitimate president," as you can see in this Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html. The American people suffered 3 years of mainstream media outlets and Democratic lawmakers telling them Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election.
None of this is to excuse the poor character and bad behavior of numerous Republicans. I agree that many have gone along with the Trump charade for far too long. That aside, there are numerous members of the Republican Party who, separate from Trump, are asking very legitimate questions around questionable mail in voting practices and illegal actives such as ballot harvesting that took place in November 2020. Is it unreasonable to be concerned with the way in which certain Governors and Secretaries of State changed voting rules enshrined in state Constitutions without going through legislatures? There are fair questions being asked that we should not throw aside as "Republican lies."
Furthermore, your article provides zero proof that Democratic sins against "norms and instructions" are largely "disconnected and intermittent." I recall the now infamous Time magazine article entitled, "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election," which elucidates a coordinated effort by Democrat Party elite. The article states: "That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it" (https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/).
Both parties are responsible for the denigration of American Democracy. BOTH. Parties. By saying, "it becomes clear that...it is the Republican Party that poses the real danger to American Democracy," you are undermining many of your own assertions. Your first sentence laments our deeply polarizing times, yet you are actually contributing to its polarization with these biased articles.
That is why I've started a new substack, Utterly Unbiased (www.utterlyunbiased.com). My goal is to seek understanding across the political divide. I tend to be center-right, but deeply want to understand different viewpoints and perspectives.
That is because parties are at fault for the state of political discourse. No one has it fully figured out. Instead of blaming one party over the other, let's figure out where we agree and can compromise,. We should understand we all fundamentally want the same things, we just disagree how to get there.
In order to end polarization, we need to stop the demonization of our neighbors, and instead promote actual unity. I've read a million articles just like this one that lament the "Republican threat to American Democracy." They're disingenuous and ideologically motivated. We've moved beyond hyperbole. Let's stop the tribalism and start a good faith conversation.
Well said. Articles like this only serve to deepen the political chasm that exists in this very scary time.
Registered as a Democrat for the first time a week ago, both for the reasons the author lists and for playing footsie with Putin.
The Republicans, I agree, are attacking political democracy, and it must be defended. But the threats to free speech and discussion that come from the Left are dangerous, too, and they come not from the political state but from th corporations, the universities, and our bosses. So the two attacks don’t encounter each other, because they are working in different sectors.
The initial point of reply to the article author is that she omits to consider the contention of conservatives that a major threat to democracy is the growing lack of administrative state accountability to democratic principles.
The Supreme Court seems to be so concerned else it would not be conducting hearings on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency regarding the constitutionality of the regulatory state under the principle of non-delegation.
To ignore the issue of legislative delegation as a threat to Democracy is willful blindness. This was the major point. Your recent reply seems to acknowledge this.
While I support the proposals of Ms. Berman, I’m greatly dismayed by the playing down of the Democratic Party’s role in this widening gyre. Until moderates, Republican, Democratic, and independent can agree that both parties have been stripping the guardrails from our political system for decades, we’re doomed to fail in our efforts to save it. It will take more than crocodile tears at one’s opponents’ populist destruction to fix things. The proposals are good, and they must be accomplished bipartisanly, but the preamble does not bode well for the effort.