The Biggest Threat to Democracy Is the GOP Stealing the Next Election

[homersapien 11,373]

Unless and until the Republican Party recommits itself to playing by democratic rules of the game, American democracy will remain at risk.

By Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

 

The greatest threat to American democracy today is not a repeat of January 6, but the possibility of a stolen presidential election. Contemporary democracies that die meet their end at the ballot box, through measures that are nominally constitutional. The looming danger is not that the mob will return; it’s that mainstream Republicans will “legally” overturn an election.

In 2018, when we wrote How Democracies Die, we knew that Donald Trump was an authoritarian figure, and we held the Republican Party responsible for abdicating its role as democratic gatekeeper. But we did not consider the GOP to be an antidemocratic party. Four years later, however, the bulk of the Republican Party is behaving in an antidemocratic manner. Solving this problem requires that we address both the acute crisis and the underlying long-term conditions that give rise to it.

Addressing the short-term threat

Last year, for the first time in U.S. history, a sitting president refused to accept defeat and attempted to overturn election results. Rather than oppose this attempted coup, leading Republicans either cooperated with it or enabled it by refusing to publicly acknowledge Trump’s defeat. In the run-up to January 6, most top GOP officials refused to denounce extremist groups that were spreading conspiracy theories, calling for armed insurrection and assassinations, and ultimately implicated in the Capitol assault. Few Republicans broke with Trump after his incitement of the insurrection, and those who did were censured by their state parties.

From November 2020 to January 2021, then, a significant portion of the Republican Party refused to unambiguously accept electoral defeat, eschew violence, or break with extremist groups—the three principles that define prodemocracy parties. Because of that behavior, as well as its behavior over the past six months, we are convinced that the Republican Party leadership is willing to overturn an election. Moreover, we are concerned that it will be able to do so—legally. That’s why we serve on the board of advisers to Protect Democracy, a nonprofit working to prevent democratic decline in the United States. We wrote this essay as part of “The Democracy Endgame,” the group’s symposium on the long-term strategy to fight authoritarianism.

As we argued in How Democracies Die, our constitutional system relies heavily on forbearance. Whether it is the filibuster, funding the government, impeachment, or judicial nominations, our system of checks and balances works best when politicians on both sides of the aisle deploy their institutional prerogatives with restraint. In other words, when they avoid applying the letter of the law in ways contrary to the spirit of the law—what’s sometimes called constitutional hardball. When contemporary democracies die, they usually do so via constitutional hardball. Democracy’s primary assailants today are not generals or armed revolutionaries, but rather politicians—Hugo Chávez, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—who eviscerate democracy’s substance behind a carefully crafted veneer of legality and constitutionality.

This is precisely what could happen in the next U.S. presidential race. Elections require forbearance. For elections to be democratic, all adult citizens must be equally able to cast a ballot and have that vote count. Using the letter of the law to violate the spirit of this principle is strikingly easy. Election officials can legally throw out large numbers of ballots on the basis of the most minor technicalities (e.g., the oval on the ballot is not entirely penciled in, or the mail-in ballot form contains a typo or spelling mistake). Large-scale ballot disqualification accords with the letter of the law, but it is inherently antidemocratic, for it denies suffrage to many voters. Crucially, if hardball criteria are applied unevenly, such that many ballots are disqualified in one party’s stronghold but not in other areas, they can turn an election.

Republican officials across the country are laying the legal infrastructure to do just that. Since January, according to Protect Democracy, Law Forward, and the States United Democracy Center, Republicans have introduced 216 bills (in 41 states) aimed at facilitating hardball electoral tactics. As of June, 24 of these bills had passed, including in the battleground states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Approved measures allow Republican-controlled state legislatures or election boards to sideline or override local election administrations in Democratic strongholds. This would allow state legislatures or their appointees to meddle in local decision making, purge voter rolls, and manipulate the number and location of polling places. It would also allow Republicans in Arizona, Georgia, and elsewhere to do something Trump tried and failed to do in 2020: throw out ballots in rival strongholds in order to overturn a statewide result. Finally, the new laws impose criminal penalties for local election officials deemed to violate election procedure. This will enable statewide Republican officials to compel local officials, via threats of criminal prosecution, to engage in electoral hardball. Throwing out thousands of ballots in rival strongholds may be profoundly antidemocratic, but it is technically legal, and Republicans in several states now have a powerful stick with which to enforce such practices.

Republican politicians learned several things in the 2020 election’s aftermath. First, Trump’s failed campaign to overturn the results revealed a variety of mechanisms that may be exploited in future elections. Second, Republicans discovered that their base would not punish them for attempting to steal an election. To the contrary, they now know that efforts to overturn an election will be rewarded by Republican voters, activists, local and state parties, and many donors.

The 2020 election was, in effect, a dress rehearsal for what might lie ahead. All evidence suggests that if the 2024 election is close, the Republicans will deploy constitutional hardball to challenge or overturn the results in various battleground states. Recent history and public-opinion polling tell us that the Republican activist base will enthusiastically support—indeed, demand—such tactics. The new state election laws will make that easier. Democratic strongholds in Republican-led swing states will be especially vulnerable. And if disputed state-level elections throw the election into the House of Representatives, a Republican-led House would likely hand the presidency to the Republican candidate (no matter who actually won the election).

The American system has faced crises before—including the disputed elections in 1824, 1876, and 2000. Given the considerable authority that the Constitution grants to state legislatures, the processes of voting, vote counting, and even the selection of electors can easily be subverted for partisan ends. Electoral guardrails must therefore be hardened through federal legislation prior to the 2024 election.

To save democracy, democratize it

Beyond the acute crisis facing American democracy, however, is a deeper problem: the radicalization of the Republican Party. Unless and until the GOP recommits itself to playing by democratic rules of the game, American democracy will remain at risk. Each national election will feel like a national emergency. Therefore, the de-radicalization of the Republican Party is a central task for the next decade.

Chris Hayes: The Republican party is radicalizing against democracy

Normally, in a two-party democracy, if one party veers off course, it is punished at the ballot box. Electoral competition is thought to be a natural corrective for political extremism: Parties that stray too far from the average voter’s positions lose votes, which compels them to moderate and broaden their appeal to win again. When a professional sports team loses, it fires its coach, acquires new players, and regroups. The same should hold for political parties. Indeed, if you ask moderate or Never Trump Republicans what will get Republicans back on course, they will almost invariably answer “devastating electoral defeat.”

They may be right. There is a hitch, however: Competition’s effects are being undermined in the U.S. today by what political scientists call countermajoritarian institutions. We believe that the U.S. Constitution, in its current form, is enabling the radicalization of the Republican Party and exacerbating America’s democratic crisis. The Constitution’s key countermajoritarian features, such as the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate, have long been biased toward sparsely populated territories. But given that Democrats are increasingly the party of densely populated areas and Republicans dominate less populated areas, this long-standing rural bias now allows the Republican Party to win the presidency, control Congress, and pack the Supreme Court without winning electoral majorities. Consider these facts:

• Republicans have won the popular vote for the presidency only once since 1988,  yet have governed the country for nearly half of that period.
• The Democratic and Republican Parties each control 50 seats in the U.S. Senate, even though Democratic senators represent 40 million more voters than do Republican senators.
• The three justices who most recently joined the Supreme Court were appointed by a president who did not win the popular vote—and were confirmed by Senate majorities that did not represent a majority of Americans.

Countermajoritarian institutions shield Republicans from genuine competition. By allowing Republicans to win power without national majorities, this constitutional welfare allows the GOP to pursue extremist strategies that threaten our democracy without suffering devastating electoral consequences. Most Americans oppose most of the Republicans’ current positions. But if we do not reform our democracy to allow majorities to speak, expecting the GOP to change course would be naive.

Americans tend to view countermajoritarian institutions as essential to liberal democracy. And some of them are. In the United States, the Bill of Rights and judicial review help ensure that individual liberties and minority rights are protected. But many of our countermajoritarian institutions are legacies of a pre-democratic era. Where they pervade the electoral or legislative arenas, they do not protect minority rights so much as empower partisan minorities and, in some cases, enable minority rule.

Peter Wehner: The GOP is a grave threat to American democracy

To save our democracy, we must democratize it. A political system that repeatedly allows a minority party to control the most powerful offices in the country cannot remain legitimate for long. Following the example of other democracies, we must expand access to the ballot, reform our electoral system to ensure that majorities win elections, and weaken or eliminate antiquated institutions such as the filibuster so that majorities can actually govern. Congress is considering limited democratizing reforms, such as banning legislative gerrymandering. But those proposals pale in comparison with the extent of the problem.

Serious constitutional reform may seem like a daunting task, but Americans have refounded our democracy before. After the Civil War and during the Progressive era and the civil-rights movement, political leaders, under pressure from organized citizens, remade our democracy. Always unfinished, our Constitution requires continuous updating. American democracy thrived because it allowed itself to be reformed. Given the scale of the threat, reforming our democracy over the next decade is among the most pressing challenges we face today.

About the author: Steven Levitsky is a professor of government at Harvard University. Daniel Ziblatt is the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University. They are the authors of How Democracies Die, and are at work on a follow-up.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/democracy-could-die-2024/619390/

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by homersapien

[AUFAN78 3,895]

4 hours ago, homersapien said:

The greatest threat to American democracy today is not a repeat of January 6, but the possibility of a stolen presidential election. Contemporary democracies that die meet their end at the ballot box, through measures that are nominally constitutional. The looming danger is not that the mob will return; it’s that mainstream Republicans will “legally” overturn an election.

Refresher on attempts to overturn an election. Hint: It goes both ways.

 

[DKW 86 7,424]

56 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

Refresher on attempts to overturn an election. Hint: It goes both ways.

 

And you get two dismissals and fistful of Facepalms, throw in a couple "false equivalencies" and a few RUSSIANS! just for fun, and here we are...

How dare you challenge the Narrative. 

"If you belong to a political party that doesn't allow criticism, you do not belong to a political party - you belong to a cult."
Glenn Greenwald

[tomcat 569]

Republicans are challenging things in ways that have never happened before. Are the concerns legitimate? Probably not. How many states that Trump won have a well defined challenge of fraud? None. The right, especially the far right Christian sect have become America’s Taliban.

[AUFAN78 3,895]

6 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

And you get two dismissals and fistful of Facepalms, throw in a couple "false equivalencies" and a few RUSSIANS! just for fun, and here we are...

How dare you challenge the Narrative. 

"If you belong to a political party that doesn't allow criticism, you do not belong to a political party - you belong to a cult."
Glenn Greenwald

Yep. Stated it for a while now, some of our resident cult conspiracists have it all wrong. 

[AUFAN78 3,895]

1 minute ago, tomcat said:

Republicans are challenging things in ways that have never happened before. Are the concerns legitimate? Probably not. How many states that Trump won have a well defined challenge of fraud? None. The right, especially the far right Christian sect have become America’s Taliban.

Sorry bro but that is stupid. So much so that I'll assume you've never been to Afghanistan and faced the ruthless. Amright?

[tomcat 569]

13 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

Sorry bro but that is stupid. So much so that I'll assume you've never been to Afghanistan and faced the ruthless. Amright?

That would be correct…..and perhaps the hyperbole was a bit much. However, many have enjoyed the hyperbole and outright lies of the previous administration, but it was a bit of a stretch.

To the point…the Taliban are ruthless and enforce their hard right, authoritarian religious values in the harshest possible ways. The Christian right has not gone that far…yet. However, I’m betting all involved in the January 6 insurrection will profess to being devout. There are many who will go quite far

The Christian right is obsessed in preventing abortion. ……and I get it. It is absolutely an individual’s right to oppose abortion, to which I advise, don’t get one! However, don’t impose your values on someone else whose life and circumstances you don’t understand. Unless, of course you are willing to support that child.

Next on the, “you can’t do this” list now seems to be Critical Race Theory, which I’m betting that most on both sides of the issue cannot define. However, some Republican operative latched on to this and created an inflammatory issue out of nothing. But…let’s say for a moment CRT is taught. That’s a problem? If you don’t support communism, it should still be taught so people know what it is and can make their own decisions.

I’ll stop with 2. 

[SaltyTiger 7,803]

46 minutes ago, tomcat said:

Next on the, “you can’t do this” list now seems to be Critical Race Theory, which I’m betting that most on both sides of the issue cannot define.

If both sides, pro and con, can not even define the theory or whatever it is how are k-12 teachers expected to incorporate into their system?

[AUFAN78 3,895]

6 hours ago, tomcat said:

That would be correct…..and perhaps the hyperbole was a bit much. However, many have enjoyed the hyperbole and outright lies of the previous administration, but it was a bit of a stretch.

Of course it was. Appreciate you admitting as much. And no need for equivocation. You admitted your error so move on.

 

6 hours ago, tomcat said:

To the point…the Taliban are ruthless and enforce their hard right, authoritarian religious values in the harshest possible ways. The Christian right has not gone that far…yet. However, I’m betting all involved in the January 6 insurrection will profess to being devout. There are many who will go quite far

Your first couple sentences correct. Beyond that more stupidity. To suggest this was a calling from God for the devout is ridiculous. A calling from Trump perhaps, but no correlation to God there. Just stop. Doubling down isn't beneficial.

 

6 hours ago, tomcat said:

The Christian right is obsessed in preventing abortion. ……and I get it. It is absolutely an individual’s right to oppose abortion, to which I advise, don’t get one! However, don’t impose your values on someone else whose life and circumstances you don’t understand. Unless, of course you are willing to support that child.

Not a point of argument. I believe in a woman's right to choose.

 

6 hours ago, tomcat said:

Next on the, “you can’t do this” list now seems to be Critical Race Theory, which I’m betting that most on both sides of the issue cannot define. However, some Republican operative latched on to this and created an inflammatory issue out of nothing. But…let’s say for a moment CRT is taught. That’s a problem? If you don’t support communism, it should still be taught so people know what it is and can make their own decisions.

Good thread on CRT in the forum. Join and hopefully learn something. Both sides have valid points. Enjoy.

Edited July 10, 2021 by AUFAN78

[tomcat 569]

4 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

Of course it was. Appreciate you admitting as much. And no need for equivocation. You admitted your error so move on.

Oh…it was no error. Intentionally overstated.

Your first couple sentences correct. Beyond that more stupidity. To suggest this was a calling from God for the devout is ridiculous. A calling from Trump perhaps, but no correlation to God there. Just stop. Doubling down isn't beneficial.

Ahhh…ya know, labeling people or their ideas as “stupid” is not the best segue to civil discourse. However, my analogy was not clear enough. I have numerous Christian friends that lean right in rational and well thought ways. However, many on the extreme right cloak their authoritarian ways in Christianity….”let me protect the children being trafficked in the basement of this pizza parlor”. Pardon the triple and quadruple down

Not a point of argument. I believe in a woman's right to choose.

Bingo! Good to read.

 

Good thread on CRT in the forum. Join and hopefully learn something. Both sides have valid points. Enjoy.

I’m old and trying to keep up! Cheers! I enjoy the exchange. Be well.

 

[tomcat 569]

9 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

If both sides, pro and con, can not even define the theory or whatever it is how are k-12 teachers expected to incorporate into their system?

So…..specifically where is this happening? Now perhaps there are some teachers that have sought out additional knowledge in this area. Perhaps they incorporate that knowledge as a part of their presentation. IF, this indeed happening, I don’t understand your resistance to explaining concepts…JMHO

[SaltyTiger 7,803]

37 minutes ago, tomcat said:

So…..specifically where is this happening? Now perhaps there are some teachers that have sought out additional knowledge in this area. Perhaps they incorporate that knowledge as a part of their presentation. IF, this indeed happening, I don’t understand your resistance to explaining concepts…JMHO

You are the one that said neither side can define it. I asked a simple question. The definition of CRT should be as simple as ABC if incorporated k-12. 

[Handlemycandle 14]

On 7/9/2021 at 12:33 PM, homersapien said:

Unless and until the Republican Party recommits itself to playing by democratic rules of the game, American democracy will remain at risk.

By Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

 

The greatest threat to American democracy today is not a repeat of January 6, but the possibility of a stolen presidential election. Contemporary democracies that die meet their end at the ballot box, through measures that are nominally constitutional. The looming danger is not that the mob will return; it’s that mainstream Republicans will “legally” overturn an election.

In 2018, when we wrote How Democracies Die, we knew that Donald Trump was an authoritarian figure, and we held the Republican Party responsible for abdicating its role as democratic gatekeeper. But we did not consider the GOP to be an antidemocratic party. Four years later, however, the bulk of the Republican Party is behaving in an antidemocratic manner. Solving this problem requires that we address both the acute crisis and the underlying long-term conditions that give rise to it.

Addressing the short-term threat

Last year, for the first time in U.S. history, a sitting president refused to accept defeat and attempted to overturn election results. Rather than oppose this attempted coup, leading Republicans either cooperated with it or enabled it by refusing to publicly acknowledge Trump’s defeat. In the run-up to January 6, most top GOP officials refused to denounce extremist groups that were spreading conspiracy theories, calling for armed insurrection and assassinations, and ultimately implicated in the Capitol assault. Few Republicans broke with Trump after his incitement of the insurrection, and those who did were censured by their state parties.

From November 2020 to January 2021, then, a significant portion of the Republican Party refused to unambiguously accept electoral defeat, eschew violence, or break with extremist groups—the three principles that define prodemocracy parties. Because of that behavior, as well as its behavior over the past six months, we are convinced that the Republican Party leadership is willing to overturn an election. Moreover, we are concerned that it will be able to do so—legally. That’s why we serve on the board of advisers to Protect Democracy, a nonprofit working to prevent democratic decline in the United States. We wrote this essay as part of “The Democracy Endgame,” the group’s symposium on the long-term strategy to fight authoritarianism.

As we argued in How Democracies Die, our constitutional system relies heavily on forbearance. Whether it is the filibuster, funding the government, impeachment, or judicial nominations, our system of checks and balances works best when politicians on both sides of the aisle deploy their institutional prerogatives with restraint. In other words, when they avoid applying the letter of the law in ways contrary to the spirit of the law—what’s sometimes called constitutional hardball. When contemporary democracies die, they usually do so via constitutional hardball. Democracy’s primary assailants today are not generals or armed revolutionaries, but rather politicians—Hugo Chávez, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—who eviscerate democracy’s substance behind a carefully crafted veneer of legality and constitutionality.

This is precisely what could happen in the next U.S. presidential race. Elections require forbearance. For elections to be democratic, all adult citizens must be equally able to cast a ballot and have that vote count. Using the letter of the law to violate the spirit of this principle is strikingly easy. Election officials can legally throw out large numbers of ballots on the basis of the most minor technicalities (e.g., the oval on the ballot is not entirely penciled in, or the mail-in ballot form contains a typo or spelling mistake). Large-scale ballot disqualification accords with the letter of the law, but it is inherently antidemocratic, for it denies suffrage to many voters. Crucially, if hardball criteria are applied unevenly, such that many ballots are disqualified in one party’s stronghold but not in other areas, they can turn an election.

Republican officials across the country are laying the legal infrastructure to do just that. Since January, according to Protect Democracy, Law Forward, and the States United Democracy Center, Republicans have introduced 216 bills (in 41 states) aimed at facilitating hardball electoral tactics. As of June, 24 of these bills had passed, including in the battleground states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Approved measures allow Republican-controlled state legislatures or election boards to sideline or override local election administrations in Democratic strongholds. This would allow state legislatures or their appointees to meddle in local decision making, purge voter rolls, and manipulate the number and location of polling places. It would also allow Republicans in Arizona, Georgia, and elsewhere to do something Trump tried and failed to do in 2020: throw out ballots in rival strongholds in order to overturn a statewide result. Finally, the new laws impose criminal penalties for local election officials deemed to violate election procedure. This will enable statewide Republican officials to compel local officials, via threats of criminal prosecution, to engage in electoral hardball. Throwing out thousands of ballots in rival strongholds may be profoundly antidemocratic, but it is technically legal, and Republicans in several states now have a powerful stick with which to enforce such practices.

Republican politicians learned several things in the 2020 election’s aftermath. First, Trump’s failed campaign to overturn the results revealed a variety of mechanisms that may be exploited in future elections. Second, Republicans discovered that their base would not punish them for attempting to steal an election. To the contrary, they now know that efforts to overturn an election will be rewarded by Republican voters, activists, local and state parties, and many donors.

The 2020 election was, in effect, a dress rehearsal for what might lie ahead. All evidence suggests that if the 2024 election is close, the Republicans will deploy constitutional hardball to challenge or overturn the results in various battleground states. Recent history and public-opinion polling tell us that the Republican activist base will enthusiastically support—indeed, demand—such tactics. The new state election laws will make that easier. Democratic strongholds in Republican-led swing states will be especially vulnerable. And if disputed state-level elections throw the election into the House of Representatives, a Republican-led House would likely hand the presidency to the Republican candidate (no matter who actually won the election).

The American system has faced crises before—including the disputed elections in 1824, 1876, and 2000. Given the considerable authority that the Constitution grants to state legislatures, the processes of voting, vote counting, and even the selection of electors can easily be subverted for partisan ends. Electoral guardrails must therefore be hardened through federal legislation prior to the 2024 election.

To save democracy, democratize it

Beyond the acute crisis facing American democracy, however, is a deeper problem: the radicalization of the Republican Party. Unless and until the GOP recommits itself to playing by democratic rules of the game, American democracy will remain at risk. Each national election will feel like a national emergency. Therefore, the de-radicalization of the Republican Party is a central task for the next decade.

Chris Hayes: The Republican party is radicalizing against democracy

Normally, in a two-party democracy, if one party veers off course, it is punished at the ballot box. Electoral competition is thought to be a natural corrective for political extremism: Parties that stray too far from the average voter’s positions lose votes, which compels them to moderate and broaden their appeal to win again. When a professional sports team loses, it fires its coach, acquires new players, and regroups. The same should hold for political parties. Indeed, if you ask moderate or Never Trump Republicans what will get Republicans back on course, they will almost invariably answer “devastating electoral defeat.”

They may be right. There is a hitch, however: Competition’s effects are being undermined in the U.S. today by what political scientists call countermajoritarian institutions. We believe that the U.S. Constitution, in its current form, is enabling the radicalization of the Republican Party and exacerbating America’s democratic crisis. The Constitution’s key countermajoritarian features, such as the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate, have long been biased toward sparsely populated territories. But given that Democrats are increasingly the party of densely populated areas and Republicans dominate less populated areas, this long-standing rural bias now allows the Republican Party to win the presidency, control Congress, and pack the Supreme Court without winning electoral majorities. Consider these facts:

• Republicans have won the popular vote for the presidency only once since 1988,  yet have governed the country for nearly half of that period.
• The Democratic and Republican Parties each control 50 seats in the U.S. Senate, even though Democratic senators represent 40 million more voters than do Republican senators.
• The three justices who most recently joined the Supreme Court were appointed by a president who did not win the popular vote—and were confirmed by Senate majorities that did not represent a majority of Americans.

Countermajoritarian institutions shield Republicans from genuine competition. By allowing Republicans to win power without national majorities, this constitutional welfare allows the GOP to pursue extremist strategies that threaten our democracy without suffering devastating electoral consequences. Most Americans oppose most of the Republicans’ current positions. But if we do not reform our democracy to allow majorities to speak, expecting the GOP to change course would be naive.

Americans tend to view countermajoritarian institutions as essential to liberal democracy. And some of them are. In the United States, the Bill of Rights and judicial review help ensure that individual liberties and minority rights are protected. But many of our countermajoritarian institutions are legacies of a pre-democratic era. Where they pervade the electoral or legislative arenas, they do not protect minority rights so much as empower partisan minorities and, in some cases, enable minority rule.

Peter Wehner: The GOP is a grave threat to American democracy

To save our democracy, we must democratize it. A political system that repeatedly allows a minority party to control the most powerful offices in the country cannot remain legitimate for long. Following the example of other democracies, we must expand access to the ballot, reform our electoral system to ensure that majorities win elections, and weaken or eliminate antiquated institutions such as the filibuster so that majorities can actually govern. Congress is considering limited democratizing reforms, such as banning legislative gerrymandering. But those proposals pale in comparison with the extent of the problem.

Serious constitutional reform may seem like a daunting task, but Americans have refounded our democracy before. After the Civil War and during the Progressive era and the civil-rights movement, political leaders, under pressure from organized citizens, remade our democracy. Always unfinished, our Constitution requires continuous updating. American democracy thrived because it allowed itself to be reformed. Given the scale of the threat, reforming our democracy over the next decade is among the most pressing challenges we face today.

About the author: Steven Levitsky is a professor of government at Harvard University. Daniel Ziblatt is the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University. They are the authors of How Democracies Die, and are at work on a follow-up.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/democracy-could-die-2024/619390/

 

How did y'all say one was to go about reporting posts that break the rules again?  When I click on the three dots mentioned on the other thread the only choice I have is "share."

[DKW 86 7,424]

3 minutes ago, Handlemycandle said:

How did y'all say one was to go about reporting posts that break the rules again?  When I click on the three dots mentioned on the other thread the only choice I have is "share."

you may have to have a certain number of posts to make it work?

Your account is very very new.

[Handlemycandle 14]

23 hours ago, tomcat said:

It is absolutely an individual’s right to oppose abortion, to which I advise, don’t get one! However, don’t impose your values on someone else whose life and circumstances you don’t understand. Unless, of course you are willing to support that child.

Next on the, “you can’t do this” list now seems to be Critical Race Theory, which I’m betting that most on both sides of the issue cannot define. However, some Republican operative latched on to this and created an inflammatory issue out of nothing. But…let’s say for a moment CRT is taught. That’s a problem? If you don’t support communism, it should still be taught so people know what it is and can make their own decisions.

I’ll stop with 2. 

The old, "You can't legislate morality and impose your values on everyone else...unless they are values that I want imposed," narrative.  Really?  In 2021, no less?

Almost every law we have is reflective of morality and values.  "Don't like abortion, great, don't get one," is as enlightened as, "Don't believe in rape, great, don't rape anyone!"

The very, very, very obvious limit on freedom is when the action considered violates someone else's rights.  To not be raped in the latter case, or to live in the former.

In order to justify the obvious fact that in every abortion, a distinct human being with unique DNA is killed, the left has to act as though it's not really a human being, despite the fact that DNA is the scientific gold standard for identification.  That sure sounds to me like an anti-science position.

Sure, some have realized the weakness of that position (it was one thing in 1973 before DNA testing and what we know about embryology, it's a horse of a different color now) and moved on to, "Yes, a human being dies, but the mother's right to not have a baby supersedes the unborn's right to live."  But that's an absurd position and pretty much everyone sees it, as it's the only situation in which we prioritize the right to something else over life.

But back to the original premise.  There is no constitutional right to my services as a business owner, either stated or implied, as there is the basic right to life.  Yet when confronted with coming down on the side of freedom of association with regard to privately owned businesses discriminating against customers and/or employees, the left screams like a mashed cat.  Why is that not a situation of, "You don't believe in serving gays, great, don't serve them.  We don't want to impose our values and morality on everyone just because of what we think, and someone else will be glad to take their money for services?"

Why is that value worthy to be codified, but protecting defenseless unborn human beings from death is not?

[Handlemycandle 14]

10 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

you may have to have a certain number of posts to make it work?

Your account is very very new.

Thanks.

[homersapien 11,373]

On 7/10/2021 at 9:59 AM, SaltyTiger said:

If both sides, pro and con, can not even define the theory or whatever it is how are k-12 teachers expected to incorporate into their system?

Good point.

Regardless of the hysteria about "teaching our children to hate themselves", this is very much a graduate level theory.

Edited July 11, 2021 by homersapien

[creed 1,635]

17 hours ago, homersapien said:

Good point.

Regardless of the hysteria about "teaching our children to hate themselves", this is very much a graduate level theory.

I agree. This is a subject for a university setting. Also, without specific expertise in the subject, which I seriously doubt any high school teacher is trained, how could they teach CRT without bias?

Edited July 12, 2021 by creed

[DKW 86 7,424]

Definition of Critical Theory thinking: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introductiontocommunication/chapter/critical-theories-paradigm/

Basically, CT is from the Marxist School and is used to base the reasoning for Activist to Change to whatever is the focus of CT.

Critical Theories Paradigm

At this point you have learned about four different theoretical paradigms we use to understand communication. One problem with these approaches is they often lack an explicit critique of the status quo of communication. Put another way, they serve as a general approach to understand communication norms rather than challenge them. We all realize that there are communication realities in the world that are hurtful and oppressive to particular people, and that there are people in the world that use communication to serve their own needs and interests. How do we bring these communicative practices to light and work to change communication practices that are hurtful?

Communication Theory Now

Byron Hurt is a modern theorist who uses film to critique how sexism impacts both men and women in our society. His cutting-edge film “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes” looks at the Hip-Hop industry from a critical perspective, focusing on how it enables sexism against women while keeping men in narrowly defined gendered roles.

The Need for Critical Theories

The Critical Theories Paradigm helps us understand how communication is used to oppress, and provides ways to foster positive social change (Foss & Foss; Fay). Critical Theories challenge the status quo of communication contexts, looking for alternatives to those forms of oppressive communication. These theories differ from other theoretical approaches because they seek praxis as the overarching goal. Praxis is the combination of theory and action. Rather than simply seeking to understand power structures, critical theories actively seek to change them in positive ways. Easily identifiable examples of critical approaches are Marxism, postmodernism, and feminism. These critical theories expose and challenge the communication of dominant social, economic, and political structures. Areas of inquiry include language, social relationships, organizational structures, politics, economics, media, cultural ideologies, interpersonal relationships, labor, and other social movements.

Cultural Studies focus on understanding the real-life experiences of people, examining communication contexts for hidden power structures, and accomplishing positive social change as a result (Dines and Humez; Kellner). According to Kellner, cultural studies involves three interconnected elements necessary for understanding, evaluating and challenging the power dynamics embedded in communication—political economy, textual analysis, and audience reception.

• Political economy focuses on the macro level of communication. Specifically, this part of cultural studies looks at the way media as text are situated in a given cultural context, and the political and economic realities of the cultural context. In the U.S., we would note that the political economy is one marked with gender, racial, and class inequities.

• Textual analysis involves the process of deconstructing and analyzing elements of a media text. If you wanted to look at a magazine with a critical eye, you would pay attention to the visual elements (the pictures in the ads; the celebrity photos, and any other drawings, cartoons or illustrations), the verbal messages (the text of the ads, the copy, captions that accompany the photographs), and the relationship between the advertisements and the copy. For example, is there an ad for Clinique eye shadow next to an article on the “hot new beauty tips for fall?” You would also want to pay attention to the representation of gender, race, and class identities as well. Are there any differences or similarities between the portrayal of white women and women of color? What sort of class identity is being offered as the one to emulate?

• Audience reception asks us to consider the role of the text for the audience that consumes it. You might want to learn why people read particular magazines—what purpose does it fill, what is the social function of this text?

Origins of Critical Theories in Communication

Marxism is one of the earliest origins of critical theory. In addition, postmodernism, feminism, and postcolonialism have greatly influenced how critical theories have grown and expanded to challenge a greater number of social power structures. While each of these approaches examines a different area of oppression, all are critical approaches to enact great social changes, not only in western societies, but in cultures worldwide.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Karl Marx’s ideas challenged the status quo of newly emerging industrial societies. As societies moved from agrarian-based economies to ones based in industrial manufacturing, there became an increasing division between the rich and the poor — much like the income inequality talked about so much today. Marx, in two of his most well-known works, The Communist Manifesto and Capital, argued that working class laborers were being oppressed by those in power, specifically the owners of manufacturing plants.

In any discussion of Postmodernism, another critical theoretical perspective, the difficulty of defining the term is invariably part of the discussion. Modern refers to just now (from modo in Latin) and post means after. Thus, this term translates into “after just now”—an idea that can be difficult to wrap our heads around. How do you, for example, point to or mark the period after just now? (Covino & Jolliffe, 76). In discussing the postmodern condition, Lyotard explained the relationship between those who have and don’t have social power: “The [decision makers] allocate our lives for the growth of power. In matters of social justice and scientific truth alike, the legitimation of that power is based on optimizing the system’s performance—efficiency” (27).

A third major influence on the development of the Critical Theories Paradigm comes from feminist theories. Feminist theories explore power structures that create and recreate gendered differentiations in societies (Foss & Foss; Dervin; MacKinnon). Critical feminist theories contend that gender relations are often oppressive to both men and women, and that they support an institution based on patriarchal values. Thus, critical feminist theories challenge dominant assumptions and practices of gender in ways that foster more equal and egalitarian forms of communication and social structures in society.

When discussing feminism and feminist theories we refer to a set of multiple and diverse theories. Feminist theories include a wide range of philosophical arguments, economic structures, and political viewpoints. Some of these include Marxist feminism, which focuses on the division of labor as a source of gender inequality, and liberal feminism, which asserts that men and women should have equal status in the culture—such as voting rights, educational and professional opportunities, and equal pay. Eco-feminism recognizes that all parts of the universe are interconnected and that oppression of women and other minorities is analogous to the oppression of the natural environment such as in the cutting down of natural forests to meet consumer demands for paper goods, or the killing of animals for the eating of meat.

Critical Theories in Action

Whether we listen to music on our phones, watch TV, go to the movies, or read a magazine, most of us consume media. Have you ever stopped to think about who puts together those messages? Have you wondered what their goals might be and why they want to send the messages they do? One way we can use critical theories is to examine who owns what media to determine what they are trying to accomplish (Croteau & Hoynes). For example, why does General Electric want to own companies like RCA and NBC? Why does a company like Seagram’s want to buy MCA (Universal Studios) and Polygram records? What world-views are these companies creating in the media they produce? These are all questions for which we might consider using theories from the Critical Theories Paradigm. Did you know that in 1983 50 corporations controlled most of the U.S. media (papers, television, movies, magazines,etc.) and that by 2004 that number has dropped down to five corporations (Bagdikian)? Using Critical Theories Paradigm, we can begin to examine the messages that so few companies are constructing and their impacts on how we understand the world around us as shaped through these messages.

Other examples from the critical paradigm include works that examine gender, consumerism, advertising, and television. In her work, Who(se) Am I? The Identity and Image of Women in Hip-Hop, Perry examines the potential danger and damage to African-American women through their objectification in Hip-Hop videos. Carole A. Stabile examines the labor and marketing practices of Nike in her article, Nike, Social Responsibility, and the Hidden Abode of Production. Clint C. Wilson II and Felix Gutierrez discuss the portrayal of people of color in advertising in their article, Advertising and People of Color, while Jackson Katz explores mask of masculinity with his film, Tough Guise 2: The Ongoing Crisis of Violent Masculinity. We use critical theories to reveal a vast range of possible ideological structures that create and foster dominant world-views, and to challenge and change those ideologies that oppress others.

Strengths

A significant strength of the Critical Theories Paradigm is that it combines theory and practice, seeking to create actual change from theoretical development. Rather than seeking prediction and control, or explanation and understanding, critical theories seek positive social change. The intent behind these theoretical perspectives is to help empower those whose world-views and ideological perspectives have not found equality in social contexts. At their best, critical theories have the potential to enact large-scale social change for both large and small groups of people.

Weaknesses

A potential weakness of critical theories is their dependence on social values. While empirical laws theories seek an objective reality, critical theories highlight subjective values that guide communication behaviors. When values conflict the question of, “whose values are better?” emerges. Because values are subjective, answering this question is often filled with much conflict and debate. The example of gay marriage highlights a current debate taking place over ideological values. How do we define marriage? And, whose definition is best?

LICENSES AND ATTRIBUTIONS

[DKW 86 7,424]

If CRT is going to be used either now or in the future as a lens for studying race in America, then you have to consider the magnitude and depth and breadth of that study. 

IE: In the Child's World, two of the biggest factors are going to be the Education System and the Federal Govt. In CRT, remember it is ultimately a tool for change. It must first be critical of American Education, Both Nationally and Locally and the people used in those jobs. Remember, if they have those jobs, then they must have benefitted from Racism. Right? Almost immediately, teachers are going to be confronted with CRT that will tell the students that the teachers themselves and the Institutions they serve are Racist. CRT is the criticism of all things institutional. You cannot pick and chose winners and losers. Any authority figure or organization is and has been practicing Racism. That is the conclusion. 

Once you see Racism everywhere, then what do you do? The people must go obviously. New people must be brought in.to repopulate the organizations.

This could be real fun or a real disaster.

Just for the sake of humor, and please remember, I did not say this was going to happen tomorrow. It will likely take some time down the road.
All current orgs and the people currently leading those orgs are Racist. That is the definition of Systemic and Institutional Racism. The end goal of CRT is Activism. 
Think of places where we need to apply the thought:
IF YOU ARE IN LEADERSHIP THEN YOU HAVE BENEFITED FROM RACISM AND MUST BE REMOVED.
All News organizations and the people leading them are Racist, that has to be a given.
All Colleges, the people leading them and All Professors are therefore Racist and should be runoff. 
All govt agencies and the people leading them are therefore Racist and should be runoff.
All businesses and the people leading them should be runoff.
All police organizations and the people leading them ,
All military organizations and the people leading them ,
All Federal, State, and Local Govts and the people leading them are Obviously the most Racist things on the planet and must be torn down and the people removed. 
Etc.... 
Congress must be seen as the source for all Racist things and all the leaders removed right? All the people there benefitted in some way from Racism or they would not be there, right?

Edited July 12, 2021 by DKW 86

[tomcat 569]

On 7/10/2021 at 7:08 PM, SaltyTiger said:

You are the one that said neither side can define it. I asked a simple question. The definition of CRT should be as simple as ABC if incorporated k-12. 

So, my words were “most”. I suppose at this point I should amend that to many.  However, this is taught in advanced college courses and law school. NOT K-12. Troublesome is the Alabama state representative introducing legislation banning it when he “only wanted to start a discussion “.  …and he obviously has no clue.