In the Global State of Democracy report, Dear Leader finally gets the recognition he deserves.
Disputes about electoral outcomes are on the rise, including in established democracies. A historic turning point came in 2020–2021 when [the former guy] questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results in the United States. Baseless allegations of electoral fraud and related disinformation undermined fundamental trust in the electoral process, which culminated in the storming of the US Capitol building in January 2021.
[These] baseless allegations ... have had spillover effects, including in Brazil, Mexico, Myanmar and Peru, among others.
Update (December 27): Andrew O'Hehir ponders whether we truly understand the nature of "democracy" vs. "fascism" as a characterization of our political crisis.
The democracy that Americans have been taught to venerate, and that many of us now seek to defend, is a limited and specific historical phenomenon, which has been on a downward trajectory of slow decay and creeping paralysis for at least 30 years. One core problem that the Democratic Party and many people in the political and media castes have been unwilling to confront directly is that defending institutions that patently do not work is a position of pathetic weakness, not to mention near-certain defeat.
As for the homegrown authoritarian movement some of us designate as fascism, it is rather like an opportunistic infection. The [Fuckface] insurgency did not cause the crisis of democratic legitimacy, and could not have taken hold or spread so rapidly in an actually functioning democracy.
Update (January 17, 2022): Richard Eckersley "draws on people's profound disquiet about life in America" to suggest that deeper issues are overlooked by the traditional political discourse.
Take, as an example, materialism and individualism, two defining qualities of modern Western culture. The research literature suggests that, when taken together and too far, they reduce social integration, self-worth, moral clarity and existential confidence and certainty. There is a shift from intrinsic to extrinsic values and goals; from self-transcendence to self-enhancement; from doing things for their own sake to doing things in the hope or expectation of other rewards, such as status, money and recognition. The result is an increasing focus on our own lives and an unrelenting need to make the most of life. Frustration, disappointment and failure become more likely; loneliness, anger, depression and anxiety are a greater risk.
[T]he official future is one constructed around notions of continuing material progress and economic growth, and scientific and technological advances, with the aim of providing an ever-rising standard of living. It is increasingly being challenged by sustainable development as a framework for thinking about human betterment. Authentic sustainable development does not give economic growth overriding priority. Instead, it seeks a better balance and integration of social, environmental and economic goals and objectives to produce a high, equitable and enduring quality of life.
The evidence shows that the political systems of the United States and other Western liberal democracies are failing, unable to deal with the nature and scale of 21st-century realities. Blinkered by their cultures, most politicians and journalists do not see the extent of this failure. Without a transformational change in the cultures of politics and journalism, we will not and cannot "look outward" far enough or "look inward" deeply enough to address the two types of existential threat humankind confronts: the extrinsic, environmental and other tangible problems that pose a threat to human civilization and survival; and the intrinsic, intangible problems of finding meaning and belonging in today's world. This should be the most fundamental layer of political discourse, one which remains largely missing.
Update (January 20, 2022): Travis Waldron and Paul Blumenthal wonder whether U.S. political institutions are broken beyond repair.
The uniquely anti-democratic structures of the American political system have historically thwarted any effort to make the United States a more representative nation, especially for its Black, Latino, Native American and other marginalized populations. Now they have done so again, at a crucial crossroads for the country’s democracy.
The [recently defeated voting rights] bills were an attempt to arrest a decade-long anti-democratic spiral brought about by the GOP’s steady radicalization and legal assaults on the right to vote. Their failure shows that the spiral is nowhere near its bottom yet — and that the institutions that could end it may be completely incapable of doing so.
President Biden thinks there will be a second chance to get this done. I think we're fucked.
More Republicans than Democrats feel democracy is currently under attack, according to a September CNN poll. Independent voters, meanwhile, are roughly split between which party poses the bigger threat, a November survey from Marist University found.
Experts widely consider the Republican Party a major threat to democracy, but a GOP that faces no legislative response or blowback — and, in fact, prospers politically — from its assaults on democracy and institutional advantages is not likely to reverse course.
The sort of drastic reforms that would quickly reshape that kind of landscape into one that could produce a more representative and democratic government are all but impossible under the current political system. And now, the more modest changes Democrats sought to make are dead too. Barring massive shifts between now and next January, it may be years before they have another chance — if it ever comes again.
Update (January 30, 2022): Paul Rosenberg quotes Ian Hughes on why conventional centrism isn't functioning in our political system.
[W]ith climate change, the impacts of the vast inequalities we have created, the hollowing out of our democracies, all of these neglected issues are rushing in from the background and crashing in upon us, destroying our cozy narratives. In such circumstances we need new "extremists" — visionaries who can see the world as it could be, activists whose lives are devoted to common good and not private wealth, agitators who remind us that our current systems of economics, politics, gender, militarism are deeply broken. We need, first and foremost, to recognize that the systems that make up our current civilization are finished. Only then can we start to build back better.
Update (January 31, 2022): In a stunning speech, Fuckface von Clownstick makes it very clear he wanted Vice President Pence to overturn the 2020 election. He also called on his supporters to rise up in massive, possibly violent protests should he charged with crimes. He further promised to pardon those involved with violence should he return to office.
Amanda Marcotte says Dear Leader is doing everything he can to manipulate public opinion.
[His] boldness in trying to rewrite the history of January 6 is horrific, but not shocking. The man has never failed to press an advantage. He has a huge one when it comes to gaining control of the narrative of January 6: There's no one really out there stopping him. The mainstream media is falling behind on the job, failing to treat [the former guy's] downright criminal aggression on this front with the gravity it deserves. Meanwhile, Democrats who ostensibly control Congress and the White House are too slow-moving and cautious in their response, giving [Fuckface] the opening to go all-out with his valorization of January 6 and efforts to stoke further attacks on democracy.
Update (February 3, 2022): More stories emerge on how much effort was made to subvert democracy in the 2020 presidential election. Heather Digby Parton says these actions were worse than what Nixon did to try to block investigations into Watergate.
[Dear Leader] tried to use the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security (and for all we know the CIA and the Department of Education too) to overturn a legal election that he lost. And his party shrugs. Worse than that he is the front runner for the nomination in the next presidential election.
Update (February 6, 2022): The Republican National Committee had the gall to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for "participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse". The National Review blasted the move.
The action of the mob on January 6 was an indefensible disgrace. It is deserving of both political accountability and criminal prosecution. Aspects of it are also fit subjects for a properly conducted congressional inquiry. It is wrong to minimize or excuse what happened that day.
Also, Mike Pence rebuts his boss.
[The former guy] is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.
Which leads to the predictable outburst.
I was right and everyone knows it.
Update (February 8, 2022): In an interview with Marc Lamont Hill, Noam Chomsky says the Republican Party is now committed to overthrowing representative democracy.
[Dear Leader] has managed to mobilize a popular cult of (worshipping) followers. Anything he does, they support — and they've basically taken over the Republican Party, or what used to be the Republican Party. Republican leaders are groveling at his feet, afraid to offend him in any way. [Fuckface] has made it very clear — more clear in the last few days — that he does not believe that the United States should have a functioning democracy. He's said explicitly that the vice president, Mike Pence, could have overturned the election and failed to do it — it was Pence's failure, his fault that the election was not overturned and handed over to [von Clownstick]. He said it quite explicitly.
