General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Wisconsin power grab is part of a bigger Republican attack on democracy
The Wisconsin power grab is part of a bigger Republican attack on democracyThe GOPs turn against democracy may be a greater threat to the American experiment than President Trump.
Why the state power grabs are so scary
The specifics of the power-stripping efforts vary from state to state my colleague Tara Golshan has a great explanation of the details in each case but share a fundamentally similar structure. Each one curtails the governors ability to make changes to Republican-backed policies like welfare work requirements, and political rules like campaign finance regulation. Republican-controlled legislatures are given enhanced powers to block governors moves through measures such as handing them control over state bureaucracies. And these bills all happen during lame-duck sessions, specifically subverting the results of elections that just happened.
Republican legislators sometimes bill the laws as high-minded protections of the separation of powers, but no one is fooled. The goal is to prevent Democrats from overturning Republican policy initiatives and electoral rules that help Republicans win statewide elections.
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Democracy is premised on the idea that political power is only legitimate when exercised with the consent of the governed. But in reality, people disagree about fundamental political and moral issues; no elected government will ever have 100 percent support of the population, or anything close to it. The purpose of a democratic political system is to bridge that gap: to create a system for resolving these disagreements that everyone thinks is fair. That way, everyone will accept the outcome of the election as basically legitimate even when their side loses.
The post-election power grabs amount to Republicans declaring that they no longer accept that fundamental bargain. They do not believe its legitimate when they lose, or that they are obligated to hand over power to Democrats because thats whats required in a fair system. Political power, to the state legislators in question, matters more than the core bargain of democracy.
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I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So I drew this map in a way to help foster what I think is better for the country, North Carolina state Rep. David Lewis, chair of the legislatures redistricting effort, once said in defense of his gerrymander.
And there is simply no parallel on the other side. While state Democrats have certainly gerrymandered Maryland being a particularly egregious case its not nearly as nationally systematic as it has been on the Republican side. And Democrats certainly have not engaged in large-scale efforts to suppress Republican voters or strip powers from Republican officials after they win office. Republican officials dont seem to feel constrained by the basic, principled norms of democracy the way that Democrats are.
Theres really an assault on electoral fairness, I would say, in Republican-governed states, Daniel Ziblatt, a Harvard professor and author of How Democracies Die, tells me. Its really only in Republican-governed states where this has taken place.
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There has not been a hint of hand-wringing from President Trump or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan (who happens to be from Wisconsin). They do not object because they do not object: The past few years have shown that the national Republican leadership is perfectly fine with power grabs, and at times willing to back them.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/6/18127332/wisconsin-state-republican-power-grab-democracy
Eliot Rosewater
(31,097 posts)is so far no guns being fired.
Other than that, SAME thing.
What do people think we fought those wars for?
red dog 1
(27,648 posts)bluestarone
(16,720 posts)Lawsuit is filed?
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,033 posts)I cannot figure out why anyone would vote for would-be despots.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)by Charles Koch bragging about this.
malaise
(267,808 posts)Rec
pecosbob
(7,502 posts)but the Sinclairs own all the local news stations in the land. Cable news is owned by other one-percenters, as are most of the major newspapers that remain in existence. So who's going to write about ALEC and the Kochs and the Sinclairs and all the others that are driving the world off a cliff? And who in Washington is going to stand up in the House and denounce them as the real enemies of the people? I'd wager not many.
Corporations need to be controlled like wild animals...kept on a chain.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Or better yet, put down like animals that have already killed humans.
erronis
(14,949 posts)And you have to be careful to cull out the worthless from the worthwhile.
But, for the most part, the internet is also controlled by the corporatists. And the gov't/FCC. And other state/nationalist organizations.
What's the fallback? Pamphleteering? Town criers, smoke signals, drumming?
Buckeyeblue
(5,491 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Across the nation an electoral minority who resent decades of losing to the majority are coming to realize they can win if representative government can be replaced with an authoritarian system reflecting their white nationalist views.