The 'Visible Deterioration' in American Democracy Is Just the Start

[Jilly_in_VA]

While many in the media and political landscape are distracted by the phantom menace of wokeness, the US was just added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time ever.

It’s an urgent reminder to Americans battling windmills like Critical Race Theory and The 1619 project, and desperately rehabilitating former Trump officials, that we have less than a year to try and save our ailing Republic from an increasingly radicalized and weaponized GOP death cult.

Earlier this week, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) based in Stockholm warned about a “visible deterioration” in US democracy that it says began in 2019 and rapidly accelerated after Trump refused to concede the 2020 election. For the fifth straight year, more countries moved towards authoritarianism than democratisation, according to IDEA, which currently sees only 98 democracies around the world—the lowest number in years.

In addition to the Big Lie, which is believed by a majority of Republican voters and promoted by most Republican elected officials, the think tank also cited our decline in civil liberties and checks on government. A co-author of the report also pointed to the “decline in the quality of freedom of association and assembly during the summer of protests in 2020” after the murder of George Floyd.

The acquittal and subsequent adulation of shooter Kyle Rittenhouse—who says he supports the BLM movement and showed it by bringing an AR-15 to a protest and killing two of its supporters—surely isn’t an auspicious sign for the future of our democracy. It is springtime, however, for violent vigilantes and gun enthusiasts who no longer have to wear their hoods in public or abide by laws and election results they don’t like. Republicans in the House are publicly competing to make Rittenhouse their Congressional intern, while Marjorie Taylor Greene has a bill to give him a gold medal.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-visible-deterioration-in-american-democracy-is-just-the-start-of-what-the-gop-has-in-for-us?ref=home

[ColinC]

2. The backsliding began way before the 2016 election.

SCOTUS dismantling the VRA, SCOTUS deciding the 2000 election, and the wealth of disinformation that has willingly been invading the minds of every American over the last 20 years. 2016 didn't help, but it certainly wasn't the cause.

[ColinC]

5. Not as secure as one would think

We had the highest level of wealth inequality than at any point of our history -as it continues to worsen. That reality in and of itself also could be a catalyst for such backsliding.

[ColinC]

8. No not at all. I just was far less confident in our democratic structures as they stood

[appalachiablue]

9. + 'Citizens United' Bush, Trump Tax Cuts, Media Consol..

[ColinC]

10. Yep. All of it

It was of course more than just one or a few things, is my point. It was a long process of democracy dismantling that continues to happen...