Excitable Paul Krugman is Very Concerned. See, he thinks authoritarian rule is coming, but fails to mention all the people arrested, detained, and fined over failing to social distance. Like that guy on the paddleboard who wasn’t near anyone. Or how about the use of ankle monitors in Kentucky? And using Google data to track where everyone is going? And more? Nope, something different, in a piece that would have been in Prison Planet or the Democratic Underground 10 years ago
American Democracy May Be Dying
Authoritarian rule may be just around the corner.(info on the really bad unemployment data)
Yet the scariest news of the past week didn’t involve either epidemiology or economics; it was the travesty of an election in Wisconsin, where the Supreme Court required that in-person voting proceed despite the health risks and the fact that many who requested absentee ballots never got them.
Why was this so scary? Because it shows that America as we know it may not survive much longer. The pandemic will eventually end; the economy will eventually recover. But democracy, once lost, may never come back. And we’re much closer to losing our democracy than many people realize.
To see how a modern democracy can die, look at events in Europe, especially Hungary, over the past decade.
What happened in Hungary, beginning in 2011, was that Fidesz, the nation’s white nationalist ruling party, took advantage of its position to rig the electoral system, effectively making its rule permanent. Then it further consolidated its control, using political power to reward friendly businesses while punishing critics, and moved to suppress independent news media.
Until recently, it seemed as if Viktor Orban, Hungary’s de facto dictator, might stop with soft authoritarianism, presiding over a regime that preserved some of the outward forms of democracy, neutralizing and punishing opposition without actually making criticism illegal. But now his government has used the coronavirus as an excuse to abandon even the pretense of constitutional government, giving Orban the power to rule by decree.
Obviously, you can see where Conspiracy Theorist Paul is going. And he links this all to the recent primary in Wisconsin, in which the GOP forced them to vote in person, because that’s kinda what the law requires. And the GOP is only in charge of the legislature because of gerrymandering (the Dems never do that, right?), even though Dems had more votes (funny how they hate allowing other people their voices). And this all means
This November, it’s all too possible that Trump will eke out an Electoral College win thanks to widespread voter suppression. If he does — or even if he wins cleanly — everything we’ve seen suggests that he will use a second term to punish everyone he sees as a domestic enemy, and that his party will back him all the way. That is, America will do a full Hungary.
See, it was Trump who forced Hillary to forgo visiting several states she needed, like Wisconsin. And be a terrible candidate and a terrible person. And pass out on 9/11. And violate all those national security rules, regs, and laws.
What if Trump loses? You know what he’ll do: He’ll claim that Joe Biden’s victory was based on voter fraud, that millions of illegal immigrants cast ballots or something like that. Would the Republican Party, and perhaps more important, Fox News, support his refusal to accept reality? What do you think?
Paul should just come out and write it, having gone this far: he thinks Trump will go dictator and refuse to leave. But, we’ve seen this same thing when it came to George Bush in 2004 and 2008, but those conpiracy theories came more from places like Prison Planet, the Democratic Underground, the Daily Kos, and other hardcore places, not the New York Times
So that’s why what just happened in Wisconsin scares me more than either disease or depression. For it shows that one of our two major parties simply doesn’t believe in democracy. Authoritarian rule may be just around the corner.
See, all those people getting sick and dying isn’t that bad in Paul’s World. The First Street Journal notes that the Supreme Court refused to change the voting laws in Wisconsin, especially when there were no provisions of mail in ballot security. Further
Dr Krugman bemoans his fears of authoritarian rule, yet the left in general, and The New York Times specifically, have been cheering that very same authoritarian rule by Democratic governors and mayors, with our constitutional rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments just blithely swept aside, as the majority of the public seem to support. When we are allowing, with only a few ineffectual protests, state Governors to use the force of law, backed up by police power, to confine people to their homes, to stop cars with out-of-state license plates, and to go door-to-door demanding to know if a resident has been in a certain place, all done without a warrant, all done without any semblance of due process of law, all done without people having a day in court, that is when we are experiencing authoritarian rule, and the esteemed Dr Krugman hasn’t uttered the first peep of protest over it.
Yup. I don’t see Paul complaining about NYC, where the Times is located, raising fines for not social distancing from $500 to $1000.
Gerrymandering is more often done by the GOP
Teach knows that NC his home state has been repeatedly admonished by the courts for failing to allow voters effectively
I would like to see “districts” voided and reps be elected proportionately to the total votes received by political parties in each state
I think that is the only way to end gerrymandering
In 2012, there were 59 precincts in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia in which Mitt Romney got zero votes. The same Philadelphia Inquirer story notes that in 2008, there were 57 precincts in which John McCain received no votes at all.
In 2004, an election in which President Bush defeated Senator John Kerry 62,040,610 (50.7%) to 59,028,444 (48.3%), Lurch won twenty congressional districts by greater percentages than President Bush’s best one?
Now, just how do you draw districts in which Democratic voters are not so heavily concentrated, when Democratic voters have chosen to live in such densely populated urban areas? Add to that the federal mandate that reasonable majority-minority districts be drawn to insure greater success for black candidates?
I lived in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia in the early 1990s, and the Old Dominion received an additional congressional district following the 1990 census. Due to the regulations under the Voting Rights Act, that district was to be created in the Tidewater area, and thus the third District was created for then-State Senator Bobby Scott, a black Democrat. It ran like a snake through areas of Newport News all the way up into Richmond. But result was that Rep Herb Bateman (R-VA 1st district), who had barely eked out a victory in 1990, utterly stomped the same opponent in 1992, as taking black voters, who gave upwards of 99% to their votes to Democrats, out of the First District and into the Third.
But, you did express your ‘solution,’ to change to proportional representation, where we would vote for party rather than for individuals. They have that in Italy and Israel and a few other places, and the results wind up being multiple parties all trying to cobble together coalition governments; the results are uniformly bad.
The best results are from the system we have. For decades it resulted in Democratic majorities, and the Democrats never combitched about it then, did they? Now that the Democrats have gone wild-eyed whacko leftist, you combitch that it’s just so unfair! We are happy that you are so displeased.
John whined:
It wasn’t so long ago that gerrymandering was done by the Democrats, back in the days when teh Democrats controlled most state legislatures. But, eventually, even under districts gerrymandered to favor Democrats, Republicans kept gaining strength because the Democrats kept moving further and further away from their roots and what the public wanted, and under Democrat-gerrymandered districts, the Republicans finally won majorities in most states . . . and returned the favor following the subsequent censes. And now, now! you think it’s unfair!
Well, the solution form the Democrats is the same as it was for Republicans: start listening to the people across the country and start winning in the districts which currently favor sensible people.
It is?
What about all those set-aside districts for blacks?
Teach knows that NC his home state has been repeatedly admonished by the courts for failing to allow voters effectively
Run by judges who are members of what party?
I would like to see “districts†voided and reps be elected proportionately to the total votes received by political parties in each state
Gee, which party regularly raids the graveyards? Which party keeps people on the rolls who have moved out of state. Which party brings in “voters” from out of state? Which party lets illegals vote?
Whoever writes that blog, The First Street Journal, he’s one pretty smart cookie!
I really need to upload more emoticons to the plugin again.