9/5/23

 Tuesday, September 5, 2023

In bed at 9:30, up at 5.  72°, high of 84 according to phone, low 90s according to WTMJ, AQI=41, wind SSW at 8 mph, 6-15/26.  DPs will be 66-70😱.  Sunrise at 6:20, sunset at 7:20, 12+59.  

How American Democracy Fell So Far Behind, in this morning's The Atlantic, by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.  "[T]he problem lies in something many of us venerate: the U.S. Constitution. America’s founding document, designed in a pre-democratic era in part to protect against “tyranny of the majority,” has generated the opposite problem: Electoral majorities often cannot win power, and when they win, they often cannot govern. Unlike any other presidential democracy, U.S. leaders can become president despite losing the popular vote. The U.S. Senate, which dramatically overrepresents low-population states by giving each state equal representation regardless of population, is also frequently controlled by a party that has lost the national popular vote. And due to the Senate’s filibuster rules, majorities are routinely blocked from passing normal legislation. Finally, because the Supreme Court’s composition is determined by the president and Senate, which have often not represented electoral majorities in the 21st century, the Court has grown more and more divorced from majority public opinion. Not only does the Constitution deliver outsize advantages to partisan minorities; it has also begun to endanger American democracy. With the Republican Party’s transformation into an extremist and antidemocratic force under Donald Trump, the Constitution now protects and empowers an authoritarian minority.  America was once the standard-bearer for democratic constitutions. Today, however, it is more vulnerable to minority rule than any other established democracy." . . . 

"Our excessively counter-majoritarian Constitution is not just a historical curiosity. It is a source of minority rule. The Constitution has always overrepresented sparsely populated territories, favoring rural minorities, but because both major parties had urban and rural wings throughout most of American history, this rural bias had only limited partisan consequences. This changed in the 21st century. For the first time, one party (the Republicans) is based primarily in small towns and rural areas while the other party (the Democrats) is based largely in urban areas. That means that our institutions now systematically privilege the Republicans. The Republican Party won the popular vote in only one presidential election from 1992 to 2020—a span of nearly three decades. But thanks to the Electoral College, Republicans occupied the presidency for nearly half of that time.

In the U.S. Senate, Republican senators not once represented a majority of Americans from 2000 to 2022, but they nevertheless controlled the Senate for half of this period. As often as not during the 21st century, then, the party with fewer votes has controlled the Senate.

In 2016, the Democrats won the national popular vote for the presidency and the Senate, but the Republicans nonetheless won control of both institutions. A president who lost the popular vote and senators who represented a minority of Americans then proceeded to fill three Supreme Court seats, giving the Court a manufacture What makes the situation so dangerous is that this privileged partisan minority has abandoned its commitment to democratic rules of the game. In other words, the Constitution is protecting and empowering an authoritarian partisan minority.  

But that Constitution appears nearly impossible to reform."

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As bad as our political and governmental situation has been for many years, we face the very real possibility that it will become unimaginably and perhaps irretrievably worse as a result of the upcoming 2024 which may give control of the House, the Senate, and the White House to fascists led by Donald Trump and a Supreme Court in full control of reactionaries.  I want to say 'God, help us', as if he/she/it/they  could.

Another day of pain. Back, CPP, skin fold.  See Dr. Chatt tomorrow.  Help?😕😧😩