A short thread w/two questions on @YAppelbaum's essay on the right and demographic change, which describes conservative resistance to majority rule in the emerging America as major, perhaps-existential threat to US democracy.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
@YAppelbaum I basically agree with Appelbaum's critique of Republican-supported voter ID laws, which are his strongest example of a practical, affirmative policy the current GOP is pursuing to resist demographic change without actually seeking/winning minority votes.
@YAppelbaum However all the data we have suggests voter ID are at most a marginal factor in electoral outcomes, and far and away the strongest forces giving GOP some counter-majoritarian power right now are constitutional structures -- electoral college and senate.
@YAppelbaum So one question is whether Appelbaum believes that his honorable moderate Republicans are obliged to cooperate with dramatic constitutional change, to literally dismantle their own advantage in the Senate for instance, in order to fulfill their obligations to democracy.
@YAppelbaum This seems at the very least implausible -- the equivalent of arguing that liberals who used their hold on judicial power to block conservative policies in the Nixon or Reagan era were betraying democracy when they declined to confirm Robert Bork.
@YAppelbaum And then at the same time, one of the most important policy arenas shaping the scale and pace of demographic change is, of course, US immigration and citizenship policies. Which leads to my second question:
@YAppelbaum What level of immigration are Republicans obliged to support to pass Appelbaum's democratic test? Are they permitted to think at all of partisan self-interest? Are there any restrictions they could support that would not be regarded as illegitimate resistance to the new majority?
@YAppelbaum In both cases I think the critique/anxiety here would benefit from more engagement with what, beyond abandoning voter ID, liberals expect from Republicans, and the reasonability of those expectations in a constitutional system where it's the liberal side pushing for big change.
