and i think at least one state legislature will try to unilaterally assign its electoral votes
i think people are underestimating the extent of the anti-democratic turn among republican lawmakers at the state and local level
hope i am wrong about this of course, but if “trump actually won the election” is party dogma, then i don’t see much reason for optimism
to be a little less fatalistic, i also think all of this depends on just how strong the trump cult of personality is over the next few years, and whether the 2024 GOP nominee has the same juice
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watching ROSEWOOD for the first time since i was a kid. two thoughts: 1) i saw this movie way too young the first time. 2) john singleton is doing some really interesting things with this film besides just depicting a horrific event of violence.
it is interesting, for one, that this movie comes out as world war ii remembrance has reached a peak, with lots of stuff depicting white americans as heroic on a world historical level.
it is interesting, in the same way, that this movie comes out 10 months before AMISTAD
bad theology aside its worth saying that he can’t even get his labels right. “eschatology” relates to religious doctrines concerning the final fate of humanity. what erickson is trying to discuss is “soteriology,” the term for doctrines of salvation
probably worth saying, as well, that in the dispensationalist eschatology of American conservative evangelical christianity, God whisks away the saved/elect and subjects the rest of humanity to seven years of escalating horror culminating in near total annihilation.
there is no real way to extricate this fantasy of the armed white property owner standing off against thieving hordes from either america’s settler history or from the deep-seated and pervasive antebellum fear of slave revolt
it is arguably one of the ur-american fantasies, something recapitulated again and again in our media and pop culture
right. “if a legislature passes a bill and the governor vetoes it can still become law if it passes by majority vote in a statewide referendum” makes democratic sense, even if i’m not thrilled about it.
when you consider too that michigan republicans have gerrymandered themselves into a majority that can with stand consecutive popular vote defeats, it sure sounds like this is just outright minority rule
“The Senate is structurally biased against the party with a large urban constituency therefore we should use our fleeting majorities to pass as much legislation as we can and the filibuster inhibits this” isn’t that difficult to understand.
Also, there is the little thing of how the Republican Party is radicalizing against majoritarian democracy and the only way to shore up the right to vote is with federal legislation that, hey, the filibuster makes impossible to pass.
Many people have written easily available and detailed arguments against the filibuster in its current form and it is probably worth reading them before pontificating on what filibuster opponents think.