It is fashionable in some lefty circles to dismiss the idea that democracy is under threat when we are already living in an oligarchy. But “limited democracy” vs “autocracy/fascism” is a distinction worth taking seriously. #Midterm2022
Saying “democracy is on the ballot” sounds like a Democratic talking point. But it is a FACT that on a structural level, one side (not “the duopoly”) seeks to use institutions under its control to impose minority rule and Orban-style illiberal democracy.
The SCOTUS’s six right-wing justices were appointed by GOP presidents who lost the popular vote in all but one election since 2000, yet they unilaterally stripped voting rights and reproductive rights away from millions and declared money “speech.”
Independent state legislative theory, likely to be approved by the Supreme Court soon, would allow unlimited partisan/racial gerrymandering and voter suppression laws at the state level with NO federal oversight. One more nail in “democracy’s” coffin.
A majority of Wisconsin voters are Democrats. They elected a Democratic governor. But the state is so gerrymandered and the executive rendered so weak by the GOP state legislature that it is on the verge of one-party GOP rule. Other states will follow.
Donald Trump has made it clear that if he wins re-election in 2024, his first act will be to purge the civil service of “rogue bureaucrats” and replace them with loyalists. Same with the Justice Department. That’s what an autocrat does. slate.com/news-and-polit…
Ron DeSantis has modeled how to use the state against both “woke” corporations and marginalized groups, particularly LGBTQ+ people, whose human rights he doesn’t recognize. He’s censored books and curricula. This will be a template for a MAGA autocrat.
You can’t have DEMOCRATIC socialism without some semblance of democracy. Even the limited, corrupt form of democracy we have now is something to build on. If/when the U.S. descends into autocracy, how does the left, a minority faction loathed by MAGA, survive?
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