L.A. Times: HBO’s ‘Stopping the Steal’ examines Trump’s attempt to subvert 2020 election, and what it means for 2024. For those who think January 6 wasn’t plotted and planned from the White House, look back at Trump’s intense efforts in two states to overturn his 2020 defeat and stay in power. (Then think of all the people who left his administration in disgust and imagine the loyalists he would employ in 2025 who would chose Trump above the Constitution).
THE MOMENT OF TRUTH. The reelection of Donald Trump would mark the end of George Washington’s vision for the presidency—and the United States. Writing for the Atlantic, Tom Nichols argues Donald Trump is the tyrant George Washington feared: “People who are mad for power are a mortal threat to democracy. They may hold different titles—even President—but at heart they are tyrants, and all tyrants share the same trait: They never voluntarily cede power.”
For only the second time in the magazine’s 179-year history, Scientific American is endorsing a candidate for president. Spoiler Alert: It’s the only candidate who believes in science: “In the November election, the U.S. faces two futures. In one, the new president offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience. She pushes policies that boost good jobs nationwide by embracing technology and clean energy. She supports education, public health and reproductive rights. She treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is and seeks to mitigate its catastrophic storms, fires and droughts. In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies. He ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution. He requires that federal officials show personal loyalty to him rather than upholding U.S. laws. He fills positions in federal science and other agencies with unqualified ideologues. He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living.”
Confessions of a (Former) Christian Nationalist. In this incredibly illuminating story, Reverend Rob Schenck explains his gradual indoctrination into Christian Nationalism. As a high-profile evangelical, he work to push government leaders and members of the Supreme Court to the far right. Trump’s arrival on the political scene made him uneasy, and pursuing a late-in-life doctorate further opened his eyes as he researched the 1930s German Christian movement that supported the Nazi Party. Ultimately Schenck comes to the conclusion that “when religion is placed at the service of a political party, it corrupts both.”
ProPublica: The GOP’s Secret to Protecting Gerrymandered Electoral Maps? Claim Privilege. More than 80 lawsuits were filed over the 2021 congressional and legislative redistricting plans nationwide. But the GOP’s national strategy to delay legal challenges is working.
Two Months in Georgia: How Trump Tried to Overturn the Vote. The Washington Post explains how the Georgia case shows the extraordinary lengths Mr. Trump and his allies went to in the Southern state in an attempt to reverse the election.
The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again. Writing for the Atlantic, J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe argue “The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again. The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause.”
A Crisis Coming: The Twin Threats to American Democracy. David Leonhardt of the New York Times explains American democracy faces two distinct threats — Today’s GOP refuses to accept legitimate election outcomes, and the power to set government policy is becoming increasingly disconnected from public opinion. “Although the Democratic Party has won the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections, a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees seems poised to shape American politics for years, if not decades,” Leonhardt writes. “And the court is only one of the means through which policy outcomes are becoming less closely tied to the popular will.”
Nice Democracy You’ve Got Here. Shame If Something Happened to It. The Atlantic’s David A. Graham explores Donald Trump’s threats of violence against anyone who dares to suggest 45 is not above the law.
Book bans are threatening American democracy. Here’s how to fight back. This Washington Post opinion piece explores how book bans are back in force, and what we can all do to make sure they stop. “Book bans run counter to a core tenet of what America is supposed to stand for,” Margaret Sullivan writes. “So if you’re worried about threats to democracy involving voting rights, gerrymandering and the peaceful transfer of power after elections, you should save a little mental space for this, too. Opposing censorship in the form of book banning is a part of the same crucial fight.”
This Threat to Democracy Is Hiding in Plain Sight. The New York Times‘ opinion piece states: “All those who value democracy have a role to play in strengthening and supporting the electoral system that powers it, whatever their party. This involves, first, taking the threat posed by election deniers seriously and talking to friends and neighbors about it. It means paying attention to local elections — not just national ones — and supporting candidates who reject conspiracy theories and unfounded claims of fraud.”
Can It Happen Here? The New York Times review of Madeleine Albright’s 2018 book “FASCISM: A Warning” is a good summary of what should be required reading for understanding how democracy can slip away. Even before Donald Trump’s attempts to stop the peaceful transfer of power, the former Secretary of State worried that his isolationism, protectionism and fondness for dictators were eroding America’s leadership on the world stage, deepening divisions in the United States and emboldening antidemocratic forces here and around the world. It’s also a highly personal book for Albright, who details her own history of fleeing fascism. The Times notes Albright is hopeful our democracy can endure, with a caveat. “The temptation is powerful to close our eyes and wait for the worst to pass,” she writes, “but history tells us that for freedom to survive, it must be defended, and that if lies are to stop, they must be exposed.”
Voter Turnout Soared in 2020. Two-thirds of eligible U.S. voters cast a ballot in November 2020, the Pew Research Center Found. But the U.S. still lags behind most of its developed-nation peers when it comes to electoral participation.
How The Supreme Court Gutting Voting Rights (in 2013) Changed The United States. Polling places have closed and Voter ID and other laws designed to make voting more difficult continue to mount in statehouses across the country. “Chief Justice John Roberts said that voting discrimination was no longer as severe as it was when the Voting Rights Act was first enacted in 1965. But the mounting evidence in the years since the decision have shown that just isn’t the case – the law may be needed now more than ever,” The Guardian writes, citing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent. “Throwing out pre-clearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,” Ginsburg wrote.
A White Man’s Republic, If They Can Keep It The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer reveals what was left out of Chief Justice John Roberts’ ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act. It also parses the lengths to which one political party is abandoning democracy.
Five Strategies to Support U.S. Democracy. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says American democracy “is at a dangerous inflection point.” They offer strategies to strengthen American democracy and democratic institutions.
U.S. protections for constitutional rights falling behind global peers. New research from the WORLD Policy Analysis Center at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health shows the United States is falling behind its global peers when it comes to guarantees for key constitutional rights. “Eighty percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees more rights than it actually does: they believe it explicitly ensures that men and women have equal rights. It does not. In fact, the U.S. is one of just 28 nations that has failed to provide an explicit guarantee of equal rights or non-discrimination on the basis of sex or gender,” said Jody Heymann, founding director of WORLD and distinguished professor of public health, public policy and medicine at UCLA. “Globally, the U.S. now lags 165 other nations with stronger constitutional protections for women. And the U.S. is absent from the 142 countries globally — including two-thirds of OECD countries — that provide some degree of constitutional protection for the right to health.”
Yes, Social Media Really Is Undermining Democracy. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the New York University Stern School of Business, explains how a few small changes to the architecture of social-media platforms (implemented from 2009-2012) let people spread rumors and half-truths more quickly and sort themselves into homogenous tribes. “Twitter and Facebook could now be used more easily by anyone to attack anyone,” he wrote in The Atlantic. Haidt proposes three ways to stem some of the damage: 1. Harden democratic institutions so that they can withstand chronic anger and mistrust. 2. Reform social media so that it becomes less socially corrosive; and 3. Better prepare the next generation for democratic citizenship.
How does a coup happen in America?
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra. Maddow’s podcast tells the story of sitting members of Congress aiding and abetting a plot to overthrow the U.S. government in the 1930s and 40s. Ultra is the all-but-forgotten true story of old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power. When extremist elected officials were caught plotting against America with Nazis and the violent ultra right, they went to great lengths to cover their tracks.
In the five-episode series, Democracy in Doubt, The Gaggle hosts Yvonne Wingett Sanchez (now of the Washington Post) and Ronald Hansen of The Arizona Republic explore the origins of the Arizona election review and how the state plunged into a fog of election conspiracies riven with partisanship and targeted by opportunists from across the country. The podcasts uncovers efforts to circumvent the popular vote to engineer an illegitimate Trump victory by pressuring local Republicans to overturn election results.
We are far and away the most countermajoritarian democracy in the world.– Steven Levitsky, Harvard University professor and co-author of the book “How Democracies Die,” via the New York Times
