In the words of the immortal Yogi Berra, “it is tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Nevertheless, I feel a certain obligation as a blogger to predict the outcome of the election and its immediate aftermath. If I get this wrong, don’t come looking for me. I couldn’t let you in any way because you might be carrying the virus.
Joe Biden is going to win the presidency. I am aware that it
is logically possible, even statistically possible, that Trump get 270
electoral votes but there is simply no evidence that that unlikely event is going
to occur. How big will Biden’s victory be? That is hard to say even for someone
willing to make predictions. He will have well over 300 electoral votes but
several states, such as Texas and Georgia, could go either way and make a very
large difference in the total EV outcome.
The Democrats will hold the House – that is a slam dunk.
Will they take the Senate? That requires flipping four seats, assuming Doug
Jones loses. I feel comfortable predicting the Democrats will do at least that
well but it is possible that they will do a good deal better. It may take a
while to tell.
Will Biden have 270 electoral votes by Tuesday night or
early Wednesday morning? I think there is a very good chance that the answer is
yes and if it is, that will put paid to a number of Republican plans for
troublemaking. My own North Carolina will be decided early in the evening and I
think there is a very good chance Biden will win it. Florida will also be
decided a bit later in the evening unless it is too close to call and if Biden
does post a win sometime Tuesday evening in Florida then it is all over.
All this is fairly easy. Now I want to go a little bit
further out on a limb. I predict that on election day and into the evening,
there will be very few actual disruptions of the election process by Republican
goons. Oh, there will be some events and they will be reported on in
excruciating and hyperventilating detail, but they will be minuscule in the
larger picture. There will of course be standard voter intimidation and voter
suppression of the sort that is a seemingly permanent part of the American
electoral process, but it will not change the outcome in any significant way
beyond the way in which it always does.
The really interesting question, and one about which I have
no insight whatsoever, is what Trump will do once the results are clear. Will
he concede in the standard manner of losing candidates in American elections? I
suspect not. Will he file endless lawsuits, in an attempt to reverse the
results of the election? Of course. What will those lawsuits accomplish? Just
about nothing, I predict.
But he will still be president for 2 ½ months and I simply
cannot imagine Trump surviving the daily humiliation of being a public official
loser. The greatest loss he will suffer, I predict, is a decline in media
attention, something that he will find simply unbearable. With the pandemic
raging evermore furiously, media attention will be drawn to reports of Biden’s
plans for action come January 20, to rumors about cabinet appointments and the
like, to speculation about the elimination of the filibuster in the Senate, about
statehood for the District of Columbia, about the expansion of the Supreme
Court – in short, the media will be focused on anything but Trump. He will find
that intolerable and it would not surprise me in the slightest if he summarily
resigns and retreats to Mar-a-Lago.
In short, it is my prediction that the day after tomorrow is
going to be a good day. If I am wrong, don’t bother me. I will be mourning the
loss of innocence and contemplating ritual suicide.
47 comments:
It's better that Biden is on the upside of all of these states that are within the margin of error. It is unlikely that Trump could win all of them, but he could.
If Trump loses, I suspect he will lose a lot of the support he has with with Republican senators. There has been more public--albeit mild--criticism of him from a few of them lately. Not passing the stimulus is one indication. They may move on from him once he has no power, particularly those who aren't up for reelection in 2022. That said, I'm sure they will go into all-negative mode, as they were for Obama's last six years, and become budget-balancers again. It won't matter if Biden and the Democrats want to pass a resolution honoring American mothers on Mother's Day. If the Ds are for it, the Rs will be against it. This started, you may recall, with the Heritage Foundation's market-based health care plan suddenly becoming something that would lead us into godless, atheistic communism once Obama proposed it.
A communism both godless and atheistic? Whew, my kind of communism. The cretinous hypocrites at Heritage weren't the only Conservatives to propose Obama-care before Obama did. Former Gov. Romney as well sung its virtues (off key, ofcourse).
Well, at least the cops are keeping things interesting in your home state of NC:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/10/31/npr-police-in-n-c-arrest-pepper-spray-protesters-during-march-to-polls-event
Trump will be compelled to keep office at all costs to keep the protection the office provides from civil and criminal actions- the question is not what he will do as much as what he can get away with
Further there will be the barrage from Fox alleging illegality and illegitimacy of the results and the public outcry- Trump will treat it as one grand gamble and reality show
Realistically, the country is about 75 percent Biden and 25 percent Trump. The voting will be "close" even though that is nigh impossible, Biden will have the votes but Trump and supporters will cry foul. Trump has the power, and the most "Supreme Court" so the victory goes to him. My public schooling was a lie, and now I will for the first time experience what living in a dictatorship is like. I'm buckled in, hope the ride is good.
And the court?
I’m not American, so I don’t have skin in the game - except in so much as every human being on the planet, and indeed all non-human life except nuke-proof cockroaches, should be hoping RPW’s prediction is right.
But for me personally it won’t be enough. Even if he loses by a landslide, Trump will still get 60 million votes. That means there are 60 million people who will be trying to elect as president someone who struggles to be an adult. I can understand he might vote for himself, and Ivanka and Jared might, and Pence might, but beyond that it’s in no one in the world’s interest for Trump to win - not Melania, not Murdoch, not the alt-right, not Judge Barrett, not the Republicans, not Boris Johnson, not even Putin anymore. Everyone knows how bad he is - at least in 2016 there might have been a few people who didn’t know that, although American democracy is in a bad way if there had been 60 million of them - but this time they don’t even have that excuse. Nor can they be brain washed by his endless lies and diversions - anyone so feeble minded that they can look at Trump and still vote for him just because everyone else ON THE PLANET is fake news have proved their inability to be a voting citizen. And if you have 60 million of such people, well your democracy is dead that way. For me, if he gets more votes than the people who directly benefit from him winning - let’s be generous, let’s say one hundred thousand of the elite and ultra-right - then, even if Biden sweeps the board with him, I’ll be wondering if American democracy still exists.
The number of permutations and combinations of possible outcomes, while not infinite, are considerably high, so that speculation regarding the outcome can cause migraines. The various possibilities definitely favor Biden, but there are possible outcomes – with low probabilities – that could have Il Duce win, or wind up in a tie in the electoral college, and/or wind up in court, possibly going to the Supreme Court, with the new Justice Barrett casting the deciding vote.
What happened yesterday in Texas, where a hoard of cars filled with Il Duce supporters surrounded a Biden campaign and prevented it from reaching its next campaign site, is an ominous sign. Businesses in Michigan are already boarding up their windows, anticipating violence whoever is declared the winner.
Regarding whether what we learned in grammar school about our democracy/republic was correct, I still believe it is correct. The reliability of the system is predicated on two things, both of which have proved fallible: (1) That there are enough rational people in this country that they would never fall for the machinations of a demagogue (“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” and (2) that no one elected president would ever challenge the peaceful transfer of power. Il Duce has broken all the norms, and I do not believe any democratic political system can be 100% effective against this happening. My worst fear is that it does go to the Supreme Court, and that Justice Barrett casts the vote giving Il Duce the Presidency (for example, ruling that ballots received in Pennsylvania after Nov. 3 cannot be counted). I still have faith enough to believe that none of the permutations or combinations which will result in Il Duce being re-elected will come to pass. I do not know what I will do if I am proved wrong.
Five of six conservative SCOTUS justices will have 10-40 years left on the court. If they rule for Trump in anything post election, SCOTUS is forever tainted and becomes largely irrelevant. I can't see that happening. Self-preservation amongst Republicans is stronger than Democrats because they see themselves as more self-righteous. They will become the pariah thorn in a liberal country.
Ecrasez,
I do not agree with you. If Biden sweeps the board, that will in fact prove that the system does work. The fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people who support a maniacal demagogue were prevented from re-electing him proves that the system worked. And I know many people whom I have regarded as fairly intelligent, with college degrees, who are good-hearted, hard working, honest people who are fervent Il Duce supporters. I have tried to persuade them otherwise, but they cannot be persuaded. I do not understand the phenomenon, but there it is. And I do not believe that the phenomenon is restricted to the United States and that the European countries are immune. I recall Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican from Wyoming, who used to say, “I don’t know why people don’t agree with me. I just pray for them”
Anonymous,
I hope that your are right, but three of the six conservative Justices – Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh – are diehard ideologues. I can see Justice Roberts voting with the three liberals to prevent a judicial coup of the presidency, because he cares about the appearance of integrity of the S. Ct. I believe Gorsuch is an unknown quantity, and he may be the swing vote that can save the country from a decline into fascism. His vote in favor of Title VII protecting the LBGTQ community is a hopeful sign. And obviously, Barrett is an unknown quantity, and I suspect that she is a hypocrite, as I have stated in prior comments. So, if Gorsuch joins Roberts, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan, there may still be hope, at least with regard to preserving the integrity of the Court.
From your lips to God's ears.
@MS (@me).
Whoever wins, there will be many tens of millions of people voting for someone they KNOW:
*) has packed the SC for the purpose of deciding his way in the event of a close run - who believe, in other words, that winning is all that counts and being right none of it;
*) sends 120 tweets a day (which is what - six hours a day?) when he should be running the free world;
*) is incapable of telling the difference between truth and fiction (within my lifetime, Harold Wilson nearly had to resign for one lie, and indeed President Clinton was impeached, IIUC, for one lie - I believe the Washington Post keeps a tally of Trump’s lies, and I haven’t checked recently but they’re in the five-a-day ballpark).
All these people are fully aware that Trump is transcendentally unsuitable for holding any office more senior than ticket collector. Yet republican senators and tens of millions of people still support him because to them winning is more important than the future of the American republic, and indeed of the rest of the world. I don’t see how that proves or indicates that the system works. It makes me want to cry.
(Oh, I didn’t mean to imply it was solely an American problem. Many countries, including my own, use the Trump method, although they are but imitations).
Ecrasez,
All that you write simply underscores the fallibility of the human species. If democracy means government by the people, with each member of the human species living within the borders of a nation state having the right to have a say in the government that governs them, then democracy requires that each of those fallible members of the human species has the right to vote, even if they support a person as incompetent, egotistical, and destructive as Il Duce. Your quibble is not with the form of government, but with the human species. And what would you propose to improve the system? History has shown that Roman Caesars, royal monarchs, exercising the divine right of kings, self-appointed fascist dictators, oligarchies governed by the upper classes do no better, and generally do a lot worse. It sound like you do not really support democracy, because you are displeased with how the people vote. Even with some of the proposed changes that have been recommended on this blog – eliminating the electoral college, packing the S. Ct., eliminating the Senate – would not make the kind of people who support Il Duce disappear. They would still have the right to vote, unless you would propose some sort of litmus test – a poll tax on the illiterate and politically backward – in order to filter out those whom you believe should not be allowed to vote. But then you would not have a democracy, representative or otherwise. :I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.” Peanuts
Not at all. It isn’t me who opposes democracy; it’s the people who are putting victory above the future.
I’ve very comfortable with people having different opinions. What we have here is not a difference of opinion but an ugly, demonstrable, fact. The leader of the free world said you can inject disinfectant. He didn’t misspeak, it wasn’t a bad-taste joke. It was typical of the thousands of other insane thoughts he has every day, and which have no relation to truth or reality, and which just escape his lips.
You parody me as anti-democratic. Let me parody you: suppose the election were about the value of pi, and the majority voted for it to be 3.0. Would you believe in majority rule then?
As for “improving it” - no, obviously abolishing democracy is dumb (although, it’s much more likely to come about from people voting Trump then from people thinking like I do). But that isn’t the issue. If your garage tells you your car is irreparable, it’s no good saying “but it has to be - what would I use instead?” It simply is. The universe does not frame its laws to suit human convenience. So I don’t know. There may not be anything that will be better. Or maybe something like direct democracy, participatory democracy, aleatory selection, or one of the other alternatives might have traction, at least until voters grow up and start taking responsibility for their choice.
That as may be, but for now voters have proven themselves unworthy of democracy. If someone deliberately drives irresponsibly, they get their licence taken away them. I don’t think it’s unreasonably to expect the same standard from voters.
It’s kind of funny how lately the media has driven the narrative that “this year could be just like 2016 with Trump squeaking out a win.” It’s like they didn’t understand what happened in 2018, eg., the composition of the electorate in 2018 was very different from 2016. Biden should win PA by a 5% margin, roughly the level of Obama’s margin. There are not enough Trumpista’s in PA to counter the tide of Black and suburban voters around Philly and Pittsburgh.
I am less optimistic than Dr. Wolff re: the incidence of militia violence and/or voter intimidation (as occurred in Texas two days ago). I also have no confidence that police will prevent intimidation at polling places. I imagine that militia members are not worried about the police intervening as they menace voters or demonstrators.
When Biden wins, it will not be because the system worked. Biden will win because there has been a large shift in voting preferences that has been several years in the making and perhaps accelerated by Trump’s arrival on the political stage. The system didn’t stop, 1) a relentless stream of Orwellian/One Dimensional rhetoric, 2) a State media that amplified every batch of lies and conspiracies , 3) the arrogance of Justice Roberts (shared by every conservative) who think that racism is a thing of the past, 4) the impact of voter suppression, 5) the development of the anti-immigration/white supremacist party with the largest political impact in any election cycle in our history (greater than the Know-Nothings but not greater than the long-term impact of the KKK). The system didn’t prevent the obliteration of hundreds of norms/laws, which will make any future authoritarian power grab easier, nor did it prevent the politicization of science and executive departments, the crimes against humanity re: immigrant children, etc., etc.. Sadly, the system backed a police attack on a peaceful, permitted, march in N.C.
The Biden win I expect is necessary but woefully insufficient.
Ecrasez,
I still disagree with you, and I disagree vehemently. You claim you support democracy, and then write such things as, “for now voters have proven themselves unworthy of democracy.” Democracy is providing the means by which the people to govern themselves at any given time. - that means all of the people, period. You want a democracy in which only the people who vote responsibly, according to your standards, vote That is not democracy – that is enlightened fascism, fascism by the elites. And do you not think that there are people on the far right who think exactly as you do – that the people on the left are not voting responsibly and that democracy demands that they not be allowed to vote until they see the light in the same way they, the ultra-conservatives see the issues? You are, frankly, being a hypocrite, claiming you support democracy, but only the democracy which sees the world the way you do. I agree with you that a lot of the individuals who support Il Duce are stupid, ill-informed, bigots. But since when was democracy defined such that only the well educated, literate, non-racists have the right to vote?
Your example regarding the value of pi is silly. The value of pi is a mathematical fact. It is not open to a vote. If its value were a function of a democratic vote, and the majority of the voting populace voted that the value of pi is 3.0, then the value of pi would be 3.0. But democratic values are not mathematical certainties. Democracy necessarily entails the right of the voters to be stupid, just as Justice Holmes said when he stated regarding his job as a judge, “If the people want to go to hell, it is my job to help them.”
Christopher,
I also disagree with you. When we refer to “the system,” we are referring to democracy. And if Biden wins, then the system worked. All of the deficiencies that you refer to were not caused because the system did not work; they were caused, as I have pointed out in numerous prior comments, because the people failed to use the system, they failed to vote when it would have made a difference, because they failed to vote in the 2016 election because they were too stupid to see the obvious differences between Hillary Clinton and Il Duce. But that is not the fault of democracy It is the fault of the people who had the opportunity to use democracy and failed to do so. I am seeing a lot of elitist talk on this blog about how the democratic system has failed because of x, y and z, all of which have occurred because of the way people voted, or did not vote. As I have said in prior comments, if the means of implementing democracy were fully maximized by removing all forms of voter suppression (which, by the way, would include increasing the number of days people can vote from just one week-day, to a weekend and two week-days), then the system would work –even if Il Duce got re-elected. It would not guarantee that someone like Il Duce could not get elected, if that was what the majority of the voters wanted, as they did in Nazi Germany. Democracy does not guarantee that the result will be what the enlightened, educated, informed, non-racist voter prefers.
Dear MS. Sorry - I hadn’t thought it necessary in this place to state that I’d oppose the enlightened fascism you accuse me off. Yes, unequivocally, I would, with every power I could muster. Messages and messengers are sometimes different, and on my word of honour are in this case.
In my opinion (!) there are certainties and objective facts even in the humanities. Is Jane Austen a greater writer than George Eliot? It’s hard to say, there are arguments both sides, and really not much to be gained by discussing it. Is Jane Austen a greater writer than Dan Brown? Yes, without doubt, they are in different galaxies, and if you think otherwise then it’s not just “a matter of opinion” but that you are simply wrong, and it’s essential that you understand this. (However, you preferring to read Dan Brown IS a matter of opinion).
Likewise, thinking that a man who publicly speculates on injecting disinfectant is suitable for president is not a matter of opinion. Anyone who thinks so is simply wrong. Democracy as it is allows some people to be wrong, because sometimes (like Austen vs Eliot) it’s a fine call. But if 60 million people vote for the disinfectant-injector, then you have a problem. Once again - it is not me pointing this out: those 60 million are shouting in your face that democracy is broken.
In a way, MS (and I wouldn’t push this too far), the democratic thing to do would be to abolish democracy. The people have spoken, and clearly they don’t like it, don’t want it, and prefer a narcissistic man-child. Why not listen to them? (Again, I am not proposing this - more wondering why it is wrong).
Thanks
Robert
A.K. said
I'm looking at the US elections from Germany. Yes, we live in a globalized world. More than before, it is natural that the president of the largest economy and the strongest military power on the globe has an influence on our lives. Much more is at stake for European democracies. It is evident that freedom and its chances are at stake. At the weekend Trump babbled something about Germany wanting to prevent his re-election. He said: "... China, Iran and Germany ... don't want me". A nice combination of these three states. How confused it must be in his mind. But, he seldom tells the truth, in this case he does. The latest poll says: 83% of Germans would definitely not vote for Trump. 71% would vote for Biden. Most recently, Kennedy had these approval ratings, but there were also the tanks in East Berlin.
For RPW; philosophers should think of Epicurus in this situation. In the sense of: Think and act in relation to the things that you can change and hope that you can always distinguish between the things that can be changed and those that cannot be changed!
In the meantime, I'll ponder the gap between Kant's epistemology and his moral philosophy. "Das moralische Gesetz in mir und der bestirnte Himmel über mir" I haven't got that point yet.
Ecrasez,
You still don’t get it. Yes, you do prefer elitist fascism over democracy. Democracy means that even the stupid people who support a person who spouts lies and insults and obscenities have a right to vote for him as President, if that is what they want. It means that the people with no literary taste and prefer Brown over Austen, and who never even heard of Austen, have a right to vote; it means that the people who prefer watching Sunday night football rather than reading a book have the right to vote; it means that the people who prefer eating hotdogs and french (I assume one of your favorites) fries smothered in cheese, with a beer, rather than escargot and souffle, with a nice Cabernet, have the right to vote. Rather than let them vote for an egotistical, obnoxious demagogue, you propose that, perhaps, the democratic thing to do “would be to abolish democracy” altogether. You are an anti-democratic, elitist snob.
@MS. Perhaps I am an elitist snob, although I notice I’m not the one calling people stupid and implicitly looking down on their eating habits.
I did say - and I do believe I stand by it - that although anyone is entitled to prefer Dan Brown over Jane Austen and be respected, no one is entitled to say Dan Brown is better than Jane Austen and still be taken seriously. You certainly wouldn’t let them judge your literary award, for example. Why do we allow the equivalent for electing presidents? Well, IIUC, you’d say that’s what democracy means - that’s the definition of democracy, and consequently if I oppose people who say Brown is better, I am (by the same definition) anti-democratic. Hmmm.
A not that far-fetched example. Suppose Trump won in both houses and the white house and proceeded, with the help of the supreme court, to abolish elections. I hope you and I would be arm-in-arm with everyone else here on the barricades together against this! But then Trump says he won the election, and therefore it is the people opposing the abolition (us!) who are anti-democratic. He has a democratic mandate, and he’d use many of your arguments, and he too would say that that is what democracy means. MS, you are fond of saying “the system works” - but if the system is defined as “whatever the people want”, then you have a tautology.
The problem with democracy is not “stupid people” who eat “french fries”. It’s those who are psychologically corrupt. It’s people who would destroy the republic rather than lose face. It’s people who, when the evidence shows they were wrong, double down and insist they were right all along, and you’d better get out of the way. It’s people who value winning over the truth, and then, when they win, use that to prove they were right all along. It’s people whose entire personality is bound up with this mountebank, and who say, as you do, “my opinion is as good as anyone else’s”. To repeat for one last time: it’s not me who’s attacking democracy, it’s them.
So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the problem with democracy is –people. Which is precisely my point. The problem with democracy is the fallibility of homo sapiens, including the lesser sapiens. And there’s no getting around it – except by substituting an undemocratic oligarchic regime of those who know better. And who, may I ask, is going to determine who those people are?
Post-Script:
Re opinions, one of my favorite profane lines from a movie is uttered by the great character actor Charles Durning, in the movie “Home For The Holidays” (directed, curiously enough, by Jodie Foster): “Opinions are like assholes – everyone’s got one, and everyone thinks the other guy’s stinks.”
Ecrasez: It's futile. But I have to say, although it wouldn't get you very far with he who shall be nameless, for I tried it some time ago to get some serious discussion going on the question, what is democracy anyway?, it got nowhere and I, too was told I was an elitist, which I happen very much not to be. Anyway, we're back, it seems, to what was a standard mainstream American political science position of the 1950s and early 1960s, before the feminist, anti-war, pro civil rights upsurges, that the United States was, by definition, a democracy, and that whatever went on in US politics was by definition democratic. Some others who come here may also be old enough and may have attended to the arguments of that day to recall the criticisms of that self-serving definition. In short, when it is said, "When we refer to “the system,” we are referring to democracy," you should just modify that a little to read, "When we refer to “the system,” we are referring to what passes for democracy." As I said before, several posts ago, we should be dealing as critically with "actually existing democracy" as Bahro dealt with "actually existing socialism." For the argument isn't really about democracy, it's about whether the system is/has become so corrupted that it hardly passes the smell test.
But as I said, it's futile. So now I'll go off and take another look at the Mayo Clinic's definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Well, it is a hard question, but the thing with hard questions is to try to answer them, not define them away.
Obviously I have no answer, but I think I did mention other ways of selecting leaders that are still democratic, but not electoral as we know it. Direct democracy, deliberative democracy, aleatory methods, cabinets of equal individuals, local syndicates. Could we give people in other countries the right to vote in US elections? - after all, they affect us as much as they do you. Lots of ideas - I don’t see what’s so superior about representative democracy as practised.
MS, it is all but certain that Trump is wrong about climate change. It’s more than possible that the five-year delay of another Trump presidency, together with him muddying the waters further during that time, will be enough to destroy America and American democracy - not to mention the lives of a lot of people world-wide. Suppose for the sake of argument that is true. Would you still say Trump supporters are entitled to their opinion?
Generally, democracy is not only a system where representatives are elected, but also one where human rights are respected.
From what I can see, human rights these days (I follow Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) include the political and civil rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution of course, but have been broadened by the consensus within the international human rights community to include women's reproductive rights (including abortion), gay marriage, the abolition of the death penalty, and some kind of universal healthcare system.
So you can see how Trumpism and Trump's political project are not democratic, even if a majority of U.S. voters support them.
Ramsey McD?
RMcD and E,
Oh, how witty and perspicacious of you. I stand by my position – you are both a pair of elitist, anti-democratic snobs, who think, because there are flaws in our representative democracy due to the fact that some people do not see the world the same way you do, that our flawed democratic system is not a bona fide democracy. And what perfect substitute would you offer that has no flaws, that would guarantee that a maniacal demagogue like Il Duce would not get elected, and how are you going to determine who has the right to vote that will guarantee that there will never be such an outcome? You are both poseurs, who use your supposed knowledge of arcane political science theories to feed your self-aggrandized egos. I am not the one who suffers from a “Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”
Stephen,
Definition of “democracy, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary:
“1 a: government by the people; esp: rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usu. involving periodically neld free elections 2: a political unit that has a democratic government 3 cap: the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S. 4: the common people esp. when constituting the source of political authority 5: the absence of hereitary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges.”
Nowhere in that definition do the words “human rights,” or comparable terminology appear, and I challenge to find one which does. Protection of “human rights” is not a sine qua non for a governmental system to qualify as a democracy. As long as everyone in the governmental unit who has reached a designated age, and is not suffering from a medically diagnosable intellectual disability, e.g., severe Downs syndrome, has the opportunity to vote, and if they, of their free will elect Hitler as their leader, this choice does not detract from the fact that their government is a democracy, assuming, again, that everyone who wanted to vote, including Jews, had the opportunity to vote. Such a democracy is, perhaps, a degenerate democracy, and if you are Jewish, you had best get the hell out of there, but it is a democracy nonetheless.
Practical things America could do to make it (more) democratic. Feel free to add to the list.
1) Don’t be so alpha-male about the President. In no other democracy in the world does a leader have that kind of power, unless you count Russia as a democracy.
2) Don’t be so flag-wavey. Patriotism doesn’t convince no one, neither friend nor foe: it’s just a psychological defence, a way of saying “see, I’m right.” Start valuing America because it’s a democracy, not democracy because it’s American.
3) Demonetarise your elections. This is a real no brainer. Oh, and all those OBVIOUSLY wrong things like voter repression and restricting the number of boxes that you do. It’s not controversial, it’s not a matter of opinion, it’s simply wrong.
4) Split up your media. Have anti-trust cases against Murdoch and his kind.
5) Have compulsory critical thinking classes in schools. Not everyone will take it in, but some will. Democracy is strong enough to have some reactive voters - just not 60 million of them. “Make America think again”, as a friend of mine says.
6) Get rid of your constitution. Replace it with a more modern one, and repeat every 75 years. The new one written by constitution convention. Yes, your current constitution is a work of beauty, but for chissake it’s 250 years old. Right to bear arms - seriously? To a museum with it.
7) PR. Another no brainer. What has an electoral college got to do with democracy in the 21st century? It was designed for when delegates travelled on horseback for days to get to Washington.
8) Experiment with things like deliberative democracy and aleatory.
9) Support the UN. Pay your fucking dues.
10) Have debates across the houses. Have people vote on issues rather than party lines. Introduce an ethic of people doing the right thing, rather than doing whatever it takes to get what they want, even if that’s the wrong thing. Do that, and watch enlightenment trickle down to the voters, and you’re in a feedback loop, and before you know it you have a system the founders would be proud of. Cause they sure won’t be now.
That’ll do for starters.
Anticipating a rebuttal, definition 5 (“the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges”) does not entail a guarantee of human rights. The right to vote in the U.S. does not require any hereditary pedigree, and the right to vote is granted to women and all races, and, assuming that there were no tactics for suppressing the vote, e.g., voter I.D. requirements, the voters could still elect a demagogue. I have noted, for example, to my astonishment and stupefaction, a far higher number of African-Americans show up at Il Duce’s rallies than I would have expected. In fact, an African-American who supports Il Duce is running for the Senate in Michigan. Is he too stupid, or corrupt, not to know better?
Ecrazy,
Thank you, Monsieur, for your sage suggestions. No one is arguing that the American democracy could not be improved. The issue on the table is whether we, in America, have a democracy at all, and some of the comments, including yours, suggest that we do not. And getting rid of the Constitution? There is a slight problem with that – absent an open armed revolt, inevitably resulting in the deaths of a lot of people – mostly the rebels- you have to use the Constitution to get rid the Constitution – not a project with even a minimal degree of likely success. But we do much appreciate your input.
My apology, Ecrasez, for misspelling your pseudonym. You may not believe this, but it was totally inadvertent, though, upon re-reading, quite funny and perhaps Freudian.
I really get a kick out of these high-minded intellectuals who think they have the solution to the problems in our American democracy. For example:
“Deliberative democracy,” school of thought in political theory that claims that political decisions should be the product of fair and reasonable discussion and debate among citizens.
And who is going to evaluate whether the a discussion is “fair and reasonable.” You, Ecrasez; or your, RMcD? I would think that people like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell are going to have a different idea from both of you regarding what is “fair and reasonable.” And whom would you consult to make the determination that they are wrong.
“Aleatory democracy" refers to a form of democracy where representatives are selected randomly from a pool of qualified volunteers. Random selection already plays a significant part in the political realm. For example, jurors and members of political focus groups are often selected randomly.
Now there’s a great idea – have a random selection of voters choose our President. That will surely guarantee that a demagogue like Il Duce never gets elected.
Give me a break.
I’m not sure democracy, like pregnancy, is either you-are or you-aren’t. But if you insist, then the United States is not, currently, a democracy, despite what the dictionary says. Sorry to disappoint. It was once, quite recently, but now no longer.
Actually, as I said to start with, if Trump gets less than (say) 100 000 votes then I will agree that most of your people will have stood up and recognised that voting is an almost sacred act, to be treated with responsibility and dignity, and that theirs and yours and my ancestors died for it, and that they have done the right thing. However, I think we can agree that Trump will get in the order of 60 million votes. So American democracy is dead, and it’s not anti-democratic to say so. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.
Oh, btw. “Ecrazy” is my self-deprecating joke. It’s uncouth to steal it to make it an insult, especially uncredited.
Ecrazy, if you like. I appreciated your joke respecting my name. Too bad he went as badly wrong as he did. I guess he got used to the power and the high life. Had my initials been A B would you have taken me for Aneurin Bevan? Now that would have been an honour. r
Ecrasez,
I will give the credit to Voltaire for your pretentious pseudonym, which you have not. And it is fitting that you would be pretentious enough to choose that pseudonym without giving Votaire credit, since your last comment demonstrates again that you are an anti-democratic, elitist snob. Oh, did democracy flourish in France during the Nazi occupation of your country and the collaboration of Marshall Petain, when France shipped its Jewish citizens off to Nazi concentration camps? "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" indeed.
@Ramsey. Indeed! McDonald did some good, did some harm, as Leonard Cohen sang. And what more can any of us hope for?
(He also has the honour, I believe, of being the only British Labour leader to be expelled from the Labour party. We’ll see whether he has company in six months or so!)
Yes, E. As to your parenthetical query/remark, if there is another expulsion, this time around it would be an honour for the one expelled and would bring insurmountable shame on those who did the expelling. r
PS, E, you might find this interesting:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176769/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_we%27ve_been_on_donald_trump%27s_road_for_a_long%2C_long_time/#more
I’m not sure. Schisms are what the left does, and don’t the right love us for it. And it’s no good saying “but the other side started it”, like that’s worked well in the past. Maybe better to just take our medicine. Stanmer will certainly make the world a better place, maybe not so much as Corbyn would have done, but better than nothing. We win by inches, frustrating though that is.
So, I’m in two minds.
Engelhardt is (along with Nathan Robinson, Simon Wren-Lewis, and naturally RPW) already on my rss feeds.
Robert
I take your point, Robert. But I'm no longer sure we are winning by inches, though I do wish I could believe that. I tend to fall into thinking that those of us of a certain age were fortunate enough to live during one of those brief periods when conditions improved in so many ways for so many people. The term for it is, seemingly, efflorescence, defined as a more or less extended period when increased economic growth linked to a greater spread of wealth among a people (for the many, not the few, shall we say) is accompanied by a sharp uptick in cultural achievement. (I'm plagiarizing this.) Anyway, as I was saying, I'm not at all sure that the period of efflorescence following WW Two, which certainly benefitted people like me, any longer exists. I'm not even sure that the efflorescence of modernity as an epoch will continue much longer. Still, the struggle continues. robert
The recent court decisions (Texas just came in) are encouraging.
Dear MS,
What do you say we drop the royal we? Oddly enough, Ihave never been accused of being an elitist because I insist on analyzing the actual relationships and systems of government that are flawed. That is usually called materialist.
Our government is not a democracy. It is, as Franklin famously said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” The founders, who were well versed in Greek and Roman political history, established a bicameral legislative branch. One legislative entity would reflect the people’s desires every two years, and another legislative entity to act as a brake on populist whims. The Constitution establishes three branches that comprise a system of governance. So the use of the term ‘system’ is appropriate, and it is not a democratic system with a capital D.
It is also appropriate to use ‘system’ when one takes into account the relationships between the federal government with corporations (capital) and individuals (labor). The most basic function of government is to raise money and spend it. How it does that establishes a systematic relationship between it and capital and labor. Ways and Means and Appropriations, the two most powerful committees in the Legislative branch determine how much individuals and corporations pay in taxes and who benefits from those expenditures, I.e., whose ox was gored, and who was the recipient of government largesse.
Indeed, turnout now is typically low. In the 19th century turnout was typically in the 70% + range. In the 20th, it has been in the 50 - 60% range. I think it was you who asked why so many people didn’t vote a few weeks ago and I offered a plausible explanation, referring to an analysis Jurgen Habermas offered in his book Legitimation Crisis. His analysis depends on understanding a network of systemic relations between the branches of government, capital, and labor. Finally, there are a myriad of reasons why people don’t vote, and voluminous literature on why, not the least of which is there is often no compelling reason.
The reason you offer, that people are just too stupid is itself elitist and not particularly enlightened. Some certainly are, but remember a majority were enlightened enough to vote for a seriously flawed candidate rather than the fatally flawed alternative. The electoral college is, as I am sure you already know, a fundamentally non-democratic part of our Republic, i.e., part of the system.
It seems you think of democracy as a lofty abstraction, which, if it were only perfectly acted out, would solve all our problems. That’s not it. I stand by my summary of problems, incomplete as it is. The issue is the failure of many systems, the press, the courts, the parties, the legislative branch’s failure to act on its constitutional duty to restrain the abuses of the executive branch, etc. that are implicated in the failure to prevent a criminal family organization from operating in the White House with all attendant consequences.
Dear Christopher,
I do not need a civics lesson on the difference between a pure democracy and a republic. Yes, our country is a republic, but its a republic by virtue of its being a representative democracy, where the people do not vote directly on legislation, but do so through elected representatives. But still, they exercise their control over their government via the franchise. And surely my comments on other posts – which you have indicated you have read – demonstrate that I have an adequate understanding of the deliberate separation of of powers under the Constitution between the executive legislative and judiciary.
Sometimes what happens in these long threads is that by the end we forget what started the thread to begin with. My focus on the meaning of “democracy” was in response to Ecrasez’s comment, “even if Biden sweeps the board with him, I’ll be wondering if American democracy still exists,” and my assertion that if this occurs (God willing), it would demonstrate that our “democracy” worked, regardless how many people voted for Il Duce. So I continued the use of the word “democracy” and did not see a need to continuously qualify it with the words “representative democracy.”
You write, “It seems you think of democracy as a lofty abstraction, which, if it were only perfectly acted out, would solve all our problems.” Where did you get that from? I wrote above that even if all the people who were eligible to vote did so, and there were no strategies which suppressed their right to vote, and they elected Il Duce, it would still be a democracy. I hope and believe that it would be highly unlikely that this would occur, but the theory of a democracy does not exclude it as being a contradiction of the concept of a democracy if it did occur. Certainly, if this were to occur it would not “solve all our problems.” And I never said that people who do not vote are too stupid. I said that people who voted for, and are still voting for, Il Duce are too stupid to see what is in their best interests,. But I, unlike those commenting on this post who are disparaging the claim that we have a democracy because such stupid people do vote, I do not, in the name of saving democracy, believe they should not be allowed to vote. I think I have made it clear (apparently not perfectly clear, however) that in both a pure and a representative democracy, both the ignorant and the knowledgeable have the right to vote; both the racist and the non-racist have the right to vote; the rich and the poor; etc., etc. Democracy does not guarantee that the outcome will be progressive rather than backward. Both outcomes are consistent with democracy. And yes, a demagogue can legitimately get elected in a democracy – even without the electoral college, if the demagogue wins the popular vote – which is not outside the realm of possibility, nor would it mean that, as Ecrasez claims, in that event democracy would be dead. It would not be a democracy I would want to live in, but it would be a democracy. And those who believe otherwise are in fact anti-democratic. They would prefer a government controlled by an oligarchy of the elites. And, by the way, the fact that this would be a possibility even in a representative democracy is the reason the Founders included the electoral college in the Constitution, to prevent this from occurring. They envisioned the electors to be enlightened citizens who would counteract the impulses of the popular masses to elect a tyrant. As it has turned out, it did not work out that way.
Anyway, all this verbiage has resolved nothing, and I have to turn my attention to something far more important, responding to a absurd motion in which the defendants in one of my lawsuits are seeking an award of attorney fees against my clients. And I am looking forward to going tomorrow with my daughter to our polling place to vote in person for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and for a few other Democrats as well.
Too stupid to see what's in their own interest???
How arrogantly elitist can you get?
I suppose you know what's best for them???
How anti-democratic can you get?
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