The Tipping Point

[HoloDoc]

That's already out there. There's a constant stream of people making statements about "only taxpayers should be able to vote" and similar things. This is called 'moving the Overton Window'. It's about making a formerly radical opinion move towards the mainstream through constant repetition. Just have more and more people say it, and have people with bigger and bigger audiences say it, and have people closer and closer to the seats of power say it, and then have people in power say it.

Democracy is the enemy of oligarchs. And that's of oligarchs of all sorts, from the hereditary nobles of Europe to the kleptocrats of Russia. And to the wannabe nobles and kleptocrats of the United States. The idols of the modern American conservative aren't Washington and Jefferson, they are Peron and Puttin. The Bourbons and the Romanovs.

Those with everything always think they are entitled to having more.

Look at Australian immigration policy for an example f this. At first, Pauline Hanson's anti-immigration comments were denounced by everyone. Her former party, the Liberals, sacked her. She was publicly derided and ridiculed. She lost office in 1998 after serving a single term - which she only won because of confused Liberal voters that didn't realise she'd been sacked - and her views were fading into deserved obscurity.

Then comes a very tight 2001 election. Hanson's radical anti-immigration views were only shared by a single-digit minority oof voters, but the election was tight enough that it was in John Howard's best interests to woo that minority. He retained office in an election he should have lost. Credit was given to the racist views of Hanson, even though he likely won for entirely separate reasons; September 11 had just happened, and the Labor Party was obviously disunited.

Suddenly, racist dog-whistling was possible. So more and more people did it. The rhetoric on the right slowly drifted further towards the centre, until Labor was competing with the Coalition for racist brownie points. Pauline Hanson returned to Parliament, in spite of gross incompetence, stupidity, and obvious electoral fraud. Fraser Annong called for a "Final Solution to Muslim immigration" in a comment that even Hanson denounced. He was sacked by two separate political parties in eighteen months, which is impressive in its own way.

Now, even left-wing politicians and analysts are tearfully recommending compromises on immigration policy because the right gasnormalised disgusting racism in this country, we here we actually lock up immigrants in prison and actively promote their rape and torture for political purposes.

This is what is happening in the US right now. The Australian experience, which was not really intentional, but mere political opportunism, is being actively emulated and copied by the right elsewhere. And it's being adapted for purposes other than nativism; economic policy, voting rights, women's rights, welfare access, etc., are all under attack from a resurgent right that has, in all honesty, adapted more quickly and effectively yo the collapse of Neoliberalism than the left has.

"So this is how Liberty ends? With thunderous applause."

 

[sophie]

Both Republicans and Democrats accuse the other of undermining American democracy. But the fact that both parties make the accusation does not, in itself, imply that both sides are making equally valid claims; that if one is wrong, the other cannot be right. Just because they share a framing does not mean that the anxieties they express are equally well-founded.

 

[Traitorfish]

Duck season is September to January. Rabbit season is year-round; they're classified as a pest, so populations aren't managed. So while the Democrats may sometimes represent a threat American democracy, Republicans always represent threat to American democracy. Good point, well made.

 

[Lexicus]

I cannot see a legal plan C

'We don't have any "legal" recourse'

 

[Lexicus]

Germany in 1932 had a better outlook for democracy.

The problem in the US is that just voting will not be enough. It will require a fairly massive-scale campaign of civil disobedience to move on many of these issues; I'm talking about like general strikes that shut down much of the economy for days on end. If that actually happens (my guess is it won't, the kind of civil society infrastructure to make that happens no longer exists now that the unions have been thoroughly incorporated into the structure of American capitalism) the Republicans will respond with state violence which will be enthusiastically supported (and probably joined in by) the 35% Trump hardcore, while most of the moderates will say that they disagree with Trump and the Republicans but of course violence was necessary to restore order, because the protesters were sore losers who dared to reduce GDP for political purposes!

 

[Hrothbern]

Once the US would cross that tipping point is when you find out how few of the indifferent centre really supported the kind of democracy the US had in her banners..
And if after some time the US would come back again on the right side of the tipping point, it will be disappointing amazing how many will join the victory feast (only) after the struggle, as if they were part of the struggle for changing back.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The problem in the US is that just voting will not be enough. It will require a fairly massive-scale campaign of civil disobedience to move on many of these issues;

You aren't getting a massive scale campaign of any kind, because most of these issues aren't massively popular. The moderates you dis aren't going to flip over the cart through voting or through civil disobedience because for the most part the cart is a pretty good deal.

 

[Bootstoots]

There is still one more election to go before the point where Republican dominance becomes essentially baked in. All or almost all state lower houses have every seat come up for election every two years, along with many (in some cases all) upper house seats. Redistricting happens in the two years after the census year, so a Democratic wave election in 2020 is at least sufficient to prevent further gerrymandering, albeit not to counter-gerrymander except where the Dems control the governorship (most of which will be decided this year) along with both state houses.

That's not to discount the importance of this election - it's pretty damn important too. One of the things I hate about having a two-party system where one party is not committed to anything resembling democracy is that literally every election becomes this sort of apocalyptic affair where a serious loss would result in severe tipping of the playing field so that it becomes very difficult to ever win nationally again.

------------

Despite the deterioration over the last year, and the Republican makeover of the courts, I actually still kind of hold to my suspicion that it was better for the long-term health of the Democrats for Trump to be elected in 2016. A Clinton victory would have made things better right now, but it would have essentially assured a checkmate in 2020. I call this scenario the MAGApocalypse.

Clinton would almost certainly have continued to be terrible at being likable, and the Democrats would likely have lost even more state-level power than they had already lost under Obama this year, instead of winning some of it back. Even worse, the 2018 Senate elections - far from being roughly a wash as expected now - would have featured something like 6-10 Republican pickups, all in red- and purple- states where it is very difficult for the Dems to win again. Putting the premier Republican lightning rod in the Oval Office, who fails to even be popular among her own base, is the worst possible scenario from the perspective of keeping the Democrats remotely competitive in the future

In 2020, Clinton would have likely not only lost to literally anyone the GOP put up, but state-level power would erode even further. We're talking something like 35 Republican trifectas (both houses plus the governor) and full Dem control of probably only California and Hawaii. Maybe Rhode Island too. The GOP would then gerrymander vastly more than it did in 2010. Further, it is likely that all SC vacancies would stay vacant - I doubt Mitch McConnell would have allowed a Dem to appoint a SC justice as long as he had any ability to stop it. Lower court vacancies would rarely be filled either, continuing a trend from the Obama years. Once the MAGApocalype happens in 2021, two or three SC vacancies and even more lower court ones than today are easily filled in a few months.

Gerrymandering can get much, much worse than it is today. Fivethirtyeight's gerrymandering project has released helpful maps showing what various gerrymandering scenarios along with algorithmic districting could look like. The one I've linked to is the maximum GOP gerrymander, in which 275 seats are fairly safe Republican seats, only 139 go to the Democrats, and only 21 are usually competitive.

Dem control of a few statehouses and a few states with nonpartisan redistricting would make the number not quite so high, but 230-240 safe Republican seats is easily doable. Further, aggressive gerrymandering at the state level would make so that many state legislatures are effectively unwinnable too. The new SC members join with remaining conservatives to overturn any anti-gerrymandering rulings that might have happened in 2017-20, and future GOP control is even more assured than it is in our actual timeline.

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They kind of had us over a barrel, here - damned if you do elect Clinton, damned if you don't. When one party in a rigid two-party system abandons any restraint at all and seeks to crush any chance of opposition victory, it is honestly surprising if the country doesn't deteriorate into a dominant-party system governed by the illiberal party.

 

[Phrossack]

There is still one more election to go before the point where Republican dominance becomes essentially baked in. All or almost all state lower houses have every seat come up for election every two years, along with many (in some cases all) upper house seats. Redistricting happens in the two years after the census year, so a Democratic wave election in 2020 is at least sufficient to prevent further gerrymandering, albeit not to counter-gerrymander except where the Dems control the governorship (most of which will be decided this year) along with both state houses.

That's not to discount the importance of this election - it's pretty damn important too. One of the things I hate about having a two-party system where one party is not committed to anything resembling democracy is that literally every election becomes this sort of apocalyptic affair where a serious loss would result in severe tipping of the playing field so that it becomes very difficult to ever win nationally again.

------------

Despite the deterioration over the last year, and the Republican makeover of the courts, I actually still kind of hold to my suspicion that it was better for the long-term health of the Democrats for Trump to be elected in 2016. A Clinton victory would have made things better right now, but it would have essentially assured a checkmate in 2020. I call this scenario the MAGApocalypse.

Clinton would almost certainly have continued to be terrible at being likable, and the Democrats would likely have lost even more state-level power than they had already lost under Obama this year, instead of winning some of it back. Even worse, the 2018 Senate elections - far from being roughly a wash as expected now - would have featured something like 6-10 Republican pickups, all in red- and purple- states where it is very difficult for the Dems to win again. Putting the premier Republican lightning rod in the Oval Office, who fails to even be popular among her own base, is the worst possible scenario from the perspective of keeping the Democrats remotely competitive in the future

In 2020, Clinton would have likely not only lost to literally anyone the GOP put up, but state-level power would erode even further. We're talking something like 35 Republican trifectas (both houses plus the governor) and full Dem control of probably only California and Hawaii. Maybe Rhode Island too. The GOP would then gerrymander vastly more than it did in 2010. Further, it is likely that all SC vacancies would stay vacant - I doubt Mitch McConnell would have allowed a Dem to appoint a SC justice as long as he had any ability to stop it. Lower court vacancies would rarely be filled either, continuing a trend from the Obama years. Once the MAGApocalype happens in 2021, two or three SC vacancies and even more lower court ones than today are easily filled in a few months.

Gerrymandering can get much, much worse than it is today. Fivethirtyeight's gerrymandering project has released helpful maps showing what various gerrymandering scenarios along with algorithmic districting could look like. The one I've linked to is the maximum GOP gerrymander, in which 275 seats are fairly safe Republican seats, only 139 go to the Democrats, and only 21 are usually competitive.

Dem control of a few statehouses and a few states with nonpartisan redistricting would make the number not quite so high, but 230-240 safe Republican seats is easily doable. Further, aggressive gerrymandering at the state level would make so that many state legislatures are effectively unwinnable too. The new SC members join with remaining conservatives to overturn any anti-gerrymandering rulings that might have happened in 2017-20, and future GOP control is even more assured than it is in our actual timeline.

--------

They kind of had us over a barrel, here - damned if you do elect Clinton, damned if you don't. When one party in a rigid two-party system abandons any restraint at all and seeks to crush any chance of opposition victory, it is honestly surprising if the country doesn't deteriorate into a dominant-party system governed by the illiberal party.

This is why I think America is guaranteed to either become an unfree one-party state, or devolve into civil war. There is no way for the majority of the country to be represented politically; they're locked out and left in the cold while their lives worsen steadily. Democracy can only function if most people feel represented and have a peaceful means of having their voices heard. That will be guaranteed to become impossible in the coming years, one way or another, unless the Dems pull off a miracle.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The census efforts are beginning now. If Congress does not act to stop Trump's attempts to run it off the rails now then Republicans won't be as reliant on Gerrymandering as they might be - they will have undercounted millions of Americans in Blue states which is even more damaging than Gerrymandering. It's also more immediate - Gerrymandering is a staged effort. It takes a few cycles for all the peices to fall into place in a given state. On the other hand, a census undercount drops the EC share of liberal states more or less immediately (it will be in place by the next presidential election) and straight up removed house districts from liberal states altogether.

All of that plays out regardless of wether or not gerrymandering happens after the census.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This is why I think America is guaranteed to either become an unfree one-party state, or devolve into civil war. There is no way for the majority of the country to be represented politically; they're locked out and left in the cold while their lives worsen steadily. Democracy can only function if most people feel represented and have a peaceful means of having their voices heard. That will be guaranteed to become impossible in the coming years, one way or another, unless the Dems pull off a miracle.

People keep missing the horrifying truth of the US...most people actually DO feel represented.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It's not just the citizenship question that is so damaging about the census efforts. This administration is underfunding and intentionally mismanaging the effort. This will make it very easy for the Republicans to undercount in Blue states by shifting resources to red States and claiming they have to do this out of necessity. Of course it's necessary only because of Republican action - much like the tax cuts are imploding the deficit therefore it is 'necessary' to cut social programs.

Or better yet they just throw out census records they don't like and say it's because Democrats imported illegal immigrants or whatever batpoop insane rationale they come up with. Point being we have to take power back one way or another to stop this.

 

[Phrossack]

People keep missing the horrifying truth of the US...most people actually DO feel represented.

Do they? I've noticed more apathy towards politics and generalized disdain towards politicians than anything. There's this overall sense that no matter who wins, the people lose, so why bother?

But some polling would help answer this question better.

 

[Bootstoots]

This is why I think America is guaranteed to either become an unfree one-party state, or devolve into civil war. There is no way for the majority of the country to be represented politically; they're locked out and left in the cold while their lives worsen steadily. Democracy can only function if most people feel represented and have a peaceful means of having their voices heard. That will be guaranteed to become impossible in the coming years, one way or another, unless the Dems pull off a miracle.

I don't think most civil war scenarios are winnable if the Democrats don't have power over the federal government. While Lexicus and people like him may hold fantasies of rising up and defeating conservatives in a civil war, there's no way that would work when most of the nation's armed people are right-wing and the leftists are concentrated in cities where insurgencies would be hard to sustain. All it would do is serve as a justification for making repression far worse than it would be in situations where violence doesn't break out.

The census efforts are beginning now. If Congress does not act to stop Trump's attempts to run it off the rails now then Republicans won't be as reliant on Gerrymandering as they might be - they will have undercounted millions of Americans in Blue states which is even more damaging than Gerrymandering. It's also more immediate - Gerrymandering is a staged effort. It takes a few cycles for all the peices to fall into place in a given state. On the other hand, a census undercount drops the EC share of liberal states more or less immediately (it will be in place by the next presidential election) and straight up removed house districts from liberal states altogether.

All of that plays out regardless of wether or not gerrymandering happens after the census.

It's not just the citizenship question that is so damaging about the census efforts. This administration is underfunding and intentionally mismanaging the effort. This will make it very easy for the Republicans to undercount in Blue states by shifting resources to red States and claiming they have to do this out of necessity. Of course it's necessary only because of Republican action - much like the tax cuts are imploding the deficit therefore it is 'necessary' to cut social programs.

Or better yet they just throw out census records they don't like and say it's because Democrats imported illegal immigrants or whatever batpoop insane rationale they come up with. Point being we have to take power back one way or another to stop this.

Sure, that's absolutely a thing that will happen to some extent if the Republicans retain the House. I'm not sure how bad the damage is going to be. I'm finding it fairly unlikely that the damage will be worse than potential further gerrymandering, because the reallocations of seats will happen mostly at the margins, and the states that could receive the extra seats are mostly reddish-purple Sun Belt ones that are trending Democrat anyway, such that each reallocated seat is probably worth "only" a 0.5-0.7 seat pickup by itself (with some reallocated seats going to suburban Democrats instead) in the absence of gerrymandering.

I'm thinking strategic undercounting could be worth maybe 15-20 seats/EVs reallocated from e.g. California and New York to e.g. Texas and Arizona, leading to a 10-15 seat pickup: not trivial by any means, but not a game-ender in itself. As you show, though, the Republicans are making a multi-pronged assault on democracy, and this is one of the prongs that could add with the others to ensure a dominant party system for the foreseeable future.

I agree with that theory of yours and i have done so before.
Except that, as you know, i am more pessimistic than that:
Going against Trump may offer the Democratic party a better chance to win the 2020 election than they would otherwise have.
This not just semantically running backwards what you said.
What i mean is that the party is completely disfunctional and would have descended into disarray and infighting had it lost to someone like Romney in 2016.
Trump is the duct tape that is holding the whole thing together.

Yeah, it certainly helps that Trump is a very weak candidate. I've often thought that they were lucky to face him, given that a Rubio type would do everything substantial that Trump is already doing but more competently and with more popular support.

 

[Patine]

He's also a brutal militant fundamentalist thug, but he's an intelligent brutal militant fundamentalist thug.

Kind of like an Islamic analog to Pat Robertson.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't think most civil war scenarios are winnable if the Democrats don't have power over the federal government. While Lexicus and people like him may hold fantasies of rising up and defeating conservatives in a civil war,

What? Absolutely not. Any "civil war" scenario is going to require the Democrats to have significant control of the US state apparatus or there won't be any kind of "civil war," just the right curbstomping the left and putting us in concentration camps.

there's no way that would work when most of the nation's armed people are right-wing and the leftists are concentrated in cities where insurgencies would be hard to sustain.

Actually, cities are arguably easier places to sustain insurgencies than sparsely populated rural areas: "the guerrilla must hide like a fish in the school of the people, as Mao put it." I think modern surveillance technology (not only cameras but also the ability to monitor communications etc) are the biggest obstacles to any would-be insurgents. Cities work better than rural areas because there are many more people to hide among, and importantly because the average city-dweller sees hundreds or even thousands of strangers a day while strangers in a small town are something to remark over.

That's not to discount the importance of this election - it's pretty damn important too. One of the things I hate about having a two-party system where one party is not committed to anything resembling democracy is that literally every election becomes this sort of apocalyptic affair where a serious loss would result in severe tipping of the playing field so that it becomes very difficult to ever win nationally again.

The real worry is not that it would become impossible for the Democrats to win per se, but that if the Republicans succeed in restricting the ability of the system to represent people then we'll just end up having one white supremacist party and one slightly less white supremacist party- not unlike the situation in the South African parliament during apartheid. Basically, both Democrats and Republicans will be competing for a field of voters who ideologically resemble the current field of GOP primary voters.

 

[HoloDoc]

Kind of like an Islamic analog to Pat Robertson.

Please show Sadr a little more respect than that .

The Democrats are rather hopelessly split between the genuine left and the neoliberal class-traitors. I tend to agree that the only thing holding the party together is the fear of the alternative. We have a similar situation in reverse over here, where the dominant right wing party, the Liberals, are split hopelessly between far right wing nutjobs,including one actual Nazi in the Senate, and more conventional moderate right candidates. They only unite to keep those dastardly left wing labour union types from actually helping the working class and preventing the rape of the economy.

 

[Birdjaguar]

In the US, a society that wants the rule of law to dominate, the idea of militias (left or right) is stupid.

• People who support the idea of militias are intellectually deficient.
• People who give money to militias should be taxed for doing so.
• People who join militias are dangerous.
• People who publicly participate in militia actions should not be allowed to own guns.

Waving guns around as a means of creating political change not free speech.

 

[Patine]

In the US, a society that wants the rule of law to dominate, the idea of militias (left or right) is stupid.

• People who support the idea of militias are intellectually deficient.
• People who give money to militias should be taxed for doing so.
• People who join militias are dangerous.
• People who publicly participate in militia actions should not be allowed to own guns.

Waving guns around as a means of creating political change not free speech.

Yes, the evidence is apparent. The results of armed militias being viewed as a vehicle of change, and the consequences and atrocities therefrom, are very evident in many Third World Nations' post-Colonial histories.

 

[Lexicus]

Waving guns around as a means of creating political change not free speech.

Well, I quite agree with you but any genuine insurgency is not going to be LARPing a militia. The damage would mostly be done by IEDs, not bullets.