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Democracy is about broad-based power, the public interest having power, individual rights and limiting the power of small but powerful interests - like the old-time English nobility - from benefiting by excessively exploiting and harming the public and the public interest. Meanwhile, those small but powerful interests doing just that is basically the definition of the modern conservative political movement and why it is at war against democracy.
As I've quoted Louis Brandeis many times saying, "You can have great concentration of wealth, or you can have democracy, but you cannot have both."
I've just realized a similarity in the way the right attacks democracy in voting - in order to try to get power - and the way it attacks the democracy by destroying the constitution - in order to attack democracy by taking power from the people that's protected in the constitution.
The common issue is how, in their pursuit of power, they look for weaknesses in the systems of democracy they can exploit with "bad faith" abuse.
In voting, that means trying to reduce votes for the opposition in many ways. They recognize the need for districts to be drawn; but see an opportunity to draw them in ways to violate the equality of votes and give themselves more power. They use bad-faith 'voter list purges' to wipe large numbers of the other side's voters off the roles. They use bad-faith measures claiming to be for things like 'preventing fraud' to reduce the number of the other side's votes. And now, they're recognizing the weakness in the system that counting votes is something that people do, and so it can be done in bad faith to steal elections - something a majority of Republicans in Congress supported in 2020, wanting Pence to refuse to accept the electors so they could steal the election; and they are now running many candidates for election-related offices who support exploiting that weakness to try to seize power.
Similarly, they recognized that whatever the constitution says, whatever power it gives the public, is determined by nine people, who can destroy any such power for the people with bad-faith 'interpretations' of what the constitution says. As a result, grooming people who would have an ideology which did just that was a method they could use to exploit that weakness to seize power, taking it from the public.
A remarkable thing is that the effort gets to a point where even the people doing it might be unaware they are. The people who initially pushed the ideology understood what they were doing - but as it took root, it became an 'ideology' and a 'political movement', just give it names like 'conservative' where true believers empowered it not really understanding its agenda to help powerful interests destroy democracy. They very effectively created an institution - the Federalist Society - that groomed an army in the legal area by indoctrinating them with the 'ideology', and providing incentives for them to 'join the team' by offering 'networking benefits' - they could get advancement, favors,, from that networking from fellow members that were huge incentives. Republicans finally helped by essentially only appointing judges coming from the Federalist Society list of 'approved' people.
And that's how they have exploited the weakness of our constitution being interpreted by people to attack it - very successfully.
So on the one hand, elections have weaknesses they can exploit about people enforcing it to grab power to attack democracy; on the other, our constitution has weaknesses they can exploit about people enforcing it to grab power to attack democracy.
Don't like who the people elect? Change the results of the vote. Don't like the powers the constitution gives the people? Change them by having a Supreme Court that 'interprets' it to not give the public those rights. Both by stacking the systems made of people, in voting and in courts, with bad-faith actors who will abuse and exploit the systems - wittingly or unwittingly.
That's the picture of our war on democracy - backed by huge amounts of "dark money" from those special interests who benefit from destroying democracy. Hundreds of millions are spent to promote the election schemes; hundreds of millions are spent to build the legal army and get it into judicial offices.
And sadly for our country, much like plutocracy, only one side is really fighting the war, and it's doing well. We have record inequality, we have Republicans hugely overrepresented in office compared to their number of voters, we have the constitutional rights for the people's power in tatters. In short, we have plutocracy - the rule of wealth having largely defeated our democracy.
As I've quoted Louis Brandeis many times saying, "You can have great concentration of wealth, or you can have democracy, but you cannot have both."
I've just realized a similarity in the way the right attacks democracy in voting - in order to try to get power - and the way it attacks the democracy by destroying the constitution - in order to attack democracy by taking power from the people that's protected in the constitution.
The common issue is how, in their pursuit of power, they look for weaknesses in the systems of democracy they can exploit with "bad faith" abuse.
In voting, that means trying to reduce votes for the opposition in many ways. They recognize the need for districts to be drawn; but see an opportunity to draw them in ways to violate the equality of votes and give themselves more power. They use bad-faith 'voter list purges' to wipe large numbers of the other side's voters off the roles. They use bad-faith measures claiming to be for things like 'preventing fraud' to reduce the number of the other side's votes. And now, they're recognizing the weakness in the system that counting votes is something that people do, and so it can be done in bad faith to steal elections - something a majority of Republicans in Congress supported in 2020, wanting Pence to refuse to accept the electors so they could steal the election; and they are now running many candidates for election-related offices who support exploiting that weakness to try to seize power.
Similarly, they recognized that whatever the constitution says, whatever power it gives the public, is determined by nine people, who can destroy any such power for the people with bad-faith 'interpretations' of what the constitution says. As a result, grooming people who would have an ideology which did just that was a method they could use to exploit that weakness to seize power, taking it from the public.
A remarkable thing is that the effort gets to a point where even the people doing it might be unaware they are. The people who initially pushed the ideology understood what they were doing - but as it took root, it became an 'ideology' and a 'political movement', just give it names like 'conservative' where true believers empowered it not really understanding its agenda to help powerful interests destroy democracy. They very effectively created an institution - the Federalist Society - that groomed an army in the legal area by indoctrinating them with the 'ideology', and providing incentives for them to 'join the team' by offering 'networking benefits' - they could get advancement, favors,, from that networking from fellow members that were huge incentives. Republicans finally helped by essentially only appointing judges coming from the Federalist Society list of 'approved' people.
And that's how they have exploited the weakness of our constitution being interpreted by people to attack it - very successfully.
So on the one hand, elections have weaknesses they can exploit about people enforcing it to grab power to attack democracy; on the other, our constitution has weaknesses they can exploit about people enforcing it to grab power to attack democracy.
Don't like who the people elect? Change the results of the vote. Don't like the powers the constitution gives the people? Change them by having a Supreme Court that 'interprets' it to not give the public those rights. Both by stacking the systems made of people, in voting and in courts, with bad-faith actors who will abuse and exploit the systems - wittingly or unwittingly.
That's the picture of our war on democracy - backed by huge amounts of "dark money" from those special interests who benefit from destroying democracy. Hundreds of millions are spent to promote the election schemes; hundreds of millions are spent to build the legal army and get it into judicial offices.
And sadly for our country, much like plutocracy, only one side is really fighting the war, and it's doing well. We have record inequality, we have Republicans hugely overrepresented in office compared to their number of voters, we have the constitutional rights for the people's power in tatters. In short, we have plutocracy - the rule of wealth having largely defeated our democracy.
