November 15, 2020
It has now been more than a week since the major networks called the presidential election for Joe Biden. Eight days since we danced in the streets, heaving a collective sigh of relief that the burden of waking up every day knowing that your own government was actively working to harm you was going to be lifted. In the eight days since, Arizona and Georgia have been called by all of the networks, Georgia’s hand recount notwithstanding. Although Trump has steadfastly refused to concede and has blocked Biden from access to information necessary for an orderly transition, the victory feels definitive and decisive enough that Democrats have already begun infighting. Democrats are busy scolding one another for losses in the House, blaming everything from activists’ calls to defund the police to insufficient digital strategy for the losses. The circular firing squad from the one remaining political party that actually believes in democracy misses the forest for the trees.
Anyone looking to understand how we managed to lose the Senate majority and seats in the House, while winning the presidency needs to look beyond headline-grabbing glib answers and examine the structural rot at the heart of our republic. As Ezra Klein details here, America’s problem is not “too much polarization,” but “too little democracy. The combination of the Electoral College and gerrymandered districts create incentives for Republicans to cater to an extreme base, because they can win elections and maintain power without winning over a majority of voters,(Source: “The crisis isn’t too much polarization. It’s too little democracy,” by Ezra Klein, Vox.com, 11/12/20).
As a group of international political scientists has determined, the Republican Party of 2020 has all of the hallmarks of a far-right authoritarian political party like those found in Turkey or Hungary, (Source: “GOP leaders’ embrace of Trump’s refusal to concede fits pattern of rising authoritarianism, data shows,” by Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post, 11/12/20). Thanks to our population distribution, even if we lose both runoffs in Georgia, Democrats in the Senate minority will represent 21 million more people than the Republican majority (Source: Klein, op cit.).
We already have minority rule. The presidential election showed just how high the hurdles are that we have to jump to even try to level the playing field. The asymmetry inherent in our system means, if they secure the senate majority, Republicans can and will continue to rig the system to maintain their death grip on power, democracy be damned. That means that not only must we must do everything we can to ensure that Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win in Georgia, but if we win, we cannot squander our victory by tinkering around the edges with timid half measures.
Rescuing democracy will require big bold policies like passing John Lewis Voting Rights Act to restore the oversight and transparency shredded by The Supreme Court in Shelby Cty v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013). It will require either expanding the number of justices on The Supreme Court or stripping jurisdiction from The Supreme Court and lower federal courts over matters that are clearly political questions, in order to neutralize the anti-democratic impact of a 6-3 right wing Supreme Court and 200 Trump appointed federal judges.
Our most difficult problem, though, will be piercing the “information” bubble created by the combination of Fox News, Facebook and other right wing outlets that traffic in fear, smears and lies for profit. They have convinced forty percent of our citizens to disbelieve facts and distrust science. A cursory look at how the bizarre and dangerous QAnon conspiracy has gained adherents (and elected at least one to Congress), shows what we’re up against, (Source: “The Right’s Disinformation Machine is Getting Ready for Trump to Lose,” by Renee DiResta, TheAtlantic.com, 10/20/20).
We need to look at the challenges facing us with cold eyed realism. There is no “compromise” with those who don’t believe in democracy and we don’t have the luxury of excommunicating moderates or excoriating progressives. Make no mistake, we won a battle, not the war. Take a deep breath and keep fighting.
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