NYT - Has America Passed Democracy's Tipping Points? Finis?


 

Times columnist Thomas Edsall writes that the United States may have parted company with democracy - for good.  I think, at some level, most of us already realize this.

Political analysts, scholars and close observers of government are explicitly raising the possibility that the polarized American electoral system has come to the point at which a return to traditional democratic norms will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The endangered state of American politics is the dominant theme of eight articles published by the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, with titles like “Polarization and tipping points” and “Inter-individual cooperation mediated by partisanship complicates Madison’s cure for ‘mischiefs of faction.’”

The academy is not alone. On Dec. 6, The Atlantic released “Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun,” by Barton Gellman, and “Are We Doomed? To head off the next insurrection, we’ll need to practice envisioning the worst,” by George Packer.

On Dec. 10, The Washington Post published “18 Steps to a Democratic Breakdown,” which warned:

Democracy is most likely to break down through a series of incremental actions that cumulatively undermine the electoral process, resulting in a presidential election that produces an outcome clearly at odds with the voters’ will. It is this comparatively quiet but steady subversion, rather than a violent coup or insurrection against a sitting president, that Americans today have to fear most.
  
Edsall continues with a litany of academics and pundits who share the opinion that America has parted company with democracy and is unlikely to find its way back.

The nonlinear feedback dynamics of asymmetric political polarization,” a Dec. 14 paper by Naomi Ehrich Leonard and Anastasia Bizyaeva, both at Princeton, Keena Lipsitz at Queens College, Alessio Franci at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Yphtach Lelkes at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that in the case of polarization, there are: "critical thresholds or moments when processes become difficult if not impossible to reverse. Our model suggests that this threshold has been crossed by Republicans in Congress and may very soon be breached by Democrats."

Of course Ottawa, ever the perfect gentleman, will be too polite to bring this up with the neighbours. We're much more apt to go along with this dark farce, perhaps even emulating it eventually.

UPDATE:  Check out this AP interview with Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones in which she also discusses the death of democracy in her homeland.

And, in today's National Post, Tom Blackwell considers why democracy is ailing worldwide.

Comments

  1. The Republicans don't have to cheat, the Democrats are doing all the work for them, like Krystal Ball says all the Democrats have to offer is old school Neoliberalism and new school Ultra Wokism, which ironically done more to alienate minorities like Latinos then bring more into the fold. And the greatest threat to American Democracy is Joe Manchin
    & Sigma who has utterly crippled their own parties ability to do anything at all, on exchange for cash from big business. It's too easily to blame it all on Republicans, who admittedly have a disgusting habit of gerrymandering, but the Denocrats have their own issues which are discouraging young voters from voting again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you read any of the papers and articles linked in this post?

      Delete
  2. This is the way democracy ends -- not with a bang but a whimper.

    ReplyDelete
  3. From climate breakdown to pandemics to rampant inequality and democracy in decline it's almost too much to absorb, Owen. Sometimes I wonder how we allowed ourselves to get into this state. Or is this just one bad dream in the midst of a coma?

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  4. The tipping point you refer to is so far away in the rear view mirror, it is getting hard to recall exactly when it happened. imo, it was yr 2000 Bush vs Gore.
    Almost seems quaint ... in hindsight, that was the time for an insurrection.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the seeds were sown during the Reagan-Thatcher era and in introduction of neoliberalism, NPoV.

      Delete
  5. representative democracy and democracy were never the same
    wether it was found tribal or every citizen has a vote on every issue
    we destroyed it
    we killed or bombed it into oblivion
    the closest i have seen mankind come would be Jamahiriya where every citizen had a political position and a vote on every issue that came to their congress.
    It was either Assange or Snowden that said the worst conspiracies' were the ones we all accept as proper to ascribe to but were not in the interests of the people.
    Representative democracy is one of the worst as it separats people on a daily basis from the decision making that affects their lifes.
    You never get to vote on an issue
    you vote for a meatsack and wish they keep any promise.
    America always was a business run by hucksters and tricksters to their own advantage.

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    Replies
    1. I think (properly elected) representative democracy has more chance of success than (tribal) direct democracy when humans number in the billions.

      Direct democracy in the UK yielded Brexit and "Boaty McBoatface".
      Nuff said.

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    2. Lungta, damn your hide. You made me look up "Jamahiriya." Oh dear. Representative democracy is the only practical means unless you subject citizens to a testing regime to ensure they have some basic understanding of the issues in question.

      I don't know about you but I rarely find many of my neighbours particularly engaged in the important questions of the day. Giving them the power to decide is approaching the level of mob rule. In a complicated world facing several perils, some of them existential, that could be catastrophic.

      Delete

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