The U.S. establishment is sleepwalking toward a crisis. An openly antidemocratic figure stands at least a 50-50 chance of winning the presidency. The Supreme Court and the Republican Party have abdicated their gatekeeping responsibilities, and too many of America’s most influential political, business and religious leaders remain on the sidelines. Unable to rise above fear or narrow ambition, they hedge their bets. But time is running out.
What are they waiting for?
They may be waiting, but the rest of us Americans don’t have to
They don’t make it super easy to find the bullet points:
“One of these is a far more muscular approach, known as militant or defensive democracy… the militant democracy approach empowers public authorities to wield the rule of law against antidemocratic forces.”
“The United States has a tool on the books for disqualifying anti-constitutional candidates: Section III of the 14th Amendment disallows former public officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.”
“A third approach to defending democracy is partisan gatekeeping. In the absence of legal tools to block extremist threats, the responsibility for fending off such threats falls to political parties. In a healthy democracy, party leaders police their own ranks, expelling antidemocratic elements or refusing to nominate extremists or demagogues for public office.”
“When authoritarians make it onto the ballot, prodemocratic forces may turn to a fourth strategy: containment, in which politicians from across the ideological spectrum forge a broad coalition to isolate and defeat the authoritarians.”
“That leaves a fifth strategy: societal mobilization. Democracy’s last bastion of defense is civil society. When the constitutional order is under threat, influential groups and societal leaders — chief executives, religious leaders, labor leaders and prominent retired public officials — must speak out, reminding citizens of the red lines that democratic societies must never cross. And when politicians cross those red lines, society’s most prominent voices must publicly and forcefully repudiate them.”
There’s also a 6th option, but talking openly about it gets you put on a list. Not to mention, it has some very fucking serious downsides, because that’s a Pandora’s box you can’t easily close.
I prefer to think of it as “The Franklin Alternative”. :)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/american-presidents-can-be-impeached-because-benjamin-franklin-thought-it-was-better-assassination-180961500/
As a fellow Oklahoman fuck Democrats here. I will be voting Harris but when I went to the Democratic booth at state fair to get Harris signs they had none. And none were coming. Also guy running the booth gave two shits about Harris getting a win. When asked how to get signs he shurg and walked away. He refused to dicuss how the Democrats could speard in Oklahoma nor any candidate I should vote for. Meanwhile Republicans had fucking 5 booths and plenty of Trump shit to sell.
Having the same problem here in Oregon. We have a large fence facing a busy street, talked to the local Democrats about hanging a banner. We could put up an 8 foot by 12 foot banner easily.
“Uhhh… have you tried Etsy?”
Let me get this straight, I’m willing to give the campaign money, for a large sign, that you could profit on, and you… just didn’t think to have that done?
Electoral College nonsense? It’s super easy to get Harris signs here in Wisconsin.
For the amount of money that flows in for elections, the party organizations are shockingly incompetent. Somehow those massively overpaid consultants are too busy to think about implementing free-advertising options to support on the ground outreach.
Publicly repudiating Trump and warning of red lines that must never be crossed? Of course! Why didn’t anybody think of this before?? Democracy is saved! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸