Sam Seder or one of his analysts in The Majority Report’s team recently made an important point about having the liberal-democracy-vs.-authoritarianism theme as the central framing. When you make that such a central theme without connecting it clearly to more specific issues, it emphasizes the importance of Biden’s ability to defeat Trump. Obviously, that’s always a central concern in elections whether this candidate has the campaign skills to beat the other.
Yes, breakdown. It's almost as if everything potentially flawed about our whole system has suddenly come to light. We cannot get rid of a criminal president, we cannot protect ourselves against wildly overreaching judges, we cannot prevent minority rule, we cannot address political extremism at every level, we no longer have an 'overlapping consensus' on fundamental political values, we do not have a healthy media, with ideas coming from a wide variety of people concerned about the citizenry, the public has stopped conceiving of themselves as citizens, we now have open political corruption in the judiciary which cannot be addressed, some states are one party fiefdoms, run for corporate and religious interests, political instruments no longer have authority over wide swathes of the coercive apparatus of the state--police forces and some portions of homeland security. We are seeing the freedom of speech wildly attacked by the state. The most law-disrespecting citizens are armed to the teeth, threatening the lives and rights of expression of other citizens. We have gradually lost many rights.
The constitutional crisis people feared had turned into 'the constitution means nothing.'
Yes, breakdown. It's almost as if everything potentially flawed about our whole system has suddenly come to light. We cannot get rid of a criminal president, we cannot protect ourselves against wildly overreaching judges, we cannot prevent minority rule, we cannot address political extremism at every level, we no longer have an 'overlapping consensus' on fundamental political values, we do not have a healthy media, with ideas coming from a wide variety of people concerned about the citizenry, the public has stopped conceiving of themselves as citizens, we now have open political corruption in the judiciary which cannot be addressed, some states are one party fiefdoms, run for corporate and religious interests, political instruments no longer have authority over wide swathes of the coercive apparatus of the state--police forces and some portions of homeland security. We are seeing the freedom of speech wildly attacked by the state. The most law-disrespecting citizens are armed to the teeth, threatening the lives and rights of expression of other citizens. We have gradually lost many rights.
The constitutional crisis people feared had turned into 'the constitution means nothing.'