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Nevilledog

(50,687 posts)
Mon Apr 12, 2021, 02:18 PM Apr 2021

How to Stop the Minority-Rule Doom Loop



Tweet text:
Jeffrey Goldberg
@JeffreyGoldberg
A "fifth crisis will determine the fate of the rest of [Biden's] administration..: the minority-rule doom loop, by which predominantly white conservatives gain more and more power, even as they represent fewer Americans."

How to Stop the Minority-Rule Doom Loop
The next two years might be America’s last chance to protect the basic democratic principle of majority rule.
theatlantic.com
5:13 AM · Apr 12, 2021


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/how-stop-minority-rule-doom-loop/618536/


President Joe Biden came into office facing four “converging crises”: COVID-19, climate change, racial justice, and the economy. But after a few weeks of fast action on a pandemic relief plan, a fifth crisis will determine the fate of the rest of his administration, and perhaps that of American democracy itself: the minority-rule doom loop, by which predominantly white conservatives gain more and more power, even as they represent fewer Americans.

The doom loop consists of four interlocking components. Candidates who represent white conservatives—Republicans, in our ideologically sorted era—begin every election cycle buoyed by a sluice of voter suppression and gerrymandering (what I call electoral welfare), which makes it easier for them to win. Then antidemocratic features of the American system that have always existed but never benefited one party over the other in any systematic way help those same candidates take control of institutions such as the White House and the Senate, despite winning fewer votes and representing fewer people than their opponents. Once in control of these institutions, these newly elected officials use them to entrench their power beyond the reach of voters. If they are eventually voted out of power, they retain a veto over the agenda of the majority, which they use to block change and feed the conservative case that the government is “broken.” This hastens their return to power—along the very path they greased with voter suppression.

The net effect of this doom loop is a growing divergence between the agenda of the government and the will of the governed, an untenable dynamic in any democracy. With Democratic control of Congress hanging by a handful of seats, the next two years might be the country’s last chance to stop this cycle.

The loop starts at the ballot box, where Republicans are making it harder than at any time in recent history for those who are unlikely to vote for them to vote at all. According to Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida and one of the nation’s foremost experts on voting laws, “We are witnessing the greatest rollback of voting rights in this country since the Jim Crow era.” The Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder unleashed a new wave of voter suppression targeted at reliably Democratic constituencies such as nonwhite voters and young people. The pace of suppression has only increased since the November election. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks voter-suppression efforts across the country, 47 states have seen 361 bills aimed at restricting voting rights since the beginning of the year.

*snip*



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brush

(53,475 posts)
1. Thanks. Good post. The filibuster and Electoral College are hinted at...
Mon Apr 12, 2021, 03:16 PM
Apr 2021

as being part of the vote suppression/gerrymandering loop that gives more and more power to republican legislators who represent way fewer voters than Democrats.

The post is eye-opening as it shows how endangered out democracy is as the minority instead of the majority has the power to block improvements to not just the nation's infrastructure and well being but also it's allows the minority to maintain its hold over the governmental system and therefore block any efforts to fix what they've broken with their continual obstructions/cheating.

hunter

(38,264 posts)
2. Racist white "Christians," and those who pander to them, are over represented in the U.S.A.
Mon Apr 12, 2021, 03:26 PM
Apr 2021

They know it and they are terrified they are losing it.




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