We made it through six years of GWB controlling the House and Senate...

[brooklynite]

We made it through two years of Trump controlling the House and Senate…

In neither of those instances did the “we’re DOOMED” mood we see today exist.

Discuss.

[hlthe2b]

1. Forty-six states were not intent on dismantling voting and under Bush* R's still had 'some' respect

for the law.

Since Trump, that is NOT the case. He and his cult soldiers are "win at all costs" and consequences be damned. Even Dick Cheney still had some consideration for consequences and the future.

[PortTack]

16. We are win at all costs! All the voter suppression bills that have passed into law are facing

Legal challenges. These laws are poorly written, illegal and unconstitutional says Marc Elias attorney on the front lines of these law suits. He agrees we need a voting rights law, but these suits will buy democracy some time.

His “cult soldiers” are no match for the might of the US military as was proven on 1/6, and as the DOJ and the FBI bring them to justice..the count now approaches 575 charged.

[hlthe2b]

18. Elias also admitted this is whack-a-mole and as unconstitutional as most provisions are, there will

be some judges that allow some provisions to remain. Further, there is no way to litigate them ALL through the entire appeals process before the midterms. He was adamant on TRMS and on his blog, and twitter postings that we DESPERATELY need the Federal bill(s) to pass.

If you saw his interview, you would likewise be less than sanguine. I'm prepared for the fight, but those who underestimate just how much damage is being done behind the scenes and what peril we face are no less naive than Manchin.

[PortTack]

30. I did see the entire interview and posted that he said we need voter protection laws.

And have said in other posts that he knows it won’t be a slam dunk...but these laws will buy democracy some time..his words exactly. As far as being “sanguine”.. I’ve been called worse, and you think me as naive as manchin..oh please!

Just because I’m not screaming doom and gloom does not by any stretch suggest in the least of ways that I am not concerned! If I were so sanguine, Pollyanna whatever..why would I bother to continually try and get ppl to realize we are in a fight and now is the time to take action, (not next year) and not sit on ones duff!! I point to multiple groups, successful Stacey Abrams style groups that can educate voters about ID requirements, volunteer to be boots on the ground, voter registration laws, things that will ease the situation and GOTV until such time we can pass voter laws ...but that falls mostly on deaf ears ...here anyway.

I will never say we are screwed..we’re f..ked which I see a lot of. That is NOT the answer and never will be. this is hand we been dealt for right and we’ve got to work with what we have. We need ppl who are willing to take action and we need it now. So, you are entitled to your opinion..but again, who are the ones that are unaware and naive?

[hlthe2b]

37. Whoah. You are personalizing that which I did not direct specifically to you.

I understand this is a tense issue, but WHOAH! We are not that far apart. I'll just leave it there.

[Nexus2]

35. We're slow boiled frogs.

What the GOP is now, its always been there but either purposefully or perhaps some perverse instinct perhaps, it grew slowly so most folks didn't notice. Trump didn't cause it. He might have kicked it up a few notches, empowered it but it was always there. I think one of the reason he went with GOP after playing at being a democrat for awhile. He sensed kindred spirits like his affinity for dictators. Even better he saw with his admitted con man talents he could manipulate them.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

2. Bush

Didn't have his buddies take away votes by stacking courts that would pass antidemocratic bills.

Sure bush stole the election via the supreme court..which should have been fought..harder.

But during the bush era there wasn't an insurrection..

two different things
today that's different from how it was under bush off the top of my head.

And the guardrails that protect our democracy were still seen as important.

[questionseverything]

3. Never before have red state legislatures openly admitted they will simply change the outcome if they

Don’t like the way the vote went

[PortTack]

12. No, they admitted to other things thou

So think about this for a moment. You actually believe that a state legislature can pass a law, that allows them to appoint someone that will then change the outcome of vote tallies of said individual that ran for federal office and won, went thru recounts and audits and is still the duly elected winner, and the courts right up to SCOTUS are going to agree?

The states may have broad powers to run their elections as they see fit...times, voting places, ID requirements etc., but to say a state appointed official can nullify a win of someone running for federal office...no!

[questionseverything]

15. I think the constitution gives states broad powers as to how to decide who to send as senator

[PortTack]

17. That is just not true.

the US constitution is clear. Look at the 17th amendment

Yes, if a senator dies in office or resigns it varies from state to state

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

https://www.senate.gov/senators/AppointedSenators.htm

[questionseverything]

22. It is better than I remembered but I don't have the confidence in the courts that you do

Or the confidence that repub sos will always deliver a correct outcome

I am not one to give up but we are fighting a different fight

[PortTack]

31. What you are talking about is voter fraud at its worst. A SOS willing to throw thousands of votes

For loyalty to a party, and risk going to jail for years. Yes, I guess I do see it differently.

[Humanist_Activist]

4. At those times the Republicans at least played lip service to the rules of democracy....

Al Gore conceded in 2000, win or lose, the results of elections were accepted at the very top and also down ticket. Whether it was Kerry, McCain, or Romney, they conceded, Trump has yet to do so, and worse than that, he has the majority of the Republican party thinking the election was stolen from him.

The Obama years broke the dam on the Republican parties covert racism, making it more overt, the Trump years broke the dam on the Republican contempt for majoritarian rule, democracy itself. The tension was always there, but now its at a breaking point, 1/6 was a prelude, not an ending.

[elleng]

5. Yes

[Nexus2]

36. Agreed [nt]

[peggysue2]

38. This!

Which means we need to be prepared for the fight. Getting rid of Trump was Step One, but we have many more steps before this battle is over. The Republican Party is not merely dysfunctional; they are now anti-democratic and unAmerican. They need to be defeated, everywhere. Right down to dogcatcher.

[Bettie]

40. Yes! This right here!

They don't even pretend to be working toward anything but white supremacy anymore.

[ShazamIam]

6. I disagree, we were doomed and knew it and were rewarded the individual rights destroy8ing, Patriot

Patriot Act, and Homeland Security Dept, two wars plus the global war on terror, plus a huge tax cut and the historically unprecedented global financial collapse at the end of that disaster. This is much worse.

[dalton99a]

7. "It's not your grandfather's Republican Party anymore"

147 Republicans in Congress voted to overturn the 2020 election.

[Elessar Zappa]

8. It's always doom and gloom here.

There were people years ago sure that Bush would establish a dictatorship.

[empedocles]

9. Not among everyone at DU

[Elessar Zappa]

10. No, not everyone of course.

But it was said.

[PortTack]

13. Agree. This isn't the time to give in or give up. This is the time to get INVOLVED

Here are some organizations on the front lines the need your help! You can make a difference

Democracydocket.com
Stacey Abrams fairfight.org
Nodemleftbehind.org
ACLU
DNC
Don’t Be A Mitch

Please get involved

[Silent3]

28. Doom isn't inevitable, but the odds of a very bad outcome simply are higher...

...than they have been in the past. More people are talking doom and gloom because, quite realistically, we are in a very perilous situation in regard to our democracy.

Before we've had to worry about ulterior motives of Republicans. Now the planned power grab is exceptionally blatant, and norms of behavior we could depend on in the past have been shattered.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. January 6th happened.

I think that's the main explanation.

Not to mention Trump regularly using fascist anti-democratic language, with Republican politicians mostly ignoring it.

[betsuni]

14. I experienced feelings of dread for a couple of years because I was scared that Cheney, Rumsfeld,

and the other neocons would complete their Project for the New American Century and start a war with Iran. A global effect.

Today's situation is domestic. I'm going to go ahead and assume Republicans will take control of Congress in midterms. But "doomed"? No. I am not experiencing feelings of dread now, just sadness, as usual, at the enormous waste of human potential (among other things) in the U.S. because of Republican policies. It's up to the American people.

[PortTack]

19. This!! We have real problems, climate change, drought, health care..I could go on and on

But these idiots choose to fuss over a demented, fat, old, racist creep they think will help them stay in power....sad..very sad

[dsc]

20. The VRA was renewed 95 to 0 by that Senate

and now at the very best, we might be able to get Burr, Murkowski, Romney, Collins, Toomey, and Scott to vote for it which wouldn't be enough. Without it, we will loss the House in 2022 and not win it back this decade. In my state if just one time we either lose the governor election or have a GOP super majority, they will pass voter suppression laws that will make it impossible for Democrats to ever win another election here and if we do manage to, they will simply annul the election. As awful as Bush was, the GOP still at least pretended they believed that elections matter.

[PortTack]

25. States cannot simply annul an election!

https://www.justsecurity.org/73274/no-state-legislatures-cannot-overrule-the-popular-vote/

And this from the Electoral College Count Act

Example: Twelfth Amendment’s silences override the Electoral Count Act while ignoring the Amendment’s plain language. If neither slate of Pennsylvania’s electors is recognized, Biden’s 268 votes would fall short of a majority of the 538 total Electoral votes theoretically available. However, the Twelfth Amendment does not say anything about those votes. Instead, it says that “[t]he person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed” (emphasis added).
We have italicized that last word—appointed—to emphasize that the Constitution does not say that a candidate must win a majority of the potential number of theoretically eligible electors who might have been appointed. He or she must win only a majority of the electors who were actually appointed. In the scenario in which the Electoral Count Act is set aside so that Pennsylvania’s votes do not count, its 20 votes are subtracted from both the numerator and the denominator. Now Biden’s (assumed) 268 votes would be a majority of the 518 votes cast by the “whole number of electors appointed.”

Essentially any state thinking they can override an official election result, for the presidency risks having their entire election nullified.

More at the link
https://verdict.justia.com/2020/09/30/no-republicans-cannot-throw-the-presidential-election-into-the-house-so-that-trump-wins

[dsc]

29. that is only true if the state doesn't reserve the right to appoint those electors before the

election is conducted. They can't change the rules after the election but can do so before it. Under AZ and GA voting laws as changed recently they can now do exactly that.

[PortTack]

33. This from the link posted

There is a second, independent reason state legislatures cannot cancel the popular vote results after Election Day: to do so would violate the Constitutional rights of the voters. Specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits states from taking away their citizens’ rights without due process of law. One such right, of course, is the right to vote. And the Supreme Court has made clear many times, in more than a hundred years’ worth of precedents, that the constitutional right to vote does not just mean the right to put a ballot in a box, but also the right to have that ballot counted toward determining the election’s results. For a state legislature to invalidate a popular election would be equivalent to simply refusing to count the citizens’ votes. The Constitution unambiguously prohibits disenfranchising any eligible voters, much less an entire state’s worth.

https://www.justsecurity.org/73274/no-state-legislatures-cannot-overrule-the-popular-vote/

[NickB79]

39. Look who's on the USSC to review a legal challenge

You have a lot of faith in all the Trump-appointed justices to follow precedent?

[fescuerescue]

21. I remember it different

Lots and lots of talk abut whether the US would survive.

In 15 years we will remember this time differently to when we face whatever new monster we have to deal with.

Recent things are always MUCH worse or Much better.

[Crunchy Frog]

23. Bookmarking for future reference.

[tinrobot]

24. Simple. Hyperbole gets clicks.

Rational discourse does not.

[PortTack]

26. This! I post all kinds of stuff about how to get involved and counter the qgop efforts..it gets

Very little attention

[hatrack]

27. At no time during the periods you list did 146 Members of Congress vote to reject election results

It's not 2003, and it's not 2017.

The past is prologue, not Konica Minolta.

[Baitball Blogger]

32. They have been moving their agenda forward in all that time, and successfully pinning

the downside of their mistakes on Democrats, which also helps slowing us down even further. It's gloom and doom because we're fourteen years behind the eight ball.

[Stuart G]

34. We are NOT DOOMED...The U.S.A. has been through far worse...Look at our history....

Be honest about the history, where we were historically, and what we have become..
Then, go back to page one, and please read the history again. Please include all of the
U.S. History...then you will see we are a resilient country with a true history of the....
.....VERY GOOD, VERY BAD, and VERY, VERY UGLY... !!!!!!!............................

just like other very large countries with huge populations in this very old world..!!!

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

41. We survived the Bush years, therefore

move along now folks, nothing to see here. If Republicans take over the House and Senate, no worries! We'll all be be A-OK!

If you are a wealthy white heterosexual male, that is.

Cake, anyone?

100 Experts Express ‘Growing Alarm’ That Republicans Are Endangering Democracy

More than 100 scholars have issued a dire warning that Republicans are putting the nation’s democracy in danger by restricting access to voting and perpetuating the fiction that the 2020 presidential election was not secure.

“We, the undersigned, are scholars of democracy who have watched the recent deterioration of U.S. elections and liberal democracy with growing alarm,” said a statement released Tuesday by the New America think tank. “Specifically, we have watched with deep concern as Republican-led state legislatures across the country have in recent months proposed or implemented what we consider radical changes to core electoral procedures in response to unproven and intentionally destructive allegations of a stolen election.”

The statement was signed by more than 100 academics with expertise in politics, government, international affairs, public policy and other areas.

In the wake of former President Donald Trump’s election loss and subsequent lies about the integrity of the voting process, Republican state lawmakers across the country have introduced legislation that would make it harder for people to vote, citing concerns about election security. At least 14 states have enacted 22 laws this year that do so, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/experts-democracy-under-threat-republicans_n_60b6d914e4b04b216be09383

The Supreme Court is eyeing Roe v. Wade's end with this Mississippi abortion ban case

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear oral arguments in a Mississippi abortion case — Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — that would completely ban the procedure at 15 weeks after the start of a woman's last period before conception, with no exceptions for victims of sexual assault. Advocates and activists on both sides of the abortion divide have said this is a signal that the court is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade — but we've heard that so many times before.

Unfortunately, this time they are right.
snip----
For those of us who live in the Deep South, legal abortion would all but cease to exist. Just one state — Florida — would allow abortion (assuming it, too, did not change its laws), and it would be the sole viable location for anyone in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia or Mississippi. The end of Roe would force people into multiday journeys by car that cover hundreds of miles, with costly flights to Chicago, Denver or Washington, D.C., as the next most accessible option.

A third of the country would not just lose its right to bodily autonomy. It would also being forced by the state to carry unwanted, potentially dangerous pregnancies to term into an underresourced, purposefully neglected and utterly inadequate medical system in which both those who are pregnant and the resulting infants run the very real risk of dying in the process.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-court-eyeing-roe-v-wade-s-end-mississippi-abortion-ncna1267706

The Real List of Trump’s “Unprecedented Steps” for the LGBTQ Community

https://www.hrc.org/news/the-list-of-trumps-unprecedented-steps-for-the-lgbtq-community

White nationalist hate groups have grown 55% in Trump era, report finds

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/white-nationalist-hate-groups-southern-poverty-law-center

Hate Crimes Under Trump Surged Nearly 20 Percent Says FBI Report

https://www.newsweek.com/hate-crimes-under-trump-surged-nearly-20-percent-says-fbi-report-1547870

The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

The Bitter Fruits of Trump’s White-Power Presidency

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-bitter-fruits-of-trumps-white-power-presidency

How Trump fueled economic inequality in America

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/535239-how-trump-fueled-economic-inequality-in-america

Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland_Supreme_Court_nomination

List of federal judges appointed by Donald Trump

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump

2021 United States Capitol attack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack

January 2021 Insurrection

https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/10207-january-2021-insurrection

Stay united and fight like there is no tomorrow if Republicans take over the House and Senate. Because there is no tomorrow if the fascists take over the House and Senate. Do not be lulled into complacency by anyone.

[ChrisF1961]

42. As bad as Bush was

he was never the leader of a fascist cult.

[ananda]

43. That's because we are being doomed by members of our own party.

That makes it exponentially worse.

[Johnny2X2X]

44. Republicans win if we panic and accept defeat

This whole thing is to undermine Dem's faith in our elections. Voter apathy is the only way Reps win. So far we are panicking and are ready to give up.