Will America's constitutional democracy hold for four more years?

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/11/will-americas-constitutional-democracy.html

John Dewey, known as the founder of American progressive education, declared that "Democracy, and the one ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous." As an educational reformer, and one of the most prominent American scholars in the early twentieth century, Dewey believed that an informed and educated electorate was the key to preserving America's constitutional democracy.

Dewey was right. Events leading up to and including this 2024 election in the United States have proved his words to be correct. If the election is an accurate reflection of the political will of the people, then this one is a reflection of appalling ignorance about the issues at stake, and of the ability of sheer propaganda to penetrate and saturate the electorate to achieve a result not consistent with reality. We have an electorate that is blatantly apathetic, appallingly ignorant and inexcusably uneducated that has just allegedly elected leadership bent on the destruction of American Constitutional Democracy.

And the clown that was elected is lining up a group of individuals whose incompetence and inability to manage the parts of the executive branch to which he plans to appoint them will destroy what they don't intentionally ruin when they get there. For anyone who might be placing hope in a group of Republican senators to stop this clown show, and demand that the people appointed to these cabinet positions at least be competent and capable of doing the job, and not flawed by a criminal record, or by a subversive, treasonous relationship with Vladimir Putin, or by their own deviant sexual behavior, I'll tell you now you will be disappointed. No Republican anywhere in that party's leadership has integrity any more. They're just protecting their assets at this point, like pathetic Lindsay Graham, who trots around after Trump with toilet paper and tissues, to wipe his ass and blow his nose.

So what should we now expect from the leadership of the Democratic party, after losing an election they convinced most of us to believe was the most consequential of our lifetime? Is it politics as usual? Is is an attitude of, "Well, at least I won my election and I'll be able to take my seat and collect my government paycheck and expenses." If this election was so consequential, and our democracy is now in the most danger it ever has been in, then I need to hear from the party leadership, and I need to see something that convinces me that they don't just think this is all intense election rhetoric aimed at getting contributions and votes and now we're all just going to hunker down and endure until the next election gives us a chance to change things.

If our democracy really is in danger, there may not be a "next election."

I'm going to need to see more than what I'm seeing now. If, somehow, someway our democracy does survive the next four years, the person who gets my vote will be the one who led the way through this darkness, confusion and terror of what's coming, shows no fear of Trump, challenges any moves he makes to abuse the law to get even with his enemies, and leads a genuine resistance movement that I will gladly volunteer to join and financially support.

[cilla4progress]

1. Is it holding now?

[Irish_Dem]

2. It ended Nov 5 2024. A day that will live in infamy.

[Lonestarblue]

3. I think Democrats don't really know who leads the party just now.

Biden is the titular head of the party as president, but he is the past rather than the future. Harris has suffered a setback, and while we have several excellent governors, which of them is the party leader?

I hope once a new DNC chair is chosen, that person will be a strong leader for the party (still hoping for Sec. Pete), but we’ll also need elected officials to step up.

[yaesu]

4. No but I'm all for pipedreams and wishful thinking. nt

[GoreWon2000]

5. U.S. democracy died on 12/12/00

when 5 unelected, anti-democracy SCOTUS judges stopped the legal Florida vote count which threw out millions of votes from around the country in order to install their personally preferred candidate in the White House. This ugly truth must never be forgotten.

[EarlG]

6. I think the play is this

The USA is still a small-d democracy. Trump won the election through a legitimate democratic process, and now he gets to be in charge of the system. We arrived here by choice. Nobody who says they believe in democracy would want to overturn that choice through undemocratic means, as Trump tried to do on January 6.

Right now, we are still a democracy. We expect to continue as a democracy. We The People decide how the country is run, not an unelected dicator.

Since that is the case, we proceed as if this is still a democracy, and act accordingly. We expect mid-term elections to occur in two years. We expect a presidential election to occur in four years. We expect Donald Trump to be replaced after four years because he will have been elected twice. Those are the rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution, which the president swears an oath to defend.

Trump can turn the whole government upside down if he wants to -- that's what America voted for, and will reap the consequences of.
But as soon as Trump steps outside the Constitutional system, all bets are off, because he will have essentially declared the Constitution dead. If we ever reach that point, who knows what will happen, but it will probably go down much the way it has in all other countries which have become or threatened to become dictatorships -- either the dictator will win, or the people will win, and it won't be pretty either way.

If it comes to that, it will be because that's where Trump decides to take us. Until then, we expect out Constitutional system to prevail. The Constitution IS America. That's the framework we're operating in.

[lees1975]

7. Good points...

Nobody who says they believe in democracy would want to overturn that choice through undemocratic means, as Trump tried to do on January 6.

However, I believe there is enough evidence available to warrant re-counting, outside the system of ballot counting machines, every ballot in every battleground state. That's not overturning through undemocratic means, that's putting Democracy to work and being careful.