Tag: U.S. democracy

If the postal service dies, so does democracy

AlterNet logoThere are two big stories this week about a subject that normally sounds painfully boring: the mail. Each is crucially important in its own right, but combined they presage a nearly apocalyptic threat to American democracy.

The first is that the Donald Trump and Republican Party are engaged in an all-out war against the expansion of mail-in voting in the era of COVID-19. The flimsy outward justification is concern about voter fraud, but of course there is no evidence of significant voter fraud surrounding mail ballots. In fact, the only major scandal in the modern era around mail-in voting was a corrupt scheme by Republicans in North Carolina–one that was quickly and easily discovered. Republicans aren’t exactly being shy about why they want to restrict the expansion of access to mail voting: they think the more people are allowed to vote, the better Democrats will do against them. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Republicans are far less concerned about the virus than are Democrats, and that in battleground states with Republican legislatures like Wisconsin, there are far more polling places per capita in red districts than blue ones, which means not only longer lines but more dangerous crowding at the polling places. It only adds to the Republican turnout advantage if most people have to vote in person. Continue reading.

Why Local Newspapers Are the Basis of Democracy

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”—Thomas Jefferson

With newspaper readership and circulation continuing to drop, more and more local newspapers are being forced out of business. However, as a recent poll by the Pew Research Center indicates: “Many of those who say the closing of the local paper wouldn’t make much, if any, difference in their communities note that there are other news sources available.”

Young people, in particular, are more inclined to get their news from the internet. According to Pew, only 27% of those born after 1976 read newspapers, as opposed to 55% of those born prior to 1946. One person who believes the closure of the local paper would make no difference to civic life stated: “There are other forms of communication that are more important and easier to follow. I either go to television or turn on the radio in my car.”

There are, however, serious problems with this line of thinking. Continue reading.

Why tyranny could be the inevitable outcome of democracy

Plato, one of the earliest thinkers and writers about democracy, predicted that letting people govern themselves would eventually lead the masses to support the rule of tyrants.

When I tell my college-level philosophy students that in about 380 B.C. he asked “does not tyranny spring from democracy,” they’re sometimes surprised, thinking it’s a shocking connection.

But looking at the modern political world, it seems much less far-fetched to me now. In democratic nations like Turkey, the U.K., Hungary, Brazil and the U.S., anti-elite demagogues are riding a wave of populism fueled by nationalist pride. It is a sign that liberal constraints on democracy are weakening.

View the complete November 11 article by Lawrence Torcello, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology on the Conversation website here.

10 Far-Reaching Congressional Ethics Reforms to Strengthen U.S. Democracy

Overview

Congress must get its house in order by passing bold reforms to help ensure it is working for the people—not for wealthy special interests.

Introduction and Summary

American democracy is at a crossroads, with most Americans believing that political corruption in Washington, D.C., is widespread, that members of Congress are in the pockets of wealthy special interests, and that the federal policymaking process does not represent the views of the people. Trust in government is near an all-time low,1 and Americans are demanding anti-corruption reforms that will make government more accountable to everyday people instead of to corporate lobbyists and the most well connected. A recent Center for American Progress report, “Bold Democracy Reforms That Build on H.R. 1,” examined a range of structural solutions that are needed to curb Washington’s culture of corruption and help ensure fair, democratic elections.2 In this report, the authors narrow their focus to a subset of those solutions designed to make members of Congress more responsive to the people who elect them. Continue reading “10 Far-Reaching Congressional Ethics Reforms to Strengthen U.S. Democracy”