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The institutions are indeed better, but they are under a decapitation attack, and the attackers have a lot more successful historical authoritarian assaults on

by toss1 2y ago

The institutions are indeed better, but they are under a decapitation attack, and the attackers have a lot more successful historical authoritarian assaults on democracy to hone their attacks. Plus, one party is aprox 100% corrupted and in on the assault, and holds power in both legislative branches and a large portion of the judiciary. For example, the biggest breach of critical US data on EVERY resident and business in the US Treasury has just been executed by unelected Elon Musk, and no one stopped him. He also forced his way into a SCIF (Secure Compartmentalized Info Facility) and other offices without being stopped. Musk has locked out those appointed to protect him, congress is abdicating it's responsibility & power, and law enforcement is not acting against the administration. It is not entirely certain that money will continue being printed, considering Musk's assault on the Treasury. I would not be surprised to find he convinces Trump to route payments through his "Everything App" X, which he desperately needs to support (some serious & credible analysts are considering this may be a motive for those moves). The investment markets are at this moment in free-fall, only two weeks into the administration. This may provoke the people into a sufficiently massive response, or it may not. Yes, the blue states are starting to work together to route around the Federal Govt, which may or may not be a good thing. Avoided? Certainly could have been avoided. Stronger institutions preventing forcible targeted deregistration of 3.2 million+ voters before the election (enabled by a SCOTUS captured by illegitimate Senate confirmation games, which gutted the Voting Rights Act) would have helped when the margin was ~1.6 million votes. An independent press that did not normalize pathological and criminal activities by one candidate would have helped. The list would go on for a very long time, and the point is that the institutions are ALREADY very weakened. They barely held against a criminal administration last time. The size of the cracks appearing in only a fortnight do not bode well for this time. [edit: add updated info in para.2]

pas 2y ago
Can you recommend sources about the deregistration of 3.2M voters, please?
- toss1 2y ago
  https://www.lwv.org/blog/recent-rise-anti-voter-litigation https://www.lwv.org/blog/recent-rise-anti-voter-litigation https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/mass-purges-are-new-voter-suppression https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/mass... https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/how-states-purge-voters-from-the-rolls/ https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/how-states-purge-vo... https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/elections-verify/yes-georgia-launched-a-voter-registration-cancellation-website-fact-check/536-0fe200b5-93f7-4b23-b8e9-e582de8c605d https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/elections-ver... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/3/purging-voters-inside-republican-efforts-to-restrict-2024-election-vote https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/3/purging-voters-insi... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conser... not finding the full compilation RN, will post later
  - pas 2y ago
    thanks! I clicked through to all of them, but I don't see how the 3.2 million number came to be. half of them talk about litigation, a few thousand records, and the largest number is 750 thousands, but there's no mention of how many people actually moved (or died) in North Carolina, so that number is at best some kind of upper bound. it would be good to see the voter roll changes for each state compared to the margins of victory. https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Congressional_margin_of_victory_analysis https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Congressiona...
    - toss1 2y ago
      Yes, getting hard data on voter purges is difficult; it's not like they are centrally reported. And, it happens over years and is distributed unevenly over precincts. And, when it is of questionable legitimacy, they work to hide it. The data on precinct-by-precinct voter roll delta vs margin of victory that you mentioned would indeed be very revealing.
DiscourseFan 2y ago
You mix real concern with conspiritorial language. Why do you think Trump didn’t win legitimately; do you think Louis Bonaparte also stole the election? People elected Trump to destroy the federal government; of course he is going to try to take advantage of it as far as he can, but what makes it susceptible to his attacks also makes it open to forces from below as well. So, be scared, weak, cowardly, but it won’t help! You can’t trust the state to help you anymore.
- toss1 2y ago
  >> Why do you think Trump didn’t win legitimately...? Depends on the definition of "legitimate". States with significant R control are very good at voter suppression, from electing barriers to registration, to ensuring that it is difficult to vote in non-R-voting areas with lower polling station density ensuring long queues to vote (see Houston TX), to outlawing bringing water to people waiting in line 6+hours to vote, to actively purging voter rolls (ofc focused on D-voting areas), to not preventing, providing provisions to help affected people vote, or prosecuting dozens of election-day bomb threats against, you guessed it, heavily-D polling stations. >> You can’t trust the state to help you anymore. TRUE. I don't see anyone cowering, but we are definitely on our own. The problem is that as John Fitzgerald Kennedy said: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." Let's hope it does not come to that.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    None of those provisions made a real dent in voter turnout in 2020. And aside from that, the republican party was far better at getting mail-in turnout in 2024, AND not even considering that about half or more voters are not even members of a particular party. That you look at this in such a partisan manner tells me your view of “revolution” has more to do with putting democrats back in power than any substantial structural changes to governance.
    - toss1 2y ago
      It has NOTHING to do with politics or any particular party It has EVERYTHING to do with putting in power a party that runs by and honors small-"d" democracy, as opposed to the lawless administration now occupying the WH and it's enablers in congress who are only ensuring their own irrelevance. This administration is is not political games, they are attempting, so far successfully, to convert a democracy and small-"d" democratic election into an autocracy. This is the same thing that happened in Russia, Venezuela, Hungary, Germany and many other countries (Putin, Chavez then Mauduro, Orban, and Hitler were all first elected, then "re-elected"). Stop trying to justify it. Things always get worse under autocracy, and often by the time people notice it, it is too late to do anything about it.

by toss1 2y ago

pas 2y ago

Can you recommend sources about the deregistration of 3.2M voters, please?

toss1 2y ago
https://www.lwv.org/blog/recent-rise-anti-voter-litigation https://www.lwv.org/blog/recent-rise-anti-voter-litigation https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/mass-purges-are-new-voter-suppression https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/mass... https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/how-states-purge-voters-from-the-rolls/ https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/how-states-purge-vo... https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/elections-verify/yes-georgia-launched-a-voter-registration-cancellation-website-fact-check/536-0fe200b5-93f7-4b23-b8e9-e582de8c605d https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/elections-ver... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/3/purging-voters-inside-republican-efforts-to-restrict-2024-election-vote https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/3/purging-voters-insi... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conser... not finding the full compilation RN, will post later
- pas 2y ago
  thanks! I clicked through to all of them, but I don't see how the 3.2 million number came to be. half of them talk about litigation, a few thousand records, and the largest number is 750 thousands, but there's no mention of how many people actually moved (or died) in North Carolina, so that number is at best some kind of upper bound. it would be good to see the voter roll changes for each state compared to the margins of victory. https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Congressional_margin_of_victory_analysis https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Congressiona...
  - toss1 2y ago
    Yes, getting hard data on voter purges is difficult; it's not like they are centrally reported. And, it happens over years and is distributed unevenly over precincts. And, when it is of questionable legitimacy, they work to hide it. The data on precinct-by-precinct voter roll delta vs margin of victory that you mentioned would indeed be very revealing.

DiscourseFan 2y ago

You mix real concern with conspiritorial language. Why do you think Trump didn’t win legitimately; do you think Louis Bonaparte also stole the election? People elected Trump to destroy the federal government; of course he is going to try to take advantage of it as far as he can, but what makes it susceptible to his attacks also makes it open to forces from below as well. So, be scared, weak, cowardly, but it won’t help! You can’t trust the state to help you anymore.

toss1 2y ago
>> Why do you think Trump didn’t win legitimately...? Depends on the definition of "legitimate". States with significant R control are very good at voter suppression, from electing barriers to registration, to ensuring that it is difficult to vote in non-R-voting areas with lower polling station density ensuring long queues to vote (see Houston TX), to outlawing bringing water to people waiting in line 6+hours to vote, to actively purging voter rolls (ofc focused on D-voting areas), to not preventing, providing provisions to help affected people vote, or prosecuting dozens of election-day bomb threats against, you guessed it, heavily-D polling stations. >> You can’t trust the state to help you anymore. TRUE. I don't see anyone cowering, but we are definitely on our own. The problem is that as John Fitzgerald Kennedy said: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." Let's hope it does not come to that.
- DiscourseFan 2y ago
  None of those provisions made a real dent in voter turnout in 2020. And aside from that, the republican party was far better at getting mail-in turnout in 2024, AND not even considering that about half or more voters are not even members of a particular party. That you look at this in such a partisan manner tells me your view of “revolution” has more to do with putting democrats back in power than any substantial structural changes to governance.
  - toss1 2y ago
    It has NOTHING to do with politics or any particular party It has EVERYTHING to do with putting in power a party that runs by and honors small-"d" democracy, as opposed to the lawless administration now occupying the WH and it's enablers in congress who are only ensuring their own irrelevance. This administration is is not political games, they are attempting, so far successfully, to convert a democracy and small-"d" democratic election into an autocracy. This is the same thing that happened in Russia, Venezuela, Hungary, Germany and many other countries (Putin, Chavez then Mauduro, Orban, and Hitler were all first elected, then "re-elected"). Stop trying to justify it. Things always get worse under autocracy, and often by the time people notice it, it is too late to do anything about it.