Say, How Will We Know When Democracy In The U.S. Is Dying?

Remember how the media ran all these types of articles during the Era Of Obama? Me neither

How you’ll know when the U.S. isn’t a democracy anymore

Here’s the funny thing about democracy: Sometimes, you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.

John Carey, a Dartmouth professor of government, would know. He has spent his career studying the erosion of democracy in Latin American countries such as Venezuela and Argentina. And time and again, he has seen the same thing. “It’s only in retrospect that you can point to the bright line,” a moment when a country’s democratic institutions stopped working, he told me. At the time, he said, there’s rarely consensus. Instead, Carey said, “there’s usually a debate about whether this is an advance or a setback.”

The obvious inference here is that we are Dooooooomed under Trump.

Bright Lines Watch is here to help. The website, set up by a small group of political scientists, was born out of the idea that, in their words, “One of the greatest threats to democracy is the idea that it is unassailable.” Their goal is to carefully monitor the state of democracy in the United States so that they can identify threats to the system.

To start, the creators identified the essential qualities of democracy. They chose 19, including fair, free elections; judicial and legislative independence; government protection of individuals’ right to engage in unpopular speech; a robust free press; and an executive authority that won’t push its power beyond constitutional limits. There are others, too: “Government leaders recognize the validity of bureaucratic or scientific consensus about matters of public policy.” “Government agencies are not used to monitor, attack, or punish political opponents.” “Government officials do not use public office for private gain.” “Political competition occurs without criticism of opponents’ loyalty or patriotism.”

Interesting. This just created organization would have had a field day with Obama, who attempted to shut down press he couldn’t control, and was constantly pushing executive authority beyond constitutional limits. Using government agencies to attack. And then there was Hillary, who used her office for private gain.

“The 2016 U.S. presidential campaign taught us not to assume that the country’s political leadership will follow the practices and norms that help guarantee American democracy,” the founders wrote on the site. “Our overarching goal is to use our scholarly expertise to monitor democratic practices and call attention to threats to American democracy.”

So, this supposedly non-partisan group, which is being cited all over the place, are Election 2016 Truthers, and highly partisan.

The idea is to create a benchmark so that experts can assess change over time. The point is to look out for trends. It’s a way to tell whether our institutions are becoming less free, whether our voting system is still fraud-free, whether journalists and judges still have as much autonomy in a year as they do right now.

And you know what they will find. In this case, they claim that America gets a “C” for democracy. Even though we’re a federal republic. But, the idea here is to paint a picture of a doomed America.

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10 Responses to “Say, How Will We Know When Democracy In The U.S. Is Dying?”

  1. Jeffery says:

    Bannon-trump want to be the final arbiters of all truth, just like Hugo Chavez, Adolph Hitler, Mao, Mussolini and Putin.

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

    But the 1st Amendment doesn’t say anything about the president bullying and trying to suppress the free press, which is what Hitler Bannon-trump wants to do. That’s one of the first things that dictators do to squelch democratic processes.

    The courts (which Bannon-trump also attack) have ruled that the government shouldn’t suppress our free press.

    • Rev.Hoagie® says:

      Why bless your little heart, Jeffery. The li’l guy whose party fought to keep slavery, instituted Jim Crow, turned fire hoses on civil rights protestors, blocked blacks from school doors, created and supported the KKK, maintains the exploitation of blacks in big city ghettos for votes and interred Japanese Americans and stole their property during WWII thinks there’s only one definition of fascism and murdering a million unborn babies a year isn’t among them.

      https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LixbBHJCpSA/WJqUz0Uz9AI/AAAAAAABFfo/hzpB9Rb6yz8xbrpNkIXm-HFtBGzr7fOuQCLcB/s1600/1ninetymilesepAwf1rhnukoo1_1280-905.jpg

      • Zachriel says:

        Yet, the vast majority of blacks vote Democratic.

        “The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism… It was both unfortunate and disastrous that the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater as its candidate for President of the United States.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

        • Rev.Hoagie® says:

          Why do you think the vast majority of blacks vote democrat? Go back and think LBJ. Another democrat racist. BTW Zach, most Jews vote democrat and who do you think is more pro Israel? The blacks were snookered into the democrat party with “The Great Society” and all it’s welfare payments and free stuff just for voting dem. Even LBJ admitted that was its purpose. The soft bigotry of low expectations cannot conceal the exploitation of minorities by democrats simply for votes.

          MLK was basically a good man. He was wrong about Goldwater. LBJ did more to destroy the black man, black woman, black family and back church in America than the KKK ever dreamed of. The dems still try an keep blacks from a good education with vouchers. They still treat them as too stupid to get a job, get in school or even get an ID without their help. The dems invented Planned Parenthood to exterminate blacks.

          I guess since the left also controls education they don’t bother telling these things to blacks do they?

          https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sPxLZ-Sg9tw/WKWGuEgDXqI/AAAAAAADAXI/Oz5Omq_-d5gHyv_nYWHWil6xTLsUCQGRACLcB/s320/change%2Bthe%2Bdemocrat%2Bway.jpg

  2. gitarcarver says:

    The courts (which Bannon-trump also attack) have ruled that the government shouldn’t suppress our free press.

    That’s true.

    Now luckily, we haven’t seen that from the Trump administration.

    We did see it from the Obama administration who went after files and internal memos of the press. We did see it from the Obama administration in their telling the press what to print and articles being cleared by the Obama White House.

    As usual, Jeffery, you show a tremendous ignorance of what the Constitution says. You have no clue Court decisions on the press.

    The Holocaust Museum picture is sad. Luckily we got rid of the people that tried to bring those things about and then didn’t elect Hillary that would have brought them about.

    We get it, Jeffery.

    You hate Trump.

    You hate America.

    You love being a troll.

  3. Drowningpuppies says:

    Ahem…

    “…They don’t want to believe that Obama wants to crack down on the press and whistleblowers. But he does. He’s the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation.”

    http://www.businessinsider.com/james-risen-case-obama-journalism-press-freedom-2014-8

    • Zachriel says:

      Attorney General Eric Holder announced “no reporter’s going to jail as long as I’m attorney general.”

  4. Jeffery says:

    for any Covian…

    Why do you reason that Black, Jewish, LGBT, Muslim, Hispanic Americans prefer Democratic to Republican policies?

    Please try to dig deeper than your knee-jerk racist “plantation” meme, if you don’t mind.

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