this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Democracy Requires Disempowering the Supreme Court (jacobin.com)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

We don't have a true democracy and never have. If we did, Trump and Bush II would never have become president as neither received as many votes as their opponents.

Second, any speculative changes on a macro level require either violence on a revolutionary scale or for 49% of voters to pull the lever for a third party instead of Democrats or Republicans.

I think it's more likely WWIII will disrupt America's politics before we have another revolution, and I know full well that our partisans are too well-programmed to pull the lever for anyone other than Democrats and Republicans, so I don't anticipate any meaningful positive change in the near future.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure that the electoral college precludes qualifying as a democracy. Voter disenfranchisement certainly seems to put a wrench in the idea though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Considering its abject failure twice in recent memory, I'd say it is quite evident that it precludes qualifying as a democracy.

But, originally, our founding fathers only intended for rich, landowning men to vote, so the US was never intended to be a democracy anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Its failure to what, though, exactly? Go by the popular vote?

There are definitely problems with our democracy, but I don't think an electoral college automatically disqualifies it. I'd love to see it gone, because I don't think it's representative, but the argument behind it is one of broader representation rather than narrow representation.

The idea is that life in the population centers of the US and life in rural areas is very different. We've got a fair chunk of our population living in the middle of nowhere, but they're dwarfed by the population of our cities. By dividing votes by state, it keeps the most populous states from constantly determining the course of the less populous states on a federal level.

The alleged intent is to give those less populous states an opportunity to be involved in the discussion of our federal government. As you've probably noticed, laws vary wildly from state to state in the US. Instead of one consensus on law in general, we have 50 mini-consensuses. There are states that literally will refuse to enforce certain federal laws, or that will refuse to honor the laws of other states.

So our presidential electoral process looks very similar. It's not one consensus, it's 50 mini-consensuses. Because the votes happen at the state level, you can win a popular vote and still lose the state-by-state vote. That's not it being broken, that's it functioning as intended.

This model of state and federal government honestly works pretty well for us in a lot of cases. It allows states like Massachusetts, California, or Washington to go ahead and try some new stuff that other states are hesitant about. It's why we've got things like ACA, marriage equality and other protections for queer folks in some states, and it's why marijuana has been legalized in a lot of places. Unfortunately it's also why Texas and Florida are dystopian hellscapes, but it does insulate the people in these more progressive states from a bit of their nonsense.

Unfortunately we also have a lot of gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement going on that makes the situation worse. But even in a really bad situation, you're going to have states that protect people from some of the worst of it.

It's democracy, it's just not direct democracy at a federal level. It's representative democracy that focuses on an alliance of 50 states rather than running it like one big thing.

If we want to challenge the legitimacy of American democracy, voter disenfranchisement and the ongoing persistence of legal slavery are probably a better place to start.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately we also have a lot of jerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement going on that makes the situation worse.

It is unfortunate. People need to stop using the D word here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Why would you want people to stop talking about disenfranchisement? States deciding to take the vote away from their citizens after they've been convicted is something we should absolutely be highlighting. You'll even notice there's a significant correlation between which states are consistently redder and which have greater rates of voter disenfranchisement.

Maybe what we need is clarification about what disenfranchisement is, because it's not just people deciding not to vote. It's people having their ability to vote taken away.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I voted 3rd party in 2016, because fuck the 2- party system. I'll do it again once we get ranked-choice voting, but not before.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Your vote is your right to do with as you please, but this is the thinking that's set us inevitably on the 44-year path to fascism.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'd argue the road to fascism started a hell of a lot sooner than 2016. Capitalism in decay, and all that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Agreed.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don't follow this, how has this person voting 3rd party in 2016 led to facism starting in the 80s? For that matter, how has 3rd party voting led to facism at all? I'm very much struggling to make sense of this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I don't follow this, how has this person voting 3rd party in 2016 led to facism starting in the 80s?

That's not what I'm saying, but I'll clarify.

It's people who vote Red or Blue regardless of the quality of candidate that have set us on the path to fascism, and the fact that they've done so for the last 44 years despite the monumental failures of the ruling parties, culminating in two obviously cognitively impaired candidates in 2024.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Mmm yes disembowel the supreme court

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

...then you'd need another higher grade more-supreme court... maybe just don't let the members be chosen by obviously biased politicians

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I am in favor of all 9 justices being elected every 4 years, by popular vote.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Impeach the whole thing and reform with more seats and impose a term limit.