U.S. democracy tested in era of intense partisan scrutiny
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/election-live-results-updates-2022/
'We’re the Titanic': Bill Maher predicts 'democracy is going to lose' on Election Day
https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/democracy-2024-midterms/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11903
Liberal/progressive activist and filmmaker Michael Moore has predicted that regardless of what polls have been showing, Democrats are going to enjoy a “blue tsunami” on Tuesday, November 8 — and millions of female voters, still angry because the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, will take out their anger on the GOP. But Bill Maher doesn’t share Moore’s optimism.
During a sobering commentary on Friday, November 4, the political comedian and host of HBO’s “Real Time” predicted that “election deniers” and far-right MAGA Republicans of the “Stop the Steal” variety will perform well in big numbers on Election Day 2022 — thus enabling former President Donald Trump to pull off a coup in 2024’s presidential election. Maher didn’t mince words, describing November 8 as the day that U.S. democracy will die.
“The January 6 hearings, it turns out, changed nobody’s mind,” a frustrated Mahar lamented. “Democrat Jamie Raskin said the hearings would tell a story that will really blow the roof off the house; no, that was Hurricane Ian. The hearings: roof not blown. The committee did a masterful job laying out the case, but we live in partisan America now. So, it’s a little like doing stand-up when half the crowd only speaks Mandarin. No matter how good the material is, it’s not going to go over.”
Maher added, “After the hearings, the percentage of Americans who think (Donald) Trump did nothing wrong went up three points. That’s America now…. Ben Franklin said our country was a republic if you can keep it; well, you can’t. And unless a miracle happens on Tuesday, we didn’t. Democracy is on the ballot on Tuesday, and unfortunately, it’s going to lose. And once it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s not something you can change your mind about in reverse. That’s gender.”
The “Real Time” host and political comedian predicted that Republicans “will take control of Congress” on November 8 and, in 2023, will “begin impeaching (President Joe) Biden and never stop.”
“Biden will be a crippled duck when he goes up against the 2024 Trump/Kari Lake ticket,” Maher predicted. “And even if Trump loses, it doesn’t matter. On Inauguration Day 2025, he’s going to show up whether he’s on the list or not. And this time, he’s not going to take no for an answer because this time, he will have behind him the army of election deniers that is being elected in four days. There are almost 300 candidates on the ballot this year who don’t believe in ballots, and they’ll be the ones writing the rules and monitoring how votes are counted in ’24…. This really is the crossing-the-Rubicon moment, when the election deniers are elected — which is often how countries slide into authoritarianism.”
Maher continued, “Not with tanks in the streets, but by electing the people who have no intention of ever giving it back…. This is how it happens. Hitler was elected. So was Mussolini, Putin, Erdogan, Viktor Orbán. This is the it-can’t-happen-to-us moment that’s happening to us right now. We just don’t feel it yet. We’re the Titanic right after the iceberg hit.”
New Rule: Democracy's Deathbed | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)
Watch: Mike Pence declares that Americans have no right to 'freedom from religion'
https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/mike-pence-freedom-from-religion/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11784
(https://www.alternet.org/media-library/image.png?id=32006671&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C24%2C0)
Former Vice President Mike Pence claimed during a Wednesday appearance on Fox Business that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution does not protect Americans from having other people's faiths forced upon them.
"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," it states.
In fact, there are no references to a supreme being anywhere in the Constitution, because the Founding Fathers were adamantly opposed to centralized religious power as well as requiring individuals to subscribe to any particular denomination.
The concept of separation of church and state was sacrosanct to men like President Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in his 1776 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom that "setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time" and that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."
Jefferson's condemnation of forced faith in the document was unambiguous, further affirming that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
President James Madison, in whose hand the Constitution was penned, concurred with Jefferson.
"The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from Civil Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connexion between them is injurious to both; that there are causes in the human breast, which ensure the perpetuity of religion without the aid of the law," Madison explained in an 1819 letter, noting that "a legal establishment of religion without a toleration could not be thought of, and with toleration, is no security for public quiet and harmony, but rather a source itself of discord and animosity."
Benjamin Franklin took it one step further, arguing in 1780 that any religion that seeks to impose itself is simply "bad."
Yet Pence and host Larry Kudlow share an interpretation that strays wildly from what Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison clearly spelled out more than two centuries ago.
"These lefties want to scrap religion, Mike Pence, and I think it's a terrible mistake," Kudlow griped.
"Well, the radical left believes that the freedom of religion is the freedom from religion. But it's nothing the American founders ever thought of or generations of Americans fought to defend," Pence said.
As mentioned, that statement is completely false. Jefferson even concluded in his treatise that "such act will be an infringement of natural right."
But Pence was not finished. He also suggested that the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority has a duty to side with one faith over another. Today, that means the GOP's embrace of Christian nationalism.
"You know, I said today here in Houston that the source of our nation's greatness has always been our faith in God, our freedom, and our vast natural resources. And the good news is, that after four years of the Trump-Pence administration, I'm confident that we have a pro-religious freedom majority on the Supreme Court of the United States. And I'm confident that come Election Day, November the 8th, you're gonna see that freedom majority around the country turn out and vote pro-freedom majorities in the House, and in the Senate, and in statehouses around the country," Pence said. "So stay tuned, Larry. Help is on the way."
Fox Business' Larry Kudlow: "These lefties want to scrap religion."
Former Vice President Mike Pence: "The good news is, that after four years of the Trump-Pence administration, I'm confident that we have a pro-religious freedom majority on the Supreme Court."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1585374350538117121
How 'religious freedom' became a right-wing assault on equality and the rule of law
https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/religious-freedom/
Trump triumphs
Democracy Dies in Darkness
Becomes second president to win nonconsecutive terms, first felon
Donald Trump won the White House after a criminal conviction and two impeachments by riding a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the direction of the country under four years of Democratic leadership.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/06/donald-trump-wins-presidential-election/
What this U.S. election showed the world about America
Harris and her allies cast Trump as unprecedented, fascistic threat. Trump, meanwhile, stewed in the same angry ultranationalism that powered his earlier presidential bids.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/05/us-election-world-america-trumpism/
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/LOKAQIWSNY3BX37Z2ECKJFMY2M_size-normalized.jpg&w=916)
The world beyond the election: So much for democracy vs. autocracy
Over the course of his time in office, the light of Biden’s pro-democracy fire has dimmed. Neither Harris nor Trump appear set to stoke the flames.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/30/trump-harris-election-democracy-autocracy/
For much of his time in office, President Joe Biden framed the central challenge of our age as a struggle between “democracy and autocracy.” The liberal democracies of the West and their like-minded allies were arrayed against the threat posed by authoritarian states such as China and Russia, which in Biden’s view were intent on smashing international norms, bending the rules of the road in their favor and exporting their politics elsewhere. The Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine crystallized this vision, and the White House and European partners cast the fight for Ukraine as an existential clash between ideologies and political futures.
Every year of the Biden presidency, the White House convened a “summit for democracy,” with dozens of countries participating. It bolstered partnerships with numerous Asian countries in a bid to reinforce deterrence against China, the world’s most powerful single party state. Then there was Biden’s more delicate reckoning at home, fresh from his victory over Donald Trump (and the lies that stoked the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection).
Many Western democracies, gripped by the ascent of far-right nationalist and populist politics, faced their own domestic perils. Biden’s much-touted “foreign policy for the middle class” — centering on an embrace of industrial policy and massive investments in high-tech and green-tech manufacturing — was a bid to address the inequities fueled by years of unfettered globalization.
But along the way, the light of Biden’s pro-democracy fire has dimmed — and neither candidate in next week’s presidential election appears set to stoke the flames.
Wary of global oil prices, the Biden administration made accommodation with a monarchic Saudi regime that the president had vowed to make a pariah — and later would yoke much of its strategy for the Middle East on tighter ties with Riyadh. Whenever strategic interests came into friction with liberal political concerns, the former always won out, such as in the case of the deepening U.S. relationship with an India under the sway of an illiberal Hindu nationalist government.
In the past year, the war in Gaza that followed militant group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, strike on Israel has reshaped Biden’s legacy. The shocking Palestinian death toll and the ongoing devastation of the Palestinian territory have fueled criticism of the United States’ ironclad support of Israel’s war effort.
Outside the West, it led to mounting cynicism over Washington’s insistence on being the custodian of an international “liberal order.” Rights groups have documented alleged Israeli war crimes and even internal assessments by U.S. agencies concluded that Israel had stymied the flow of humanitarian aid to civilians. Yet the United States has not enforced its own laws to condition military support to Israel.
Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor Trump back the ongoing investigations of Israel for genocide and war crimes at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and Washington does not recognize the jurisdiction of either. But the trauma of the war will leave its imprint on the region for a generation to come and will shadow the next American presidency.
Harris and Trump indicate they would take different approaches to the Middle East — Trump has complained that Biden put too many restraints on Israel and, during his presidency, allied himself to Israel’s far right — but both would work to enlist a clutch of Arab autocracies to help forge a peace that eluded successive U.S. administrations. More than a decade after the upheavals of the Arab Spring, democracy has slid from the agenda.
Critics have pointed to the apparent double standard between the United States decrying Russia’s blatant violations of international law, while effectively shielding Israel from global censure. In the wake of the Israeli parliament’s decision Tuesday to ban the main U.N. agency responsible for aid to Palestinians, U.N. diplomats said the impunity afforded to Israel made a mockery of the U.N. system and the post-World War II order. (That system was already crumbling, some have argued, after Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, invaded Ukraine and faced no consequence in the chamber.)
There may be deep consequences. “The implications of allowing international law’s fabric — always fragile but extremely precious in the U.S.’s efforts to hold notoriously abusive actors like Russia and Iran to account — to be rent in a manner so alarmingly brazen to so many people across the region and the world, could empower authoritarians and rights-abusers to commit similar abuses,” Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East studies at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, told me.
Picking through Biden’s record, Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, suggested: “Given the massive suffering and loss of life in Gaza, the outrage at Israel’s exemption from the so-called rules-based order is probably greater than the discontent over the various autocratic exceptions to Biden’s promotion of democracy.”
Biden once framed the successful defense of Ukraine as a rejection of a world “where might makes right.” But by next year, the grim reality of the conflict may yield a scenario where Russia largely gets its way. Kyiv’s forces are desperately trying to hold the line in the country’s east but are losing ground in some areas. Visions of an absolute victory are fading. Western support is also sagging. “Western industry cannot produce anything like the number of artillery shells Ukraine needs,” analyst Anatol Lieven noted. “The U.S. cannot provide sufficient air defense systems to Israel and Ukraine and keep enough for a possible war with China. And above all, NATO cannot manufacture more soldiers for Ukraine.”
The prospect of Ukraine settling for a compromise with Russia — conceding territory in return for some Western security guarantees — is getting easier to envision. It would lead to an unhappy peace that would roil European politics for years. Trump, it seems, favors such an accommodation. His advisers are open about the need to prioritize U.S. strategic assets against China. It’s a contest they do not frame in terms of “democracy” vs. “autocracy,” but rather as old-fashioned great power competition to match Trump’s broader motte-and-bailey politics.
Harris is a more traditional liberal internationalist, but her administration might also feel compelled to strike a humbler pose. She would have to work with nationalist politicians consolidating power in Europe, where ascendant illiberalism could refashion the principles of the European Union. U.S. lawmakers are also aware that American voters in general are no longer keen on their country overasserting itself on the world stage.
“The isolationist streak now dominating American body politic is a warning to the rest of the world that has become far too dependent on the U.S. as the key guarantor of global security,” notes Harsh Pant, vice president of the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank. “Even if Trump doesn’t win a second term in the White House, his candidacy is reflective of deeper trends that are shaping American politics today and will have a great bearing on the complexion of the global order in the future.”
Trump may not be an actual isolationist, but his transactional approach to international politics and conspicuous rapport with autocrats reflects a departure from the Washington status quo. “It’s all about power,” said Fiona Hill, a Russia expert and former Trump White House staffer, in an interview with Politico, in which she linked Trump’s coziness with tech billionaire Elon Musk to the oligarchic circles around the Kremlin. “These are guys who see themselves in the same class of the rich and powerful, who transact with each other, and the result is a breaking down of the international system.”